Lots of random HBP thoughts

[rj_anderson]

First and foremost, for the record -- I've said this in a couple of people's comments now, but I want to put it down here for posterity:

The third horcrux does not need to be found as Harry believes, for it has already been destroyed. Dumbledore drank it, knowing that he would then become the horcrux and that Snape would have to kill him. This is why D. pleads with Snape at the end, when he knows (as he always knew) that Draco is not going to follow through on his assigned task. And it's also the reason Snape and Dumbledore quarrelled halfway through the book -- Snape didn't want to do it, and Dumbledore said too bad, you agreed to this a long time ago, there's no other way, so just do it. (Of course, having taken the Unbreakable Vow to carry out the task Draco could not, Snape would already have known that he couldn't back out. But I love him for being irrational enough to argue about it anyway.) I'm sure Dumbledore had known about that particular horcrux for years -- he just had to find the right time, or rather wait for Harry to grow up enough for it to be the right time, to go and destroy it. And all along, he's been keeping Snape in reserve for that eventuality (which is very likely the real reason he couldn't let him take the DADA position until the time was ripe -- because he knew that if he did, Snape would be gone from Hogwarts by the end of the year, thanks to Voldemort's curse on the job).

So it is not, as some people have feared, a case where Snape will have to do something massively heroic in Book Seven to redeem himself from the terrible crime of murdering Dumbledore and all the other evil things he has done as a false double agent. Because he never was a false double agent, and he did only what Dumbledore asked him to do. (The murder of Emmeline Vance is more problematic, but it is possible that Snape was merely claiming responsibility for the deed after the fact to convince Bellatrix, and that the information he gave to Voldemort did not in truth directly bring about Vance's death. Or it's possible that the information he gave did lead to Vance's death, but inadvertently.)

Okay, on to some other rambling thoughts -- some speculative, some just commentary:

After reading the "Spinner's End" chapter, I am now deeply and seriously worried that Draco is actually Snape's son rather than Lucius's. If so, I'll bet that Dumbledore has known this all along -- it may well tie into the secret reason he trusts Snape. But knowing JKR, it's just as likely that Snape's affection for Narcissa and Draco is more of a godfatherly sort, like Sirius's relationship to Harry. I think I'd prefer that, personally, but time will tell.

Right from the beginning I totally called Fleur turning out to be worthy of Bill's affections and the Weasley women being mistaken about her. They were just too OMG SO MEEN to her for it to be justified.

I am so amused that all my ships, including ones I only vaguely cared about, have sailed gaily into port. H/G, R/H, Remus/Tonks, Bill/Fleur, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Oh, and Filch/Pince is a most amusing idea.

I'll add more comments as I think of them.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Your first point makes a lot of sense. I have just finished Chatper 26, and my first question was "What was wrong with just tipping the liquid into the water, instead of drinking it?" This is one of JKR's careless moments, where she fails to give a perfectly easy explanation that would exclude an otherwise preferable situation, like "What's wrong with pseudo-Moody just telling Harry, 'Here, Harry, hold this for me' one fine day, and handing him the Portkey?"

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Well, if he'd tipped the liquid into the water, presumably it would just have made the water into the horcrux rather than destroying the horcrux. Only by absorbing the horcrux himself and then being killed could Dumbledore be sure of eliminating (or perhaps, releasing) rather than merely diluting Voldemort's captured piece of soul.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

[sucks air loudly] Ooooo... that's... brill.

The R/T caught me by surprise, though. :)

[tonicollins.livejournal.com]

Draco is actually Snape's son rather than Lucius's.

Now there's a thought that'll keep me chilled as I go garage sale hunting in the 90 degree heat.

[lilith-morgana.livejournal.com]

(via friendsfriends)

I was thinking the exact same thing about your first point. In my deluded world it was clear that everyone was thinking this, but obviously not. "Severus... please" is possibly the saddest moment ever in the series for me. Such a classic thing for a Leader to demand of his most loyal men, too. I kept thinking about Angel where Angel repeatedly tells his employees that he needs to be able to trust them entirely - so much that they will kill him if X happens.

