Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - the movie

Since the time I saw the movie at midnight with Sarah till now, I've had the chance to see it two more times. I haven't posted anything here about it because, quite honestly, I just forgot to do it. I've discussed it in other places and I've read other people's thoughts about it. What I have been doing is paging back through the book and making notes of the changes in the movie. But I'm not quite finished and probably won't post the whole thing. It's just been an interesting exercise for me.

SPOILERS ABOUND! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE, YOU SHOULD GO READ SOMETHING ELSE NOW.

For the most part, I really liked this movie - the first time and more each time I saw it. More than in any of the other movies, I found myself silently cheering when I recognized passages that were nearly the same as the book. Some were in the same part of the book, others were in different scenes, but they were there nonetheless.

The things that make me curious are how they are going to include all those important elements of Deathly Hallows in the next two movies, when they have left out so many things in all the first six movies. The house elves, for instance. We saw a lot of Dobby in Chamber of Secrets, and only a little of Kreacher in Order of the Phoenix. In the books we saw Dobby enough to either find him annoying or sometimes cute, but we still saw him. He was familiar and recognizable when we saw him in Deathly Hallows. We didn't need any explanation about who he was, how he was connected to Harry or why Harry would care about him so much, or why we would care so much about him at Shell Cottage. The big surprise with Kreacher in Deathly Hallows is that we DO care about him, when all we had seen before was a disgusting and irritating character who was definitely on the side of evil. Yes, he was in the Order of the Phoenix movie, but only barely, and not at all in Half-Blood Prince. Will people who haven't read the books, or haven't read them recently, remember why Kreacher is important?

But I'm jumping ahead. The opening scene in the movie took me by surprise until I realized they were showing the aftermath of the battle in the Ministry when Fudge finally has to acknowledge the return of Voldemort. Nicely done, even though that wasn't by the book. It worked well. So did the scene with the people in a meeting watching something they don't understand and then the bridge attack and collapse. In the book we are told that a bridge collapsed but it was off-screen, so this worked well in the movie. It also works to show that the Death Eaters have crossed that rule for wizards remaining out of sight of muggles. It's apparent that they aren't playing by the rules any longer, now that everyone in the wizard world knows Voldemort is back.

I really liked the scene at Spinner's End. Yes, it's in the daytime, but that doesn't really matter. Snape, brilliantly played by Alan Rickman, is perfect in every aspect of this scene. He conveys so much of what is in the book but not in the movie by a mere glance, hand gesture or tone of voice. I would like to have seen the listing by Snape of how he has remained faithful to Voldemort while seeming to be remorseful and loyal to Dumbledore. That was a nice set-up in the book that could have made the ending of the movie have more of an impact. The Unbreakable Vow was very well done, but I really wish that the questions had been asked by Narcissa rather than Bellatrix. (Mostly Helena Bonham Carter irritates me in this role, so less of her is better, IMO.) But the reason I found the scene so powerful in the book was that it was the distraught, anxious, loving mother who was pleading for help for her son. In the movie, it's clearly Bella who is trying to trap Snape by asking the questions. It still works, especially the way Snape so clearly hesitates and gives the slightest blanch at the last question. Again, that's Rickman at his best.

Another brilliant performance comes from Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn. He isn't at all like the Slughorn I pictured physically. In my mind, Sluggy looked like the little man on the Monopoly game. But Broadbent is marvelous in the role and adds, with just the right facial expressions, that sense that Slughorn isn't evil, just not strong enough to resist Voldemort, even though he clearly wants to. When we first meet him, it's very much like the book and I laughed when Dumbledore came back from the loo with his knitting pattern book.

Harry's arrival at the Burrow is a bit different, but it works well. Instead of finding out later at Hogwarts that some parents didn't want their children to return, it's discussed by the trio at the Burrow. And at some point we see the Death Eaters swoop into Diagon Alley and kidnap Ollivander, though his shop is trashed in the movie rather than neatly cleaned out, which, in the book, leaves people wondering about Ollivander's loyalties. But all that works in the movie. It shows the terror and the boldness of the Death Eaters without a lot of dialogue, making the sense of fear and urgency very obvious.

I loved all the scenes with Luna, but missed Neville. He wasn't in the book that much either, so I guess that's OK. The scenes with the Weasleys were great throughout the movie - just not always enough.

There were little details about the Potions book and the Half-Blood Prince that were in the movie, but not really enough of the mystery was explored as to who the Half-Blood Prince was. I was intrigued to see something about alchemy on one of the pages when Harry is reading the notes written in by the HBP. But I think they cut the ending way too short. Parts of it were OK. The Potions class scenes were a treat, but I really missed the scene in DADA with Snape. That would have been such a nice bookend to the first movie in his Potions class. I hope that is one of the deleted scenes that will be on the DVD.

The Cave scene was good, as far as it went, but the third time through the movie I counted the number of shells (not crystal goblets) that Dumbledore drank and came up with 5 to 7. It was hard to tell, as the last time that Harry dips in shows liquid left and then it is empty the next time we see it when he sees the locket. But it definitely wasn't twelve. And Dumbledore's distress is good, but doesn't include the line about it's his fault that they were hurt. Overall, Michael Gambon was much better in this movie than in the previous ones. His scenes with the young Tom Riddle were outstanding and the ones with Harry were better. I would have liked his hand to look more withered than it did, though.

Harry's not under the invisibility cloak when he and Dumbledore get back to the Tower after the Cave, and Dumbledore doesn't freeze him, but tells him to remain hidden and still. That works well with Harry's earlier promise,thankfully included in the movie, before they leave for the Cave. And as I thought about it later, it is a way to show that Harry, at that point, completely trusts Dumbledore and has faith in him. The silent caution from Snape is well done and I do like it. Most of what happens on the Tower, except that some of the DEs are different, is like the book. But it stops short of Dumbledore telling Draco that he can hide him from Voldemort. And the light when Dumbledore is hit by Avada Kedavra should have been defintely green rather than sort of green - same with the skull in the clouds.

Now, there is that moment when Harry arrives at the still body of Dumbledore with Ginny near him. Very well done. While I missed the funeral, and the mournful phoenix song and Harry pointing out how disloyal Snape was, I did like the wands raised in tribute to Dumbledore. What made it work for me was that when the light is directed upwards, the skull in the cloud dissapates. Light overcomes darkness. Good overcomes evil. Love overcomes hate. That theme is played out in a very visual way without someone having to explain it.

And what I really liked about the ending was that they were on the same Tower discussing Harry's plans and his need to have Ron and Hermione go with him. And then there was Fawkes, flying against the almost golden sky. Definitely not like the book, but it really worked well, as far as I was concerned.

