Priori Incantatem, was: surviving AK

[Alex Boyd]

No: HPFGUIDX 113877


> Bookworm:
> To paraphrase someone (Mr. Spock?): when all the impossible options 
> have been eliminated, the one of the remaining options, no matter 
> how improbable, is the answer. 

I believe it was Holmes, actually, though Spock may have said it too.  

While I'm ordinarilly loathe to rely on authorial error as an
explanatory force for anything, I do think that JKR has a little
trouble wrapping her head around *priori incantatem*, and maybe we
shouldn't be too fussed about what did and didn't happen, and in what
order.

BTW, speaking of PI, there was a thread a week or so ago about why
Priori Incantatem wasn't used to clear Sirius of the Pettigrew murder.
 (I don't *think* it was ever resolved, but please forgive me if I'm
repeating what someone else has already said.)  The answer is that it
wouldn't have been possible.  Priori Incantatem isn't a spell.  We're
told in GoF (US hardback p. 697, the chapter "The parting of the
ways), that Priori Incantatem is a "Very rare effect" that happens
when two "brother" wands are forced to do battle.  It is, apparently,
totally involuntary, and since it only works between "brother" wands,
in order to use it as an investigational tool the Department of
Magical Law Enforecement would have to keep on hand  a brother wand to
every wand in use (or, I suppose, specially commissioning a brother
wand to the wand of the accused, which might not always be possible. 
If the feather or hair came from a wild phoenix or unicorn, it might
be impossible to find that particular one again, and I would *assume*
that to get a dragon's heartstring you have to kill the dragon, so no
more heartstrings would be available).  

Alex