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deathtocapslockRecall (those of you who can bear to recall anything about DH) that flight and fight scene in chapter four. Harry and the Order, outnumbered over two to one (where, by the way, is the twenty to one ratio Lupin had claimed to have been typical?), heroically fight off the AK-wielding villains while never descending to their base tactics. The “blaze,” “flares,” and “bursts” of green light shot by the Death Eaters are repeatedly stressed by JKR. How evil of the Death Eaters, using the Killing Curse as their spell of preference! How brave and noble Harry and his supporters were, using mere Stunners and motorcycle tricks to fight back (mostly successfully) against Ultimate Evil! Precursor of Harry refusing to AK Voldie at the end, right? That’s the Harry we like to believe in, loyal, noble, and merciful like his father, refusing to kill even when killing most seems justified!
Well, maybe not.
First off, of course, although we know that at least one of the green flashes WAS an AK (the one that caught Hedwig), canon doesn’t actually specify that Avada Kedavra is the only green-flashing spell ever used in combat. So we don’t actually know for sure that those are all AK’s being cast, though Harry in his ignorance assumes so (and blithely identifies them as such to us).
But let’s just assume Harry’s right about that, and see what that assumption entails.
Hagrid’s burst of acceleration on the motorbike quickly pulled that pair away from the others, pursued only by four enemies. When Harry looked back at the “masses of people” left behind, he saw only “flares of green light”—no other colors. So either none of the rest of the Order was fighting back, or none was using any spells that produced any visible “flash,” or, er, … the Order was throwing AKs back at their attackers.
(Considering Lupin’s comments in the next chapter, this is at least plausible of him.)
After that we only follow Harry and Hagrid, but of them we can say for sure: they never cast Avada Kedavra; nor any other curse (Entrail-Expelling, Sectumsempra…) whose effect is normally lethal. Let’s assume the same to be true of the rest of the Order, and let’s further assume the DE’s were all casting (almost only) AKs.
What can we say, on each side, about their motives? What did they intend in using the spells they did? What, in short, were the intended and predictable results of what they cast?
Well, for the intended, predictable results of Harry’s spells, let’s skip forward a chapter and let him speak for himself. What was Harry’s stated reason for switching abruptly to Expelliarmus when he identified Stan Shunpike among the DE’s attacking him?
“We were hundreds of feet up! Stan’s not himself, and if I Stunned him and he’d fallen, he’d have died the same as if I’d used Avada Kedavra!” (DH, Chapter 5)
Er, yes, Harry. That would be correct. Good boy! That shows a grasp of elementary physics and human physiology that I wasn’t quite sure you had. If you drop a human body from hundreds of feet in the air, it will hit the ground—or impale itself on a tree, or whatever—with substantially more force than that human body can survive.
If you Stun someone flying on a broom “hundreds of feet” in the air, you’ve just murdered that person. By a method that requires considerably less training, magical force, and focus than casting a successful AK does, according to canon.
And if the Harry of little brain understood this, certainly the brighter members of the Order knew it too. Moreover, if Harry understood this with regard to Stan, he understood it also with regard to all those anonymous Death Eaters whom Harry WAS completely willing to Stun in mid-air and let fall to die.
Harry and the Order were not being more merciful than the Death Eaters; they were being more efficient.
Now, efficiency is often claimed to be a virtue (ask Percy). But not often a moral virtue, at least not by its victims. The great claim of the Fascists, after all, was that they made the trains run on time.
The Death Eaters, of course, did not have that easier, more efficient means of murder-by-Stunner available to them, not if Moody’s supposition that they’d been ordered to kill as many protectors—but never Potters—as possible were correct. Their targets were all in pairs; if someone stunned the non-Harry in a pair, the Harry could just grab him. Only a lethal curse could take out a Protector without his Harry saving him. Or there might have been orders from Himself to use those distinctively-colored AK’s to terrorize the enemy….
I could imagine Moody cold-bloodedly evaluating the situation and telling the Order before they all descended on Privet Drive, “If it comes to a fight, and it probably will, remember that if you disarm or disable an enemy, he’ll be out of this fight, true, but he’ll be back fighting us tomorrow. No, if it comes to that, best to kill as many as we can. But no need to waste energy on an curse if they’re chasing us by broom; just Stun or Petrify or Stop as many as possible and let ‘em fall. Let their families or some Muggles search out their splattered remains. It‘s a better end than scum like that deserve anyhow.”
Harry, of course, performed no such analysis. But he instinctively used spells that he knew would kill his enemies in these specific circumstances. Without his ever having to see or think about (or take emotional or, apparently in Jo’s view, moral, responsibility for) their deaths.
(Just as, you may recall, when Harry ended the standoff with Lucius and the Death Eaters at the Department of Mysteries by initiating the violence, he ordered his followers to attack using a spell which, while not in itself lethal, would in the circumstances probably seriously injure or kill some of the enemy. And it worked—the elderly Nott was critically injured when the children crashed the Prophecy Barn shelves down on him, and we were never explicitly told whether he survived.
Pulling down shelves of junk to crush him was, of course, one of the ways Vincent Crabbe explicitly tried to kill Ron in the RoR at the end of DH. Evil, evil Crabbe! I forget, was Vince’s dad among those buried and almost killed by Our Heroes’ gallant Reductos two years earlier? Oh look, it’s canon that he was! See, Crabbe, like Malfoy, steals all his best ideas from the Trio.)
We got the Order’s full list of casualties in “The Fallen Warrior,” DH chapter five. Moody, killed by Voldemort himself. Harry’s owl, killed in the first melee by we-don’t-see-who. And George’s ear, cursed off by Snape by mistake.
What casualties were there on the other side? We weren’t present for the Death Eater post-engagement reunion, so we’ll never have a full list. Still, we can count up what we see.
Of the initial four who set off chasing the Hagrid-Harry pair, one fell, his broom “shattered,” when he hit the brick wall that Hagrid’s first button emitted. A comrade tried to save this first victim--whether successfully or not, we don’t know, but probably not, as the comrade appeared—without a passenger—only a few moments later (time enough only for two lobbies of AK, for Harry to fire a few Stunners back, and for Hagrid to hit the next button to expel the net).