The teen romance scenes were great. I thought it was all cast and played extremely well. Parts were funny and parts were poignant, just as all of us remember those years being. My favorite moments were the ones with Ron and Lavender. Jessie Cave doesn't look like the way I imagined Lavender, but she played the part so well. And the scene in Slughorn's office after Ron eats the love potion-laced candy was great. Just goes to show that Rupert Grint has a great sense of comedica talent and timing.

I loved all the regulars, especially Maggie Smith. She is like Rickman; she does so much with so little screen time. I loved her in the scene where she sends Harry and Ron off to their first potions class when she sees them loitering in the corridor. And the scene with the opal necklace is great with McGonagall and Snape and their reaction to Harry's wild thoughts about Draco. Back to Lupin and Tonks and the Weasley parents - I love all those characters in the book and love the way the actors portray them. It's too bad we don't see more of them, and I hope that with Deathly Hallows split into two movies, we will.

Then there is Tom Felton as Draco who had a much bigger role in the book and in the movie. They show it quite differently than the book. It was nice that they showed what was on his arm, so those of us who were convinced he'd become a werewolf had that mystery solved once and for all. And instead of Harry doing all the speculating about where Malfoy was going and what he was doing, we got to see it. If we'd had to just listen to Harry going on about Malfoy as he did in the book, I think it would have been irritating in the movie.

Just about the only scene I really didn't like was the burning of the Burrow. I loved the Christmas scene with Harry and Ginny and Ron. I loved Lupin and Tonks obviously being together and talking to Harry about Snape. I was even OK with the Death Eater attack and all of them being outside to fight them off. But what was the point of burning down the Burrow, a place that they're going to need in the next book. And then it was never mentioned again in the movie, so it really seemed like something added just for more action. What a waste when they could have made any of the other important scenes more complete.

I'm not sure I liked the kiss between Ginny and Harry. It was sweet, but I liked the suddeness of it in the book, and that it was a very public show that they were now a couple. And I suppose they can have Ginny show or tell Harry where she hid the Potions book, but the whole point of the scene in the book was to show the diadem, which we didn't see or hear of in the movie.

That is one thing the movie didn't do. It reminded us of the book and the ring and the locket as Horcruxes, and did a really good job of the memory with Slughorn, but we didn't get any hints about what the other Horcruxes might be. Something they did however, is to give a very visual hint that Harry is a Horcrux. That tic that he did throughout Order of the Phoenix and in Half-Blood Prince should prove useful in Deathly Hallows. Especially since he did it in this one and then Dumbledore makes some comment about magic leaving traces - or however he said it.

The scene at the end with Snape and Harry was good as far as it went. It just didn't go far enough. We saw Snape react to Bellatrix calling him a coward by saying he would make the Unbreakable Vow, but we don't see him react much to Harry when Harry calls him a coward. I really wanted to see Snape unhinged or at least the very controlled kind of reaction that Rickman gave in OP, but we didn't get it. We also didn't get his (Snape's) outrage over James's use of Snape's spells against Snape before Snape tells Harry that he is the Half-Blood Prince. Maybe they will include something about that in the next movie? I hope so.

In Prisoner of Azkaban, one of my favorite movie moments was the added scene on the bridge when Lupin is talking to Harry. And I have a favorite not-in-the-book moment in this movie as well. It's when Slughorn is telling Harry about the gift of a fish that he received from Lily and how it disappeared when she was killed. It made that whole scene of Harry telling Slughorn to be brave even better. I wonder if it is something that Kloves came up with or if it is something that Rowling had written and not included.

And just one more thing. I love the soundtrack for this movie. I listened to it when it was on-line the week before the movie opened and bought it the day it was released. I've listened a number of times and like all of it. I am sorry that Nicholas Hooper will not be back to score the final two movies, and unlike many, I hope that John Williams is not back to finish up. I like some of what he has done, but his soundtracks all sound so much alike that I'm often not sure which movie it is. I had to look the other day to see that it was E.T. on the radio and not one of the other movies he has done. Maybe with Yates the editing will be better if Williams returns. I like it much better when the music is a subtle part of a scene and doesn't overpower the action or the dialogue, which Williams's scores tend to do.

So, I look forward to seeing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at least one more time in the theater and then to buying it when it's released on DVD in the fall. And that will put us even closer to the first part of Deathly Hallows, which I hope will be the best of the Harry Potter movies yet.

Pat

Snape and. . . no, it's mostly Snape

Over at the Leaky Cauldron, there is a post about a recent interview by J.K. Rowling in which she says that Dumbledore and Snape are the most important characters, aside from the trio. It was nice to hear her say that, as so many of us have thought just the same thing. The ensuing "conversation" however has turned into the silliness that prompted me to stop posting on several forums where I had once been very active. So I won't provide a link. If you want to wade through all of it, you'll have to find it on your own.

However, it did get me started on posting some of my thoughts about the series. My current reading is in Order of the Phoenix, a little more than half-way on. (Harry has just seen the initial response to his interview published in the Quibbler.) So, the following is what I wrote, which intentionally doesn't respond to the poster who is only interested in irritating people and in arguing.

***


Rhiannon said: "Eeyore It is good to see you again. I thought you had left us."

Thank you and no, I haven't left. I actually check for news here every day. I don't comment much anymore, but sometimes read through the comments. In reading through the comments on this one, I'm reminded of the reason that I am not active on the forum any longer. After I finished Deathly Hallows, it was so complete for me, and I found the ending so satisfying, that I had to stop reading all the criticisms from others. Yes, I had my little nitpicks, but they weren't important enough for me to ruin the feelings I had at the end of my favorite series of books. And I read all the time, and have all my life.

I think that one of the things that bothered me the most was Harry's use of the Unforgivables toward the end of DH. But when I started thinking about it, it was a vivid picture of the horror of war. They were fighting for their lives and watched others being tortured or senselessly killed, and they reacted in whatever way they could think of. War has a way of dehumanizing even the best of people. Was the use of Unforgivables right? No. But that does happen in war; good, moral people make bad choices that they would ordinarily never consider. At the very end, though, in facing Voldemort, Harry did not use an Unforgivable Curse. Instead he didn't even use a curse that was intended to harm, but used a defensive spell. A spell that would protect him, and interestingly enough, it was a spell that he had first learned from Snape. Nice touch, that one.

I found Snape to be one of the most fascinating of Rowling's characters, because he was the most complex and his story unfolded so slowly for us. But the clues were there from the beginning. If there wasn't something hidden in Snape's past concerning Harry, why would Snape hate him from the first book. It was in rereading POA, though, and especially in OP that I started to see that people who saw that Snape loved Lily were right. Snape always raged against James and Sirius, sometimes against Lupin by association, but never once said a word against Lily. Harry was the one who made those jumps, assuming that Snape also hated his mother.

