*Ending of HBP Spoiler Thread*

[XemaSab]

What happened at the ending?

Snape killed Dumbledore, but why did he do it? What did it mean? And what will it mean for the future?

Thanks to TimeChaser, lildreamer316, Spider Jerusalem, malmapus, intheflow, lulu in NC, loudestchick, ET Awful, Pithy Cherub, NothingWithoutHope, mondo joe, brensgrrl, Spuddonna, Left People Finish First, Chovexani, Robbed Voter, deadparrot, xmas74, soothsayer, politicat, LWolf, and philosophie_en_rose for providing the ideas here.

[XemaSab]

1. Did Dumbledore mean to die?

Did Dumbledore intend for Snape to kill him?

In the argument Dumbledore had with Snape that Hagrid overheard, "Dumbledore took too much for granted and maybe he (Snape) didn't want to do it anymore." (P405)

If Dumbledore had died of the poison, would Snape and Draco have died? Did Dumbledore die so that Snape and Draco wouldn't have to?

Did Dumbledore know about Draco's plan, and Snape's unbreakable vow?

Did he give Snape the Defense Against the Dark Arts job knowing that Snape's time at Hogwarts was ending?

Did he go talk to the Dursleys because he knew he would be dying soon?

Dumbledore asked to see Snape when he arrived back at the castle, and when Harry hesitated, Dumbledore reminded Harry "Go and wake Severus.... you swore to obey me!" (P583)

Dumbledore froze Harry so that Harry wouldn't do anything stupid, either getting himself killed or killing anyone else.

soothsayer brings up the point that some people believe that Jesus asked Judas to turn him in becasue he was Jesus' favorite apostle.

Dumbledore said to Draco: "No, Draco, it is my mercy and not yours that matters now."

Dumbledore was not begging with the Death Eaters or with Malfoy, but his last words were "Severus... Severus, please."

[intheflow]

3. Spin-off question:

Did DD not give Snape the DADA job before because he knew it was cursed and needed Snape around to help him with Harry and LV?

[XemaSab]

2. Or did Dumbledore make a huge mistake in trusting Snape?

Why did Dumbledore trust Snape? Was there an unbreakable vow made there too?

Politicat says:

"Contradicting the Snape's a goody in disguise.....Just re-read the death scene. Snape uses Avada Kadavra. Both Faux-Moody in GOF and Bellatrix at the end of OOP tell Harry that to use an Unforgivable curse, one has to mean it and take pleasure in the destruction. It has to have more than just righteous anger or duty behind it. There has to be sadism (which we know Snape has in spades) behind the curse for it to work. Killing the one person in the world who trusts you and truly knows you out of duty to a higher cause? That would cause the person committing the act pain, and to my knowledge, we have never seen evidence of Snape as masochist, while we have seen plenty of Snape as sadist (Though we could make the argument that living with Peter Pettigrew is pretty masochistic.... I see him being a very bad roommate.)"

Snape attacked Flitwick when Flitwick came downstairs to tell him there were Death Eaters in the castle. What does this mean?

Could Snape have possibly weaseled his way out of it, and what were his reasons for not doing so?

Why would Dumbledore allow Snape to kill him?

At the last, Dumbledore may be begging for Snape to kill him, he may be begging for Snape to spare him, or he may be surprised that Snape betrayed him.

"Severus.... Severus, please."

[TimeChaser]

15. Just thought of this...

Snape may have attacked Flitwick, but he didn't kill him

[XemaSab]

16. He still knocked him out

and prevented him from joining the battle on the side of good.

Unless the whole point of "allowing" the death eaters into the castle was to kill DD, but it seems like that would be WAY too dangerous for DD to allow... like, someone could get hurt.

[XemaSab]

4. Snape as the Half-Blood Prince?

When Snape was fleeing Hogwarts, was he still teaching Harry by telling him to use Occlumency and block his thoughts?

Why didn't Snape curse Harry at the end? What was the spell that he used that knocked Harry back onto the grass and made him lose his wand? Was that expelliarmus?

Snape baits people. He baited Sirius, Bellatrix, the students in his class, and ultimately, Harry. He taunts people into rashness.

Snape told Harry at the end not to use unforgivable curses, and he also told the other Death Eater that Voldemort wanted to kill Harry personally. He was also very upset at Harry calling him a coward.

Why do you think Dumbledore gave the Defense Against the Dark Arts job to Snape? Was it because Dumbledore knew that Snape would be leaving and he himself would be dying? Why did Snape take the job if he knew about the curse? And what was the story with Snape being the person who told Voldemort about the prophecy?

