Snape and Dumbledore on the Tower: A Defense of Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165290

Alla wrote:
> <snip> I do not remember **any** incidents in canon when person was
attacked with **fake** AK. I can misremember of course.
> 
> Is it possible that it was **fake** AK? Sure. But sorry, I cannot 
> agree that this is a straightforward reading anymore than I can agree 
> that ESE!Lupin is a straightforward reading. Sorry.

Carol responds:
I agree that a real AK is the more straightforward reading, but still,
as I pointed out in the post that started this thread, and as others
have also pointed out, Snape's AK on the tower is an anomaly,
different in many respects from the other AKs we've seen. To quote
from my original post, which has been rather liberally snipped:

"For one thing, it's not even certain that the spell Snape cast on the
Astronomy Tower was an Avada Kedavra. Other spells, such as the one
that injured Tonks in the Department of Mysteries, send out jets of
green light like the one the narrator describes coming from Snape's
wand in "The Lightning-Struck Tower." Avada Kedavra, in contrast, is
described three times in Goblet of Fire, always accompanied with a
"blinding flash of green light" and a rushing sound, neither of which
is described in relation to Snape's spell. And the Avada Kedavra
victims we've seen (notably Cedric Diggory and the Riddles) have died
with their eyes open and a surprised or horrified expression.
Dumbledore dies with his eyes closed, as if he had time to come to
terms with his death, and his "wise old face" looks as if he's asleep,
very much like the "peacefully sleeping" portrait in a later chapter.
However he died, Dumbledore was neither horrified nor afraid. Snape is
quite capable, as we know, of casting nonverbal spells. If anyone
could cast a nonverbal spell disguised as an Avada Kedavra, he could."

I'm just wondering how, short of simply stating that JKR's
descriptions, even of a spell as important as an AK, aren't always
consistent, you or posters who agree with you would explain these
differences, which surely at least *suggest* that something beyond
what Harry sees *may* have been happening. And I didn't even mention
the trickle of blood that Pippin maintains could not have happened
after Dumbledore was dead. (Probably true, but is JKR familiar with
forensics?)

Carol, thinking that it would be interesting to explore the
implications for both Harry and Snape if it were really the poison,
not a real AK, that killed Dumbledore