Doh! Somehow I didn't notice that I'd missed picking a Snape question when I was collecting them all.
I was always Team Snape is a Good Guy too, even after he killed Dumbledore and we were left to wonder for years what was going on. At that point I still trusted that Dumbledore knew what he was doing (even if I had my doubts when his past was being revealed in book 7).
If there's one thing Book 7 does, it shows us that very few people are truly good or evil. We learn serious bad things about Dumbledore and Ron, and serious good things about Snape.
Snape was really awesome for discussions in the years before book 7 came out, though! Akin to the "is
... - I was a bit annoyed with Dumbledore, but I do think he intended to give Harry more information. I believe he was blindsided by Malfoy's attack. As we learn that Dumbledore is arrogant regarding his personal intelligence and abilities, he probably expected to know when Malfoy would make his real attempt. Knowing when he would be killed, he would have given Harry more information. His bequethings were a just-in-case insurance policy, but given his fierce protectiveness of the students, I doubt he truly expected to be killed at a time that was not part of his grand plan. ...
But he did know he was going to die soon, according to Snape's memories. Didn't Snape say it would be a year or so when he first treated Dumbledore's hand?
That said, it does seem like both he and Snape left a lot to chance about explaining things to Harry!
But had he died from the cursed hand, Snape would still have been in the school to do more (probably horrible) lessons with Harry.
But he did know he was going to die soon, according to Snape's memories. Didn't Snape say it would be a year or so when he first treated Dumbledore's hand?
That said, it does seem like both he and Snape left a lot to chance about explaining things to Harry!
But had he died from the cursed hand, Snape would still have been in the school to do more (probably horrible) lessons with Harry.
Well, yes, but he arranged for Snape to kill him when it got too bad and also to prevent Draco having to do so. So he must have expected Snape would end up leaving the school. I'm not saying he knew he was going to die that night, but I think he knew it would be within months.
I finished my reread on Friday and just sobbed on my couch for like 45 minutes. I think I've only read this one maybe 3-4 times before, and I'm still catching nuances. It's too heavy to read over and over.
Ron is the worst. Snape is awesome but still a dick. I heart Neville.
The scene with Lily and the marauders coming back nearly killed me. "You've been so brave.", etc.
I will always love Dumbledore. He's a real guy who makes mistakes despite his great brain, and he knew he was going to die before the quest was over but didn't maybe do the greatest job of predicting Harry's questions. Did anyone else read the Grindelwald scenes through the lens of a teenage crush?
Uh, yeah. When JKR said (after Deathly Hallows was published) that Dumbledore was gay, I thought about Grindelwald and was like, "...oh."