Agreed. I don't think JK Rowling was thinking/agreeing with the idea that power and abilities should scale accordingly to a person's rank. The head of the Aurors is an administrative position after all.

We've been too accustomed to the tradition of most fantasies whereby the leader seems to be chosen because of his martial skills rather than his ability to organise things.

 

It's not just a tradition of fantasies (though I get where you're going there; 14-year-old General Princesses don't seem to surprise the average Manga reader). In most Law-enforcement and Military organizations, a Chief of Detectives or Colonel is expected to be a veteran of duties- proven in the field to understand the needs of their people, while still political enough to recognize where the priorities are determined.

Both Scrimgeour and Bones were recognized as competent, even gifted combatants, as well as able administrators. In fact, Fudge mentions that Voldemort himself was required to take Bones out, and she was reported to have died in her home, alone.

So, Harry could become a badass Chief Auror- an experienced and talented combatant. That doesn't make him a maestro.

Dumbledore and Voldemort had near-absolute command of their local environment. It was only in battling each other that they met their match, and if Destiny wasn't a factor, Dumbledore could have pasted Voldemort in the Atrium. He would've just had to stop wasting time and attention in protecting Harry.

 

JKR said in interview that Harry became Head Auror immediately after DH.

But we can just ignore that.

Edit: I keep hearing this "Dumbledore had a massive advantage over Voldemort in the Atrium battle" thing. Are we reading the same scene? They were more or less equal - if anything Voldemort had the edge. Only the intervention of a third party - Fawkes - prevented Dumbledore from being outmaneuvered and taking a Killing Curse to the face.

And after the initial animation of the statues Dumbledore didn't have to do anything to protect Harry. He wasn't distracted during the fight - unless you're talking about movie version.

 

Just a thought, and I agree with Taure that Dumbledore's victory wasn't guaranteed, but does it seem like Dumbledore was playing it defensive almost as a way to instruct Harry?

'Here's the sort of magic you must respect- if you're fighting some curse-wielding duelist, you'll be fine. It's when you see the opponent turning the world against you at several strata that you must truly beware. Of course, once he and I are gone, I doubt you'll see anything like this for a while...'

 

Don't know about Lord Voldemort having the edge, if it wasn't for Harry he wouldn't have escaped from Dumbledore's water prison; and, again, if it wasn't for Harry, Dumbledore would have gone all out in the first time, I think.
Dumbledore won the psychological fight from the start, Voldemort was fighting with fear.

 

Dumbledore also might have summoned Fawkes to intercept the Killing Curse at that juncture, or at least been banking on his incredibly powerful phoenix to protect him, or intervene, in some way. I do, however, agree with Taure in that Dumbledore's advantage in that fight is sometimes overstated.

 

I think that he was more concerned than afraid and that too because he saw his plan falling apart and he thought he might be exposing his return to the ministry.

Dumbledore wasn't just trying to protect Harry, he was also trying to keep V there for as long as possible, in order to prove his existence to the ministry, whose arrival was imminent.

So I think both V and D weren't going all out because taking each other out wasn't their goal at the time.

 

Dumbledore also wielded the elder wand. That in addition to the phoenix, I would say he had a decent advantage.

 

While I may agree that Dumbledore had no intention of trying to kill Voldemort, the same can not be said in reverse. Voldemort was doing his very best to murder Dumbledore in any way he could. If I can reach far enough and use modern or martial combat as a metaphor, it's much easier to kill than to incapacitate or delay. Especially when you're using a spell that can only be blocked by a solid object.

I'm curious. I'd always assumed that the killing curse hits its target at the end of the last syllable, rather than acting as a projectile after the incantation is finished. It would be far too obvious and easy to dodge, otherwise. Also, Snape was definitely able to deflect spells prior to the completion of their incantation in the duel with Harry. Yet we have instances like the ricocheting densaugeo hex in GoF. This clearly shows spells as projectiles that need to be aimed. Should I assume that some spells work as projectiles and the Unforgivables are especially dangerous because they have no obvious trail towards a target, or should I ignore the Snape/Harry duel?

 

This is how I picture all spells. Dodging, blocking, parrying, shielding, spells hitting each other and ricocheting, all the visual aspects of spell formation, etc. - this all happens during the incantation. If you're using defensive magic in response to another person's completed spell, you're too late. Defensive magic has to be used prior to or simultaneously with the casting of the offensive spell to catch it.

 

If that's the case then shields or counter-spells must be near-universal. It seems to me that a simple finite incantatem should be able to reverse nearly any spell. They cast a magic and you cast magic back with the intent of ending theirs. It's as simple as that.

Otherwise, defensive magic would be useless. If a specific counter-spell is required for a specific hex, jinx or curse then you would need mind magics to provide the precognition for that to work out. I'm pretty sure Occlumency and Legilimency would be much more important, if that was the case.

 

"I do not think you will count, Harry: You are underage and un*qualified. Voldemort would never have expected a sixteen-year-old to reach this place: I think it unlikely that your powers will register compared to mine".

