The green liquid in the basin

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165670

Carol earlier:
> > If RAB refilled the basin with a different potion altogether, then
he must be a powerful Dark wizard himself, intent on torturing and
killing anyone who retrieved the fake Horcrux--not to mention that
drinking the horrible potion not only made the drinker suffer, later
to weaken and possibly die, but also caused a terrible thirst that
forced the drinker to drink the water in the lake, releasing the
Inferi. The whole diabolical chain reaction has to be Voldemort's
plan, not RAB's--unless RAB is as murderous and powerful as Voldemort.
>
> Mike:
> A big me too on the quality and bent of wizard capable of doing all
that stuff. <snip>

Carol again:
Hooray! Thanks, Mike.

Goddlefrood in response to the same paragraph:

Que?

What would lead to the conclusion that if R. A. B. refilled the basin
(and we have all been assuming that he put the fake lcket in the
basin himself) he must have been a powerful dark wizard?

Carol again:
If he refilled the basin with *that* potion, the one that causes
Dementor-like memories and physical agony and terrible thirst, the one
that's "no health drink" and causes Dumbledore to come close to death
more than once, and it was *not* the original potion but his own
creation, then he was a sadistic and evil little Dark wizard. Good
wizards don't create such potions. It's an instrument of torture
whether it's fatal or not. I can see him possibly refilling the basin
with the same potion that was already there, not of his own creation,
but as I stated earlier, there's really no point in doing so. Why
subject anyone else to torment and possible death? Voldie himself
wouldn't need to drink it. He'd know how to get to the (fake) Horcrux
without doing so. The only point in having the potion there is to
deter anyone from stealing the Horcrux and force them to drink the
water so that the Inferi would attack them. And, of course, RAB would
*want* Voldemort to find his note. It was, after all, addressed to
him. The only explanation that makes sense to me is for the basin to
refill itself magically when an object is placed in it.

Goddlefrood:
There is not enough to go on to conclude that the potion Dumbledore
drank was fatal or intended to be so by whoever placed it there.
Indeed if it were intended to be fatal to whomsoever might drink it
then wouldn't it be more likely that it would be fairly instant and
not give the drinker the time to consume a dozen or more goblets of
the stuff? <snip>

Carol:
That sounds like Dumbledore's logic. He says that Voldemort wouldn't
want the drinker to die *immediately*. He doesn't say that LV wouldn't
want the drinker to die at all. Of course, he would--after a great
deal of suffering. But DD is trying to get Harry to forcefeed him the
poison, and he can't very well tell Harry that he's likely to die on
the spot if Harry does so. 

But DD's argument makes no sense at all. How can Voldemort know that
someone is there in the cave stealing the Horcrux? Clearly, he can't,
or he'd be there at that moment--not to mention that RAB, nowhere near
as powerful a wizard as DD even if he's not Reggie, would never have
succeeded in taking the real Horcrux. Again, the whole point of the
potion is to weaken and torture the drinker, who certainly couldn't
drink the entire basinful without an assistant forcing him to do so.
If by some miracle the drinker survives, the torment will drive him to
drink the water (not obtainable from any source but the lake) and the
Inferi will finish him off.

That the potion is a horrendous instrument of torture isn't even open
to question. After drinking several gobletsful (and experiencing
terrible memories that might or might not be his own), Dumbledore
*screams* in *anguish*, "I want to die! I want to die!" and then "KILL
ME!" (HBP Am. ed. 573)

At least once, Harry thinks that Dumbledore is dead or nearly dead
from the potion alone:

"Dumbledore gulped at the goblet, drained every last drop, and then,
with a great rattling gasp, rolled over onto his face.

"'No!' shouted Harry, who . . . flung himself down beside Dumbledore
and heaved him over onto his back; Dumbledore's glasses were askew,
his mouth agape, his eyes closed. 'No', said Harry, shaking
Dumbledore. 'You're not dead, you said it wasn't poison, wake up, wake
up! *Renervate*'" (574)

The "rattling gasp" is like a death rattle; Dumbledore looks more like
a dead man in that description than he does after his fall from the
tower, where he looks like he's asleep. Note that DD never said that
the drink wasn't poison, and that when Harry wanted to drink it
himself, DD responded, "I am much older, much cleverer, and much less
valuable" (570). IOW, if one of us has to die, better me than you.

Afterwards, DD is extremely weak and pale, on the verge of collapes
more than once. If it weren't for Harry's repeated Renervate and
perhaps for the sprinkle of water, DD would not have made it out of
the cave, nor could he have Apparated back to Hogsmeade without Harry.
"One alone could not have done it" (577).

Whether the potion is fatal in itself of a means of weakening the
victim so he can be killed by other means, it's clearly poison, a
horrible poison that causes both physical and mental anguish.
If RAB concocted that potion, he's a monster. And he would have had to
include unbearable thirst designed to force the drinker to drink the
water and arouse the Inferi as one of the elements of the poison,
along with mental anguish aroused by memories that may or may not be
the drinker's own and physical agony so intense that the drinker wants
to die. RAB concoct a poison like that to replace the potion in the
basin when it's drunk? Why?