Harry himself later knocked one enemy off his broom with Impedimenta, and blasted another off his by blowing up the sidecar with Hedwig’s corpse in it. (Harry “knew a dreadful, gut-wrenching pang for Hedwig as it exploded.” Empathic Harry!)
The last of the four “fell back and vanished” at this point—we don’t know whether that meant he had an attack of cowardice and pulled out of the fight, that he was shaken off his broom by Harry’s blast’s shockwave, or that he lost control of his broom momentarily in the shockwave (but had at least a chance of regaining control before he actually crashed and died).
Two more enemies then appeared; Harry shot “Stunner after Stunner” at them until Stan’s hood slipped, then he switched to Expelliarmus. At that point the other one shouted “That’s him, it’s him, it’s the real one!” and they both ceded pursuit to the Dark Lord.
Who eventually appeared with several more Death Eaters in his train, one of whom Harry “stunned” (killed) immediately, and another of whom Hagrid “launched himself at.” The entwined pair both fell. The half-giant eventually proved to have survived, to Harry’s astonishment.
Presumably the full-human did not. Especially if he’d landed underneath. Not that this death seems to burden Hagrid’s conscience.
Remarkable, isn’t it, the impressions Jo can convey by mere judicious omissions?
So. Hagrid apparently killed two of the enemy. Harry tried earnestly to kill at least eight, succeeded in killing three and may have managed a fourth. Of, apparently, a total complement of nine Death Eaters chasing them plus Tommy himself. (Whom Harry didn’t actually ever try for.) Stan, Stan’s companion, and Selwyn were the only certain survivors among those chasing Harry.
Three (minimum), five (most likely) or six (possible) out of nine pursuers, killed. Quite intentionally. Harry and Hagrid were not trying to disable or disarm their enemies; they were trying to kill.
If the other Order members had anything like a similar success rate with their “non-lethal” spells, the Dark Lord had a lot of recruiting to do after that night. (And he must have already been scraping the bottom of the barrel. I mean, Stan Shunpike? Next after that must be Gilderoy!)
Now, I’m not saying the Order was wrong to use lethal force against people who were using lethal force against them. (There are such committed pacifists, but while I admire Gandhi, I haven’t myself the courage to follow him quite so far.) I’m saying, essentially, that Jo once more was cheating as an author, slanting her writing to portray one side as conscienceless killers and the other as better, more merciful, and more noble when in fact that side’s actions, when analyzed carefully, tell another story entirely.
And Remus was being at best disingenuous when he adjured Harry, “At least Stun if you aren’t prepared to kill!” (DH5)
No, Remus, no, Jo, casting a Stunner or Impedimenta in an aerial battle only LOOKS more noble and merciful than casting Avada Kedavra. Judging by the results (one fatality among fourteen combatants, versus three to six among nine), knocking people off their brooms midair is apparently a considerably more effective means of killing. It’s also much slower than Avada Kedavra, more messy, and much more horrifying and in the end painful for those victims who were still conscious while they fell—as were, in the event, apparently several of Hagrid’s and Harry’s victims.
Translate it to Muggle terms. Two sides are struggling on the top of a skyscraper. One side tries to shoot the second; the other doesn’t use their guns, but does try, successfully, to push most of side one’s fighters off the building to fall to a horrible death. Side two may be justified on grounds of self-defense, but they certainly aren’t less violent.
Of course, there is one difference that we mustn’t forget. If a magical victim is conscious, retains hir wand (not established for any of the victims we saw, and rather unlikely), and is able to concentrate in adverse circumstances, s/he might be able to Apparate to safety. So knocking someone off a broom in midair is not a 100% certain method of murder. However, Stunning someone in midair is, and Stunners were mostly what Harry cast.
Now compare Harry’s bag to Kingsley’s: “Followed by five, injured two, might’ve killed one.” (DH5) Kingsley, apparently, was fighting to disable, whereas Harry was trying to kill.
Tonks, similarly, “injured” Rodolphus while Bellatrix tried, but obviously failed, to kill Tonks.
Ron, on the other hand, killed his target: “Stunned one of the Death Eaters, straight to the head.” (DH5)
Hmm, the two post-VoldWar Aurors preferred to go for disabling their opponents, while both boys struck to kill.
Harry and Ron will, indeed, reform the Auror’s office.
*
Let’s compare the final scores for everyone:
Hagrid & Harry: followed by nine, definitely killed three, probably killed two more, may have killed still another, three certainly alive (one of whom was Stan, deliberately spared by Harry). Themselves injured, but not incurably, by their own actions.
Kingsley: followed by five, injured two, maybe killed a third. Two definitely escaped unharmed.
Tonks: followed by at least three, injured one. Ron killed another. At least one escaped unharmed.
Voldemort: killed one.
Snape: injured one in friendly fire (trying to disable a DE).
Thirty-odd other Death Eaters: followed fourteen, seriously injured none, killed none. Killed one owl (if that was a DE’s AK rather than Voldemort’s; Hedwig was killed in the initial melee BEFORE Hagrid had blasted through the DE’s circle, so she might count towards Tom’s total). All pursued escaped unharmed.
Boy, the more closely we examine the results, the more ruthless and depraved those conscienceless killers look, don’t they?
*
Finally, let’s look at the Death Eaters’ possible motives. Jo tried hard to convince us that the Death Eaters relied almost exclusively on Avada Kedavra that night. And the possible implications of that are really quite… interesting.
The Death Eaters had all been told, not two weeks earlier, that the Dark Lord, himself, must be the one to finish Potter. “I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be.” (DH 1) But in Chapter Four, when he finally caught up with the real Harry, the Dark Lord actually had to scream at one overzealous follower, “Mine!”
So… what did the brighter Death Eaters make of Voldemort’s insistence that HE must kill Harry, and NOT with his own wand?
Snape, of course, knew that Dumbledore had insisted that “Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential,” (DH33) And there must be more reason than just “The prophecy said so.” Severus likely thought that Dumbledore’s theory was that only Voldemort’s death strike was guaranteed to destroy Voldemort’s soul-fragment in the boy, that Voldemort essentially must kill himself for it to work right.
