Skip to main content

How was Harry going to kill Sirius Black?


In "The Prisoner of Azkaban", chapter 17, "Cat, Rat, and Dog":



Harry raised the wand. Now was the moment to do it. Now was the moment to avenge his mother and father. He was going to kill Black. He had to kill Black. This was his chance...



How was Harry going to kill him, had he tried to go through with it? It's only his third year, and I don't think he knows any killing curses yet.



Answer




Canonically speaking, I'm going to say that Harry wasn't going to kill Sirius at all. Yes, Harry was blind with anger and hurt, and he dreamed of avenging his parents by killing Sirius, but Harry had not been taught any deadly curses prior to Goblet of Fire and he didn't understand the emotional component of killing another human being. As Bellatrix Lestrange said to Harry, after he failed to cast the Cruciatus curse against Bella in Order of the Phoenix, "You've got to really mean it, Potter!" [Executing the Unforgivables, that is/paraphrase]


However, Harry's experience with any kind of magical killing curse prior to Goblet of Fire is limited to the following:



‘Then kill him, fool, and be done!’ screeched Voldemort.

Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell’s face –

‘AAAARGH!’

Philosopher's Stone - pages 213-214 - Bloomsbury - chapter seventeen, The Man With Two Faces



The "deadly curse" isn't even named! Prior to Goblet of Fire, Harry had not heard of Avada Kedavra.


How Harry knew Quirrell was going to perform a deadly curse -- since Quirrell only raised his wand without saying anything -- is not explained. In canon, aside from Avada Kedavra, no other curse or spell is described as being deliberately lethal, except, I'd argue, Fiendfyre (And even then it's a stretch; it is lethal magic, but its foremost purpose is to burn and destroy; that it is lethal is incidental.).


Before all the talk about Harry wanting to kill Sirius in Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry is determined to hurt Sirius, to try and offload the hurt Harry himself felt due to his parents' death. Harry wanted Sirius to hurt, emotionally, as badly as he did.



He had forgotten about magic – he had forgotten that he was short and skinny and thirteen, whereas Black was a tall, fullgrown man. All Harry knew was that he wanted to hurt Black as badly as he could and that he didn’t care how much he got hurt in return ...

Prisoner of Azkaban - page 249 - Bloomsbury - chapter seventeen, Cat, Rat, and Dog




Harry was not trained in magic well enough to kill Sirius. If he were to actually try (Which I feel is against his characterization. Anger? Yes. Murder? No. Killing is something deep down that Harry would never want to do, although I don't think he regretted killing Voldemort.) I think he would have tried to physically kill Sirius. After all, the thought of magic had fled Harry's mind and he and Sirius had an initial physical altercation. Yes, Harry then pointed his wand at Sirius, but if magic had fled his mind, raising his wand could have merely been reflexive.


Anyhow, there are basically only two ways Harry could have killed Sirius and canon only allows for generalizations: Harry would have killed Sirius either by magic or through physical violence. Order of the Phoenix demonstrates Harry isn't capable of an Unforgivable at age 15, much less 13. There are no canon instances showing Harry physically beating anyone to the point of death. So it's a toss up.


Personally, I don't think Harry would have ever killed Sirius, especially at age thirteen. I do think canon ultimately supports this.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...
Post a Comment
Read more