The green liquid in the basin

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165692

Shaunette Wrote--
>  >>> If the Birdbath!potion is indeed something like pensieve stuff,
and if it does force the drinker to relive horrible memories, how do
one's memories get siphoned out automatically into the basin...before
the drinker arrives? It would make more sense if those Worst Memories
are the memories of the *previous* drinker.

Ronin replied:
> I was thinking that the potion itself or one of it's side effects,
was that it caused the drinker to relive his/her own worst memories.
More on the lines of a magical drug, rather than the memories being in
the basin like a pensieve. Therefore, the memories are already inside
the drinker's own mind and the potion merely acts as a stimulant or a
instigator of sorts. I don't think that Voldemort would ever place his
own memories out there in the open for someone else to view, however
bad they might be. He trusts no-one and lets nobody know his true
intentions. Even if he was 99% certain that the drinker would die, I
don't think he would share such an insight into his psyche with anyone.

Carol responds:
I agree that Voldemort wouldn't have placed his own memories in the
basin. However, we know that he can extract memories from his own mind
and that Dumbledore, at least, can extract them from other people who
aren't themselves Legilimens (or whatever the plural is--would it be
Legilimentes, Geoff?). He extracts memories from Hokey and Morfin, for
example. (He also acquires one from Bob Ogden, but Ogden, like
Slughorn, might have been able to extract his own memory,)

It's possible, then, that the memories in the Pensieve are not those
of the drinker but those of one of Voldemort's victims. I've
suggested, in a post that almost no one considered worthy of a
response, that the memory could be that of Tom Riddle Sr. ("It's all
my fault. My fault. Please make it stop. I know I did wrong, oh please
maek it stop, and I'll never, never again . . . " and "Don't hurt
them, don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead"
(572). The impression I get is of someone being tortured (Crucio'd)
for some fault he has committed, and trying at the same time to
protect innocent people from being Crucio'd. The memory can't be
Voldemort's--he was never tortured or at anyone's mercy. It seems
unlikely that Dumbledore, who could do extraordinary things with a
wand even as a boy, and who was some ninety years old and very
powerful when Tom Riddle first met him, would ever have been in such a
position. (Of course, it might not be a memory; he might be reacting
to the present torture, but if so, who are the "them" who are also
being tortured or in danger of being tortured?)

The situation fits Tom Riddle Sr., who deserted Tom Jr. before he was
born, leaving him to be raised in a Muggle orphanage (Tom Jr. killed
him for revenge, as he says himself, and the terrified expressions on
the Riddles' faces suggest that all three were also tortured before
they were killed). He's the only person I can think of from whom
Voldie could have extracted a memory for later use who would be
begging Voldie or Tom Jr. to torture him rather than other people who
have not committed the fault. No Death Eater (other than perhaps Snape
or Regulus Black) would do that. It's also possible that the memory of
Tom Sr. screaming is Voldie's own, converted somehow to first-person
so that the drinker experiences it from the victim's perspective
rather than the torturer's.

At any rate, the very shape of the basin, "a stone basin rather like
the Pensieve" (566), along with the poisonous green color (the color
of an AK and the Basilisk) suggests that the potion is, or contains, a
poisoned memory. The memory is part of the torture that the victim
undergoes, but it is not, of course, what causes the victim to suffer
physical anguish, unbearable thirst, deathlike pallor, and lasting
weakness (so great that DD is sliding down the tower wall when the DEs
arrive).

If, indeed, the memory is that of the last drinker, it's difficult to
explain how the memory got in there in the first place. Neither
Voldemort nor Bellatrix, if she hid the Horcrux, would have drunk the
potion. Nor is it likely to be RAB's if RAB is Regulus, since his
assistant had to be Kreacher (whose presence would not have been
registered by the boat). Surely, Regulus would not have drunk the
potion himself with Kreacher there to do it for him (no need to rouse
the Inferi--just grab the Horcrux, toss the suffering Kreacher in the
boat, and give him water when they're safely out of the cave), and the
memory clearly isn't Kreacher's. So I don't think the memory changes.
I think Dumbledore experiences the same anguished memory that the
first drinker, probably Kreacher, experienced. I can't see it being
his own memory or a reaction to the present situation, in which
there's no "them" to be protected. Nor do I see how it could be
Regulus's memory because I'm sure that, being a Black with a loyal
house-elf, he would never have drunk the potion himself, at least not
after the first taste.

Shaunette:
if Harry returns to the cave to look for the real locket (provided
that Inferi-pocket-locket theory pans out) someone (kreacher's been
suggested quite a bit, the poor thing) might have to drink DD's worst
memories

Carol:
But why would Harry return to the cave to look for the real Horcrux,
which isn't there? (I don't subscribe to the pocket-locket theory, and
neither does the person who posted it, right, Mike?) RAB took it, and
if RAB is Regulus, the real Horcrux is surely the unopenable locket
that we saw at 12 GP in OoP. That being the case, either Kreacher
retrieved it and hid it or Mundungus Fletcher stole it. There's the
slight complication that Mundungus is currently in Azkaban for
impersonating an Inferius, but JKR will find a way around that.

At any rate, in the unlikely event that Harry returns to the cave to
retrieve the real Horcrux from Inferius!Regulus, no one will have to
drink the potion because the Horcrux isn't in the basin, and there's
no indication that the basin, which now has nothing to protect or
conceal, refills after DD "scooped up the locket from the bottom of
the stone basin and stowed it inside his robes" (576).

Carol, who thinks that the primary purpose of the cave scene is to
weaken Dumbledore so that his death is inevitable and to turn the
responsibility for fighting Voldemort over to Harry (and his supposed
enemy, Snape)