“If Harry had a magic duel with Hermione, who would win?”
“Very good question! Because until about halfway through Azkaban, Hermione would have won. But Harry – without anyone really noticing it – is becoming exceptionally good at Defence Against the Dark Arts. So that’s the one area in which, almost instinctively, he is particularly talented. Apart from Quidditch.”

Doesn't even make sense. Also funny because I thought Harry got progressively dumber after PoA.

 

It's not only knowledge of spells that matters, though. I don't think Harry would win because he had better spells, but because he's quicker with a wand, has a more forceful, determined personality under pressure, thinks faster on his feet, and quite possibly has better aim/technical skill. Hermione knows spells, but she did score lower in DADA, and there are other factors involved in dueling.

 

Combat instincts can be learnt, though. The kind of general talent with magic that Hermione has is something that would be a lot harder for Harry to catch up with.

The way I see it, Hermione needs to be trained in one thing (duelling) to equal Harry in his specialist area, whereas Harry would need to be trained in pretty much every area of magic to equal Hermione in hers.

 

If we assume that Hermione specifically trains to be able to improve her dueling skills and Harry does not, I concur that she'd eventually progress to the point of being able to beat him.

If both are training, Harry keeps winning. I believe Rowling wanted to show that Harry has more talent in dueling. All other things being equal, talent will keep winning out.

What does talent mean in the context of magical dueling? Well, people have had that debate in forums, fanfic, et al., and there's no real answer. Maybe Harry's reflexes are faster than Hermione's. Maybe her cerebral nature will get in the way of her dueling technique more than Harry's no matter how hard she trains.

 

I always got the impression that Harry had the potential to be great in the sense of Voldemort or Dumbledore, but due to either circumstances, upbringing, or both, had no desire to be so. If he had had the motivation to study as much as Hermione, I feel as though he would have thoroughly outclassed her. As it was, he still seemed to have been, in his areas of interest, at least, more or less equal to her, never needing more than, what, a couple of nights (?) to master even the spells he found difficult, as with the Summoning Charm. There was the Patronus, but he was a third year, and that he eventually mastered it well enough to summon a corporeal manifestation the same year seems to indicate the kind of prodigious talent usually assigned to Hermione.

I'm not saying he ever approached, or even got near, either Albus or Tom, but I always got the feeling that, had he tried hard enough, he could have, which was not a feeling I ever got from Hermione. This is all/mostly opinion though.

Harry was like that kid you knew (or were) in high school who never did homework but still got A's on tests. He didn't score as highly each quarter as the girl who kept her nose to the books, but he did almost or just as well on tests with half the effort.

EDIT: We also have to remember that he trained her in fifth year. However much she may have known, she came to him to learn how to fight. He may know her style well enough from teaching her so as to never be defeated by her in a fight, after that.

 

Reading Harry produce a massive patronus to drive away dozens of Dementors, I was awe'd and imagined an epic titanic duel to death with Lord Voldemort in the final book when I was reading POA when I was a kid. But yeah, like @Afrojack said, I believe Harry could have atleast taken a few steps towards 'greatness' and by that, be as good atleast his parents were, forget Riddle and Dumbledore.

Is it only me or does did Rowling bring down the level of competency of Harry in DH?

As far as the duel between Harry and Hermione goes, duelling is all about dodging in time, getting a shield up on time and shooting hexes and curses. I doubt Hermione can defeat Harry by transfiguring Harry's shirt buttons into beetles or by drenching him. From reading the books, while these mentioned moves can be followed by a good follow-up, I didn't get the feel anywhere that Hermione was creative. Yes, her DA coins were good, but it's not massively creative, is it?

Harry would need extensive training to ensure his grip on magic reaches atleast Hermione's level. 6 and 7 th book's trolling by JKR was the reason I read fanfiction.

 

Harry would win, without an ounce of doubt. Regardless of his laziness in school and personality traits, he's a good fighter and has, like some have said, potential to be greater.
I base my thought on two examples. He had the skill, speed of movement and thought to exchange spells with Lord Voldemort, at the right same time, on two occasions: priori incantatem in 4th book and backfired AK in the 7th. And I know that LV is an incredible fighter. He tops that, just for a couple of seconds, but he does. I'm not so sure about Hermione, though.

 

I'm not really sure what in the books suggests that Hermione is particularly talented at magic. She's a hard worker who studies compulsively and cares deeply about her academic standing, yet still doesn't manage to get perfect grades (unlike say, Bill and Percy), and I think it's fairly safe to assume that she botched the practical, not the theory. She's certainly not terrible, but people who are naturally talented and work as hard as she does end up years ahead of their peers*, not just at the top of their class.

*With a birthday that's just a few weeks after the cutoff she's also one of the oldest people in her year, which is pretty relevant at that age.

