Stopper in Death

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 111920

Dungrollin asks:
> I understood 'even stopper death' to mean put death in a 
> bottle with a stopper, i.e. 'even bottle death'....
> Did anyone else understand it in this way, or am I just 
> being weird?

No you are not being weird; it is the natural reading of the passage.
 Snape is trying to introduce the subject of potions and says "I can
teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death."  The
typo in the quotation reflected in the subject line ("stopper in
death") might be misunderstood, but "stopper death" can't mean
anything but to put death in a bottle -- particularly when it is
juxtaposed with "bottle fame."  

Now, perhaps there could be some disagreement as to what it means to
put death in a bottle.  I assumed that Snape had simply chosen a
poetic way to refer to poisons.  A more fanciful reading might be that
there is some potion involving bottling up one's own death (to control
the timing of it? to prevent it from occurring altogether?), sort of
like "If I could save time in a bottle...."  For my money, I think I
will stick with the horses rather than the elephants.  

-- Matt