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This is the exact quote from the book:

More Killing Curses flew past Harry's head from the two remaining Death Eaters' wands; they were aiming for Hagrid. Harry responded with further Stunning Spells: red and green collided in mid-air in a shower of multi-coloured sparks and Harry thought wildly of fireworks,

How was Harry able to block a Killing Curse conjured by a Death Eater that was aimed at Hagrid in Deathly Hallows?

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    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Aug 18, 2012 at 21:19
  • There was a collision of the spells. This does not mean that the Stunning spell necessarily blocked the other spell.
    – Möoz
    Mar 3, 2014 at 2:06
  • Unless I am mistaken, Avadra Kedavra can be blocked, just not by the person it is aimed at. I do not have the books at hand to quote chapter and verse (or I would have made this an answer), but unless I am mistaken Harry does block a killing curse aimed at Molly by no other than Voldemort himself, shortly before their final duel.
    – DevSolar
    May 3, 2016 at 11:33

2 Answers 2

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First of all, the Death Eaters had implicit orders that Harry was Voldemort's to kill; they had been specifically ordered not to kill Harry.

This is incredibly nitpicky, but it says that the two killing curses missed Harry's head and they clearly did not hit Hagrid. Harry sent stunning spells, but it does not implicitly say he sent stunning spells to block Avada Kedavra spells. It just says he sent stunning spells. As for red meeting green and colliding in a shower of sparks like fireworks, I want to say that Avada Kedavra is not the only spell that is green. Canon says that Avada Kedavra is not blockable (except by Harry's head), so I err on the side that the green lights were other spells. Here's an example of another spell that produces green light that is not Avada Kedavra:

Ron plunged his hand into his robes, pulled out his wand, yelling, ‘You’ll pay for that one, Malfoy!’ and pointed it furiously under Flint’s arm at Malfoy’s face.

A loud bang echoed around the stadium and a jet of green light shot out of the wrong end of Ron’s wand, hitting him in the stomach and sending him reeling backwards onto the grass.

Chamber of Secrets - page 87 - Bloomsbury - Chapter 7, Mudbloods and Murmurs

ETA: Per DVK's suggestion, I'm including my comment made a few hours ago in response to a comment by Pureferret:

I think it has to be a spell other than Avada Kedavra, otherwise it would not be blockable. Snape was a Death Eater and he used Sectumsempra, not Avada Kedavra, during the The Seven Potters scene. A lot of tactics are used during war. Above, I gave a canon example that is green, but is not Avada Kedavra. I'm sure there are other spells in Potterverse that are green, but have been left unspecified by J.K. Rowling.

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    I think if I were a deatheater I wouldn't stop avada kavada-ing. What other spells (besides that minor curse) are green, and they might fire though?
    – AncientSwordRage ♦
    Aug 18, 2012 at 20:49
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    I'm not sure, but it clearly said that the killing curses went past right by him so that's what we have to assume.
    – Anthony
    Aug 18, 2012 at 21:06
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    I think it has to be a spell other than Avada Kedavra, otherwise it would not be blockable. Snape was a Death Eater and he used Sectumsempra, not Avada Kedavra, during the The Seven Potters scene. A lot of tactics are used during war. As for what other spells might be green, I believe you have access to canon as well as I do and are perfectly free to look it up. I gave a canon example that is green, but is not Avada Kedavra, and do not feel obligated to list the color of every spell in canon. Besides, the Death Eaters had implicit orders that Harry was Voldemort's to kill. :)
    – Slytherincess
    Aug 18, 2012 at 21:38
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    I think that last point is very convincing that they weren't using A-K, +1. No, I don't expect you to list every green spell, but thank you for the sectumsempra spell example.
    – AncientSwordRage ♦
    Aug 18, 2012 at 21:44
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    @Slytherincess There's no blocking it if you're hit by it, in the sense that you can't use a Shield Charm (or some other defensive spell) to defend against it. You can use inanimate objects to block the spell, though, as seen during Voldemort and Dumbledore's duel at the end of Order of the Phoenix. I don't see any reason to think that, in the relatively unlikely event that the two spells collided in mid-air, AK wouldn't be deflected.
    – Anthony Grist
    Mar 26, 2014 at 10:50
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I would say that it probably takes a lot of power and effort to cast the Unforgivable Curses so that Death Eaters would have used other spells as well in order to not drain themselves too much. There are a limited number of colours in our colour palette so there are bound to be multiple spells of the same colour (hence the example given above from CoS. The sparks meeting in the air could be a multitude of different spells and curses, obviously not all listed by JK and not heard in the heat of the battle.

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