As a way of fighting boredom while reading Deathly Hallows, I started taking notes of all the changes in canon I'll have to consider in future. So, here's what I've found; passages that could change the way we see HP setting.

Feel free to discuss or add your own.

SPOILERS!

SPOILERS!

SPOILERS!

Trace - JKR’s response to the plot hole riddled explanation in HBP. Really, if the government placed these ‘Tracers’ on people, wouldn’t it make more sense if...

1) They had some kind of registration number, so that aurors can identify who had exactly performed magic?

2) They kept the charms on for lifetime, instead of until 17. That would have practically cured crime altogether; but I guess underage magic is more important...

BTW, when did they apply this trace thing? And can it be removed?

I’ve been wondering about input of religion in HP. Muggle raised Harry says ‘God’, but pureblood says ‘Goodness’.

Spells can rebound on glass? Or just on mirrors? Or anywhere?

Ministry can’t track apparation. The only way to stop someone is by the wards-that-aren’t-called-that or by physically yanking him/her while they are disapparating.

A few things I’ve always wondered about.

1) Hogwarts is the only magical school in England

2) You can get education by being self-taught. I wonder what happens with ‘Trace’ then?

It seems there’s like 50-50 chance of transferring (some form of) lycanthropy on offspring.

Hey hey hey, house elves not only can dual-apparate wizards, they can do it forcefully and through anti-apparation wards as well. The potential for abuse is simply phenomenal.

Since Hermione can apparently do anything in this fic... err, book, does this means you can’t modify clothes magically? Doesn’t seem like such a stretch for people who can shape-shift animals into lighters and such.

Probably just JKR’s girly instincts kicking in...

Ok... so by entering into a Fidelius-protected building you automatically get the secret? Lot of potential abuse with this one; transfigure into a grasshopper and attach to someone’s robes, anyone?

One of the crucial things for understanding wizarding economy.

Apparently, you can take a handful of mud and transfigure it into a sandwich, but can’t conjure an edible sandwich out of nothing? Check.

Apparently, you can also increase quantity, so I guess you can transfigure a piece of sand into a miniature sandwich and then enlarge it... Why not transfigure molecules of air or dust? That’s the same shit as conjuring, right?

Finally a precise year. Notice that Hogwarts was built way earlier, when muggles still knew about wizards.

Hmm, I can see potential plot bunnies where muggles dig out records of an old castle in that area... Maybe even pre-Hogwarts!Harry find it in his school library and goes to check it out?

This used to be an unofficial timeline, synchronized with publishing of the first book.

Well, it’s official now. No more (in-canon) fics with Harry buying iPods and X-boxes.

An important point IMO; only the inner circle members get a dark mark.

This pretty much fixes all those stories where Voldemort’s carefully positioned network of infiltrators get taken out by a simple forearm check at the entrance.

Interesting! More wands = more power.

Does the extra kick come from wands or from the wizard’s magical reserves? How tiring is this?

What about a super!Harry fic where he ties together 100 wands? A magical minigun, anyone?

Yay, the oldest and shakiest fanfic cliche finally coming out of the closet!

Apparently, you can be your own secret keeper; After all, where can you find a better friend (‘fidel’) than in yourself? Gotta take care of the number one.

Too bad no one told Potters that...

Ok, so no one can dispel the Imperius curse on the head auror/Minister of Magic for months and months (and everyone apparently know he’s under). At the same time, a little shower in Gringotts can do it in a jiffy. I guess Gobs don’t like to share...

*snort* Like Imperius hasn’t been overpowered enough already...

An interesting point. Some potentially sweet ideas with Harry mis-banishing a pack of weed and getting the entire universe high...

This is how ‘confundus’ curse works.

This had usually been oblivation in fanfiction, so I guess authors will now have to think of something else.

 

On the other hand I think it will fuck up any transfiguration and charms that any competent dueler uses in battles.

