MuggleNet | The Underground Lake #28a - Half-Blood, Full Hero

Folks, I am back! Rested, refreshed and ready to delve, ever so carefully, into the realm of the beyond! I'm sorry for my Trelawney-ishness, but it has been a while. Recall that the mission of the Underground Lake as outlined in Season One (now available on DVD, or rather, MuggleNet) was that "to analyze and fully comprehend the events leading up to, including, and immediately following "the lost day" is to fully comprehend what may potentially happen in Books Six and Seven as well as shed light on cryptic events in Books One through Five." That was last season, and pre-Book Six. We now have one of the final pieces of the puzzle and, in honor of Season Two as well as the man who inspires so many who we now mourn, the Underground Lake has a new mission:

I know you're thinking, "that's what we've been doing all along." But now we have a problem: our time together is growing quite short. We have only one book left, and being that it is the last, there will be nothing to predict that hasn't already happened. The reason for my long absence was my excruciatingly precise reread of Book Six. I analyzed in brutal detail all the various nooks and crannies, making sure all of my facts were straight before committing myself to theories that I will have to change. We, therefore, must cling to this new mission. Cling to it and hope that as true Potterphiles we may unravel the deepest mysteries, unlock the most hidden doors.

The opening of Season Two, as I mentioned in my sneak peek is a five-part series called 'HALF-BLOOD, FULL HERO.' This series is designed to take all of the new nuggets obtained from Book Six and completely revamp our old theories and forge them into new, logical conclusions about Book Seven, all relating back, of course, to our hero: Harry. Our first installment concerns that of our dearly departed friend and headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. I submit for your entertainment and consideration (God, I've missed saying that): THE DEATH OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE!

Is that harsh? Yes. Is it true? HECK YES! Dumbledore is dead, folks. I refuse to go through another two years of Sirius-esque "he's still alive" droning. I realize all the phoenix symbolism is there, but like Sirius, Dumbledore is dead and he's not coming back. I don't hate to say, 'I told you so' because when I did, certain people who shall remain nameless, cursed me (and not in a Voldemort fashion) and called me delusional (not Emerson - he's cool, and he's right shippers - you were quite delusional). I have no remorse whatsoever for throwing it in your face that I said pretty much from the beginning that Dumbledore was going to die. I know we didn't want it to happen, but it did and, like Harry, we must move on.

I categorically acknowledge his death not to chastise my readers but to prepare a point I have been stewing over. As you may recall from Season One, I said that I believe Sirius died for a reason and that reason was to show Harry the way to kill Voldemort (though I don't think he was thinking about that when he was battling Bellatrix). I feel that Dumbledore's death was no accident (well, obviously, as he was killed, but I mean in the larger sense).

You all have been thinking it, but I'm going to say it: I trust TFPWWNBN now more than I ever have because he killed Dumbledore. Do I hate him? Yes. Is he a slimy contemptible sewer rat? Of course. Was he acting under orders to kill Dumbledore? Yes. But whose orders? TFPWWNBN was told to kill Dumbledore by Dumbledore. Let us revisit the argument in the forest that Hagrid overheard. As usual, JKR loves to torture us with unnecessary vagueness. Have you noticed how, in all of the books, when the big baddies are talking to each other, they use a lot of unnecessary vagueness and euphemism? I realize they are afraid of being overheard, but still. But I digress. The forest:

If you'll notice, I have ignored all references to Hagrid's assumptions and merely reported what he HEARD and not what something SOUNDED LIKE. Based on this argument, I can make the following assumptions: TFPWWNBN is tired of playing both sides against the middle because he has perhaps the most dangerous job, being a double agent, and sooner or later, the side that he is not truly working for will discover his secret. Not to mention the Unbreakable Vow, which I'll address later. The "it" I believe TFPWWNBN is referring to is the culmination of Voldemort's plot. Using the vagueness of "Spinner's End," I have determined that TFPWWNBN knew of Voldemort's plan. From my point of view, the overriding plan of Book Six was to kill Dumbledore... but Voldemort has much more at stake than that. Voldemort is ticked at Lucius, as I said in Season One. But the reason I said then is certainly incorrect. I thought he was mad at Lucius for not coming after him after he died. What Voldemort was really angry about was the loss of one of his Horcruxes.

