Power of the Elder Wand

[muscatel1988]

No: HPFGUIDX 179006

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at ...> wrote:

> Sorry, but what makes you think there isn't a defense again
> Expelliarmus? 
> 
> I would think a strong shield charm would be enough to block
> it, but I don't think you can walk around all the time 
> surrounded by a shield charm. 

Mus:
If there were a defence, then why didn't we see anyone use it? After
all, we see Expelliarmus a lot in the series, and while it can miss
(Harry seems to miss Shunpike during the pursuit at the beginning of
DH), I don't think we see anything block it except the unprecedented
weirdness of Priori Incantatem in the graveyard in GoF.

The Protego Totalum that Hermione casts around the tent in Ch 14 of DH
doesn't seem to need constant concentration to hold, and there's
something called Protego Horribilis used by Flitwick in Ch 30 - it's
unclear what exactly that does, but it's directed out of the window
into the grounds rather than at a specific spell cast against him at
that moment. 

My point is a meta one, really - since disarming an opponent is an
obvious ploy whenever you're threatened with a wand, one would imagine
that someone might have come up with some protection.  You're right -
it's entirely possible that someone has, but we never see it, and so
in the context of the story it doesn't exist.  

In fact, I think there might be a slim piece of evidence that it
doesn't: in the Duelling Club scene in CoS, Snape uses Expelliarmus
against Lockhart, who, when he gets to his feet, says:

' "That was a Disarming Charm - as you see, I've lost my wand - [...].
 Yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you
don't mind me saying so, it was very obvious what you were going to
do.  If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy. 
However, I felt it would have been instructive to let them see ... " '
[CoS, UKpb: 143]  

That sounds to me like a typical piece of Lockhartian bluff and
bluster, the sort that usually signifies that he *doesn't* have an
answer - cf. his claim that he knew just the counter-curse that would
have protected Mrs Norris in the first Basilisk attack, his telling
the teachers the night before Ginny is taken that he knows just how to
get into the Chamber, &c, &c.  

Mus, who now can't decide if Lockhart or Master Barty is the more
unreliable