Avada Kedavra

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 22576

Keith wrote:

> > Mightn't it be possible to hold back the Killing Curse by casting 
> one of your own so that they cancelled each other out?

Sam wrote:

> It *is* possible, and it doesn't even have to be the same curse - at 
> the end of GoF, Voldemort goes to use AK on Harry, who counters by 
> using the disarming spell. You could always argue that this was due 
> to the Priori Incantatum (sp?) effect, though. 

I think in this case it has to have been.  Moody says there's no 
countercurse; if you don't disarm your opponent before he says "Avada 
Kedavra," you'd better have the brother to his wand or you are an 
ex-wizard.  (Maybe AK isn't *totally* unblockable; perhaps an AK, or 
even a simple disarming spell, by a powerful wizard would be enough to 
block an AK from a weak one, on the D&D theory currently being 
discussed.  But to believe that, we'd have to say Moody was 
lying--which is a distinct possibility.)

Sam:

> IMO, the Unforgiveable Curses aren't unforgiveable because they're 
> the most powerful. 

I agree.  The fact that she chose these three things really made me 
pause and think:  what *are* the absolute worst things you can do to 
another human being?  These three are good candidates for the top 
list, IMO.  I really like that one of them isn't at all painful, is in 
fact blissful, because it drives home the point that even though 
having no will of your own would be a state of bliss, it is a terrible 
and inhuman state of being.  What is right isn't what is easy . . . 
being under Imperio is easy, but that very fact is horrifying.  

Sam:

> Just another point: Can Harry be killed with Avada Kedavra? This is 
> something I've been pondering quite recently. The Avada Kedavra 
curse 
> is only ever used once on a person, for obvious reasons. But Harry 
> survived it - perhaps Avada Kedavra can only be used on a person 
> once, and, because it's only ever meant to be used once, it won't 
> work on a person a second time. Am I making sense? Because Harry has 
> survived it once already, he's immune to it. This would also make 
> Voldemort immune to it as well. What does everyone else think about 
> this?

I think it's a really cool idea.  It's something that probably no one 
in the wizarding world knows the answer to, if Harry is in a class of 
one in having survived the AK.  Voldemort may or may not count--we 
don't know if deflected curses are always weaker than the direct 
version, or if it's true that he only survived because of his 
dabblings in immortality, or if there was a combination of effects.  
Maybe someone expert in Magical Theory has been working on this one 
for the past 13 years.

In any case, if Voldemort hadn't gotten his ego all caught up in the 
issue of out-magicking Harry, he'd stoop to Muggle methods and just 
shoot the poor boy.  Fortunately for all of us, I don't think that's 
going to happen.

Amy

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 . . . summoning the memory of the day I had 
 been voted President of the local Gobstones 
 Club, I performed the Patronus Charm.  
     -Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
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