And tricking the goblet would of took some power atleast.

 

She considered killing members of the so-called 'trio' numerous times during the writing of the books. It's more like, 'Hermione won because Rowling wasn't about to kill one of her two admitted self-inserts.'

It sets my teeth on edge a little when people call what Harry does against death eaters 'dueling'.

That's kind of like trying to say a cops versus gangsters shootout is the same as 'pistols at dawn - twenty paces, turn, and fire.' The closest we really get is the graveyard in GoF, and that's just because Voldemort started it off with a mockery of dueling procedure, then told his flunkies not to interfere with his big moment...

...until Harry kicked his ass in the battle of wills and started to escape.

Fine, fine; maybe it's 'formal dueling' and 'dueling', but you still call them both the same thing. I just don't care for it. It might be a nitpick, sure, but I wouldn't be the first.

And, the counter for the jelly-legs jinx is just "Unjellify." :awesome

Pfft!

Draco is a twat. He's only dangerous because he's a rich asshole with resources, a politically-connected family, and has a sense of entitlement a mile wide, alongside the willingness to cause people pain... though he's more comfortable doing it by proxy. Part of that is down to his perception of who counts as 'people' and who counts as 'animals'. "You'll be next, mudbloods!" Who cares if you die, it's not like you're human or anything.

It's amazing how dangerous people can become, once they've been convinced by someone, or convinced themselves, that a certain group, class, or culture isn't really human or worthy of things like basic human rights.

And, if you put those people in matching uniforms by Hugo Boss, look out...

As far as skill goes... Draco had a decade head start on Harry as far as knowing about magic, then had the same teachers for formal schooling, and where did it get him?

Nowhere; he's a pushover.

 

I just found out he got 12 OWL's. Taking down Moody and tricking everyone including Dumbledore and getting Harry to win the tournament. He is a pretty compotent Death Eater.

---------- Post automerged at 10:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 AM ----------

Tbf Malfoy learnt Occlumency, found a way to get Death Eaters into Hogwarts and also had Rosmerta under the Imperius for ages. He even tried to use the Cruciatus on Harry.

 

Learning Occlumency seems to be a matter of temperament rather than intelligence, knowledge or skill. We know Harry as an iron will - he could resist the Imperius curse. So it's not about that - or at least, not completely about that.

It seems to be more about a certain subtlety of mind. The ability to compartmentalise. To order your own thoughts and master your own mind, rather than be led around by your emotions. I don't see any reason to think Snape was lying when he said Harry had such problems with it because he wore his heart on his sleeve. Harry's not the kind of person to hold back on how he feels, not the sort of person to stand by or stand back.

I don't doubt that Hermione would be very good at Occlumency, like Malfoy was. She's got much greater control over herself. Harry tends to follow his feeling and gut instinct a lot more.

But in the end he did seem to master some kind of bastardised form of Occlumency, at the end of DH. Maybe even innovated a new form of the art - one that played to his strengths.

 

Is it just me or does Harry generation suck?

In the Maruaders generation you have talented people like Snape, Lily, James, Sirius, Lupin, Frank, Alice, Lucius, Crouch, Bellatrix etc.

In Harry's generation only Percy, Twins, Hermione and Harry himself are talented.

 

Harry's generation got rid of Voldemort and the death eaters, while the previous generation or two... didn't.

 

Harry was every bit as gifted at Defense as Lily, Snape, or James in their respective fields and face it, success in school was never a priority with all the other things happening. I think basing Harry's "power levels" or whatnot on his mediocre academic performance is misguided. More telling is that in every instance where Harry truly applied himself, he proved to be a phenom.

80% of success in any complex endeavor is mindset/attitude/effort, not natural ability. Harry proved he could overcome natural ability with effort. Coming home safely at the end of the day to the one thing he always wanted in life, a family, is a hell of a motivator. As Taure notes, the Auror job is likely to be far more complex than simply fighting with magic (also supported by the requisite coursework for the job). What's to say that Harry wouldn't master a broad spectrum of talents once saving the world was no longer on his plate? While his Head Auror appointment could have had a political aspect, it's unlikely that it was all politics. Harry certainly never came off in canon as one to cash in on fame and accept unearned glory.