 

I disagree, actually. I don't think combat instincts can be learned, at least not completely. I mean obviously you can get better, but there's inherent talent involved just like playing a sport. If catching up to that type of instinct was easy, there would be no such a thing as star players in any sport ever.

Without getting into the question of whether Hermione has talent with magic or not, I think it's silly to dismiss reflexes, ability to deal under pressure and quick responses as something you can just learn.

Hermione is someone who can make a ton of free throws but Harry wouldn't even let her touch the ball, 'is what I'm trying to say. And you can practice your all you want, but your reaction time is still gonna be worse than some NBA player.

 

About the Polyjuice Potion: What would happen if say, you had a hair that was a year old, and you used it in the potion? Would you turn into the person as they are now, or as they were then? Or would the potion not work at all because it's not 'fresh' hair?

 

I'd wager that the one consuming the Polyjuice turns into the form, a person had when his hair was stolen or taken.

 

Actually provides for a slight plot hole (among many larger, more significant ones in Goblet of Fire). In the next paragraphs Dumbledore confirms that Barty Crouch, Jr. keeps the real Moody around so that he can continue harvesting hair in order to make more of the potion. Yet Barty's polyjuiced form does not degrade along with Moody's withering form.

Otherwise Barty would have to keep Moody nourished and at his proper weight. This is obviously a plot hole because where is the line drawn then? Should a hair plucked from Harry's head at age 11 produce a slightly heftier Harry (Dumbledore in OotP, The Lost Prophecy, comments that Harry arrives malnourished to Hogwarts)? It's a silly plot hole that could have been avoided with a simple hand-wave that kept Moody fed. The Polyjuice Potion in GoF allows Barty to take on the voice of Moody (something that does not happen in CoS and DH) and to take on the appearance of a healthy Moody despite receiving the hairs from an unhealthy one.

As to your question, the answer seems to be out of reach until this problem is resolved. Because if the Polyjuice Potion doesn't replicate a person's present appearance when the hair is plucked, no determination can be made regarding hairs plucked a year prior.

At least my opinion. If the issue were resolved, I would say the hair holds the key. A hair plucked from a 12 year old HP will produce a 12 year old HP appearance at the precise time of the plucking regardless of when it's used.

 

I'm bored and just came back from fencing practice, so I'm gonna elaborate on why I think that combat ability isn't just something that you can learn. I mean, my last post was kind of "SPORTS WOOOOAAAAH" and didn't really say anything, so I'm gonna try to explain my point in a slightly better way. Gotta apologize in advance about how long this damn thing is gonna be. I'm gonna compare dueling to fencing for a few reasons--both have somewhat the same stance(yeah, yeah, not quite/movie only I know) and they both require the practitioner to hold a weapon with one hand. Plus the way a formal duel was shown back in book 2 with the small horizontal distance, bowing and all that, is pretty reminiscent of a fencing match. Probably because it's connected to Muggle duels in terms of tradition, but I digress.

Here's the thing. You see ridiculous sword fights in movies and think that it's just a bunch of wild swings, but it's not. People call fencing "Physical chess" because it requires an absurd amount of measuring your distance and predicting what your opponent is gonna do. If you are thinking "What the hell does this have to do with Harry Potter?" my answer is that most combat sports that involve a lot of thought just like fencing. Kendo has different but similar trains of thought involved.

So, assuming that dueling requires similar trains of thought(really not that much of a stretch) then wouldn't Hermione be great at it? I mean, it's all about intelligence and she's very intelligent right? Wrong. Being intelligent is only half the deal.

If you go to an advanced fencing class, you are gonna have a tough time finding somebody who doesn't do every technique in the book correctly. But those people don't always win. In fact, most of those still aren't good enough to place well in local tournaments. And this is how this relates to Harry Potter--there are WAY too many variables involved in dueling.

You can learn the general principle behind it--certain movies invite certain reactions, and you have to find out a way that leads to your opponent making the wrong move. This is something you can learn by practicing. But during an actual match, there are so many variables involved you can't expect to know all of them before the whole thing goes on, you gotta learn as you do it. For example, say your opponent is circling his sword around yours(pretty standard thing to do). What's he gonna do next? Is he gonna keep attacking or is he gonna retreat? Is he bluffing or not?

That's the kind of quick-learning that generally determines how good somebody is in any given sport. In a combat sport, you have to be able to not only think really damn fast but you also have to be able to learn and adapt to your opponent as you go.

Let me put it this way: the moment you have your opponent completely read and understood, that's when you have the match won. Of course, you don't really need to completely understand him to win the match. Sometimes just learning his basic mindset is enough for you to score a few key hits. But that's not something you can learn by reading a book or even by getting lessons. You can improve on it by having lots of matches, sure, but there's still some talent involved.

