Geek Moment 2.0 (Harry Potter)
I finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince several days ago, the Monday after the release actually, but I have been holding off on this question until more people had read it, and would be able to discuss it with me. Now that I know Kyle is finished with it... come into the comments section, to see a question I have about the resolution of one of the major mysteries in this book... see you there!
Did Snape lie about being the Half Blood Prince? Harry comes to the conculsion early in the book that the Potions Textbook can't have belonged to either of his parents because the date on the book is to old. Snape was at Hogwarts at the same time as Harry's parents, so it follows that the book is also too old to have belonged to Snape.
Was the book his mother's, and he kept it as a second hand textbook, or as a keepsake of his mother? Or did he lie, in order to mislead Harry about the actual identity of the HBP?
i'm fairly certain that Snape was the HBP, but was not the original owner of the book — and as begrudgingly as I am to admit it, i think snape still might be "good." he WAS under the unbreakable vow, and he's not much use to the order DEAD ... tho it is chilling that he was able to pull off the Avada against Dumbledore, since you have to feel it...
If Snape got an old used book as a student, then wrote in it, rightly, that he was a half-blood Prince (being half of his mother, a Prince family name), then he was just writing simple truth.
I think Snape put Dumbledore out of pain, that Dumbledore's "Severus" was a quiet plea (please do it). I think they both knew something about D's condition that we don't, yet.
Cully, you are a big nerd :)