This is what I had written:

What about Voldemort? He was doing magic, without a wand I might add, when he was in the orphanage. He was casting torturing spells on his fellow students with no training or practice or real intelligence- as a kid is not rational, but irrational. What reason do you give for this? There must have been something at play other than what you have listed for why a little boy with nothing but emotion was able to do magic, when it took Neville years of training to do the simplest spells. This doesn't fit in well with your theory.

Another thing you aren't taking into account, is where magic comes from. You say that there is no magical core, and that you can cast spells better when you have practiced, but what ARE spells? With every effect there is a cause. A magical spell is the effect, but where is the cause? We don't know, as JKR explains nothing, but your theory seems to take into account that there isn't one, or that it is infinite. This could be the case, but it is just as easy to assume that there is a magical core in each human.

This is where I stopped and hit myself in the forehead. JKR tells us nothing. We are assuming everything and there is little point to argue over a theory with no basis in fact. We can only come up with what we see in the book, and your theory seems okay, though I do think the Voldemort thing should be taken into account. I'll argue with you about Wizard v. Muggle, Taure, but I can't argue when I am just trying to pick out little faults in your theory and don't have one of my own.

 

The way I see magic is that wizards and witches all have some kind of energy inside their bodies. The amount of this energy increases (as does the speed of its regeneration) as they grow up and practice their magic. I`d call it magical endurance. And then there is a magical... organ that manages the energy. And this "organ" is what decides wizard`s potential and It can`t be trained as the endurance. A good "organ" uses wizard`s magic more effectively: less energy is wasted, it is more concentrated and effective. Using magic for wizards with a greater MMO (I decided to call it Magic Management Organ) comes natural. Of course, if you are a moron who thinks only of quidditch and girls (*cough* James *cough* Potter) your MMO is wasted.

Surely, wand work technique, concentration, determination and other skills come into play too but they can take you only so far. I don`t believe that Hermione is less intelligent and determined than Voldemort and Dumbles. Her MMO is just not up to their standards.

Squibs, in my opinion, have MMO but their endurance was somehow damaged when they were born and they can`t/barely can access it. That explains how they can see dementors. Squibs MMO "feels" them. That also brings us to how Dumbles feels magic and Harry don`t. Their MMO`s are of absolutely different leagues.

Oh, and finally, on the emotions issue. As I see them, emotions can temporarily stimulate MMO. As to emotion-based spells... (Patronus, Crucio) well, I guess it`s just the nature of the spells. They have to access the caster`s magic through the specific emotions first and then direct it using MMO. In these cases emotions are used as mediators between user`s energy and MMO.

 

It's a well-thought out theory, but it doesn't account for the existence of hereditary traits such as Parseltongue. If wizards can only be born (or gifted in a series of highly unlikely events) with these abilities, then, well, by their very nature they disprove your theory. I also vaguely remember a quote in canon along the lines of "Not every wizard can become an Animagus". It's seldom mentioned, but there's a degree of inborn talent in canon.

 

Would this 'organ' show up in a CT scan?

Squibs can't see Dementors, Figg was lying, as becomes obvious when she couldn't describe the way a dementor moved.

As Taure said, intelligence, skill, etc aren't something you either have or you don't. It's perfectly possible for Dumbledore and Voldemort to have more of it than Hermione. Thus, by Occam's Razor, we don't need any "magical core" to explain that.

 

I dislike the name 'magical core' because it reeks of power levels. I like this skill theory. Also, Voldemort being able to do controlled wandless magic might have to do with him feeling and being able to use his magic better, not his higher 'power'. You know high stress brings out accidental magic, well, maybe he became really good at controlling it.

 

I thought that too Chadrew. Given that we see Voldemort has more of the components that make up 'skill', it would be possible for him (with great intelligence, magical instincts, determination etc) to access magic once he was aware he had it. By practicing (determination, and familiarity) constantly, and manipulating it in new ways (instinct, and intelligence) against people attempting to do him harm (focus, and emotion) he could do what no one else had been doing. Good theory Taure.

Parseltounge doesn't disprove the theory. He didn't say NOTHING was genetic, just that there is other parts to being magically powerful then having lots of mana points in your magical core.

 

No, the nail was hit there; where does 'magic' come from then? There are muggles who are intelligent/instinctive etc- so what is it about wizards which makes them able to do magic?


I qill quote here:

Now, if there is no magical 'core', why would holding on to a mans face take enough effort to kill him? Unless, shock horror, it was drawing magic from Harry to injure Riddle/Quirrell...


Also:

from where does he access this thing we call 'magic'?

His point is that there is no magic actually stored/kept in the body; hence, if his theory is true, then how did said abilited 'transfer' from one to the other? How did Lilly's magical protection stay in harry's blood?