As to why Voldemort should believe that “I must be the one…” Voldemort had probably fallen for yet another of Dumbledore’s scams. In fact it was likely Severus himself who set Voldemort up for this particular one. A plausible story might be that Dumbledore thought that Harry kept surviving in part because of the powers Voldemort had accidentally transferred to the boy when he gave him that scar, and that if the boy was killed those powers would transfer to the killer. Just as Voldemort had wanted Harry’s blood for the enemy’s portion of the resurrection potion in order to steal Lily’s blood-protection, so he’d want any power transferred by Harry’s death to come (or come back) to him.
But when you step back and consider, once you factor in that the prophesied one was supposed to have “power the Dark Lord knows not” which would supposedly give him “the power to vanquish the Dark Lord,” any question of Harry’s death transferring power to his killer would be, well, rather worrying to Tom, wouldn’t it?
What did Tom think would happen if a less-than-loyal servant killed Harry Potter? (And we know from Tom’s “stench of guilt” diatribe in the graveyard that he considered most of his servants--all of those then at large—to have proved their disloyalty by never having tried to revive him. Only Barty and the Lestranges were actually singled out as having proved their devotion. Even Azkaban inmates Dolohov, Travers, and their ilk, though released when Tom broke-out the loyal Lestranges, were probably treated as useful, but not necessarily trusted, servants.)
Would Tom exactly relish the thought of a disloyal servant, perhaps an ambitious one who’d previously tried making a private play for power, suddenly attaining “the power to vanquish the Dark Lord”?
Yes, Lucius, we’re looking at you. Though probably not only at you, and I do think that the Lucius we saw in DH was too broken to have made the attempt. There’s undoubtedly a reason, though, why Voldemort so relentlessly made an example of Lucius before the other Death Eaters.
There’s nothing that says that “the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord” won’t just BECOME a new Dark Lord, after all. Or, maybe worse, hide his murder of Harry and use his public betrayal and defeat of You-Know-Who to establish himself as a hero in the public eye. The Wizard Who Lived!
(Dolores_Crane’s wonderful AU [from OotP] fiction “In Loco Parentis” features a Lucius who, the moment he realizes Voldemort is failing yet again to kill Potter in their current confrontation, steps forward himself and offs his erstwhile master—and subsequently successfully parlays this heroic, if a trifle last-minute, defection into an Order of Merlin and an extremely serious play to become the next Minister of Magic. I won’t tell you whether he’s successful, you’ll have to read the story… http://archiveofourown.org/works/109558/chapters/151674 )
What if some of the brightest, most ruthless, most ambitious Death Eaters (some of them were Slytherins, right?) thought something along those lines?
But here’s another twist. What if some of the disillusioned Death Eaters, hopeful or desperate, decided that Voldemort’s declaration that “I must be the one to kill Harry Potter” might mean that Potter’s death in the wrong circumstances would weaken the Dark Lord in some way? Destroy his linked wand or something? Maybe even make it explode in his face? Take some or all of his powers with it? Maybe even destroy that ersatz body made with Potter’s blood and by the power of that twin-to-Potter’s wand? The Dark Lord was very emphatic, after all, and he’d recently spent a lot of time torturing Ollivander for esoteric information on wandlore and twinned wands….
Regulus Black, remember, was willing to commit an agonizing suicide for the mere hope of destroying Voldemort’s Horcrux and making him finally vulnerable to destruction. (Of course poor Regulus didn’t realize that Voldemort had more than one.) Killing someone else for the same high purpose? There are people who would. You know, like Albus. Though it’s harder if you have to raise your own wand.
Either way, there were an awful lot of AK’s flying around that night, weren’t there? A whole blaze of them, in fact. And quite a few of them barely missed hitting Harry.
Indeed, when the sidecar was torn from the bike and Harry was alone, levitating it “like a cork” for a while, “the remaining Death Eater shot a curse so close to Harry that he had to duck below the rim of the car, knocking out a tooth on the edge of his seat—”
Hagrid showed up a moment later coming back for Harry, so maybe the curse was aimed past Harry at the returning Hagrid. But it’s quite plausible to read that as someone targeting Harry.
For whatever reason we might care to assign to that anonymous DE. But the one thing we know for certain is, obedience to his Lordship’s explicit orders was not among the possible reasons.
And then when the Dark Lord’s group did catch up at last with Harry and Hagrid, we’re told, “a Death Eater appeared on either side of the bike, two Killing Curses missed Harry by millimeters, cast from behind—” If one was cast by Voldemort, the other one must have been cast by that third Death Eater accompanying him. Selwyn? Is that who Voldemort had to remind, “Mine!” a minute later?
Because that’s the last thing to keep in mind about Avada Kedavra versus other spells. It’s not so much that it’s unblockable (a statue or desk or wall can block it!), it’s that a Shield Charm won’t deflect it and if it touches you—well, you’re dead, that’s all. Not dying, not even dying quickly, not even dying too quickly to reasonably save. Dead. Nothing anyone can do about it.
If a Death Eater hit the wrong target with a Stunner, a Harry rather than a Protector, the Harry’s partner could still grab him and keep him on the broom/Thestral/bike. Even if a Harry were hit by a killing curse other than the AK, the Dark Lord’s minions could still possibly keep him alive long enough for Voldemort to be the one to finish him off.
But if Harry were hit, purely by accident of course, with an AK, he’d be dead. Instantly. And the Dark Lord has emphatically stated that he only wants Potter dead by his own hands (and yet not by his own wand).
Are we quite, quite sure that everyone throwing AK’s that night was doing so with the Dark Lord’s best interests at heart?
Dear Harry, of course, sincerely believes that the WW divides neatly into two parts: those who uncritically love and support Dumbledore and his protégé Harry, and those irremediably evil souls who are willing slaves to Lord Voldemort.
The rest of us, though, know that people come in more colors. Someone could, in theory, sincerely will Harry’s death without wishing for Tom’s ultimate triumph. Even, in fact, to prevent Tom’s ultimate triumph. Like Dumbledore, or the horrified Snape reluctantly acceding to Dumbledore’s schemes.
