HP Spoiler!!!
I've been done with HP and the HBP since late last week, and I had the same initial reaction as many other people who have already read it. Dumbledore is dead and that's just wrong. Harry and Ginny were together and then not and that's just wrong too.
But now that I have had time to digest the basics, I've been checking out some other people's theories. One, in particular cropped on the child lit list-serv today and it has been bugging the heck out of me since then.
Someone has suggested the possibility that one of the horcruxes is Harry himself.
And of course that sounds like a perfect twist for JKR to make on us. If horcruxes are created by killing someone and they are pieces of your soul, then Harry's scar could be one, couldn't it? JKR has already included the lovely detail about Harry feeling pain when Voldemort is nearby and he already feels Voldemorts emotions. It wouldn't be a far stretch to make Harry's scar a horcrux. And if it is, does Harry have to die to eliminate the horcrux? I bet he does. One person on the list-serv suggested that the scar would disappear when Voldemort was defeated. But that can't be. The horcruxes have to be eliminated to kill Voldemort, not the other way around. So does that mean Harry is going to have to sacrifice himself for the greater good of the wizarding world? And how is JKR going to pull off a sacrificial suicide in a children's book?
I am so nervous about this. If Harry dies, what then? I have invested years of my life in this character. JKR, don't let me down.