Snape and Dumbledore on the Tower/ Blood on DD face

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165384

Snow:
<snip>
> I had always thought that the draught of living death was a potion
to put a stopper in death...something you take to make you appear dead 
> but you are still alive (like a Hamlet's Romeo and Juliet).
> 
> The way I now can perceive this potion, from what you have said, is 
> that it keeps the dead alive. In other words, the inferius in the 
> cave are kept alive by a potion, the draught of living death. They 
> are kept alive even though they are quite dead. 
> 
> The potion isn't meant to keep people from dying, it is meant to
keep those who are dead alive...in other words, stop death. The Inferi
are the living dead!
> 
> Dumbledore should have been dead from drinking the poison but 
> Voldemort wanted to know who could have broken his defenses of the 
> cave, so being made thirsty enough to drink from the lake not only 
> brought the inferius to life but kept Dumbledore alive as well, but 
> only for a time. The inferius live in the liquid so they can never 
> escape death. 
>
Carol responds:

I think your first idea is correct. Snape tells the students that the
Draught of Living Death is a sleeping potion so powerful that the
drinker appears to be dead. The Inferi *are* dead, and an Inferius can
attack a person on land. We see them get out of the water, and Snape
has a poster showing what happens to a person attacked by an Inferius.

Besides, Dumbledore doesn't actually drink the water. Harry merely
sprinkles it on his face and he forces himself to revive, just as,
later, he forces himself to ride a broom and (temporarily?) remove the
anti-flying charms around the castle.

Dumbledore *says* that Voldemort would have wanted his victims to live
long enough to tell him how they got in, but where's the evidence that
he's right? LV certainly didn't show up in the cave to interrogate DD
and Harry, and there's no evidence that he knows that the ring Horcrux
was destroyed and the original locket stolen. I think that DD was just
saying whatever was required to make sure that Harry forcefed him the
potion, which clearly was a poison of some sort (I still think it's a
poisoned memory). The water touching his skin allayed his thirst, but
drinking the water was only supposed to arouse the Inferi, which would
finish off the weakened victim.

I do definitely think that the Draught of Living Death will play a
role, but I think that Snape is keeping alive someone that he's
pretended to kill. Emmeline Vance is my candidate. Why else bring her
into the story?

Carol, who gets shivers just thinking of Snow's hypothesis