Harry Potter Predictions

They're going around. Tom Maguire and the Soccer Dad have theirs up. The Hogwarts Professor has a bunch. And the amazing Janet Batchler has predictions on basically everything, including horcruxes and who will die. (She also has this whoppingly good theory on Harry's death.)

I don't have any thoughts of my own independent of these deep thinkers--Batchler and Granger, in particular, I think, are going to look very smart come Saturday morning. So my amalgamated thoughts are that:

* Per J.B., Harry "dies" in a non-permanent way in order to get to the Dark Lord.

* Hagrid, once slated for death, is spared by JKR, but figures prominently in the denouement. As does Grawp.

* Tonks and Lupin survive.

* Ron and Hermione survive.

* The Weasleys are not through suffering, though. Percy bites it and either Fred & George or Bill & Fleur don't make it out alive.

* Dead is dead and Dumbledore ain't coming back. But I suspect he has left Harry a little something to help him along.

* Voldemort and Bellatrix, obviously, are toast. Ditto Fenmir Grayback.

* All of which comes at a cost. Luna, Neville, and Minerva McG are all in play. And I do stand by my prediction that, in the grand tradition of Joss Whedon, someone we care about dies early to serve notice that there is going to be blood on the floor.

* Which leaves Snape. I've been championing Snape since Book 1, much to the consternation of all who know me. I became convinced, even at the end of Half-Blood Prince, that Snape was a quadrupe-agent (think about it: that's what he'd have to be) working for the Order of the Phoenix.

But now I'm not so sure. I wonder if the big surprise is that sometimes things are what they seem, and Snape really is evil. We know that Dumbledore's judgment is highly imperfect. We know, also, by the end of HPB, that Harry's judgment is much improved (i.e. his obsession with Draco's project). Maybe it turns out that Harry was right all along.

Then again, it's possible that Snape is more of a Prince in the Florentine sense of the word, as John Granger supposes. Or, it's possible that, as all sophisticates now believe, Snape really is on the side of the angels due to his feelings for and about Lilly Potter.

More later.