I finished the book yesterday and I was crying like a baby. I really liked it. I don't think that Harry is a Horcrux though. So, is McGonagall going to be the new Headmistress? If so, do you thing that Hagrid will be the new Head of Gryffindor?

No I don't think Hagrid will be the head of Gryffindor, mainly, because he never "graduated". Remember he was "forced" out during his schooling (by voldemort) as was technically not suppose to do magic.

Maybe Lupin will come back as the DADA teacher............he's a Gryffindor.

Snape is not a bad guy, he's just.... misunderstood!

I'll tell you right upfront that Snape is my favorite character. I always had a thing for underdogs, and he truly is. He had a tough childhood.. was picked on.. and has a lot of "issues."

If you go back to HP and the OOTP, you'll remember when Snape was giving Harry Occlumency lessons, he removed some of his embarrassing memories that he didn't want Harry to know about. During one lesson, Malfoy interrupted and Snape left the room. Harry stuck his head in the Pensieve to find out that when Snape was a teen at Hogwarts, he was tormented by Harry's father and his gang of bullies. This explains why he loathes Harry.

I think this is significant because Snape was the innocent party here. I think the victim is going to turn out to be the victor-- in other words... he will save Harry in the end. I can't believe JKR would take someone who was oppressed and make them out to be the bad guy.

I also have more faith in the judgement of character of DD. I firmly believe he was pleading to Snape to kill him. We'll see why in book 7.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!

So stop pickin' on my man Snape! :)

I don't know about this one...remember how when DD died, his immobilization spell on Harry was broken? If he was really a Death Eater, wouldn't whatever spell he cast on himself been broken when he died? Then, you wouldn't have seen DD's body at the bottom of that tower, he would've turned back into whoever he really was.

About these horcruxes...We know of 5 of the 6. That last one, I definitely believe he'll want to make from Harry's death, but what's the object? He can't get something from both Rav. and Gryf., there's only room for one more (unless Nagini isn't a horcrux, but if DD thinks she is, then I believe it, too, there's just too much evidence of it). My thing is, if he can't get all 4 of the houses, why bother? I don't see Voldy as the type to only go for 3 of 4. Anybody?

Good point except that the Polyjuice is a potion not a spell, so who knows how that would work! LOL I guess it can work however JKR decides. ;) Or someone could've been impersonating Snape and he really is a good guy?? ugh...how long until book 7???

Sorry, this post isn't really about the Half-Blood prince, it's more about the whole series, though I think the Half-blood prince is relative to it.

Ok, so I sat down and really really thought about the whole picture the books are trying to paint here. JKR said in one of her interviews that instead of wondering why Harry lived, we should be wondering why Voldy didn't die. If the Aveda Kadavera really backfired, shouldn't he be dead? And JKR said the second thing we should be wondering is why that in OofP (all these acronyms for the books are confusing!) when Dumbledore had the chance to kill Voldy toward the end, he didn't. Why?

I know that I said the idea of Harry being a horcrux didn't hold water-- it doesn't because Voldy keeps trying to kill him. But what if something accidently happened when Voldy originally tried to kill him and accidently put a bit of his soul into Harry? It would explain why Voldy didn't die when the Aveda Kadavera backfired, and if Dumbledore had the slightest inkling that Harry might be a horcrux, he would have known that he wouldn't be able to destroy Voldy merely by killing the body he was in, if his soul was in several different places. And what if Voldy keeps trying to kill Harry because he doesn't know that Harry is part of him?

It's a very strange idea, but that might be the kind of plot twist JKR could go for. But I still maintain the idea that she can't kill off Harry, so that couldn't work. It will be very interesting to see what happens.

I thought it has been answered that the reason he didn't die was because he already had made several horcruxes before he attacked the Potters.

I think V kinda said something like that at the end of GOF. He pointed out that the spell SHOULD have killed him, but since it didn't, he knew that at least some of the steps he had taken toward immortality had worked.

Shouldn't the horcrux inside Voldemort already be destroyed since the curse he tried to kill Harry with failed? Wouldn't that have destroyed the Horcrux?

No, because that's his original soul. His body can't die until all the horcruxes have been destroyed.

Finally got the book finished on a plane flight late Saturday night. Wow!

A few random thoughts, sparked by comments above:

My first thought was that RAB was Mr. Burke (of Borgin and Burke's), but I think Regalus is probably a dead-on guess.

I didn't mind all the "snogging." These are teen-agers, and it was interesting how Harry's feelings about Ginny bacame just as important to him as the bigger story about HWMNBN.

I wanted DD to be right about Snape, but I'm not so sure he was asking Snape to kill him. I read his dialogue with Snape as the disappointing realization that he had been wrong about Snape, just as he was wrong about not telling Harry sooner. My guess is that JKR was typically careful about how she worded that scene so that it could be open to different interpretations.

Through it all, I kept remembering that Snape is a Slytherin. Aside from cunning and a penchant for the Dark Arts (and pure blood), isn't one of the traits that Slytherin prized placing self-interest above all else? Snape would perhaps, at all times, be working from his own self-interest.

There is still something we don't know about DD and Snape -- a reason why Snape trusted him. McGonnegal and the other Order members were talking about it after they learned that Snape killed DD, but they did not know what it was that DD knew.

DD is indeed dead, but with his portrait in the headmistresses' office, he can still be of service.

As for the "DD will never have truly left Hogwarts while some there remain loyal to him" comment, I thought it significant that Harry repeats that to the Minister after the funeral.

The theory about Harry or his scar being a Horcrux is an interesting one. What if HWMNBN was trying to create the last Horcrux when he tried to kill Harry, but because the curse went awry the attempt to create the Horcrux did as well? Maybe, if that is the case, HWMNBN doesn't realize that Harry or his scar is the last Horcrux.

I think Hogwarts will be open next for year 7, and Harry will be there, at least part of the time. Don't have too much to go on for that except this: Each of the books has a subtitle -- "Year # at Hogwarts." I doubt the last book will be "Year 7 Not at Hogwarts."

Or there just isn't a last horcrux because the killing backfired and Voldemort wouldn't have been able to make one related to Harry or his parents.

OMG ME TOO!!! And it was quite embarrasseing because I was reading on the beach lakeside and some little girl goes "Mommy mommy that girl is reading Harry Potter too! Just like you and me!" Then she comes over and sees my eyes all read and tears in the sand and she bursts into tears and screams "You got to the part where Dumbledore died too!" and then like 5 adults around me groan and mumble how they didn't finish it yet. The little girl's mom hadn't finished yet either.

I felt horrible.

I'll continue reading this thread before I say anything else. I just had to share that. At least I feel better that I wasn't the only adult who cried.

I bawled my eyes out for the last chapters of the book. Cried like a big old baby.

We should have a HP book club so we can all sit together and cry. LOL

The killing of Harry's father did not backfire....
What if, in a weird twist, the Horcrux is Harry's photoalbum? It was at the house that night, and we really don't know its history other than Hagrid said that he had to "fix it" before he gave it back to Harry in Book #1...
Ideas?
Silver