Priori Incantatem

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 153902

Cassy wrote:
> > It seems rather funny imo that only the unforgivables are shown.
When Harry's wand was checked in the Quidditch World Cup sequence,
even a minor spell like Morsmordre was seen, but LV's wand doesn't
produce any indication that he used it for anything other than killing
or torturing. What about nice everyday spells?
> 
Dave responded: 
> Remember we only saw the deaths and heard the screams.  If there
were other spells they could have been inaudible and just got lost in
the screams and in the visions of the past deaths.

Carol adds:
I've been intending to respond to Cassy's post for some time, but the
three-post limit has gotten in the way. (Thanks, List Elves, for
raising it to five! Raises a glass of blood-red wine--erm, a cup of
cold coffee.)

First, I agree with Dave that the shadows of other spells (except for
the conjured silver hand) would have gotten lost in the confusion.
Harry was not exactly in a position to pay attention to every little
detail even if he normally did so (which he doesn't); he was holding
on to his wand for dear life and exerting his will to force
Voldemort's wand, not his own, to release its spells. And he was in
mortal peril, with no idea what was going on and only his instincts,
the dome of light, and the "echoes" of Voldemort's victims between him
and death.

Second, I agree with Geoff that the unsuccessful AK that hit
Baby!Harry would not have shown up like the other AKs because it was
deflected onto LV--there was no dead person to show up as an "echo" or
spectre. And how could the Priori Incantatem (no "u") effect reveal
vaporization? (It doesn't even seem to show Harry's scar, another
indication, IMO, that it was caused by the curse bursting outward
rather than by the curse striking Harry. Certainly, it didn't have its
intended effect; it wasn't completed, so it couldn't show up like the
others, again IMO.)

However, we seem to be forgetting that Voldemort lost his wand
immediately after Godric's Hollow and did not use it again until after
he was restored to fetal form by Wormtail, which would leave a long
gap during which no spells were cast, and even when Wormtail returned
LV's wand to him, he seems to have used it mostly for torture (of
Bertha Jorkins) and murder (of Bertha and Frank Bryce). He had no
shoes to tie (to cite another post in this thread), and he had
Wormtail to milk Nagini, feed him her venom, and do whatever other
petty chores were necessary (change his diaper? Ugh!) to keep him
alive (to use the term loosely). There would be few, if any, ordinary
spells, even if such spells show up via Priori Incantatem, because
Wormtail would have been acting as his lackey. (There seems to be some
confusion as to whether Wormtail has his own wand or whether it was
left behind along with some bloody robes and a finger when he blew up
the street and killed the Muggles, but I don't want to go into that
here--or why he wasn't naked when Lupin and Black forced him to return
to human form if he left his bloody robes behind. Hm. Flint?)

BTW, I'm not sure that Morsmordre counts as a "minor" spell. It
appears to be Dark, and only DEs know how to cast it (which, again,
causes a bit of confusion when Slughorn admits that he left out that
"detail"). I'm guessing that any spell that causes a tangible or
audible effect, whether it's an AK, a Crucio, a conjured silver hand
(which, IMO, ought to evaporate like Leprechaun gold if JKR's
Potterverse were consistent), or Morsmordre, but less tangible spells
like Obliviate and its unknown countercurse (used to undo Bertha
Jorkins' memory modification) or, for that matter, Imperio (not that
LV necessarily performed it during his time as Baby!mort) probably
would not show up as the result of Priori Incantem--or perhaps you'd
have to be a trained Auror to recognize the shadows of such spells,
and a lot more attentive to details than Harry is, even under normal
circumstances.

Carol, happily returning to Hermione mode after a few exhausting days
as McGonagall