CHAPDISC: DH27, The Final Hiding Place

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184146

>  
> 3)  Harry's vision of Voldemort killing everyone within reach at 
> Malfoy Manor is a first-hand view of Voldemort using the Elder wand.  
> Do you believe Voldemort exhibits extraordinary magical power in
this  scene or were his powers about what you expected he was capable
of  regardless of the wand?   Any thoughts on Bellatrix and 
> Lucius '[throwing] others behind them in their race for the door'? 

Pippin:
"[G]reen light erupted through the room" sounds enough like "green
light filled the cramped hallway" (from  chapter 17) that it could be
just a more vivid description of the same phenomenon, ie, reflected
light from an Avada Kedavra curse. 

But  the reaction of the watching wizards gives the lie to that. Why
did they scatter and flee when  only the goblin had been killed,
before Voldemort raised his wand to strike again? 

They'd seen Voldemort kill before -- that alone shouldn't have thrown
them into a panic. Unlike Harry, they couldn't have read Voldemort's
mind, and except for Bella, they didn't know the significance of the
cup.  

There must have been  something about the eruption of green light that
made them realize that they were all meant to die, not just the bearer
of bad news.  If green light not only struck the goblin but literally
"erupted" throughout the room, that might account for it. 

Without  the full power of the Elder Wand, the curse might touch but
not kill the watching DE's, just as it would later fail to kill Harry
in the forest. As Fake!Moody told us in GoF, the Avada Kedavra curse
needs a fair amount of magical power behind it. 

I think Lucius and Bella, who were close to the Dark Lord  in the days
of his first regime, were more aware than the others that the 'new'
Voldemort was more given to violent anger than the old one. That in
turn reminds me of Gandalf's words about Gollum, that the reawakening
of good in him would only make the evil part angrier in the end,
unless it could be conquered.

 Pippin
with much thanks to Jen and hoping to come back  to the other
questions soon