This is just a nice way for Dumbledore to say that Harry is simply not on his and Voldemort's level in terms of magical power. Harry could master auror- level spells, but he could never handle the kind of magic Tom and Albus use in MOM unless he does rituals to increase his power.

"Harry, you were never a good Occlumens--"

But Malfoy is good one. Harry more or less is powerful as Malfoy. Malfoy is smarter but Harry is a lot braver. Malfoy is Harry's equal.

Harry Is an average Joe, who will, with the power of his mother's sacrifice who defeated the darkest dark lord in history

But another thing:

Maybe someone should write a story where Harry is not powerful at all. He does rituals to increase his power.

That would make a killer Dark/independent/evil Harry story.

 

Reading the DoM battle again, there is definitely evidence that spells are projectiles that can be dodged and that take time to reach the target. For example Harry manages to get behind Bellatrix and fire a stunner at her, but she manages to deflect the spell back at Harry. Unless you think that Harry is pro-noun-cing the spell extra slowly and carefully there has to be some time between the Harry finishing the incantation and the spell hitting Bellatrix' shield, unless you want to claim that Bella is a seer.

And reflecting spells in the first place mean they have to be projectiles: otherwise Harry's stunner would have hit Harry at the same moment it left his wand, and no matter how good reflexes Harry has he couldn't have dodged his own spell behind the statue.

I see long incantation simply as one of the killing curse's disadvantages.

But really, this is yet another case of JKR not thinking the magic system through. Slowish projectiles and longish incantations mean you couldn't hit anyone with a spell from more than a couple of meters away, but yet the fact that people are routinely dodging spells mean there has to be enough time to do so. So really the magical duels work purely based on the rule of cool (I mean, really, what other reason would there be for Dumbledore to trap Voldemort into a blob of water?).

 

No one is saying that spells don't travel between caster and target. The question is when they travel:

1. They start travelling during the casting, and reach their target at the moment the casting is complete.

2. They start travelling when the casting is complete.

The problem in determining the answer is that the first will look like the second due to the linear way you have to present narration. Only in exceptional cases would the differences become clear - cases like Snape blocking Harry in HBP.

Though if one considers the movies authoritative in any way, one would drift towards the former.

On the subject of people dodging spells, people overestimate how common it is. I once did a search through the HP e-books and could only find two examples of spells being deliberately dodged. There were more examples of people diving out of the way during the casting in an uncontrolled, mostly luck kind of way, and a few examples of spells missing, but very few actual dodges.

 

Except for the Dumbledore-Voldemort duel in Ootp.

 

I could be mixing up the movie version with the book version, but I'm pretty sure that during that duel, Dumbledore and Voldemort incorporated more of a attack, block, parry, and redirect style than anything involving dodging. It seems like at their level, they let their magic do most of the defense work, rather than physically moving their bodies.

 

There was dodging, the thing is they used apparition to do it, there wasn't physical dodging.
Rereading the duel once again, it was the best from the series, no doubt about it.

 

I don't see Harry ever becoming as great wizard as Dumbledore and Voldemort. While he sometimes showed impressive results in Charms (Patronus) and DADA, he never showed much interest in magical theory. In fact, he took 'easy' subjects as electives without checking if they are really useful or not.

Just look what his peers were doing while Harry was wasting his time on Quidditch. Maradeurs created a Map; Snape invented new spells; Weasley Twins, despite unimpressive grades, proved to be brilliant inventors. And Harry? Even after the numerous attempts on his life he still isn't taking his magical training seriously.

Could it change when Harry becomes older? I doubt it. Working shifts as Auror and having a family with three kids doesn't leave you a lot of time for studying. The best I can see him becoming is Auror instructor or Hogwarts professor, but that's all.

 

Meh, I could see him becoming head of the auror office on fame and what skill he has. He isn't bad at dueling, and auror training would probably bring out the best in him. Give him a few decades of auror work, and he'd be promoted.

 

Can't give a thumbs up, so quoting this.

Not to mention, that frankly, Harry just isn't a bloody genius like those two. He just doesn't have the nack of power.

Fixed.

---------- Post automerged at 08:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:15 PM ----------

I read it as implying that Dumbledore+Aurors was enough to assure that Voldemort would be taken down. That Dumbledore alone wasn't quite capable of putting Voldemort down for good, they were too evenly matched and frankly, if he could have, Dumbledore already would have. But Dumbledore is more than enough Wizard to demand Voldemort's full attention, and a team or two of Aurors added on to that would be clinched victory.

However, just Aurors alone and Voldemort would decimate them, massacre them with a decent amount of speed and quickly degrade their over all fighting capacity. Not to mention that Voldemort could likely smash right through anything that would prevent him from exiting the scene, like Anti Dissapparition Jinxes, without Dumbledore keeping him occupied.

---------- Post automerged at 08:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:56 PM ----------

Especially with his Death Eaters indisposed.