Something just occurred to me:

Why does Lucius here own regular dogs (muggle!dogs) instead of kneazles? Aren't kneazles the wizarding version of dogs, only they are smarter or whatever?

 

No, they're the magical version of cats (I think).

 

Damn. I always thought they were the wizarding world's version of dogs. Oh well.

 

Now you're just being silly. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard...

If the dogs are Irish Wolfhounds, the flames would be green.

Then I give you:

Lulz. Okay, that turned out to be more Serious Business than intended. How about...

​

Those would be Crups. They look like Jack Russel Terriers with forked tails, because JKR is obsessed with the things. Their tails get docked so muggles don't shit themselves at the sight of a dog with a forked tail.
Guh, seriously, their heads are the same size as the rest of their bodies.

If Ron's Patronus is a Jack Russel Terrier, and Crups with properly docked tails look exactly the same, then how do we know his Patronus isn't actually a Crup? Damn you and your disingenuous double talk, JKR!

 

I see Harry, in his younger years, looking like your typical nerd.

As he gets older, he'll get better looking. Not drop dead gorgeous, but pretty damn decent.

Or maybe I just can't accept an ugly protagonist. Or can I...?



Guess where I've been the last few days, bitches.

Peeve: Harry who takes a nerve/growth/nutrient potion and suddenly becomes a bodybuilder. Come on, getting a few extra inches of height, I can understand, but when authors make him go from Woody Allen to the Governator overnight, I'm gonna click that red 'x'.

I've never understood the American need to drop "u"'s from words. What, can't remember an extra level? Man, the US Education system is fucked up.

 

All the most powerful wizards are stick thin anyway. Voldemort, Dumbledore...

The only powerful wizard who isn't thin that I can think of is Slughorn.

 

Fuuck Youuu. Suuuck a nuuut.
(Enough 'u's for ya? )

On topic: I agree with the super height/fitness potions, they tend to pop up in auto-fail stories. If physiological alterations were that easy, Milicent Bulstrode would be a hottie.

I think of Slughorn as competent, not particularly powerful.

 

1. He was one of the three wizards dueling Voldemort at the end of DH.
2. He knows a lot about Dark magic - horcruxes.
3. He's a very goods potions maker.
4. He knows, and is good at, Occlumency (Dumbledore says he can't get the memory from Slughorn, through Veritaserum or by force). Being an Occlumens appears to be the mark of a powerful wizard, since all the Occlumens we know of are powerful.
5. He's very good at human Transfiguration, which is one of, if not the, hardest branch of Transfiguration - he was able to transfigure himself into an armchair very quickly and completely. Thus it's reasonable to assume that he's good at all areas of Transfiguration.
6. He's at least competent at charms, judging by the way he restores an entire destroyed room in a single sweep of a wand.
7. He's been around a while, and the longer you are the more familiar you become with magic, increasing your skill.

Seven reasons why Slughorn can be counted as powerful.

This is true. It appears that, from the fact that both fat people and ugly people exist in the magical world, it is not easy to change one's physical appearance. The real question, though, is why this is the case in a society with human transfiguration (should you even be able to age?) and potions that can give you an entirely new body.

Simple answer is that JKR wanted to have a society with ugly people in, but this is rather unsatisfying.

But yeah, with the magic we've seen in Harry Potter, the entire society should be full of beautiful immortals.

 

That's competence. If he was dueling Voldemort alone, I'd use that as an indicator of...well, more competence. Details of spells traded would help indicate if he's powerful, but it's just speculation from what's given.

Again, competence. I doubt that Hermione doesn't know as much about horcruxes at the end of the story than he does.

Then he's a good potions maker. Again, competence.

I thought this was due to the fact that he was a good potions maker, and had an antidote to Veritaserum. And as long as you know someone is performing legilimency on you, you don't have to be powerful to stop them. Draco stopped Snape from accessing his mind, and I very much doubt that he was mind-raping Draco the same way he was Harry.

I can't argue this one, except to say that the chair was, perhaps, more like him than he could properly disguise. I'd equate his self-transfiguration to [can't remember the character]'s transfiguration of a mouse into a goblet, where the goblet still had fur and a tail: if you knew what it was before, than it was rather obvious.

Finite Incantatem?

I suppose that Aunt Muriel would've fucked Voldemort's shit up. Snape's powerful, Voldemort's powerful, and they're relatively young compared to Slughorn.

I suppose if one equates competence with power, than he is powerful; there just doesn't seem to be anything intuitive, or natural, about Slughorn's skill.

 

To me, power scale goes thus:

Weak - Obvious. Crabbe and Goyle level.

