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Harry Potter Yay-ness!
So, I've had these notes sitting around since forever, and I figure that it's probably time for me to post them. Mostly so that the post isn't sitting at the top of my Blogger account, waiting for me, every time I sign in.
Behind the cut is questions and hypotheses I have written down, based on the last time I read Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince.
I probably don't need to warn you, and I'm sure 99% of my friends list has read both books at least three times, but I will anyway! MASSIVE SPOILERS LIE BEHIND THE CUT!!
Random Point #1
"So who've you been beating up tonight?" Harry asked, his grin fading. "Another ten-year-old? I know you did Mark Evans two nights ago-"
"He was asking for it," snarled Dudley.
"Oh yeah?"
"He cheeked me."
"Yeah? Did he say you look like a pig that's been taught to walk on its hind legs? 'Cause that's not cheek, Dud, that's true..."
A muscle was twitching in Dudley's jaw. It gave Harry enormous satisfaction to know how furious he was making Dudley; he felt as though he was siphoning off his own frustration into his cousin, the only outlet he had.
This scene is from OotP, and to me, it really shows Harry being cruel to Dudley. Obviously, he's frustrated because he doesn't know what's going on in the wizarding world, but it's still wrong - one of the only times in the series that Harry does something wrong. It's understandable given his relationship with the Dursleys, but, still - wrong. To me, this represents how I imagine James Potter teasing Severus Snape. And for that reason, I wonder if there's something "frustrating" about James' life that we're unaware of. We've been made to assume that his family life is relatively stable, given that Sirius Black spent time with him after escaping the House of Black. So, what could it be? (Probably nothing, I'm sure I'm overanalyzing)
Random Point #2
“What’s he after apart from followers?” Harry asked swiftly.
He thought he saw Sirius and Lupin exchange the most fleeting of looks before Sirius said, “Stuff he can only get by stealth.”
When Harry continued to look puzzled, Sirius said, “Like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.”
“When he was powerful before?”
“Yes.”
"Like what kind of weapon?” said Harry “Something worse than the Avada Kedavra –?”
“That’s enough.”
Mrs. Weasley spoke from the shadows beside the door.
96, OotP
So.....to me, a glass globe prophecy does not translate to a "weapon." What else would Voldemort be looking for that he could only get through stealth?
Point #2, continued
...”But there can’t be anything worse than the Avada Kedavra curse, can there?” said Ron. “What’s worse than death?”
“Maybe it’s some particularly painful way of killing people,” said Ron fearfully.
“He’s got the Cruciatus Curse for causing pain,” said Harry. “He doesn’t need anything more efficient than that.”
There was a pause and Harry knew that the others, like him, were wondering what horrors this weapon could perpetrate.
“So who d’you think’s got it now?” asked George.
“I hope it’s our side,” said Ron, sounding slightly nervous.
“If it is, Dumbledore’s probably keeping it,” said Fred.
“Where?” said Ron quickly. “Hogwarts?”
“Bet it is!” said George. “That’s where he hid the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
“A weapon’s going to be a lot bigger than the Stone, though!” said Ron.
“Not necessarily,” said Fred.
“Yeah, size is no guarantee of power,” said George. “Look at Ginny.”
(100 – Mrs. W interrupts)
Yeah, so that was a highly suspicious duo of conversations, and I don't think that it ever got resolved. If it did, somebody let me know!!
Random Question
What does it mean, that the prophecy broke and disappeared?
Harry = Horcrux?
This is a theory that's been thrown around that floats around in the back of my mind, but I'm not sure that I agree with. I certainly don't want it to be true.
"I'm sure he would have told you if it was anything to worry about," said Sirius steadily.
"But that's not all," said Harry in a voice only a little above a whisper. "Sirius, I...I think I'm going mad....Back in Dumbledore's office, just before we took the Portkey...for a couple of seconds there I thought I was a snake, I felt like one - my scar really hurt when I was looking at Dumbledore - Sirius, I wanted to attack him-"
He could only see a sliver of Sirius's face; the rest was in darkness.