In fact, follow it through. Suppose someone—anyone—had killed Harry that night? What would have happened?
We have no reason to suppose that Voldemort’s response to Harry’s death in Chapter 4 would be different than in Chapter 34: a short loss of consciousness. But in Chapter 4, Tom wasn’t standing among his DE’s with loving Bella at his right hand. He was gallivanting through the air at great height, flying without a broom. Loyal Bellatrix and her husband were off hunting Bella’s niece.
So, splat.
No more new body.
Not that old Flight-from-death would actually be dead, not with several Horcruxes still intact, but he’d be reduced to that weak, bodiless spirit fleeing back to Albania with no power except to possess animals and people. (And by his description in GoF—which his so-loyal DE’s all heard, was that really quite wise of you, Tommy?--the shock and pain of discorporating is so overwhelming Tom wouldn’t have the presence of mind to do that even much for quite some little time.)
And the Ministry had not yet fallen, and Snape could leak to Kingsley and the Order (via Phineas’s and the other former Hogwarts Heads’ portraits, using Dumbledore’s as his front and authority) information on who in the Ministry had been suborned or Imperiused and who and where the other DE’s were, and the Horcrux Hunt could have been taken up by competent, trained adults instead of turned into a DE-dodging camping trip by idiots who couldn’t even figure out that using an Item-of-Power-turned-into-a-Horcrux in the exact way that the original Item was meant to be used might maybe, conceivably, make one vulnerable to the Horcrux’s influence…
Sigh. I think Selwyn’s my new hero. If only he’d aimed one more millimeter to the right!
*
Finally, turn it around the other way. A “blaze” of green light when the seven Potters and their seven escorts rose into Tom’s trap, and only Moody and Hedwig were killed?
Cast your mind back to our first encounter with the curse, Barty Junior’s demonstration to the thrilled Gryffindors. “Avada Kedavra’s a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it—you could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I’d get so much as a nosebleed.” (GoF14)
Moody was killed by Tom. Hedwig was killed, we don’t know by who, but it was during the initial scrum when among those present and casting were Tom himself, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Travers—all of whom we have canon evidence to be true baddies, actual murderers and torturers, not just assume to be evil because “they’re DE’s and all DE’s must have joined because they were already murderous psychopaths.”.
All of those other AK’s flying about, cast repeatedly by at least two dozen other people, enough to create “a blaze of green light”, and not a one of those other curses hit?
That’s… interesting aiming on the DE’s part. Real interesting.
Or…
Maybe some of them did hit. Avada Kedavra is only effective when you really mean it, after all. Otherwise all it does is shoot a jet of green light at someone. Harmless.
It doesn’t even cause a nosebleed. Barty said so.
If you don’t really want to harm your “enemy,” if you have qualms about which side you’re on in this fight (though you cannot dismount this particular dragon or you and all your loved ones will be horrifically killed), if you harbor any faintest doubts, even, about what you’re doing—then casting Avada Kedavra is the magical equivalent of shooting someone with a cap-pistol. You produce a noise and a flash, you might look from a distance like you’re dangerous (a five year old with a toy gun was once killed by a nervous cop), but you will do no harm at all.
It works that way, and you’d fully expect it to work that way, if you harbor any conscious scruples about your participation. Casting AK knowing you don’t really want to kill is like deliberately picking up the cap pistol instead of the adjacent loaded gun. Especially in an aerial fight where a mere Stunner kills quite effectively, thank you very much. But AK will also work that way (or rather will fail to work) if you simply have buried misgivings, hidden inner conflicts, that are serious enough. Your loaded weapon will then turn into a cap pistol on you without warning. In fact, you might or might not even realize that it had happened unless you actually saw your curse connect and do no damage.
And we never saw any Death Eater use a single other spell in that whole fight, did we? Except Snape (casting from behind a fellow Death Eater), and we know his motives.
Indeed, the overwhelming reliance on Avada Kedavra in that scene might almost make one wonder whether the Dark Lord might possibly have ordered his minions to use no spell but that. And if so, whose bright idea that originally was. And what hir motives might have been.
*
In conclusion, regarding the Death Eater’s motives, overt and hidden, in casting all those Killing Curses… Well, there’s no way to tell the motives of someone casting a sincere AK in Harry’s direction; s/he might be aiming poorly, forgetting instructions, or deliberately betraying the Dark Lord, for either evil or altruistic reasons. Moreoever, the only way to know whether a given Avada Kedavra was cast sincerely is if one actually watches the curse connect with a living body and witnesses the result—which we only once do. Hedwig’s killer, whoever that was, was sincerely trying to kill. Everyone else? We just don’t know.
Well, we do know that Stan was utterly sincere about the AK’s he was casting; he had no choice but to be. And I don’t think we have any real doubts about either Bellatrix or Severus’s intentions. But we find that we don’t actually have any information about most of the others, do we?
Except that, yet again, most of the Death Eaters either weren’t trying very hard, or weren’t trying very well, to kill their beloved Lord’s avowed enemies.
Harry’s intentions, however, we do know, because he admitted them when he explained why he changed to Expelliarmus once he recognized Stan. Every time he cast any other spell in that fight, he was trying to kill. And he frequently succeeded.
Remorseless killers versus conscience-hampered heroes, indeed.
*
Well, maybe not.
First off, of course, although we know that at least one of the green flashes WAS an AK (the one that caught Hedwig), canon doesn’t actually specify that Avada Kedavra is the only green-flashing spell ever used in combat. So we don’t actually know for sure that those are all AK’s being cast, though Harry in his ignorance assumes so (and blithely identifies them as such to us).
But let’s just assume Harry’s right about that, and see what that assumption entails.
Hagrid’s burst of acceleration on the motorbike quickly pulled that pair away from the others, pursued only by four enemies. When Harry looked back at the “masses of people” left behind, he saw only “flares of green light”—no other colors. So either none of the rest of the Order was fighting back, or none was using any spells that produced any visible “flash,” or, er, … the Order was throwing AKs back at their attackers.
