Confused. WAS: Re: CHAPDISC: HBP24, Sectumsempra

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161364

Eddie wrote:
> Sorry, but the canonical information seems clear that Snape really
> killed Dumbledore.
> 
><snip quote>
> Second, JKRowling confirmed that Dumbledore is really dead.  See
>
http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2006/0802-radiocityreading2.html
><snip quote>
> 
> OK, that aside, I _DO_ have one lingering question about
Dumbledore's death.  <snip>
> 
> Why was Dumbledore blasted into the air when every other AK death
> we've seen, the victim just crumpled to the ground?  Why was this
one > different?
>
Carol responds:
There are several other differences as well, including Dumbledore's
open eyes and the absence of a surprised expression (he looks like
he's asleep, not coincidentally resembling his peacefully sleeping
portrait, IMO). There's also no blinding flash or rushing noise.
(Harry could see the blinding flash of the AK that killed Cedric
through *closed eyes*. His earliest memory of his mother's death, or
perhaps the AK that gave him the scar, was also of a blinding flash of
green light.

Several possibilities have been raised to explain these differences,
one being that it wasn't a real (or successful) AK, another that Snape
nonverbally cast a second spell, for example Impedimenta, which
sometimes blasts people backwards, at nearly the same time as the AK.
I think we can safely discard a third possibility, that Snape's AK was
exceptionally powerful and knocked DD over the wall with its power. (I
think, being DDM, that he didn't want to cast the AK, which made it
less than usually powerful (no rushing sound, no blinding flash)
despite Snape's being a powerful wizard.) Dumbledore's body floats
over the wall like a rag doll, suggesting that Snape used some other
nonverbal spell (Wingardium Leviosa?) to make sure that the body
didn't remain on the tower, where Fenrir Greyback would immediately
have savaged it (remember his expressed intention to have dumbledore
for "afters").

IMO, if Snape had not sent Dumbledore's body (or the dying Dumbledore,
if he died from the poison and not the AK) over the wall, not only
would Greyback have gone after the body, but the DEs would have killed
Draco, activating Snape's UV, and Harry would have tossed off his
Invisibility Cloak and entered the fray alone, most likely ending up
dead (four DEs, including a bloodthirsty werewolf, against one kid who
can't even cast a nonverbal DADA spell). I think that Snape, who
undoubtedly saw the second broom and "put two and two together as only
Snape could," anticipated these consequences, in part, perhaps,
because of the exchanged glance with Dumbledore before he killed him
(at his request, if I interpret "Severus, please" correctly), and
protected both Draco and Harry in the only way possible, ensuring that
he could get Draco and the DEs off the tower before Harry had time to
act and risk being killed or kidnapped.

Carol, hoping that JKR is not merely being inconsistent and will
provide an explanation more or less like this one to explain these
very noticeable differences from the usual AK