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

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I think Dumbledore was the thing from Gryffindor, and his link to that particular horcrux goes back a long way. But I'll need to think some more about that part.

And this would make sense in the light of it being very awkward for R.A.B. to have gotten the Horcrux (apparently alone) and replaced all the protections and the decoy in such a way as to fool Dumbledore (who can recognize Tom's magic) into heading for it.

Well, yeah. And it makes no sense for Regulus Black, even assuming he was that amazing a wizard, to go to all that trouble. Why not just leave the note sitting on the bottom of the empty basin for Voldemort to find?

The only evidence pointing to Regulus that I've seen so far is the initials R.A.B. That, in itself, doesn't seem particularly strong to me. We don't know anything about Regulus except that he was a Death Eater and is now (presumably) dead.

[pharnabazus.livejournal.com]

Although I have a really twisty "Father Brown" crossover about Regulus Black, that I really did want to write. This "has" muddied the waters!

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

The other evidence for Regulus includes that the timing of his death was brought up and reiterated, and the wording matches that on the note; also that Mundungus's coming back up selling stuff from Grimmauld Place suggests there might be something important back there after all. (There was, in fact, a locket they couldn't open in OotP. Though you'd think somebody would have noticed an ornate S.)

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Okay, those are good points in favour of the note really having come from Regulus. I shall have to revise my theory accordingly -- though I don't think it affects the idea that whatever was in the basin, horcrux or not, was something Dumbledore had long known he had to drink and which he had long known would require him to die/be killed in order to fully dispense with it.

The reason I still think the stuff in the basin was a horcrux is that if you look at Dumbledore's reactions to drinking the potion, many of them seem to be expressions of the very emotions Voldemort would have been most keen to rip out of his soul and put far away from himself -- fear, remorse, guilt, and the desire for death. Especially when Dumbledore screams things like "It's all my fault, I know I did wrong..." -- what's he got, personally, to be sorry/guilty for on that scale? But Tom Riddle would certainly have a guilty conscience if he'd allowed himself to hang onto one.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

That is a really intriguing and... oddly appealing theory, to me. I feel that we really ought to learn something more about the potion -- even if we just learn about one that makes the drinker feel miserably frightened and guilty, that was too weird to say nothing more about. And I can easily see Voldemort opting to rip out his own conscience; it's something I would not be remotely surprised to learn.

Of course, this assumes that he had one. I confess I felt mildly disappointed by the glimpse we saw of him before he went to Hogwarts, because after JKR said that she didn't believe Voldemort or anyone else was born evil, I thought that supported the idea that at some point we might see him at a time when he clearly had the potential for good in more than just talents and looks. (I mean, not just objectively thinking that anyone could theoretically choose good, but the way seen Harry's potential for wrong.)

Not that she's required to do that or anything, but I would have liked it. I got a strong sense of potential lost thrown away from CoS, and having him look like a lost cause before he ever hit Hogwarts may have been something JKR felt was necessary, but I'm not wholly sure it strengthened the parallels (and inverted parallels) to Harry, on which she pulled very hard otherwise. On the other hand, there's certainly a case that it does make a neat inverted parallel with Dumbledore's comments on just how amazing it is that Harry still loves.... maybe that's where she was going, and I was just too invested in my "What if" ideas.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

I think Dumbledore was the thing from Gryffindor, and his link to that particular horcrux goes back a long way. But I'll need to think some more about that part.

Interesting. But does that make Ravenclaw the only one left out, or do you think there's another connection?