Why Did DD Drink the Contents of the Bowl?

[mg_mchenry]

No: HPFGUIDX 133865



> Vivamus:
<snip>
> Your way would circumvent even that.  If setting them on the ground
doesn't
> work, conjure a platter, and hold the platter.  LV must have had a
way to
> retrieve the HC without drinking poison.  It would seem the thing to do
> would be to wait there until you figured out the puzzle, rather than
drink
> the poison.



I don't believe in the possibility that DD took the poison accepting
that it would kill him, or that DD was dying anyway because of the
horcrux-induced hand injury.  If so, he would have done something more
to prepare Harry for his passing.

DD didn't know the DEs were coming that night (surprise at the dark
mark), so there was no premeditated sacrificing himself for Harry's
protection as a motive for allowing himself to die.

There are a lot of explanations for what the potion might have been -
It might have been regenerated by the basin.  It might have been
bewitched to return to the basin if not imbibed.  It might have been
bewitched to turn the goblet into a raging hippogriff.
My favorite possibility : the green potion might not have been LV's
original design, but an addition by RAB just to spite LV all the more.

However, DD would not have jeopardized the mission by haphazardly
taking a potion that might kill him.  DD knew exactly what it was and
how to deal with it.  He knew to get a goblet and that Harry would
need to be instructed to force-feed him.  He must have known that it
would weaken him but that Snape could cure it.  And he trusted that
Harry could help them escape, which was dumb considering that Harry
forgot about using fire on the undead.

Harry didn't seem able to produce any fire anyhow, which irritated me.
 If Harry could make a ring of fire, why would he have forced DD to
maintain it while they crossed back to the edge of the lake?  It
showed me that Harry is still painfully unprepared and un-proactive in
his training.  And forgetful at the inopportune times.

I also think that Harry was hasty in assuming the locket that fell out
of DD's pocket was the one that DD pulled from the basin - DD may have
had 10 lockets in his pocketses.

-mgm