Warning:  Possible spoilers ahead, don’t read if you don’t want to speculate

So, as is my custom before a new Harry Potter book comes out, I’ve been re-reading the previous books, refreshing my memory.  I just finished Half-Blood Prince this morning and spotted a clue that was hiding in plain sight.  So I thought I’d make a record of other things I spotted, and wait and see if any of them will be significant in the last book.

Clues:
When Dumbledore questions Harry after his battle with Voldemort in Goblet of Fire and Harry tells him about Voldemort’s using Harry’s blood to revive himself, “For a fleeting instant, Harry thought he saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore’s eyes.”

Sirius Black’s brother Regulus “was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort’s orders” according to Sirius in Order of the Phoenix.  Regulus had been a Death Eater and tried to get out.

While cleaning out the glass-fronted cupboards in Order of the Phoenix, they find “a heavy locket that none of them could open.”

The note that falls out of the fake Horcrux in Half-Blood Prince is signed with the initials “RAB.”

Hagrid reports in Half-Blood Prince that he overheard Snape and Dumbledore having a bitter argument over something that Snape did not want to do and Dumbledore insists Snape has to do anyway.

Just before Snape sends the Avada Kedavra curse at Dumbledore, Dumbledore is telling Draco Malfoy “He cannot kill you if you are already dead.  Come over to the other side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine.  What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise.”

Snape screams “DON’T CALL ME COWARD” and “his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them.”

Oddities:
In Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore says that when a wand meets its brother, one will force the other to “regurgitate spells it has performed, in reverse.”  But Harry’s father emerges from the wand battle before his mother does.

Why didn’t Madam Pomfrey (or Harry, or anyone else) ask Fawkes to shed tears on Bill Weasley’s face in Half-Blood Prince?

What exactly was the archway that Sirius was thrown through by Bellatrix Lestrange in Order of the Phoenix?

Hope you'll recommend my posts via your favorite social media. Just don't copy the material as your own.