Joy, thanks for the link. That was fascinating and seemed very reasonable as far as predictions go. My only difference in opinion is that I think the reason Snape killed Dumbledore is because the two had pre-arranged it. I'm not as convinced that Dumbledore knew he was certain to die so just went along with it. I'm still hanging on to my theory that the two teachers had planned that when the time was right, Snape would "appear" to kill Dumbledore, knowing that Dumbledore's spirit or essence was safe with Fawkes.
The reason I don't openly embrace the Dumbledore knew he was going to die idea is because I don't think he'd make Snape take on the title of murderer. I think Dumbledore decided to "let" Snape kill him knowing that Snape would only be condemned for a limited amount of time, his guilt becoming absolved when Dumbledore returns from the dead to reveal the entire thing was a plot.
Again, just speculation.
But I have to say that the idea that RAB is Regulus Black came to me the other night. I was struggling to figure out who had the initials RAB and remembered Sirius had a brother whose name started with an R. This LiveJournal post confirms my thoughts, although I didn't remember much of what was said about Regulus. I'll have to go back to OotP and reread.
This is fun.
Lynn
