OBHWF+

If someone can only get information protected by the fidelius charm from the secret keeper, how did Hagrid rescue Harry from the ruined house after Voldemort’s attack without knowing that Sirius Black WASN’T really the secret keeper?

When he faces Malfoy at the end of HBP, Dumbledore is weak, maybe even (probably even) dying. He is unarmed. He is injured. Malfoy seems to have the upper hand in every way, but Dumbledore is really the one in charge. He even makes it clear that Malfoy is at his, Dumbledore’s, mercy. And Malfoy really is. Even while Malfoy was plotting against Dumbledore, Dumbledore protected and watched out over him. And while Malfoy stood holding his wand at the “defenseless” Dumbledore, Dumbledore was still willing to forgive everything and take Malfoy and his family into protection.

Dumbledore, even at what is arguably his weakest moment, is fully in charge. He doesn’t beg for mercy. Instead, he gives it. That’s his strength of character. And that’s why I believe his pleas to Snape a few minutes later are not pleas to spare his life. He’s not begging Severus to spare him, but to kill him–to end his life. I fully believe this because I fully believe that there is no one from whom Dumbledore would ever need to beg for mercy. I’m sure Dumbledore has a reason for doing it.

Maybe he does it to save Malfoy–to spread the love that he, Dumbledore, has valued so highly. Maybe Malfoy will see this sacrifice and understand the real power of love. I think he does see it there at the end, as he drops his wand. Malfoy doesn’t kill Dumbledore, though he could. He doesn’t cross that line. All the same, Dumbledore knows that if he survives, Malfoy will not. So Dumbledore allows himself to be killed–even, I believe, begs to be killed–in a way that both frees and protects Malfoy much the way Lily begs Voldemort to kill her instead of Harry.

Will Dumbledore’s sacrifice, his love, pass on an extra mark of protection to Malfoy the way Lily’s did to Harry? Will it show him the vast strength and power of love? Or did it merely allow Snape to maintain his footing within Voldemort’s ranks, thereby maintaining a spy for The Order? I think it did all of these things. I hope it did. I hope it wasn’t just treachery by Snape. I trust Dumbledore’s opinion too much to think he was wrong about Snape, to think it was really just simple treachery. I hope that’s justified. Still, right now, I kind of hate Severus Snape.

Either way, it’s pretty clear that this bit of mercy has marked Malfoy as Harry’s counterpart–opposite but equal, in a way. What this will mean is yet to be seen.

People who ship (or just plain talk about Harry Potter) often compare Harry to his father. People say he is James, to Ginny’s Lily. That doesn’t hold true for me. One constant theme in OoTP was that Harry is NOT James. Molly says it. Sirius says it. Harry is not James. However, what occurred to me while reading HBP is that it’s more likely that Harry is Lily to Ginny’s James.

Harry has Lily’s eyes and it’s been said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. I think that translates here in a way that gives Harry Lily’s sensitivity, her delicacy. I don’t mean those as signifiers for weakness–I consider neither Harry nor Lily weak. I just mean that like his mother, Harry is good at sensing and understanding the delicate nuances of situations. It’s what made Lily great with potions. Snape himself describes potion making by saying, “I don’t expect you [students] will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…” (Rowling 137). But Lily obviously did understand the delicacy of potions.

Harry displays that same kind of ability with people–he sees them and through them. More so in HBP than any of the other books, certainly, but all along really. It’s just that HBP shows a more mature focused Harry–a Harry very much similar to his sensitive and temperate, though passionate, mother. Meanwhile, brash, smart, popular, outgoing Ginny is much more James-like.

Moreover, I think Harry’s similarity to his mother is going to really come to mean something big. All through HBP I wondered if perhaps Snape hadn’t been in love with Lily when they were in school. True, as seen in OoTP, he wasn’t exactly nice to her–but then when he was working as hard as he could to SAVE Harry’s life, he wasn’t being nice to Harry either. One gets the feeling that Snape doesn’t much appreciate goodness and what it does to him–as though he still hasn’t matured emotionally enough to handle the intense welling up of LOVE or HAPPINESS. Because of that, he lashes out instead.

If he does love her, or at least did, it would certainly shed greater light onto why he hated James and why James hated him. It would further explain why the sight of Harry inflames Snape so much. To see Lily in Harry’s eyes, trapped in the face that James gave him…well that would inflame his jealousy and anger and pain. Furthermore, I think it might have spurred him on toward leaving the Death Eaters. He didn’t know when he delivered the prophacy that it would result in Lily’s death. He didn’t know that Voldemort would choose Harry. And when Lily died, I think Snape couldn’t take it–couldn’t ever again really side with Voldemort. So he came to Dumbledore. So he spends his time torn between wanting to help Harry for Lily’s sake and wanting to hurt him because of James.

cited:

Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York, Toronto:, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires Scholastic Inc., 1997.