Curse that killed Bellatrix

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 187667

sartoris22 wrote:
> 
> Like Ikotur, I wondered if Molly used the killing curse. I hoped that she didn't because it splits the soul and is punishable by imprisonment in Azkaban. Unless there is a self defense or war clause in wizarding law, Avada Kedavra is always illegal. It seems that they reserved that restriction after the first war with Voldemort. Although Mad Eye Moody was a renegade, I never got the   
> impression that he used the killing curse. If Molly did use it against Bellatrix, shouldn't she receive a damaged soul and a prsion sentence?

Carol responds:

It's a complicated question, not least because JKR's depiction of AK and the Unforgiveable Curses in general is inconsistent, especially between Gof and DH. Starting with legality, I think that all laws against using the Unforgiveable Curses must have been suspended in DH. Harry successfully uses two of the three, Imperius and Cruciatus, and no alarm bells go off at the MoM so far as we know. He never gets into any trouble for it. As for the real Mad-Eye Moody, he would have been authorized, at least while he was an Auror, to use the Unforgiveable Curses. The fake Mad-Eye seems to have taken advantage of this situation to get (or pretend to get) permission from Dumbledore to demonstrate them (perhaps not illegal if used on spiders) and to use Imperius on the students. Neither these "practice" spells nor his real Imperius (on Krum) and AK on his father, nor Krum's Crucio of Cedric while he was under the influence of the Imperius Curse seems to have been detected by the MoM.

In Molly's case, I don't think she'd be punished for using AK on Bellatrix ot that the MoM (with her friend Kingsley as Minister) would check her wand. After all, she was defending her child *and* the WW was at war with Voldemort and the DEs. The DEs would go to prison for their other crimes, not (presumably) for fighting in the battle or for using AK at a time when the laws against it had (apparently) been suspended.

With regard to soul tearing, Slughorn distinguishes between the damage to the soul caused by killing (or, more specifically, murder) and the creation of a Horcrux, which involves actually removing and encasing the torn portion using an unspecified spell. He says that a Horcrux can only be created by first committing murder, "the supreme act of evil." And that murder need not necessarily be committed using Avada Kedavra. Tom Riddle killed Myrtle using the Basilisk and Hepzibah Smith using poison, and both murders resulted in soul pieces that he could use to create Horcruxes (the diary and the cup). I get the impression that, even if a wizard wanted to do so, he could not use accidental homicide (manslaughter), killing in self-defense, killing in war, or euthanasia to create a Horcrux. Only murder damages the soul sufficiently that a torn portion can be encased in a Horcrux. And even then (assuming that the soul bit or soul bits haven't been destroyed) remorse can cure the damaged soul.

Snape is concerned about the possible damage to his soul, not as the result of using Avada Kedavra specifically but of killing Dumbledore. Dumbledore suggests, and Snape apparently accepts the idea, that killing DD to give him a painless and dignified death (not to mention saving Draco's soul and all the other motives DD does and doesn't state)--essentially, killing for a good reason or the common good--will not result in splitting the soul. It seems likely to me that neither Snape nor Molly (who certainly would *not* have felt remorse for killing Bellatrix, in contrast to Snape, who certainly did feel the torment of remorse for killing DD even on DD's orders) would have split or torn souls as the result of killing in those particular circumstances any more than Neville would for killing the evil but obviously nonhuman Nagini.

So I'm with whoever said that it doesn't matter which spell Molly used. She intended to kill Bellatrix and she did so. If killing regardless of motive splits the soul, and I don't think it does, her soul is split. If only murder splits the soul, hers is unsplit.

One thing is certain: *Murder* splits the soul, and murder is murder whether the weapon is a wand, a snake, or poison. If it's a wand, the spell makes no difference. Murder by Sectumsempra would be as bad as murder by AK as long as the *intent* was to murder. With AK, the intent must be to *kill,* but as we know from Snape's case (and from real life), intentional killing is not always murder.

Carol, choosing to paraphrase Slughorn's remarks from "Horcruxes" in HBP rather than quote them for the sake of time