CHAPDISC: HBP26, The Cave

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 162349

 A thankyou to Zgirnius for the questions and chapter summary!

> 
> 1)	Dumbledore is described a `hampered' by his injured hand 
> during the climb down, and is described as swimming like a much 
> younger man, shortly thereafter. Thoughts?

Pippin:
I think it shows that the damage is limited to the hand, and isn't
spreading to Dumbledore's whole body as some have speculated.

> 
> 3)	Dumbledore insists on using his own blood to open the hidden 
> archway, though Harry offers his own instead, because "your blood is 
> worth more than mine." What does he mean by this?

Pippin:
It might hark back to the famous gleam in GoF. There's some
hint that Voldemort blundered by using Harry's blood in his rebirth
and perhaps Dumbledore would prefer not to see Harry's blood
shed in this place lest Voldemort's attention be drawn to it.
But I think it also lets us know that Dumbledore puts Harry's
life above his own.

> 7)	Is the potion a poison? Why or why not?
Pippin:
Anything will make you sick, poison you, if you ingest enough of it. 
Dumbledore obviously was made gravely ill by the potion. What 
we don't know is if the dose was sufficient to kill him, or whether 
he could  have been saved even so if help had reached him in time. 
But poisoned he surely was.

> 
> 12)	Dumbledore tells Harry, once they are walking along the 
> lakeshore, "The protection was
after all
well designed," and asserts 
> one person could not have defeated it alone. What do you think he 
> meant? How do you suppose the mysterious RAB managed to defeat the 
> protection?

Pippin:
It's not clear that RAB defeated the protection. The locket  could
have been swapped before it was hidden. It would take only a little
magic to transfigure one locket to the likeness of another, and
that might go unnoticed, especially if it wasn't Voldemort himself
who hid the locket in the cave. He might have arranged the 
protections and then ordered Bella to hide the locket, which she
could have done unaware that the original  had been stolen from
her and a substitute left in its place by cousin Regulus.

> 
> 13)	 Dumbledore's final words in the chapter are clearly a 
> passing of the torch, in retrospect, and mirror his words to Harry 
> in "Horace Slughorn," when he tells Harry he need not worry about 
> being attacked because "You are with me." Does Dumbledore know or 
> suspect what he will find back at Hogwarts? And, is Harry prepared to 
> take up the fight?

Pippin:
I think Dumbledore is satisfied that there is nothing more he could
tell Harry to help him understand  Voldemort's ways. That, not
magic, is the key to the battle to come. 

> 14)	Does the chapter title "The Cave" have any special 
> significance? Is its setting in a cave important? (Important events 
> at the ends of PS/SS, CoS, and PoA involve subterranean settings, as 
> well).

Pippin:
The battle in the Ministry in OOP also takes place underground. If
Dumbledore was actually killed  by the poison rather than by Snape's
spell,  it would fit the pattern of significant events taking place
underground rather than above it. It would also make Trelawney's
prediction of disastrous events on the tower false.

Pippin