cryptic remarks by DD at tower

[Kate Harding]

No: HPFGUIDX 134077

> Julie H/urghiggi wrote:
> "Well, I certainly did have a drink ... and I came back .... after 
a fashion," mumbled Dumbledore.
> What if by drinking the potion and then the water the inferi were 
> floating in he was dead? Sounds far fetched now that I've written 
it down....

No, I've been thinking along the same lines! When I reread the tower 
top scene, those were the words that leapt out at me. He had a drink 
and he came back - the implication seems to be that he 'came back' in 
a more than ordinary sense, but not properly. So what are the 
possibilities?

The drink killed him and he 'came back' to the living world only 
partially.
The drink had some other effect from which he recovered only 
partially.

But is he talking about the green drink, or the drink of water? If 
the drink of water, then it may be that the water the inferi float in 
is what actually sustains them as inferi. Perhaps the potion killed 
him and the water brought his soul, or his ghost, back to his body as 
a kind of inferi. It's even conceivable that all the inferi in the 
lake were created in this way. 

Another point - when they returned from the trip to the cave, 
Dumbledore was desperate to see Snape - it was his first thought, he 
insisted Harry fetch Snape, even above Madam Pomphrey. Why? I imagine 
because Snape would be the only person who could fix whatever the 
green potion (/water) had done to him. Of course, if he thought it 
was fixable, then it probably wasnt death. But this was *before* he 
knew about the Dark Mark, so I would think it was unlikely to be 
anything to do with Malfoy or Snape's current mission.

Anyway. If Dumbledore did in some sense die at the cave, then does 
that mean that Avada Kedavra wouldn't have the usual effect on him? 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not clinging to any misguided hope that he's 
miraculously going to reappear all better. But that little turn of 
phrase must mean something, it's so often the little things, with Jo, 
and the things that go partially unsaid.

Forgive my slghtly chaotic babble, but I was excited to see someone 
else had had a similar thought. 

Sadly, I have no speculation on what the cryptic 'Yes and no' means.

psyche