While bullied little teenage Severus had petty games and delusions filling his head I think it's pretty clear that grown-up Severus doesn't. There is nothing in his behaviour post-murder that suggests that he did it for himself - he speaks the words, then gets the kids out of there and keeps the Death Eaters away from Harry. "Blocked again, and again, and again until you learn to keep you mouth shut and your mind closed" being precisely what Harry has been taught for the past few years but never quite mastered - a final advice before Snape, too, has to leave.

I just can't see it any other way and that's not because I necessarily needs redeemed!Snape but because it makes sense.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

...Good heavens. You're right. Snape reminded Harry how to fight a Legilimens.

[owl]

I shouldn't worry about Draco being Snape's son. He's describes as 'pointy-faced like his father' and that their eyes are the same colour, and it's unlikely that Snape's child would be as white-blonde as Draco is, even if Narcissa is his mother.

Perhaps Snape actually is his godfather?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Or he may have been in love with Narcissa. I know that if a certain woman came to me and asked me to look after her son or her daughter in a similar situation, I would gladly go to jail or risk my life to keep my word to her.

[vaznetti]

That's a fascinating idea, that the Potion was the third horcrux -- I really like it (and it does explain why it needed to be drunk, rather than poured into the lake -- although pouring it into the lake would have wokebn the inferi as well). I need to think about it a little more.

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

You are a smartie every day. I'd pretty much figured that Dumbledore wanted Snape to kill him--but I hadn't got the "why" until I read this.

*fangirls you*

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

LOL. Thanks. It'll be interesting, when Book Seven comes out, to see how much of this I got right. I'm sure that at least some of it is, but as for the finer details... I guess we'll see!

[tybalt-quin.livejournal.com]

I am now deeply and seriously worried that Draco is actually Snape's son rather than Lucius's. If so, I'll bet that Dumbledore has known this all along -- it may well tie into the secret reason he trusts Snape.

I agree that it's something else that made Dumbledore trust Snape and I think that a son is a possibility, but I don't think that Draco is a likely candidate.

Having just been to the Lexicon, it lists him as having approached Dumbley with an offer to be a spy before October 1981 and it also lists Voldie as finding out about the prophecy sometime in 1980 or possibly late 1979. That leaves almost two years for something to have happened. I am more inclined to think that the motivation came from something dreadful, possibly he harmed someone he shouldn't have harmed (maybe his own son) or maybe he witnessed something that shocked him so profoundly that it served as a wake-up call and forced him to question what Voldemort was really after.

Urgh. Am tired and need to think it through when I'm less fuzzy.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, on a second reading of the chapter I felt more confident that Snape's relationship to Narcissa and Draco is not paternal.

And it will be most interesting to find out the real reason why Dumbledore has trusted Snape all these years. Obviously it is something intensely personal to Snape, something he wouldn't want others to know, or otherwise Dumbledore would have confided in someone about it before now.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Wait... so you think the liquid was the Horcrux, and the locket RAB apparently took away was... what?

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

RAB didn't take the locket, it was there in the bottom of the horcrux.

I believe that RAB is Dumbledore (likely the initials of a derisive name that Tom Riddle used to call Dumbledore behind his back) and that any similarity of the initials to "Regulus Black" is a red herring. I think Dumbledore actually put that note and the locket in the horcrux at some point either in the past, or by adding it in just before he conjured the crystal goblet and began to drink (probably while he was doing all that muttering and bespelling over it in the beginning).

In any case, the note and the locket were not really meant for Voldemort (why would Voldemort go digging around in his own horcrux looking for messages? Especially when he doesn't expect anyone else to find or have found it?) but ultimately for Harry, to let him know that horcrux had been destroyed (without tipping him off to the all-this-was-planned-between-D.-and-Snape thing). It was Harry who jumped to the (wrong) conclusion that Dumbledore had mistaken a false locket for the real one and not actually destroyed the horcrux at all. He'll figure it out in Book Seven, I'm sure.

But darling, your ship just sank!

[(Anonymous)]

It takes Napoleon to ignore Trafalgar, I suppose.

