CHAPDISC: HBP26, The Cave

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162381

zgirnius:
> > 7) Is the potion a poison? Why or why not?

bboyminn wrote:
> 
> I think it's /poison-ish/. Though it is not clear what the intended
/normal/ course was for the poison. Persumable it was slow acting
since Dumbledore lasted so long, and based on Dumbledore's conclusion
that Voldemort would want to question who ever managed to get past it.
Yet it is unclear whether is was a disabling potion or a slow acting
deadly poison.

><snip> If Dumbledore is right is his thought that Voldemort would
want to keep any intruder alive, then exactly what were the Inferi
going to do? Were they going to hold the intruder captive indefinitely
until Voldemort decided to look in? Do they have some way of alerting
Voldemort that intruders are in the Cave? <snip>

Carol responds:

I'm also puzzled by Dumbledore's words here. As I wrote upthread in
message 162353, 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162353

"I *don't* think that LV wanted the victim to survive long enough to
be interrogated. The zombies [okay, I meant Inferi!] 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
[Inferius] like themselves." I think that the potion was intended
first to debilitate and punish any thief who drank a gobletful or two,
deterring him from drinking any more through mental and physical
torture, and second as a means of forcing the drinker to stir up the
Inferi by giving him a burning thirst. In the unlikely event that the
weakened potion drinker fought off the Inferi, the slow poison in the
potion would kill him.

Based on Dumbledore's reaction to the potion, it seems clear to me
that not even he could have survived the ordeal in the cave if Harry
hadn't been with him. Certainly, he could not have retrieve the locket
without him. (Cf. DD's words about the protections being "after all
well designed.") It also seems clear that Voldemort doesn't know
they've been to the cave, that he doesn't know that RAB was there
fifteen years before them, and that he doesn't know that the ring
Horcrux has been found and destroyed--just as he didn't know that the
diary had been destroyed until he forced the truth out of Lucius
Malfoy (probably after asking him where it was and whether it was
safe). Surely, Voldemort wouldn't put a theft/ destruction alarm on
one Horcrux and not on the others. Dumbledore must have known there
was no such protection on the ring and the diary. Why would he expect
it on the locket?

I don't think he did. I think he was telling Harry a half-truth, that
the poison wouldn't kill the drinker immediately, but giving a false
reason for the delay. How did he know it wouldn't kill immediately?
Because Vldemort likes to torture his victims. Why would he give a
false reason for the delay? To reassure Harry that he would be okay
and to make sure he kept forcefeeding the poison. 

So not a lie because the poison *didn't* kill right away; not a
mistake because even though he didn't know exactly what would happen,
he knew he had to drink all of the poison and had a pretty good idea
why it was unwise to touch the water; but not the whole truth because
he knew the other Horcruxes weren't similarly protected and it was
unlikely that this one was any different.

I can think of no reason for this "mistake"/white lie than to make
sure Harry followed orders and made him keep drinking the poison, no
matter what.

Carol, who keeps getting interrupted and hopes this post is remotely
coherent

Carol,