Avada Kedavra and Godric's Hollow

[eloise_herisson]

No: HPFGUIDX 113582

 Khilari:

>But what occured to me recently was, why did [Voldemort's] body 
> disintegrate? Avada Kedavra kills without leaving a mark, we know 
> that from canon. On the other hand inanimaate objects can be 
blasted 
> by it and disintegrate (I think, does this happen to the gravestone 
> in GoF?)and a killing curse sets fire to the concierge's desk in 
OotP.
> So, in order for LV's body to be destroyed, it should have been 
> inanimate. Is this possible? His steps towards immmortality could 
> have ended in making his body into an object which his spirit 
> controlled rather than a proper part of him. So the AK only hit his 
> body, destroying it, but not the resident spirit.

Do we know that his body was destroyed? Voldemort says that he 
was "ripped from" his body. If there was no body I wonder how exactly 
the WW knew that Voldemort was "dead" with no witnesses to the event, 
or at least ones likely to advertise it (as far as we know) surviving.

As you say, I think the rebounding AK *did* kill Voldemort's body, 
but that the transformations he had undergone stopped *him* from 
dying, leaving him still with an earthly but non-corporeal existence. 
But I don't think that we know that his body was destroyed as such.

I don't think it's an AK that damages the gravestone in GoF. The 
marble angel that Harry dives behind is damaged by spells which 
manifest as jets of *red* light, whereas AK is characterised by green 
light. We don't know what the killing curse was that set fire to the 
security guard's desk, although it's a fair guess it was an AK as it 
was as part of a volley of green jets of light directed at Dumbledore 
by Voldemort.

It *is* inconsistent, though. If an AK can set fire to something, 
then you would expect that even if the bodies of its victims were 
unmarked, their clothing would show some sign of the curse.

We have to account for the effect of the failed curse on the house at 
Godric's Hollow. My guess is that it was destroyed by the power 
released when Voldemort's essence was ripped from his body (similar 
to the power which is released in Pullmans HDM universe when human 
and daemon are separated).

~Eloise