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1. Dumbledore's Big Chill
Harry and Dumbledore are up on the top of the tower underneath the Dark Mark. Harry is wearing his invisibility cloak, Dumbledore ordered him to put it on before they mounted their brooms to ride to the top of the tower. Harry hears footsteps and looks around, but Dumbledore orders him with a gesture to retreat. Harry draws his wand and backs away:
The door burst open and somebody erupted through it and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" Harry's body became instantly rigid and immobile, and he felt himself fall back against the tower wall, propped like an unsteady statue, unable to move or speak.(HBP pg 584/545)
It's interesting to note that things are happening so fast, even Harry is momentarily confused:
He could not understand how it happened -- Expelliarmus was not a Freezing Charm -- Then, by the light of the Mark, he saw Dumbledore's wand flying in an arc over the edge of the ramparts and understood... Dumbledore had wordlessly immobilzed Harry, and the second he had taken to perform this spell had cost him the chance of defending himself. (HBP pg 584/545)
Why did Dumbledore freeze Harry? Harry was already invisible to their attackers and in no danger.
The only explanation could be that Dumbledore already knew, had already planned, that he would die this night (or appear to die), and not only did he not want Harry to become involved and possibly be injured himself, he needed Harry to be a witness, to be able to tell everyone else what happened.
Dumbledore might have also promised Snape that he would make sure that Harry would not be able to interfere, knowing how Harry feels about Snape and what Snape was about to have to do.
The supposition that it was Dumbledore's plan to do this all along is supported by the fact that he acted so quickly to do it, almost without thinking, when Draco burst in on the scene.
Harry's own assumption that the Freezing Charm was done by Dumbledore is supported by the fact the curse lifted when Dumbledore left the tower minutes later.
2. Let's All Play Dead Together
While Dumbledore is trying to talk Draco out of killing him, Dumbledore proposes an interesting way out for Draco:
"I can help you, Draco." "No, you can't," said Malfoy, his wand shaking very badly indeed. "Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'd kill me. I've got no choice." "He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine." (HBP pg 591/552)
Dumbledore then offers to expand his mother in the protection, and even Lucius when he gets out of Azkaban.
This is very interesting, isn't it? Draco doesn't take him up on it, but Dumbledore is saying he has ways that could make it appear that Draco died when he really hadn't. Doesn't that sound exactly like what we suspect that Dumbledore has planned for himself?
IMPORTANT REVELATION!
UK Edition Missing Important Text!
The UK edition of Half-Blood Prince is missing some text that is included in the American edition, and it's text that is very important to this clue!
This is the text as it appears in the UK edition:
"He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got not choice." "Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban...when the time comes we can protect him too...come over to the right side, Draco...you are not a killer..." Malfoy stared at Dumbledore. (HBP UK Edition pg 552)
But this is the same passage from the American edition (text missing from the UK edition highlighted):
"He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice." "He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Nobody would be surprised that you had died in your attempt to kill me -- forgive me, but Lord Voldemort probably expects it. Nor would the Death Eaters be surprised that we had captured and killed your mother -- it is what they would do themselves, after all. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban...When the time comes we can protect him too. Come over to the right side, Draco...you are not a killer..." Malfoy stared at Dumbledore. (HBP US Edition pg 591)
Both of the ommissions are directly related, they are about having Draco appeared to have died, so it would seem the ommisions are intentional.
Did J.K. include those lines originally, and then decide she had gone too far and made the clue too transparent and obvious? Is it possible she decided to remove them, but the lines got accidentally included in the American edition anyway?
3. Fawkes doesn't try to save Dumbledore
We've seen Fawkes come in at the last moment and save Harry's life in Chamber of Secrets:
As Harry trembled, ready to close his eyes if it turned, he saw what had distracted the snake. Fawkes was soaring around its head, and the basilisk was snapping furiously at him with fangs long and thin as sabers -- Fawkes dived. His long golden beak sunk out of sight and a sudden shower of dark blood spattered the floor. (CoS pg 318/234)
And he also saved Dumbledore in Order of the Phoenix:
... one more jet of green light had flown at Dumbledore from Voldemort's wand and the snake had struck -- Fawkes swooped down in front of Dumbledore, opened his beak wide, and swallowed the jet of green light whole. He burst into flame and fell to the floor, small, wrinkled and flightless. (OotP pg 814/719)
We know Fawkes was nearby the tower, as he shows up after Dumbledore's "death". So, why didn't Fawkes come to save Dumbledore this time?
