CHAPDISC: HBP26, The Cave

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162353

CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 
> 26, The Cave
<snip beautifully concise summary>

Carol responds:

Hooray! I'm the first to respond and don't have to worry about
duplicating anybody! (At any rate, no one has answered at this point;
but given the usual length of my answers, I expect three or four
responses to be completed before mine.)

> 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?

Carol:
Climbing requires gripping the stones and would be painful to his
injured hand. Swimming is more a matter of strength in the arms.
Still, it's a very odd reference and has given rise to speculations
about Polyjuice, etc. I think that DD's personality in this chapter,
and especially his wisdom and knowledge, should put those sepculations
to rest. The sudden strength when he's swimming is probably a burst of
energy, comparable to and foreshadowing the burst of energy when
they're flying to the Astronomy Tower. Possibly, he has less energy
during the cave scene than he would have had if the climb and the swim
weren't so strenuous, yet he doesn't show any exhaustion when he's
examining the cave wall--quite a feat for an old man, wizard or no. I
guess the burst of energy is magical, more proof of Dumbledore's
power, but it could just be a surge of adrenaline, which can have
seemingly magical results even for us Muggles. (Carol resists the
impulse to tell her Ford Galaxie story again.)

> 2)	In the antechamber as he seeks the hidden entrance,  Dumbledore
murmurs in a strange tongue Harry does not understand. Any  ideas on
this language and how Dumbledore came to know it? 

Carol responds:
The strange language could be anything from Latin to Egyptian to
Persian to Celtic, probably an ancient language rather than a modern
one as no modern languages seem to be particularly associated with
magic and even Harry, limited as his experience of Muggle life has
been in some ways, would recognize French or Spanish or German if he
heard it. Similarly, he'd recognize a language like Mermish as eerie
and nonhuman sounding. Certainly, it isn't Parseltongue, which Harry
can understand and I don't think DD can speak. It must be a human
language, if only because it's being used for a complicated spell, and
it has to be a language or a spell that Voldemort picked up during his
travels or taught himself at Hogwarts, assuming that the counterspell
has to be in the same language as the original spell. Unlike
Dumbledore (or Barty Crouch Sr.), Voldemort hasn't had the time or the
incentive to learn a lot of languages. He learns only what's useful to
him in his goals of domination and immortality. 

I'm guessing that the language is the same language as that of Snape's
healing incantation, probably Latin, which Harry doesn't understand or
he'd have guessed what Sectumsempra and Levicorpus did before trying
them. It could also be an incantation in a language different from
that of the original spell, a language Dumbledore knows but Voldemort
doesn't, but it seems more likely that it's a knowledge that they
share. DD knows how Voldemort thinks and what language he's likely to
use (other than Parseltongue, which may not be useful for casting
spells). So I'm going for Latin, with Celtic as my second choice. Nice
and esoteric, associated with runes and so forth. But chances are,
we'll never know.
  
> 
> 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?

Carol:
On the surface, the answer sounds easy. Harry is the Chosen One; DD is
"only" the old mentor. Harry has to live; Dumbledore can be sacrificed
if necessary. So Harry's life, and therefore his blood, is worth more
than DD's. But, almost certainly, the significance goes deeper and
relates to blood magic. Voldemort specifically wanted Harry's blood in
the restoration spell even though the blood of any enemy Wizard would
have worked. Magic leaves traces, and I think that DD is afraid that
LV will recognize Harry's blood, perhaps through the ancient magic of
his mother's blood protection, and know that Harry has been here and
knows about his Horcruxes. Better that he somehow recognizes
Dumbledore's blood. LV is already afraid of Dumbledore (and determined
to kill him). He, Voldemort, must not know his real danger.

> 
> 4)	Dumbledore heals the cut he has made by passing his wand once 
> over it, and Harry is reminded of Snape's sung/chanted spell with 
> which he healed Draco. Is this the nonverbal version, or something 
> else? Why does Rowling choose to mention this similarity explicitly 
> by having Harry note it?