And I wasn't being racist with my comment on Purebloods, nor do I support racism. What I was simply saying is that people saying the Pureblood thoery is bullshit do not look into things enough. Sure, there are obvious differences; Hermione and Neville spring to mind. However, why would tehy base such thoeries on nothing? Even the Nazi's had something to base their beliefs on- the physical attributes of the Aryean race. I'm deffinately not saying they were right, but they did have something as a base. Why would there be centuries of inbreeding when the real key to magic lies simply in studying? Surely it would make more sense to mate with more studious partners, because on their basis that would make their child smarter...

 

Nah, but, I guess, it would show in an aura scan.

Dumbldore said they do.

Yes, it is possible that Voldemort and Dumbles are more intelligent than Hermione. It is also possible that they are not. There is no way to know. I simply find it hard to believe that there's no such "organ". Again, there's no way to know, Rowling made sure of it.

 

No he didn't. He implied it and didn't bother to correct the Wizengamot's assumption. JKR has said on her website that Squibs can't see dementors.

Perhaps you missed the part where touching Voldemort causes Harry great pain in his scar? As if his head were going to rip in two. The Horcrux was injuring Harry, not magical exhaustion.

That would be the magic gene.

This is a question that has no relevance to the theory on what makes one wizard more powerful than other. Nonetheless...

You're making a great many assumptions in your question. You're assuming that magic is like an energy or substance, that has to come from somewhere and is then placed somewhere. Like a magical person is an appliance, and they need a battery in terms of a magical core. There is no justification for this assumption.

I won't presume to say that I know what magic is in the Harry Potter world, because there is simply not enough evidence to say (unlike the plentiful evidence on the subject of skill being the determining factor in power differentiation). However, I can make a guess.

Asking where magic comes from, I think, is a completely meaningless question. It'd be like asking where swimming comes from, or where piano-playing comes from. It is simply a skill that you learn. And just as only a person with arms and legs can perform the skill of swimming (to various degrees of skill depending on the person), so too only a person with the magic gene can perform the skill of magic (also to various degrees of skill depending on the person).

 

I guess I always thought that magic was simply an aspect of existence, like black matter, and some people could manipulate it while others simply don't have that ability. Imagine a subset of human that can hear much higher into the upper ranges - they have the same basic aural organs as the rest of homo sap sap and dogs, but they have one extra bone in the middle ear. It can detect sounds that can't be detected by anyone lacking that modification.

So. Somewhere in your cerebral cortex (or elsewhere, bearing in mind that nonhumans can use magic,) is an organ that can draw upon the magic (or black matter, or phlogiston) and that can manipulate it to your will. Practice, intensity of effort, mental training in conceptualization all aid development of this organ, and its ability to suck up the energy and use it efficiently.

But just like someone with fingers can play piano, and someone with dedication can learn to play at professional level, the World Class musicians have to have exceptional physical attributes as well. The extra-wide reach on thumb-to-finger spread, the heavier joints, and the dense bones at the tips of finger and thumb become important as you reach for perfection. Practice and training will correct or minimize most defects, but people with my problem of shallow shoulder depressions will never be able to get to the top. My shoulders would fall apart if I spent tens of thousands of hours forcing them into repetitive unsupported motions.

Perhaps Harry could have been the Tiger Woods of the Wizarding World, but he didn't start training his talent 'til he was eleven, and even then he never made the kind of daily commitment that would have made him another Riddle or Dumbledore.

 

Hmm, didn't know that. Ok, in this case I can say that squibs have energy and their MMO was damaged instead so they can feels dementors but not actually see them. Although, it annoys me to have to change my theory because of something she wrote on her site and not in the book.

That sounds like drawing energy from surroundings by the "Others" in Lukyanenko's Night Watch.

 

It's not entirely "not in the book". You'll notice that Mrs. Figg's description of Dementors was extremely poor; Harry himself notes that it sounds like she's just seen a picture in a book. It's only her description of the Dementor's effects that convinces the Wizengamot.

...or practically every other fantasy out there.

 

I always thought she wasn't actually in that alley when dementors attacked. She just felt them from some distance. Oh well, I guess that only means that I always was wrong on this one.

 

But if "magic" isn't an available resource, how do magical creatures like unicorns and thestrals exist at all? Thestrals use magic to fly (I flatly refuse to believe that those wings provide enough lift.) Unicorns use their horns to purify water and their blood is highly magical as a potions ingredient. You haven't addressed the issue of Ritual magick or Talents, either: a Veela, who is a magical creature, can cast spells, and has multiple magical talents - charm, fire, and shapeshifting, has these abilities naturally.

 

Again, you're asking questions that aren't covered by the remit of this theory.

This is simply a theory about wizards, and how some are more powerful than others.

Unicorns, Dragons, Veela and other assorted creatures are not wizards.

And we don't know if Veela can cast spells by the way. Fleur was only Quarter-Veela. The only non-wizard creatures we know are able to use wands for certain are Goblins and House-Elves.