"It must have been the aftermath of the vision, that's all," said Sirius. "You were still thinking of the dream or whatever it was and-"
"It wasn't that," said Harry, shaking his head. "It was like something rose up inside me, like there's a snake inside me-"
"You need to sleep," said Sirius firmly. "you're going to have breakfast and then go upstairs to bed, and then you can go and see Arthur after lunch with the others. You're in shock, Harry; you're blaming yourself for something you only witnessed, and it's lucky you did witness it or Arthur might have died. Just stop worrying..."
He clapped Harry on the shoulder and left the pantry, leaving Harry standing alone in the dark.
All right, this scene just struck me as very, very creepy, what with the images of darkness and whatever. It's from OotP, and I know that it was resolved what was going on inside Harry's head. Still, I think it contributes to a very strong case that Harry has been made into a horcrux. Voldemort can see things through him, yes. But here, it's very obvious that Harry feels Voldemort's emotions as well. He wanted to kill Dumbledore. Couldn't this be because part of Voldemort's soul lives in him?
Harry as a Horcrux, 2
"...So Potter says he saw it all happen?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Weasley. She sounded rather uneasy. "You know, Dumbledore seems almost to have been waiting for Harry to see something like this...."
"Yeah, well," said Moody, "there's something funny about the Potter kid, we all know that."
"Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning," whispered Mrs. Weasley.
So Dumbledore was supposedly expecting it because he had a theory about the connection between Harry and Voldemort. Still, couldn't he have been expecting it because Harry himself was the one he thought was the last Horcrux?
Horcrux
"His pride, his belief in his own superiority, his determination to carve for himself a startling place in magical history; these things suggest to me that Voldemort would have chosen his Horcruxes with some care, favoring objects worthy of the honor."
"However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents' house with the intention of killing you.
"He seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. You would certainly have been that. He believed that in killing you, he was destroying the danger the prophecy had outlined. He believed he was making himself invincible. I am sure that he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your death.
"As we know, he failed. After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux. She underlines the Slythering connection, which enhances Lord Voldemort's mystique..."
Maybe Voldemort did make something else into his last horcrux. But considering the first passage I quoted, and the first 2/3 of the second one, it makes a pretty strong case that it was Harry. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope so. I like Harry.
All of the characters constantly urge us to trust Dumbledore. This is part of me building my case that J.K. Rowling has certainly given us enough hints to point out that Dumbledore is either 1) Not dead, or 2) Dead for a very good reason.
“So what’s the Order been doing?” asked Harry, looking around at them all.
“Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can’t carry out his plans,” said Sirius.
“How d’you know what his plans are?” Harry asked quickly.
“Dumbledore’s got a shrewd idea,” said Lupin, “and Dumbledore’s shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate.”
OotP, page 92
Trusting Dumbledore and Snape
Snape pulled out his wand from an inside pocket of his robes and Harry tensed in his chair, but Snape merely raised the wand to his temple and placed its tip into the greasy roots of his hair. When he withdrew it, some silvery substance came away, stretching from temple to wand like a thick gossamer strand, which broke as he pulled the wand away from it and fell gracefully into the Pensieve, where ti swirled silvery white, neither gas nor liquid. Twice more Snape raised the wand to his temple and deposited the silvery substance into the stone basin, then, without offering any explanation of his behavior, he picked up the Pensieve carefully, removed it to the shelf out of their way and returned to face Harry with his wand held at the ready.
Harry clearly saw one of the memories that Snape took out of his head, with James, Sirius, Remus, and Lily, and the teasing of Snape. What were the other two? There's probably a very good reason that Snape got as mad as he did.
More on Trusting Snape and Dumbledore
"Shut up, Ron," said Hermione angrily. "How many times have you suspected Snape, and when have you ever been right? Dumbledore trusts him, he works for the Order, that ought to be enough."
"He used to be a Death Eater," said Ron stubbornly. "And we've never seen proof that he really swapped sides...."
"Dumbledore trusts him," Hermione repeated. "And if we can't trust Dumbledore, we can't trust anyone."
That mostly speaks for itself. Like I said, I think Rowling has spent the entire series making it very clear to the reader that they have to just trust in Dumbledore, and that Snape, no matter how many times it seems like he's the bad guy, is on the good side.
