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Originally posted by Makae
Nah, Dumbledore is dead. Not as dead as Black, but still dead. And I'm not sure if Snape really bad or not. I'm leaning toward him being evil, but what he said in the very beginning of the book makes me wonder. Because he said that he didn't kill Harry in the beginning because he wanted to see if Harry could be the new dark lord. But that doesn't make any sense because Snape just hated Harry's father so much that I can't see him wanting to follow his son for any reason.

the little Half-Blood Prince so n' so

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Originally posted by Makae
They never said that you had to mean it for Avada Kedavra to work. They only said it for the torture curse. Plus, Snape made a magical vow, and there is no fooling magic.

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Originally posted by Borbarad
Nice how many theories are posted here. Let me just add my personal theory.

First we have to take a look at the unbreakable vow. What did Snape swear ?

a) Watch over Malfoy when he's trying to carry out Voldemorts plans.
b) Protect Malfoy against all kinds of dangers / threats.
c) Kill DD himself if Draco is about to fail.

Now we know that breaking the unbreakable vow will result in the death of the person that is under it's influence meaning if Snape acts against one of the points he will die.
Now let's just think about the points b and c. The only real danger or threat to Draco is Voldemort himself and the only protection against this threat is Dumbledore. Now killing Dumbledore might result in breaking the second unbreakable vow but as we have seen Snape was still alive after doing that.
And the third unbreakable vow ? Where was Draco about to fail ? He had Dumbledore disarmed and there were 4 Death-eaters in the room for backup then you have Snape coming in and immediatly cursing Dumbledore without even waiting for Draco doing something.

But let's go back to the actual scene and have a look at it.
We have Harry and Dumbledore arriving with the magic brooms. Then DD freezes Harry and get's disarmed before talking to Draco but think about it.

- in OotP Dumbledore alone took out Fudge, Percy Weasley, Kingsley, Umbridge and Dawlish at once and he mentioned that he would easily be able to escape from Askaban. Draco would have had no chance to disarm him if Dumbledore didn't want to get disarmed.
- the hint that he will be able to escape from Askaban as well as the scene when he saves Harry in PoA have shown that Dumbledore is able to use spells without having his wand at hand (wandless magic). It's hinted again in the scene when Dumbledore tells Draco that now everything is up to his mercy.

And now think about the possibilities Dumbledore had in the scene even when the Deatheaters arrived. He had the two magic brooms up there that he could have used to escape from the tower. He had Harry hidden under his magic cape and I'm pretty sure that Harry could have taken out all the people in the room from his hidden position if Dumbledore lowered his spell. And we know that Dumbledore is able to lower Hogwarts protections to give people the ability to use Apparition within the school building meaing he could have used Disapparition to get away from the tower.

But he didn't do anything like that but instead waited for Snape coming. And DD didn't beg for mercy and he didn't beg for getting killed by Snape. Why should he ? If Snape had shown mercy then he wouldn't be able to spy on Voldemort and the Deatheaters any longer and as we have seen all the Deatheaters wanted Dumbledore dead.
The only thing that he could have begged for was that Snape should have continued his spy works for the Order of the Phoenix.

My personal theory:
I think Snape told Dumbledore about everything Malfoy was doing and he told Dumbledore about the unbreakable vow. Dumbledore knew that Malfoy won't be able to kill him and he knew that Snape will come which he utilized to fake his own death.

Now point one: The Avada Kedavra
Bellatrix Lestrange's own words in OotP:
"Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy? You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really cause pain--to enjoy it-- righteous anger won't hurt me for long..."

That means that Snape must have wanted to kill Dumbledore and he must have enjoyed killing him. We know that Snape started spying on Voldemort before Voldemort's fall and his hand twitched before giving the third unbreakable vow. I don't think he would hesitated a second if he enjoyed the idea having to kill Dumbledore or if he really wanted to do it.
Therefore we can say that the Avada Kedavra Snape used against Dumbledore didn't kill Dumbledore.

Next observation: Dumbledore flying backwards being hit by the curse and it seems like he was "standing in the air" before he actually fell down from the tower.

I think Snape used some nonverbal spell to get Dumbledore out of sight either a banishing charm (Flitwick was thrown across the room when Neville accidentially used it on him in GoF) or the Levitation charm just to cover that he didn't really kill Dumbledore.

Next observation: Dumbledore bleeding when he's found at the side of the tower.

As it was already pointed out: Dead people don't bleed. That means Dumbledore was still alive when he was lying there although he was injured by the fall. And here we have a perfect recycling of the scene when Harry fell down from his broomstick during the Quidditch-match against Hufflepuff in PoA. Dumbledore used wandless spell casting to stop Harry from falling down and although he managed to slower down Harry's fall, Harry was still injured through it. I think the same thing was happening here...Dumbledore slowed down his own fall but still the impact did hurt him enough to bleed and maybe break some bones - then Fawkes moved in and cried to heal him.

Next observations all from the funeral scene:
- we never see Dumbledore's body
- Harry sees a Phoenix flying away

I think Dumbledore used the flames as a cover up and then Fawkes carried him away. We have seen in OotP that Fawkes can simply disappear from Dumbledore's office although Hogwarts has anti-Appartion magic installed and Fawkes wasn't present at the funeral which seemed very odd to me since all creatures did show their respect for Dumbledore but Fawkes was missing.

Conclusion: I think Dumbledore faked his death to make Voldemort reveal himself and provoke Voldemort to make mistakes. The entire search for the Horcrux was senseless and I bet that Dumbledore knew there was no real Horcrux in that cave (R.A.B who removed / destroyed the Horcrux seems to be Sirius brother Regulus Black) and just wanted to show Harry what awaits him when trying to find the other Horcruxs. I don't think that Jo Rowling would kill Dumbledore in such a useless way (having himself weakened through the search for a Horcrux which wasn't even at the place, having Draco disarm him and then Snape killing him).

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Originally posted by Makae
They never said that you had to mean it for Avada Kedavra to work. They only said it for the torture curse. Plus, Snape made a magical vow, and there is no fooling magic.