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"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! He knew a dreadful, gut-wrenching pang for Hedwig as it exploded [...] "
— Harry Potter's use in the Battle of the Seven Potters[src]

The Blasting Curse (Confringo) is a spell that causes anything that the spell comes into contact with to explode. This curse can be very dangerous if not used responsibly.

Known uses

"The snake lunged as he took a running leap, dragging Hermione with him; as it struck, Hermione screamed, Confringo! and her spell flew around the room, exploding the wardrobe mirror and ricocheting back at them, bouncing from floor to ceiling; Harry felt the heat of it sear the back of his hand"
— Description [src]
 Caster(s) Year 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
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]
Confringo

Possible uses

Known practitioners

File:Tumblr lu5zt32HOs1qgt0vro3 250.gif

Harry uses the Blasting Curse during the Battle of Hogwarts

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.
  • 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. 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 some sort of "machine gun" spell.
  • 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.

Appearances

See also

Notes and references

  1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Chapter 4 (The Seven Potters) - pg. 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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