During the trial in OotP, everyone in the Wizengamot is impressed that Harry can cast a corporeal Patronus. That much (and other examples, eg. Shield Charm, how little even sixth year students knew of Defense magic in the DA) tells you that Harry is well beyond average in skill than the majority of wizards in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

As for other magic, it's a lot more up in the air. His OWLs imply he's at least capable if not outstanding in Transfiguration and Charms.

Edit: I can somewhat agree with the post above. Had Harry worked harder (and he did for the most part for 4th and 5th year, but what the hell happened in HBP?) he'd have been a lot more capable. It really showed that he should've been working when he was trounced by Snape at the end. To be fair, Snape is shown as one of the most capable wizards in the world we see. Doesn't mean Harry is weak compared to the majority, not at all.

 

"Hey you kids, get off my lawn!"

 

...I liked doing my math homework. And I much preferred reading books over playing sports, even if playing sports could be fun too. I guess my bias is showing here.

I do think that a lot of the habits teenagers develop are directly influenced by their friends, though. If Harry had been best friends first with, say, Hermione, I'm sure he would have shown at least a little more interest in learning magic than what he showed with Ron.

 

Not... really? I play a couple sports and a lot of my friends come from said sports, and I enjoy a lot of my classes in school. It's not a matter of who you're friends with. And, er, Harry was best friends with Hermione. She wasn't some third wheel, if that's what you're trying to say.

 

I know she wasn't a third wheel. What I meant is that, if Harry had a different first best friend in the school, he likely would have been different in terms of what activities he paid more attention to. The boy was starving to have friends when he got to Hogwarts. Hermione did get close to Ron and Harry after the troll incident, but I think that those first few weeks in the first year cemented patterns in Harry's life that Hermione's influence wouldn't have changed since Ron had taken that spot in Harry's life first. He was his first friend his age in that new stage of his life.

Or maybe my perception of canon really has been corrupted too much by fanon?

 

Harry became an Auror (so far as we know, some of Wizarding England's best wizards at Dark Arts defense, and related talents). I think he eventually rose to the position of head Auror.

If you wanted, you could argue that he got these positions based on his name. You could say that if he had to do it all on merit, he wouldn't even have passed the Auror training exercises, let alone risen to office head.

But there's no real evidence of that, and I don't believe it. Based on his success in his chosen field, and the fact that his chosen field represents a type of elite in Wizarding society (with a fairly broad band of expertise, based on the N.E.W.T. requirements), I believe Harry is above average. Not slightly above average, but well above average: 90th percentile or more, say.

I don't think Harry is strong in every area of magic. But this just means that Harry isn't a magical genius; I don't think there are many wizards with that sort of broad proficiency.

 

When I think about it, I can kind of see where, If Harry felt there were a friend he was obligated to please, it would have been Ron.

Hermione is portrayed as friendless and annoying, and Harry helped save her life from a troll. Even a self-absorbed teen, like Harry, could pick up on this and figure (even if only in the back of his mind), that he has more leeway with her. After all, she can't afford to lose a friend anyway, and is particularly unlikely to cast aside Harry, to whom she feels grateful and is beholden to for saving her life.

Ron... well, is probably unfamiliar with the concept of gratitude.

Ron doesn't owe Harry anything, and comes off seeming easily-angered and kind of possessive about Harry's friendship. The only guarantee Harry has that Ron won't simply walk away is that Ron wants to be his friend. Someone with Harry's history might not feel like that's enough to keep Ron in his corner, should he disappoint him.

Plus, let's face it, in order to keep Hermione happy, Harry would have to obey all the rules and do his homework in a timely fashion. In order to please Ron, he has to play chess and goof off.

Putting yourself in the shoes of a teen boy, who has had no friends and precious little fun in his life, prior to boarding school, who would you rather please?

A: The demanding guy who wants you to play games and goof off.
B: The bossy girl who wants you to finish your homework on the same day it's assigned and do what all of the adults tell you.
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Unless I miss my guess, this (in addition to Ron having a small but significant head start as Harry's friend) is more or less what Cadence was getting at.

Now, whether this actually had an effect on Harry's academic work ethic (much like the oft-mentioned "Dursleys punished me for outperforming Dudley." cliché) is up for grabs.

 

What is interesting is how Harry doesn't really have more friends than Ron and Hermione before the end of the fifth year. Harry is the obvious popular type, the rich, famous kid who's brilliant in the most popular sport there is. And it's not like Harry is a loner either, he makes best friends with Ron minutes after first meeting him.

Having a big circle of friends (or at least being better friends with the boys in his dorm) would have made Harry's life in Hogwarts a lot easier, and also made the fanon idiot!Ron redundant. It's not really an issue if one of your friends is jealous for something or occasionally acts like an idiot (read: is a normal teenager) if you have other friends to turn to when that happens. Second, fourth, fifth and sixth year would have played totally differently if Harry had just made friends with the other kids during his first year. And having to adapt into a bigger circle of people might have also been good for Hermione's personality.

 

You seem to forget that there were many incidents(CoS, Gof) that convinced Harry that most of the Hogwarts population was not trustworthy(at least not to the level required). This was the reason he spent most of the times with Ron and Hermione.

Also, if you look throughout the seven books you would find that most students in Hogwarts stuck with groups of 2 or 3. They had many acquaintances but still they spent the time with selected person.

