Avada Kedavra and Godric's Hollow

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 114087

Kneasy wrote:
> <snip>
> 
> AKs though. A few of us on site wonder if Voldy actually cast
> an AK at Harry or if it was something else entirely. When you
> consider what we've been told, well - it makes you think.
> 
> There is no defence or counter-curse to an AK. Yet Harry was
> protected.

Carol responds:
We're told there's no countercurse. I'm not sure we're told that
there's no defense whatever. Can you provide a quote for that? (If
not, the possibility still exists that the "ancient magic" *was* a
protection against AK.

Kneasy wrote:
> AKs leave bodies unmarked. Yet Harry has a scar.

Carolresponds:
But the scar could have been caused by the "ancient magic" forming a
lightning-shaped shield the instant the curse struck. (I still say it
was a protective charm activated by Lily's death in combination with
an AK. JKR has said that the shape of the scar isn't the most
important thing about it, but that doesn't rule out the possibility
that it's shaped like an eihwaz rune and denotes protection.)

Kneasy wrote:
> AKs are a green flash. Harry remembers one - presumably
> the one that killed Lily, because after it he hears a high pitched
> laugh - so it wouldn't be the one that 'bounced'; Voldy was
> still under the impression he was in charge. But  he doesn't
> remember a second flash -  the one that was supposedly 
> thrown at him.

Carol responds:
Can you cite canon showing that the laugh occurs after the flash and
isn't simultaneous with it? LV could have laughed as he cast the
spell. And why laugh when he killed Lily? She was only in his way, not
his main goal.

Consider Harry's first memory of the event, while he still thinks it
was a car accident:

"Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his
cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green
light and a burning pain in his forehead" (SS Am. ed. 29).

The laugh is not mentioned, but the green light and the pain in his
forehead are almost simultaneous. The suggestion is certainly that the
green light *caused* the pain in the forehead--and by implication,
caused or activated the scar. (I know that AK's don't normally produce
curse scars, which is why I'm arguing that this scar, as opposed to
the burning pain he remembers, was caused by the protective charm.)


Kneasy wrote: 
> If by some miracle and underhand work by JKR an AK had
> been thrown at Harry and bounced (leaving an absolutely
> unique scar) and hit Voldy, where is Voldy's unmarked body
> and why the hell did the house collapse into ruin?

Carol responds:
This I can't answer unless Voldemort's spirit exploded when it was
"ripped from" his body (I'm picturing the fall of Sauron in the
prologue to the "Fellowship of the Rings" film, but on a smaller
scale). The spell may have come back intensified when it bounced off
the newly formed scar and reacted abnormally because Voldemort could
not be killed. Somehow some of his powers went into Harry
(parseltongue and we don't know what else) and the rest, LV says, were
lost--the only power that remained to him at this point was the
ability to possess animals. Maybe the lost powers blew up the house?
At any rate, the fact that this spell doesn't act like a normal AK
could be because both its victims were somehow guarded against it.

The problem for me is this: If Voldemort left a body behind, how would
anyone, even Dumbledore (or Bellatrix), know he wasn't dead? And if he
didn't leave a body, how could Dumbledore prove to Fudge et al. that
Voldemort was responsible for the killings (and the failed curse that
*didn't* kill Harry)? 

Kneasy wrote:
> So look at it another way, if the spell/curse did not behave
> like an AK maybe it wasn't an AK after all. There's only one
> person in the books that says it was an AK and that's dear
> departed Crouch!Moody. And how would he know? 
> Ans. He wouldn't. He's making an assumption, at the same
> time that he's repeatedly telling us that there is no defending
> against an AK.

Carol responds:
Actually, he tells us there's no countercurse, but he also says that
Harry is the one person known to have survived an AK. (Apparently,
he's not counting Voldemort, or not letting the kids know what he
knows about Voldemort.) And consider that Barty Jr. was sent to
Azkaban at nineteen--enough time for a bright, highly motivated little
fanatic to master the Cruciatus Curse and the other Unforgiveables,
all of which he has no trouble casting in GoF--but not enough time to
learn all about their prevention. We're told by JKR that Voldemort
cast "the killing curse," and the AK is the only killing curse we know of.

Carol