Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I've just finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (OOTP) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (HBP) in preparation for the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (TDH):

I'm most interested to find out what becomes of Snape. I think it's interesting that only two of the books have been titled around a single character: Prisoner of Azkaban and Half-Blood Prince. In the first, a seemingly evil character turns out to be good, and in the second, a seemingly good character turns out to be evil. Or does he?

I think you could make the argument that Dumbledore and Voldemort are mirror images of what Harry could become. One is absolutely good and one is absolutely evil. And along those same lines, I think that you could make a similar argument for the contrast between Sirius and Snape. One is a pureblood and one is not. One is good mistaken for evil and the other is evil mistaken for good. One wants to help Harry succeed and one wants to see him fail. And they both see Harry as an extension of his father, James, who one loved and the other hated.

I think that that argument is little too simplistic, though. Snape has had multiple opportunities to kill Harry and he has not taken advantage of any of them. As a matter of fact, in several different situations, Snape has actually saved Harry's life. He told Bellatrix at the beginning of HBP that he saved Harry from Quirrell because he didn't know that Quirrell was host to Voldemort, but why should that have mattered? If Snape was really on Voldie's side, he could have just done nothing. It certainly wouldn't gain him any points to save him – except with Dumbledore, and it wouldn't cost him anything to let him die.

At the end of OOTP, Snape chose to inform the Order that Harry and his friends were headed to the Ministry of Magic thus helping to guard Harry's safety and the safety of the prophecy. Again inaction would not have been questioned. He could easily have claimed that Harry didn't try to warn him or that he misunderstood the warning. Instead he passed the warning along and probably saved Harry's life.

Finally, at the end of HBP, Snape once again saved Harry's life from the other Death Eaters. And not only did he prevent them from cursing Harry to death, he prevented them from cursing Harry at all. He refused to fight Harry, and he refused to allow Harry to use any unforgiveable curses. In fact, when Snape told Harry that he would never win this fight because he wasn't a good Occlumens and he couldn't perform non-verbal spells, you could read that to be a tip rather than a jeer.

A lot of people, including Harry, believe that Snape was actually a double-agent and that he is in fact evil. I tend to not believe that. Dumbledore was not a fool, and exposing Snape as truly in league with Voldie would cast doubt on all of Dumbledore's past decisions. Harry believes that the reason Dumbledore trusted Snape was because Snape was repentant about the death of James and Lily Potter, but I think that there was a much better reason for Dumbledore to trust him. First, Dumbledore never actually told Harry the reason that he trusted Snape. He just told Harry that Snape's guilt over the deaths of Harry's parents was a turning point. Second, Dumbledore didn't trust Tom Riddle after any of the times that he expressed remorse, so why would he have trusted any of the Death Eaters on just a statement of remorse. There was bound to be a better reason.

I think that there is more of a connection between Harry and Snape than we have seen so far. I think that Snape has been intentionally mean to Harry to make sure that there is no possible way that anyone would think that he wanted to help him, but I think that Snape is going to be the biggest help to Harry when it comes to defeating Voldie. It's already been foreshadowed in HBP as Snape was the one that actually helped Harry continue in Potions by taking a new position, helped Harry succeed in potions as the unknown Half-Blood Prince, and helped Harry survive to fight again as he was leaving the castle. Harry is going to need Snape's help to accomplish his task and Snape is going to provide it.

I also have a couple of other kind of random thoughts. First, I think that there is more to the connection between Fawkes, Dumbledore, Harry, and Voldie than any of us realize. We all already know that Fawkes gave two feathers for wands and that those wands belong to Voldie and Harry. We also know that those two wands can't be used against each other as a result which makes it interesting to try and figure how Harry is going to kill Voldie (I also assume that Harry won't use an unforgiveable curse as that would be bad form for a good guy, don't you think?). More than that, though, I found it interesting in re-reading OOTP that when Harry recounted to Dumbledore that he had told Scrimgouer that he was Dumbledore's man, Fawkes sang and Dumbledore cried simultaneously. That got me to thinking back on how Fawkes had been the one to assist Harry when Dumbledore couldn't in Chamber of Secrets and how Fawkes had been the one to help Dumbledore communicate with Harry, Ron and Hermione in OOTP when Dumbledore couldn't be there. Finally, the most obvious connection of all is the fact that Dumbledore's patronus is a phoenix. Of course, how this connection is going to play out is anyone's guess, but I think it is interesting to note that the phoenix is legendary precisely becuase of its ability to survive death. In fact, death is a regular part of its life. Voldie has already resurrected from the dead once. Harry has already survived death once. So what does that mean for Dumbledore in the upcoming novel?

Another random thought is that it must be important that Harry has his mother's eyes. I can't tell you how many times I noticed that that was mentioned in just these last two books. I'll bet it's even more in the previous ones that I didn't re-read. How does that play into the situation? And why does it keep getting so much mention?

