Grindelwald I see less of then the other two.

Grindelwald I usually see him Voldemort .75 but with new Big Bad addon if that makes sense.

Luggage: Usually seen as this thing that you can LIVE IN INDEFINITELY. It's got 10 rooms, one living room, a kitchen, and even a bedroom!

Basilisk Armor: Magical armor that can stop everything short of the three Unforgivables.

Edit: Hmm...

Marriage contracts: All powerful soul binding documents based on the word and magic of the parents that should technically in no way shape or form affect the children(Slash woo!)

 

I wasn't saying you need the intent for a specific effect. Just the intent to cast magic at all.

 

I don't really get why magically binding marriage contracts is such a popular idea, since they're basically always far less interesting than the social pressures involved in RL arranged marriages. It doesn't even seem easier to write; "Girl X has to marry Harry or be disowned, but neither of them particularly want to be married to each other" is a story that basically writes itself. For the retarded stories with a HP/GW contract that's an evil plot by the Weasels or Dumbledore, penalty clauses for breaking a contract are a pretty normal thing. so adding in Magic Bullshit is completely pointless.

 

Which is only further proof of the inherent inferiority of the British way of doing, well, pretty much everything in comparison to the way we get things done here in the Good Ol' U.S. of A. Here, the President picks his his minor staff with impunity, and the major Cabinet posts with only a cursory Senate heari- oh wait, no, it's a complete and utter clusterfuck of gridlock and dumbfuckery.

Carry on.

I was about to say something like, "Duh, of course it will," but that actually is a valid question. Hmm...

I agreed with you right up until that last sentence, then I was like, "wat."

No, actually all Crouch Jr. said was that he doubted he'd get more than a nosebleed even if every student in the class got up and cast the Killing Curse at him. Which implies power, to me, though you could of course argue 'intent' as well.

Yeah, no. Look, we can all try to twist the evidence to this (admittedly, satisfying) view of intent-based magic in HP, but that's never really supported much, and is certainly hard to argue until very late in the series when JKR had to find a way to plausibly wrap it all up.

This is the problem that's always been there with HP magic, and is the main reason why the universe breaks down when any of us try to expand stories past Hogwarts and the YA bubble. I'm no fantasy or sci-fi expert, but the only other related series I have experience with is The Dresden Files, which for all its flaws has a pretty well though-out magic system, at least to my novice eyes.

In HP, the "magic words" and their pronunciation along with a precise "swish and flick" are the introduction given by the charms professor in the first class. I do not remember any mention of 'will the feather to float' or 'imagine the feather is floating' - just "say it like this, move your wand this way."

This and, more strikingly, Harry's first use of Levicorpus, are exactly my point. Yes, Harry "intended to cast magic" but that's not the point and it's completely contrary to everything he and the other students are taught from First Year - the spell requires a specific incantation to be spoken a very precise way, quite possibly along with a specific wand movement. without the right combination the results can range from absolutely nothing happening all the way up to something catastrophic for yourself and/or those around you.

An interesting and valid point.

TL;DR - I dunno. Author fiat?

Which is why approximately 99.999% of marriage contract fics are not worth the time you'd spend reading the summary.

(1) The Diagon Alley (or, better yet, Harrod's) shopping trip. If you're going to turn the cliche or trope on its ear, do it right: Biuld it up as this blockbuster event with anticipation all around, and then either complete it in a single, spartan paragraph, or have something fairly mundane come up which results in the shopping trip being aborted and Harry goes off to Hogwarts with all his old Dudley hand-me-downs, including some tent-sized undies with proportionate bacon strips. Now that'd be ballsy, Cheddar.

(2) Actually, number one is all I got right now.

 

I am not entirely sure if it is stated outright, but did Voldemort use the Harry's blood to circumvent Lily's protection? If so does that imply that if Voldemort had gone along with Wormtail's earlier suggestion and used another wizard, it would have been impossible for him to kill Harry Potter?

 

Lily's protection would have broken the moment he turned 17 no matter what, so it wouldn't have made much of a difference either way.

 

That's true, also if Lord Voldemort hadn't used Harry's blood, the Horcrux inside the teen would have to be removed in other way. And Harry would have been killed in book 7.
The blood connection between HP and LV was one of the things that had Dumbledore banking on Harry's resurrection.
It's interesting how the Ritual and subsequent fight between both wizards cemented the field for Harry's ultimate victory

 

Really? I was under the impression that the horcrux was simply a weaker attachment to Harry's soul and that if there was an attempt to kill him, the horcrux would take the first blow, before Harry would be left truly vulnerable.

How did the ritual and the blood connection help in Harry's resurrection?

 

Because Voldemort didn't "negate" the protection, he simply distributed it to himself. So while he himself was alive, he couldn't magically kill Harry (I imagine that if he dropped a boulder on him, it would have been quite deadly).

 

Indeed, but I thought that the Lily's protection was limited to protection from Voldemort's touch, since Quirrellmort was able to attack Harry magically before. Contradict me if I'm wrong but assuming Voldemort didn't use Harry's blood for the ritual and then cast an AK in a duel against Harry, he would be hurt (as happened in DH) because his horcrux would take the first blow and be "knocked" off. However I assume that if he cast a second AK, it would succeed in killing Harry, ritual or no ritual.

 

I understood it as Harry's blood acting as an anchor, like a not-exactly-horcrux. When Voldemort AK'd Harry, the soul fragment was destroyed so Harry wasn't tethered to the living world. Since Voldemort still had the snake horcrux the shared blood created a sympathetic link that allowed Harry to come back from King's Cross. At least that's how I tried to rationalize it in my head.

 

How did the ritual and the blood connection help in Harry's resurrection?

Yes, in part. Thanks to the Ritual, Harry's blood acted as an anchor, so when Lord Voldemort cast the Killing Curse, the only soul not protected was the little peace from Voldemort. But, that's not why Harry survived. He needed this:

- LV with his blood for the anchoring
- Mastering of the Elder Wand
- Willingness to die to save the world
- Horcrux in his living body
- Being hit with a Killing Curse

This are all the ingredients to "resurrect" like Harry did.

Without the "ingredients" listed above, I believe that Harry would have died and the peace of Voldemort's soul would have had a Boy-Who-Lived body to use.

 

The "Willingness to die to save the world" bit, iirc, doesn't protects Harry himself, but bestows a protection onto the other combatants on Harry's side - much like Lily's on Harry 16 years ago.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Who would win in a duel, Harry or Hermione?

My moneys on Harry but it'd be interesting to see...

 

First duel - Harry.
Second duel - Harry.
...
Tenth duel onwards - Hermione.

 

My first thought was, "what the hell Taure of course Harry would win every time." And then I figured out your train of thought. Something like that is probably the case.

 

Hermione. Not afraid of Harry so she can't choke up. Easy win.

 

Rowling has said that any time after half-way through third year, Harry would win.