Poison was my initial theory as well, though I can't really see the point of bothering.
That is, suppose the body is simply found with no flask of poison. How is that any worse, for anyone involved? Maybe there's some kind of forensic autopsy they might perform on the body that they wouldn't bother with given an obvious cause of death, but then why hide it?
There's another theory over on tvtropes that it's a Harry Polyjuice potion, since it's established in canon that those are gold.
That at least makes some sense: even if someone sees Harry, they'll conclude that it was actually someone Polyjuiced into looking like Harry.
So I'm going with that.
suppose the body is simply found with no flask of poison. How is that any worse, for anyone involved?
I have no clear idea, either.
even if someone sees Harry, they'll conclude that it was actually someone Polyjuiced into looking like Harry.
That makes no sense. If someone was pretending to be Harry, why would that someone leave the empty potion bottle in Bella's cell? Why hide the bottle under cloth, but hide it poorly?
- This thread has run its course. You will find newer threads in the discussion section.
Another discussion thread - the fourth - has reached the (arbitrary?) 500 comments threshold, so it's time for a new thread for Eliezer Yudkowsky's widely-praised Harry Potter fanfic.
Most of the paratext and fan-made resources are listed on Mr. LessWrong's author page. There is also AdeleneDawner's collection of most of the previously-published Author's Notes.
Older threads: one, two, three, four. By tag.
Newer threads are in the Discussion section, starting from Part 6.
Spoiler policy as suggested by Unnamed and approved by Eliezer, me, and at least three other upmodders:
It would also be quite sensible and welcome to continue the practice of declaring at the top of your post which chapters you are about to discuss, especially for newly-published ones, so that people who haven't yet seen them can stop reading in time.