The Harry Potter series is full of unique spells that the characters cast in order to help them fight in a battle or accomplish a task. They're mainstays of the series, and some of the most iconic imagery from it comes from these spells and the way in which they're cast. There are spells for fixing things, bringing items directly into one's hand, healing, and levitation, just to name a few. There are also spells for much darker purposes, including torture and even killing.

The Killing Curse, incanted as "Avada Kedavra", is one of the more well-known spells to come out of the Harry Potter franchise, even somewhat recently trending on TikTok as fans impersonated the way that Voldemort shouts it at Harry with increasingly goofy prop "wands", made from everything from a toothpick to a pool noodle. But what is the Killing Curse exactly, and why does such a spell exist? How was Harry Potter himself able to survive the effects of the curse when he was just a small baby?

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What Is The Killing Curse?

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There are also some spells that wizards aren't supposed to use, called the Unforgivable Curses. Basically, these are curses that are so nefarious, it's seen as morally wrong to use them, and often only those doing evil use them regularly, as they are the strongest known Dark spells that exist. Any wizard who used one of these spells against someone else would incur a life sentence in Azkaban without parole, unless they could prove that they used the spell while under the effects of the Imperius Curse.

The three Unforgivable Curses are the Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, and the Killing Curse. The Imperius Curse causes the victim to have to obey the commands of the caster, which the caster can use to manipulate and control their victim. The Cruciatus Curse inflicts excruciating pain on the victim and is used to torture them. The Killing Curse, as might be evident from the name, kills. Casting this spell on a victim causes them to instantly (albeit painlessly) die. The main explanation for what the curse does to a person to cause them to die is that it rips their soul from their body, causing the body to then just drop dead.

The Killing Curse is used many times throughout the series, despite it being outlawed, mostly by the Death Eaters and Voldemort himself. Voldemort used it to kill his own family, Gellert Grindelwald, and Harry's parents, Lily and James Potter, just to name a few. This curse has no counter-curse and can't be blocked by magic, though the energy bolt that it produces can be dodged by someone skillful, or blocked by a solid object (such as the statue that Dumbledore uses to protect Harry from the curse during the battle in the Department of Mysteries. No one survives a direct hit from the Killing Curse - no one, that is, except for Harry Potter.

How Does Harry Potter Survive The Killing Curse?

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Harry Potter is given the nickname "The Boy Who Lived" for a good reason - he survived an attack from the kind of spell that no one else ever came back from. Despite Voldemort's worst intentions, Harry managed to avoid the fate that the villain had planned for him when he was just a baby. How did he do it? Well, it wasn't exactly through any skill or power of his own, but rather the protection of his mother.

It had been prophesied that Voldemort would be defeated by a male child born at the end of July, and so he set out to eliminate the threat. When he found the Potter's home (with information given to him by Peter Pettigrew, their Secret Keeper), he killed both Lily and James in an attempt to get to Harry. He even told Lily to step aside and let him kill the baby, and that he would let her live, as it wasn't her life he was worried about.

However, she refused to stop protecting her son, and the love behind that action (which Voldemort could never understand) created a sort of "counter-curse" called a Sacrificial Protection that shielded Harry from Voldemort's attack. The Killing Curse essentially bounced off of him, hitting Voldemort instead and dissolving his mortal form, leaving nothing but a lightning-shaped scar (which is the shape that the wand needs to make while casting the curse) on Harry.

Yes, Harry was quite literally saved by the power of love, which is perhaps the greatest power of all to have. It was the only recorded time when a direct attack from the Killing Curse did not result in the victim's death, and it was the very reason that Harry was so famous in the wizarding world, as the event led to Voldemort's defeat (for a time, at least). The Killing Curse was deemed Unforgivable for a reason, as only the darkest of wizards used it liberally. But Harry Potter is living proof that even the darkest magic can sometimes have a counter, and that in the end, it's usually the light that wins out.

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