Current mood:

drained

And just like that, it's over...
IF YOU HAVE NOT READ HARRY POTTER, BOOK 6, PROCEED WITH CAUTION. FULL OF SPOILERS, AS I'M SURE YOU'D GUESS.

Wow...

I finished a few hours ago and have been walking around in a daze. I cried. I ate ice cream. I cried some more. I reread chapter 27, and he's still dead. ...Dumbledore, Dumbledore? Wherefore art thou? Dumbledore?

I knew it had to happen. The withered hand, all the comments about Dumbledore’s age and slow reflexes, we had to be somewhat primed. She tried to prepare us, but it still hurt. Even though it made sense, like Bru said, Dumbledore had to go so chaos could reign, I still couldn’t believe it. I kept waiting for Fawkes to fly off and revive Dumbledore or Snape’s curse to be revealed as a fake one he was actually counter-cursing silently or the locket come alive and choke Malfoy or….something. Not death. Not Dumbledore. He’s held Hogwarts together for so long; there’s so much he knows, so much he could have taught us (though as someone pointed out, he certainly tried to infuse a lot of that in the last parts of the book). I want to curl up under the covers and scream that it doesn’t matter now, that the epitome of wisdom and chivalry and honor has left us. At the same time, though, I want to avenge him, want to race from these castle walls and spend my life chasing Snape and Voldermort, rallying those around to march on evil of all types!...and then Alice hands me a tissue and tells me it’s a book.

Theorizing with those equally immersed, though, has certainly helped my psyche, and chancing upon this well-spring of hypotheses has greatly softened the blow. Y’all rock my socks. 

In response to Lizzy and Bru and Stacie and Michael Watson and everyone else:

1. Leaving Hogwarts? My first thought is that seems rash, especially for Hermione and Ron. At the same time, though, I can totally understand why they’d take that route. As Lizzy put it, other things just seem much less worthwhile when stacked next to exterminating the quintessence of evil. Even so, things will be weird with Harry out of school. For one, the whole cast of characters would have to change, or at least whittle down to the few who could leave with him. Hagrid has said he’s certainly staying, and what’s life like without the annoying yet constant presence of the Fat Lady and Peeves? If he does leave, though, I doubt he’d go back, or at least that J.K. would delve into his life if he did. If we do venture from Hogwarts, I fear we may have seen the last of it. I for one think she’s going to stick to her seven book thing. She’s already worth a net billion, and word on the street is she has other books up her sleeve. Yeah, I’ll miss Harry immensely, but tis better to end sooner than try to draw it out.
2. There wasn’t really the buzz over this book that we saw over the last: “Someone dies! Someone dies!” And, like Lizzy, this death hit me harder than Sirius’s. I think, that said, we’re going to have to get more and more used to seeing death around us. I fear Voldemort will not let all end without a fight. As for who dies, I dunno. It makes sense that Harry would die to save his friends (prepare for a wave of Christ imagery comparisons, folks!), and I would like to think that Snape would maybe try to rectify himself with the ultimate sacrifice. I’m really not sure. I also was thinking about what you were saying, Stac. The fact that Harry could be a horcrux crossed my mind too. However, like y’all were saying, I doubt it would be on purpose. AND if Voldemort didn’t realize he made a horcrux of Harry (though I guess he could have realized afterwards and thus marked Harry…though why would he want to kill him?), then would he try to continue to make his seven, bringing the total to eight pieces of soul: six intentional, one accidental, and one in Voldemort himself? Hmm…I’m not sure that would work.
3. The locket. Hmmm. I didn’t remember the reference to it in previous books (the downside to reading them in a few days..hehe, James, I’m not as hardcore as you), but it sounds logical. A Black descendant would seem to fit with the initials too, but honestly, the whole thing struck me as odd. Dumbledore giving his life up for nothing, and not noticing? The calm note to the dark lord saying, oh, by the way I’m going to keel part of your soul. The sheer lack of resolution/ allusion? And if someone, say a Black descendent turning to the good side, knew about the horcruxes (horcruxi?), why didn’t they tell someone else? Get help? Harry’s hiding it from the ministry and McGonagall, but why would anyone have kept it from someone like Dumbledore (hehe, I suppose I’m Dumbledore’s girl, through and through…). Do you think Kreacher could have interfered in any way? …I don’t like that kid.
4. Ah! The pensieve…very useful, and I hope that Harry can take that, along with maybe Gryffindor’s sword (are we absolutely SURE that’s not a horcrux?). Even if he did, though, I’m not sure that he could see a memory of Snape and Dumbledore’s argument…unless Dumbledore had thought to extract it first…which, on second thought, would be totally like Dumbledore. Heck yes.
5. Ok, on to Snape and Malfoy:
Malfoy: I appreciated his hesitancy in killing Dumbledore; it was nice to see he wasn’t without remorse. Yet, remorseful or not, he let the Death Eaters in, and he made the decision to join them initially, not to mention he’s a stupendous jerkface. I could see how maybe he could come back and help Harry eventually (and begrudgingly), but I still don’t like the kid.

Snape: Initial reaction. WTF? and OMG! I couldn’t believe that J.K. had us believing we could trust this guy the whole time. I mean, undoubtedly we’ve all wavered back and forth a little, but in the end I think most of us
would have sided with Dumbledore for the mere fact that it was Dumbledore with whom we were siding. Finch is right, he had to know something we didn’t. So Snape killed Dumbledore and tipped the Dark Lord off to kill James and Lily. But maybe there’s a glimmer of potential, if allied with Dumbledore’s vision and brains (Lion King, eh? Eh?). Basically, I have to believe that Dumbledore and Snape argued about the very situation before it happened, and that Dumbledore pushed Snape to comply with some higher power or I’ll lose myself to morose.
6. Neville. Eh…I don’t put too much stock in the kid. Maybe tis a mistake, but I tend to glaze over his role.
7. I think y’all are right in saying that Dumbledore must have seen what was happening at Hogwarts. All that about self-sacrifice and such just fits in too well. What I want to know is what was the potion? And did a certain Half-Blood Prince have anything to do with its concoction? (Side note: I also don’t feel entirely satisfied about the resolution of the ‘half blood prince.’ Maybe I was too upset to entirely grasp what was happening, but what does it really matter if Eileen Prince was Snape’s mother? So, he’s a half-blood…but the prophesy wouldn’t be about him; I think it was more about self-fulfilling junk. I’m not even sure I entirely know why it matters that the book was written by Snape…I feel like I really missed something. Just know it was in the wake of a great grief.
8. Graveyard at Hogwarts…dunno, and don’t find it too important. Once again, perhaps a mistake. Are Harry’s parents buried in Godric’s Hollow? I read it that way.
9. Hehe, this book was certainly hormonal, but not in an all caps Harry sort of way, and I enjoyed the jokes that came from the couples’ interactions. “Abstinence” being the best in my opinion. Weirded out about Tonks and Lupin as I certainly didn’t see it coming, but the Harry- Ginny/ Ron-Hermione thing works for me. I can’t stand Fleur.

All in all, I loved it. I too have held the third book in a reverence that has previously not been challenged. I must say, though, that book six now rivals…amazing.