Harry Potter & the HBP: A discussion

[amanda]

Warning! This will be an area devoted to the discussion of the latest Harry Potter book, and, as such WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. Proceed at your own risk.



Katie and I had a brief discussion about HP & THBP through a series of emails yesterday morning. In my initial email, I tossed out this hairbrained idea regarding horcruxes (sorry for the repetition, Katie):

After hitting the chapter about horcruxes I had this crazy, and probably unlikely, thought. What if one of the seven horcruxes is not an object but a PERSON? Weirder yet, what if the person turns out to be Harry? This would mean that Harry would have to sacrifice himself in order for Voldemort to finally be finished. Of course, it doesn't really make sense given that Voldemort is very actively out to destroy Harry. However, what if it was a mistake, unknowingly done, and the transfer of part of his fractured soul occurred when he tried to kill Harry all those years ago as a child? Dumbledore stated in the book that Voldemort had split so many times now that he isn't aware whenever one of the horcruxes is destroyed. Maybe he also is not aware when horcrux is/was created....or maybe, since he has six others to ensure his immortality, he knows but doesn't care and is willing to sacrifice the loss of that horcrux in order to come to complete power by eliminating his one great threat. In a hokey way, he's now also his own threat, if willing to kill a part of himself to secure total power.

I'm beginning to think secretly I just want Harry to die a semi-poignant, tragic death. Good thing Rowling is in charge of his destiny, I suppose.

Anyway, I was expecting the death of a character in book 6. I did not suspect Dumbledore. I suppose I thought of him as an untouchable figure in the book and shelved him as 'safe'. His death at the hands of Snape caught me offgaurd, and I initially refused to buy into it. I kept thinking, oho! Rowling! I'm not falling for this one. No, no, no. I'm not going to invest any emotion in this because you're juuuust going to bring him back in the next chapter, you cruel cruel woman. I started the next chapter, but the more words I covered, the more I realised that Dumbledore was in fact not coming back. I cried the last few chapters.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not sure where Rowling is going to take us in the next and final book, though obviously Harry will have to address the quest for the horcruxes and destruction of Voldemort. I'm very interested in how it will all play out.

Any insight into the identity of R.A.B.? Will the Order continue on or disband? What about their headquarters now that Snape has betrayed Dumbledore and he is seemingly once again a full on Death-Eater?

[Dan]

R.A.B is looking likely to be Regulus Alphard(Sirius' uncle's name) Black.

Supporting evidence is the unopenable locket in the cupboard at Number 12.

[katie]

I thought R.A.B. was Regulus, as well. Where did you find that his middle name is Alphard?

Update: I checked out the Harry Potter Lexicon and found this on Uncle Alphard:

Alphard (d. ca. 1976-1977)
Uncle who died and left Sirius Black enough gold to buy a "place of his own." Alphard has been erased from the Black family tree (OP6).
Named after star Alphard, the heart of the Snake in the constellation Hydra.

[katie]

So.....what are the horcruxes that Harry has to find and destroy? The locket, the cup, the snake, something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's....Dumbledore already destroyed the ring and Harry destroyed the diary. Then what is the seventh horcrux? Is it Voldemort? Is it (gulp) Harry?

Amanda, I know I said that I thought Book 7 would be (fairly) short, but now I'm starting to think it will be (fairly) long. That's a lot of horcruxes to sort out, on top of all kinds of information she still needs to give us.

Incidentally, in Emerson from Mugglenet's interview with JKR, she says that she will be keeping her website up after the release of Book 7 since she won't possibly be able to reveal all the information that she wants to in the format of a novel.

[katie]

I wonder about putting a horcrux in a living thing, like Voldemort's snake Nagini. It just doesn't seem like a smart idea--the snake could be killed and with it, a part of your soul you were hoping to keep around. Now, I can see Harry becoming a horcrux accidentally and Voldemort not knowing about it, but I think Dumbledore might be wrong about the snake.

Sorry, I'm rambling.

[amanda]

Anything that Voldemort chooses to serve as a horcrux has the potential for being destroyed, really. The snake can somewhat defend itself against attack, can't it? whereas inanimate objects are at the mercy of whoever has them. I know Voldemort was going for seven horcruxes as he believes this to be a significant, magical number... but, would it be possible for him to continue to make horcruxes as his existing ones are picked off? How many times can a soul fracture?