> Mike:
<snip>
> This seems like a good place to air my whole objection with the
logic surrounding that Birdbath of Doom and how JKR wrote it. <snip>
>
> One can't even touch the potion in the basin, right? But put a glass
in your hand and you have no problem dipping into the stuff. So why
doesn't DD put a glass into his hand and when he gets into the potion
simply reach to the bottom and grab the locket? <snip>

> Next, DD says "... this potion is supposed to be drunk." Huh? How
does the potion know that it's being taken out a cupfull at a time
and being drunk? Conjure a pail and pour it into that! Don't drink the
stuff! Where's the logic that DD "can only conclude" that drinking is
the solution?

Carol:
Excellent questions. I wondered the same thing. Maybe the goblet won't
reach to the bottom unless the entire potion is gone. But still, why
drink the potion? Why not just pour it on the ground? Especially the
last glass, when the locket would be completely exposed. Why not just
snatch it up? DD must have some reason for thinking as he does that we
can't see (he knows how Tom Riddle thinks, for one). Still, you'd
think he'd at least *try* to do something with the potion rather than
drink it, such as pouring it on the ground, just as he tried to Vanish
it and Transfigure it into something else. Maybe the basin would just
refill if the potion were scooped up and poured out, but shouldn't he
at least try it. And I don't know what would happen if you scooped up
the fake Horcrux without drinking the potion. Would that somehow
trigger the Inferi? Dumping the potion in the water almost certainly
would.

Mike:
> And what about the "He [LV] would want to keep them alive long
enough to find out how they managed to penetrate so far through his
defenses,..." It sounds like a *likely story* for Dumbledore to tell
Harry. Until, of course, you read it again. Then you're left with
another big 'Huh?'. How about, wouldn't Voldemort prefer a fast acting
potent poison that kills the drinker so fast there would have to be a
hundred of them to get to the bottom? He wants to question them? Not
the Voldemort I've been reading. He wants his Horcrux safe and the
intruder or intruders *Dead, dead, dead!* He wouldn't give a damn
*why* they were there, he would only care that they didn't leave
there with his Horcrux. <snip>

Carol:
I *never* thought it was a likely story. To me, it sounds like
something DD invented on the spot to make sure that Harry, who
wouldn't be thinking logically at this point even if logic were his
strong point, would accept as a reason for making him drink what he
knew was going to be a horrible potion, whatever its effects. But I
agree absolutely with this part of your post. All the protections are
designed to deter the seeker from getting to the Horcrux and to punish
him horribly if he succeeds. Voldemort has no intention whatever of
interrogating the drinker. He wouldn't even know he was in the cave.
If being in the cave set off an alarm bell, Voldie would have been
summoned and neither Harry nor DD would have gotten out alive, nor
would Regulus, if he's RAB have lived to be killed later by Death
Eaters (assuming that's what happened).

Mike:
> For me, it's the difference between making it work for the storyline
and writing a storyline that works. For some reason JKR needed
Dumbledore to drink that potion (and have Harry force him to drink the
last 7 or 8 glasses). Was it to pressage the parallel to Snape on the
tower? Was it to weaken Dumbledore to make Draco disarming him seem
plausible? Was it to have Dumbledore utter all those incoherant
pleadings; that is, are there clues in Dumbledore's pleading to "...
don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead..."
and the like?
>
Carol:
All of these, I think. Not to mention that she had to make
Dumbledore's death inevitable, wheterh from the poison or the DEs or
Draco or Snape, and she had to force Snape into the position he'd
tried (IMO) to avoid all year, triggering the Unbreakable Vow. He had
to be forced to kill Dumbledore not only so that Harry wouldn't have a
mentor in DH but to bring all the animosity between Harry and Snape to
fever pitch before they meet again. It's a moving and terrible chapter
(I don't mean badly written but terrible in the sense of agonizing for
the reader), and yet it does seem in some respects like an elaborately
constructed plot device.

I'm with you on this one, Mike. Someone please give me a plausible
explanation for "I can only conclude that this potion is supposed to
be drunk." Once DD has conjured the goblet and dipped it in, how can
the potion know whether it's being drunk or otherwise disposed of?

Mike:
> Besides, I'm not convinced that one can borrow somebody elses house
elf. Sirius says that Kreacher is "supposed to do whatever anyone in
the family asks him ...", but it seems to me that taking someone's
house elf out on an adventure goes beyond the normal obeying
requirement when in a family member's presents. JMO :)

Carol:
I think that Walburga would have been more than happy to lend Kreacher
to her niece Bellatrix, who had made a perfectly respectable pureblood
marriage, unlike her "blood traitor" sister, Andromeda. Bella must
have been a frequent visitor to their house and a family favorite or
they wouldn't have had a framed portrait of her. Not to mention that
"Miss Bellatrix" Kreacher's favorite family member. he adores her. He
would do anything she requested. He might even beg to be allowed to
serve her. In any case, if his mistress ordered him to go with Miss
Bellatrix and do whatever she ordered, he would have had to obey even
if he didn't want to. And he most definitely would have wanted to.
After all, he keeps her photo in his lair along with those of other
family members. (Or is the only photo hers? I can't find the reference.)

Carol, happy to see mostly eye to eye with Mike on this topic