 

That's true. It would imply that one way to overcome some ones' shields is to fire at ti with more than one wand and it'll crumble. Similarly, a shield charm with more than one wand should deflect most spells

One thing though, the book has repeatedly emphasised all this talk of wand-wizard compatibility that how the blackthorn wand was not compatible with Harry while Draco's was. In such as case, a spell cast with three incompatible wands, what would be the power level of that?

 

It never says that Arthur or Bill cast the filedius charms. Just that they were the keepers.

 

So?

That still makes them their own secret keepers.

 

Not by necessity. Someone else (Fleur, Mrs Weasley, etc) could have cast the charm and used their husbands as the secret-keeper.

Though it does raise a good point: why didn't the Potters just have Lily cast the charm and James be the S-K? I remember reading somewhere that the farther away the S-K is from the fidelius, the stronger it is. I think it was in one of nonjon's fics, but I can't really remember. It could have been in DH.

As far as the Trace, I think it makes sense that the charms are applied as soon as a child is written down in the registry for magical children. A MoM employee probably comes and puts the Trace on, and it wears off in by the time the wizard/witch is 17. It's too much of a bother to go around putting it on everyone every 17 years or so (remember, most wizards seem to live to ~100), so they just let it wear off.

Not really a point in keeping the Trace on, since it seems to only be able to detect that magic was used, not each individual spell. (The individual spells that were noted on Harry are, IMO, special cases with how closely he was monitored).

 

If Harry was under a state of more intensive monitoring that allowed the ministry to detect individual spells, wouldn't that have other uses as well? Say the the court doesn't completely buy Dumbledore's voucher for Snape. Slap with the Trace and he's on a magical parole.

Plus, is there even canon evidence that the Trace doesn't detect individual spells?

 

Tonks casting a spell in front of Harry in OotP, and Harry didn't get that added to his underage-magic charge sheet, is one of the Flints that has to be worked around :|

 

IP82 posted:

Or tailoring charms are complex and require a lot of practice to get right. I'd also imagine that the spell would be easy to finite. Also, we have seen in canon what happens when spells are combined (see the annual end-or-year Malfoy Goon Squad hexing). Of course, Hermione has always struck me as a liberated Witch. It may be that she learned to magically knit hats for elves but has never taken the time to learn how to hem and such.

Explained on pg90, Chapter 6:

It seems that just like with all secrets, the more people who know it increases the likely hood of the secret getting out. In this case the Fidelius Charm is destabilized to the point that anyone that can get into the house can become the Secret Keeper.

I took that to mean you can transform one food into another, not transfigure something inedible into something nutritious/tasty.

 

Not really a direct quote but just the fact that Dumbledore's sister blew up because she wouldn't do magic. So apparently if you're a wizards and refuse to tame your magic, or use it in any way...Kaboom.


Edit: Btw good topic, it'll help when writing future fanfiction.

 

The Trace does detect individual spells, but it doesn't detect who did them- just that someone in an area where underage wizards are, there was magic.

From CoS-

"Dear Mr. Potter,
We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was used at your place residence this evening at twelve minutes past nine" (20)

This is when Dobby crashed the cake.

I can't find the exact quote from GoF, but there were weird noises coming out of Fred and George's room, but they didn't receive a letter because there were enough of-age wizards around. It was explained better in HBP, but I can't find those quotes either.

 

Well, Tonks is a ministry employee. It's definitely possible she suppressed the Trace, or had some sort of identification that didn't get picked up by it?

 

The Trace is described in book 6 by Dumbledore. Can't find the quote but apparently it only states what spell was cast not by whom. Thus in magical homes it is up to the parents to enforce this rule.

Also important notes are that Dumbledore does not see socks in the Mirror of Erised, Aberforth is the Hogshead owner.

The ROR can apparently make doors out of Hogwarts, Dumbledore and the Potters did in fact live in Godric's Hollow (they didn't just go to hide there).

