Fame, Glory and Death

[pigwidgeon37]

No: HPFGUIDX 31458

Hi all,

this is something I'd like to discuss with you, as I frankly don't 
have any idea what to make of it:
It's about the well-known speech Snape delivers at Harry's first ever 
Potions class, "...I can teach you to brew fame, bottle glory and 
even how to stopper death" (quoting from memory- I got to buy a set 
of books for the office!)
I read and heard it so often now, but today I started to wonder what 
exactly it might mean. Only the third part makes sense at first 
sight: Surely, there are a lot of deadly potions/poisons. But to what 
exactly is Snape alluding when he speaks of fame and glory? They 
cannot be the direct result of the potion, as death would be- in the 
sense that I can hardly imagine there's a potion you swallow and 
suddenly everybody turns round in the street and says: "Look, there's 
XY, goodness, how famous he is!"
Neither would I assume that Snape is simply hinting at the 
possibility of becoming a famous Potions Master. 
Discarding these possibilities, what remains? What makes a person 
famous, if it is not the potion in itself? The answer is: Great 
Deeds, in whatever sense. And so it would seem that there are potions 
which might alter your personality or at least enhance some traits of 
your character in order to make you achieve certain goals you would 
otherwise be too weak, too cowardly, too obtuse etc.etc. to reach. 
Should this be correct, it would open an entirely new perspective on 
magic and its limits, for knowing the right potion a wizard would be 
able to do nearly everything, good or bad. 
That's how far I got with my musings, now please tell me what you 
think of it.

Susanna/pigwidgeon37