(Considering Lupin’s comments in the next chapter, this is at least plausible of him.)
After that we only follow Harry and Hagrid, but of them we can say for sure: they never cast Avada Kedavra; nor any other curse (Entrail-Expelling, Sectumsempra…) whose effect is normally lethal. Let’s assume the same to be true of the rest of the Order, and let’s further assume the DE’s were all casting (almost only) AKs.
What can we say, on each side, about their motives? What did they intend in using the spells they did? What, in short, were the intended and predictable results of what they cast?
Well, for the intended, predictable results of Harry’s spells, let’s skip forward a chapter and let him speak for himself. What was Harry’s stated reason for switching abruptly to Expelliarmus when he identified Stan Shunpike among the DE’s attacking him?
“We were hundreds of feet up! Stan’s not himself, and if I Stunned him and he’d fallen, he’d have died the same as if I’d used Avada Kedavra!” (DH, Chapter 5)
Er, yes, Harry. That would be correct. Good boy! That shows a grasp of elementary physics and human physiology that I wasn’t quite sure you had. If you drop a human body from hundreds of feet in the air, it will hit the ground—or impale itself on a tree, or whatever—with substantially more force than that human body can survive.
If you Stun someone flying on a broom “hundreds of feet” in the air, you’ve just murdered that person. By a method that requires considerably less training, magical force, and focus than casting a successful AK does, according to canon.
And if the Harry of little brain understood this, certainly the brighter members of the Order knew it too. Moreover, if Harry understood this with regard to Stan, he understood it also with regard to all those anonymous Death Eaters whom Harry WAS completely willing to Stun in mid-air and let fall to die.
Harry and the Order were not being more merciful than the Death Eaters; they were being more efficient.
Now, efficiency is often claimed to be a virtue (ask Percy). But not often a moral virtue, at least not by its victims. The great claim of the Fascists, after all, was that they made the trains run on time.
The Death Eaters, of course, did not have that easier, more efficient means of murder-by-Stunner available to them, not if Moody’s supposition that they’d been ordered to kill as many protectors—but never Potters—as possible were correct. Their targets were all in pairs; if someone stunned the non-Harry in a pair, the Harry could just grab him. Only a lethal curse could take out a Protector without his Harry saving him. Or there might have been orders from Himself to use those distinctively-colored AK’s to terrorize the enemy….
I could imagine Moody cold-bloodedly evaluating the situation and telling the Order before they all descended on Privet Drive, “If it comes to a fight, and it probably will, remember that if you disarm or disable an enemy, he’ll be out of this fight, true, but he’ll be back fighting us tomorrow. No, if it comes to that, best to kill as many as we can. But no need to waste energy on an curse if they’re chasing us by broom; just Stun or Petrify or Stop as many as possible and let ‘em fall. Let their families or some Muggles search out their splattered remains. It‘s a better end than scum like that deserve anyhow.”
Harry, of course, performed no such analysis. But he instinctively used spells that he knew would kill his enemies in these specific circumstances. Without his ever having to see or think about (or take emotional or, apparently in Jo’s view, moral, responsibility for) their deaths.
(Just as, you may recall, when Harry ended the standoff with Lucius and the Death Eaters at the Department of Mysteries by initiating the violence, he ordered his followers to attack using a spell which, while not in itself lethal, would in the circumstances probably seriously injure or kill some of the enemy. And it worked—the elderly Nott was critically injured when the children crashed the Prophecy Barn shelves down on him, and we were never explicitly told whether he survived.
Pulling down shelves of junk to crush him was, of course, one of the ways Vincent Crabbe explicitly tried to kill Ron in the RoR at the end of DH. Evil, evil Crabbe! I forget, was Vince’s dad among those buried and almost killed by Our Heroes’ gallant Reductos two years earlier? Oh look, it’s canon that he was! See, Crabbe, like Malfoy, steals all his best ideas from the Trio.)
We got the Order’s full list of casualties in “The Fallen Warrior,” DH chapter five. Moody, killed by Voldemort himself. Harry’s owl, killed in the first melee by we-don’t-see-who. And George’s ear, cursed off by Snape by mistake.
What casualties were there on the other side? We weren’t present for the Death Eater post-engagement reunion, so we’ll never have a full list. Still, we can count up what we see.
Of the initial four who set off chasing the Hagrid-Harry pair, one fell, his broom “shattered,” when he hit the brick wall that Hagrid’s first button emitted. A comrade tried to save this first victim--whether successfully or not, we don’t know, but probably not, as the comrade appeared—without a passenger—only a few moments later (time enough only for two lobbies of AK, for Harry to fire a few Stunners back, and for Hagrid to hit the next button to expel the net).
Harry himself later knocked one enemy off his broom with Impedimenta, and blasted another off his by blowing up the sidecar with Hedwig’s corpse in it. (Harry “knew a dreadful, gut-wrenching pang for Hedwig as it exploded.” Empathic Harry!)
The last of the four “fell back and vanished” at this point—we don’t know whether that meant he had an attack of cowardice and pulled out of the fight, that he was shaken off his broom by Harry’s blast’s shockwave, or that he lost control of his broom momentarily in the shockwave (but had at least a chance of regaining control before he actually crashed and died).
Two more enemies then appeared; Harry shot “Stunner after Stunner” at them until Stan’s hood slipped, then he switched to Expelliarmus. At that point the other one shouted “That’s him, it’s him, it’s the real one!” and they both ceded pursuit to the Dark Lord.
Who eventually appeared with several more Death Eaters in his train, one of whom Harry “stunned” (killed) immediately, and another of whom Hagrid “launched himself at.” The entwined pair both fell. The half-giant eventually proved to have survived, to Harry’s astonishment.
Presumably the full-human did not. Especially if he’d landed underneath. Not that this death seems to burden Hagrid’s conscience.
Remarkable, isn’t it, the impressions Jo can convey by mere judicious omissions?
