Meaning/Translation of "stopper death"

[Miles]

No: HPFGUIDX 168194

Preliminary note for the elves: This mail deals with a film and a
translation, but it is not meant as a start for a discussion about one of
these, which would be something for one of the other lists, as I well know.

Hello everybody,

maybe my question is simple to answer, maybe it is not and can lead to an
interesting discussion of a 'famous' scene and quote from PS/SS.

Here's the quote from Snape's first Potions lesson:

"I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -- if
you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

As far as I recall it, in every discussion up to now "stopper death" was
interpreted as 'to stop death' or 'to put a stop to death'. That was my
understanding as well - but yesterday I watched the German version of the
film, and they translated it "den Tod verkorken" - that's "to cork death".

I'm not a native speaker, but this translation/understanding seems to be
reasonable. To brew a potion, to bottle it - and to put a stopper into the
bottle.

Now, this detail is not *that* important. But it was discussed widely, and
interpreted as a kind of augury for later incidents - the Felix Felicis, or
potions Snape brewed to save Dumbledore. But maybe the latter interpretation
would be different if we would see the word "stopper" as a synonym of
"cork" - on a bottle containing a deathly potion?

Miles, waiting for Anglicists instructing him ;)