I'm thinking of writing (or trying to write) a story where Harry kills Voldemort in a straight fight, while trying to avoid Harry becoming super powered in a few months.

So if Harry actually studies seriously from second year onwards how powerful/skilled/strong... would he be realistically when he graduates? (And no I don't expect him to kill Voldemort just after he has graduated.)

No objects that mess with time, no legions of tutors or freak accidents just a student with a lot of raw potential who studies.

For that matter how powerful/skilled... was Voldemort when he graduated?

 

While you can increase in skill and knowledge, you don't increase your strength. Strength is mostly natural. You're born with a certain amount of strength. You can augment it through rituals, but if you want to avoid rituals, he can't really increase strength by studying and practicing.

If you do have him study hard for 6 years I suppose he would be the top of his class. Above average in strength since he is naturally pretty strong, and probably more skillful and smarter than the average adult wizard.

Not sure about Voldemort when he graduated. Ask Taure.

 

Riddle was strong enough to attract a cult following and to make a horcrux. I suspect he was not too shabby.

I'm not sure what you're asking, actually. "Harry's core is bigger than a breadbox!" or something? (Sorry, Taure). The whole issue of magical power is only nebulously described in canon, so I'd think you could do with it what you want in fanfiction.

For what it's worth, canon Harry, though a slacker, is still very powerful. While in school, he could dispell 100 Dementors with a single Patronus, throw off the Imperius with ease, cast two of three Unforgivables, Dual-Apparate across Britain, Accio a broom from hundreds of meters away, and resist Veela charm.

The Dementor/Patronus thing alone means you can pretty much make him whatever you wish to, short of blue tights, red cape, and acquiring x-ray vision.

 

I suppose it would be better to say "how well trained/skilled?" rather than powerful.

 

If you do want to have Harry beat Voldemort in a straight fight, there should be a fair slice of luck involved. But he should be studying as well as making his own customizations of spells in particular and magic in general.

Visit this thread and a few others like it for ideas:
http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=9652

Edit:

Not quite. Like Perce says (and provides examples for) Harry is powerful and fairly talented. Also he is knowledgeable in Defense (teaches the DA). But he is not a particularly challenging opponent because he is a bit of a slacker.

 

It's that slacker bit I plan to slowly change. So to reiterate what kind of wizard would harry be when he graduates if he wasn't a slacker?

Obviously not in Voldemort or Dumbledore's league, but around trainee Auror level? Older Malfoy?

 

We know that on their top of their power, Voldemort and Dumbledore were equal. We also know that Voldemort intimidated Dumbledore while still in school, and that Dumbledore did things with a wand nobody could while still in school. Also, snape was made a teacher slightly after he graduated because he was the best of his class. Aurors need three years of additional training, so the avarage and above avarage wizard probably still have room to grow after Howgwarts.

Harry should probably be between the skill level of a fully trained auror and snape.

 

Grubdubdubdubdub has the point. It largely depends on the amount of time one spends on studying. Riddle and Dumbledore have been top students and didn't stop learning and researching after they left Hogwarts. The same is likely be valid for Snape, he even invented his own spells during his last two or three schoolyears.

The classes as far as they are mentioned just provide basic spells and little advanced knowledge of magic. Arithmancy and Ancient Runes might be more specialized in understanding magical theory and might help along the way to learn more complex branches of magic.

Just reading books won't be enough - Hermione is an example for that. But her knowledge exceeds that of most classmates. Harry should be able to reach her level without 'serious' problems.

 

The bit about dementors and Harry's power level brings up the one thing that makes Harry's magic more powerful than many - and it's something that Voldemort doesn't have - his emotions.

That's what fueled the super-Patronus, and also what makes him terrible at occlumency. Taure mentions it frequently when he discusses magic theory, and if you read Dresden Files, then you have a better understanding of what I mean, as it's more explicit there.

So one believable and canonical way to do this would be to have him be able to make use of the power boost his emotions give him to fuel some pretty wicked spells.

 

/me sighs.

I'm not even gonna bother with the "there's no such thing as raw magical power/strength" thing. There are other threads for that, and it's not as if they're hidden.

This doesn't really say anything.

The Patronus charm? Based primarily on emotion, not technical skill. Thus capability with the Patronus charm doesn't translate into capability with other magic.

Resistence to the Imperius? From what we can see, that's based on sheer stubbornness. As we saw, the "willpower" Harry showed in resisting the Imperius translated neither to skill at Occlumency or non-verbal magic, so again it seems to be an isolated skill, useful for just that one thing.

Not particularly hard.

Again, not particularly hard. Apparation is a skill akin to driving. Takes quite a bit of work to get the hang of it, and can have disastrous consequences if you do it wrong, but a skill that almost anyone can achieve.

Once you've got the summoning charm down to pat, I'm not sure if distance actually matters. Remember the suggestion that Harry summon an aqualung from the nearest Muggle town? And the charm itself isn't anything spectacular.