So. Hagrid apparently killed two of the enemy. Harry tried earnestly to kill at least eight, succeeded in killing three and may have managed a fourth. Of, apparently, a total complement of nine Death Eaters chasing them plus Tommy himself. (Whom Harry didn’t actually ever try for.) Stan, Stan’s companion, and Selwyn were the only certain survivors among those chasing Harry.
Three (minimum), five (most likely) or six (possible) out of nine pursuers, killed. Quite intentionally. Harry and Hagrid were not trying to disable or disarm their enemies; they were trying to kill.
If the other Order members had anything like a similar success rate with their “non-lethal” spells, the Dark Lord had a lot of recruiting to do after that night. (And he must have already been scraping the bottom of the barrel. I mean, Stan Shunpike? Next after that must be Gilderoy!)
Now, I’m not saying the Order was wrong to use lethal force against people who were using lethal force against them. (There are such committed pacifists, but while I admire Gandhi, I haven’t myself the courage to follow him quite so far.) I’m saying, essentially, that Jo once more was cheating as an author, slanting her writing to portray one side as conscienceless killers and the other as better, more merciful, and more noble when in fact that side’s actions, when analyzed carefully, tell another story entirely.
And Remus was being at best disingenuous when he adjured Harry, “At least Stun if you aren’t prepared to kill!” (DH5)
No, Remus, no, Jo, casting a Stunner or Impedimenta in an aerial battle only LOOKS more noble and merciful than casting Avada Kedavra. Judging by the results (one fatality among fourteen combatants, versus three to six among nine), knocking people off their brooms midair is apparently a considerably more effective means of killing. It’s also much slower than Avada Kedavra, more messy, and much more horrifying and in the end painful for those victims who were still conscious while they fell—as were, in the event, apparently several of Hagrid’s and Harry’s victims.
Translate it to Muggle terms. Two sides are struggling on the top of a skyscraper. One side tries to shoot the second; the other doesn’t use their guns, but does try, successfully, to push most of side one’s fighters off the building to fall to a horrible death. Side two may be justified on grounds of self-defense, but they certainly aren’t less violent.
Of course, there is one difference that we mustn’t forget. If a magical victim is conscious, retains hir wand (not established for any of the victims we saw, and rather unlikely), and is able to concentrate in adverse circumstances, s/he might be able to Apparate to safety. So knocking someone off a broom in midair is not a 100% certain method of murder. However, Stunning someone in midair is, and Stunners were mostly what Harry cast.
Now compare Harry’s bag to Kingsley’s: “Followed by five, injured two, might’ve killed one.” (DH5) Kingsley, apparently, was fighting to disable, whereas Harry was trying to kill.
Tonks, similarly, “injured” Rodolphus while Bellatrix tried, but obviously failed, to kill Tonks.
Ron, on the other hand, killed his target: “Stunned one of the Death Eaters, straight to the head.” (DH5)
Hmm, the two post-VoldWar Aurors preferred to go for disabling their opponents, while both boys struck to kill.
Harry and Ron will, indeed, reform the Auror’s office.
*
Let’s compare the final scores for everyone:
Hagrid & Harry: followed by nine, definitely killed three, probably killed two more, may have killed still another, three certainly alive (one of whom was Stan, deliberately spared by Harry). Themselves injured, but not incurably, by their own actions.
Kingsley: followed by five, injured two, maybe killed a third. Two definitely escaped unharmed.
Tonks: followed by at least three, injured one. Ron killed another. At least one escaped unharmed.
Voldemort: killed one.
Snape: injured one in friendly fire (trying to disable a DE).
Thirty-odd other Death Eaters: followed fourteen, seriously injured none, killed none. Killed one owl (if that was a DE’s AK rather than Voldemort’s; Hedwig was killed in the initial melee BEFORE Hagrid had blasted through the DE’s circle, so she might count towards Tom’s total). All pursued escaped unharmed.
Boy, the more closely we examine the results, the more ruthless and depraved those conscienceless killers look, don’t they?
*
Finally, let’s look at the Death Eaters’ possible motives. Jo tried hard to convince us that the Death Eaters relied almost exclusively on Avada Kedavra that night. And the possible implications of that are really quite… interesting.
The Death Eaters had all been told, not two weeks earlier, that the Dark Lord, himself, must be the one to finish Potter. “I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be.” (DH 1) But in Chapter Four, when he finally caught up with the real Harry, the Dark Lord actually had to scream at one overzealous follower, “Mine!”
So… what did the brighter Death Eaters make of Voldemort’s insistence that HE must kill Harry, and NOT with his own wand?
Snape, of course, knew that Dumbledore had insisted that “Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential,” (DH33) And there must be more reason than just “The prophecy said so.” Severus likely thought that Dumbledore’s theory was that only Voldemort’s death strike was guaranteed to destroy Voldemort’s soul-fragment in the boy, that Voldemort essentially must kill himself for it to work right.
As to why Voldemort should believe that “I must be the one…” Voldemort had probably fallen for yet another of Dumbledore’s scams. In fact it was likely Severus himself who set Voldemort up for this particular one. A plausible story might be that Dumbledore thought that Harry kept surviving in part because of the powers Voldemort had accidentally transferred to the boy when he gave him that scar, and that if the boy was killed those powers would transfer to the killer. Just as Voldemort had wanted Harry’s blood for the enemy’s portion of the resurrection potion in order to steal Lily’s blood-protection, so he’d want any power transferred by Harry’s death to come (or come back) to him.
But when you step back and consider, once you factor in that the prophesied one was supposed to have “power the Dark Lord knows not” which would supposedly give him “the power to vanquish the Dark Lord,” any question of Harry’s death transferring power to his killer would be, well, rather worrying to Tom, wouldn’t it?
What did Tom think would happen if a less-than-loyal servant killed Harry Potter? (And we know from Tom’s “stench of guilt” diatribe in the graveyard that he considered most of his servants--all of those then at large—to have proved their disloyalty by never having tried to revive him. Only Barty and the Lestranges were actually singled out as having proved their devotion. Even Azkaban inmates Dolohov, Travers, and their ilk, though released when Tom broke-out the loyal Lestranges, were probably treated as useful, but not necessarily trusted, servants.)
