Polyjuice potion (was Re: Spinner's End)

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 156781

colebiancardi:

> Snape tells Harry he invented Levicorpus and Sectumsempra 
> (because Harry tried to use them on Snape during that 
> fight) ... Snape's words are "You dare use my spells 
> against me, Potter? It was I who invented them - I, 
> the Half Blood Prince"

houyhnhnm:

If the Snape on the tower and the lawn is really Snape, 
then of course he is the Half Blood Prince.  But is there 
anything we can point to that conclusively proves that it 
really is Snape?  I can't find anything.  Seeing him on 
the Marauders' Map would have done so, but, conveniently, 
Hermione doesn't have the Map when she is waiting outside 
Snape's office.  The narrator points that out. "We didn't 
know what was going on upstairs, Ron had taken the map ..."

There is also nothing that conclusively proves Snape is 
the HBP, *except* the statement of the character on the 
law.  It is all assumption.

I'm not a fan of fantasy literature.  Mystery is my 
recreational reading genre of choice.  So that's the 
lens through which I tend to look at the Potter books.  
And leading readers on all though book 6 to assume that 
Snape was the HBP only to turn that assumption upside 
down in book 7 is exactly what a mystery writer would do.

I don't have an alternative theory.  My point is this:  
IF Rowling WERE to reveal in book 7 that Snape is not 
the HBP, there is nothing one could go back to in the 
previous story and say that she cheated. There is nothing 
that absolutely rules it out.  That makes me suspicious.

Ceridwen:

> You see my problem with this. JKR has nixed the idea 
> that Dumbledore and Snape changed places in saying that 
> DD is really dead, 

houyhnhnm:

No, she hasn't.  She has stated that Dumbledore is dead.  
The slippery Ms. Rowling has gone out of her way to avoid 
saying "Dumbledore was killed on the tower".  First in the 
press conference, when she referred to the "the character 
who died at the end of book six", then in her answer to a 
question about Draco on the first night at the Radio City 
Music Hall reading when she said "let's just say that Draco 
would not have murdered the person in question".  So 
Dumbledore is dead, but as she said in the LC/Mugglenet 
interview a year ago, "the question is when and how".

I'm certain we're in for a big surprise in book 7.  I don't 
have a theory about what it's going to be (except I think 
it will have to do with someone in book 6 not being who they 
appeared to be), but I'm looking forward to it. I am confidant
of not being disappointed.