Moreover, Harry himself was a very private person and didn't trust that quickly(Ron was exception, at that time he had found his first friend). He didn't like fame, so by default didn't like people who came to him due to his fame. Also, by the end of 5th year he had many friends(DA members), but still later on we see he sticks to Ron and Hermione most of the time.

So I wouldn't say that Harry not having hordes of friends is out of normal.

 

Yes I know that the Heir of Slytherin incident as well as the Triwizard one surely did make Harry feel most of the other students were just stupid, but both of those happened because Harry didn't have more friends who believed him, not the other way around.

And even if Harry didn't like his fame (is that actually even canon in the first year? I couldn't find any references for that in the book past the fact that Harry was annoyed that he couldn't find the class because of all the people surrounding him. He seemed perfectly fine at being mobbed at the Leaky Cauldron), it would surely have attracted more people to him. And that's the first step to making friends, learning to know who Harry really was would come after that.

The real reason for having only Ron and Hermione close to Harry is obviously that writing a dozen more characters into the story would have been difficult if not impossible, but that's not actually based on the personalities or the universe.

 

Even in first year - remember how most of Harry's own housemates turned on him because of the dragon incident? It would've put quite a damper on his desire to make more new friends, after experience things like that.

 

Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to say! Thank you for getting it. I need to work on making my writing more to the point.

It's not a very "in-your-face" kind of thing, but given that everything we see is from Harry's point of view, it's very likely that he was uncomfortable with all the whispering students gossiping about him in the hallways during his first day of class, overwhelmed after the people greeting him at the Leaky Cauldron, and unnerved by all the staring from everyone during his sorting. The narration mentioned him not liking and avoiding people's stares (sorting and hallways) and having his head spinning (Leaky Cauldron).

That and him being afraid of being sent back to the Dursleys (before the sorting and before entering the Quidditch Team) says a lot about his self-esteem. He's brave, sardonic and relatively assertive, but he's terrible about dealing with many people at once or with others' expectations of him.

Handling Ron and Hermione as his main best friends and everyone else after the DA in a more secondary plane was probably the easiest for him given his personality.

 

Almost wish I hadn't gotten involved in this discussion.

I agree with Sesc- being abused by the Dursleys has nothing to do with his work ethic. Its to do with him being a normal boy.

Harry enjoys reading textbooks the summer before his first year because almost all children will happily learn and read books if they find it interesting. How many kids know a huge number of dinosaurs names or similar random information that they find interesting?

He then lazes about not working hard because its easier to focus on instant gratification, and only focuses and excels if he doesn't have the direct danger of Dementors, Dragons, Skrewts, etc.

I'm sure Ron doesn't help his work ethic, but Harry is almost as bad as Ron. The main difference is that Ron doesn't really ever have the danger to himself to make him grow up slightly.

 

No, you're right. I've given this some thought and I need to lay off the fanfics and go read more books (and the HP books again).

I just wanted to clarify that's not really what I meant. I'm sorry I made it sound like I was ignoring what you said. You have good points, and you're a very good poster.

I'm starting to realize that I just really, really suck at explaining myself and my arguments fall apart as soon as you poke them with logic.

This thread and others have been (this whole site really) have been eye-openers for me, in many senses.

There is really something off about the way I think (I over-think things I shouldn't, don't think enough about things I should, among other things).

I'm still kind of at a loss of what to do now, but I guess taking a break from posting is the best. I'll lurk harder from now on and think twice, and thrice and so on before hitting that submit reply button.

@ Immet, yes, you're right too.

 

The problem with Ron is that he is at the same time an individual example of average teenager, and a symbol for a larger group of friends a person like Harry would otherwise have. It becomes a problem when Ron acts like an average teenager (i.e. not perfect), and Harry finds himself moping that he doesn't have any friends. The real Harry would have a lot of friends even if some of them occasionally acted like idiots (i.e. normal teenagers).

This becomes even more pronounced when every kid in the school shuns Harry for things he didn't do, e.g. the Heir of Slytherin thing and the GoF incident. In 'reality' that wouldn't happen to someone with Harry's personality; Hannah would tell Malfoy to go fuck himself instead of wearing his badge during the fourth year.

 

Well, Harry does have other friends. They're just not his best friends. You've got to remember that we just see the exciting bits of Harry's life, so assuming he exists in a void with only a few people around him is silly, especially since he lives in a boarding school.

 

Did you actually go to secondary school? The majority of young teenagers are cruel, unforgiving, and have no problems shunning those that fall into disgrace socially. You may not want to admit it, but you probably did your fair share of sneering at those you deemed outsiders when you were younger. It's a completely normal thought process actually. The shunning of outcasts is one of humanity's fundamental social dynamics, stemming from latent pack mentality and the desire to conform.

Example: Tara Mulligan from my high-school. She was the hottest girl in sophomore year hands down and definitely one of the nicest. On the weekend before summer break, she got drunk, had sex with a senior, and the asshole posted nude pics of her all over myspace (lol... remember myspace?). By the following school year, she was getting called a slut left and right... even by her 'friends.' No one wanted to talk to her anymore after that.

The point of my cool story? It's pretty easy to go from being the most popular kid in school to the most hated.

 

Okay, your experience of school was very different to mine. Maybe if someone did something embarrassing there'd be a few jokes about it for a while, but the "shunning of outcasts" just didn't happen. Everything would be forgotten within a week. I think the people you went to school with were just dicks, not representative of teenagers as a whole.

I thought the way Harry was shunned in the books was way over the top; it was like a caricature of teenage behaviour.