And resisting the Veela charm may be something that occurs differently in different translations. In the British version of GOF, Harry is about to chuck himself off the bop box of the stadium in an attempt to impress the dancing Veela.

Now to answer the original question: how powerful a 7th year can be.

I would say pretty damn powerful. Just think about it for a moment. Remember the duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort in the Ministry of magic in OotP: the highest level duel we've seen in canon, between the two most powerful wizards in history.

With the possible single exception of Dumbledore's unknown spell, all of the magic they used in that duel is taught within Hogwarts. Animation, apparation, transfiguration, levitation, conjuration, even the Killing curse: all are (or rather, can be) learnt at Hogwarts.

What determines the great disparity of power between wizards appears to be not what they're doing, but with what level of skill they are doing it, and how they apply it.

So the ingredients are all there for a 7th year - all the knowledge is available to them, if they desire it. The only thing limiting them is their own skill, and this varies wildly. For someone like Tom Riddle, I'm convinced that he didn't increase in power much between his last year at Hogwarts and when he emerged as Voldemort, though of course skill appears to naturally appreciate with age, the more familiar you become with magic.

 

Voldemort tried to kill Harry 17 years. He failed a lot of times, at a heavy cost, but tried it all the same the next year. Stubborn!

Dumbldore is told Harry will suffer for 11 years and stuck to that decision, for all that time. Stuborn! He also been in Howgwarts, where magical prats are found with ease, for over fifty years. Will power!

So yea, stubborness and will power is a good start for being a super-mage. That, and a crappy childhood.

 

Correlation =/= cause.

I'd say that Voldemort's decision to keep going after Harry was related to a lot more things than stubbornness. Revenge, anger, necessity and fear prime among them. I'd also call it more perseverance than stubbornness. Finally, we've never seen a single stubbornness-based magic, so it's benefits are limited only to the mundane, not how skilled one is magically.

Similarly, I'd say Dumbledore's decision to leave Harry with the Dursleys' was more one of sacrifice than stubbornness.

Finally, notice the fact that I put the word willpower in inverted commas, suggesting that I don't think that Harry has willpower at all. As I say, he is stubborn and this has sometimes been mistaken to mean that he is possessing an iron will, but he really isn't. He has very little self control or discipline. As Snape says, he wears his heart on his sleeve.

The qualities (though they can also be faults) I'd say that Harry possesses are fearlessness, stubbornness, a willingness to sacrifice himself, and a (rather twisted) unshakable sense of right and wrong.

 

I was kidding, man... all you really have to do to be a good wizard is to believe.

And what's correlation

 

I don't know if it is right to say that his emotions make him terrible at Occlumency. Dumbledore himself, I am sure, is in touch with his emotions so to speak but is by no means a poor occlumens. Harry's lack of progress is I think a combination of piss-poor teaching, and the growing strength of the link between him and Voldemort. Also I think his curiosity towards the dreams made him less keen to pursue it as he should have. He had the same problem with the patronus after all. He hit a block of sorts with the spell because he was not sure whether or not he wanted to stop hearing the voices of his parents.

 

Hmm. I'd say that the difference between Harry and Dumbledore is that while both undoubtedly feel strong emotions (and Voldemort does too, of a different sort), Dumbledore is able to separate himself from his, whereas Harry is not. Harry is a slave to his emotions. Dumbledore is able to rise above them. This is what makes Harry suck at Occlumency and Dumbledore so good at it.

 

Edit: Never mind

 

Have to agree with that.

@Insanity: If you want to make his Harry be able to fight Voldemort and win you should find some way to become a lot more wise than he is. Canon Harry is a bit like Naruto really; not in the stupidity but in the stubbornness about his feelings in an I-am-an-ignoramus kind of way. While this seems to work for Naruto, it won't for a Harry that has to beat Riddle in a straight fight.

 

Which is exactly why Hermione Granger and Percy Weasley are the two most magically fearsome Wizards of their generation. I stand corrected.

 

I don't think a smart Harry can ever best Voldemort in a duel. Considering the fact the Riddle is 70 years old, and has practiced the "darkest of arts" for his whole life. No matter how smart an AU Harry is, he should never be able to beat Voldemort in a straight fight while he is still enrolled at Hogwarts. If he is truly wise he will not attempt to do so in the first place.

 

As I said, it's not about what you know - Hermione and Percy both have good knowledge - it's about the skill with which you use it, and how imaginatively you apply it. I would rank Hermione and Percy as medium-level in terms of skill (they're good at picking up spells and have "book smarts", but don't have much of an instinct for practical magic) and low-level in terms of creativity. They're knowledgeable, in other words, but they lack flair.

The difference between Hermione and Dumbledore is the difference between a good physics student and Einstein. The physics student may be smart, he may be able to understand all of Einstein's work, but Einstein is at a completely different level, being the one who came up with the stuff in the first place. That takes a whole different kind of intelligence than merely the ability to comprehend, and it's what sets the averagely good wizards (e.g. Hermione, Percy, Lupin) apart from the great (Dumbledore, Voldemort, Snape, Lily, James, Sirius).