Expelliarmus and backfiring

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184611

DA Jones:
> 
> <SNIP>
> > It seems to me, that what 'master of death' means is that the
master of the wand can't be intentionally physically harmed in a
manner that might kill him or her in combat (which means it doesn't
have to be AK) and any spell used with that intent would rebound on
the caster. Or in other words the elder wand is like a bullet proof
vest from which the bullets into the shooter.
> <SNIP>
> 
> 
> I don't know DA Jones, your answer is still a little shaky. Didn't
Dumbledore tell Snape to kill him even before he ever knew that Malfoy
was going to disarm him. He mention this to Harry in DH that his
intent was to make Snape the Master of Death. Also, are you saying
that anyone who is just holding the wand and not using it is protected
from death? Can you break it down more clearly, please? I thought you
had to simply defeat the owner by any means. Remember the Elder
Wand/Death Stick has a bloody past.

Carol adds:
Just a quick note here. The master of Death is not the master of the
Elder Wand but the legitimate owner/master of all three Deathly
Hallows. Harry may have been, briefly, Master of Death while he wore
the Cloak (inherited from James and rightly his), held the
Resurrection Stone (which, unlike DD, he apparently had the right to
use because he wasn't trying to bring his dead loved ones back to
life, only to have their compnany before he joined them), and was
(though he didn't know it yet) master of the Elder Wand, having
disarmed Draco, the previous inadvertent master. However, he didn't
actually have the wand in his hand, so he might not have been able to
use his power over death, whatever it might have been, even if he knew
how to do it. Before he reveals himself to Voldemort so he can be
killed and the soul bit destroyed, he throws away the Resurrection
Stone, throwing away his chance the be the Master of Death along with it.

Voldemort, in contrast, didn't even know about the Deathly Hallows,
only about the Elder Wand, which he wanted because he thought it was
unbeatable and because he wanted to increase his power. He thought he
was already "master of death" in a different sense because of his
Horcruxes. But because he never possessed the Cloak and foolishly
turned the ring, which would have been rightly his had he inherited it
rather than murdering to acquire it, into a Horcrux, and because,
though he possessed the wand, he was never its master, he was never
the Master of Death in the sense we're discussing.

What would have happened had Harry kept the Resurrection Stone and
used the wand after he obtained it, I don't know. He didn't want to
know, either.

As for how Harry survived, which I think was the original question, he
survived the first AK because of the shared blood, which tied him to
Voldemort and sent both his whole soul and Voldemort's mutilated one
to "King's Cross." Voldemort's body didn't die because he had the
Nagini Horcrux, and because he wasn't dead, neither was Harry. (Di
Dumbledore anticipate that part?) When they returned and actually
duelled, Harry didn't die because the wand, which had fired on him
before and would have killed him along with the soul bit had it not
been for the shared drop of blood, now knew that he was its master and
refused to kill him. Apparently, the AK collided with the Expelliarmus
(which worked normally, disarming LV and sending the Elder Wand to
Harry) and backfired on Voldemort, which must have been the Elder
Wand's doing, killing the pretended master who was trying to kill its
real master.

That's how I read it, anyway, or how I remember it without actually
going back to review the details for lack of time. I realize that some
dozen variant readings are probably possible.

Carol, wishing that Ignotus had been the only Peverell brother