Trusting Dumbledore and Snape
"Gotta see it from their point o' view," said Hagrid heavily. "I mean, it's always bin a bit of a risk sendin' a kid ter Hogwarts, hasn' it? Yer expect accidents, don' yeh, with hundreds of underage wizards all locked up tergether, but attempted murder, tha's diff'rent. 'S'no wonder Dumbledore's angry with Sn-"
Hagrid stopped in his tracks, a familiar, guilty expression on what was visible of his face above his tangled black beard.
"What?" said Harry quickly. "Dumbledore's angry with Snape?"
..."I dunno, Harry, I shouldn'ta heard it at all! I - well, I was comin' outta the forest the other evenin' an' I overheard 'em talking - well, arguin'. Didn' like ter draw attention to meself, so I sorta skulked an' tried not ter listen, but it was a - well, a heated discussion an' it wasn' easy ter block it out."
"Well?" Harry urged him, as Hagrid shuffled his enormous feet uneasily.
"Well - I jus' heard Snape sayin' Dumbledore took too much fer granted an' maybe he - Snape - didn' want ter do it anymore-"
"Do what?"
"I dunno, Harry, it sounded like Snape was feelin' a bit overworked, tha's all - anyway, Dumbledore told him flat out he'd agreed ter do it an' that was all there was to it. Pretty firm with him. An' then he said summat abou' Snape makin' investigations in his House, Slytherin. Well, there's nothin' strange abou' that!" Hagrid added hastily, as Harry and Hermione exchanged looks full of meaning. "All the Heads o' Houses were asked ter look inter that necklace business-"
And what did Snape not want to do any more? Oh, I don't know.....kill Dumbledore?
Trusting Dumbledore
"You are very kind, Harry," said Dumbledore, now passing the tip of his wand over the deep cut he had made into his own arm, so that it healed instantly, just as Snape had healed Malfoy's wounds. "But your blood is worth more than mine...."
"I'm sorry, Harry; I should have said, he would not want to immediately kill the person who reached this island," Dumbledore corrected himself.
..."Why can't I drink the potion instead?" asked Harry desperately.
"Because I am much older, much cleverer, and much less valuable," said Dumbledore.
Again, I think Rowling is exceedingly transparent in that Dumbledore's death is planned. Dumbledore is making it very clear that he needs to die to somehow help Harry.
Trusting Dumbledore
"...I can help you, Draco."
"No, you can't," said Malfoy, his wand hand shaking very badly indeed. "Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice."
"He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine."
And could not Dumbledore also be so completely hidden, beyond death?
Trusting Snape & Dumbledore: If you don't believe it now, you never will
"Draco, do it or stand aside so one of us-" screeched the woman, but at that precise moment, the door to the ramparts burst open once more and there stood Snape, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from Dumbledore slumped against the wall, to the four Death Eaters, including the enraged werewolf, and Malfoy.
"We've got a problem, Snape," said the lumpy Amycus, whose eyes and wand were fixed alike upon Dumbledore, "the boy doesn't seem able-"
But somebody else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly.
"Severus..."
The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading.
Snape said nothing, but walked forward and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. The three Death Eaters fell bacvk without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed.
Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.
"Severus...please..."
Snape raised his hand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore.
I think it's very clear here that Dumbledore is pleading with Snape to just kill him - something Snape doesn't want to do (remember the anger mentioned earlier by Hagrid). Also, I would never take Dumbledore to be one to beg for his life.
Trusting Snape
"Kill me then," panted Harry, who felt no fear at all, but only rage and contempt. Kill me like you killed him, you coward-"
"DON'T-" screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them-"
Snape's agony is also very clear here. It's possible that Dumbledore is not dead, or is hidden somewhere, but I think he's actually dead. And when Harry throws it in Snape's face, Snape reacts because he feels horrible about it. For Harry to insult his courage is particularly mean to Snape, who would obviously need quite a bit of it to kill a friend.
So, that's about it, I guess. Lots of unanswered questions. But still, I'm confident that we, the readers, are meant to trust Snape wholeheartedly. I personally think that Dumbledore is truly dead, but also that he died for a very good reason.
