GH re-re-revisited

[Hannah]

No: HPFGUIDX 115185


Dungrollin wrote:
<Big snip>
> But if it *wasn't* an AK, if the spell that backfired was Voldy 
> trying to suck Harry's brain out through his nose (so to speak), 
> then Voldy *could* have been vanquished because of `the power
> that the Dark Lord knows not'.  The power that he does not 
> understand, that power of which Harry is so full, of which Voldy 
has 
> none, the power that Voldy can't bear, that he hates and despises 
so 
> much it caused him to abort the possession in the MoM. If Voldy 
> tried to pinch *that* power specifically... 
> 
> Now, I can see that backfiring in a major way.
> 
> So what happens when a spell backfires, anyway? I can think of two 
> examples from canon (there may be more), and they're both from
> CoS.  Firstly, there's the `Eat slugs, Malfoy!', and
> secondly there's the `Obliviate' from Lockhart. Both due
> to Ron's malfunctioning wand.  In both of these cases, backfiring
> is exactly what happens.  The spell affects the caster, rather 
than 
> the one for whom it was intended.
> 
> In this scenario, the power that Harry has and Voldy doesn't,
> does *not* get redistributed in Voldy's favour as the evil git
> intended, it works the other way around.  The powers that *Voldy* 
> has and *Harry* doesn't get given to Harry.  Thus Harry speaks
> Parseltongue (and possibly a number of other magical languages 
that 
> we have not yet been introduced to).
> 
> "But wait!" I hear you cry.  "Voldy can still speak
> Parseltongue too!  We heard him at the beginning of GoF!  If he 
was 
> *pinching* Harry's powers, he would have cut and pasted them from 
> Harry, not *copied* and pasted them! If that's the kind of spell 
> that rebounded, then he and Nagini should be left with a couple of 
> photo albums of fond memories, but no conversation..."
> 
> And that, I'm afraid, is where I give up and say, "It's
> getting late. Sorry, I'm knackered.  Can someone else finish this 
> off for me, please...?"
> 
Hannah: It could have been that he intended to kill Harry after he'd 
obtained Harry's powers.  So he wouldn't care whether the boy was 
left with those powers, as long as he (LV) had got them as well.  
Maybe he thought he'd obtain the powers, work out what they were, 
and then finish the boy off using whatever means was most 
appropriate.

Also, maybe it wasn't the rebounding of the spell from Harry that 
killed (or disembodies or whatever happened) LV.  Perhaps he cast 
the spell and it had the opposite effect, leaving Harry with LV's 
powers and the scar, and then someone else (mysterious third person, 
insert your favourite conspiracy theory protagonist here) fired the 
spell that 'killed' LV.  That would explain how a 'transfer of 
power' spell had such a catastrophic effect on LV - it didn't.

Hannah