ESE, DDM, OFH, or Grey? (WAS: DDM!Snape the definition)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162672

Alla wrote:
> 
> Terrible, yes. One could hardly watch DD in the cave and not see 
> that this potion was terrible. Deadly? Could you refer me to canon 
> where Harry thinks that DD is dying before the Tower? He is getting 
> sick, yes, but dying? I am not sure I remember that and that makes a 
> difference for me.
> 
Carol responds:
How about Harry's question, "But what if--what if it kills you?" and
DD's response?

At first DD says that Voldemort wouldnt want to kill the person who
reaches the island, and after Harry's protest "This is *Voldemort*
we're talking about!" DD amends the remark to, "I should have said,
Voldemort would not want to *immediately* kill the person who reached
this island," after which he presents the untenable or mistaken idea
that LV would want to interrogate the drinker.

Then DD says that the potion may paralyze him, cause forgetfulness,
cause intense pain, or incapacitate him in some other way. So even if
Harry doesn't know that it's deadly, he knows that it's very, very
dangerous, and he himself suggested the idea that it might be
deadly.He asks himself if he has been invited along "to forcefeed
Dumbledore a potion that might cause him unendurable pain. Dumbledore
has to remind him of his promise to follow any command that DD gave him. 

When Harry asks why he can't drink the potion instead, DD answers,
"Because I am much older, much cleverer, and much less valuable."
(Implication: If one of them is to die, it has to be Dumbledore.) DD
then insists on Harry's word that he'll do everything in his power to
make DD keep drinking.

After ten gobletsful, Dumbledore is screaming, "I want to die! I want
to die! . . . . KILL ME!" and Harry says, "This--this one will! Drink
this . . . .It'll be over. . . . All over!"

Whether Harry believes thes words or not (I don't think he does, but
he certainly knows that DD is in agony), when DD drains the last drop,
he rolls over on his face "with a great rattling gasp." Harry rolls
him over. His eyes are closed, his mouth is agape, his glasses are
askew. He looks, in short, dead.

Harry shouts, "No! No! you're not dead! You said it wasn't poison,
wake up, wake up--*Rennervate!"

First of all, DD never said that the potion wasn't poison. He said
that he didn't think it would kill the drinker immediately, which I
think was merely incentive to make sure that Harry gave him all of the
potion despite the agony it would cause him. And second, if Harry
hadn't known the Rennervate spell, which he has to use twice, DD would
almost certainly have died. And again, when Harry is trying to conjure
the water to cure DD's agonizing thirst, DD is lying on his side
drawing "great, rattling breaths that sounded agonizing."

After Harry sprinkles him with water, he revives enough (being
Dumbledore) to cast a ring of fire to fight off the Inferi, but Harry
is alarmed by the faintness of his voice, his "extreme pallor," and
his "air of exhaustion. And Dumbledore tells him that "one alone
couldn't have done it"--"IOW, he would have died without Harry, who
provided the water and the Rennervate. Later, as they enter the
freezing water, he's more worried by Dumbledore's silence than by his
weakened voice. (All quotations and paraphrases from HBP, "The Cave.")  

So I'd say that more than once, especially before DD is temporarily
revived by the Rennervate spells and the water thrown in his face,
Harry thinks that DD is dying, and at one point, he thinks he's dead.

wynnleaf:
> > You speak as though the choice to "save Harry and Draco and get
the DE's out of Hogwarts" was something within Snape's grasp, and did
 not need to include Dumbledore's death. 
> <SNIP>
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I have more respect of Snape's fighting abilities.

Carol:
I also hold Snape's fighting abilities in great respect, but even if
he could hold off four DEs, protecting a dying man and two boys, one
of them invisible, there's also the UV, which could strike him down at
any moment. The only way to get the DEs off the tower and away from
both boys is to kill DD himself and send DD's body over the
battlements. Also, though perhaps this is less important, DD *wants*
Snape to go with the DEs, which he can't do if he gives away his
loyalties, not to mention if he's dead from the broken UV. Dumbledore
is going to die no matter what, but the others can be saved and
Snape's spy cover protected if it's Snape and not the poison or Draco
or the DEs who kills him.

Alla:
> 
> Snape or Dumbledore? Not difficult choice for me. Snape would have 
> brought all of that upon himself IMO by taking the UV in the first 
> place.

Carol:
But it isn't a matter of Snape *or* Dumbledore. Dumbledore is dying of
the poison (even Amycus has figured that out) and surrounded by DEs
who will kill him if Snape doesn't. And even if Snape had an antidote
to the poison with him, which he can't possibly have because he
couldn't have anticipated these events or known what the poison was,
he couldn't administer it without giving away his loyalties and being
killed along with Dumbledore by the vow or the DEs. *There is no
saving Dumbledore.* There is only save himself and the boys and get
the DEs out of Hogwarts or die futilely along with Dumbledore and the
boys, handing the victory over to Voldemort without even fighting a war.

Carol, who agrees that Snape is trapped by the consequences of his own
choices but thinks that is part of the anguish he's suffering now
Carol


> 
> As to Harry and Draco, well if Snape is that concerned with their 
> wellfare and he came to tower alone, as I said above I am guessing 
> that he had some confidence in his abilities.
>