[katie]

Yeah, any of the horcruxes could be destroyed, but you really have to go out of your way to look through people's memories and try to find what objects might be special enough to Voldemort that he may want to make a horcrux out of them....Whereas it just seems obvious that Voldemort has a giant snake and we'd all be a little safer if it was dead! I just think it has a greater chance of being destroyed and so wouldn't be a good choice.

I guess it would be possible for Voldemort to make new horcruxes as the old ones are destroyed, but Dumbledore thought that Voldemort probably wouldn't be able to tell when they were being destroyed.

[amanda]

Katie, I found this posted at mugglenet.com on the books 6 &7 'Facts' page: We will learn more about Harry's relatives, including his grandparents (though JK says they aren't really important to the story)

[katie]

And about time, too. It seems pretty unnatural that Harry has never asked about his grandparents--at least his father's parents. He may know about his maternal grandparents--or at least, he may think what Petunia wants him to think about them. Anyway, even if it is not important to the story, I'd like to know a little more about them.

P.S. Isn't Mugglenet great?

[amanda]

Isn't Nagini usually with Voldemort? Of course, I guess proximity didn't exactly save his ring from being destroyed..

[amanda]

Great...and dangerous. I've been afraid to poke around mugglenet too much. I thought it would be safe now that I've finished HBP, though. What was the other Harry Potter site that you frequent?

[katie]

Yeah, but Nagini was also used to try to break into the Department of Mysteries. Granted, some Death Eater was probably around, but Arthur could have killed Nagini at that time (if Nagini had not attacked him first). Whereas Voldemort went to great lengths to keep his locket safe--though, apparently, that didn't work either.

Maybe the point is: don't make horcruxes. You lose part of your soul, and your horcrux is going to get destroyed or killed no matter how hard you try to protect it.

[katie]

I go to hp-lexicon.org to look up information on the books, and I occasionally go to veritaserum.com and jkrowling.com.

[amanda]

What does it profit a man to gain the world yet forfeit his soul? (sorry... couldn't resist)

If he told someone else the significance of the objects, perhaps he'd have a better chance of keeping his horcruxes, and thereby his soul, from being destroyed. But, that's what he gets for being so independent and not letting people in on his friggin' plans.

[katie]

I accidentally told Rick more of the plot last night, or rather, I told him something that doesn't occur. He asked me why HP3 is my favorite and HP6 is now my second favorite, and I responded that it's kind of funny how my favorites are the only two where there's not a showdown with Voldemort at the end. To which Rick replied "Oh, thanks!" I didn't even think about it.

I'll be glad when he's finished with the book!

[amanda]

I guess he didn't put in an appearance this go round, did he? Do you think she'll wait til the end of book 7 before we encounter Voldemort again?

[katie]

That is the usual plot mechanism, but it looks like all bets are off for Book 7. I mean, I never dreamed that we'd have a year without Snape as one of the teachers. Now Hogwarts needs a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, a Potions teacher (if Slughorn goes), and a Transfiguration teacher (if McGonagall plans to act as headmistress full-time, which seems wise)--all of this, assuming that Hogwarts is open for the next term.

[Tyler]

Dammit!
You guys have forced me. I'm going to have to read the bloody books now!
Harrumph

[katie]

Our work here is done...*cue evil laughter*!

Tyler, have you read any of them yet? What are you doing going to the spoiler discussion without reading the book yet?!?

[katie]

Another thought: Why doesn't Dumbledore want Harry to learn Occlumency anymore? Just because Voldemort doesn't want Harry to go sneaking into his brain doesn't mean he wouldn't have a Death Eater go sneaking into Harry's. It would still be valuable to Harry to know how to guard his thoughts from Legilimens. So maybe Dumbledore didn't want Harry to learn the subject from SNAPE ffor one of the following reasons: 1) Dumbledore is starting to distrust Snape and doesn't think it's a good idea for Snape to interfere with Harry's thoughts/memories, or 2)Dumbledore and Snape have discussed Voldemort's new plan at length and don't want Harry to learn about it by looking into Snape's thoughts/memories. This second reason also explains why Dumbledore would not start teaching Harry Occlumency himself. He did not want Harry to know about the plan, or to know about Dumbledore's order for Snape to follow through when Draco would be unable to.

If the theory that Dumbledore ordered Snape to finish him off at the end of HP6 is true, I think it is likely that that had been the plan for a long time--not that it just occurred at the last minute, with Dumbledore and Snape communicating all of the plan through Legilimency right before Snape AK's Dumbledore. This may be a little bit of evidence supporting my theory.....

Or this is just a pathetic attempt not to believe that Snape is all bad, but I'm not ready to give up on him yet.