Hate to open an old wound, but...[night of J&L Potters' death]

[cynthiaanncoe at home.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 26217

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., mellienel2 at y... wrote:
> 
A spell isn't really cast if it doesn't 
> work -- witness all the blind sparks that go flying when it misses 
> its target. Whatever hit harry did cut his skin (had to be a spell, 
> because of the suggestion of power behind JKR's choosing a 
Lightning 
> Bolt scar), but then rebounded, destroying Voldy. Well -- at that 
> point, the spell was just a mass of energy blindly hitting 
something 
> (Voldemort). 
> 
> It's entirely possible that because the spell didn't succeed, it 
> doesn't count as a real spell in Priori Incantatem. Say he cast an 
AK 
> meant to kill Lily, and he missed, and then he cast it and was 
right 
> on. Would Lily come out of the wand twice -- once as the intended 
> victim, and once as the real victim? No -- the spell needs to have 
> connected, to have the essence of its victim in the wand's history. 
> 
> If it only scratched Harry, it could have been just light, nothing 
> really worth coming out of a wand -- after all, Wormtail uses 
Voldy's 
> wand to make fire, and I'm sure does many little spells with it 
> during the time in which he nursed Voldemort -- if those came out 
of 
> the wand, they were little enough not to be noticeable. The 
> unsucessful attack on Harry is like this -- an AK turned into a 
> Scratch. As it only got a lightning-shaped part of harry, that's 
the 
> most the wand has of him. Kill a person, you have their whole 
being, 
> and that comes out of the wand.
> 


Aha!  Another believer in the "failed spell" theory!  That makes two!

M, I think you may have something with the idea that V's AK spell 
against Harry isn't regurgitated because it failed.  Together, 
perhaps we can row this boat upstream.

The list of graveyard spells (and whether an incantation is used) is:

W killing Cedric (incantation).
W conjuring ropes.
W making a fire with a wand.
W using a wand to open the grave (incantation).
V using a wand to throw W to the headstone.
V using a wand for Crucio on Avery (incantation).
V using a wand to conjure W's hand.
V using a wand for Crucio on H (incantation).
V using a wand to make H bow.
V using a wand for Imperio on H (incantation).
V using a wand for Crucio on H but missing (incantation).

So I was working on a theory that Priori Incantantem will cause a 
wand to regurgitate only successful spells in which an incantation is 
used.  Failed spells and spells in which no incantation is needed are 
not regurgitated.  The failed AK spell and the failed Imperio spell 
would not come out of V's wand for that reason.  

Under that theory, there are still successful incantation spells that 
worked but did not come out of V's wand.  They are the grave and the 
fire.  So I figure that Wormtail used his own wand for those.  What's 
my proof?  Well, once V gets his body back, he explicitly removes his 
wand from the pocket in his robe.  That raises the possibility that 
Wormtail used V's wand to kill Cedric, then put V's wand back in the 
robes and began using his own wand for the rest of the magic he 
performs.

So what's the problem with this theory?  I can't explain why 
Wormtail's hand comes out of the wand, as it is a successful spell 
with no incantation.

Cindy (who is starting to think she'll never figure this out)