Green-lit spells

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165867

We know that Snape can cast nonverbal spells, and it's possible that
he can cast more than one spell at the same time (for example,
whatever he did to the door in "Spinner's End" to keep Wormtail from
eavesdropping, which causes "a loud bang and a squeal" from Wormtail,
as well as presumably Imperviousing the door to keep him from hearing
the conversation). Even if Snape's Avada Kedavra is real and
effective, he may have used something else at the same time to slow
Dumbledore's fall--a Hover Charm, for example. And if Snape's AK isn't
real, or isn't effective because he didn't mean it, he would also have
needed to cast another spell either in addition to the AK or under
cover of the AK--something that caused a "jet of green light" as
opposed to the "blinding flash" that JKR has associated with Avada
Kedavra ever since she introduced us to Harry's dream of his parents'
death back when he still thought they'd died in a car crash.

I *know* that JKR isn't always consistent in her descriptions. Even
the stool on which the sorting Hat sits sometimes has three legs,
sometimes four, and Percy's silver Prefect badge is somehow identical
to Ron's red and gold one. (That last error seems to have been caught
and corrected, but my point is that she's not as careful with
consistency as she ought to be.) So I may be completely off the mark
here in trying to figure out what's going on with Snape's supposed AK.
But bear with me, please. I just want to explore some possibilities
other than Steve's idea that Dumbledore was already dead, which I'd
love to believe but see no evidence to support.

Let's start with spells that give off a green light. Obviously Ron's
"Eat slugs!" can be ruled out, as can Morsmordre, which conjures the
Dark Mark. The Death Eaters seem to have been using some spell that
casts a green light at the QWC:

"Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting
toward them; then came a burst of strong green light, which illuminated
the scene" (GoF Am. ed. 119).

" . . . a blast like a bomb sounded from the campsite, and a flash of
green light momentarily lit the trees around them" (122).

Whatever these spells are, they are neither AK (no one is killed) nor
Morsmordre: no Dark Mark appears until Barty Jr.'s is conjured a few
pages later:

"'MORSMORDRE!'

"And something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of
darkness" (128).

Green-lit spells also abound in the MoM battle in OoP. At least one
Death Eater (Rabastan Lestrange, if my deductions are correct)
attempts to cast an AK, but the spell is interrupted halfway through
when Harry tackles him around the knees (789). This is the only
instance I can find of a definite attempt at an AK other than
Voldemort's, which is blocked by the golden statue of the wizard from
the fountain (813). The Death Eaters shout a lot of other spells,
ranging from Crucio to Impedimenta and Tarantellegra, some of which
cast silver light, some red, some green, and one (Dolohov's, which
seriously injures Hermione), purple. Most of these unnamed spells
either miss their target or damage the inanimate objects they hit: For
example, "Another jet of green light flew over Harry's head as he
launched himself toward Neville" (803). Similarly, Voldemort sends
"another jet of green light at Dumbledore," but DD turns and
disappears "in a whirling of his cloak," perhaps Disapparating for a
short distance before reappearing behind Voldemort (813). "Another jet
of green light flew from behind the silver shield," this one blocked
by the centaur, which shatters "into a hundred pieces" (814). And then
there's the "jet of green light" that Fawkes swallows whole (815),
which we're probably supposed to think is a killing curse, but which
is not so identified. Voldemort shouts "Avada Kedavra" only once, and
he's aiming for Harry, not Dumbledore. (Similar examples can be found
in HBP when the Death Eaters are fighting the Order and DA, but I
think you get the point.)

Most interesting to me is the green-lit spell that hits Tonks:

"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,
runing back toward the fray" (OoP Am. ed. 803)

I thought initially, based on the color of the light and Bellatrix's
reaction, that Tonks had been killed, but Dumbledore informs Harry
that she's in St. Mungo's, and we see her again as her usual (pre-HBP)
self in the farewell scene at King's Cross Station in OoP. A nonfatal,
nonverbal AK? How likely is that? Bellatrix was aiming at Sirius, and
if she'd cast an AK at him, surely she would have intended to kill
him, which would mean that her unintended victim, her Half-Blood niece
Nymphadora, would certainly have died. So it must be some other highly
dangerous but nonfatal spell.

Since so few of these spells are actually identified as killing curses
or involve the shouted incantation "Avada Kedavra," it's possible that
they aren't killing curses at all but some other spell that casts a
green light, especially given what happens to Tonks. And even the one
that the narrator identifies as "another killing curse" (813) may
simply be perceived by Harry, the pov character, as an AK because of
the green light, or he may in that instance have heard an incantation
that the narrator doesn't quote: the narration is as ambiguous as the
description of the spell that knocks Sirius Black through the Veil.
There are, in nany case, no unambiguous, completed AKs in the entire
MoM sequence to compare with the one Snape casts, none that at all
resemble the curse that killed Cedric in GoF, none that send out a
"blinding flash of green light." We see only *jets* of green light
like the one that issues from Snape's wand in HBP, the one that
Harry assumes is a real and fully meant Avada Kedavra despite its
being nothing like the AKs that killed Cedric and Fake!Moody's spider.
(He can hardly be blamed for not recalling the one he sees in the
Frank Bryce dream.)

At any rate, given the unreliable narrator (aka the "Harry filter"),
I'm not at all convinced that all of these green-lit curses are AKs.
We certainly hear very few shouts of "Avada Kedavra" to confirm that
they are. What they could be other than AKs, I'm not sure. We know
that Stupefy casts a red light and Expelliarmus a scarlet one
(described in CoS when Snape hits Lockhart with a disarming spell that
does more than disarm him). Whatever Dolohov hit Hermione with cast a
purple light. Protego merely deflects the opponent's spell onto
himself (for example, the Stunning spell that Bellatrix deflects back
onto Harry); it isn't associated with any particular color of light.
We don't know, however, what color light Impedimenta sends out; IIRC,
it's never described. So Impedimenta is my current candidate for the
mysterious green-lit spells, one that *might* have sent Dumbledore
over the ramparts, followed by a silent Hover Charm or the slowing
spell that DD used on Harry to break the fall. (Note "might." I'm not
saying that's what happened.)

If anyone has a list of the spells and the colors associated with
them, I'd be very interested in seeing it.

Carol, who just noticed that the liquid that the brains float in is
green and wonders if that's significant in relation to the cave potion