I think the fact that he didn't makes it possible to believe that Dumbledore didn't want his life to be saved, and this supports the theory that it was Dumbledore's plan all along to "die" up on that tower that night.
4. The Flying Avada Kedavra
As soon as I read the description of exactly what happened the moment that Snape killed Dumbledore, little red flags were popping up in my brain, but I didn't pay attention to them at first. This was actually the very first clue that alerted me to this whole thing.
Every other time we've seen the Avada Kedavra performed, the victim simply falls over dead:
He was screaming so loudly that he never heard the words the thing in the chair spoke as it raised a wand. There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound, and Frank Bryce crumbled. He was dead before he hit the floor. (GoF pg 15/19)
From high above his head, he heard a high, cold voice say, "Kill the spare." A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: "Avada Kedavra!" A blast of green light blazed through Harry's eyelids, and he heard something heavy fall to ground beside him. Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead. (GoF pg 638/553)
However, in Half-Blood Prince, when Snape curses Dumbledore with the same spell, Dumbledore violently flies up and away from the tower:
Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore. "Avada Kedavra!" A jet of green light shot from the end of Snape's wand and hit Dumbledore squarely in the chest. Harry's scream of horror never left him; silently he was forced to watch as Dumbledore was blasted into the air. For a split second, he seemed to hang suspended beneath the shining skull, and then he slowly fell backward, like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight. (HBP pg 596/556)
Why would this application of the Avada Kedavra be so different from every other time we've seen it?
Perhaps his spell was different because even though those were the words Snape said, he didn't perform the killing curse at all. Remember all the importance this book gave to "nonverbal" spells? Perhaps Snape said Avada Kedavra, but the curse he was really thinking, the nonverbal one, was a different curse, one that only made it appear that Dumbledore was dead.
Even the title of the chapter this all takes place in is suspicous, "The Lightning-Struck Tower". Even though this is the name of the ominous tarot card that Trelawney was worried about back on page 543/507 in chapter 25, is it possible that J.K. is hinting here that the spell was not Avada Kedavra, just some green lightning sparks for show?
5. Don't Point That At Me Unless You Mean It
Several times in the course of the Harry Potter books, J.K. has told us that the Avada Kedavra is not a curse you can make lightly.
In Goblet of Fire, the fake Mad Eye Moody tells his DADA class:
"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it -- you could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed." (GoF pg 217/192)
And in Order of the Phoenix, we learn more about Avada Kedavra when Harry tries to curse Bellatrix:
Hatred rose in Harry such that he had never known before. He flung himself out from behind the fountain and bellowed "Crucio!" Bellatrix screamed. The spell had knocked her off her feet, but she did not writhe or shriek with pain as Neville had -- she was already on her feet again ... "Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?" she yelled. "You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain -- to enjoy it ..." (OotP pg 810/715)
If Snape was really working on Dumbledore's orders to make it look to the world as if Snape had killed him, even if he had used the real Avada Kedavra, if he had not really meant it, if he really didn't want to kill Dumbledore, then isn't possible that the curse didn't kill Dumbledore, but only injured him badly?
6. Fawkes' Lament
Directly after Dumbledore's murder, as everyone assembled in the hospital wing, Harry tells everyone Snape did it. He stops, overcome with emotion, and right then, something very important happens:
Madame Pomfrey burst into tears. Nobody paid her any attention except Ginny, who whispered, "Shh! Listen!" (HBP pg 614/573)
Everyone was there, Ron and his parents, Hermione, Lupin, Tonks. Yet it is Madame Pomfrey who J.K. tells us is struck by this turn of events. Continuing:
Gulping, Madame Pomfrey pressed her fingers to her mouth, her eyes wide. Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before; a stricken lament of terrible beauty. (HBP pg 614/573)
J.K. spends another paragraph on how the phoenix song echos their grief, but while doing so mentions:
Harry felt, as he had felt about the Phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without ... How long they stood there, listening, he did not know, nor why it seemed to ease their pain a little to listen... (HBP pg 615/573)
And then McGonagall enters, changes the subject, and the phoenix song is forgotten.
