Snape's Final Straw

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 150912

houyhnhmn:
> The impersonation couldn't have been accomplished with polyjuice
> potion, though.  <snip> So, they were gone too long for the
> effects of polyjuice potion to be maintained.  "Dumbledore" is not
> shown to drink anything other than the green potion in the stone
> basin. If someone was posing as Dumbledore it would have to have 
> been by means of some other kind of magic. Transfiguration, 
> perhaps.  We have never seen a person transfigured to
> appear as another person, but a person has been transfigured into
> an animal on one occasion, and an inanimate object (chair) on
> another.

Jen: I've wondered whether Switching spells might come up since the 
kids studied them in Transfiguration and we've never really seen a 
use for them that I can remember, not like the animagus or the 
metamorphagus. And then hearing that DD could do things with a wand 
the OWL examiner had never seen before and to know he was the 
Transifiguration prof for many years and never really *see* him 
transfigure? That part seems left hanging to me. Presumably he uses 
transfiguration to become invisible, so at least we hear about it. 

There used to be big theories about James and Lupin switching at GH, 
but JKR shot them down and that didn't bother me. Still, that could 
be a possible mechanism for DD/Sluggy and something we haven't seen 
happen. Or DD and Aberforth. ;)


houyhnmn:
> I'm not really trying to sell this.  It's just speculation for
> fun.  I feel a little stronger about the possibility that 
> Dumbledore may be alive, though.  I didn't when I finished HBP, or
> for several months thereafter.  I grieved for Dumbledore. I got
> way past denial.  I got all the way to acceptance. (It's a little
> easier when it's not a real person, even if you *are* bewitched by
> a story.) Then I left the Potterverse alone for awhile, and when I
> came back to it, I started wondering if DD's death was not a 
> little too convincing.  A Wronski feint perhaps?  

Jen: That's exactly what's happened for me, the process you 
describe. I haven't been able to type much recently due to wrist 
problems (which hopefully will resolve soon so I can get back to my 
obsession <g>), and being away has made me wonder about the ending 
of HBP, which JKR said herself wasn't really an ending but a middle 
of the story. Thinking of it in that light makes the idea of DD 
being alive more plausible to me, even though a few months ago that 
was almost unthinkable. 

houyhnhmn:
> We are supposed to be left with no hope.  We are supposed to feel 
> the finality of the loss the way Harry feels it.  We have to come
> to terms with the reality of Dumbledore's death the way Harry does.

Jen: If this is what she intended, it worked!

houyhnhmn: 
> If Dumbledore *is* still alive at the beginning of book 7, I think
> we will see his real death by the end of the book, but it will be
> a death that Harry, the WW, and we the readers can accept as
> suitable for the greatest wizard of his time.

Jen: The only thing that keeps me from believing this wholeheartedly 
is DD's death fits the trajectory of the other adult characters 
because we see his weakness in the end. Not all the adult characters 
have died, but most of the major adult characters reveal a great 
weakness at a pivotal moment. I expect Snape to do so as well before 
the finale. And I don't mean DD was weak for trusting Snape, but 
that the potion in the cave revealed something about him, a mistake 
he made which perhaps had something to do with his family or 
Grindelwald. In that sense, his death on the tower was final and 
*did* befit a great wizard who wasn't afraid to die and didn't need 
to go out in a blaze of glory.

Jen, who can't do this post justice but is tired of missing out on 
the fun. :(