[sugar and spice]

Okay -- continuing on with the "Why did Snape kill Dumbledore?" theory, we discussed this on a different board I post on. Many of them theorized that Dumbledore was silently begging Snape to kill him in that scene. After all, Dumbledore pleading for his life? It makes no sense coming from a guy who has said, "Death is but the next great adventure" and even had that talk with Harry in the cave about how people only fear death because it's the unknown, and that we shouldn't fear it. This also jives well with the fact that Harry calls Snape a coward later, and Snape freaks out: "I am not a coward!" If he had killed Dumbledore -- when he didn't really want to, but knew that he had to -- that would probably explain his reaction there.

Basically, the idea was that Dumbledore spent a lot of time stalling Draco so that Snape could show up, and that the fact that he wanted Snape to kill him was so that Draco wouldn't have to -- to set Draco's redemption in motion.

I'm not sure how I feel about this theory, considering that I figure Book Seven will include a suspenseful Snape/Harry face-off where Harry learns more about the Snape/Dumbledore relationship, and if the above speculation ends up being true, the only proof we will ever have that Snape isn't bad is his own word, which I don't think Harry will accept easily. Still, I think it makes more sense than the idea that Snape is a "bad guy."