Re: Attn: Snape-Lovers. Possible help from an unlikely source.

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 06:42:03 GMT, Paul Lints
<paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>gjw wrote:
>
><biiiig snip>
>
>>
>> OK, that's about it for the modified theory.
>>
>> I've tried to find obvious holes in it, but so far I have only been
>> able to come up with a few.
>>
>> The following assumptions must be made without any real evidence:
>>
>>
>> 1. That a Horcrux vessel can take liquid form. (reasonable)
>>
>> 2. That possession by a liquid horcrux would be irreversible.
>> (fairly reasonable)
>>
>> 3. That Snape would be able to recognize the effects of the potion.
>> (Given that he's a potions master, that seems reasonable).
>>
>
>This last one is the dealbreaker for me. A person as terrified of death
>as Voldemort is would never let /anyone/ know of his Achilles heel.

The potion/Horcrux in the cave is not his Achilles heel. Voldemort has
six different Horcruxes (or so he thinks), protected in god-only-knows
how many different ways. So he could afford to sacrifice one of them
to destroy Dumbledore. Remember, if Dumbledore made it all the way to
the cave, he already knew about the 'secret', and that gives Voldemort
even more reason to want him dead - or worse.

We've seen from the casual way he threw around his first Horcrux, the
diary, that he doesn't mind letting people see one of his Horcruxes,
even risk its destruction, if it allows him to reach an otherwise
unobtainable goal (such as unleashing the Basilisk).

Dumbledore states: "What intrigued and alarmed me most was that that
diary had been intended as a weapon as much as a safeguard... Riddle
really wanted that diary read, wanted the piece of his soul to inhabit
or possess some-body else... if he intended the diary to be passed to,
or planted on, some future Hogwarts student, he was being remarkably
blase about that precious fragment of his soul concealed within it.
The point of a Horcrux is to keep part of the self hidden and safe,
not to fling it into somebody else's path and run the risk that they
might destroy it - as indeed happened... The careless way in which
Voldemort regarded this Horcrux seemed most ominous to me. It
suggested that he must have made - or had been planning to make - more
Horcruxes, so that the loss of his first would not be so detrimental."

In other words, he's gotten a bit cocky about his own safety. I don't
think he would mind letting Snape know the basis of one of his traps
if it meant destroying his worst enemy in the process. In fact, LV
wouldn't even have to tell Snape that he had any Horcruxes at all. He
would simply have to ask Snape if it were possible for him to put a
fragment of his soul in a liquid form so that it could be drunk. Snape
would say yes, it might be possible, if it were the right potion...

I threw in the part about Snape making the potion because it's a neat
little twist, given that he's the potion master, the whole book (HBP)
obsessed with potions and Snape, and it was a potion which helped
destroy Dumbledore.

But Snape's possible involvement in the potion/Horcrux creation isn't
really essential to the modified theory.

All Snape has to be able to do is recognize a possessed Dumbledore
when he sees him (or, more accurately, sees what's inside of his
mind), and to realize that he could only get that way by drinking a
potion used as a Horcrux. Snape is familiar enough with both potions
and the Dark Arts that if such a thing is possible, he probably knows
about it...


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