Snape Kills Dumbledore

About

"Snape Kills Dumbledore" is a viral spoiler about the 6th book in the Harry Potter series involving the death of Dumbledore, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry headmaster and one of the major protagonists in the series.

Origin

On July 16th, 2005, the 6th Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released. It was revealed that the character Severus Snape, a teacher at Hogwarts, kills Dumbledore near the end of the book. The spoiler quickly spread across the internet, usually accompanied with an image of a scanned page of the book:

Spread

The spoiler inspired a slew of YTMND pages parodying the scene. Many would use the page 606 image as a template with the song "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora, the same track used in the Gay Fuel memes. Some notable examples include Dumble Death Scene, A-Ha Helps Snape Kill Dumbledore, Marty McFly Bookstore Crash, Tom Hanks Finds New Harry Potter Book and Harry Potter and the Breakfast of Champions. On November 15th, 2006, YouTuber 9mm77 uploaded footage of a guy driving past the bookstore Barnes and Noble while yelling out the spoiler (shown below). Over the next 11 years, the video gained over 497,000 views and 1,100 comments.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Search queries for "snape kills dumbledore" spiked in July of 2005, the same month the book was released.

External References