palace of winds

Despite having been up till all hours actually getting the book, rising dizzyingly early on Saturday for my sister’s baby shower, wobbling sleep-deprived and hypoglycemic through the late afternoon, getting up early again Sunday to put together some food for Mel & Travis, and going over last night to help put together their new gliding rocker, I finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince yesterday evening.

And I will now discuss it (briefly, as I’m sleepy and at work, but I’ve got a few things I must say). So don’t go on if you’re not ready for spoilers.

First, I don’t believe Snape’s evil. I haven’t worked out why, exactly, as I haven’t put a lot of real thinking into it; mostly I’m working off my gut right now. I intend to reread it to pick up on more details. Hell, I may reread four and five as well; or maybe go back as early as one and just do them all, Jim Dale style. Anyhow.

There was something utterly fishy about the scene on the tower, and I got the impression that when Dumbledore was pleading with Snape, Snape responded by doing exactly as Dumbledore wanted: that is, killing him. Rowling has done the bait-and-switch on us with Snape five times now. (I think it’s five, anyhow; I’ll admit I’m not bothering to think back on the other books very hard right now.) I feel like part of the ‘He’s evil! Just kidding!’ she’s done in all the other books is to prep us for this. The ‘Just kidding!’ just hasn’t come yet — it’ll be in the next book. I just…feel it. I feel like in the end Snape will help Harry. That he killed Dumbledore because defeating Voldemort is the most important thing, and him being believed a loyal Death Eater is vital to that mission.

Maybe I’m being foolish. We repeatedly see instances of Harry having the correct intuition about people and others not believing him until it’s nearly too late, and maybe this is another of those. But he was wrong about Sirius. And he’s been wrong about Snape in the past, though you could argue that this means he’s been right all along. I’m not willing to give up on Dumbledore, though. I believe him. I believe he had a reason for trusting Snape that we don’t know yet.

I also think we’ll yet learn the story of what happened to Dumbledore’s hand. (Though, weirdly, this is more in the vein of hoping than my belief about Snape. I hope we will learn about Dumbledore’s hand. I have a strong gut about Snape.) My first inclination is that Harry’ll take another trip in the pensieve, though Rowling used it so heavily in this book that she may lay off it in the next. And we may never find out — it may be just one of the many things left undone.

Okay, so. I guess mostly I wanted to say the Snape thing. And I really wish I could reopen comments on just this entry, but it doesn’t work that way. This week, I swear, if I get a second while I’m at home to breathe, I’ll work on it. You can also always email me at gmail to argue. :D

Oh, and? Yay for Harry/Ginny! Yay for Ron/Hermione! Loving it, utterly. (And Lupin/Tonks, too, and Bill/Fleur for that matter.)