My Harry Potter Predictions

Warning: This blog assumes you have read the first six books, and may contain spoilers.

I only have a couple of iron-clad predictions for the next Harry Potter book: It will make bazillions of dollars, and someone's going to spoil the ending for me before I manage to finish reading it. Beyond that, your guess is really as good as mine. However, here's a few Q&As that have been buzzing around my head:


Is Harry going to die?
It certainly looks like he is, which is exactly why I think he won't. So many people are worried about Harry's fate in the upcoming book. By now, anyone who's read the sixth book (The Half-Blood Prince) has pondered whether Harry is a horcrux. When Voldemort zapped baby Harry, he was transferring part of himself into the kid. That's also why Voldy hasn't been able to kill him, because doing so would kill Voldemort himself. Sure, Dumbledore told Harry that he was protected by hi Mother's love or some crap, but that was so Harry wouldn't find out he was a horcrux. In Book 6 it was revealed that Harry has to find and destroy all the horcruxes in order to be rid of Voldemort forever. So it really looks like the only way to kill Voldemort is to kill Harry Potter.

But the fact that people already see this, is what tells me it won't happen. When I read the first book, I was sure Snape was the one trying to steal the Sorceror's Stone. There was so much foreshadowing, that it had to be true. Yeah, it could have been a red herring, but I knew it was a children's book, so it wouldn't be that deep. And yet it was. I think Rowling is once again trying to trick us. There are so many people out there who already think they know how Book 7 is going to end, that it can't possibly end that way.

My guess is that sometime in the first half of Book 7, Harry is going to figure out that he's a horcrux. He's going to go through the rest of the book believing he's going to have to die in order to kill Voldemort. Then, at the end, there's going to be a twist that allows him to live.

One more thing: I've heard several people say, "Harry's death is the only way it can end." Then they'll go on about things like honor, duty, a boy becoming a man and realizing that he has to sacrifice himself to save everyone else, yada yada yada. I don't care how it's presented, killing Harry would be a piss-poor way to end the series. I have really enjoyed the series so far, and I have to believe that I'm going to enjoy Book 7 as well. I believe that overall, I'm going to have a great impression of the series, and I'll want to read all seven again someday. But if Harry dies, I probably won't like the series as much. Therefore, the boy will live. I know that's not exactly logical reasoning, but that's what I believe.


Is Dumbledore really dead?
When the fifth book (Order of the Phoenix) was on its way out, Rowling announced that someone was going to die in it. When I got to the book's climax, I knew someone was going to die soon. But when I read the death scene itself, I said, "Was that it?" That's the scene that made Rowling says made her cry when she wrote it? Sirius Black didn't die, he fell through a door. What a freaking cop-out. She could bring him back any time she feels like it. In a magical world, a true death scene requires things like, I don't know, a BODY. I mean, look at Peter Pettigrew. They assumed he'd been disintegrated when they found his finger.

But Dumbledore's case is a little different. They found a body, plus his picture was in the painting. But I'm still a little suspicious. For starters, the way it happened - Snape shoots Dumbledore, Dumbledore falls over the edge. Later they find his body on the ground. When I read it, my first thought was, "That's when they pulled the switch". What kind of switch, I don't know. Maybe Dumbledore zapped himself into the painting. But for some reason I have doubts regarding whethert it was actually Dumbledore's body they found on the ground.

Maybe Dumbledore will be back in the next book. Maybe he'll appear towards the end, just in time to tell Harry how to kill Voldy without dying himself. Maybe Dumbledore will even die again at the end of Book 7, sacrificing himself to save Harry. Or not. I don't know.

Book 7 is going to be so different from the others. The first six were so formulaic - they start with Harry at the Dursley's house, then he goes to school, it goes through the entire school year, then he goes back to the Dursleys. Dumbledore is also a strong part of the formula. He's like a Dungeonmaster, indirectly guiding Harry through his adventures, giving Harry hints and accomplishing through Harry what he can't do himself, then explaining it all at the end of the book. But with Harry not going back to Hogwarts, and no Dumbledore to guide him, and Harry having grown up so much by now, this book is going to break the formula all kinds of ways. Which makes it much harder to predict.


Is Snape really a bad guy?
The best I can say, is that there's still more to Snape than meets the eye. I know, "Duh." Rowling fooled us in the first book, it wouldn't be unlike her to do it again. Potter fans are quick to point out that in Book 6, when Snape is about to kill Dumbledore, the headmaster's pleas are sort of ambiguous. Is Dumbledore pleading for Snape not to kill him? Highly doubtful, that just doesn't sound like him. The way the scene plays out, it's almost as if Dumbledore and Snape had some sort of plan, and "killing" Dumbledore was part of the plan.


So who will die in Book 7?
Beats me. I really hope that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny stay alive. If one of them does die, my money's on Ron. On the other hand, Rowling did a lot of pushing characters together in the sixth book. The whole Harry/Ginny thing seemed a little rushed and/or forced. I can't help but wonder if Rowling needed one more emotional card to play in Book 7, one more potential tragedy for Harry to overcome before the final battle.


Will there ever be another Harry Potter Book?
Rowling has made it very clear that this is meant to be a seven-book series. However, this is also the first thing she's ever written. She doesn't know a damn thing about the curses from which writers suffer. Often you think a story is over and done with, and then your brain starts imagining further scenerios for your characters. Eventually you can't stop obsessing until you write them down. I have no doubt Rowling will take a nice long break from the Potterverse after Book 7 hits the shelves. Maybe she'll start spending more time with her family, or maybe she'll start writing something else. But sooner or later she's going to get the itch to revisit Harry's world. Maybe she'll give in to the temptation, maybe she won't.