Re: But darling, your ship just sank!

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Which ship was that?

[pharnabazus.livejournal.com]

Precisely "when" do you think Snape became such a skilled legilimens as to be able to fool either Dumbledore or Voldemort? And who taught him? Could this something that he gradually grew more skilled in, over the years, from his schooldays on?

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

You mean Occlumens? I don't know. From what we've learned about his skills in this book, it seems as though young Severus had a genius for finding new ways to do things better than they'd ever been done before -- both in terms of potions and in terms of other kinds of spells. So perhaps he figured out a way to practice Occlumency in a way and to a degree of completeness that not even Voldemort suspected.

Is there a good HP timeline somewhere

[hms-yowling.livejournal.com]

What I can't get through my head is:

When Snape/Lilly/James et al graduated from Hogwarts
When Lilly and James married
When Snape turned from Voldemort
When Neville's parents were tortured into insanity

I like these thoughts -- hadn't thought of the Horcrux being the potion, but it makes sense that Voldemort would make them into as many forms as possible. Can't help but wondering whether there's one stuck in the Room of Requirement somewhere.

Re: Is there a good HP timeline somewhere

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

JKR stated on her site that Sirius was 22 when he went to Azkaban, which from the vantage point of 1981 would have him born in 1959. It fits better than the 1960 the Lexicon states, but the Lexicon seems to have something invested in making everybody as young as possible.

If born in '59 they finished school in '77.

If Harry was born in mid '80, his parents would have been married by '79.

My own take on the Prophecy is that it was made in January 1980. In any case Snape almost certainly turned as a result of something that happened between the point that Voldemort learned of the Prophecy and when he ordered Snape to apply for a teaching position at Hogwarts. Since it seems that Voldemort only decided to go after the Potters specifically about a week before he got to them, the turning point probably had something to do with something that happened within the DE organization. Dumbledore never confirmed that Harry had jumped to the correct conclusion over Snape's having falsely claimed to regret the Potters' deaths. He just put an end to the discussion.

I have no canon support for it, but, to me, the Longbottom affair has a strong aura of Oklahoma City. Took place one year to the day after Voldemort's defeat at Godric's Hollow. This one could be shot down if JKR feels like it, but she probably won't bother. I doubt it matters in the long run. Neville, and anything to do with him was always an also-ran. Although we'll probably see him again.

[raindrops888.livejournal.com]

I'm surfing around right now, reading other people's reactions because I just finished the book myself and I stumbled upon your journal. This?

Dumbledore drank it, knowing that he would then become the horcrux and that Snape would have to kill him. This is why D. pleads with Snape at the end, when he knows (as he always knew) that Draco is not going to follow through on his assigned task.

Is brilliant. I can't seem to come up with coherent thoughts regarding the book at the moment, but this just makes so much sense.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

*grins* Glad you like it!

[rose-in-shadow.livejournal.com]

*relieved sigh* your words about Snape, Dumbledore, and liquid Horcruxes give me hope, Rebecca. After I finished HBP today my initial emotional response wasn't much different than Harry's (i.e. Snape is all that is evil, nasty, and otherwise Not Good), but after I'd thought about it, I thought Dumbledore's pleading as just a bit suspicious and your well-thought out theory revives me a little. :-D

As for other things... "I saw three ships come sailing in". YES! I was only a moderately interested shipper, but I was very happy to see R/H, H/G, and even Remus/Tonks which I thought was merely a fanship doomed to sail only on the pages of fanfic. WOOT!

[drmm.livejournal.com]

I doubt that Snape and Draco are related in any close way (distantly, perhaps).

I think Snape is willing to do so much to protect Draco because he doesn't want Draco to repeat his own mistakes. While Draco may be a pureblood, otherwise, I think he and Snape have a lot in common.

And really, it's frustrating to know I have to wait two years for book 7. Blarg.

