My HBP Review (the Snape part, of course)

[bluesqueak]

Spoiler, nothing more than spoilers,
spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers
It's spoilers that I love.

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Nora:
> 
> On the physical aspect: we've seen a spider just keel over.  We 
> didn't see Cedric die (IIRC, right?).  So we haven't really seen 
> people being AKed in canon.  We did, however, see an intercepted 
> AK blast the crap out of things in the Ministry battle.  I don't 
> see how AK expressing force is particularly shocking or even 
> abnormal, given that latter.  But maybe I'm just rationalizing 
away valuable clues. :)
> 

Pip!Squeak:

AK's in canon.

The Riddles: 'Lying there with their eyes wide open.'

Frank Bryce: 'There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound, and 
Frank Bryce crumpled. He was dead before he hit the floor' [GoF, 
Ch.1]

The Spider: 'rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakeably 
dead.' [GoF Ch. 14]

Cedric: 'he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside 
him...Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him.'[GoF, 
Ch. 32]

Sirius (if that *was* an AK): 'his body curved in a graceful arc as 
he sank backwards through the ragged veil...' [OOP, Ch.35]

Fawkes: 'swallowed the jet of green light whole: he burst into flame 
and fell to the floor...' [OOP, Ch. 36]. Bursting into flame is a 
natural characteristic of phoenixes, of course {g}

Nobody *who dies* is blasted off their feet by the AK. They 
drop/fall where they're standing/flying.


When do things explode?

The AK that hits Harry apparently causes an explosion (PS/SS). It 
failed to kill Harry.

In the MOM, OOP Ch. 36, the AK bounces off the golden statue. The AK 
which misses Dumbledore but hits a desk causes the desk to burst 
into flame (ie it kills it), but the desk doesn't move. The AK that 
hits the centaur shatters it into 'a hundred pieces' - but again, 
there's no mention of the centaur being moved by the spell. It's 
just destroyed. There's an increasing level of destruction here, 
that suggest Voldemort is getting more and more focused on killing 
DD - but still, nothing is blasted from its place.


JKR is pretty consistent in her AK's. Except the one that hits 
Dumbledore. When AK'd, you remain stationary, and die. Drop to the 
floor, roll on your back, shatter into pieces - but what you don't 
do in canon is get blasted into the air. 

Two possibilities. A failed AK doesn't have the same characteristics 
as a successful one. Since the only failed AK we know of (Harry) 
seems to have blown the house up - that might be it. Failed AK's 
have to do something with all that magic energy - and Dumbledore was 
blasted into the air, falling over the battlements because he was 
too weak to control the fall (like an unconscious quidditch player?).

Second possibility. It wasn't an AK.

Pip!Squeak
"Where do you think I would have been all these years, if I had not 
known how to act?" - Severus Snape