Snape very much resembles the character of Sydney Carton in "A Tale of Two Cities" by Dickens (another literary character who is rather nasty to others and not very likeable), and once I saw that, I knew that Snape was on some sort of sacrificial path because of his love for Lily, just as Carton willingly sacrificed himself to save Lucy and her family. That book has the best redemptive ending of any book I've ever read.

Lily befriended Snape when he was younger and looked a bit odd, when Petunia saw him as "that awful boy" (the other thing that convinced me that Snape loved Lily). I was glad to see that Lily returned his friendship, and that it wasn't completely one-sided. She tried to stand up for him, and was called a horrific name (the wizarding version of a racial slur), and she did listen to him later. But in the end, she chose her own path in life just as Snape did. She saw her childhood friend getting in deeper and deeper with dark wizards that she saw as being on an evil path, and even after she talked to Snape and tried to warn him , he refused to veer from his own chosen path.

It was one of the saddest things in the books for me. Snape, with his unhappy childhood, ended up being influenced by those in his house who were happy to use his considerable talent to their own purposes. I can't imagine that they really liked him as a person, given that he was from a poor family and was not a pure-blood. But people who have been bullied for so long and pushed out sometimes will follow anyone who gives them the promise of power. And those who are bullied sometimes become the bully, which is just what we saw with Snape. Like Dumbledore, I have to wonder, would Snape have turned out differently had he been sorted into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw? (yeah, I can't see him in Hufflepuff at all. LOL) I think it could have made the difference because he might have been more influenced by Lily and wouldn't have had the opportunity to spend so much time with the Lestranges and future Death Eaters.

Once he knew that he was the one responsible for Lily's death, he did repent (just as Sydney Carton did), and then Snape spent the rest of his life trying to atone for his part in the death of the only person he ever loved or respected. But he was still the solitary soul he had been as a child and he'd never learned how to reach out to others. He still saw any emotional vulnerability as a weakness because he knew how Voldemort would use it.

And what does Snape have every day of the term for seven years (well, six really)? He sees the face of the student who bullied him just because he could, and the eyes of the one person he loved. Instead of seeing that Harry was much more like Lily than like James, Snape is stuck in that adolescent hatred. Sirius was no better, as he was never able to let go of his hatred against Snape. Neither of them had the chance to "grow up" because of the circumstances surrounding the death of Lily and James. Because of that one tragedy, Sirius ends up in Azkaban for twelve years and then in hiding for two more; Snape ends up truly regretting the part he played and repents and does what is right in trying to protect Harry. But Snape was never really able to forgive himself.

Are there any perfect characters in Harry Potter? No. That is the brilliance of the books. Jo gave us heroes and villains who are all flawed and so very human. Just as we are all flawed and very human. Jo gave us something much better than cardboard cut-outs of good guys and bad guys. In giving us realistic characters, she has also given us the opportunity to explore how people in real life interact. And she has pointed the way for seeing the wrongs in our own world through not resolving all the issues in hers.

Sorry to run on so long. I promise I won't do it again. Well, I'll try to refrain from it anyway. ;-)

Pat

What determines who is a hero?

If you haven't found the interesting discussions over at Sword of Gryffindor, you've really been missing out. Travis's latest pubcast is concerning whether Severus Snape can be considered a hero.

Now for Snape--please forgive the extreme length, but I'm one of those who find him to be the most enigmatic of all the characters. (A shape shifter, as Travis defines in his PubCast #34, might be the most appropriate explanation for who Snape is--ever changing, always a problem for the hero, etc.)

No, I don't want to be like him, and I certainly hope I never even meet anyone like him, nor would I have wanted him as a teacher. I am as appalled as Rowling when young girls or women talk of wanting to marry Snape--makes me shudder to think of it. He is not a nice man, no matter how you view him, and he wasn't about to change for anyone, especially since we learn that he wouldn't change (his choice of thuggish friends), even for Lily.

As an adult, Snape doesn't even seem to have friends among his colleagues. They show him respect, but friendship? Hardly. Other than his unique friendship with Dumbledore, and as we found out in Deathly Hallows, his childhood friendship with Lily, Snape led a very solilary life--and probably would have done even if he hadn't turned spy.

I expected to learn more about Snape's life with his parents, but I was absolutely OK with not getting that in this story. Rowling had given us the hints that Snape was from an abusive home, that he was bullied by his peers and that he was a loner. The piece that was missing was that he did have one friend, and apparently it was a real friendship, marred as friendships sometimes are, by the choices that he made.

A side note here--Travis at SoG, quoted from MacDonald. I don't have the quote, but it is something to the effect that, as readers we get out of a story different things, because we bring our own individual experiences to the story and the characters; we may even find something in a story or a particular character that the author did not intend. As individual readers, we sometimes get something completely different out of a story because of our own experiences. And perhaps that's the reason I feel some empathy for Snape. (No, I don't have greasy hair, a sallow skin and a hooked nose and Death Eaters for former friends.) I did, however, have a friend who was, to put it plainly, just odd. Not abused in any way, rather she probably had too many advantages, most of which she did not appreciate. But she was always like a square peg trying to fit into a smaller round hole. We were very different, but for some reason we were best friends for three or four years, and then she made a choice that ended the friendship. The situation was different for Snape, of course, as he loved Lily; whether or not Lily felt the same was never quite clear, but implied. But she at least seemed to love him as a friend. When she told him she couldn't abide his choice of friends, I knew how that felt (even though for Snape it was love, and for me it was a friendship) because I had felt that same disappointment of feeling betrayed by my friend's choice. (She stole my boyfriend, actually--not a good thing for a best friend to do. Turning Death Eater might have been easier for me to accept-- er, well, maybe not.)

My point is that I think we do find ourselves identifying more with some characters than with others. In the beginning of the books, I identified very much with Harry; (again, there was no abuse in my life, only love and a caring family) but I was adopted and didn't know anything about my birth parents. That's where that character identification stopped for me, except that my adoptive dad died when I was ten--so I did somewhat understand how Harry felt about not having parents.

However, the time that Harry spent in front of the Mirror of Erised brought tears to my eyes, as I thought of what I would see. It would be my mother, who had died in 1996, three years before I started reading Harry Potter. And then hearing later that it was Jo's favorite chapter, for much the same reason as mine, resonates incredibly with my own feelings and understanding of what it feels like to be without parents. I miss my mother still, and like Jo, would like just five more minutes with her, or a bit of time looking into the Mirror of Erised.

There are other things in all the books that are particularly poignant to me and that I seem to understand differently than some readers who are younger who have not experienced the death of parents or grand parents. Especially the thestrals--that was another moment when I felt so close to Luna and Neville and Harry, having seen someone die when I was a child. It was my grandfather. Apart from my parents, he was my favorite person in the world, and I was the one who found him when he was dying. So whenever I think of thestrals, I think of that late afternoon fifty years ago.

