*SPOILER*

SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE!!!!!!!!!

That would make JK Rowlings statement correct…at the moment…we just need to wait until he rises from his ashes.

As far as teh AK not fitting the description, Felicity has adequately explained in this essay that the AK on the Astronomy Tower fits the description just fine. Read her article; you’ll see that nothing was really out of order with what happened that night.

Only Harry & Co. will know for sure that this is a hoax because they stole Dumbledore’s portrait from the Headmaster’s office. In the interest of truth, Harry will disclose the fraud to Rita Skeeter even though he knows that it will dismay his friends and embolden his enemies.

But how do we know that Dumbledore won’t come back as a ghost? After all, JKR said he wouldn’t pull a Gandalf, but she didn’t say he wouldn’t pull an Obie-Wan. Yeah, I know Nearly-Headless Nick associates ghosthood with shame and cowardice. But maybe Dumbledore is willing to humble himself in order to accomplish a greater good. Supernatural heros do that sometimes.

Think about it: There’s a growing gang of people in the afterlife who have a score to settle w/ ol’ Voldy. And Sirius went into the afterlife while carrying a magic mirror by which he can hear and see what’s going on (even if Harry can’t hear and see Sirius). Plus there’s a big fat archway down in the bowels of the Ministry, adjoining a room full of “the greatest power known to wisardom” (or something like that). So you know there’s gotta be another shoot-out in the Hall of Mysteries. What are the odds that Harry, like Aragon before him, gets back-up from an army of dead guys?

When I first read that Dumbledore died I didn’t want to beleive it and it took me weeks to beleive that he was dead. Well, I guess a farewell is in order.

Here’s to Dumbledore, A wizard’s hero, and mine as well. I’ll miss his twinkling eyes, his silly comments, his showing up at just the right moment, and of course his pet Phoenix, Fawkes.

Let me explain. I don’t mind Rowling’s choice regarding Dumbledore’s fate — it fits. Dumbledore is — after all — a mere man. A “great man” as Hagrid always points out, but a man nonetheless unlike Odin or Gandalf. What I do mind is that we didn’t get a chance to find out in the pages of book 7 what really happened. And I believe she was pressured into revealing this and other things by the whole tone of the event which was “let’s bring this fabulous author of English lit down to our level of successful peddlers of word-smithery.” After all, King is a writer of slashers and I won’t elaborate on Irving’s strange fixation here.

Let me also say that the incident hasn’t tarnished JKR one bit in my mind and she remains as classy as ever. I believe that her PR folks should have just advised her to do the bit next year after the series was at a close; sincerity on behalf of all parties would be easier for me to buy at that point.