10 Thoughts on Harry Potter

Here's the picture of Hutch that has nothing to do with this subject...;)

I just did a drive to & from Dallas on Tue/Wed, and listened to Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince on audioCD. I'd already read the book twice, and I thoroughly enjoy listening to HP on CD, as Jim Dale does an astounding job reading them.

When I read, I read quite quickly and tend to skip over some of the nuances, perhaps. So I can read, for instance, HP #6 in about 10 hours. On CD, it takes 19 hours. So you get a lot of time to think even more about what's going on in the book.

So I wanted to put down a few of my thoughts on what happened in Book 6, just in case anyone else cares. For those of who who haven't read the book yet, I'm putting my thoughts in handy-dandy Invis-O-Text. Seriously, don't read the text if you haven't read the books, you will ruin a tremendous amount of your enjoyment. And stop whatever you're reading and go read them, darn it!

So, in no order of importance:

1. RAB is Regulus Black, Sirius' brother. I think everyone knows this. And the locket was back at the House of Black (they actually found it during the cleaning of the house on Book 5). Whether it's been stolen or not, that's another question.
2. Dumbledore is definitely dead. You can read between the lines and see that JK left the door open for him to be alive (for instance, only characters say that Dumbledore was killed, the "narrator" simply says he was cursed). But Harry's thoughts during the funeral are so representative of him "moving on" and accepting his future that it would be quite useless (and very disappointing for the critic in me) for Dumbledore to return.
3. Snape, on the other hand, is most definitely still working to kill Voldemort. He killed Dumbledore as ordered to by Dumbledore (the argument Hagrid overheard was Snape telling Dumbledore that he did not want to kill Dumbledore, and Dumbledore saying that he HAD to). Notice that I didn't say that Snape is "good". I'll get to that in a minute.
4. Snape does know the entire prophecy. Reread that section of the book.
5. Snape was in love with Harry's mom. This is why Voldemort tried to spare Lily, so that Snape could possibly have Lily. And Snape DOES feel horrible about HER death.
6. Remember Harry being told that Wormtail has a life debt to Harry? I think that those debts are passed down if not repaid, so Snape still has a life debt to Harry as well, thanks to James saving Snape's life.
7. So based on thoughts 3-6, I think that Snape swore a Unbreakable Vow to someone to not let Harry be killed. As the prophecy states that either Harry or Voldemort must die, this means that Snape is working to kill Voldemort. He is still not good, but that's not needed.
8. Who is the Someone? That's the hard part for me. You apparently need 3 people for the vow: The two bonded people, and someone to work the spell. Snape was 1 of the bonded, and Dumbledore was either the other bonded person, or the spellworker (this is why he trusts Snape). So who is the third person? Dumbledore's brother?
9. I think that the continuing beseeching of the Sorting Hat for the houses to join together means that Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Draco (yep), Luna Lovegood, and either Ernie McMillan or Susan Bones from Hufflepuff will end up fighting someone together in the last book.
10. I am VERY curious to see how the mirror that Sirius gave Harry plays a role in the final book.

So that's a few thoughts on this. Let me know what you think.