What did we learn about Snape's house? Why was he sheltering Wormtail?

Was Snape ever really teaching Harry Occlumency?

Did Snape intend for the book to be found? Will Harry keep the book and use it?

Why did Snape take the vow, and did he have a way of getting out of it?

Did Buckbeak do any damage to Snape at the end?

What does it mean that Snape himself is a half-blood?

Will Harry and Snape ever reconcile their differences? There was a lot of energy left over from the scene with the Pensieve in OOTP that never got resolved.

What are some of the parallels between Harry, Snape, and Voldemort, and if it's love that keeps you from going over to the dark side, what does this mean for Snape?

Will Snape be able to reveal the location of Grimmauld place to the Death Eaters now that Dumbledore's gone?

Ultimately, did Snape show himself as the villain, or did he prove himself to be one of the strongest members of the Order by obeying Dumbledore's wishes?

[XemaSab]

5. Did Dumbledore fake his death?

His patronus is a phoenix, and some of his last words were him suggesting to Draco that Draco fake his death.

[XemaSab]

9. Twillig says:

The answer is the Weasley twin's FAKE WANDS!

These fake wands have made an appearance in two books so far. Very prominently in HBP. I have to wonder why.

Then there's Mention of the Draught of the Living Death, of which Harry made an excellent batch(with help from the HBP's book) to win the bottle of Felix Filicis.

And Dumbledore's offer of a faked death to Malfoy.

!

I have hope for DD yet!

[Twillig]

11. Hong Kong Cavalier posed the question:

<...when does the effects of the avada kedavra spell include hurling the body 10 feet back or so?>

But when Snape used it on Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore was thrown high into the air, off the parapet of the tower.
Now, Rowling could have just simply used dramatic license there, but from what I've noticed, she doesn't do something "because it looks neat." She's very deliberate in her writing.

Anyone else find this odd?

Indeed, consider that right off the bat in HBP we see in Ch. 2 the Avada Kedavra being used by Bella on a fox. "There was a flash of green light, a yelp, and the fox fell back to the ground, dead."

It was not blasted through the air...

So, what if the spell, as executed by snape, was a fake? A grand deception by DD. How? fake wand, Draught of Death (very first potion we learn about in Philosopher's Stone btw.)



(Why is DD sleeping in his portrait?)


(But of course I have doubts. For DD to do all that and fake his death would be taking an awful risk with the lives of his students--and more importantly, Harry--to have the Death Eaters running loose in Hogwarts)

[intheflow]

23. I also wondered about the sleeping DD and the

draught of death. I was thinking that if DD did fake his own death, he would have to have Snape think he had really killed DD. That would explain Snape being so pissy about Harry calling him a coward at the end, and DD could have set it up to protect Snape from having to lie to LV on something so big.

And of course, no one actually saw DD's body at the funeral. Hagrid carried something wrapped in a cloth which Harry assumed to be DD. Then when the cloth-draped thing went up in flames to be replaced by the white casket, Harry thought he saw a phoenix fly away. As someone else mentioned, this is very reminiscent of DD's quick escape when Umbitch tried to have his forcibly removed from his office in OotP. The one thing that really makes me think the funeral was a smoke and mirror trick was a line earlier in the book. When DD and Harry were in the cave and DD was checking for the entrance slowly and methodically: "...Harry had long since learned that bangs and smoke were more often the marks of ineptitude than expertise." (p.555, US Scholastic) Note she wrote "often," not "always."

[XemaSab]

6. What about Draco?

Draco and Snape seemed to be in a sort of competition, so what did Draco tell Snape about his plans for killing Dumbledore?

Did Snape know about the Vanishing Cabinet?

Is Draco beyond redemption? Or did Snape and Dumbledore sacrifice themselves for him?

Draco said to Snape: "I know what you're doing, I can stop you." (P322)

Dumbledore knows what Draco's task is... through legilimency, or because he's been told? (P585)

Dumbledore says to Draco on page 592: "No, Draco, it is my mercy and not yours that matters now."

Will Cissy act like Lily did and die to protect her son?

Is Draco a swaggering little brat, or is he really evil?

[XemaSab]

7. Did Snape have the volition to kill Dumbledore?

Could Snape's skill as an occlumens have fooled the Avada Kedavra spell?