Average - Ordinary level. Got Es and As in the OWLs. Ron Weasley.

Competent - moderately skilled. Got Os and Es in the OWLs, Es in NEWTs. Is able to perform common feats of magic, and is moderately skilled in some more specialised areas of magic. Harry Potter.

Skilled - Os in OWLs and NEWTs. Does the magic they know very well, but doesn't excel beyond the school material or do anything particularly special. Hermione, Lupin.

Very skilled - Can perform pretty much any magical feat to a high level of skill. Some creativity and flair. James and Lily Potter, Sirius Black, Snape, McGonagall, Bellatrix, Kingsley etc.

Powerful - Can do everything a very skilled person can do and more. Child prodigies. Creative to the extreme. Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindelwald.

I'd put Slughorn into the "Very Skilled" bracket.

 

Riiiight....seems like I'm splitting hairs, but according to your rating, Slughorn still isn't 'powerful' - which is what I've been saying. I'm done.

Back on the subject of Wizarding Ugliness, I'll bet that the wealthier Purebloods do use liberal amounts of spellcasting and potions to alter their appearance, especially the more inbred families. Let's say that they preserve such potions for their first-born children: a potion that makes the heir retain certain features to make them more appealing to other families. That might explain why Sirius, who should look like a hunchback, ends up being the good-looking one, while Regulus is the mutt.

Another thought: just because Merope might have used a Love potion on Tom Riddle, there's nothing saying that she couldn't have used one on herself. It's like some women today, who get up at 4 or 5 in the morning and do their make-up and hair, so that their significant other doesn't see them in their natural state; maybe, along with ending the love potions, Merope decided to show her "true self" and scared the shit out of Riddle.

 

Blaise, you don't perform occlumency on someone. You perform legillimency on someone, who performs occlumency to block you out of their mind.

And JKR has said that you can use many means to fool veritaserum, including occlumency and transfiguring your voice box (not quite sure how that would work though).

 

See:

Presumably you transfigure it such that you can no longer speak. If you can't speak, then you can't tell the truth.

 

Jesus Christ on a stick.

SEE:

Once more, for clarification:

That's what I'm going by. Done (fureal this time).

@Mordecai: Thanks for the correction, and I thought there was a Babbling potion or hex in canon. I'm assuming that's what would be used when facing Veritaserum.

 

Ah, I see what you were getting at.

I should have been clearer in my use of the word "powerful" - I used it in two different ways. I was using it with a distinction between "powerful" and "Powerful". A very skilled person can still be powerful, but not "Powerful". Non-capitalised is a descriptive term (possessing power) as is normal in the English language, capitalised is a classification/title (because I couldn't think up a title beyond "Very Skilled" that wasn't something lame like "very very skilled").

And now I'm done.

Edit: The word "powerful" is suddenly freaking me out. It's spelled so weirdly.

 

As for magical aids to enhance appearance:
Use of magic to straighten teeth, instead of ugly, painful braces (Hermione, Book2 (I think))
Use of potions to prevent scarring (dittany, book6)
Potions to treat acne (and prevent acne scars)
Minor tweaks to vocal cords (probably only done by professionals, and thus limited to wealthy - *I* wouldn't want to risk a medical mistake)
I'm SURE that magical families start elocution and digital dexterity exercises very early, to help with casting and wand movements later
Harry is the only Hogwarts child I remember wearing glasses. And I bet there is a simple charm to make glasses frames invisible. I remember one fanfiction in which Hermione discovers a charm to correct eyesight. She said that it was developed by a wizard who was so nearsighted as to be nearly blind. If I remember correctly, the charm was difficult and very long, because it had to correct all the ancillary problems involved with distorted eye shape.
Presumably Hogwarts elves keeps track of special dietary needs and will happily arrange for a well-balanced diet.

Note: the actor who plays Longbottom has a gap between his front teeth. His contract won't let him get them fixed til after the last movie.

I've always believed that controlling magic and casting spells uses a great deal of energy, burning calories fast. Slughorn is the only truly fat wizard I remember, and he ate candy All The Time, and hardly ever cast spells.

This is just stuff I can think of offhand.

 

Snape (yellow teeth), his parents, Karkaroff (also yellow teeth), Carrows siblings, Greyback, Pettigrew (although more post-death eater/living as a rat), Crabbe&Goyle, Parkinson, Bulstrode, Skeeter (man hands), Filch, everyone in Knockturn Alley trying to sell shit, the Guants, Regulus Black, Walburga (her name's even ugly), Eloise Midgen.

Plenty of ugly bitches to me.

 

1....Walburga BLACK, my nig, is not a giantess.
2. Nothing is sexier than edible underwear.
3. MIKA likes men.