Priori Incantantem

[caliburncy at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 23336

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Cheryl Dimof" <cheryl_dimof at y...> wrote:
> Dumbledore says, regarding Harry's
> confrontation with Voldemort, that when brother wands meet, one will 
force
> the other to regurgitate the spells it has cast, beginning with the 
most
> recent.  Any thoughts on why Harry's wand forced Voldemort's to do 
this, and
> not vice-versa?  Does this suggest that Harry's powers are stronger 
than
> Voldemort's at this point?


My opinion is similar to Kelly's on this and I think it is fairly 
supportable with evidence from canon (all from GOF34).

If Voldemort has one consistency it is a certain amount of arrogance. 
 I think he generally expects to be in control.  When the wands 
connected he was not and among other things, "his red eyes [were] wide 
with astonishment".  He clearly did not know what was going on any 
more than Harry.  Perhaps he had heard of the Priori Incantem effect 
before, but he would have never seen it happen before and he probably 
didn't immediately make the deduction that that was what was going on. 
 Harry was told what to do by the phoenix song: "Don't break the 
connection."  And he knew when the beads appeared and moved toward him 
that he needed to push them the other way.  We don't know if Voldemort 
made a similar inference.  We do know that when the beads started to 
move Voldemort's way he again "looked astonished, and almost fearful". 
 And when the beads connected and the screams issued forth and the 
smoky hand appeared "Voldemort's wide eyes widened with shock".  
Perhaps he was just amazed that Harry got the better of him--or 
perhaps he still just didn't fully understand what is going on.  It 
could be either.  But I lean slightly toward the latter, because later 
(when Cedric appeared) it says "his red eyes were still shocked ... HE 
HAD NO MORE EXPECTED THIS THAN HARRY HAD [emphasis mine]".  If he knew 
it was Priori Incantem he should have expected the result.  Therefore 
I contend that he didn't understand what was going on all through the 
time that Harry and he were fighting to move the beads of light.  
Maybe if he had he could have beaten Harry, but Harry at least had the 
advantage of inferring what he needed to do.  I think in future 
situations like this (assuming they maintained there current levels of 
ability) Voldemort would be able to easily defeat Harry in such a 
"light bead" duel.  Of course, if Voldemort was really smart he'd just 
borrow someone else's wand. :)

I don't think the Super Harry theory is necessary at all to explain 
what happened (thank goodness, since I don't like it much either, 
David, for similar reasons).  Harry is special in his connection to 
Voldemort, but outside of that I don't think he is any more powerful 
than anyone else.

-Luke