[XemaSab]

8. What will Dumbledore's death mean for Draco, Snape, and Harry?

Will Voldemort be able to use servants that Dumbledore died to protect?

Did Dumbledore delay Malfoy long enough for Snape to get there intentionally?

For Harry, the death of his parents both saved him and gave him his scar, Cedric's death brought him the ability to see the thestrals, and Sirius' death brought him Grimmauld Place and Kreacher. What will Dumbledore's death bring him?

And what was the greater scheme that Dumbledore had in mind?

[Branjor]

10. Can't answer most of those questions....

but, Snape as DE - DEs notoriously hate "mudbloods", so why would Snape brag about being the "Half Blood Prince"? (oddly enough, Voldemort is also a "mudblood"). Also, Snape, unlike Voldemort, did not get rid of the name of his muggle father, Tobias Snape. Why would Snape keep his father's surname if he was a muggle hating DE?

On the other hand, during the death scene, it did say that Snape looked at Dumbledore with "revulsion and hatred."

[intheflow]

12. Re: Snape keeping his father's name, etc.

I think to refer to oneself as a half-blood prince emphasizes half-bloodedness (muggleness) over princeliness. Voldemort doesn't refer to himself as the half-blood lord, for instance. I wonder if what turned him against LV was something to do with his father. Like LV killed Snape's father, or made Snape do it.

I think it's interesting that he yelled he was the HBP to Harry as he was splitting the scene--seems kinda arbitrary thing to yell out at that moment. Did he use legimency (sp?) on Harry and know he was using his old text book? When he demanded to see the book, I thought so. So I'll bet there's a clue in the Advanced Potions book about Snape's motivation.

[MaraJade]

13. Revulson and hatred?

Remember that the story is told FROM HARRY'S POV. How do we know that
a look of possible anguish didn't look like revulsion to Harry?

Harry's somewhat selective memory about what happened at the top of
Astronomy Tower is also rather telling. It seems he has forgotten who let DEs into the school and who cornered Dumbledore on the Tower.
All Harry can relate to the members of the Order any anyone else who will listen is that Snape killed Dumbledore.

Just some things that make you go "Hmmmm". . .

[XemaSab]

14. For sure

The look of revulsion and hatred may not have been at DD, but at what Snape was asked to do, the task at hand. Or he may have been angry at DD for asking him to do that.

[robbedvoter]

17. JKR interview - little room for "saintly Snape" in my view

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/extras/aa-jointerview1.html
It's a very long one - 3 parter. When she mentions in the end

MA: Oh, here’s one that I’ve really got to ask you. Has Snape ever been loved by anyone?

JKR: Yes, he has, which in some ways makes him more culpable even than Voldemort, who never has.

[XemaSab]

19. Ooooh

And every slash writer goes wild!

On edit: this is a good interview, thanks for posting.

Too many interviews are by people who haven't actually read the books or any of her MANY other interviews and aren't fans.

[robbedvoter]

20. I am sorry for the slashers, it's probably his mummy.

BTW, did you catch the part where the interviewers were trying to get JKR to call the shippers "deluded" but she kept being the diplomat throughout?

[XemaSab]

21. I dunno

They asked JK whether Lupin or Snape had loved Lily, and she hemmed and hawed and said she would answer one of those questions, and she said that Lupin had really liked Lily but there hadn't been anything there.

I've never been a proponent of any Snape/Lily slash theories, but I have to say her (non) answer was worth thinking about.

Food for thought.... reading through all the posts about the interview, a lot of people are working on the connection between Snape and Lily. They knew each other and they were both gifted at potions. Also, there's a long article on one of the sites, might be HP lexicon about the Lily/Snape idea and it might be reading too much into it, but the presence of Lily in Snape's worst memory may not be entirely coincidental.

[MaraJade]

22. I'm a Snape/Lily shipper. . .

I think that something was going on there, something that fueled the
animosity between the Marauders and Snape.

Best fanfic that explores this sort of thing is here . . .

http://www.lizardlounge.com/Natasha/Didodikali/snake/byanyothername.html

Cute--and illustrated as well.

Then I wrote a story called "Thief" that is archived at fanfiction.net.

[lildreamer316]

18. I'm still wating to re-read

and when I do I'll be better equipped to delve into these q's.

[XemaSab]

24. Who taught Draco occlumency?

Snape? Or someone else?

[Twillig]

25. Snape assumes it was Bellatrix.

Draco doesn't deny it.

HBP p. 322

[XemaSab]

26. ah yes

That bella... always making trouble...