Eight years I have waited. What does Rowling have in store for us this time? There are many issues here to address, of course:
Sirius Black's “Death”
Perhaps there is a reason that Rowling left the question of Sirius' death so open-ended. This tricky genius could easily have developed a loophole in Sirius' “death” so that she could justify him “coming back to life.” But why would he “come back”? What good can Sirius be to the series at this point? Sirius has lived his purpose in Harry's life, and though his life was dear to Harry and his fans in the real world, the man is dead and will not return. Rowling simply has her way of broadening the imagination of her readers. True, we have no proof that he is dead, but we also have no proof that he is alive.
The question is not whether or not Sirius is dead. The question is: what is that arch and what does it mean?
The Seven Pieces of Voldemort's Soul
As you may remember, Dumbledore had six of the suspected seven Horcruxes that Voldemort created. This leaves us with the question: what is the seventh? Perhaps Voldemort created his last Horcrux without intending to. When Voldemort killed Harry's mother, he then turned to kill Harry but could not. Instead of killing him, it is quite possible that Voldemort inserted a seventh of his soul into his enemy. This means that in order to kill Voldemort, Harry must die. You may chuckle at this idea, but Rowling seems to have a very good reason to not continue after Harry's seventh year….
The idea that the Horcrux is Harry's scar, however, is not feasible. The moment Voldemort tried to kill Harry, Voldemort was almost killed. The scar did not appear on Harry until Voldemort was reduced to near-nothingness. Therefore, the Horcrux could not be the scar itself, but it could very well be Harry….
The locket
Rowling is a sneaky writer! Poor Dumbledore strives all year to find the Horcrux-locket, and finally succeeds. He sacrifices himself, more or less, to obtain it, and it is a fake! The real one, however, should not be too difficult to obtain, because it is in the Black home, listed among other items on page 116 of The Order of the Phoenix, a fact that Harry will hopefully realize soon. This must mean that Regulus Black, Sirius' brother, was the one who found it first (the unknown R.A.B.).
As Harry and Dumbledore went to retrieve the locket, there was a boat that led them to the center of the lake where the locket was. The boat began to move once a “man” sat in it, but did not notice Harry as he was still only 16. Dumbledore brought Harry with him because he needed Harry to force him to drink the potion in which the locket was hidden. All this to say, if Regulus beat Dumbledore and Harry to the locket, Regulus must have had an underaged companion. If Dumbledore could not have claimed the locket alone, who else possibly could have? This raises the question of who was with Regulus. This matters because Dumbledore thought that he and Harry were the only ones who knew about Voldemort's Horcruxes. Now we suspect that Regulus knew too, but as he is dead that hardly matters. But if someone else was with Regulus, someone underaged and now just a few years older than Harry, then that opens many doors and a few windows of possibilities.
Snape: Innocent or guilty?
At the end of book five, though we all hated him, the wiser of us trusted Snape to be on the side of Dumbledore. The end of the sixth book, however, is the final straw. On the tower, when Dumbledore heard Malfoy running up the stairs, he endangered himself to ensure Harry's safety. After a few moments of Malfoy struggling to do his duty (killing Dumbledore), Snape busts through the door. Snape, you remember, is bound by a vow he cannot break (unless he dies) to complete Malfoy's work should he fail. Snape killed Dumbledore, so he must be guilty, right? No! Dumbledore was already weak from the potion he drank to obtain the locket. If Snape had not killed Dumbledore, he would have died because of the Unbreakable Vow, and, consequently, one of the many Death Eaters present would have killed Dumbledore instead. Malfoy is another issue - if neither Snape nor Malfoy had killed Dumbledore that night, both would have been punished, and likely killed (of course, Snape would have died anyway). Dumbledore's death would have been Dumbledore's death alone; if Snape had not killed Dumbledore, then the death toll would have been much worse.
Also, before Snape killed Dumbledore, Dumbledore pleaded with him. And, as the narration said, Harry had never heard Dumbledore plead. The automatic thought is that Dumbledore is pleading with Snape for his own life. Oh, please! Dumbledore is no fool; he knew he was, at that moment, useless. Not even Dumbledore can defend himself against half a dozen Death Eaters with no wand. “There was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of [Snape's] face.” Snape did not kill Dumbledore because of the hate; he hated Dumbledore because he had to kill him. Dig deeper and everything points to Snape's innocence. Dumbledore knew Snape would rather die than kill Dumbledore, but Dumbledore had Malfoy in mind to protect, and Snape himself, and of course Harry. As was recently pointed out to me, perhaps Dumbledore pleaded with Snape to kill him. After all, Voldemort trusted Snape, so, naturally, Snape was more valuable.
Rowling's brilliance lies in the clues she leaves us about the future of Harry Potter, and how everything fits together in the end. These theories are well-thought out and fit the clues, but could easily be wrong. Or who knows? Maybe there are some things that Rowling will not tell us even in the seventh book, but will leave for us to decide for ourselves….
