Snape states in BNW that Voldemort went directly upstairs in search of Harry, and did not participate in the torture and death of James Potter; in fact, we're left us with the impression that Iphegenia Lestrange might have been responsible, given her enthusiasm (though my money is on Malfoy). Yet in the GoF cemetery scene James' ghost-image comes out of Voldemort's wand, which leads the less immediately discerning (including myself) to conclude that his wand threw the curse. What gives?

It's a matter of the difference between the "actor" and the "motivator." If you look at the cemetery scene in detail, you'll see what I mean.

"From far away, above his [Harry's] head, he heard a high, cold voice say, "Kill the spare.'

A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: "Avada Kedavra!"

[From page 638 of the US paperbound edition, bolding mine.]

The second voice, we later learn, is Pettigrew's: Voldemort has not yet been "regenerated," and the implication is that he cannot cast spells in his pre-ritual form. So Peter Pettigrew is actually the one who threw the Unforgiveable which kiled Diggory.

Could Pettigrew have used Voldemort's wand? Not likely. Voldemort draws it from his own robes after his rebirthing; and somehow I can't see him allowing anyone else to touch or use it. It may not even be usable by another wizard: I've made that assumption prior to this, because of the "wand chooses the wizard," comment earlier stipulated in the series.

Yet when Harry and Voldemort's wands duel and Priori Incantatem is invoked, the first spectral image out of Voldemort's wand is Pettigrew's severed hand and the second is Cedric Diggory.

Hypothesis: while Prior Incantato will indeed divulge the spells any given wand has actually cast, somehow the ultimate responsibility is also "recorded" to the wand of the person giving the order. Priori Incantatem is the mechanism by which this responsibility is revealed. (Or perhaps it's not actually an attribution of the wand itself, but of the wizard's conscience or soul.)

So Voldemort does not need to have actually cast the spell himself for its ultimate responsibility to be laid at his door. He does not need to have thrown the curse that actually killed James Potter, though he may have done so.

This has very interesting implications for the increasing moral complexity of the Potterverse. I expect we'll eventually hear excuses of the "I was only taking orders," variety, among other things. (And I for one am excited at the thought of this increasing complexity and the attendant moral ambiguity -- and I say, as Miranda undoubtedly would, that I think JKR is "feckin' bril."

Another problem with Snape's account crops up in The Potion Master's Life: When in Disgrace, when Dumbledore states that Alastor Moody has begun to make arrests of Death Eaters a mere week after the events in Godric's Hollow: the HP Lexicon indicates that Barty Crouch, Jr. and the Lestranges are on trial after the new year for the torture of the Longbottoms (presumably to get information out of them regarding Voldemort's whereabouts), and not the events in Godric's Hollow. To which I can only say, if you can't make one charge stick, pick another. If you can't get Al Capone for ordering mob hits, get him for tax evasion. (My question is, why would the Longbottoms have any idea that Voldemort (in whatever form) had fled to Albania? Were they working as double agents as well? Or had they simply cornered the Death Eaters in question, and the arrest went wrong? And if so what idiot in MLE would put a married couple with a young child in the same unit?)

I don't have answers for these yet, much less how or in what form Voldemort fled to Albania, if Snape's observations in PML are to be believed. More to ponder.

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