Trelawney Award, part II

[allthecoolnamesgone]

No: HPFGUIDX 177345

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Angela Billings 
<ajoyb22000 at ...> wrote:
>
> What surprised me the most was that JKR really showed a different 
side of Dumbledore and Snape.  I didn't see the calculating way 
Dumbledore used Harry coming at all.  I had heard from other HP sites 
that JKR stated that the big 3 (Harry, Hermione and Ron) would not 
die, but I was almost certain that Ron was a goner.  I loved the book 
and the way it ended.
>    
>   Thanking JKR for a fabulous ride - >

I didn't spend much time in Newsgroups between the earlier books so 
didn't find out about all the theories until post DH. But within the 
family we discussed it. Peter and I were firmly in the 'Snape is 
Dudmbledore's man' camp and had an inkling that he had asked for Lily 
to be spared. Voldemort did seem to have tried not to kill her, which 
was out of character for him. The 'Severus please' was a plea to 
carry out their agreement, though we had not guessed that he was 
already dying, We thought it was an agreement that Snape would kill 
him if death was inevitable, both to save him pain and to advance 
Snape's position with V.  We didn't guess how well Snape knew Lily 
pre-school, though we did wonder who the boy on the broom was.

Dumbledore's past was a big surprise and the revelation of his level 
of callousness towards Snape and Harry.

Harry dying came as no surprise as we had felt that he was 'doomed' 
as soon as we read the prophecy. We also guessed he was a Horcrux of 
sorts as that was his unique connection to Voldemort.

For a while post HBP I clung to a hope that Dumbledore was alive, if 
only because there was so much more that we and Harry needed to know. 
But I gradually accepted that he was dead and that the Portrait would 
be the way he continued in the story. 

The whole Hallows thread in the story was the biggest surprise but I 
still tend to the view that they were introduced as Harry's 'get out 
of jail free card' and that she had intended him to die. But seeing 
the level of trauma in fandom caused by Snape's death and lack of 
closure I think that killing Harry irrevocably would have been unwise.

So, for me DH was a pleasant mix of having my suspicions proved 
correct but with sufficient new revelations to make it a good read.

allthecoolnamesgone