HBP Spoilers contained within

[Amy Z]

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As if it's necessary, being that we were the last people on earth to 
get the damn book, except a few fans in Alaska.

Shaun wrote:
 
> > Snape - what can I say. It's going to be awfully hard to keep
> > defending anything about him at this point, but I will probably try 
> > anyway. I'm still not convinced he's irredeemably evil, or even 
that 
> > he's not ultimately on the side of the angels. He took an 
unbreakable 
> > oath - to do what Draco could not do - and he fulfilled it. 

Mike wrote:
 
> Snape - hm. Jo has her man well in hand, I think. I just don't know 
what
> way he's going to jump - I'm very intrigued. You can argue it either
> way. 

When he took the unbreakable oath, and when we learned what the penalty 
for breaking one is, I thought, well, that's it:  he'll break it and 
die.  Very heroic, and the grim, brave kind of death I expected of 
Snape, even if he is a nasty slimeball.

So why didn't he?  If he was out to save Draco (with or without 
Dumbledore's blessing), surely killing Dumbledore was an empty 
gesture.  Draco failed, and there are multiple witnesses to the fact.  
Snape's completing the job might commute Draco's sentence to, I don't 
know, life in Azkaban for the entire Malfoy family, no doubt after a 
few good long rounds of Cruciatus, but clear his name?  No.  Not with 
witnesses who know that Draco lost his nerve and Snape carried out the 
murder.  So if Dumbledore and Snape discussed how to save Draco in the 
eventuality that Draco tried and failed to kill Dumbledore (which is 
very plausible), they still wouldn't have come up with this plan.

The only way I can see for Snape to still be on the side of the angels 
is for there to be a mechanism we have yet to learn about along the 
lines of "Dumbledore has to die/be betrayed for Voldemort to be 
defeated."  However, this is a creative group, and no doubt people will 
think of 50 other ways, 48 of them last-straw efforts from stubborn 
Snapelovers, but 2 of them possible.

His scene with Harry post-murder only reinforces my sense that there 
will be no more twists:  Snape is a baddie and that's that.  But it 
could be that he really did break his own heart killing Dumbledore, but 
because he (a) is a good actor and (b) genuinely hates Harry, he can't 
resist hanging around to say various nasty things.

As usual, I had the Sight of a Trelawney, but I'm pleased with my 
divination powers on two points.  One, when JKR said we should be 
asking why Voldemort survived the rebounded AK at Godric's Hollow, I 
thought, we know already:  he told us in the graveyard that he'd taken 
steps toward immortality.  Sure, we didn't know the mechanism until now 
(and a very cool mechanism it is--shades of whatsisname in Prydain who 
put his soul into a fragment of bone), but I never could understand why 
she was making a big mystery about it, and still don't.  

Two, as soon as the Half-Blood Prince turned out to be a potions 
genius, I guessed that it was Snape.  

My incorrect predictions, made before and during reading, would fill an 
encyclopedia, but you don't want to hear *them*, do you?  I was very 
pleased that the red flags about Tonks were red herrings, and wish her 
and Lupin all happiness.  Since it looks like he's never going to know 
I exist.

I don't know if I'm more sad about never seeing Dumbledore again or the 
threat that we will never return to Hogwarts.  Wah!

Amy Z C