I know that many readers had problems with the manner in which Snape died, even those who expected that he would. Part of the problem IMO, is that some are too tied to their own theories, especially those who read or write a lot of fan fiction. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with fanfic--I've enjoyed some of it. But when it changes the way a reader understands the author's story and characters, then the fanfic has been damaging. I think that's where some of the dissatisfaction arises, with the cruel way Snape was killed, and that it needn't have happened at all. There was no glory, no heroic sort of scene, and after Harry and Snape looked into each others' eyes--a scene which I found so very powerful, Harry and Ron and Hermione rushed off, leaving this fallen hero alone, in a place that held the unpleasant memories of his childhood enemies.

While I get their point, I think they have missed the bigger point with Snape's death, as well as with the deaths of Sirius in OP, and of Remus and Tonks, and even Fred. In the middle of a war, particularly a civil war being fought on the grounds of their school (the stand-in for their homes), not every death is going to have the honor and significance of Dumbledore's or Dobby's deaths. War is ugly; it is not fair; it is not a respector of the worth of a person's life. And war does not stop and wait while we properly mourn for our beloved and fallen friends and families.

Snape had spent the rest of his life, after Lily was killed, full of remorse, and trying to atone for his unintentional betrayal of the only person he ever loved, or who ever loved him. Sirius had found his friends and his god son and should have had some happiness after twelve years of misery and two years in hiding. Remus and Tonks had finally found each other, and had a son to raise (though, looking at the alchemical imagery of the story, I knew they were toast as soon as they had Teddy). And Fred. Fred, at the moment of reconcilliation with his brother Percy, having a laugh, was killed as well.

Senseless deaths? Some think so, from what I've read on a few forums. All of those characters deserved to live and grow old, or they all deserved to have some sort of glorious death--isn't that what happens in the movies? The good guys all come out on the other side, perhaps injured or scarred, but OK, and the bad guys either die or get what's coming to them. Neat and tidy, and totally unrealisitc.

The best thing about Rowling's books is that she's not writing unbelievable stories with glorious deaths, or allowing characters to live because just because we like them; it wouldn't be at all realistic in the middle of a war if there were no deaths of nice people. And for her readers to feel what that means, if they haven't expereinced the loss of a family member or friend to the tragedy of war, Rowling had to kill off some of the characters we loved, or at the very least, that we respected or for whom we felt empathy.

Of course, I wasn't happy that Snape died--I wasn't happy that any of my favorite characters died either. Those deaths, however, make the point of the senselessness of deaths during war time, the randomness, the unfairness, the injustice of it all. The Epilogue shows us the model (young readers especially), that survivors must go on with their lives; they cannot live in a state of mourning forever. But we also must remember those who died and honor them in significant ways, meaningful ways that remind the next and future generations that honorable people died to preserve their freedoms. Harry naming his son after Albus and Severus, and his comments about Severus being the bravest man he ever knew, was better than any elaborate funeral or monument. By that one act and that one comment, Rowling filled in the missing pieces of Snape's death. Harry venerated him during his final battle with Voldemort, in front of all assembled in the Great Hall, and then he let his son (and all of us) know that he had forgiven Snape and understood just how brave he had been.

I think one of the other things that I took away from Deathly Hallows, was that not every hero has to be acting for the noble reasons we expect from heroes. Harry, who was the hero of the story, did act selflessly to save others, throughout the books. Ron and Hermione had their moments, though they were sometimes heroic because of their loyalty to their friend, rather than acting for the greater good.

Neville turned out to be very much like Harry in his actions, and I loved it. It showed that he very well could have been the "Chosen One", another pointer to our choices being more important in defining who we are.

Fred and George were heroic in their own way; Percy came through in the end. Ginny and Luna were heroes as well. Many of the adults were heroes, but some fought for noble reasons and others fought to save their families or their way of life.

Dumbledore, who had always seemed to have the most pure motives of all, turned out to not be our perfect hero, and often told Harry so. Outwardly, he seemed to be doing everything for the good of all, while in reality, it was much more personal, and so very private, for Dumbledore. He fought, not out of the purity of his heart, but because of the choices he'd made because of the darkness of his heart.

That leads us full circle back to Severus Snape. Snape did many heroic things in fighting against the Death Eaters and Voldemort. In some ways, his sacrifices and deeds far surpassed those of any of the other heroes. He fought his battle without ever receiving the recognition that was his due, except from Dumbledore, and posthumously from Harry.

I wish I could remember who said that heroes are ordinary men who do extraordinary things. It's not the obviously brave and strong who are the real heroes, but those who aren't, those who are flawed human beings, who do something in their life that earns them the distinction of being called a hero. And that's how I see Severus Snape--a loner, a man in need of redemption (as we all are), but a man who in the end, made the right choices to fight against evil. Did he do it for the noble reasons that we saw with Harry or with Neville? No. Severus Snape felt the pain of his own guilt, felt true remorse, and he sought forgiveness from the one person he had loved--Lily. He literally gave his life because he loved Lily, and in doing so he found his redemption. The more I think of it, his death was very much like that of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities. Carton, a character who reminded me of Snape even before I read Half-Blood Prince, acted to save someone he didn't care only because he loved Lucy. And no one knew what he had done at the time of his death. All his imaginings were just that. He could only envision that his name and heroism would be known later. As readers we were left hoping and believing that Carton got the honor and recognition he deserved for his sacrificial death; in Deathly Hallows" we learned that Snape was honored as a hero, in the best possible way.

Let's all raise our glasses to all the heroes of Deathly Hallows, as well as those of the first six Harry Potter books, be they noble and pure of heart like Harry, or the flawed and remorseful heroes--those who are much more like most of us, if we are to be entirely honest.

Pat

Random thoughts with 61 days till Deathly Hallows

I'm in a reading group for Order of the Phoenix at the Leaky Lounge. I really have enjoyed that process of re-reading all the books slowly and discussing them. The guided discussion has brought up things in all the books that I've not thought of, even though I have read each book so many times I really have lost count. For a while, I was re-reading them because I enjoyed them so much, then I read all of them again in preparation for whichever book was coming out. And that's where I am now.

Even though we haven't finished OotP--and won't till just before DH--I've decided to start re-reading Half-Blood Prince. It was kind of a shock when I realized that we've had that one now for almost two years. During the last two years, I've kept reading Harry Potter but I've also rediscovered English literature and have read quite a lot of Austen, Trollope, Hardy and some Dickens. I've managed to also read a lot of C.S. Lewis and three books by Charles Williams. His were the hardest to read, but the imagery was sometimes so strikingly similar to things that Rowling has used in Harry Potter.

