This also assumes that Expelliarmus is a weakass combat spell. You always see Indy!Harry fics where he goes all commando about not using disarming and stunners anymore. It's entirely possible that people use spells like those due to a combination of ease of use relative to their effectiveness. Wizards without wands are shown to be pretty much crippled so its still a hella good spell. Everyone always assumes there are a ton more spells that are waaay more damaging and effective but don't get used because of the chance of injury. The only spells we know that grand an inherent advantage are the Unforgivables and the good guys just might not have the mentality to cast them effectively in combat. (Like Harry not being able to crucio Bella.)

I mean the only reason Death Eaters throw around bad Green Spells and the Good Guys throw around good Red Spells is to have a nice easy contrast between Good vs Evil. And even then, the bad guys still throw out lame spells from time to time.

 

Dumbledore didn't but Crouch did. They were fighting fire with fire. Aurors were using unforgivables. He was absolutely ruthless he even sent his own son to Azkaban. Mostly that was why the ministry put up a good fight first time. The second time they failed epicly because Fudge and Scrimgeour were pussies.

 

That's the thing though. Crouch was losing too.

 

The fight in DOM between the Order and Death Eaters between showed Death Eaters were superior. Tonks and Moody were on the floor, Sirius dead. Then Dumbledore showed up and the DE were shit scared just seeing him and Dumbledore singlehandedly kicked their asses.

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That was my point. It was Voldemort's first reign of terror. Do you think Harry who is the exact opposite of Crouch would put up a better fight if a new Dark Lord similar to Voldemort rose?

 

Yes. We saw what became of Crouch. He was so good at catching DEs that he couldn't recognize his son becoming one right under his nose.

 

Comparing Dumbledore and Crouch isn't very effective, since the wizarding world is a realm where giants still walk. Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindelwald. These are one-man armies, people whose skill is unparalleled and who can only be matched on the battlefield by treachery or another of similar skill. Voldemort on the field means the Order lost that battle, unless Dumbledore is there. Dumbledore on the field means the Death Eaters lose, unless Voldemort is there to stalemate him(and even then Dumbledore beat all the DE's before facing Voldemort in the Department of Mysteries).

The magical world is a place where titans and heroes still walk, and one amazing wizard is worth 100 lesser ones. I hate to make the comparison, but in Bleach the captain class Shinigami can take on essentially endless hordes of lesser enemies due to the disparity of power. Harry Potter has a similar system, though certainly less pronounced.

 

These are rife with the implication that the OOTP and Death Eaters frequently fought pitched battles.

 

That doesn't invalidate my point. When Voldemort showed up in the beginning of the 7th book, that was pretty much it for the Order and they desperately fled while he chased them, flying unaided and killing the most skilled duelist among them. During the DoM battle, Dumbledore waded through the Death Eaters like they were nothing. During the Battle of Hogwarts, Voldemort duelled Mcgonagall, Kingsley and Slughorn all at once despite them having love armor * 2.

They stand head and shoulders above the regular magical population, and their closest competition outside their own tier are people like Moody/Kingsley/Snape, and even they pale in comparison.

 

I agree in general, but it is indeed a lot less pronounced. The exchange between Voldemort and Dumbledore in the Department of Mysteries speaks to this.

This seems to imply both Dumbledore and Voldemort thought the Aurors would have the numbers and skill to defeat him in open combat - and how many Aurors can there really be in such a small society?

 

I thought that was refering to him maintaining secrecy still

 

Possible, but I find that unlikely since he specifically referenced the Aurors - the group of law enforcement that's primary purpose is to combat dark wizards. If it was just about secrecy Dumbledore could have referenced any Ministry group, the press, the Minister himself, or other wizards in general.

After all, it was that the Minister himself spotted Voldemort that forced him to stop hiding, not Aurors. Several Aurors even already believed he was back before Dumbledore's statement. I think the simplest and best explanation is he sited Aurors because in open combat enough of them could actually be a threat to Voldemort.