I just had to get all of this out before the book is published. Let me know your thoughts if you are interested.

Besieged at the Bar

How do you handle a situation where you're completely surrounded by men with guns?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19795748/?GT1=10150

From what I can gather out of this relatively short article, Mr. Dana Farrell Shelton was intoxicated on Sunday night and police were dispatched to investigate a disturbance at the bar where Mr. Shelton was drinking. By the time the police arrived, though, things seemed to have calmed down and they found no issues. The police just simply asked Mr. Shelton, who they noted was obviously intoxicated, to move along.

Mr. Shelton is apparently not a "happy drunk" and must have taken this request as a belligerent command for he obviously felt threatened. Here he was minding his own business, now that he'd gotten those crazies in the bar to leave him alone anyway, and a bunch of guys with guns have him surrounded and are trying to tell him what to do. He obviously had no choice but to call 911, and I can only imagine how that conversation went:

Officer on the scene 1 (oos1): What's he doing now?

Officer on the scene 2 (oos2): Oh, he just got out a cell phone…he's probably just calling a cab.

OOS1: Cool. Anybody want to hit the Krispy Kreme with me?

[Mr. Shelton was actually frantically dialing 911 for help and they had just answered]

911 Operator: 911. Please state the nature of your emergency.

Shelton: Yeah…..ummmmm……..yeah……..ummmmm……..they've got guns……ummmmm……yeah.

911: I'm sorry, sir, did you say that someone near you has a gun?

Shelton: Yeah……ummmmm……they've all got guns………yeah…….and I'm surrounded.

911: Sir, can you tell me where you are?

Shelton: Yeah…….I'm at the bar……I was just having a drink when they came in with guns.

OOS2: Hey, guys, did he just say he has a gun?

OOS1: Nah, he ain't got no gun. I think he said he was done having fun.

911: Sir, can you tell me anything about the men with guns?

Shelton: Sure……yeah……..well………here's the thing……..I'm kind of surrounded by Largo police……….and they've all got guns.

911: Is this joke, sir. Did you just say that you're surrounded by the police?

OOS1: Dude, he's talking about us.

OOS2: What did he say?

OOS1: Something about being surrounded by Largo police.

Shelton: Yeah…..ummm….that's right….I'm surrounded by police.

911: Sir, you do realize that you have dialed 911, right? We are the police.

Shelton: Well…….ummm……darn………I guess you're not going to help me then.

911: Sir, I would be happy to send some help just stay where you are.

OOS1: Did you guys hear that?

OOS2: Yeah, it sounded like dispatch just called us to help out a guy that's surrounded by us.

OOS1: Mr. Shelton, we're here to help. What do you need?

Shelton: Wow……ummmm….that was fast [hangs up his phone]……can you get rid of these guys with guns?

OOS1: Absolutely, just come with me.

The next thing Mr. Shelton knows he's being escorted off to jail with a misdemeanor charge for abusing the 911 system, but I want to know who else was he supposed to call in such a dire situation?

Possum Kingdom

We all went camping at Possum Kingdom State Park this past weekend with the Getz family. Kenton and Carla have four boys nearly the same ages as our four girls and one little girl tacked on the end. Yes, there was a total of nine children between our two campsites and only three adults for most of the time that we were there since Kenton didn't get there until Friday evening and Carla left Saturday morning.

Leah and Carla headed out Thursday afternoon to go ahead and get a campsite and stuff since I couldn't leave until after work Thursday afternoon. On the way, they relied a little too much on Google maps directions and got a little turned around in Weatherford. For some reason, though, when Leah called and told me that they were a little turned around, and I was on the internet looking at a detailed street map of where they were, she was not interested in me helping them get back on track. I tell you, I'll not ever understand women. All in all, they got there safely but managed to turn a 3 hour trip into a 5 hour journey.

While there, we had a nice relaxing weekend mostly spent just sitting around camp visiting. The lake was pretty muddy from all of the recent rain, and we couldn't find anywhere along the bank to catch fish. We did see a fair number of deer and rabbits and that's really where Dixie's little adventure came into play.

Dixie is our beagle, and her little pea brain only understands two things: (1) chase rabbit and (2) do it in a big circle. They say that beagles are very difficult to train, and I'll testify to the truth of that. Anyway, Dixie was mostly behaved through the weekend until Saturday night. She was in the kids' tent and she must have smelled some rabbit nearby. She found a small hole where the kids had not zipped the door completely closed and was gone for about an hour. We could hear her baying off in the woods but really had no way to catch her. Thankfully, that last part kicked in, and she came running back around a little while later, and we got her back.

We got home yesterday and still have stuff in the garage to pack back away until our next trip. I think it will probably be sometime in September. We don't know where yet, but I'm sure we'll come up with something.