THE END! Discuss with me; I love discussing Harry Potter with intelligent people.
Behind the cut is questions and hypotheses I have written down, based on the last time I read Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince.
I probably don't need to warn you, and I'm sure 99% of my friends list has read both books at least three times, but I will anyway! MASSIVE SPOILERS LIE BEHIND THE CUT!!
Random Point #1
"So who've you been beating up tonight?" Harry asked, his grin fading. "Another ten-year-old? I know you did Mark Evans two nights ago-"
"He was asking for it," snarled Dudley.
"Oh yeah?"
"He cheeked me."
"Yeah? Did he say you look like a pig that's been taught to walk on its hind legs? 'Cause that's not cheek, Dud, that's true..."
A muscle was twitching in Dudley's jaw. It gave Harry enormous satisfaction to know how furious he was making Dudley; he felt as though he was siphoning off his own frustration into his cousin, the only outlet he had.
This scene is from OotP, and to me, it really shows Harry being cruel to Dudley. Obviously, he's frustrated because he doesn't know what's going on in the wizarding world, but it's still wrong - one of the only times in the series that Harry does something wrong. It's understandable given his relationship with the Dursleys, but, still - wrong. To me, this represents how I imagine James Potter teasing Severus Snape. And for that reason, I wonder if there's something "frustrating" about James' life that we're unaware of. We've been made to assume that his family life is relatively stable, given that Sirius Black spent time with him after escaping the House of Black. So, what could it be? (Probably nothing, I'm sure I'm overanalyzing)
Random Point #2
“What’s he after apart from followers?” Harry asked swiftly.
He thought he saw Sirius and Lupin exchange the most fleeting of looks before Sirius said, “Stuff he can only get by stealth.”
When Harry continued to look puzzled, Sirius said, “Like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.”
“When he was powerful before?”
“Yes.”
"Like what kind of weapon?” said Harry “Something worse than the Avada Kedavra –?”
“That’s enough.”
Mrs. Weasley spoke from the shadows beside the door.
96, OotP
So.....to me, a glass globe prophecy does not translate to a "weapon." What else would Voldemort be looking for that he could only get through stealth?
Point #2, continued
...”But there can’t be anything worse than the Avada Kedavra curse, can there?” said Ron. “What’s worse than death?”
“Maybe it’s some particularly painful way of killing people,” said Ron fearfully.
“He’s got the Cruciatus Curse for causing pain,” said Harry. “He doesn’t need anything more efficient than that.”
There was a pause and Harry knew that the others, like him, were wondering what horrors this weapon could perpetrate.
“So who d’you think’s got it now?” asked George.
“I hope it’s our side,” said Ron, sounding slightly nervous.
“If it is, Dumbledore’s probably keeping it,” said Fred.
“Where?” said Ron quickly. “Hogwarts?”
“Bet it is!” said George. “That’s where he hid the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
“A weapon’s going to be a lot bigger than the Stone, though!” said Ron.
“Not necessarily,” said Fred.
“Yeah, size is no guarantee of power,” said George. “Look at Ginny.”
(100 – Mrs. W interrupts)
Yeah, so that was a highly suspicious duo of conversations, and I don't think that it ever got resolved. If it did, somebody let me know!!
Random Question
What does it mean, that the prophecy broke and disappeared?
Harry = Horcrux?
This is a theory that's been thrown around that floats around in the back of my mind, but I'm not sure that I agree with. I certainly don't want it to be true.
"I'm sure he would have told you if it was anything to worry about," said Sirius steadily.
"But that's not all," said Harry in a voice only a little above a whisper. "Sirius, I...I think I'm going mad....Back in Dumbledore's office, just before we took the Portkey...for a couple of seconds there I thought I was a snake, I felt like one - my scar really hurt when I was looking at Dumbledore - Sirius, I wanted to attack him-"
He could only see a sliver of Sirius's face; the rest was in darkness.
"It must have been the aftermath of the vision, that's all," said Sirius. "You were still thinking of the dream or whatever it was and-"
"It wasn't that," said Harry, shaking his head. "It was like something rose up inside me, like there's a snake inside me-"
"You need to sleep," said Sirius firmly. "you're going to have breakfast and then go upstairs to bed, and then you can go and see Arthur after lunch with the others. You're in shock, Harry; you're blaming yourself for something you only witnessed, and it's lucky you did witness it or Arthur might have died. Just stop worrying..."