Here's an example that relates to both fencing and dueling:

Say you see an attack coming toward you. Should you dodge it* or block/parry it? You may know what the standard advice on that type of situation is, but the thing is, combat isn't very neatly presented. It's very damn tough to tell sometimes whether a situation calls for move A or move B. Accurate combat awareness--that is, knowing exactly what's going on at any given time during a fight, is a very important skill in combat sports(I imagine for real combat as well--though I have little experience with that) and one that can't be learned easily.

What I mean is...Hermione can get all the practice she wants and learn how do a ton of spells as well as dueling techniques. Great. But just like the fencing guys that know how to do techniques correctly I mentioned earlier, she would lose in an actual duel because she would have no idea when to use the right technique.

Let's imagine a scenario:

Say somebody throws a spell at her and she blocks it perfectly with some kind of amazing counterspell. This hypothetical situation would also gives her opponent an extra second to prepare another spell. Her opponent keeps casting spells, and Hermione keeps blocking them. The pace of the duel would totally belong to her opponent--he has an extra second of advantage. This mysterious opponent has one extra second to do whatever he wants, while Hermione has no such luxury because she has to keep blocking those spells. This extra second can then be used to close in the distance between the two, to make it harder for her to block spells, or for the attacker to change his stance. In other words, Hermione made a bad call and this gave her opponent the advance--like if she was playing chess, she would just have made a very bad move here.

Harry, on the other hand, would have dodged as opposed to blocking it. Then he would have fired back an offensive spell as opposed to a defensive one so that the flow of the fight would go right to him--he'd be the one with an extra second. Why would he do that? It's nothing as abstract as instincts, it's just that people who are good at sports(like he is) are especially gifted when it comes to reading a situation very quickly and choosing the best possible move, which is vital for dueling and something we saw him do a thousand times.

Stabbing a basilisk was insane, but it was the best possible move at the time. His realization of the time travel dementor situation in book 3? Quick thinking. Fighting Voldemort in book 4? Ability to keep your own pace during a duel. That moment also shows Harry considering what his best choice would be. He considers disarming Voldemort, but also understands that it was a checkmate in terms of strategy even if he did win. He goes over a duel in his head in a matter of seconds while he's staring down a murderous dark lord.

That doesn't sound like much, but being able to run over an entire scenario while your opponent is staring you down is really damn hard and not something you can learn to do very well.

My final point being that dueling is about both magical ability and the ability to think through your opponent's moves. The latter is much more important than the former, because as far as magical ability goes, it's just like fencing--it doesn't matter how much better you are than your opponent, if you are hit by a bad strike, it's just as bad as being hurt by a good strike.

And...learning how to read your opponent and how to be aware of your opponent's mindset, as well as how to choose the best course of action in a split-second...really isn't something you can learn how to do. I mean, you can definitely improve on that, but you can't match somebody who is particularly gifted in that regard(like Harry is) with practice. It's just not something you can learn that easily, especially not on a theoretical level.

Aaaaand that's why I think Harry would win every time. Woah that was really long. Kind of hate myself for writing all that really. But I really like to talk about dueling mindset so, uh, yeah.

*Dodging is, in my opinion, almost always the bad choice in fencing unless you are in the middle of an incredibly heated parry where it feels like there's barely a difference in skill between the two and any move could make a difference. But WHATEVER IT'S CLOSE ENOUGH FOR ME TO MAKE THE COMPARISON WITH SPELLS. GAWSH.

 

Doesn't help that Hermione has been shown to panic in situations such as that, to the point where she completely forgot about being able to use magic a time or two.

 

I'm not sure if sports are the best comparison for whether combat ability is possible to learn. You'd think military training would be the most obvious comparison. The first issue in a real combat situation isn't skill, it's not losing your head/actually being able to do anything other than cower in fear.

 

I assumed we were discussing Harry and Hermione dueling like in book 2, which seems to be some sort of sport(one Flitwick is champion in) which would make fencing a better comparison than military.

Thing is though, I think wands are more comparable to swords than guns. Yes I'm aware how dumb that sounds, but the way duels are treated in canon as well as how fights are described...it really feels more like that, in my opinion. The similarities between wizard duels and Muggle duels notwithstanding, the 1-1 scenario involves a completely different kind of psychology than the one you'd need in say an army battle(which is where I think military related analogies would work better).

Plus fencing wasn't always a sport, it's a descendant from duels noblemen had to settle arguments(sometimes to the death) and the sport's rules were shaped to try to recreate the psychology involved with that.

 

I think probably the person they were when the hair was taken. There's no 'connection', I should think, so it shouldn't change. Imagine it like cloning: the clone is an identical copy of the animal the original genetic information was taken from, at the time of harvesting. I don't think there would be a time limit, because what would the time boundaries be? It'd be completely arbitrary.

 

Re: polyjuice, there's another option: you turn into what The Matrix referred to as your "residual self-image" - a kind of abstracted version of how you look, not subject to temporary conditions like bad hair days or being locked in a trunk, but nevertheless able to change with time.