AK effects (was:Wand mix up)/erised/Sirius' vault

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 43891

Richelle Votaw wrote:
> <snip speculation about Cedric's wand> I can't recall if there's
> canon to suggest that one simply falls limp from an AK or goes rigid.

Ah! the mechanics of the AK! One of my favourite subjects, and my first 
theory ever. Let's see what we can extrapolate from canon to answer 
this particular question. So far, he have seen or been described *in 
detail* ("bright green light" + "oh, he's dead" isn't detail) four 
succesful AKs: the three Riddles and the spider in Crouch!Moody's 
class. We also know of a few unsuccesful AKs, but those are irrelevant 
in this case. We even have the autopsies of the Riddle's, and that's 
the canon I'm going to use (ch. 1 GoF). The forensic deprtment of Big 
Hangleton police describes the bodies as in a perfect state, except 
that they're dead. Looking for something strange in the bodies, they 
finally notice that the faces look very afraid, but conclude that 
no-one can die of terror.

(My own private theory on the AK establishes that, even though you      
*don't* die of terror, humans notice what it's hapening to them and are 
instinctively afraid of what is hapening (they're souls are being 
forcefully separated from their bodies), so theire faces adopt 
expresions of terror, and all their muscles tense.)

At any rate, if the police didn't overlook something important during 
the forensic examination (and I doubt it), the Riddles died after an 
intense moment of terror (whether or not the terror was the cause of 
death is beside the point). The feelings of terror have several obvious 
physical consequences: you hair stands on end, adrenalin is liberated 
into the blood flow, and all the muscles tense in preparation to fight 
or run away. If, in that moment, you die, your muscles probably *stay* 
tense (or at least, is more probabe that they stay tense than they 
suddenly relax), so it seems probable that if Cedric had managed to 
grab his wand, it is still in his hand, and possibly they'll have to 
pry the hand open if they want to take it away from his corpse.

<snip Smellee's house elf!Dumbledore theory>
> Well, my one problem (or at least the biggest one) with this theory
> is that we don't *really* know that Dumbledore saw socks in the
> mirror.  That's what he told Harry.  I must say if someone asked me
> what I saw in the mirror I doubt I'd really tell them.  

Like you, Richelle, I don't think that Dumbledore *really* saw socks in 
the mirror. In fact, not even *Harry* believs it, which is a good 
proof, IMO. 

> Another issue
> is, how did Dumbledore know what Harry and Ron saw?  I suppose he
> could've been guessing, it's not hard to pin those two down.

If he had been spying on the pair for a long time, as he himself 
suggests, he saw and heard them describe to each other what they each 
saw in the mirror.

> Fyre Wood wrote:
> 
> > How odd is it that the vault of Sirius is number 711 and just two
> > vaults down is number 713, the one holding the Philosopher's Stone?
> > Perhaps the high security vaults are also used for Prisoners of
> > Azkaban or convicted murderers? Or maybe it's just a random 
> > occurance?

Richelle replied: 
> I've been pondering that ever since I learned the vault number of
> Sirius Black. Seeing as my stupid (sorry!) Scholastic edition doesn't 
> say. However, technically speaking vaults 711 and 713 could be beside 
> each other, not two vaults down. If odd numbered vaults are on one
> side and even numbered on the other.  Interesting.
> 
> Richelle

Of course, it is entirely posible that vaults 711 and 713 are miles 
away from each other. This is a *magical* bank, run by *non-human* 
creatures We rally don't know how a goblin though process goes, but 
they don't have to use logical paterns close to ours. They seem to take 
a delight in confusing their clients, and in protecting their 
valuables, so a random numeration of vaults is a good idea, to begin 
with. After all, the method to finding the vault does not really 
require a logical ordering, since the cart knows the way. Gryphooks 
goes with them to open the doors, not to steer the cart. And a magical 
object cn be enchanted to remember every vault's position, without any 
need to have those vults follow any order.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf