[HPforGrownups] The difference between the expelliarmus and accio spells

[IAmLordCassandra at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 50565

In a message dated 1/25/2003 3:14:53 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
toberead at excite.com writes:


> My understanding was that the accio spell was to draw a particular 
> thing *to you*, and the expelliarmus spell was to forcibly release 
> something from intended *person's hand*, but with NO INTENDED final 
> destination.
> 
> But, IIRC, every time a wizard needs to get someone's wand, s/he uses 
> expelliarmus. Would it not be more useful to use accio wand(s)? If 
> expelliarmus is used, it does not specify where the wand would end up 
> and it could fly anywhere, causing the wizard casting the spell to 
> need to run about to catch it.

Expelliarmus is not used to get a wand FROM a wizard, but to get it AWAY FROM 
him/her. 

If you break it down in the Latin you get: expello "I expel" arma "weapon"  

(And for Accio you get "I summon") 

whether or not the wand is caught or picked up by the wizard who cast the 
spell depends on if the wizard wants to pick it up. Their original intention, 
again, would be to get the wand away from the other person if they used 
expelliarmus.   

This brings up a (hopefully) new question (for me at least). What happens if 
an object that has been 'accioed' is intercepted? Does it stop or does it 
keep trying to get to the person who summoned it?  

I hope that made sense ^^; 

~Cassie~ 


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