Jet of green light in D.O.M. battle

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 142259

lucianam wrote:
>
> O.M.G.
> I was just re-reading the D.O.M. battle scene before going to bed 
> when I figured this passage could have a meaning I'd never thought
of, before:
> 
><snip>
> A jet of green light had narrowly missed Sirius; across the room 
> Harry saw Tonks fall from halfway up the stone steps, her limp form 
> toppling from stone seat to stone seat, and Bellatrix, triumphant,
running back toward he fray.'
><snip>
> - The 'jet of green light' and Tonks's fall are in the same 
> sentence. 
> Why use a ' ; ' mark instead of a ' . ' ?? Probably doesn't mean 
> anything and is a choice of just punctuation. But still.
> 
> - Whatever punctuation JKR used, she chose to write two apparently 
> unconnected bits of info in a straight, unbroken sequence. Could she 
> have had a reason to do that? Throwing in info about Tonks in that 
> specific moment seems weird!
> 
> - The jet of green light misses Sirius. We are not told what it hits 
> _ it IS bound to hit something eventually or it just would go on 
> forever.
><snip>
> 
> In short: the jet of green light that missed Sirius could have hit 
> Tonks. Avada Kedavra is green. Tonks might have died in OotP. She 
> could have been THE death in OotP.
<snip>

Carol responds:
I'm pretty sure that Sirius Black is the death in OoP and that Tonks
is still alive (we hear in OoP that she's recovering and we see her,
oddly but explicably changed in HBP).

However, I think you've hit on something very important. *Not every
"jet of green light" is an Avada Kedavra. (Ron's "Eat slugs!" spell is
one example.) Whatever this spell is, maybe it's the one that Snape
used on the tower, disguised as an AK.

At any rate, the existence of a nonlethal spell that casts a green
light adds fuel to that fire. And note that this is a "jet," not a
"blinding flash," and that there's no rushing sound, not to mention
that it hits Tonks without killing her as no real AK would do. Nor is
it likely to be a half-hearted AK. Bella has what it takes to cast a
real AK (the will and the power). I'm guessing that some of the jets
of green light that tear up the statuary in the battle between DD and
LV are this same unidentified spell. Probably not even Voldemort can
send a series of AKs without expending a great deal of power, and when
we've seen him cast an AK, it's always been verbal.

Darn these unidentifiable nonverbal spells! What could the spell that
injures Tonks be? And what was that purple one cast silently by
Dolohov that sent Hermione to the hospital wing?

Carol, noting that the last question is rhetorical as we simply don't
have sufficient information to answer it