I won't do it tonight, but I want to put down my thoughts on Half-Blood Prince as I do this last re-reading before July 21. I've taken to reading with a pencil in hand so I can make notes in the margins. The second chapter, "Spinner's End", looks like Harry's Advanced Potions book with all the notes from the Prince. Mine however, are just notes, and nothing sinister like Sectumsempra. The other thing that I have started doing is highlighting in green all the things that Severus Snape says or the times that he is mentioned--which I underline instead. Clearly, if I want a nice looking book, I will have to buy another one. Whether Snape turns out to be on the good side, which I think he is, or on the bad side, it seems clear that his character is important to the culmination of the Harry Potter series. The underlining that I'm doing is my effort to not miss something crucial. We'll see whether that works or whether it's going to just result in my having a book that would send Madam Pince into a tirade about defacing books.

It will probably be Monday before I post anything again. It's almost 2 am now, and I have church later this morning. We usually spend Sunday afternoons with our kids, and I'm just not on the computer as much. So------till Monday, then.

TTFN
Pat

Severus Snape--just who is he, anyway?

All Harry Potter conversations seem to eventually get round to Severus Snape. Who is he? Whose side is he really on? Is he still a Death Eater? Was he ever really a Death Eater? Is he loyal to Dumbledore and the Order or only to Dumbledore, and where will his loyalties lie, now that Dumbldore is dead?

I'm not going to tackle all of those questions, but we have been having an interesting discussion on the comments section of the Lexicon, ever since they posted a Happy Birthday to Severus Snape. Go to the HP Lexicon, and scroll down to the January 8 posting about Severus Snape's birthday wishes on JKR's site, and read the discussion going on in the comments section--long and lengthy, but very interesting.

Following are some of the things that I've posted, in response to some of the other comments. But mostly, I'm trying to sort through my own thoughts about Severus Snape and really want them all in one place--this seemed to be the best place to sort things out.

***********
(Even though it was posted on January 8, Snape's birthday on J.K. Rowling's official site is listed as January 9.)

I’m on the side that thinks that Snape will ultimately turn out to be Dumbledore’s man–whether he has always been or not, is still not at all clear. But that being said, I could be totally wrong.
I have noticed that we now know Tom Riddle’s birthday, but he didn’t show up on the birthday calendar, did he? So maybe that exclusion tells us more about Snape than Snape’s inclusion.
I also think it’s interesting to note that those two birthdays are in “mid-winter”, and the description that Trelawney gives of a dark young man (in GOF?) (well, Voldemort wouldn’t be considered young any more, I wouldn’t think) and later in HBP of the one who dislikes her could apply to Snape as well as to Harry. It could be a very clever misdirection on Rowling’s part that we assume that both times Trelawney is making some sort of prediction about Harry, when it may refer to Snape instead.
Eeyore
— January 8, 2007 @ 8:32 pm

***
There is an explanation that shows that Dumbledore’s death was inevitable–actually had already happened–and that Snape wasn’t killing him on the Tower, but releasing him from the “Stoppered Death” that had happened when Dumbledore destroyed the ring Horcrux.

Here’s a link that explains it more fully:
http://quoththemaven.blogspot.com/2005/08/stoppered-death.html

It was also discussed at the Leaky Lounge, though I don’t think quite as in depth as the Barnes and Noble class that I was part of the July and August after Half-Blood Prince came out. Basically, Cathy Liesner’s idea was that Snape was able to do something to prevent Dumbledore’s death when he destroyed the ring Horcrux, but that it didn’t heal him–it only delayed his imminent death. All of that goes back to the first Potions lesson where Snape tells the class that he can teach them to “bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death–if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.” (PS/SS, US version p. 137)

We’ve seen other things from that lesson become very important–that bezoar keeps showing up–but we haven’t seen or heard any more about stoppering death.

One of the things that makes this theory so plausible is the drastic change in Dumbledore’s approach to Harry. He spends most of Harry’s 6th year teaching him and showing him all that he knows, as if his time is limited. He can’t seem to wait for Harry to figure all this out on his own–likely, because he won’t have unlimited time. That withered hand is prominent throughout the book–I think it’s there to remind us that Dumbledore is mortal and there are some injuries even beyond Dumbledore’s power to heal or change.

When Harry and Dumbledore returned from the Cave, Dumbledore insisted that Harry find Severus–no one else. Why? Because Dumbledore knew that he was near death and wanted Severus to try to prolong his life a little bit. However, he hadn’t counted on Draco mucking things up by actually letting Death Eaters into the castle. And the agreement that Dumbledore had with Severus (not the formal Professor Snape), was that if the time came that Snape had to fulfill the Unbreakable Vow that he would do it–Dumbledore wanted very much to protect his students, even one as disloyal as Draco. If Snape merely released Dumbledore from a spell that was buying him some more time, then Snape didn’t murder him either. and by preventing Draco from doing the killing, Draco’s soul is not damaged.

Yes, Dumbledore is important to Harry, but if you remember, there were other times when Dumbledore was not at Hogwarts and Harry muddled through. He is now much better prepared, thanks to Dumbledore having had nearly a year to teach him a lot about Tom Riddle, the Horcruxes, how to trust his own abilities and instincts.

Torrill, you are right–Dumbledore doesn’t fear death as the worst thing out there, but he did what he could to buy some time to give Harry the information that he is going to need. I don’t think that Dumbledore really expected that whatever Snape did when that hand was damaged and he nearly died was going to last a long time. I agree that Snape and Dumbledore didn’t want things to unfold the way they did on the Tower, but that the look of revulsion was because Snape had promised that if it became necessary, Snape would release the spell that would then allow Dumbledore to die.
Dumbledore was dying from the potion he drank in the Cave, and he knew that. What would have been the point of having both Dumbledore AND Snape end up dead, which would have happened had Snape refused to kill (or appear to kill) Dumbledore with the Death Eaters right there, willing to do the killing themselves. Draco had the chance and couldn’t do it (much to his credit, and possibly his ultimate redemption), but Greyback would have relished the opportunity to kill Dumbledore.
So rather than Dumbledore pleading for his life, that “Severus please” was a plea for Severus to let him go–something that must have been so painful as Dumbledore was the only one who really trusted Snape, and the only one who knew why Snape left Voldemort in the first place.

As for the Unbreakable Vow, I don’t think that Snape did have any other choice. Perhaps if he had had a day or two to think about it, he could have come up with some reason not to take it, but Bellatrix was just waiting for him to show that he wasn’t trustworthy after all. She would have run straight to Voldemort with news of that one–any opportunity to show LV that she was his most loyal follower and not Snape would have given her the greatest satisfaction. I don’t think that Narcissa really had any idea of the trap that the UV set for Snape, though–only Bella could see that one. But once the Vow was made, Snape didn’t have any other choice.

