Snape says this in both MoR and the original book:
“I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death”
Isn’t this silly? Of course you can stopper death, because duh, poisons exist.
It might be just a slip-up in the original book, but I’m hoping it will somehow make sense in MoR. My first thought was that maybe a magical death potion couldn’t be stopped using magical healing, unlike non-magical poisons.
I asked this on IRC and got some interesting ideas. feep thought it might mean that you can make a Potion of Dementor, which would fit since dementors are avatars of death in MoR and stoppering death would be actually impressive if it meant that. Orionstein suggested it might be a potion made from eg. a bullet that’s killed someone, which, given what we know of how potions work from chapter 78, might also result in a potion with deathy effects above and beyond just those of poison.
I thought it was made pretty clear that Dementors come from the ritual that Quirrel says summons Death, and that the True Patronus charm is the lost spell that banishes it. The other options seem more plausible, but really, I’d place my bet on some kind of poison that causes total and immediate brain death like Avada Kedavra does. I am not aware of any normal poisons that do that.
What I got from that was snape claiming to be able to temporarily store or stop death. To extend someones life. Not a great interpretation in hindsight, but I was ~ten the last time I heard that line so I’ll forgive myself.
Snape says this in both MoR and the original book:
Isn’t this silly? Of course you can stopper death, because duh, poisons exist.
It might be just a slip-up in the original book, but I’m hoping it will somehow make sense in MoR. My first thought was that maybe a magical death potion couldn’t be stopped using magical healing, unlike non-magical poisons.
I asked this on IRC and got some interesting ideas. feep thought it might mean that you can make a Potion of Dementor, which would fit since dementors are avatars of death in MoR and stoppering death would be actually impressive if it meant that. Orionstein suggested it might be a potion made from eg. a bullet that’s killed someone, which, given what we know of how potions work from chapter 78, might also result in a potion with deathy effects above and beyond just those of poison.
I thought it was made pretty clear that Dementors come from the ritual that Quirrel says summons Death, and that the True Patronus charm is the lost spell that banishes it. The other options seem more plausible, but really, I’d place my bet on some kind of poison that causes total and immediate brain death like Avada Kedavra does. I am not aware of any normal poisons that do that.
I would assume that Snape was referring to the Draught of Living Death, which creates a temporary condition indistinguishable from death.
What I got from that was snape claiming to be able to temporarily store or stop death. To extend someones life. Not a great interpretation in hindsight, but I was ~ten the last time I heard that line so I’ll forgive myself.