Bathilda + the snake

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176891

Allie wrote:
> > WHAT, exactly was happening with Bathila and the snake in Godric's
Hollow?  I'm not sure what type of magic we're supposed to think that
was.  Bathilda was an inferius being controlled indirectly and from 
VERY FAR AWAY by Voldemort?  Bathilda was an inferius being 
controlled by Nagini?  Bathilda was a corpse being animated by the
snake inside its body, and not an inferius?  Nagini was LITERALLY
inside Bathilda's body, waiting to slither out?  Nagina was inside
Bathilda's clothing, and only seemed to be slithering out of her >neck?  
> 
Jen replied:

> I thought Nagini was possessing the dead body, using Bathilda's 
mouth to speak Parseltongue like LV used Harry's mouth while
possessing him.  Could Nagini do that with her soul piece?  I figured
it wasn't an Inferi because Harry and Hermione never talked about it
as an Inferi.  Now that you mention the idea it sounds plausible. 
Maybe it's an animated corpse with Nagini inhabiting the body until
the time is right, speaking Parseltongue through the bewitched lips? 
I don't know!  Repulsive.

Carol responds:

I thought as I read the scene the first time that Nagini had somehow
been inside Bathilda's body, but since Bathilda had died some time
before, I think the body would have rotted if there weren't something
like an Inferius spell on it. Since Nagini is a Horcrux with a link to
Voldemort similar to Harry's except that she can voluntarily summon
him (rather like a DE with a Dark Mark but she can clearly send
messages in words), I think that Jen is right and that Nagini has the
power of possession. So, in essence, we have an Inferius possessed by
Nagini for some time. And forgive me for adding to the repulsiveness,
but since the chamber pot seems to have been used, it appears that
Nagini was using Bathilda's body as her own for some time, creating
the illusion that batty old Bathilda was still alive. (Of course,
Rita's interview had to have occurred before she was killed as
Bathilda!Nagini could only speak Parseltongue.)

I don't see how a twelve-foot snake could get inside a tiny little old
woman unless she (the snake) could somehow lose her physical form as
LV did when he was possessing Harry in the MoM (and when he was
possessing Nagini herself in OoP, as Snape said he was and as he must
have been or Harry could not have seen from the snake's point of view).

So, essentially, I agree with Jen. Bathilda is simultaneously an
Inferius, which explains how she can do things like point and open
doors that Nagini can't do (and also explains why the body didn't rot
like an ordinary corpse) and a corpse possessed by Nagini, rather as
the soul bit from the diary could possess Ginny, but for a longer
term, since Nagini isn't really leaving her body, it just temporarily
ceases to exist. I suppose it's also similar to LV possessing Quirrell
long-term except that he didn't have a body of his own and could only
briefly show his face through the back of Quirrell's head.

Of course, it's also possible that Nagini retained her own form and
Inferius!Bathilda waited quietly like the Inferi in the lake until
Nagini sensed that it was time to use her body and then Nagini's will,
which was so linked to Voldemort's as to be indistinguishable from it
(even though they have separate existences), controlled the Inferius
(Inferia, if the feminine gender still applies).

Of course, I could be completely mistaken, but Snape's remark that LV
has used Inferi in the past and might use them again (HBP Am. ed. 178)
leads the reader to expect that they'll play a role in DH beyond the
death of Regulus, and I'm inclined to believe that this horrific scene
is the one foreshadowed by Snape's prediction.

Carol, noting for Potioncat that "Inferi" is the correct plural and is
used by both Snape (178) and the narrator (576) in HBP