HBP: thoughts...

[Smythe, Boyd T {FLNA}]

S ome
P eople
O btained
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Loved it--one of the better ones IMO. Her writing is just a pleasure to
read. Made me think:

* Looks like we've finally got that powerful dark lord and dark war we've
been hankering for! Thank goodness! Can't wait for the chaos of the
marauding Dementors, acromantulas, giants and all in book 7. Hurray, chaos!
* Surely in that moment before the AK where Snape gazes at DD included a
Legilimens'd order from Dumbly to kill him?
* What is so important about Draco now that Snape has to be sure he's saved
from the fight?
* Whose future cataclysmic betrayal of LV would be the bangiest? Could that
RAB actually be PAP with added panache? Do we know Peter's middle name?
Would anyone be more likely to cause LV to scream in dismay when he
discovers that person has betrayed him? Is that how Peter fulfills his
life-debt to Harry? Isn't that what we're headed to in book 7? Because
Regulus just doesn't seem bangy to me. The other options are Borgin and
Burkes, of course, where LV discovered some of the relics.
* Harry and all of his classmates suck at doing magic. 11 year old wandless
Tom was already forcing people to "Tell the truth" and performing wandless
magic left and right. A teenaged Severus was rewriting the potions book and
creating his own spells. The teenaged Marauders were all animagi. Even Fred
and George have done new magic. Meanwhile, Harry and Ron still struggle to
do magic without speaking and Harry can't Occlumens worth a darn. Has anyone
in his class done anything magically to be so proud of? Weak, weak, weak. So
this leads me to believe that either Harry is going to have to go up a
learning curve that strains credulity, or he's going to need tons of help in
his final engagement with LV. So my money's on Snape and/or Pettigrew
disabling LV enough for Harry to do what he must, which will necessarily
involve love (yuck) much more than magic. But love of whom?
* Off to hunt horcruxes. Er, ok, whatever. How exactly will they be able to
find even one? None of the trio know any of the magic that DD used to locate
the others, unless Hermione's been studying at more than we know. So they'll
need help. Lots of it. Dobby/Kreacher?
* Is there anything we don't know yet about why LV wanted to come back to
Hogwarts to teach? DD assumes he was looking for another item to make a
horcrux. Is that it? Seems hardly enough to make him curse the DADA
position.
* The Gleam's still a mystery to me. Red herring?

Tons to do in Book 7, eh? She'll likely reduce the number of horcruxes to
hunt by using this BAP character to do most of the dirty work. But when you
think about it, she doesn't need many words to do a lot; the Harry-Snape
duel took less than 2 pages.

--boyd
"I am not worried, Harry. I am with you."