Dumbledore's Fall

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 170725

Pippin:

I've been looking for canon that Dumbledore could have survived
the fall from the tower, supposing that Snape's AK was a fake, and
as I mentioned in an earlier post, I finally found it.

There are *two* instances of wandless soft landings in HBP, both 
performed by Tom Riddle. 
"Billy Stubbs's rabbit...well, Tom *said* he didn't do it, and
I don't see how he could have done, but even so, it didn't
hang itself from the rafters, did it?"

"I shouldn't think so, no," said Dumbledore quietly.

"But I'm jiggered if I know how he got up there to do it." --HBP ch 13

--
A towering cliff stood behind them, a sheer drop, black and faceless.
[...] 
"I imagine that Riddle climbed down; magic would have served
him better than ropes. And he brought two children with him,
probably for the purpose of terrorizing them. I think the journey
alone would have done it, don't you?"
 
Harry looked up at the cliff again and felt goose bumps. --HBP ch 26
---

So Riddle had to get himself not only up but *down* from the rafters
without harm,  and then, with two small children, he got down 
the cliff. Of course he had no wand.  Dumbledore knew it could 
be done, and that means, IMO, that he himself could have 
done it. The whole thing smells of a clue.The cliff doesn't 
come into the story at all, except to tell us that Riddle had
a way to get down it without dying. 

All the clues are in place now that Dumbledore did not die on the
tower but nearly half an hour later, just before Harry found him.
Harry's instinct, that if he could have found a way to get Snape
and Dumbledore together, events could be reversed, was right.
His sensation that someone near him was in pain was right, too. 

IMO, Snape could have saved Dumbledore from the poison. But
he never got the chance, because Dumbledore didn't want him
to have it. The mission was more important. Snape was not
allowed to help Dumbledore, just as the Twins were not allowed
to go to their father in OOP even though he might have been
dying, because it would have given away too  much. 

Pippin