In reference to the OP's question, I'm of the opinion that in adulthood, Harry would have ended up a 2 on Taure's "power levels" thingee, just below Voldemort and Dumbledore and on par with Lily, Snape, etc., certainly not so far down the list as some would place him.

 

I'm a little confused, I admit. My canon is rusty, so I'm struggling to remember where Lily is quoted as being such a skilled witch. I mean, besides the praise of the 'Harry your parents were such insanely good wizards' variety.

 

Well, Slughorn seems to think that she was prodigious at Potions. Given that he also taught Snape, that's considerable praise.

Ollivander says that her wand is specialised for Charms. We know that wands are meaningful - your wand's abilities are not a coincidence. They match your own qualities. So it's likely that Charms was her best subject, which, given her ability at Potions, is also saying something significant.

She was Head Girl, which seems to go to straight O students, so she was very likely highly competent in other areas of magic that were not her specialties.

In the OotP memory scene James considers her a threat. He actually hesitates when she points her wand at him, and not just because he fancies her.

And, of course, you have multiple mentions of how talented she was in general.

Edit:

I'm not sure about this. I mean, Harry is certainly gifted at defence relative to his peers, but I'm not sure if he's gifted at it in the same way Snape was at Potions/Dark Arts. Harry has been known to struggle with the material (non-verbal casting), which isn't really a sign of someone who is highly gifted. He also wasn't very innovative: where the Marauders made the map, where Snape created spells and adapted Potions, Harry only performs magic as it is taught to him. Perhaps his autodidact version of Occlumency at the end of DH is a divergence there, though.

 

Many characters (e.g., Slughorn) referenced her prodigious magical skill throughout the series. She could cast a corporeal Patronus. She was Head Girl. She faced and held her own against Voldemort three times. She had conscious control over her "accidental" magic, which is incredibly rare, as we only hear of one other character having that ability to any significant degree (Tom Riddle).

And then she defeated Voldemort.

 

That's pushing it. The defeat of Voldemort had nothing to do with skill.

 

Well, she figured out a protection for Harry that would result in Voldemort's death (as far as she knew, anyway, since she had no inkling about horcruxes). Voldemort basically fell into her plan, and his body was annihilated. This is assuming Lily actually did something to protect Harry before Voldemort arrived, with her acting as a sacrifice. It's possible she didn't do much of anything to cause Voldemort's Killing Curse to backfire and that was just destiny or some bullshit, but I don't buy that at all. She must have cast something to protect Harry, or else why would he have had those blood protections at the Dursleys' for all those years?

Anyway, Lily paid a high price, but she did beat Voldemort.

 

She conferred a powerful enough magical protection to do what no witch or wizard had ever done up until that time: defeat the Killing Curse. Said protection lasted for nearly sixteen years past her death.

Only one other witch or wizard in history ever replicated that feat (Harry).

 

Personally, I always assumed that Harry wasn't academical but if put on practical things, he could do it like everyone, if not as efficiently. He didn't go after the knowledge, just the intent of doing something because it was required of him. But I still would like to think that he had the potential in him, just not the mindset.

For instance, if the situation required, he could also do whatever those people in level 3 of Taure's scale would do, perhaps level 2 also. He may not be efficient, but he would do it. Talking about scales of magical abilities = :facepalm

Also, that scale can't be held true for every scenario, because fuck, magic is involved.

 

This is not how it is described in the books. At least, we are not given any indication that Lily performed any magic in order to convey this protection on Harry.

Unless there is word of God on this, it was merely her choice to die that protected him, which is not a feat of magical strength/ability.

 

Not quite. It was her choice to die while having a chance to live. James also died for Harry but didn't grant any protections due to the lack of that chance: Voldemort was always going to kill him. It has to be a sacrifice, a true sacrifice. It's not a sacrifice to throw away rotting meat and its not a sacrifice to give a life already forfeit. Read the explanation here if you care too. But otherwise, you are correct. It was her strength of character which allowed her to cast the protective charm, not any skill with magic. It was her choice to die when she might have lived.

I find it quite interesting that it was the very same qualities which let Harry go onto defeat Voldemort. Not skill with magic, not laser eye beams but the power Voldemort knows not: love.