Many minutes later, after all the retelling of the night's affair, J.K. mentions Fawkes is still at it:
They all fell silent. Fawkes's lament was still echoing over the dark grounds outside. (HBP pg 621/579)
...but Harry's thoughts move right on to other things, like wondering where Dumbledore's body is now. Many minutes later still, as this meeting breaks up and Harry is following McGonagall up to what is now her office, J.K. interjects:
The corridors outside were deserted and the only sound was the distant phoenix song. (HBP pg 625/583)
Whatever it was he was doing, Fawkes was working hard at it, and not giving up. Yet we are supposed to believe, as in the title of this chapter, "The Phoenix Lament", that it is only Dumbledore's pet echoing everyone's grief?
Are we so easily to forget that phoenix tears have powerful healing powers?
Significantly, it is the healer, Madame Pomfrey, who is brought to tears by the phoenix song. She knows the healing power of the phoenix well. She gulps with eyes wide. She recognizes something special is going on.
Also, J.K. goes out of her way to point out the healing qualities of the phoenix song, Harry feels it inside, the way he did last time he was healed by one, and most importantly, it seems to ease their pain!
From these passages, it certainly seems that J.K. wants us to know that Fawkes is doing some healing! Perhaps Fawkes is not powerful enough to bring someone back from the Avada Kedavra, but what if Dumbledore was not really hit by an Avada Kedrava, and instead hit with half a spell, or a spell to make him appear dead (as explained in the clues above)?
7. Anyone Seen Dumbledore's Wand Lately?
At the very begining of the big scene between Draco, Dumbledore and Snape, one of the first things that happens is Dumbledore loses his wand:
The door burst open and somebody erupted through it and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" ... by the light of the Mark, he saw Dumbledore's wand flying in an arc over the edge of the ramparts ... (HBP pg 584/545)
But where is his wand now?
We know a wizard's wand is very important to him, and a wand that belonged to a wizard as powerful as Dumbledore would be a very important item to know the whereabouts of, something you wouldn't want falling into the wrong hands.
This clue might not mean as much if we didn't know the customs of wizards in such occasions, but we do! Five chapters ago, when Harry and Slughorn were consoling Hagrid over the death of Aragog, Hagrid and Sluggy sang a song about a wizard called Odo, and Sluggy sang the lines:
And Odo the hero, they bore him back home,
To the place that he'd known as a lad,
They laid him to rest with his hat inside out
And his wand snapped in two, which was sad. (HBP pg 488/456)
But as far as we know, they didn't snap Dumbledore's wand in two. After the scene at the top of the tower, Dumbledore's wand is simply never mentioned again.
Is it possible that Dumbledore's wand is missing because Dumbledore still has his wand, still needs his wand, because he's not dead?
8. No Body, No Crime
The last time we really saw Dumbledore's body was when Harry is kneeling over it shortly after he has been killed by Snape the previous day.
Now, we see Hagrid carry the body of Dumbledore into his funeral, but it's covered:
Hagrid was walking slowly up the aisle between the chairs. He was crying quite silently, his face gleaming with tears, and in his arms, wrapped in purple velvet spangled with golden stars, was what Harry knew to be Dumbledore's body. (HBP pg 643/599)
We never really see Dumbledore's body at the funeral. How do we know it was there at all?
9. Caution: Dumbledore Is Flammable
As part of the funeral service, a fire ignites around the body of Dumbledore, and when it subsides, his body is encased in a white marble tomb.
Again, we don't see the body, either before or after the fire.
But more importantly, no one lights the fire, it just happens on its own. A body bursting into flame on its own. That sound like anyone we know? We've seen Fawkes do that several times now in the course of the Harry Potter books, and you know what happens to Fawkes after every time it does.
Earlier in the book, we saw several instances where Dumbledore uses fire, an important aspect of the symbol of a phoenix. When he first meets Tom Riddle in the orphanage, to demonstrate he's a wizard, he sets Tom's wardrobe on fire. And he conjures fire to protect Harry and himself from the infiri in the cave.
And after all this, in case we didn't get the allusions to a phoenix, J.K. reminds us just in case:
White smoke spiraled into the air and made strange shapes: Harry thought, for one heart-stopping moment, that he saw a phoenix fly joyfully into the blue, but next second the fire had vanished. (HBP pg 645/601)
All these clues seem to suggest that if Dumbledore really did die, he has the ability to be reborn out of the ashes of his death, either under his own power, or with the help of the healing powers of Fawkes.
Besides, even if Dumbledore's body was there when it erupted into flame, we know that doesn't mean anything to a wizard!
Non-magic people (more commonly known as muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. (PoA pg 2/7)
So, who do they think they were fooling at the funeral?
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Snape Clues
These are the clues contained in the pages of Harry Pottter and the Half-Blood Prince which support the possibility that Snape is not really a Death Eater, has remained loyal to Dumbledore, and all through the book, Snape is working on Dumbledore's Orders.
Since the book is virtually about Snape (it's titled Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which we know now is the same thing as saying Harry Potter and Snape), we can't possibly list here every mention in the book the relates to the mystery of Snape. But here are some of the ones that stood out as important to me.
(Page numbers shown are for US Edition/UK Edition.)
1. Snape Lies to Narcissa and Bellatrix... Twice
During the meeting that Snape has at his house with Narcissa and Bellatrix in chapter 2, Snape tries to explain to them why he never killed Harry all those years at Hogwarts when he had ample opportunity:
"Of course, it became apparent to me very quickly that he had no extraordinary talent at all. He has fought his way out of a number of tight corners by a simple combination of sheer luck and more talented friends. He is mediocre to the last degree..." (HBP pg 31/36)
But we know Snape knows this is a lie. We know Snape knows that Harry is a powerful wizard. We know he knows Harry is a parselmouth. We know he knows Harry could conjure a corporeal patronus when he was just 13 years old. We know he knows Harry has stood up to and prevailed against Voldemort five times!
But not even one whole page later, Narcissa is crying to Snape she has something she wants to say, but has been forbidden to talk about by Voldemort. Snape immediately replies that she should follow Voldemort's orders, and sister Bellatrix agrees. But Snape appears troubled by the conversation:
But Snape had gotten to his feet and strode to the small window, peered through the curtains, and then closed them again with a jerk. He turned around to face Narcissa, frowning. (HBP pg 32/37)
What happened to make him jerk the curtains closed all of a sudden and turn back to the women, frowning? Has he had a revelation?
It is only at this point that he confides in them that he already knows the plan, that Voldemort has already told him. He's lying again!
If he already knew the plan, why would he have taken the position, just one moment earlier, that she should follow Voldemort's law and not speak of it?
We know Snape is a powerful Legilimens, we learned that in the Occlumency scenes with Snape and Harry in Order of the Phoenix. Just in case we forgot about Legilimency, J.K. mentioned it just a few pages ago. Questioning Voldemort's trust in Snape, Snape interrupts:
"You think he is mistaken? Or that I somehow hoodwinked him? Fool the Dark Lord, the greatest wizard, the most accomplished Legilimens the world has ever seen?" (HBP pg 26/31)
Having just been on the verge of spilling the beans to Snape, Draco's assignment must have been top-most in Narcissa's thoughts, and in the quiet moment at the window, Snape saw it in her mind. He then lies to them about already knowing the plan, to gain their trust.
So, at the same time that Snape is trying to convince Narcissa and Bellatrix that he's worthy of Voldemort's trust, we can see he is lying to them, several times. That can only mean that Snape isn't as loyal to Voldemort as he'd like Bellatrix and Narcissa (and us!) to believe.
2. What Hagrid Overheard
Harry is talking to Hagrid after the poisoning of Ron, and Hagrid lets it slip that he overheard something he shouldn't have:
I was comin' outta the forest the other evenin' an' I overheard 'em talking -- well, arguin'. ... I jus' heard Snape sayin' Dumbledore took too much fer granted an' maybe he -- Snape -- didn' wan' ter do it anymore ... Dumbledore told him flat out he'd agreed ter do it an' that was all there was to it." (HBP pg 405/380)
This clue comes right out and tells us that Snape is following the orders of Dumbledore, although we now see whatever Snape has promised to do for Dumbledore is difficult or unpleasant.