A person can tell if they are a metamorphmagus upon birth. So I think it's safe to assume Harry isn't one, and that it doesn't blossom late in life.

Everything in relation to wand theory. Which includes the rules of defeat in claiming a wand.

Splinching isn't as painless as previously thought.

Time still passes even while in a pensieve. Harry spent half an hour viewing Snape's memories. No more time lapsing, uber learning Harry in a Pensieve.


Hogwarts has security measures. However crappy they may be.

There are multiple entrances to the Ministry of Magic, besides fireplaces and the phone booth.

Goblin armor absorbs the properties that can make it stronger.

Crucio does require a want to cause pain. This hopefully puts to rest the medicinal use of the cruciatus curse.

The entrance to the Ravenclaw tower is a riddling door.

Polyjuice potion changes color and taste depending on the person (Harry taste better to Hermione then Bellatrix, least we know shes not a lesbian)

Can't remember her name but the Muggle studies teacher was named. Well she's dead now but at least we know who she is.

Wizards can apparently fly on their own, whereas it has been said they couldn't before.

Grindelwald attended Durmstrang.

Harry is partially related to Voldemort through the gaunts and the Peverell brothers.

 

The Ravenclaw tower door- the password is having to answer a riddle, right? So pretty much any brainy student from another house can enter. Lot's of potential abuse with that one, unless I missed a safeguard being mentioned.

 

I could swear I saw that in a fanfic somewhere, too.

Anyway, re: canon changes.

Didn't JKR adamantly say that Harry and Voldemort weren't related, prior to TDH coming out? Or was that just one of her usual pieces of misdirection to keep fans guessing?

Because if both are related through the Peverells, then there's a possibility that Harry is indeed related to Salazar Slytherin, and could have inherited the Parseltongue ability that way. The usual fanon until now has been that Lily is descended from a Squib off the Gaunt line.

 

Correction: Voldemort can fly on his own. God only knows how or why. If we look at the reaction all the other characters had upon making that little discovery we can safely say that Voldemort is the first wizard to have discovered how to do it, or perhaps "rediscovered" how to during his travels.

I'm in the process of rereading the book now, but I believe it mentions that Snape was able to use Voldemort's flying trick too. If I did read that correctly then we can assume it is a spell of some nature. That being said, we can also be fairly safe in assuming the secret to that spell is now lost.

The relation is extremely distant, more so than even the Potter-Black connection described in OotP. I'll have to double check. However, on the Parseltongue issue the answer is still no. The Slytherin connection came from the Gaunt family's relation to the Slytherin name. The Peverell family married into the Gaunt family (I'll have to double check HBP to see exactly how far back).

 

Yes Snape flies too, and someone says "Apparently Voldemort taught Snape some tricks" or something like that.

 

So why does the Ministry bother putting the Trace on children living in magical households? Those children are either going to be at Hogwarts, where magic is legal, or with a parent, who can do magic, obscuring who cast the spell. It seems rather pointless to me.

Also, how does the spell work? If it sends information through magic back to the Ministry, can the magic be blocked by certain wards? If the Trace is some sort of magic-detection field cast around a person, why doesn't the Ministry apply the same principle to detecting Dark Magic in key areas, such as Hogwarts and the Ministry?

 

The main reason, I would imagine, that the Trace is still placed on children in magical homes is to cover them when they are not home. Imagine a magical child going to a nearby park without their parents and doing magic. They accidentally blow up the park. The Ministry needs to know as soon as possible in order to dispatch Obliviators and Accidental Magical Reversal Squads.

As to your second question, I believe that somewhere in the previous books there is mention of something like that. I won't swear to it, and it might have been fanon from somewhere, but I'm faily sure it was canon. I believe it referenced why Diagon Alley was so unlikely to be attacked. Again, not really sure on this.

 

An alternate explanation I saw is that the Trace thing was developed for a wartime situation and only applied to Hogwarts students as they got on the Hogwarts Express after sixth year.