[ravensnape.livejournal.com]

I'll try to be logical, I'm a bit tired and just finished, so bear with me. Why would Dumbledore go through all he did to discover what Tom used, including time travel by my read of the book, and then tell Harry falsely what the objects were or at least what he suspected them to be. If it was the liquid, then wouldn't in the telling of the tales in the pensive, a liquid have shown up? No. We are shown a locket/neckless, a cup/goblet, Nagini and then suggested something of Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. How does the liquid come into play. We were show a locket in the pensive. ARG!!!! Must go sleep and think some more to run with the big dogs.......

[kaptainsarcasm.livejournal.com]

Hey, found this through a spiderweb of surfing though people's HBP words.

This is... Amazing. It makes so much sense, and it just sounds right, it sounds like something Jo would do.

Do you mind if I link to this in my journal? It'll be a friends-locked post, but if you want, I can add you to my list. I just want to share this idea--I really think you're on to something here.

Thank you so much for posting this.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

You might want to link to the finished essay instead -- it's my latest entry. But sure!

[shatterglass.livejournal.com]

The liquid as the horcrux is really interesting--hope you don't mind if I link this.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Not at all, but you might want to link my most recent post instead, as it has the whole theory spelled out much more systematically.

[sleepingfingers.livejournal.com]

I've never been an ardent Snape-fan before this (although your Maud/Snape series is amongst my favorite fanfics), but after readin this book, Snape's the character that I now find most interesting. I was so very certain that Snape could not be evil. It would've defeated all the purposes JKR put into reassuring through many people, including Dumbledore, that Snape's redeemed, if she only wanted to show that Dumbledore could make a horrible trusting mistake and turned Snape into a tratorious Death Eater.

I could not think of why Dumbledore would want Snape to kill him, of course, aside from the speculation that, since Dumbledore knew he was going to die anyway from what he drank, he wanted Snape to preserve his post with Voldemort by killing him. Even that doesn't make a lot of sense. However, your theory is very, very interesting. I'd be rooting for it to be the real reason behind it all. :)

PS - YOu don't mind if I link this, do you?

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Link away by all means! But you might prefer to use my latest post instead of this one, as the proper essay version of the theory is there.

[clannadlvr.livejournal.com]

wandering in from the friendsfriends...

There are two theories I've seen floating around so far about the identity of the Horcrux..

1. Harry himself is a Horcrux. Voldemort transferred part of his soul into Harry when he tried to kill him. (theory mentioned by yahtzee63)

2. The third horcrux does not need to be found as Harry believes, for it has already been destroyed. Dumbledore drank it, knowing that he would then become the horcrux and that Snape would have to kill him. This is absolutely fascinating!! But then...what of the replacement locket? Is it a ruse planted by Dumbledore? Or did R.A.B. take the orginal locket, mistakenly believing that it was the Horcrux and not the liquid?

Why isn't book 7 here yet?!!

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

How very sensible! I shouldn't even try to write a commentary on my journal, cause I'm never going to come up with ANY of this.

Anywho. I particularly like how you pointed out that Dumbledore didn't give Snape the DADA position til this year because of the curse... it makes so much sense. Though I wonder, why did he have to be the DADA prof in order to carry out this duty (killing Dumbledore)? And why did Snape want the job sooo badly, why was he so openly bitter about it? You would think that Dumbledore would have told him the reason for delaying his appointment.

But the biggest thing you said here was that the potion itself was the horcrux... and that is a fascinating, wonderful point. I think you are very right. It felt so weird that the only way to get rid of the potion was to drink it... if it could be poured out of the goblet, why couldn't it just be poured out onto the ground? could there be magic that sensed the intent of the person scooping the potion? So it being the horcrux makes so much sense, and answers those questions quite satisfactorily.

However... I am so unamused that all of the ships I don't like came crashing down on my head, and the ones I liked foundered pitifully... bleh :P

[penwiper26.livejournal.com]

Haven't been to the Lexicon to check facts -- just finished the book at 4 ack emma and am reeling in more ways than one.

Could R.A.B. have been either Borgin or Burkes, who had handled the locket and knew what it was?

I do love the theory that the liquid itself was the Horcrux, making Dumbledore the "thing from Gryffindor" that needed to be destroyed.

I gotta read this again. Again! Again!

