The difference between the expelliarmus and accio spells

[Tom Wall <thomasmwall@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50575


Steve:
Expelliarmus is not intended to take an object away from a person and
call it to yourself. ALthough, that is usually what you see when you
observe it being cast. It is a charm intended to take away an
opponent's offensive weapon capabilities. Sometimes that means
disarming them, other times, to truly eliminate any offensive
potential, it means knocking them down or out. So it has both
defensive and offensive potential.

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

Canon:
"[Harry] pulled out his wand and shouted, 'Expelliarmus!' and just as 
Snape had disarmed Lockhart, so Malfoy found the diary shooting out 
of his hand into the air. Ron, grinning broadly, caught it." (CoS 239)

Me:
I wonder if this is a mistake, then. Cassie's Latin is dead-on, and I 
think Steve's right, that for the most part, 'expelliarmus' is used 
to remove a weapon from an opponent.

And of course, Harry couldn't have 'accio-ed' the diary to himself, 
because he didn't learn that charm until GoF.

Still, it's bizarre that a disarming spell could be used to remove a 
mere diary from Malfoy's hands, since a diary isn't really anything 
that could be perceived as a weapon. At least, not in most senses of 
the word. ;-)

-Tom