For Voldemort, after the battle in the Ministry, it became clear that possession of Harry was an impossibility, not to mention the fact that in a stand up fight he could never attack Harry so long as Harry had enough time to mutter a spell - ANY spell - thus activating PRIORI INCANTATEM." Voldemort could never have bested Dumbledore in a standup fight, as witnessed in the Ministry. Voldemort needed a new strategy. He decided the only way to kill Dumbledore was a sneak attack. He used Dumbledore's one weakness against him: his students. As Voldemort learned in the Ministry, Dumbledore would never purposely endanger the life of one of his students, and he would also do anything in his power to make sure that no outside force could harm one of his students. With that in mind, he decided to kill two birds with one stone.

It happened almost as I said with my Dracomort and Marauder's Map theories. Recall that my Dracomort theory was a laughable conclusion that Draco would volunteer to serve Voldemort by allowing himself to be possessed by the Dark Lord and used as the means to kill Harry. The Marauder's Map theory was my theory that not everything was on the map. I had my money on someone going down to the Chamber of Secrets and since it wasn't on the map, if Harry saw a villain disappear off the map, that the person was going into the Chamber to do some evil. Taking pieces of both, we can see that I was almost on the right track. Voldemort decided to stick it to Lucius and kill Dumbledore in one stroke.

This shows us how categorically evil Voldemort is. He never meant for Draco to succeed. He told Draco that he had a job to do and that if he did it, he would be honored above all others at Voldemort's side. However, if he failed, Voldemort said he would kill Lucius and Narcissa. The job: kill Dumbledore. Shouldn't be too difficult. He assumed that Dumbledore would see through any obvious attempts by a sixteen-year-old to kill him and do a preemptive strike so that regardless, Voldemort gets his revenge. Again, what he had not counted on was love.

Say what you want about Draco, but he loves his parents and risked his own life to save them. The question of whether they are worth saving is insignificant. What IS significant is that, for all intents and purposes, Draco succeeded in his mission. His mission was to kill Dumbledore. He may not have pulled the trigger, but he definitely loaded the gun. Dumbledore is dead, and he is dead because of Draco. I say this not to admonish Draco, but to warn him. Folks, I submit that Draco and his family are in even more danger at the hands of Voldemort than they ever were before. True, it is possible that Voldemort will be happy that Dumbledore is dead and no longer a threat and obstacle between him and Harry, but... at some point, it is going to be brought to Voldemort's attention that - despite all of his machinations, plans, schemes, powers and actual battles against Dumbledore - that the greatest wizard in the world met his end at the hands not of an equal and worthy adversary, like Voldemort, but at the absurdly simple machinations of a SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD WIZARD WITH NO EXCEPTIONAL MAGICAL PROWESS! It's gonna suck for Voldemort that everybody's going to know that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't kill Dumbledore... but Draco could.

Knowing what we now know about Voldemort's wonder years, we know that Voldemort loves glory. To me, the title of being the one who actually brought down Dumbledore would be the ultimate jewel in his scepter. No one would dare dispute that Voldemort was the best. But wait! That's not what happened. Dumbledore was lulled into a false sense of security by a little kid, and in a completely weakened condition, he was murdered by a Death Eater. That's not a good story for Voldemort. Sure, Voldemort might look at the big picture, but in the back of his mind there will always be a level of regret that he didn't kill Dumbledore himself and, most importantly, it was the damn Malfoys that screwed him over again.

Of late, all my attentions have been on deciphering the importance of 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. However, now that the book is finished, I can venture into the astronomy tower and, using my powers of deduction, reveal what really happened that fateful night to our dear friend. Here are just the facts, ma'am:

This is everything Harry SAW and not what he deduced (aside from the mention of TFPWWNBN's face). Let us take each step one by one. The dark mark was an obvious ploy to summon Dumbledore back from the Hog's Head to the castle. Question: since Draco had absolutely no way of knowing that Dumbledore and Harry were really going to destroy a Horcrux and that Dumbledore had been weakened, how would he possibly have attempted to best him? If Draco thought he had a snowball's chance in heck of besting Dumbledore in a battle alone, then he is what I like to call "out of his frickin' mind." It always intrigued me why Draco never just went into Dumbledore's office on the pretense of needing to see him, and then Avada Kedavra-ing him. AK leaves no traces; he could say that Dumbledore had a heart attack and run outside of the grounds and illegally Apparate back home. With Dumbledore dead, he could openly declare himself a Voldemort supporter, and no one would dare attack him for risk of incurring the wrath of Voldemort. Simple, quick - it would have taken a day. But there is a tiny problem: Draco can't do it. Draco doesn't really want to kill Dumbledore; he just wants to protect his family. That's where the Death Eaters come in. He knows he can't do it so, like a true leader, he delegates that responsibility to lackeys. By sneaking Death Eaters into the school, he can take a long time to get it done, and like any little kid, he hopes that Voldemort will forget. But the Dark Lord does not forget, and he does not forgive.

Next point: why then did Dumbledore not summon Fawkes as he did in the Ministry? I know you all are saying Dumbledore didn't summon Fawkes to swallow that blast of Avada Kedavra, but I believe that Fawkes and Dumbledore share a connection. And as we all know, Dumbledore - with very few exceptions - has everything in his school under control. If he wanted to escape before the Death Eaters arrived, he could have. Why did he allow Malfoy to tell his story? Honestly, I think it was to give Harry the satisfaction of knowing he was right. What is intriguing about Book Six is that Harry did a lot of maturing post-Sirius. When it came down to the mystery of this novel (who was behind the attacks), Harry followed the old "MALFOY RULE OF GUILT." In the HP universe, there exists a blame continuum of all characters. Whenever something bad happens, the trio always first assumes Malfoy is guilty and in doing so, Malfoy will usually lead them to who is really behind the treachery. After five books of assuming Malfoy, Ron and Hermione were sick of being wrong. Harry, however, was unwavering in his conviction that Malfoy was culpable. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, Harry was right.

So why then did Dumbledore (since he KNEW all along that Malfoy was behind it) not tell Harry? It is the same reason Dumbledore died: to teach Harry a lesson. It is my conviction that not only did Dumbledore beg TFPWWNBN to kill him in order to save Draco and himself from incurring the wrath of Voldemort, but also to teach Harry a lesson in focusing on the task at hand. Dumbledore knew that Harry was single-minded in his quest to catch Malfoy. That is why he set him the assignment to get the memory from Slughorn. The top priority, and Dumbledore knows this, is for Harry to exhaust all means to find and destroy the remaining Horcruxes. Anything else distracts from this goal and could lead the whole mission into ruin. Remember what Dumbledore said about himself to Harry: "I am far wiser, far more powerful, and far less important that you." Translation (in the words of Ronald Weasley): "It's you that's got to go on. No me. Not Hermione. You!"

Now we know why he died... but what does that mean for Harry? Harry now has a mission: destroy the Horcruxes. But how? I believe the key lies within "The Hand Story." The Hand Story is the story of how Dumbledore's hand became blackened and dying. Dumbledore promised us that he would tell Harry the story when he could "do it justice." Yet, we are never given a satisfactory answer. All we know is that in the process of destroying Marvolo's ring, something happened that nearly destroyed Dumbledore and had it not been for the quick thinking of TFPWWNBN, Dumbledore might not have been able to tell us that much.

So why is it important that we, or more importantly Harry, hear The Hand Story? Because Harry has to know how to destroy the Horcruxes. He saw how to FIND one Horcrux, but how does one DESTROY a Horcrux? Hermione can't exactly read about one. There's no more Felix Felicis to help them. It is for this reason that I think Harry WILL return to Hogwarts. I DID NOT say as a student, but he shall return on Dumbledore's orders. I believe Harry will receive a message from Dumbledore instructing him to return to Hogwarts. At that point he will then have an appointment with a certain painting in the Headmistress' office, namely the newly hung portrait of Albus Dumbledore. He needs that piece of information before he can begin his journey.

Posted by: Nicole

If you would like to contact Brandon, you may do so at Greatbman at aol dot com.

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Half-Blood, Full Hero: Part 1
The Death of Albus Dumbledore

Posted by: Nicole

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Half-Blood, Full Hero: Part 1 The Death of Albus Dumbledore

Posted by: Nicole

Discuss this editorial.

Click here to go back to The Underground Lake main.

Half-Blood, Full Hero: Part 1
The Death of Albus Dumbledore