Carol:
It's clearly not the same spell or it would have taken much longer
even in its nonverbal version, if it's even possible to sing/chant
such an incantation nonverbally. Also, Dumbledore's injury is an
ordinary cut from a potions knife, an injury that Madam Pomfrey, for
example, could easily heal, not a potentially fatal injury from a Dark
and deadly curse. I think that the counterincantation to Sectumsempra
is specific to that curse and is Snape's own invention, possibly not
known to Dumbledore for that reason, but even if it isn't, there's no
need for a complex countercurse in this instance. It's a minor injury
that can be healed with a simple wave of the wand. 

Nevertheless, JKR has Harry remember Snape's healing incantation here
and again when he sees Bill Weasley's horrible injuries. She's
impressing the image of Snape the Healer into our minds. And it's in
Harry's, too, whether he likes it or not. He, and we, will encounter
Snape the Healer again in Book 7, I predict.
 
> 5)	"Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth
" 
Dumbledore says of Voldemort, as he explains the boat would only hold
one adult wizard. Is there any special significance to these words?

Carol responds:
They echo his own description of himself in OoP when he explains that
he's forgotten how younger people (both Harry and Snape) feel. But I
think he's also predicting that Voldemort's underestimation of Harry
(despite previous experience with him) will lead to his doom. (And,
though DD doesn't know it, LV has also underestimated another young
wizard, Regulus Black, whose presence would not have registered on the
boat if he was still underage, and who has stolen a Horcrux whether he
was of age or not.)
> 
> 6)	Is Dumbledore too quick to conclude the potion must be drunk? 
> Why or why not?

Carol:
I don't thinks so. there seems to be no other way to get to the
(supposed) Horcrux. I'm sure that LV has made sure that it can't just
be poured on the ground. He seems to have taken every other precaution
(it can't be Transfigured or Vanished, for example.) That would be a
significant oversight, one that Dumbledore would surely figure out.
> 
> 7)	Is the potion a poison? Why or why not?

Carol:
Considering that it inflicts both physical agony and mental anguish
and seems to relate to remorse of some kind, I think it's a poisoned
memory, maybe one he extracted from his father (who wants to protect
his parents from sharing his fate) before his death, or one that
Regulus left behind if he's the one who drank the potion. At any rate,
the noxious green is connected in JKR's imagery with poison and death
(cf. the "poisonous green" Basilisk and the AK, which flashes briefly
with a similar green light) and the debilitating effects, including a
burning thirst, suggest poison, though the thirst also serves another
purpose--stirring up the water to arouse the Inferi. (I *don't* think
that LV wanted the victim to survive long enough to be interrogated.
The zombies aren't going to summon Voldemort and hold the victim there
at knifepoint or wandpoint till he arrives. They're going to kill him
or turn him into a zombie like themselves.) But the effects on the
mind and the Pensievelike shape of the bowl suggest that the poison
also contains a memory or affects the memory of the drinker. (IMO,
it's the first. I don't think that DD is reliving his own memories. I
doubt that he's ever begged for mercy in his life--and that includes a
certain future incident on the tower.)
> 
> 8)	What do Dumbledore's experiences drinking the potion tell us 
> about him? What is the meaning of his words and actions?

Carol:
I've partially answered that question. I think he's reliving a memory
that isn't his own. But the specific meaning, the identity of the
person whose memory is being relived and the specific circumstances
are still open to speculation. And he's clearly very weak and
suffering physical as well as mental anguish, which match the
suffering of the speaker in the memory. If he wasn't dying from the
ring curse before he drank that potion, he's dying now: "That potion
was no health drink," he says with typical British understatement in
the next chapter. The sprinkled water (which he doesn't drink) and two
Rennervate spells restore him temporarily, but if it weren't for his
own powerful magic and his strong will, not to mention Harry's
presence, he'd be dead. 
> 
> 9)	Dumbledore warns Harry not to touch the water both as he gets 
> into the boat and as he disembarks. Why do you think he does this?

Carol:
Because doing so will arouse the Inferi. 
> 
> 10)	What do you think about the fact that Harry *did* use the 
> water? Do you believe the lake water had any effect on Dumbledore?

