Harry Potter post-- do not read unless you have read all 6 books

Ok. Be forewarned: these are my thoughts (not all of them) about Harry Potter and what may happen in the seventh book. Do not read any further unless you have read all 6 books. Oh, and there will be Lord of the Rings spoilers too, so if you intend to read or watch that series and heven't yet, you should stop reading too.

I've heard all kinds of decent theories about book seven. The most curious one I've heard about the ending of book 6 is that Dumbledore wasn't really Dumbledore through the whole book. He may have been Peter Pettigrew or Moody. The theory behind this (and this theory came from my friend Kamra; I cannot take responsibility for it) is that Dumbledore hand was damaged in so weird of a way that he may have been someone else who had no hand trying to be him and the potion didn't allow him to be a full Dumbledore because of the hand. I don't know about this. I don't think either person would have behaved to Harry in the way that Dumbledore did all through book 6, but I do agree that something was up with Dumbledore. Something that bugs me is that in book 5, everytime Harry sees Dumbledore, he has this Voldemort-like hate rise up in him. This just spontaneously goes away in book 6 despite the fact that Harry appears to be no better at occlumency....though I did notice this also appears to go away in the end of book 5 too...I'm not to the end of my book 5 re-read, so I don't have any clever theories about this. It just strikes me as either sloppy writing or important fact.

Returning to the Peter Pettigrew theory, I do think he's going to be important to book 7. There seemed to be a "you'll be happy he didn't die" vibe in book 3 and hints that Pettigrew will do Harry a favor. I don't think merely suggesting there's no reason to kill Harry (as done in book 4) is enough of a favor to fulfill this vibe.

Here's my one big contribution to the whole Harry Potter theory building: Rowling seems to be a huge Tolkien fan, probably a big English mythology fan in general, but definitely a Tolkien follower. It just so happens that I see very few movies each year and for a while there, the only movies I was seeing were Lord of the Rings movies and Harry Potter movies, and I noticed too many similarities. It started out small, like cave trolls appearing in both of the movies and then there was Aragog and (oh crud I forgot the name of the big spider outside Mordor that Gollom tries to have kill Frodo). Anyway, two huge cave trolls and two huge spiders and then there came the dementors, which, let's face it, are just ringwraiths after happiness instead of the ring.

So this is why I think Pettigrew will be of greater importance. Pettigrew is Gollum. For that matter, Ron is Sam...which would make him the hero if we follow this any further...but anyhow, that distracted me from my main idea...which is that Dumbledore is clearly Gandalf. Gandalf experienced that moment where he appeared to have sacrificed himself for the hobbits et al on their quest, and of course, it appears more than once that Dumbledore seems to be sacrificing himself for Harry's benefit. He's returned once already (he wasn't dead in book 5, so no big deal there), but I firmly believe he will return in book 7. Once quote that has always stood out to be as significant (but I didn;t realize how significant) is in book 1 when Dumbledore says, "I would trust Hagrid with my life." Come to think of it, Hagrid may end up being Sam here. ANyway, it is just too much of a coincidence to me that Dumbledore says that very pointedly and it is Hagrid who retrives his body from the base of the castle. Now Gandalf came back from the apparent dead having been to the end of the world and back and was then Gandalf the White. He was beyond time and seemed to be so much wiser that he had forgotten himself. I don't doubt that when Dumbledore returns he will be more than himself somehow. Because the other important thing is that Harry confront Voldemort ON HIS OWN. And that is why a small part of me would also be okay with Dumbledore being dead, because how else would Harry do things on his own if Dumbledore is not there? He needs that catalyst to make him into a fully fledged hero of his own, as he has been growing into that through all 6 books.

We all know that love will be part of the answer. That's apparent from the end of every single book. The thing that gets me about the Lord of the Rings ending (the real book ending, not the movie one) is that Frodo was irreparably damaged by his time with the ring. He would never be able to be fully hobbit-like for the rest of his life and did not feel like he belonged there. There cannot be a fully happy ending for Harry because he'll either have to have done the Voldemort killing or he'll not survive. Some people have theorized that Harry is a horcrux himself, but I think that is absolute balogney. Horcruxes have to be created intentionally (otherwise many horcruxes would have been made when Voldemort's death-eaters were killing people) and Voldemort did not know that Harry would survive.

Snape is the character I cannot figure out. He's the big mystery to me. I think he's actually a mystery to himself too and that's why he's so grumpy. I think he's continually torn. For Dumbledore to trust him, there must be some "love thing" involved somehow. The easiest guess is that Snape loved Lily and that is why he protects Harry and dislikes Harry at the same time, because Harry reminds him of the two people he loves and hates most. Snape is smart or he couldn't be misunderstood as much as he is. Which makes me think that he must trust Dumbledore over Voldemort...because that's the smart thing to do. Which implies that the two of them devised a way to kill Dumbledore without killing Dumbledore and Snape is playing a very dangerous game. He's also very self-serving and not un-prone to childish tantrums (as in book 5)...so anyway, that is why I struggle the most when coming up with theories about Snape.

People keep wondering about whether Harry will live or die. To me, a bigger question is will Snape end up good or bad and what has he been playing at this whole time? He could be just egotistical enough that he could be doing what the Lord of the Rings book had Sarumon doing. In the books, Sauron was the big evil one and Sarumon was a good guy who went bad when he thought he too could have the most power. In the end he went down when the ancient tree-herders ruined his world. I don't know how that applies.

I also really hope (but doubt) that Fred and George have a cool role to play in the seventh book. I suspect they'll be like Merry and Pippen and just be used for comic relief again when the bad stuff is all over.

Anyway...I gotta wrap this up. But I wanted to get some of my thoughts out there before book 7 comes out and people read it. This way, on the off chance any of my theorizing relates, I can say "I told you!" and people will believe I had the thought before reading book 7 instead of having them respond "yeah, right."

Oh....and I just have to say this right here. If any student reveals any details of book 7 to me before I have a chance to read it, I will seriously throw a conniption fit and hope they drop my class. Someone revealed the ending of book 5 to me before I read it and it messed up my reading experience.