Answering your earlier point about Metamorphmagus and other natural magical skills (assuming that there are others: remember parseltongue can be learnt and gained via magic): I would theorise that traits such as these are encoded on a separate, but linked, gene to the magic gene. We can't really know for sure, but that's the impression I always got: that traits such as Metamorphising are separate from a wizard's spell-casting ability.

 

Just mentioning that Harry's parseltongue ability, which he gained from the bit of Voldemort's soul that got stuck to him after the failed Killing Curse, has nothing to do with genetics. It can be included into the theory with just a slight change in that magic is part of the soul, not the body, and thus is passed on through the parent(s) to the child via that.

Being a metamorphmagus doesn't seem to be an inherited ability, though that could be argued to be the unique combination of the parents' souls fusing into a specific form; like how two brown haired parents can have a blonde child (without help from the milkman), only a much rarer scale.

Aekiel

 

I don't think Parseltongue has anything to do with either magical reserves or inherent power. It's the only 'magical ability' that shows a defined lineage of passing from one magical being to the next. The only other thing, to my memory, that has behaved in a similiar manner is the curse on the DADA position. I don't think parseltongue is necessarily an ability, but more likely a really powerful family curse/stigma that had been turned into an asset only recently (by 'recent' I mean with Salazaar Slytherin). But that's a theory I won't expound on here.

Dumbledore aside (who, if we believe him to be a genius, would be the one to learn a seemingly un-learnable language), parseltongue even behaves kind of like a curse with respect to HP: he has no 'real' control over it except when thinking/looking at snakes, and it disappears when he offs Voldemort.

However, I think Taure's theory doesn't completely rule out the existence of 'magical reserves'. If one believes that the difference between a 'powerful' wizard and an average wizard lies in their ability to focus/execute magical spells, then they have to have something to focus. The only analogy I can come up with is to compare wizards and their magic to a car and it's power output (it's awkward, but stay with me here). There are plenty of automobiles that have a low horsepower rating that, on statistics alone, can trounce higher-powered vehicles on a track all the time. An example of this would be to look at the mechanical statistics of a Ferrari F430 and compare them to those of the Ariel Atom.

Then, throw in the human element: driving experience, familiarity with the car, familiarity with the track, etc. Swap these terms for magical tutelage, familiarity with one's own magic, familiarity with the type of magic being performed, and suddenly magical reserves and magical talent aren't mutually exclusive ideas.

I like Taure's theory more than the idea of purely relying on magical reserves, because I feel that modelling one's story to this train of thought separates talented authors from cliche authors; it's much easier to have HP (or whoever) inherit deep reserves of magical power that remove the need for study or practice or...you know...a magical school.

 

Actually, this is a premise I don't think I've ever seen before. The idea that magical abilities that don't stem from non-human creatures are actually hereditary curses is an original premise, as far as I'm aware. It gives much more meaning to Tonks' ability in any case.

Imagine it, the ability to change your appearance to the shape of any man, woman or child on the face of the planet, and all you have to have is a mudblood for a father . It's not the ultimate in poetic irony, but it's pretty damn close!

Parseltongue on the other hand could be the brainchild of Herpo the Foul, or some other such snake-obsessed wizard, who wanted the ability to communicate with his pet Basilisk so it wouldn't accidentally kill him. Add to that a sure fire way to pass it on to his descendants without risking it being used by mudbloods and you've got the perfect method of transferring whatever skills you want without all that bother of training and education.

Aekiel

 

Still, it seems too easy. If talents could be *bound* to a line, then the vast majority would have talents - fire starting, green thumb, night vision, call [animal]. Everyone's ancestors would have gone for it.

Suppose it could be bound, but not as a dominant. Perhaps a curse, no matter how powerful, has to have the perfect subject to take hold. Each fetus has a chance to resist.

I like the possibilities...


Edited to add:
Down in the archives of the Department of Mysteries, there is a cabinet which details old rituals for casting curses on family lines. During a random inventory (generally assigned as punishment duty or hazing the newbies,) this stuff is unearthed and the information is passed throughout the Dept. Parseltongue is specifically mentioned, and the ritual is explained step-by-step. It's nasty, and uses rare ingredients (undoubtedly including the eyes and brains of various classes of snakes,) but none of it is illegal, yet. When the word gets out, up to the political levels of the Ministry, there will be an uproar, and a demand to destroy the information.

 

How about the bright lights we see when a spell is cast, or the creating something out of nothing; this isn't telekenises where they are using mind powers- Magic is described as a force, something that can be moulded to the users will. So, logically, a person would need a 'well' to draw water from...

Ahh, but legs and arms are the tools used in swimming, so what I want to know is; where does the ability to do magic come from, and what 'tools', so to speak, allow wizards to use it (You said intelligence etc makes them better, not what allows magic to happen).

And I do not know how this thread became to discussing power- you title is 'Theory of Magic', not 'Theory on Magical Power Grades'; the real thing you were arguing against was the magical core.

Plus, it isn't a "skill that you just learn", because there are examples of people using accidental magic before they even know what it is (muggle-borns and even Harry).