Someone else mentioned that it would take something very powerful for any of the Order, and especially Harry, to ever trust Snape again. I know I’m not the only one to come up with this, but isn’t it possible that if Harry sees Fawkes, who was so loyal to Dumbledore, show loyalty to Snape that Harry would finally get it? I actually don’t think it can be anything less than that. Fawkes may very well spend his time with the two people who showed Dumbledore the strongest loyalty–Harry and Severus Snape.
— January 13, 2007 @ 1:00 pm

****
It could be that Lily was Snape’s only friend–and for a kid who was such a loner and so picked on by the brightest stars in the school, that could have been enough. Yes, he hung around with Bella and her crowd, but whether they were really friends of Snape’s or whether they just found him useful because of his extensive knowledge of the Dark Arts is questionable–my guess is that they didn’t really consider him a friend either.

I’ve thought for a while that Petunia was referring to Snape as “that awful boy”. Snape, after all, is a half-blood, and would have had no trouble figuring out how to visit a fellow classmate who was muggle born–and if Lily had been nice to him in Potions class, or they had become friends, it’s possible he might have wanted to talk to her over the summer. Whether it was a romantic attachment or just a friendship, it doesn’t much matter; finding out that he (Snape) had betrayed the one friend he had might have been enough to make him go to Dumbledore.

When Snape first looked at Harry, the pain was from the back of Quirrell’s head facing him where Voldemort was residing. The reason that Harry felt Snape looked at him with hatred probably had a lot more to do with Harry looking just like his father–a topic which always seems to send Snape off the deep end. Harry would be a constant reminder of the student who made his life miserable and the one who made his life tolerable.

Friendship or love of Lily must make Snape’s feelings very conflicted every time he sees Harry, who seems to Snape to act more like his father. Too bad the two of them can’t ever seem to talk about what they are really thinking, as we’re guessing that Harry is really more like his mother–especially after Harry’s foolish entry into Snape’s memories in OP–if Snape had only let him apologize, as he seemed about to do, a lot might have been cleared up between the two of them. At some point, I really hope that they are both able to forgive one another, and that Snape is able to forgive the marauders. There’s a lot of need for redemption before Harry can use that power of love to defeat Voldemort–and most of it involves Harry coming to terms with his feelings for Snape–whenever Harry is blinded by his hatred, he makes some very poor choices. He needs to come to terms with Snape, who he now hates more than Voldemort, before he can face the task of defeating Voldemort.

Well, that’s water under the bridge now. We can only wait to see what happens with all of them in Deathly Hallows. But I still think there is much more to Snape’s tortured response when Harry called him a coward out on the grounds. Imagine being called a coward for doing the thing that Dumbledore wanted him to do, made him promise to do.
— January 13, 2007 @ 4:26 pm

****
Have you ever done a search on the Lexicon for “Snape”? It’s clear, when there are so many links to him, that we all find him to be the one character that is the most interesting–and the one that we cannot figure out.

I think, Nannette, that your assessment of Snape at Spinner’s End is just what we see on the surface, and it is what Snape wants Narcissa and Bellatrix to see (and where Rowling tries to mislead us into mistrusting him after she brilliantly made most of us trust him after OP).
But he is a spy, after all–I tend to think he is loyal to Dumbledore and to the Order. But it is the job of a spy to get the enemy to trust him and to give him information that he can’t get any other way. That comment that Snape made that he already knew the plan was a way of getting the sisters to go ahead and say more than they might have otherwise–and it worked on Narcissa. She didn’t give him all the information (as to who Draco was supposed to kill), but enough. However, Snape is good enough at reading other people to know that he still had not won Bella’s trust. He had no way of knowing that Narcissa would come up with the Unbreakable Vow or what conditions she would impose. So when he agreed to it, I don’t think he ever intended it to go that far. But once they had started and he had agreed to the first two, he was trapped into the third one of completely the task if Draco could not–saying yes was his only way of ensuring that Bellatrix would not run to Voldemort with evidence that Severus Snape wasn’t loyal after all–which is exactly what she wanted to do. After all, Snape seems to have replaced her in being the “Dark Lord’s” favorite–at least, that’s what Snape led her to believe.

When he looked out of the window after the sisters arrived, I think he was likely looking to make sure there weren’t a whole host of Death Eaters out there waiting–or could there have been some members of the Order, keeping watch, and that was a signal?

The point is, that everything the man does and says can be taken either way, and that’s the job of a spy, to appear loyal to whatever side he is dealing with at the time. One other odd thing about that scene at Spinner’s End, is that at one point Snape refers to himself in the third person, something about the Dark Lord knowing that he could trust Severus Snape. I heard once that when politicians do that, it’s a sign that they shouldn’t be trusted–it’s a way of detaching oneself from the persona that they put forth. And I wondered when I first read HBP if Snape said it that way intentionally, to call attention to who Voldemort thinks he is, rather than who he really is.

I do think that our best clues are in the things that Snape hasn’t done–he didn’t provide Umbridge with real Veritaserum when she tried to get information out of him and he did get the clue from Harry about Sirius and the Ministry, cryptic as it was. All he had to do in that instance was absolutely nothing. How easy would it have been to let Harry and the others trundle off to the Ministry to the waiting arms of Lord Voldemort, with no one the wiser. All he would have had to do later was to say that he had no idea what Potter was talking about.

He did try to protect the trio from Lupin, the werewolf–by going to the Shrieking Shack. But that image of him standing in front of them once they were back out and Lupin transformed was from the movie, not the book. However, he had another opportunity to get rid of Harry, while Harry was still unconscious (and so was everyone else) after all the dementors showed up. It was Snape who came to and transported them all back to the castle–were he truly evil, he could have got rid of Harry and Sirius at that point.

And of course, as Ellha David points out, Snape is still trying to teach Harry what he needs to do to protect himself–and there was another opportunity when he could have either harmed Harry or kidnapped him for the “Dark Lord”. Yet he didn’t–by fleeing, he got the Death Eaters away from the castle and all the rest of the students, he will be able to protect Draco (maybe), and Harry is still alive and out of the clutches of Voldemort.
****
The whole question of bullying is one that I think Jo has included intentionally. We are set up to admire and like James and Sirius–the stars of the school. Why do other people ignore their awful behaviour? Well, that’s what happens with bullies very often. As long as someone isn’t their target, they don’t try to stand up to them, feeling that if they don’t make them mad, then they won’t be on the receiving end of the bullying–and there’s Snape, the loner, getting picked on. Most teens don’t want to risk their own popularity or acceptance by standing up for the person who is the target of the school heroes. It’s to Lily’s credit that she at least tried. But I agree with Lisa Marie, that Lily probably did have a crush on James even then. Once he seemed to be better behaved, then she wouldn’t have found him so irritating. Many people who are bullies do finally grow up and turn out to be fairly decent people.