 

Of course they could. A gifted magical prodigy though he is, Voldemort is only one wizard with one wand. Against ten wizards with ten wands AND Dumbledore he's completely fucked.

 

Yes, but Dumbledore wouldn't be there, he'd be dead. Voldemort said he'd leave before the Aurors arrived but after he killed Dumbledore, so presumably Voldemort believed the Aurors could take him without Dumbledore.

 

I just figured he was boasting.

 

Not necessarily, I think. Whether he believes he could take all of them on or not, he does believe it would be wiser not to have to do so at all. What he says to Dumbledore does not imply an inability to take on a number of Aurors even in addition to Dumbledore, only that he would not have to do so at all.

The person who seems to think the Aurors will make any difference is Dumbledore, but Tom's response is not one that suggests fear so much as a kind of off-handed indifference, like they're so trivial he'd never have to face them anyway. If he did, I really don't see how it'd be any different than Albus debilitating the Death Eaters, especially if Tom intended to kill Dumbledore before they arrived.

 

Seeing how most of the people in the magical UK seem to be either Gringotts employees, Ministry employees, or self-employed in a trade, it is possibly quite a large number indeed, comparatively speaking. The Ministry seems to be the biggest provider of jobs in the magical world. There could be hundreds of Aurors.

I don't think we're talking about two dozen people with wands. Quite frankly, I think Voldemort could probably take that many Aurors on, provided Dumbledore wasn't there to draw his attention and be the bigger threat. I think the threat to Voldemort would come from the fact that the Aurors would just keep coming, and Dumbledore is also there as well. Voldemort could probably take a crowd of Aurors, and he could probably hold off Dumbledore for some time as well. Both would be just too much for him, though. The Aurors could shoot him in the back if he took his attention off of Dumbledore, and if he moved to deal with the Aurors, he'd level himself exposed to Dumbledore.

 

Cannon Harry is not particularly competent, even less so than most fantasy protagonists, who often follow the ordinary bloke with extraordinary power trope. Harry has no extraordinary power--no not even love. Love is an exceptionally ordinary superpower. IndyHarry! fanfiction is all about addressing this incompetence and lack of ambition. It would not exist if most people, while reading the series, didn't think, Harry is complete shit at magic. He should really stick to quidditch

Harry is a jock. Magical duels are battles of wits. Thus nerds like Snape, Voldemort, and Dumbledore are the most powerful wizards in the books. Not only did Harry not become as capable as his bookish betters, he could not have even if he tried.

 

I blame it on Dumbledore, Ron and Hermione. Dumbledore pretty much spoiled Harry. He let Harry do anything he wanted, he pampered him and even encouraged him to break rules. Even when he nearly murdered Malfoy all he got were detentions from Snape. Even then Dumbledore asked Snape to reduce the detentions. Most of the teachers sucked up to him. Ron made Harry lazy like him and distracted him with chess, food and quidditch when it would have better spent learning advanced magic. Hermione was his dictionary. Why go to the Library to learn something when you could just ask Hermione? She did his homework for him, got him through exams. Without her would have started learning by himself and probably beat her in classes like he did in his 6th year with Snape's book. My biggest gripe is Dumbledore not training Harry. If he was busy he could have Snape or even Flitwick training him.

 

I'm not so sure. You're making deductions around numbers, and Rowling's world fails when it comes to that line of thought. By what I read in the books, I think there aren't more than 3/3.5k citizens in magical Britain. Perhaps other countries have larger populations, but Britain does not.

Following the last posts, I always thought Voldemort was boasting in the Ministry fight. When he said he could kill Dumbledore, and implying he didn't care about the aurors arriving at any moment. I can see him fighting against 5 qualified wizards (6/7 tops). He couldn't possibly win against a dozen. He's a genius, but human reflexes are not that fast.

 

Voldemort and his reflexes might not really count as "human" after his re-birth.