Carol:
The water itself does not appear to be dangerous as it helped to
revive Dumbledore after he drank the potion. And oddly, the burning
thirst seems to be quenched just by the touch of the water on his
face. I think that DD's later extreme weakness and stoic suffering are
the result of the potion, which is a slow and painful poison that
continues to destroy the body even after it stops affecting the mind.
I don't think that the water, which DD didn't drink, affected him in
any way.
> 
> 11)	What did you think of Harry's attempts to fight the Inferi?

Carol:
Do I dare say that they're pathetic? He's using anti-DE tactics on
dead people. He's ignoring or forgetting whatever Snape told him in
DADA class, not to mention Dumbledore's words about their fearing
light and fire. Harry, who generally keeps his head in a crisis,
should have thought of fire. Besides, fire is associated with
Gryffindor (the Gryffindor colors, Fawkes, etc.) Maybe next time he'll
remember. We haven't seen the last of the Inferi, I'm sure.
> 
> 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?

Carol:
Dumbledore would not have drunk all the potion if Harry had not
forcefed it to him and would not have been able to retrieve the (fake)
locket, not to mention sprinkle himself with water to get back into
the boat and fight off the Inferi. DD alone could have gotten as far
as the island and started drinking the potion, but without Harry, he
would have died there of weakness, thirst, starvation, and despair,
combined with the effects of the poison, before he finished drinking
it. If he found the strength to crawl to the water's edge to ease his
thirst, he would have aroused the Inferi. And if he fought them off,
he'd have to return to drinking the poison, which he could not do
without someone to forcefeed it to him. 

RAB must have had a companion as well, one whose presence the magic
boat would not sense even if RAB himself was of age. So, like most
people on this list, I think that RAB was Regulus and he had Kreacher
with him. Just possibly, the poison is what addled Kreacher's brains.
(Not that Kreacher isn't still cunning and deceitful, but he's
eccentric and unnaturally filthy for a house-elf.)
> 
> 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?

Carol:
The words are sad and beautiful to the reader, who understands their
significance and senses that DD is going to die (though I don't think
any of us anticipated the exact circumstances). Harry is oblivious to
their significance, but I think Dumbledore knows that, one way or
another, he's going to die that night. He's been acting oddly all
year, making preparations for his own absence--and Snape's--from the
third chapter to the end of the book. His impatience with Harry over
the Slughorn memory indicates his awareness that his time is short,
and he knows about the DADA curse and Draco's intention to kill him,
as well as at least part (and I think all) of the UV. He has the Order
at the school. He must sense that tonight is the night. 

As for Harry, he's certainly not prepared at this point. He doesn't
anticipate the events on the tower or understand what he has
witnessed. He knows how to Apparate. He knows a lot of spells (but not
how to "shut his mouth and close his mind"). He knows what a Horcrux
is and how many to look for. He knows he has to fight Nagini whether
or not she's a Horcrux. He'll certainly figure out who RAB is and that
the locket he's already seen is the real Horcrux. And he "has power
the Dark Lord knows not." What he doesn't know is where to find or how
to destroy the remaining Horcruxes and how to vanquish Voldemort once
he does that. He'll need the help of others, and most of all (IMO),
he'll need to understand, forgive, and accept the help of Severus
Snape. He has a whole year and a whole book to learn those final
lessons. He hasn't learned them yet.

> 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).

Carol:
I think that they all symbolize the hero's journey to, and return
from, the Underworld, and foreshadow Harry's passing through the Veil
to see his beloved dead before returning alive to the WW. The only way
he can do that, IMO, is by possessing Voldemort and using Sirius
Black's body to return. Compare Bilbo's journey through Gollum's cave
and Frodo's through Moria and Shelob's cave. There and Back Again.
Harry, unlike those two, will visit the real land of the Dead, whose
entrance is in the DoM, and return, having defeated Voldemort without
using an Unforgiveable Curse. Or so I anticipate.

Thanks for an excellent discussion and great questions!

Carol, who was also sure that Mark Evans was Harry's Muggleborn
cousin, so it's more than possible that she's wrong in some of her
predictions