Righto - its here - i bought it - i read it - any of you who know me knew that i would, so here we are.
I've got some comments that I wanted to share - read if you like...
I read HBP through over the last two days, and have to say that i liked it. Id put it in either first or second place in the rankings, judgement reserved till i reread PoA again - incidentilly, this is a shared opinion - everyone i have spoken to thus far puts those two books as one and two, interesting seeing as they are sure to be the only ones of the whole series without a conscious visit from (at least some of) voldemort (i dont count the pensieve memories - they were just recordings while in CoS - mentioned below - it was a real part of Voldemort that was messing with peeps.)
CoS...CoS...we all knew that this one and number 2 would be linked, it was innevitable, what with a central plotline and the title from HBP being originally slated for CoS. JKR has confirmed this, though she didnt say which plotline it was - my own guess is the Malfoy angle - his betrayal/not betrayal of the light side etc...but i digress.
As I read HBP, I had a brief moment of inspiration and have since constructed a theory regarding some of the events in book seven and how they link back to CoS and, now, HBP. The idea centres on the Horcruxes (Horcri?) and how Harry will have to find and destroy all 6 of them before he can destroy Voldemort. IN the course of the book, Harry and DDore make several educated guesses regarding the location and nature of these Horcruxes. They identify likely objects that would hold them, the ring, the locket, the cup, the diary and last, but not least, Nagini. It was at this point that the idea hit me, JKR made a point to say that they Horcruxes could easily be living creatures, however unwise it might be. Hold this thought.
Two of the six Horfucks (trust me, that is what some have already called them, or will soon) have been destroyed now according to dumbledore, the ring and the diary. Thats when it hit me...what if the diary horcrux isnt gone at all? What if it survived?
At the time that harry drove the fang into the diary, it was, really, just a shell. Tom Riddle (Voldie piece number 2 for the sake of argument here) had already sapped enough energy from the dying Ginny to take a physical form - enough to speak and even hold/use a wand. Ginny's life was all but gone at the time Harry saved her, meaning that a whole lot of her energy was already inside VP2. Harry's actions caused teh energy drain to reverse itself, sucking the energy out of VP2 and sending it back to Ginny, but what happened to VP2?
We were to assume - and Dumbledore clearly believed that VP2 is gone, but is he? Could he not have travelled into Ginny along with whatever life energy it had sapped from her? It does seem possible, even logical (if such a word can ever be applied to HP) that this could have happened. VP2 was not a mere shadow of Voldemort, rather a thinking, plotting and manipulative entity in its own right. Who is to say that it didn't realise that i was about to be destroyed, and, in the moment or two that it had available, jump ship - abandon its semi-physical form, bypass the diary and settle into Ginny, where its lain ever since, dormant, biding its time?
This is a theory, a wild thought I had, and Ill be the first to admit that I could be flat wrong. But, there are things that point to my being right.
Ginny before this was a scared little girl, afraid to even speak around Harry. After this point, she grows rapidly into an independent, strong and outgoing girl, a complete personality shift. What is the cause? Well you could argue that it was the trauma, or that she simply grew up, and you may be right. But, consider that Tom Riddle was able to manipulate her once, and consider that, were he inside her, in the core of her mind, he would now be in a far better position to manipulate her on a subconscious level, and you should see that its possible.
So then, why hasnt it done more to show itself? There are reasons that I could bandy about, it's waiting for the right moment to extract revenge, it is (despite what DDore thinks) in some way connected to the other bits of Voldemort and is simple waiting, as a backup plan in case whatever schemes Voldemort has in store for Harry. Or maybe its simpler than that, maybe it cant do anything like that, maybe, in whatever state it was when it fled the diary, it now lacks the abiltiy to manifest itself totally...possible? Who knows.
I do have one other reason for this theory, a view on the workings of JKR's mind. If I am right, and if Ginny is now carrying VP2 in her head, then there will come a point in book seven when Harry will have to deal with that - maybe going as far as killing her.
JKR has said that, were she to ever meet Harry in person, she would give him a big hug owing to all the horrible things she would have put him through. Consider that, and consider that, by the end of Book 6, she has already taken Harry's parents, his godfather and now, his mentor and maybe (if he sticks to what he said at the end of HBP) his best friends and the only family he has ever known (the Weasleys). Consider also that making him then have to possibly hurt or kill the girl who is, for want of a better word, the love of his life, and you get the idea that that hug would probably last days.
Anyway, I've rambled on enough now - so I'm gonna go. If you read this far, please feel free to leave a comment or openly argue this point with me...I'm up for the challenge.
Bye
RoBoC