Would Tom exactly relish the thought of a disloyal servant, perhaps an ambitious one who’d previously tried making a private play for power, suddenly attaining “the power to vanquish the Dark Lord”?
Yes, Lucius, we’re looking at you. Though probably not only at you, and I do think that the Lucius we saw in DH was too broken to have made the attempt. There’s undoubtedly a reason, though, why Voldemort so relentlessly made an example of Lucius before the other Death Eaters.
There’s nothing that says that “the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord” won’t just BECOME a new Dark Lord, after all. Or, maybe worse, hide his murder of Harry and use his public betrayal and defeat of You-Know-Who to establish himself as a hero in the public eye. The Wizard Who Lived!
(Dolores_Crane’s wonderful AU [from OotP] fiction “In Loco Parentis” features a Lucius who, the moment he realizes Voldemort is failing yet again to kill Potter in their current confrontation, steps forward himself and offs his erstwhile master—and subsequently successfully parlays this heroic, if a trifle last-minute, defection into an Order of Merlin and an extremely serious play to become the next Minister of Magic. I won’t tell you whether he’s successful, you’ll have to read the story… http://archiveofourown.org/works/109558/chapters/151674 )
What if some of the brightest, most ruthless, most ambitious Death Eaters (some of them were Slytherins, right?) thought something along those lines?
But here’s another twist. What if some of the disillusioned Death Eaters, hopeful or desperate, decided that Voldemort’s declaration that “I must be the one to kill Harry Potter” might mean that Potter’s death in the wrong circumstances would weaken the Dark Lord in some way? Destroy his linked wand or something? Maybe even make it explode in his face? Take some or all of his powers with it? Maybe even destroy that ersatz body made with Potter’s blood and by the power of that twin-to-Potter’s wand? The Dark Lord was very emphatic, after all, and he’d recently spent a lot of time torturing Ollivander for esoteric information on wandlore and twinned wands….
Regulus Black, remember, was willing to commit an agonizing suicide for the mere hope of destroying Voldemort’s Horcrux and making him finally vulnerable to destruction. (Of course poor Regulus didn’t realize that Voldemort had more than one.) Killing someone else for the same high purpose? There are people who would. You know, like Albus. Though it’s harder if you have to raise your own wand.
Either way, there were an awful lot of AK’s flying around that night, weren’t there? A whole blaze of them, in fact. And quite a few of them barely missed hitting Harry.
Indeed, when the sidecar was torn from the bike and Harry was alone, levitating it “like a cork” for a while, “the remaining Death Eater shot a curse so close to Harry that he had to duck below the rim of the car, knocking out a tooth on the edge of his seat—”
Hagrid showed up a moment later coming back for Harry, so maybe the curse was aimed past Harry at the returning Hagrid. But it’s quite plausible to read that as someone targeting Harry.
For whatever reason we might care to assign to that anonymous DE. But the one thing we know for certain is, obedience to his Lordship’s explicit orders was not among the possible reasons.
And then when the Dark Lord’s group did catch up at last with Harry and Hagrid, we’re told, “a Death Eater appeared on either side of the bike, two Killing Curses missed Harry by millimeters, cast from behind—” If one was cast by Voldemort, the other one must have been cast by that third Death Eater accompanying him. Selwyn? Is that who Voldemort had to remind, “Mine!” a minute later?
Because that’s the last thing to keep in mind about Avada Kedavra versus other spells. It’s not so much that it’s unblockable (a statue or desk or wall can block it!), it’s that a Shield Charm won’t deflect it and if it touches you—well, you’re dead, that’s all. Not dying, not even dying quickly, not even dying too quickly to reasonably save. Dead. Nothing anyone can do about it.
If a Death Eater hit the wrong target with a Stunner, a Harry rather than a Protector, the Harry’s partner could still grab him and keep him on the broom/Thestral/bike. Even if a Harry were hit by a killing curse other than the AK, the Dark Lord’s minions could still possibly keep him alive long enough for Voldemort to be the one to finish him off.
But if Harry were hit, purely by accident of course, with an AK, he’d be dead. Instantly. And the Dark Lord has emphatically stated that he only wants Potter dead by his own hands (and yet not by his own wand).
Are we quite, quite sure that everyone throwing AK’s that night was doing so with the Dark Lord’s best interests at heart?
Dear Harry, of course, sincerely believes that the WW divides neatly into two parts: those who uncritically love and support Dumbledore and his protégé Harry, and those irremediably evil souls who are willing slaves to Lord Voldemort.
The rest of us, though, know that people come in more colors. Someone could, in theory, sincerely will Harry’s death without wishing for Tom’s ultimate triumph. Even, in fact, to prevent Tom’s ultimate triumph. Like Dumbledore, or the horrified Snape reluctantly acceding to Dumbledore’s schemes.
In fact, follow it through. Suppose someone—anyone—had killed Harry that night? What would have happened?
We have no reason to suppose that Voldemort’s response to Harry’s death in Chapter 4 would be different than in Chapter 34: a short loss of consciousness. But in Chapter 4, Tom wasn’t standing among his DE’s with loving Bella at his right hand. He was gallivanting through the air at great height, flying without a broom. Loyal Bellatrix and her husband were off hunting Bella’s niece.
So, splat.
No more new body.
Not that old Flight-from-death would actually be dead, not with several Horcruxes still intact, but he’d be reduced to that weak, bodiless spirit fleeing back to Albania with no power except to possess animals and people. (And by his description in GoF—which his so-loyal DE’s all heard, was that really quite wise of you, Tommy?--the shock and pain of discorporating is so overwhelming Tom wouldn’t have the presence of mind to do that even much for quite some little time.)
And the Ministry had not yet fallen, and Snape could leak to Kingsley and the Order (via Phineas’s and the other former Hogwarts Heads’ portraits, using Dumbledore’s as his front and authority) information on who in the Ministry had been suborned or Imperiused and who and where the other DE’s were, and the Horcrux Hunt could have been taken up by competent, trained adults instead of turned into a DE-dodging camping trip by idiots who couldn’t even figure out that using an Item-of-Power-turned-into-a-Horcrux in the exact way that the original Item was meant to be used might maybe, conceivably, make one vulnerable to the Horcrux’s influence…
Sigh. I think Selwyn’s my new hero. If only he’d aimed one more millimeter to the right!