 

LOL.

As examples go, that's kind of flimsy.

I do believe Lily was skilled, don't get me wrong; however, if a chimpanzee were pointing a loaded pistol at me, it would give me pause, too.

That doesn't mean the chimp is a skilled pistolero, it just means he's pointing a lethal weapon at me, and I'm capable of having thoughts.

EDIT:

Yeaaah.... but, they did most of that stuff while at school. Hmm, what took up most of Harry's free time at school, when he could have been 'innovating'?

Oh, right, solving mysteries, suffering horrific visions, trying not to be murdered, and doing the adults' jobs for them when they couldn't or wouldn't step up to the plate. What an underachieving little fucker.

And, the first person to say "...chess matches with Ron.' gets cock-slapped. I'm pretty sure none of the other 'prodigies' mentioned spent 24 hours a day studying and inventing shit, either. Snape probably spent a good deal of his free time sniffing after Lily, James was playing stupid pranks, Dumbledore was writing songs with Bernie Taupin...

 

Yeah, it's doubtful she cast any spell. Not least because Harry didn't when he did the same thing in DH. But it's possible she still did it knowingly - though Voldemort didn't expect it, he certainly understands it after the fact. As does Dumbledore.

From what we see, it seems to involve several elements:

1. The sacrifice must be by choice - you must make the sacrifice willingly, and you would not have died had you not offered yourself so. Lily was given the choice to stand aside, Harry made the choice to go into the forest and face Voldemort.

2. The sacrifice must be genuine: you must believe you're going to die. Thus why Dumbledore had to lie to Harry and Snape about Harry dying. If Harry had known that he could come back, the sacrifice wouldn't have worked to provide protection.

3. The sacrifice must be your first resort. You cannot offer fight and then, once defeated, offer yourself as sacrifice. You have to sacrifice yourself without resisting.

The three combined would explain the rarity of the situation.

I just don't see there being any such division between theory and practice. I see trying to cast magic without knowing the theory as like trying to build a bridge without knowing engineering. Perhaps you might be able to happen upon a way of doing it, but that would be very rare, and the result very simple compared to what you can do with engineering knowledge.

It's true, we're never explicitly told in the books "you need to understand magic to use magic; the better you understand it the better your spells will be" but I don't think that makes it less canon. It's a case of show vs. tell: every instance of magic or description of magic users backs it up. Wizards known for casting powerful spells are praised for their intelligence and knowledge, good grades are equated with ability with magic, all the best wizards are known to have a good grasp of theory. We don't see any instance of a stupid person, or someone presented as lacking knowledge, casting advanced magic.

Of course, this unfortunately means that Harry is not so great at magic - the idea that he's good at practical magic but not great at theory has long been the last resort of the fan desperate to deny canon and have a classic hero who is strong and powerful.

But we have to face it, I think: Harry is not meant to be good at magic. We can write him as such in fanfiction, but in canon that's not who he is. His virtues were always meant to be non-magical in nature: moral fortitude, bravery, determination, and the aforementioned intuitive judgement.

That said, I think it doesn't make Harry as bad with magic as people fear. I think Harry understands theory a lot better than people give credit for. He has, after all, been studying it for all his time at Hogwarts. His very ability with magic is testament to the fact that he understands magic pretty well. It always annoys me when you have post-OotP fics where some most basic part of magical theory is explained to Harry. No: he learnt that stuff in first year.

The books don't really show Harry in class much, or casting regular magic. That doesn't mean he doesn't know it. Harry knows a lot more about magic than we, the reader, do. By the end of the books, he can probably transfigure most objects into pretty much anything he wants. Perhaps not perfectly, but well enough. He should know a hell of a lot of Charms for basically any situation. He's not a dolt.

I'm not sure if the anology holds:

A) a pistol's ability to do damage isn't relative to the person holding it (beyond their ability to aim).
B) the effects of a pistol can't be stopped by me having a pistol too; in this case James is also holding a wand, and we know that he's good at using it.

 

Shut up and enjoy a good monkey analogy, you grim, joyless, punk!
Monkeys are funny. You laugh. You laugh, now!