My Opinion Before Deathly Hallows (Spoiler Alert)

In order to refresh myself before the much awaited and upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I reread Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Now before I go into my suspicions and predictions concerning the seventh and final Harry Potter book, I must delve into Dumbledore's fallibility as presented by the previous books.

Dumbledore said in the fifth book that as a great man, his mistakes are consequently greater than the average man. This is true, but I still have a general faith in Dumbledore's choices. After my immediate read-through of HBP, I believe Harry's opinion on where Dumbledore's faith in Snape originated is very misconstrued. The simple idea that Dumbledore would base his faith completely on Snape's regret is idiotic, and I would hope Rowling would write Dumbledore to be a slightly more sensible man than that. He was sensible and savvy about Tom Riddle, and all his true loyalty, so proclaiming that Snape truly and successfully fooled Dumbledore is almost claiming him to be a greater wizard than Voldemort himself. If Snape is truely evil (and I have my doubts), my thoughts are that the only way he could have ended up in the position that he did is that he must have truly meant his apology to Dumbledore and must have offered proof of his loyalty, and then chickened out later.

And then there's the idea that Snape is actually and truly ambiguous. That he was riding the fence the whole time, helping out both sides, and then waiting for a moment in which he had to choose one side or the other. This makes as much sense as pure good/evil because it was in his own interest to murder dumbledore--He had already given the unbreakable vow, and so his life depended on Dumbledore's demise by either himself or Draco.

My personal opinion is that Snape is quite good. In reading the book and looking specifically for signs of Snape's loyalty and Dumbledore's omniscience, I found that of everything that Harry told him, all of the suspicions about Snape and Draco, Dumbledore knew all but these two: 1. That Draco was fixing something in the Room of Requirement and 2. That Snape had taken an unbreakable vow.

As for number 1, There is not much evidence that Dumbledore didn't believe this at all, other than his curiosity about how Draco was getting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Of course, he wouldn't know, if Snape was his source of information regarding Draco, because Draco admitted to keeping Snape in the dark. It would have been easy to dismiss Harry's claims about the room of requirement because, if my mind serves me correctly, he never actually heard about that particular suspicion until the moment they were leaving to find the horcrux. In such a moment, such a silly suspicion would have been overlooked. I wouldn't be surprised if Dumbledore knew about this anyway, but didn't expect Draco to succeed in anything at all. Draco was notoriously bad at his plotting throughout the book, so it would not have been out of order for him to fail miserably.

As for number 2, the only evidence that Dumbledore didn't know about the Vow is his comment to Draco when Draco informed him of it. Draco was trying to convince Dumbledore of Snape's guilt at the time, and Dumbledore said something to the extent of: "Of course he would have told you that, but he was really working for me the whole time". After much thought, I've decided that this was Dumbledore being very wise. Draco is an enigma. Not in that we don't understand him at all, but in that, at that very moment, it was possible that he could have chosen either side. It would have been horrible foolish for Dumbledore to inform Draco that he already known everything about that Vow, for that vow would have been the key to Snape's loyalty. Dumbledore would have only known about that vow if Snape was 100% loyal to the Order. Letting Draco know this would have been folly. This doesn't even take into account the fact that Snape was much more valuable to the Order than Dumbledore was, especially if Snape waited until the last moment to show his true colors. In the final moments of Dumbledore's life, he was pleading with Snape. But there is no mention of 'surprise in dumbledore's once twinkling eyes' or some bullocks like that. The book only mentions Dumbledore's plead. "Severus, please...." A surprising lack of detail for such a crucial moment, don't you agree?


As for the next book, I can only forsee Harry's success as a surprising amount of luck and friends more talented than he is, because no one but Hermione will be able to help navigate the fortresses of doom that surround the remaining two horcruxes (nagini aside because she is probably near to her master. I honestly can't think of a very good use for Ron other than Human Shield or Distraction, but you never know.

My prediction about the deaths is this: Harry has rapidly run out of father figures in his life--first his father, then sirius, then Dumbledore. It would be folly for Rowling to kill off Lupin, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Moody, or Mr. Weasly gone. My thoughts are that the love affairs must stay intact: Tonks/Lupin, Hermione/Ron, and Harry/Ginny, even though we all want Harry to die, and we all know that Ron and Hermione will end up killing each other in the long run. McGonagal will probably live because it would be stupid to kill two headmasters in one series (even though Buffy did it). Hagrid is an either way. He's loved enough to be missed, but it's unlikely he will offend anyone particularly with his death. Moody might very well die, and it would be a fitting death. And it would be poetically depressing for one, or even both of the Weasly Twins to die, but I dearly hope not, because they're my favorites of all the brothers. I hope Percy dies, but it seems like it would be too good to be true. I doubt Rufus Scrimgeour will die. Same with the other unsavory ministry characters such as Umbridge. Draco will undoubtedly live and probably choose the right side.

For the moment, I'm done with predictions. I'll be sure to follow this up eventually with an "My Opinion After Deathly Hallows" post, where I will probably rant and rave about the book series being too much a childrens book for what it was evolving into, or how they killed my favorite character or something of the sort. Sigh.

My favorite character is Snape, by the way. he'll probably die. I hope it's in a way worthy of him.