HBP:First Impressions

[pippin_999]

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Did somebody ask for pro-Snape spin? That's easy. Didn't you
hear Hermione tell Harry there are poisons that have no antidotes?
I'd guess that applies to the stuff guarding the horklump. *

Think about it--if Voldemort's theory of immortality was wrong,
then the horklump was useless and he would have no need to 
recover it.

If, OTOH, someone else iwas trying to recover it, then
they believed the immortality spell worked, which might imply that
it had been tested. If you're immortal,  why bother about antidotes? 
Voldemort could drink the stuff and go right on living. But no one
else could. RAB (I thought of Regulus too) and someone else --who?
must have gotten the real one out and replaced the potion.

So...the stuff guarding the horklump was fatal -- Dumbledore
was already dying when Snape sent that curse at him
Doubt he would have got more than knocked over otherwise,
just as Bella was by Harry's attempt at Crucio.

Numbness creeping upward from the feet is a classic poisoning 
symptom, ask Socrates. 

Snape had to know Harry was there, he could see the other broom as 
well as anybody. Jo even gives us a big fat hint, having Scrimgeour
say that the Ministry put 'two and two together.'

One more thing.

I loved the book. Loved it -- and read it straight through in 
eight hours, so much for my resolution. Glad it was shorter than 
OOP. Glad we finally met a vampire, too. Not sure I need
part-vampire!Snape anymore, but if Tobias Snape was a Muggle
then who was the man who was bullying Snape's mum? 

Pippin
bet you a dollar Emmeline Vance isn't dead. She was spirited away
by the Order so that Snape could take credit for the ambush.

*The horklump is a favorite delicacy of gnomes but otherwise
has no discernable use --FBAWTFT