*
Finally, turn it around the other way. A “blaze” of green light when the seven Potters and their seven escorts rose into Tom’s trap, and only Moody and Hedwig were killed?
Cast your mind back to our first encounter with the curse, Barty Junior’s demonstration to the thrilled Gryffindors. “Avada Kedavra’s a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it—you could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I’d get so much as a nosebleed.” (GoF14)
Moody was killed by Tom. Hedwig was killed, we don’t know by who, but it was during the initial scrum when among those present and casting were Tom himself, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Travers—all of whom we have canon evidence to be true baddies, actual murderers and torturers, not just assume to be evil because “they’re DE’s and all DE’s must have joined because they were already murderous psychopaths.”.
All of those other AK’s flying about, cast repeatedly by at least two dozen other people, enough to create “a blaze of green light”, and not a one of those other curses hit?
That’s… interesting aiming on the DE’s part. Real interesting.
Or…
Maybe some of them did hit. Avada Kedavra is only effective when you really mean it, after all. Otherwise all it does is shoot a jet of green light at someone. Harmless.
It doesn’t even cause a nosebleed. Barty said so.
If you don’t really want to harm your “enemy,” if you have qualms about which side you’re on in this fight (though you cannot dismount this particular dragon or you and all your loved ones will be horrifically killed), if you harbor any faintest doubts, even, about what you’re doing—then casting Avada Kedavra is the magical equivalent of shooting someone with a cap-pistol. You produce a noise and a flash, you might look from a distance like you’re dangerous (a five year old with a toy gun was once killed by a nervous cop), but you will do no harm at all.
It works that way, and you’d fully expect it to work that way, if you harbor any conscious scruples about your participation. Casting AK knowing you don’t really want to kill is like deliberately picking up the cap pistol instead of the adjacent loaded gun. Especially in an aerial fight where a mere Stunner kills quite effectively, thank you very much. But AK will also work that way (or rather will fail to work) if you simply have buried misgivings, hidden inner conflicts, that are serious enough. Your loaded weapon will then turn into a cap pistol on you without warning. In fact, you might or might not even realize that it had happened unless you actually saw your curse connect and do no damage.
And we never saw any Death Eater use a single other spell in that whole fight, did we? Except Snape (casting from behind a fellow Death Eater), and we know his motives.
Indeed, the overwhelming reliance on Avada Kedavra in that scene might almost make one wonder whether the Dark Lord might possibly have ordered his minions to use no spell but that. And if so, whose bright idea that originally was. And what hir motives might have been.
*
In conclusion, regarding the Death Eater’s motives, overt and hidden, in casting all those Killing Curses… Well, there’s no way to tell the motives of someone casting a sincere AK in Harry’s direction; s/he might be aiming poorly, forgetting instructions, or deliberately betraying the Dark Lord, for either evil or altruistic reasons. Moreoever, the only way to know whether a given Avada Kedavra was cast sincerely is if one actually watches the curse connect with a living body and witnesses the result—which we only once do. Hedwig’s killer, whoever that was, was sincerely trying to kill. Everyone else? We just don’t know.
Well, we do know that Stan was utterly sincere about the AK’s he was casting; he had no choice but to be. And I don’t think we have any real doubts about either Bellatrix or Severus’s intentions. But we find that we don’t actually have any information about most of the others, do we?
Except that, yet again, most of the Death Eaters either weren’t trying very hard, or weren’t trying very well, to kill their beloved Lord’s avowed enemies.
Harry’s intentions, however, we do know, because he admitted them when he explained why he changed to Expelliarmus once he recognized Stan. Every time he cast any other spell in that fight, he was trying to kill. And he frequently succeeded.
Remorseless killers versus conscience-hampered heroes, indeed.
*
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Date: 2011-06-10 06:37 am (UTC)Children's Magic
Date: 2011-06-10 07:06 am (UTC)On the other hand, there has been serious concern when Harry's fallen from his broom during a Quidditch match, and everyone with any experience in the matter seems to think that death is a much more likely outcome than a miraculous save.
So, it seems there is a very, very slim possibility that a magic-user in a panic could subconsciously save themselves from a bad fall, but no one really seems to believe this likely enough to hold out hope for.
Good try!
Date: 2011-06-10 03:32 pm (UTC)Certainly we frequently see Harry angry when he's older (Capslocks, anyone?), but he never does anything accidental/wandless to Umbridge/Snape/Draco.... Notice that when he goes on a rampage in Dumbledore's office after Sirius's death, he throws things physically.
Moreover, Harry's spontaneous teleportation to the chimney that time Dudley's gang was chasing him would save ANYone from ANYthing (dragonfire coming at you in the Triwizard? An AK heading to your heart? Death Eaters chasing you in the Ministry? Just blink and find yourself on the sidelines in safety!) But no one post-pubescent, including older Harry, is ever shown saved by teleportaton or any other spontaneous burst of their own magic.
Finally, Harry was throwing mostly Stunners. Even if "wild magic" could make you bounce or teleport, isn't the theory that it's the panic that sparks the wild magic? One of Harry's victims was certainly unconscious when he fell, and of the six potential victims, only two were definitely conscious.
Re: Good try!
Date: 2011-06-12 07:15 am (UTC)Wizards conduct magic, and that is another place where Rowling never set things up in a rational manner. Because it reads as if once you have been trained to control and use your magic, you have an unlimited supply of it to use, however you please, without end. We never saw anyone use up all of his available magic and have to wait until he built up enough to use some more. Exhaust themselves and need to sleep, yes, but use up all their available magic, no. We get told that some spells need more power than others, but we are never told that there is a finite limit to how much power any wizard has at his disposal at any given time.
And, once wizards are trained, it seems that they are unable to do much of anything without access to a wand. Harry was having no episodes of breakthrough magic after his wand was broken, Ron left, and he was sharing Hermione's.
The whole issue was never properly set up in the first place.