We also now have comfirmation that Dumbledore has a plan, which involves Snape, and Dumbleore is confident that the plan that Snape has agreed to will proceed.
3. No DADA Teacher Has Lasted More Than 1 Year
For every Hogwarts year that is documented in the Harry Potter books so far, it stands out prominently that there has been a different Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher each year.
They even joked about it at the beginning of the previous book, when the kids are looking over their just arrived book lists for the year, and they're wondering who assigned the Slinkhard book, as it meant Dumbledore had found a new DADA teacher:
Fred told Harry ... "Dumbledore was having real trouble finding anyone to do the job this year." "Not surprising, is it, when you look at what's happened to the last four?" said George. "One sacked, one dead, one's memory erased, and one locked in a trunk for nine months," said Harry, counting them off on his fingers. "Yeah, I see what you mean." (OotP pg 161/146)
And in Half-Blood Prince, Harry, Ron and Hermione talk about this again when they are surprised at the sorting feast that Snape will be DADA teacher that year:
"Well, there's one good thing," [Harry] said savagely. "Snape'll be gone by the end of the year." "What do you mean?" asked Ron. "That job's jinxed. No one's lasted more than a year...Quirell actually died doing it..." (HBP pg 167/159)
Ironically, it turns out, Harry was literally right. When Tom Riddle returned after a ten year absence to again request to be a teacher at Hogwarts, Dumbledore rejected him, and upon Harry's questioning, Dumbledore gave us some important insight into the Hogwarts DADA teacher situation:
"Was he after the Defense Against the Dark Arts job again, sir? He didn't say..." "Oh, he definitely wanted the Defense Against the Dark Arts job," said Dumbledore. "The aftermath of our little meeting proved that. You see, we have never been able to keep a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for longer than a year since I refused the post to Lord Voldemort." (HBP pg 446/418)
So, Dumbledore himself is admitting he knows that Voldemort cursed the DADA teacher job. This means he knew about the curse when he assigned Snape to the job this year. But he never intended Snape to be in the job for longer than a year to begin with, as his plan for Snape to kill him and flee at the end of the year must have already been in place.
4. Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover
When Snape comes into the bathroom after being alerted by Moaning Myrtle, he knows instanly that the Sectumsempra curse was used to injure Draco, because he goes right to work on him using the proper countercurse to reverse the damage. He then takes Draco to the hospital wing, ordering Harry to wait for him there.
When Snape returns, he asks Harry where he learned the curse, and Harry says he saw it in a book in the library. Snape puts his Legilimency to work again:
"Liar," said Snape. Harry's throat went dry. He knew what Snape was going to do and he had never been able to prevent it... The bathroom seemed to shimmer before his eyes; he struggled to block out all thought, but try as he might, the Half-Blood Prince's copy of Advanced Potion Making swam hazily to the fore-front of his mind. (HBP pg 524/490)
Snape then demands Harry bring him his books, Harry makes a detour and hides the book in the room of requirement, bringing Snape Ron's copy of the book instead.
Snape must know Harry's trying to pull a fast one on him, he knows Harry has the book, he saw it in his mind. But instead of pressing the point, Snape just gives him a dozen detentions.
Why would Snape do this if he wasn't still working for Dumbledore? He lost his temper with Harry when he demanded Harry bring him the book, but then even though Harry lies to him about it, Snape remembers who's side he's on, and backs off.
5. Severus... Please...
If you believe that Snape is acting on Dumbledore's orders to kill him (or possibly just make it look like he killed him, although he'd probably still be hurting him), then Snape's demeanor and Dumbledore's final words take on a whole new meaning.
...somebody else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly. "Severus..." The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading. Snape said nothing, but walked forward and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. ... Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face. "Severus... Please..." (HBP pg 595/556)
In that passage the reader is supposed to believe that Snape hates Dumbledore and feels revulsion for him.
But to help us understand the real meaning of Snape's feelings of revulsion and hatred, J.K. used almost the exact same words for what Harry was feeling just one chapter previous:
"You...you can't stop, Professor," said Harry. "You've got to keep drinking, remember? You told me you had to keep drinking. Here..." Hating himself, repulsed by what he was doing, Harry forced the goblet back toward Dumbledore's mouth ... (HBP pg 571/534)
Even though Snape was to kill Dumbledore on Dumbledore's orders, it must have been something that was still really emotional and difficult for Snape to do, exactly as it was for Harry to make Dumbledore drink the potion.
