Priori Incantantem/Deletrius

[cynthiaanncoe at home.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 25745

I was reading the Lexicon (again!) and something about the wand order 
mystery occured to me.  The Lexicon raises the issue of whether V 
must have tried to kill Harry before killing James and Lily based on 
the wand order in GoF, because the spell that rebounded onto V didn't 
come out of V's wand in the graveyard scene.

I was wondering whether priori incantantem causes the wand to 
regurgitate all past spells, or only all *successful*  spells.  
In "The Dark Mark", Amos Diggory uses "Prior Incantato" to 
discover "the last spell a wand performed."  Dumbledore uses the same 
description in "The Parting of the Ways":  the wand will 
regurgitate "spells it has performed."  Dumbledore also says that V's 
wand would have regurgitated "the last *murders* the wand 
performed."  So would a "failed" spell like the one used on Harry be 
considered a spell that was "performed" such that it would be 
regurgitated?  It certainly didn't result in a murder, as Harry 
lived.  If not, then the "wand order scene" is entirely consistent 
with the sequence that V killed James, then Lily, then failed to kill 
Harry.

Also, in the Dark Mark, Amos Diggory makes the ghost spell vanish "in 
a wisp of smoke" by saying "Deletrius."  So in the graveyard, why 
doesn't Voldemort just say "Deletrius" to make Cedric, Lily, James 
and the other ghosts disappear in a "wisp of smoke?"  Is Voldemort, 
powerful wizard and former head boy, such a poor study that he 
doesn't remember "Deletrius" when someone like Amos Diggory does?  

Cindy (who thinks Voldemort might wish to consider a refresher course 
in world domination)