Draught of Living Death (Was: Draco and Narcissa in hiding)

[Deb]

No: HPFGUIDX 140691

  
<snip>
 
> Carol responds:
> You snipped most of my post, so I'll put in a link in case anyone
> wants to go upthread to the original post:
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/140681
> 
> I guess I didn't make myself quite clear here. I didn't mean that 
the
> Draught of Living Death was in itself a way to hide the living 
though
> I do think it makes them seem to be dead. I meant that after the
> funeral service, someone in the know would rescue the "bodies" so 
that
> the caskets buried in the Malfoys' graves would be empty (like Mrs.
> Crouch's) and someone in the Order would administer the antidote
> before sending them into hiding. They'd be like Peter Pettigrew, 
safe
> from retaliation because they were believed by the whole WW to be 
dead.
> 
> The Draught of Living Death is apparently very much like the poison
> given to Snow White by the wicked queen or maybe more like the one
> given by the monk to Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet." Snape describes 
its
> effects in SS/PS:
> 
> "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a 
sleeping
> potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death" (SS 
Am.
> ed. 138). I read this to mean that the person is so deeply asleep 
that
> he appears to be dead. It's unclear how long the effects last and
> whether it requires an antidote, but it sounds like the perfect 
way to
> fake a death, particularly an AK. (But someone would have to know 
that
> they weren't dead and rescue them, or they'd be buried alive.)

Deb writes:
  I agree with you Carol! I've been thinking that perhaps The 
Draught of Living Death creates a state rather like suspended 
animation....  where the person's life forces are so slow they are 
barely living... yet living all the same. There have been many 
referrences in the HP books to OOP members who have disappeared as 
well as other witches and wizards who vanished. My hunch is that DD 
and the OOP have been hiding some of these *vanished* folks for a 
long time. The OOP has had spies since LV first started trying to 
take over the WW including Snape (and the references I remember have 
always been plural... so there is at least one other spy for the OOP 
withing the DEs). So they hear through the spy network that LV or 
the DEs are going after someone in the WW, one or more of the OOP 
goes to the person's home just prior to or while the DEs are there 
and spirits them away, gives them the DoLD, then stashes them away 
some place.  I would guess that they are hidden in the Room of 
Requirement .... but you'd have to know specifically what to ask for 
in order to find the right manifestation of the RoR. Maybe they even 
do Time Turner tricks like Harry and Hermione do in POA in order to 
rescue some of the people LV intended to kill. But there must be 
some limitations on this as they were not able to rescue the 
Longbottoms or the Potters.    
 
Carol wrote 
> As for Snape ending the effects of the potion protecting the (fake)
> locket Horcrux (poisoned memories or whatever it was), much as I'd
> like to believe that Snape rescued Dumbledore from it (with a spell
> disguised as an Avada Kedavra), I don't see the evidence for it. 
That
> potion was horrible, and it appeared to me to be killing 
Dumbledore,
> making him weaker by the second as he slid down the wall. I don't 
see
> any evidence that it was *preventing* him from dying, or that Snape
> (who assuredly sent Dumbledore over the tower wall, whatever else 
he
> did), released him from the potion's effects. (Can a spell counter 
a
> potion? We've seen curses and countercurses, poisons and antidotes,
> but never a spell that can counter a potion or vice versa.)
> 
> I do wonder if there's a potion that can bring a person back from
> near-death, rather like phoenix tears but not so difficult to 
obtain.
> (Maybe that's one of the twelve uses of dragon's blood.) Such a 
potion
> would fit with Snape's claim in SS/PS that he can "stopper death,
> assuming that he means "stop death in its tracks" and not "put a 
cork
> in a bottle of poison," which even a Muggle can do.

Deb writes: Well there is Unicorn Blood but I doubt that the OOP 
would use that if it requires killing a unicorn in order to get it 
(as Firenze tells Harry in SS "You will have a half life, a cursed 
life" if you kill a unicorn and drink the blood) Don't know if 
unicorns could be persuaded to become blood donors for the OOP. 
But I would imagine that there is an antidote to the DoLD and that 
Snape knows how to make it... speculating here - it might have 
myrlap essence, dragon's blood, a beozar, moonstones, phoenix tears 
(though I don't know if these could be collected and saved), juice 
from mimbulus mimbletonia,and wolfsbane - plus the ingredients 
needed to make the DoLD in the first place - powdered root of 
asphoedel and infusion of wormwood. 
 
Carol wrote:
> Which brings us to the question of what Snape did to counter the 
curse
> on the ring Horcrux, an instance when he clearly *did* bring DD 
back
> from the brink of death, or at least "prevent him from crossing 
over."
> My impression, based on the infuriatingly sparse information that
> Dumbledore gives Harry, is that Snape used a countercurse, not a
> potion, since we know that the ring was cursed and that there was 
no
> potion protecting it as there was with the locket. ("Timely 
action" of
> some sort, but what was it? Something like stabilizing Katie Bell
> after she was cursed by the necklace, I'm guessing.) I picture a
> conjured tourniquet followed by a wand applied to Dumbledore's dead
> hand to suck out the curse, accompanied with an incantation like 
the
> one that he used to save Draco, but I'm sure other readers have 
other
> mental pictures. But I think he'd have needed to do something much
> more drastic with the poisoned-memory potion that protected the
> locket, maybe a combination of Legilimency (reading and removing 
the
> poisoned memories) and an antidote against the corrosive elements 
of
> the potion). But we don't know what was in the potion what it did
> besides create physical pain and mental anguish, followed by loss 
of
> powers and physical weakness--only that it clearly was *not* a
> powerful sleeping potion that simulated death.

Deb writes: Yes it does seem like Snape used a countercurse or some 
other spell/incantation to limit the damage from the ring to only 
DD's hand. The description of DD's "dead" hand struck me as being 
the opposite of the silver hand LV gave PP in the graveyard. Though 
I suppose the ring could have been poisoned... a hidden sliver of 
Basilisk fang with accompanying Basilisk poison perhaps. 
 
> Again, I'm pretty sure that the Draught of Living Death will 
appear in
> Book 7, but I think it will be used as a means of faking a death
> (possibly the Malfoys'), not of "preventing someone from crossing
> over." That just doesn't fit the description of the potion in 
SS/PS, IMO.
> 
> Carol 

Deb writes:
Again I agree Carol. DoLD will appear in the 7th book... and so will 
the antidote. I'll bet the "recipe" for the antidote is either in 
Harry's NEWTs potion book or in Snape's library at Spinner's End... 

Deb (djklaugh) Wishing she could have a month or so alone in Snape's 
library...