ANOTHER Major Character dies?!

[KoNeko]

I saw this in the paper today and I want to know what anyone's heard or anything about whether this is true:

Punters Plunge on Harry

Things aren't looking good for Michael Gambon. The Irish actor, who plays Albus dumbledore in

[/i] reporting that the Blue Square betting website has been inundated with punters wishing to place bets on his demise.

Most of the bets have originated from Bungay, the town which is home to the printer, Clays, which produced the previous five books in the Potter series.

A Blue Square spokes man said the website had taken about $14,000 wirth of bets on Dumbledore over seven days, with all being placed in Bungay or the nearby town of Beccles.

The site cut the odds on Dumbledore from 2-1 to 4-6. Ladbroke's betting shop is also reportedly refusing to take any more bets on the death of Dumbledore.

It is thought that much of the latest Potter book is being printed in GErmany, following security leaks at Clays during the publication of the fifth book in the series.[/blockquote]



What do you guys think of this??[/color]

[hermoine]

Yeah I've seen that one, I think Sphi posted it in another thread, and personally I think it isn't that huge an outbreak. I mean, we've all been speculating for quite some time now whether Dumbledore would be the next to die, among the other suspects. And if I remember correctly, when OOTP came out and JK had said she had cried because she had killed one of the characters, there was this huge discussion all over HP boards of who it would be, and I think people betted too(why do they love betting so much?). Dumbledore, I think, was one of those whom people thought would find his end. Not many people had thought of the idea that Sirius would die, because the hint was that this person "was like a fatherly figure to Harry".

Plus, I've come to discard any information The Sun has to offer, because I've read quite a couple of articles, showing that clearly that newspaper doesn't know what it is saying.(Hermione being Harry's red-head best-friend should give you an idea )

[hermoine]

JK has updated her site to answer regarding this issue. This is what she said:

Well, here we go again! The gossip, the non-stories, the ever-wilder speculation...

Please remember that allegations of 'leaks' concerning deaths in 'Half-Blood Prince' are very easy to make. Any comment I make on such rumours would be a spoiler, so I'll just repeat: keep those barrels of salt handy. Speaking of which...

I have been alerted to the fact that I am supposed to have posted in the 'comments' section of a couple of different fan sites recently. I never post on fan sites and it is important that you all know this, because the last thing I would want is for any of you to be misled or otherwise manipulated by somebody posing as me online. JKRowling.com is the only place I ever post. Lest you think I'm protesting too much, please ask yourself whether I would really want to reveal my email address on a fan site. Love you all though I do, I don't really want to wake up tomorrow and have to download 21,956,038 new emails, all demanding the identity of the Half-Blood Prince.

[hermoine]

I thought I'd just post this in here, so not to confuse posts about the identity of the HBP in other threads.

A thought occurred to me some time ago. There was this rumour some time ago about the last line in the 7th book being something like, Hermione exclaimed, "Harry where's your scar?". I do know this is all just a rumour, and to be honest, I don't quite believe it to be true. JK has gone through so much not to leak even the tiniest thing about HBP and book7, so why should she actually give us the punch line?

Nevertheless, if there is some truth behind it, that would imply that both Harry and Hermione are still alive.{Here come the ships now ok, so bear with me} The H/Hr shippers would obviously jump to the occasion exclaiming how this all shows that what they have been thinking all along is true.

And yet I say, why go through the whole ordeal of making the films show clearly that some R/H background story is going on, showing even more than the books(personally I only saw it so obvious in the movies; to me the books aren't so showy). Now, as I was saying, why go trouble all the trouble and squabbles and teasing, if in the end Ron is to die? This suspision has been enhanced since I started reading a fanfic which I intend to join in the near future. It shows the way things are 50 years after Harry's victory over Voldemort. There were some deaths(still referring to the fanfic), but Harry, Ron and Hermione all made it through and Ron and Hermione got married.

Now I don't really care about ships, because I'm waiting for HBP to explain to me what is really going on here. And yet, there is so much talking of Ron dying because he's the sidekick and it seems obvious he's next. But I say, that then it can't be him. Ron will not be the next to die. We know, after 5 books of testimony, that JK is anything but predictable. So why kill Ron, someone who is so obvious?

Hope all this made sense.