May collapse first, though.

Interesting...

[mostepotente.livejournal.com]

Maybe Dumbledore DIDN'T know that the potion was the Horcrux? Perhaps the necklace was originally the Horcrux but someone changed it.... like R.A.B. that would explain the note. Whoever did it wasn't powerful enough to destroy it, so they changed it instead: Voldemort would think he'd have to drink the potion to get to the locket... when he'd really be swallowing his own Horcrux. What happens when two parts of the soul are rejoined?

As for R.A.B. what about Regulus Black? We don't know much of anything about him, except that he tried to leave and died shortly afterwards, while other traitors, like Karkaroff last much longer. What if Regulus did something to REALLY piss off Voldemort... like tamper with the horcrux.

I will be forced to punch someone in the face if Snape truly ends up being evil. That is the fury that it inspires in me.

Re: Interesting...

[trempnvt.livejournal.com]

As for R.A.B. what about Regulus Black?

Hey, that's interesting...

[jeanstarwind.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you have already addressed this question, but I cannot see it anywhere so I think I'll go ahead and ask. My apologies if it's a duplicate.

Your theory here is very ingenious, and I very much want to believe it because I would like to believe that Snape is a good man - even if the possibility of him being nice or lovable has been almost completely blown out of the water by what we read in HPB.

However, you have got me wondering about certain things. If, as you suggest, Dumbledore has all along planned to be done in by Snape in order to destroy one of the horcruxes, why did he not tell anyone else of this? Everyone at the end - including McGonagall, who I think would at least be the one person he would share something like this with - is shocked to hear that it was Snape who killed Dumbledore.

Perhaps you don't believe that it was kept secret, and feel free to tell me if I've misinterpreted, but what you've written here seems to imply it. And I can't wrap my brain around why something like this would be kept secret. Because in the end, it could mean Snape's doom - whether to death in battle, a lifetime in Azkaban, or the dementor's Kiss. If Snape is the only one who knows that he was on irrefutable orders to kill Dumbledore, who is ever going to believe him now? The deed is done and with the Headmaster gone there is no one left to stand up for Snape now that they all believe he is a traitor and a murderer.

Perhaps it doesn't matter because Snape expects that he himself will die in battle and so proving his innocence afterward would be of little concern. Indeed, perhaps he plans to prove his true allegiances in the final battle itself by giving his life to save Harry or some other Order member.

Personally, I do not want to see Snape dead. Nor do I want to see him as a true Death Eater. However, given what we've so recently read in HPB I do not believe that both can happen. I desperately want both to happen, but I'm rather despairing of it.

[kaptainsarcasm.livejournal.com]

Random stranger replies:

Maybe Dumbledore didn't tell anyone because...
a.) ...it would have raised too much resistance. Everyone trusts Dumbledore with their life, which means that they might be trusting him too much. Maybe he didn't want anyone to try and interfere with his plans. Maybe he knows something that indicates that the final battle must be between Harry and Voldemort alone, and by only telling Snape about the potion and at the same time making Harry the person who holds the most information, he is setting up the chess board so that Harry can take the checkmate.
OR
b.) ...it has to do with the reason that Dumbledore trusts Snape so much. We do not know what this reason is; ONLY Snape and Dumbledore know. This means that it is a very personal peice of information, and maybe Dumbledore knew that in order for everyone to trust Snape the way he does, they would need to know the same things about him that he knows. Perhaps he wanted to avoid this, out of respect for Snape.

Just some thoughts. Feel free to shoot 'em down.

[(Anonymous)]

Having just finished reading, all I can say is--

HOLY FLAMING COW!!!!!!!

Rebecca, if you ever somehow get into the wizarding world, you should apply for the Divination post at Hogwarts (assuming there will be a Hogwarts again). Un-dirty-word-believable. I'm so glad you posted your suspicions a few days ago because it was just too, too spot-on. And even with the advance warning of your speculations, my jaw still hit the floor with a CLANG!!!

Now I'm terribly worried about Book 7, though. Oh, my poor Severus.

I'm still gibbering and incoherent.

Mary Anne