He clapped Harry on the shoulder and left the pantry, leaving Harry standing alone in the dark.
All right, this scene just struck me as very, very creepy, what with the images of darkness and whatever. It's from OotP, and I know that it was resolved what was going on inside Harry's head. Still, I think it contributes to a very strong case that Harry has been made into a horcrux. Voldemort can see things through him, yes. But here, it's very obvious that Harry feels Voldemort's emotions as well. He wanted to kill Dumbledore. Couldn't this be because part of Voldemort's soul lives in him?
Harry as a Horcrux, 2
"...So Potter says he saw it all happen?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Weasley. She sounded rather uneasy. "You know, Dumbledore seems almost to have been waiting for Harry to see something like this...."
"Yeah, well," said Moody, "there's something funny about the Potter kid, we all know that."
"Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning," whispered Mrs. Weasley.
So Dumbledore was supposedly expecting it because he had a theory about the connection between Harry and Voldemort. Still, couldn't he have been expecting it because Harry himself was the one he thought was the last Horcrux?
Horcrux
"His pride, his belief in his own superiority, his determination to carve for himself a startling place in magical history; these things suggest to me that Voldemort would have chosen his Horcruxes with some care, favoring objects worthy of the honor."
"However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents' house with the intention of killing you.
"He seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. You would certainly have been that. He believed that in killing you, he was destroying the danger the prophecy had outlined. He believed he was making himself invincible. I am sure that he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your death.
"As we know, he failed. After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux. She underlines the Slythering connection, which enhances Lord Voldemort's mystique..."
Maybe Voldemort did make something else into his last horcrux. But considering the first passage I quoted, and the first 2/3 of the second one, it makes a pretty strong case that it was Harry. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope so. I like Harry.
All of the characters constantly urge us to trust Dumbledore. This is part of me building my case that J.K. Rowling has certainly given us enough hints to point out that Dumbledore is either 1) Not dead, or 2) Dead for a very good reason.
“So what’s the Order been doing?” asked Harry, looking around at them all.
“Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can’t carry out his plans,” said Sirius.
“How d’you know what his plans are?” Harry asked quickly.
“Dumbledore’s got a shrewd idea,” said Lupin, “and Dumbledore’s shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate.”
OotP, page 92
Trusting Dumbledore and Snape
Snape pulled out his wand from an inside pocket of his robes and Harry tensed in his chair, but Snape merely raised the wand to his temple and placed its tip into the greasy roots of his hair. When he withdrew it, some silvery substance came away, stretching from temple to wand like a thick gossamer strand, which broke as he pulled the wand away from it and fell gracefully into the Pensieve, where ti swirled silvery white, neither gas nor liquid. Twice more Snape raised the wand to his temple and deposited the silvery substance into the stone basin, then, without offering any explanation of his behavior, he picked up the Pensieve carefully, removed it to the shelf out of their way and returned to face Harry with his wand held at the ready.
Harry clearly saw one of the memories that Snape took out of his head, with James, Sirius, Remus, and Lily, and the teasing of Snape. What were the other two? There's probably a very good reason that Snape got as mad as he did.
More on Trusting Snape and Dumbledore
"Shut up, Ron," said Hermione angrily. "How many times have you suspected Snape, and when have you ever been right? Dumbledore trusts him, he works for the Order, that ought to be enough."
"He used to be a Death Eater," said Ron stubbornly. "And we've never seen proof that he really swapped sides...."
"Dumbledore trusts him," Hermione repeated. "And if we can't trust Dumbledore, we can't trust anyone."
That mostly speaks for itself. Like I said, I think Rowling has spent the entire series making it very clear to the reader that they have to just trust in Dumbledore, and that Snape, no matter how many times it seems like he's the bad guy, is on the good side.