The feeling of revulsion on Snape's face was not for Dumbledore, but the act he knew he had to commit. The hatred was not for Dumbledore, but for what Dumbledore was making him do.
And when Dumbledore said, "Severus... Please..." he wasn't begging "please don't". What he was really saying was, "Severus, please kill me, as you promised you would."
Way back at the end the first book, when Dumbledore confirms for Harry that Flamel would die now that the philosopher's stone was gone, Dumbledore explained:
"To one as young as you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure." (SS/PS pg 297/215)
Does that sound to you like someone who would beg to save his own life?
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
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1. If Snape Didn't Fulfill The Unbreakable Vow, Why Isn't He Dead?
There are three unanswered aspects to this question.
First, do unbreakable vows have a time limit? It's unlikely they do, because you'd think it would have to be stated when the vow was made, and no such time limit was set.
But if they don't have time limits, then it's sort of hard to enforce an unbreakable vow, isn't?
"Hey! You didn't fulfill your promise! You're dead!" "No wait! I just haven't gotten around to it, you can't kill me yet!"
Second, I believe if you re-read all of chapter 2, you will see that the exact details of Draco's task are never spoken outloud in that scene, we only learn of the details later.
If the exact nature of what Snape's promising to do are not spoken exactly, but possibly only an understanding between the parties, what promise is he held to, exactly? Can he be held to details of a vow that weren't expressly stated? Am I watching too many lawyer shows on TV?
One of Draco's main tasks was to fix the vanishing cabinet so he could sneak his Death Eater pals into Hogwarts. Perhaps that's what Snape vowed to help with, and in that case, Draco suceeeded, so Snape's off the hook.
Third, this unanswerable question is based on the assumption that Dumbledore isn't really dead, so Snape didn't kill him, so he didn't fulfill the vow.
But what if the person you made the vow with thinks you fulfilled it? The world, including Narcissa and Bellatrix (and you, possibly, up until you read this site! :-) thinks that Dumbledore is dead. So does that fulfill Snapes vow?
This one is possibly unanswerable until we can either dig out some more clues buried elsewhere in the book, or possibly we won't know until book 7.
2. Doesn't Dumbledore's Portrait Mean That He's Dead?
Does it state anywhere in a Harry Potter book that you have to be dead to be on the wall in the headmaster's office? I can't prove this, but I think it's just more likely the only requirement is you have to be a former headmaster, and it just so happens all of the former headmasters previous to Dumbledore are currently dead.
The book says:
...a new portrait had joined the ranks of the dead headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts: Dumbledore was slumbering in a golden frame above his desk, his half-moon spectacles perched upon his crooked nose, looking peaceful and untroubled. (HBP pg 626/584)
Yes, we see it says Dumbledore joined the ranks of the dead headmasters. But that doesn't necessarily mean he is dead, it just means the others of the ranks he was joining were dead.
2a. If Dumbledore Is Alive, Where Is Umbridge's Portrait?
So, you may say, if all the portraits on the wall in the headmaster's office aren't necessarily dead, then where's the portrait of Dolores Jane Umbridge? She was temporarily headmistress last year.
First of all, we don't know there's not a portrait of Umbridge. It's never been mentioned, but it's never been mentioned there isn't one, either.
But, some have asked, the event of the death of the headmaster is surely what triggers the creation of the new portrait.
Unfortunately, we just don't know enough about this. For example, it's possible that you may have actually had to have worked in the office to be honored there. That would leave the toad-lady out, since she was locked out of the headmaster's office during her tenure. Or, perhaps, it is a declaration by the Hogwarts board of governers which creates the portrait, in which case, Umbridge wouldn't have one because the ministry appointed her.
Of course, it's also possible that Dolores is so hated, that the other portraits got together and banned her portrait to a closet someplace...
3. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
And speaking of Umbridge...
Everyone who was everyone in the Wizarding world showed up for Dumbledore's funeral, including Dolores! Weren't you a bit shocked to see her there?