The question, really, is what happens to the victims of the bullies. Some of them are able to put it in their past and move on, and others are so deeply scarred that it affects everything they do for the rest of their lives. And I think that is what we see with Severus. There is also some indication in the memories that Harry saw of his childhood that Snape may have been abused as a child. Perhaps that’s the reason he knew so much about the Dark Arts before he came to Hogwarts–either he was taught by his mother or he learned it on his own to defend himself against his father. I remember when I was teaching there was a little 7 year old boy who would fight anyone over anything. He did come from an abusive home, and it was his way of protecting himself–strike first, at the slightest provocation, before the other kids had a chance to get the upper hand. That’s very much what I see in Severus Snape.

I can’t quite get to the point of saying that he loved Lily romantically. Though, if she did befriend him–perhaps in 6th year Advanced Potions–Snape might have felt the love of friendship for her or even had a crush on her. There was so much mention of Lily being so good at Potions, and being Slughorn’s favorite, that I just think that Snape, who we know is also very good at Potions, may have been thrown together with Lily, and they became friends. That could have been the reason he went to Dumbledore–finding out that his best friend, perhaps the only true friend he had at school, had been betrayed on his information.

There is a bitterness and cynicism in Snape’s admonitions to Harry during Occlumency about fools wearing their hearts on their sleeves being prey to the Dark Lord that have always made me think that it is just that sort of thing that trapped him into joining the Death Eaters in the first place. And as others have mentioned, in all the times that Snape lashes out at or against any of the marauders, and especially against James and Sirius, there is not one time that he includes Lily. Harry is the one who makes the assumption that Snape hated his mother as well–Snape never says that. Lupin was so distraught at the end of HBP that he let that comment go by, but I’d guess that when he really thinks about it, he knows that Snape didn’t hate Lily either.

Sorry for the length, but you all brought up such interesting things about our enigmatic Severus Snape.
— January 17, 2007 @ 3:35 pm

What is Severus Snape's Patronus?

I touched on this the other day when I posted something about the title for the 7th book--Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I like saying the name--somehow it feels right, even though we haven't a clue--well, no certain clues--what it's meaning holds. And as many thoughts about the Harry Potter books does, I'm led once again to thinking about Severus Snape--who is he, what is his role in the book, what was his real relationship with Dumbledore--the list of unanswered questions is long.

One of the unanswered questions is just what would Severus have for a Patronus. In answering a question about Patronuses, Rowling told us that each person's Patronus is unique, just as each of us is unique, and that the person doesn't choose which Patronus he or she has.

The subject of what Patronus Snape would have is a long one over at the Leaky Lounge. The following is my post in the discussion.

*****

In re-reading part of Order of the Phoenix, I was struck by the description of thestrals. Even though we saw thestrals, along with Harry, when they returned to Hogwarts, we first learn what they are in Chapter 21, "The Eye of the Snake", when Hagrid takes the COMC into the forest for a lesson.
But I found it useful to look at the different times we saw thestrals, and their description. Harry first saw them pulling the carriages when they returned to Hogwarts, but didn't know what they were. He's quite surprised to learn that he could see something that Ron and apparently most of the others, couldn't--except Luna.

OP, p. 196-7, US version:

There were creatures standing between the carriage shafts; if he had to give them a name, he supposed he would have called them horses, though there was something reptilian about them, too. They were completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and satring. Wings sprouted from each wither--vast, black leathery wings that looked as though they ought to belong to giant bats. Standing still and quiet in the gathering gloom, the creatures looked eerie and sinsiter.

And on page 199, when Luna says she can see them too, and that Harry is not going mad, he says:

"Can you?" said Harry desperately, turning to Luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide, silvery eyes."

We've heard Snape described as bat-like often enough in the books that quite a few people thought he must be a vampire bat, until Jo shot down that theory. But with all the swooping about that he does, and the sinister manner he has, he is very much like the thestrals--giving the first impression of something mysterious and eerie.

The next time Harry sees a thestral, it is flying over the Forbidden Forest--he has gone to the Owlery to send Sirius a letter, and as he looks out towards the Forest he sees it(OP, p. 282):

A great, reptilian winged horse, just like the ones pulling the Hogwarts carriages, with leathery black wings spread wide like a pterodactyl's, rose up out of the trees like a grotesque, giant bird. It soard in a great circle and then plunged once more into the trees."

But as Cho then enters, that's as much attention as Harry pays to the strange winged horse that he just saw.

(OP, p. 444, US)
When Hagrid takes them into the forest for a lesson, Harry sees them again:

A pair of blank, white, shining eyes were growing larger through the gloom and a moment later the dragonish face, neck, and then skeletal body of a great, black-winged horse emerged from the darkness. It surveyed the class for a few seconds, swishing its long black tail, then bowed its head . . .

Snape has black eyes, rather than white, but his eyes are closed and expressionless and unreadable to Harry, just as the thestral's eyes give no clue to its thoughts or intentions. Snape very often observes what Harry and the others are doing--sometimes commenting, sometimes not.

(OP, p. 446, US):
Hagrid tells the class that Hogwarts has a whole herd of them.Parvati says they are "really, really unlucky! --They're supposed to bring all sorts of horrible misfortune on people who see them."

Hagrid assures the class that that's just superstition--

"they aren' unlucky, they're dead clever an' useful! 'Course, this lot don' get lot o' work, it's mainly jus' pullin' the school carriages unless Dumbledore's takin' a long journey an' don' want ter Apparate--"

Hagrid tells them that the thestrals won't hurt them, and then talks about who can see them and who can't. (Only people who have seen death can see them, which explains why Harry, Neville, and Luna can see them, and most of the rest of the class cannot.)

After a frustrating interruption from Umbridge, Hagrid tells the class more about thestrals.

(OP, p. 448-9, US)

"Well, once they're tamed, like this lot, yeh'll never be lost again. 'Mazin' senses o' direction, jus' tell 'em where yeh want ter go--"

While all this is a great set-up for Harry's later need of quick reliable transportation to London, the description kept making me think that it was also a great metaphor for Snape.

Snape has always seemed sinister to Harry and to the other students. Yet, he has not (until the end of HBP) done anything to harm anyone (as Quirrell told Harry in Philosopher's Stone--Snape hated him (Harry), but he never wanted to kill him), only to save them; he tries very hard to teach them things that will be useful. His talents are likely under-used; he'd prefer teaching DADA because he is an expert and has been since childhood. But he's also quite good at Potion making, and Dumbledore has chosen to have him remain in that position--just as the thestrals are used for transportation and mundane things, rather than being used for their full potential.

