"KILL ME!" Was: Can it be Impedimenta?

[mt3t3l1]

No: HPFGUIDX 134894

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:

> But I want to discuss your last paragraph. I agree that Dumbledore
> would be dead either way, but if, as we have been speculating,
> Dumbledore wanted Snape to kill him, then he was not *murdered.* The
> distinction between "kill" and "murder" is not merely semantic. It
> reflects a difference of intention. Killing is sometimes necessary, 
as
> Harry himself will find when he faces Voldemort. And murder, we are
> told, splits the soul. Dumbledore's peaceful expression and closed
> eyes suggest that he was killed at his own request rather than
> murdered; that the man he had trusted, perhaps even loved as a son,
> had not betrayed him.  If he thought that Snape had split his soul,
> that he was irredeemably evil, could he have worn that beatific
> expression? I think not.

Merrylinks replies:

I can see your point. Let me try to pursue it a bit.

In Chapter 25 Harry says to Dumbledore: "You're leaving the school 
tonight, and I'll bet you haven't even considered that Snape and 
Malfoy might decide to --"
  "To what?" asked Dumbledore, his eyebrows raised. "What is it that 
you suspect them of doing, precisely?"
  "I...they're up to something?" said Harry..."Professor Trelawney 
was just in the Room of Requirement...and she heard Malfoy whooping, 
celebrating! He's trying to mend something dangerous in there and if 
you ask me, he's fixed it at last and you're about to just walk out 
of school without --"
  "Enough," said Dumbledore. He said it quite calmly, and yet Harry 
fell silent at once; he knew that he had finally crossed some 
invisible line. "Do you think that I have once left the school 
unprotected during my absences this year? I have not. Tonight, when I 
leave, there will again be additional protection in place. Please do 
not suggest that I do not take the safety of my students seriously, 
Harry."
  "I didn't --" mumbled Harry, a little abashed, but Dumbledore cut 
across him.
  "I do not wish to discuss the matter any further."


Dumbledore puts Harry in his place, but with 20/20 hindsight, we now 
know that Harry was right and Dumbledore was very wrong. Which leads 
me to the scene in the cave. As Dumbledore drinks the horcrux-
protecting potion, he is frightened. He says, "Make it stop;" "It's 
all my fault;" "Don't hurt them;" "Please...no not that;" "I want to 
die;" "KILL ME!"

Is it possible that this potion gives the drinker a view into the 
future? Does it show the version of the future that the drinker 
dreads the most? Does drinking it show Dumbledore that he has, in 
fact, left Hogwarts unprotected and that its students will be 
attacked by Death Eaters, including a notorious werewolf? Are his 
agonized pleas the result of seeing more and more clearly the cost of 
his mistake? Are we hearing Dumbledore's future internal thoughts on 
the astronomy tower as he appears to be talking calmly with Draco and 
the Death Eaters and finally with Snape? Perhaps the "KILL ME" is the 
final silent instruction Dumbledore gave to Snape when "Snape gazed 
for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched 
in the harsh lines of his face."

Merrylinks