[the_old_crowd] Re: Possibilities surrounding nonverbal spells (esp. re: Snape & DD)

[susiequsie23]

SSSusan wrote previously: 
> Could Snape have been performing a spell *other* than AK, while
> speaking an "Avada Kedavra" which did not take because it
> was "overpowered" by whatever nonverbal spell Snape was
> concentrating on?

- to
> simultaneously save Draco from murder, release DD into the death
> which was coming anyway from the potion, and to save Snape from
> breaking his Unbreakable Vow. But many of us suspect some mutual
> legillimency in that brief stare between DD & Snape. Could there
> have been instruction to Snape about what to do in that moment? I
> like the possibility of this.

Potioncat:
I've only read the book once...Am I only one whose family would think 
I was crazy if they knew I was already re-reading it?...but I can't 
quite get the idea of another spell having any advantage. Dead is 
dead. 
  SSSusan:

  No one's said it aloud in my house, but....


  Potioncat:
  I don't understand why JKR had DD falling off the tower and that 
  seems to be the big hint about whether it was an AK. But if I were 
  choosing for myself, I'd choose AK before a fall off a tower as my 
  means to an end.

  The only thing that might save Snape is if he knew DD had died and  
  performed the curse a split second later. But still, why the fall off 
  the tower? 


  SSSusan:
  Oh, I think, definitely, this would only have any kind of advantage if a person believes either: 

  1) that DD did not die at all, either from an AK or from a fall, but that he wanted to give the impression that he did.  DD had just finished telling Draco there are ways of making it appear someone is dead & then hiding them, no?  *I* do not believe this, but others have speculated that DD didn't die on the tower and didn't die in the fall; that he merely floated down and gave the appearance of being dead at the bottom. 

  or 

  2) that it was very important that it appear Snape did the killing.  In this scenario, DD was dying anyway, from the green liquid he drank in the cave, but that he wanted to have Snape be in the position to be able to have claimed that he'd killed DD.  This plays into the Unbreakable Vow, of course.  If Draco couldn't manage to kill DD, Snape was supposed to complete the task or die himself.  With this, Snape could know that he hadn't actually been the cause but that he would appear to be the cause and so would be off the hook.

  Eh... that's pretty ridiculous, I know. ;-)  This was actually my co-worker's question, and she is in the camp that DD isn't really dead -- that he had drunk Draft of Living Death or something similar -- and that this possibility would be one way to allow for his having survived the events of the astronomy tower.  

  Truth be told, I'm actually even more interested in just the general questions I asked about verbal & nonverbal spells -- whether some are designed to be performed only one way, whether some can never be performed as nonverbal, etc.  But I do like the thought that someone accomplished at nonverbals could be concentrating on one while speaking something else... and manages to pull it off!

  Siriusly Snapey Susan




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