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Blasting Curse

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Hogwarts Mystery Warning!

At least some content in this article is derived from information featured in Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. Spoilers will be present within the article.

"As they soared upwards, away from the two remaining Death Eaters, Harry spat blood out of his mouth, pointed his wand at the falling sidecar, and yelled, Confringo!"
—The curse is used in the Battle of the Seven Potters[src]

The Blasting Curse (Confringo) is a curse that causes the target to explode. This curse is very dangerous and potentially even lethal.

This curse is also popular when it comes to duelling. It can create maximum damage, depending on the power behind the spell. If handled improperly it can even prove fatal.[citation needed]

History

The Blasting curse was invented some time before the year 1430, when Alberta Toothill used this curse in the All-England Wizarding Duelling Competition. This curse was used during the First Wizarding War and several times during the Second Wizarding War. The most prominent example was the mass killing of twelve Muggles by Peter Pettigrew in 1981.

Known uses

Caster(s) Date Notes
Alberta Toothill 1430 She used this curse to defeat Samson Wiblin in the All-England Wizarding Duelling Competition.
Peter Pettigrew 1 November, 1981 Pettigrew may have used an extremely powerful blasting curse to decimate a street and kill twelve Muggles at once while evading Sirius Black, who was blamed for the crimes and Pettigrew's alleged death.[2] The explosion was so fierce, it left a massive crater in the street, with the pipes showing. The Ministry gave an excuse of a "gas leak" to the surviving Muggles, and thought that Black was the one who used the curse.
PettigrewKillsMuggles
Jacob's sibling 1988 Jacob's sibling used this spell for dueling
Harry Potter 27 July, 1997 Harry used this curse to destroy Sirius Black's flying motorcycle's side-car during the Battle of the Seven Potters.
Hermione Granger 24 December, 1997 Hermione used it in an attempt to kill Nagini and facilitate her and Harry's escape from Bathilda Bagshot's house in Godric's Hollow, but broke Harry's wand in the process.[3]

Possible uses

Known practitioners

Etymology

Confringo is Latin for "I break".

Behind the scenes

  • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Professor McGonagall possibly uses the Blasting Curse to duel against Snape (just in case this is not the Blasting Curse, it is referred to as the Fiery offensive spell), defeating Amycus and Alecto Carrow in the process. Though it did not burn them and simply knocked them down, leaving them incapacitated.
  • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Harry uses the Blasting Curse against Nagini in an attempt to kill her and possibly to provoke Voldemort to chase Harry, so the snake would stay behind unprotected. This fails in that the spells bounces off Nagini, due to her magical protection, and instead strikes multiple Death Eaters, though they were only knocked over and otherwise seemed undamaged by the explosive spell. Immediately after this instance, Voldemort also casted several Blasting Curses at Harry as he jumped into a corridor and escaped Voldemort's wrath.
  • Both this spell and Expulso share similar effects, though - unlike the latter - Confringo is sometimes accompanied by fiery explosions. The reason for this may be that Confringo is the result of a sharp, local temperature increase where as Expulso increases the local pressure to cause explosions. However, in the Deathly Hallows video games, Confringo is an explosive spell, while Expulso serves as a sort of "machine gun" spell, causing damage similar to gunshots.
  • In different varieties of games and films, the colour of Confringo varies. Its two main colours so far are a light blue and purple, or simply a fiery explosion.
  • A spellbook for this spell could be found nearby an old building close to an Acromantula lair and some abandoned nuclear power plants.
  • In the video game adaption of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the colour of the curse varies. For the player, the curse is blue; enemies fire red curses; bosses, Snape, Greyback and Bellatrix, fire green curses.

Appearances

See also

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 4 (The Seven Potters), page 54 - UK edition
  2. ↑ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
  3. ↑ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
  4. ↑ On the Hogwarts Express Ron Weasley reads the Daily Prophet which says Twelve years ago, Black murdered 13 people with one single curse., in a story about the event.
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