DD definitely dead

[ceridwennight]

No: HPFGUIDX 138325

Elyse:
> Sorry to shoot your babies down, 
> but doesnt DD say in GoF that
> "no spell can reawaken the dead".
> This ought to put an end to all the
> DD-was-already-dead-and-came-back-to-life speculation.... 
> 
> Try going after the faked death scenario instead.
> 
> Elyse
> (who believes that DD is well and truly gone)

Ceridwen:
Yet, there is something a powerful wizard can do to reanimate a 
corpse.  Which is not quite the same thing as reawakening the dead.

Just checked Mugglenet's spells, they don't have renervate yet.  So 
went off on tangent to http://www.dictionary.com and found:
Renerve: \ (r?-n?rv"), v. t. To nerve again; to give new vigor to; to 
reinvigorate.  (Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 
1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.) (Reinvigorate = To give new life or energy to.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 
Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.)

Harry had to perform it twice, then plead with Dumbledore to wake.  
Which he did.  If he wasn't dead, he was very close, IMO.  The red 
spell didn't do anything for him the first time, and was not 
mentioned as coming out of Harry's wand the second (though it may 
have and just not been mentioned).  Dumbledore was most certainly in 
a very bad way, described as white, and Draco was described on the 
tower as turning *nearly* as white as Dumbledore.  Inferi are also 
described as white, as well as bloodless.  We didn't see if 
Dumbledore had any blood (though being newly dead, he might have?  
*IF* this is correct)

I really like my own pet theory.  But, like all theories regarding 
the tower scene, we just don't know.  We don't know if Dumbledore 
would have been able to get better without immediate aid, we don't 
know if this was one of those potions without antidote, we don't know 
where Fawkes was, we don't know why Snape's AK knocked Dumbledore 
over the wall.  I'm probably missing something here as well that we 
don't know.

If the death was faked, then why didn't Snape die?  Two 
possibilities:  if Ron was wrong about the repercussions of breaking 
the vow; it acts more like a geas, where the punishment comes back 
later on instead of at the moment of betrayal of the vow.  If the 
death was faked, why did Fawkes lament?  Possibility: healing the 
stricken Dumbledore?  If the death was faked, why did the portrait 
appear in the headmaster's office?  Hint that it shouldn't have: the 
movement McGonagall made when she saw it.

I hadn't recalled that quote, though, and thank you for reminding 
me!  So, if Dumbledore was in any way brought back to animation, it 
wasn't back to life, but merely an animation of the body.  And this 
raises questions, too.  Like, where was Fawkes when he was being 
forced to drink the potion?  And, if he's merely an animated body, 
how can he discuss with Draco?  And know the DEs and Greyback, people 
Harry doesn't know.  And so on.

I really do like reading all of the theories, and will happily join 
in with any of them if I think I have something to contribute.  At 
this point, and until the point that each of us finishes reading book 
7, we just have speculation to keep us going.  I certainly will be 
keeping an eye on the faked and substituted death theories, as well 
as the ones giving proof of Dumbledore being well and truly dead.  
And everything in between.

Ceridwen.