Snape and Dumbledore on the Tower/ Blood on DD face

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 165372

Pippin:
<snipping the list and additions at post 165361>
If Dumbledore hit the ground hard enough to disarrange his limbs,
bounce the locket out of his pocket and open it, why are his glasses not
even broken? (cf Harry's fall in PoA).

Carol:
> 
> What are the implications for Harry and Snape if it was the poison,
> not an AK, that killed Dumbledore?
> 

Pippin:
I think the possibilities for Harry's character development are much
richer if that is the case.

After all, what do we want him to do?
Of course I want him to finish some  bad guys,
but I also want him to recognize and subdue the prejudice he's 
developed against Snape and Slytherins in general. I want him to
learn to acknowledge guilt without being crushed by it or pushing 
it off onto someone else. I want him to be able to recognize that
while saving people from death is a good thing, it may not be the 
most important thing (because there are worse things than death),
and the failure to save someone is not necessarily a complete failure.

Of course he might accomplish all this without having to realize
that the poison killed Dumbledore, but what would make him
see the need?

As for Snape, I think it would make clear that Snape really has
changed profoundly from the youth who practiced killing flies,
invented sectumsempra and joined the Death Eaters. I'd like
to think that what Hagrid claimed is true in a literal sense and
Snape *couldn't* have killed Dumbledore, because like
Dumbledore there are powers that nobility prevented him from
using.

Pippin