Priori incantatem (Was: Survival of AK)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 114329

Geoff wrote:
> > "Months ago, this point was raised and I asked then as to how
would we expect to see a failed spell shown using a "Priori
Incantatem"? It didn't kill Harry, it didn't kill Voldemort on its
rebound....."
> > 

Kneasy responded: 
> But it did destroy his body and, so we have assumed, wreck the
house. You can't claim that there was no result and therefore it won't
show. The only 'failure' was that it wasn't Harry that got zapped.
> 
> Personally, I think Voldy being ripped from his body with added
extreme pain would register on the Richter Scale of measurable
effects. It did after all recall the screams of pain caused by the
Crucio! to Avery and others. So where is Voldy's agony? Where is his
body? There was a lifeless body left behind afterwards -  either that
or a set of special effects even Tarantino would be proud of as the
corpse explodes.

Carol responds:
Although we can't know this for certain, I think that priori
incantatem records particular spells in particular ways (useful to
aurors determining the guilt of a wand user from the state of his
wand. A Morsmordre, we know from an earlier chapter in GoF (where the
spell is "prior incantato" because Amos Diggory is looking only for
the last spell cast) shows up as a small, spectral green Dark Mark, a
shadow of the lasting mark the DEs cast to cause terror (GoF Am. ed.
136). Wormtail's new hand also shows up as a shadow of itself (665).
The Crucios register as screams of pain, the successful AKs as
ghostlike specters of identifiable victims, but able to speak, to
recognize Harry and identify their murderer (665-68)--surely useful
incriminating evidence if ever a priori incantatem were used at a
hearing or a trial. But a failed AK, I would argue, wouldn't register
because it never happened. There was no victim who could appear as a
ghost. Both Harry and Voldemort were present and alive; neither had
died like the ghostly shadows who struggled out of Voldemort's wand.
Not even Harry's scar (which in any case may have been a shield
created through Lily's magic, not LV's) nor the shadow of Voldemort's
spirit being ripped from his body could appear because such an
unrecognizable, unpredictable result could not be built into the
program for a priori incantatem, which is apparently designed to
detect spells used by DEs and other criminals through the
characteristic effect of a particular spell. 

Just a theory, but it explains the absence of a "shadow" for the AK
better than the idea that it was some other spell. After all, if the
silver hand and the Dark Mark show up as recognizable indicators of
the spell cast to create them, then whatever curse Voldemort attempted
to put on Harry would also show up in a priori incantatem--unless
failed curses of whatever kind leave no record. (It wouldn't show up
as a scream because a scream is the record of a Crucio.)

So, Kneasy, what do you think? Anybody?

Carol