Voldemort's trap (Lockets Re: The magically refilling Pensieve)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 138108

Gopal:
> Some q's about the canon. Please let me know if you
> have answers for the same.
> 
> a) In the cave, DD/ Harry could not get their hands
> close to the liquid due to an invisible barrier. Why
> did the goblet not face such resistance?

Jen: The protections in the cave were definitely a trap, and each 
barrier overcome actually lured the prey further into the web. We 
didn't get to see this with the archway and the boat because DD was 
able to get past those fairly easily. A less-skilled person would 
have made it to the boat, then raised the Inferi because their 
magical 'weight' would not be great enough.

So by the time you get to the potion, you are invested in making it 
all the way to the Horcrux. Why else would you bother to find this 
remote cave or attempt to unlock the dark magic inside? You hope to 
gain something. So, a person will 'exert his best efforts, exercise 
considerable ingenuity, and leave no depth of cunning unplumbed' to 
paraphrase Dumbledore ;).

Determining the potion has to be drunk is two-fold I think. First, 
Voldemort is making a sadistic little joke, forcing someone who 
desperately wants the Horcrux to drink an unknown potion. This idea 
must delight him immensely, to exercise that kind of power and 
control. LV knows someone who has made it this far will *not* choose 
to walk away empty-handed. Second, not many people have a skilled 
potions master at their disposal to counter the effects--DD has two 
at Hogwarts! So, most people would face certain death by choosing to 
move forward. 

So you drink the potion and what happens? You crave water more 
desperately than ever before and only by drinking the Inferi lake 
water can you quench your thirst. Zap! Voldemort has you in his web. 
I'm certain there was something in that water more deadly than the 
potion, and if you aren't taken by the Inferi, the water will 
destroy you in some other way.

Now Dumbledore and Harry were saved by two things: Harry was unable 
to get that water into DD's mouth and DD, by some incredible 
internal strength (or perhaps an antidote taken prior to the cave 
adventure?)was able to overcome the effects of the potion and create 
the ring of fire.

Gopal:
> b) Why did DD have to drink the liquid? He could have
> spilt the liquid to empty the basin.

Jen: I think he proved that wasn't the case by trying every other 
option first. If anyone could figure out an alternative, we're led 
to believe Dumbledore could--he wasn't the greatest wizard ever for 
nothing. :)

Gopal: 
> c) How did RAB/DD get to know of the cave? Are Amy
> Benson/ Dennis Bishop still alive? can they give more
> clues?

Jen: The greatest unsolved mystery. Not that Dumbledore could find 
the cave, but that someone else apparently found it first. Canon 
presents no one who knows what Dumbledore has researched so 
carefully about Riddle's past, his magical abilities and obsessions, 
and his Horcruxes. No one should be able to find the cave AND know 
there's a Horcrux there. But someone does. ?????

Now you brought up my own favorite theory: Amy Benson is actually 
RAB and is a witch as well (she acted strange after the cave 
incident, after all <g>). Seemingly unknown to both Voldemort and 
Dumbledore, Amy is either a person we've already met, in disguise, 
or someone we haven't met yet. But she's obsessively followed Tom 
Riddle all these years and plotted her revenge. Of course, there's 
the tiny problem she would be *dead* now as the note says, but is 
the note wrong? Did she make it out alive and find someone to 
counteract the potion? Bwahahaha! 

Jen, enjoying herself way to much today and needing to get down to 
business. 

"We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on."