Trusting Dumbledore and Snape
"Gotta see it from their point o' view," said Hagrid heavily. "I mean, it's always bin a bit of a risk sendin' a kid ter Hogwarts, hasn' it? Yer expect accidents, don' yeh, with hundreds of underage wizards all locked up tergether, but attempted murder, tha's diff'rent. 'S'no wonder Dumbledore's angry with Sn-"
Hagrid stopped in his tracks, a familiar, guilty expression on what was visible of his face above his tangled black beard.
"What?" said Harry quickly. "Dumbledore's angry with Snape?"
..."I dunno, Harry, I shouldn'ta heard it at all! I - well, I was comin' outta the forest the other evenin' an' I overheard 'em talking - well, arguin'. Didn' like ter draw attention to meself, so I sorta skulked an' tried not ter listen, but it was a - well, a heated discussion an' it wasn' easy ter block it out."
"Well?" Harry urged him, as Hagrid shuffled his enormous feet uneasily.
"Well - I jus' heard Snape sayin' Dumbledore took too much fer granted an' maybe he - Snape - didn' want ter do it anymore-"
"Do what?"
"I dunno, Harry, it sounded like Snape was feelin' a bit overworked, tha's all - anyway, Dumbledore told him flat out he'd agreed ter do it an' that was all there was to it. Pretty firm with him. An' then he said summat abou' Snape makin' investigations in his House, Slytherin. Well, there's nothin' strange abou' that!" Hagrid added hastily, as Harry and Hermione exchanged looks full of meaning. "All the Heads o' Houses were asked ter look inter that necklace business-"
And what did Snape not want to do any more? Oh, I don't know.....kill Dumbledore?
Trusting Dumbledore
"You are very kind, Harry," said Dumbledore, now passing the tip of his wand over the deep cut he had made into his own arm, so that it healed instantly, just as Snape had healed Malfoy's wounds. "But your blood is worth more than mine...."
"I'm sorry, Harry; I should have said, he would not want to immediately kill the person who reached this island," Dumbledore corrected himself.
..."Why can't I drink the potion instead?" asked Harry desperately.
"Because I am much older, much cleverer, and much less valuable," said Dumbledore.
Again, I think Rowling is exceedingly transparent in that Dumbledore's death is planned. Dumbledore is making it very clear that he needs to die to somehow help Harry.
Trusting Dumbledore
"...I can help you, Draco."
"No, you can't," said Malfoy, his wand hand shaking very badly indeed. "Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice."
"He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine."
And could not Dumbledore also be so completely hidden, beyond death?
Trusting Snape & Dumbledore: If you don't believe it now, you never will
"Draco, do it or stand aside so one of us-" screeched the woman, but at that precise moment, the door to the ramparts burst open once more and there stood Snape, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from Dumbledore slumped against the wall, to the four Death Eaters, including the enraged werewolf, and Malfoy.
"We've got a problem, Snape," said the lumpy Amycus, whose eyes and wand were fixed alike upon Dumbledore, "the boy doesn't seem able-"
But somebody else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly.
"Severus..."
The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading.
Snape said nothing, but walked forward and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. The three Death Eaters fell bacvk without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed.
Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.
"Severus...please..."
Snape raised his hand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore.
I think it's very clear here that Dumbledore is pleading with Snape to just kill him - something Snape doesn't want to do (remember the anger mentioned earlier by Hagrid). Also, I would never take Dumbledore to be one to beg for his life.
Trusting Snape
"Kill me then," panted Harry, who felt no fear at all, but only rage and contempt. Kill me like you killed him, you coward-"
"DON'T-" screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them-"
Snape's agony is also very clear here. It's possible that Dumbledore is not dead, or is hidden somewhere, but I think he's actually dead. And when Harry throws it in Snape's face, Snape reacts because he feels horrible about it. For Harry to insult his courage is particularly mean to Snape, who would obviously need quite a bit of it to kill a friend.
So, that's about it, I guess. Lots of unanswered questions. But still, I'm confident that we, the readers, are meant to trust Snape wholeheartedly. I personally think that Dumbledore is truly dead, but also that he died for a very good reason.
THE END! Discuss with me; I love discussing Harry Potter with intelligent people.
no subject
I'm 95% sure it was from Half-Blood Prince, but sadly, I have no idea where.