Dumbledore sometimes uses a thestral for a trip to London when he doesn't want to Apparate--that makes me wonder what he has Professor Snape doing other than teaching Potions. Oh, wait--we know that one. He's turned spy for the Order of the Phoenix, often at great personal risk.

If the Patronus gives us clues about what the person's true character and nature are, then a thestral seems a strong possibility for Snape, who remains an enigma to the students and to the rest of the teachers. His appearance isn't warm and cuddly and never will be; he has an air of danger about him, just as the thestrals seem menacing, even though they make no move to attack any of the students. The thestrals can be relied on to take a person where they need to go, with very little or no direction needed. Severus Snape, as a spy, has been in much the same postion--he more than likely would need to rely only on himself in spying on Voldemort and the Death Eaters, all the while needing to have a clear idea of his destination.

Even the very last time we see Severus, he is continuing to do the task Dumbledore set for him--protect Harry (and the other students), and guide and teach Harry so that he is prepared to face Voldemort. On Dumbledore's word we accepted, as they did, that Snape was highly useful--guiding the Order in the fight against Voldemort--never losing his way, as it were.

I do like the idea of Snape's Patronus being a gryffin (see the comments for the post on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--the title for book 7), because of the Christ symbol, but I think it's possible that Rowling is using Snape's Patronus to give us a clearer picture of his character--and we may find those Christ-like connections in his actions rather than his Patronus.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--book 7 title

I've been posting my thoughts on various forums and have yet to really post much here or on my live journal. So I'm posting both here and my live journal, in an attempt to organize my thoughts on the latest Christmas gift from Rowling--the title for book 7--Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I'm glad to see that John Granger now has a blog (I'll add the link later)--it's a bit easier than a forum to keep up with and accessible to more people.Several things have already been brought up--I think it was Rob (rapierpen) who said that Snape is the Keeper of the Keys for Harry, just as Hagrid was the Keeper of the Keys for Dumbledore. I like that as it brings the relationship between Harry and Snape into sharper focus and importance.The other is that hallows--which can be a verb or a noun, but sounds more like it's a noun in the title of book 7 (DH)--could also refer to things being hallowed in a deadly place--that from Sandra.

A lot of us, including me, have been jumping from graveyard to graveyard with that idea. There's the one that Harry has already visited in GOF where Riddle's family are buried. There's the graveyard--or the one we think he will find--when he visits Godric's Hollow, seeking more infomation about his parents. Then there is the one that Rowling has said is at Hogwarts--the one that Cuaron couldn't put somewhere in the 3rd movie, because that wasn't where it was located. We did see Dumbledore's tomb, but it didn't seem to be part of a graveyard, so there must be one somewhere else. Who is buried there is still unknown. Most likely, the three founders who were still at Hogwarts after Slytherin left. We do know that no other headmasters or headmistresses are buried there, however--Dumbledore was the first. But I've wondered if James and Lily might be buried there--if James did have some family connection to Gryffindor, that might be reason enough, especially given the heroic nature of their short fight against Voldemort.

But the other place that might be a possible place is the Death room at the Ministry of Magic. That veil just begs to be reintroduced. It's one of those things that people discussed for months on forums, but no one ever really asked Rowling about it, except in reference to Sirius's death--was he really dead and could he come back? But never--just what is the veil, how is it used and what does it do and will we see it again?

I think it's likely that Harry will learn something important about his parents when he visits Godric's Hollow. I wonder if that will lead him back to the Ministry. The other room waiting for his discovery is the one that was locked--the one Dumbledore told him was filled with a great and terrible power, reminiscent of part of the story by Charles Williams, Descent into Hell, which I recently finished reading.

Those rooms both were so prominent in OotP, but then have not been mentioned again, or explained. The Death room, with the veil, seems that it could be something connected to Deathly Hallows--either a place where people are hallowed (as a saintly connection), or that the veil is a way to connect with saints of the past. I know, that's all too religious for many people. But it's very hard to go any place with that title without making religious connections. To ignore the meanings of the word, whether it is a verb or a noun, says that Rowling didn't do her research into the word properly. And the one thing we all should have learned by now, is that she is one woman who chooses and uses words very carefully, with the intent that her words will give us all the clues we need--but we will only see the full connection after we've finished the book.

Back to Snape--I always seem to get back to Snape. It's just doesn't seem to fit that he will turn back into the cardboard cutout of a baddie, after all the little hints we've had that there is much more to his story than Harry knows. Rob suggested that Snape is Harry's Keeper of the Keys, and that fits very well with my view that it will be Snape who works along side Harry to defeat Voldemort. But for any sort of cooperation between them--and I'm not looking for friendship, as that would seem out of character for Snape in particular--there has to be a resolution of their anger and hatred. They have to forgive one another; Harry has to forgive Snape for whatever part Snape played in James and Lily's deaths, and Snape has to forgive Harry for being his father's son. As for Snape's role in Dumbledore's death, there has to be more to it than what Harry (and we) thinks he saw on the Tower. Harry can't use the power of the love that Dumbledore kept saying he had with all that anger and bitterness getting in the way. And Snape can't be useful to Harry while he still is filled with hatred for Harry based on Harry's father and godfather.

The other thing that crossed my mind the other day--nothing to do with DH (Deathly Hallows), at least not directly--is that we still don't know what Snape's patronus is. But when I was reading a portion of Order of the Phoenix, there was a brief description of a thestral, as having bat-like wings. Rowling has described Snape as bat-like so many times that many have thought it means he is a vampire (sorry John), but couldn't it mean that his patronus is actually a thestral?

Hagrid describes thestral in OotP (US), on page 446:

". . . they aren' unlucky, they're dead clever an' useful! 'Course, this lot don' get a lot of work, it's mainly jus' pullin' the school carriages unless Dumbledore's takin' a long jouney an' don' want ter Apparate--"

And later, Hagrid gives more information about thestrals, p. 448-9:

". . . good stuff abou' thestrals. Well, once they're tamed, like this lot, yeh'll never be lost again. 'Mazin' senses o' direction, jus' tell 'em where yeh want ter go--"

And there is Snape, who hasn't been used to his full potential in teaching the students, as we saw from the abundent information in his old Potions text; Snape is just out there, waiting to guide Harry along the way in the final stage of his journey/quest. Snape, whose patronus if it is a thestral, is somewhat frightening and sinister, yet not at all evil or frightening when one understands him. It only take knowing the proper way to look at him.

Pat

(I've written a bit more on the idea of Snape's Patronus being a thestral in it's own topic, but I've left this part here, because of the thoughtful comments--and I didn't want to lose that part.)