Of Caves and Tarot Cards

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 135325

Ladyljd:
> The Cave:  What exactly was Dumbledore going through during and 
> after drinking that potion?  Is he reliving his past?  Seeing the 
> future?  Lost in a morbid fantasy?  And afterward, just what was
> so fitting about the defense used (the potion)?  Is he truly
> dieing or just severely weakened?  

Jen: I think he was reliving the worst moments of his life, his 
fears and mistakes. Based on some of the things he said e.g. "It's 
all my fault...Please make it stop, I know I did wrong" and "Don't 
hurt them....please...it's my fault, hurt me instead." (US, chap. 
26, p. 572).

Also, JKR said in her interview to read Book 6 carefully if we want 
to know Dumbledore's boggart. Well, there it is. His biggest fear 
was making mistakes which led to other people being hurt, tortured 
or killed. So the potion must magnify a person's greatest fears and 
guilts, sort of like an extreme dementor attack, then also render a 
person incapable of doing magic to defend against it. It's a 
horrible thought.

As for whether he's dying or not.....see, this depends on what 
exactly Snape was up to that night ;-). I see three options:

1) He was dying & calling for Snape to administer an antidote. 
2) He may or may not have been dying from the potion, but called for 
Snape so Snape could administer the AK and appear to still be in 
league with LV.
3) He wasn't dying, and called for Snape expecting he would need 
reinforcement of a full-grown powerful wizard b/c of his weakness.

There are probably others. I tend to think DD was dying. He said 
himself Voldemort would not want to immediately kill someone going 
for the locket so as to find out how they located the cave and 
worked through the protections. As for what happened next, I'm on 
the fence at the moment.

Jen