Predictions

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 43470

Oh why the hell not. 

Haven't seen this one come up yet. And I'm not sure that I believe it myself, 
but it would certainly fit an interpretation of the characters.

Y'know how the endings of this kind of story generally always contain the 
seed of a possibility of the whole thing starting up again? One baddie always 
gets away, somebody's death is heavily implied but not verified for sure, 
things like that?

Prediction; Draco Malfoy will not ever actually become a Death Eater. He'll 
want to. He'll talk a good fight. Everyone will THINK that he has taken the 
Mark, But he won't get the chance before Voldemort's ultimate defeat. 

Why not? Because his father won't let him. Lucius is fully committed to 
Voldy's vision for the future of the WW. But until the victory is nailed down 
he is not about to sacrifice the continuance of the precious Malfoy bloodline 
to bring it about. He will be able to make an excellent arguement to his 
Master that if the establishment of a pureblood regime is the goal, it would 
be folly to put the most promising examples of the future leaders at risk of 
Azkaban or the wrong end of an Auror's wand before that future is secure. So, 
no Dark Mark for Draco until he has secured the sucession and there is 
another baby Malfoy heir to take his place as an "innocent" non-combatant.

In the meantime Draco can take his place in the first rank of umMarked 
supporters. Ergo, when Voldy and Lucius get theirs, there will be no way of 
prooving that Draco ever did more than approve of his father's openly stated 
views.

Someone who wants to run away with the idea could interpret this as Lucius 
having had plenty of time to reconsider the wisdom of his own choice to back 
Voldemort and deciding to try to see that his son doesn't get the chance to 
make the same mistake. But my money is on bloody-minded considerations of 
heirs and assigns and the continuance of his line, myself.

Other predictons: 

Dumbledore's death; Well, traditionally in any "Young Hero" tale (and we ARE 
agreed that Harry Potter is a Young Hero tale, aren't we?) the "Wise 
Councellor" gamepiece is ALWAYS taken off the board well before the Hero goes 
into his final confrontation with the enemy. He doesn't always die. But the 
Young Hero looses his council early enough in the proceedings to have to 
begin to learn to depend on his own judgement. So I would expect something to 
happen to remove Dumbledore from Harry's orbit around the climax of book 5 or 
anything up to 2/3 through book 6. 

Neville's function; Neville has obviously got a major function in the series. 
He gets called to the reader's attention too frequently not to. I am not one 
of the people who supports the view that he is an echo of Pettigrew. The 
Pettigrew compairison was a red-herring made by Harry in his own mind from 
hearsay before he ever actually met Pettigrew. I am more in line with the 
school who believes that Neville will take everybody by surprise by 
performing some devastating act of magic which will completely disrupt the 
progress of one of the major conflicts of one of the remaining three books. 
Whether he survives it might be dependent on which book this takes place in. 

The Sacrificial Wolf; Yeah, I see this. Probably soon, too. I'm sorry, the 
character of Lupin is one of the nicest ones we've met in the series but he 
showed up wearing a lable that reads "Tragic Figure; Virtuous and Doomed" in 
letters writ large enough for the Middle School set to read, and I just 
cannot see my way around it. I don't know whether Peter of the Silver Hand is 
going to have anything to do with this, but the situation is suggestive.

The Loose Cannons You Know; 

Part 1; Anyone with a strong talent for manipulation can push Sirius Black's 
buttons (I've said before that I'd really like to know just who he was 
chewing the fat with when he got the "brilliant" idea to pretend to be the 
Potters' secret keeper while Peter peformed the actual function.) . The same 
can be said of Ron Weasley. And either one of them will go off half-cocked 
without discussing the situation with someone of cooler head. I can easily 
see the Dark side "getting" to one of the other (not both) and setting him 
off in a manner which will do damage to "our" side -- completely without 
realizing that he is being used. I can't see either of them actually choosing 
the Dark side.

Part 2; As for the twins; They've been lucky so far. But they've chiefly been 
opperating in the well-safeguarded little world of Hogwarts. I think that 
once they are out in the big, bad, Real WW their recklessness is going to get 
them in over their heads and it's going to be up to Percy who will have to 
pull them out. Again, I could easily see scenareos where any of the three 
could find that they have been used by the Dark Side, but have difficulty 
seeing any of them cooly choosing to a side which would hapily destroy Molly 
and Arthur (whatever their feelings toward their siblings).

The Final Confrontation; Will come down to Voldemort and Harry without 
supporters present on either side. It always does. While I personally think 
that a redemption and transformation would make for better theater, it is 
more likely that Voldemort's death/distruction (with or without Harry's) is 
the probable result. The aproach to the final confrontation will echo that of 
Stone. Dumbledore out of the picture, the other adults irrelevant, Ron, hors 
de combat (permanently or not) getting Harry most of the way to the rendevous 
point, and Hermione unable to travel the final stretch of the journey. 

Snape; Will be with us at least into the last third of the final book. His 
behavior in the meantime is going to make us all SERIOUSLY question just 
whose side he is REALLY on. (Well, duh! That's a no-brainer.)

Final prediction (for this batch); Whether or not Harry survives the series 
may be indicated by whether or not Sirius Black is still alive when Harry 
goes into the final confrontation with Voldemort. Can you really see Rowling 
sending him back to the Dursleys for a month after he brings down the Dark 
Lord?

-JOdel