She could have been there out of respect, but we know she wouldn't mean it, and as she must surely be way down on the Ministry ladder right now, who would she be trying to impress by the act?
I think it's much more likely that it was arranged for her to be there, as a witness. If the plan was to have the world believe that Dumbledore is dead, then having the toad-lady there as a witness to his funeral would be pretty compelling proof for the Dumbledore haters who Umbridge represents that Dumbledore really is gone.
4. The Draught of Living Death
Potions come into play a lot in the course of Half-Blood Prince. In chapter 9, Professor Slughorn presents four already-made potions to his first class, three of which figure prominently in the story.
They are Veritaserum (truth potion), Polyjuice Potion, which we find out later is being used by Crabbe and Goyle to disguise themselves as girls while they're lookouts for Draco, Amortentia (love potion), which Ron accidentally injests from a candy meant for Harry, and Feilx Felicis, which aids the members of Dumbledore's Army later in the climax of the story.
Then, in the same class, Harry, with the aid of the Half-Blood Prince, produces a perfect Draught of Living Death, which was introduced to us way back in Snape's first lesson in the first book. Interestingly, in pratically the same breath, Snape also mentions the bezoar which also figures prominently in Half-Blood Prince, and also wolfsbane, which we know helps Lupin later in Prisoner of Azkaban:
"For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As far as monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant... (SS/PS pg 138/103)
Some fans are speculating that the fifth potion in this scene is important too, that Dumbledore uses the Draught of Living Death to somehow fake his death that night up on the tower. While this theory is possible, besides the mention of the Draught of Living Death here in chapter 9, to my knowledge there is no other evidence to support this theory.
5. Will The Real Dumbledore Please Stand Up?
Another theory some fans have put forward involves a clue that has to do with Dumbledore's pensieve.
When we first see the pensieve in Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore demonstates for Harry how memories are put into it:
Dumbledore drew his wand out of the inside of his robes and placed the tip into his own silvery hair, near his temple. When he took the wand away, hair seemed to be clinging to it -- but then Harry saw that it was in fact a glistening strand of the same strange silvery-white substance that filled the Pensieve. Dumbledore added this fresh thought to the basin, and Harry, astonished, saw his own face swimming around the surface of the bowl. (GoF pg 597/519)
We saw the pensieve in operation in Order of the Phoenix also:
Snape pulled out his wand from an inside pocket of his robes and Harry tensed in his chair, but Snape merely raised the wand to his temple and placed the tip into the greasy roots of his hair. When he withdrew it, some silvery substance came away, stretching from temple to wand like a thick gossamer strand, which broke as he pulled the wand away from it and fell gracefully into the Pensieve, where it swirled silvery white, neither gas nor liquid. (OotP pg 533/471)
Both nearly identical descriptions of two different people putting a memory of their own into the pensieve.
But now, take a look at this from Half-Blood Prince:
"...I have two last memories that I would like to share with you." Dumbledore indicated the two little crystal bottles gleaming beside the Pensieve. (HBP pg 430/402)
"And now for the very last recollection I have to show you" ... Harry got to his feet once more as Dumbledore emptied the last memory into the Pensieve. "Who's memory is it?" he asked. "Mine," said Dumbledore. (HBP pg 440/412)
If this was his own memory, why would Dumbledore have stored this memory in a bottle rather than just pull it out his head the way he and Snape had done before?
Although I consider this unlikely, fans are pointing to this clue to theorize that Dumbledore hasn't been Dumbledore for all of, or at least a great portion of, the book, and that the Dumbledore we see is someone using Polyjuice potion to pretend to be him, and therefore the real Dumbledore isn't dead. Only a fake Dumbledore would have to have the memory in a bottle, because only the real Dumbledore could take it directly out of his head.
But it's also just possible Dumbledore sealed the important memory in the bottle for safe-keeping...
Dumbledore's Horcrux
A DumbledoreIsNotDead.com Guest ArticleWe learn of the existence of Horcruxes out of the blue in Book 6 of the seven book series. No mention of them in any of the thousands of pages preceding Half-Blood Prince in Books 1 through 5. Will we learn in Book 7 that there is another Horcrux? Dumbledore's Horcrux?
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and the awesome pix frm d site:
