stopper death

[annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 114226

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "beatnik24601"
<beatnik24601 at y...> wrote:
> Finwitch wrote:
>  What else is that Stopper of Death- potion doing than keeping them
> alive?
> 
> Beatnik24601 replies:
> I've heard a lot of people referencing this quote from Snape (about 
> wizards ability to 'brew fame, bottle glory, even stopper death" 
> from PS/SS), and seeming to interpret it as meaning 'stopping 
> death'.  However, I always thought that Snape meant 'stopper' the 
> bottle of death (i.e. put a cork in the flask which 
> contains 'death').  In other words, he was talking about ability to 
> brew poisons (which brings up a whole other myriad of issues, but, 
> anyway...), rather than brew some sort of cure for death, or elixir 
> of life (altho, this would be relevant to the plot of PS/SS).

Annemehr:
I completely agree with Beatnik24601 that the sense of the words
certainly seem to imply brewing up a flask of something lethal.

The trouble with that, though, is that it's boring! Isn't it? 
Ordinary Muggles are perfectly capable of mixing up poisons, after
all. Not to mention how surprised we'd be to find Snape teaching
Hogwarts students to brew death potions.  Perhaps these are two of the
myriad of issues that Beatnik was thinking of.

I wonder if, by 'stopper death' he could have meant 'control death?' 
He couldn't have meant 'control death' in an absolute sense, but
perhaps in an incomplete way.  In which case, Finwitch and Beatnik are
both right.  See how accomodating I can be? <g>

Annemehr