I wrote a parody of Dumbledore admiring his own wand some years ago, lost it now with hard disk crash.

 

It happened twice in the span of 16 years by two different people, I'd say it's not as unlikely as we may think.

Edit: Plus, DH proved that there is no limit in how big the blanket protection can get, or at the very least that it can be pretty fucking big. You'd think people would notice.

 

Right, this. I've been thinking it may have constituted a kind of magical contract or vow; "No, take me instead!" "Fine! [Death!]. And I lied, so for your son, [Death!]" >>> Magic backfires.

Same sort of thing happens with Harry- Voldemort promises to leave everyone in peace if Harry surrenders. Harry shows up to die. "Aha! [Death!]" Later invades castle, showing everyone the fruits of his bargain: one seemingly-dead Harry Potter. Neville says, "Screw you!" Voldemort cries, "Aha! Kill 'em all!" >>> magic backfires. ('Damnit! I should've expected that!')

Talk about 'old magic': "I promise..." might be more magical than "Please".

EDIT: another plothole- aside from every other Fidelius rule being difficult to follow, how is it that Ron can tell Harry, Dobby and friends to head for 'Shell cottage, outside Tinworth' if Bill's the secret-keeper?

 

Taure: I'm not at all sure it's practical to translate modern political ideologies to magical Britain. I might oppose use of Veritaserum/magical vows in the justice system, but not because I think they're violations of people's rights; rather, I don't trust the administrators not to fuck it up. Like forgetting to ask important questions or killing people through badly-worded vows. Solve those problems and full speed ahead! Not imprisoning innocent people is obviously more important than ideology.

 

Plus Veritaserum isn't a fool proof method of interrogation. There's an antidote, one can over come it through the use of Occlumency and Victims will only be compelled to say what they believe is true. So therefore it would be in effected if memory charms have been used on the witness.. Also a successful insanity plea would throw any answers obtained by Veritaserum into doubt.

 

Uhhh, is this actually canon?

Occlumency seems to be the one thing in pretty much all fanon that doesn't have much connection to what I remember in the books.

Like the idea that occlumency allows you to resist truth serum and makes your spell work better because it helps you focus. And just where did the whole 'building mental walls' thing come from, I don't remember that from the books? (I admit, as it was in HBP, that I haven't read it that many times)

It seems to me that if Occlumency was all those things it wouldn't be an obscure branch of magic.

Also, on the subject of Unbreakable Vows, they could be extremely dangerous. Who decides if the Vow has been breached? The participants? Magic? Is it based on intent or consequences? Does it give any warning if you are about to break it?

If it is based on consequences, or an outside interpretation of intent, well, it makes sense that it would never be used. It's just too dangerous to be used widely.

 

Indeed it is.

 

Wand ownership. It's super vague, with how it's described in book 7. My interpretation (and I believe's it's the correct one) is that it's something special that only applies to the Elder Wand, otherwise you get way too much stupid bullshit happening everytime some kid gets disarmed.

 

JKR's website explanation was that it's something that's somewhat true of all wands, depending on the strength of the pre-existing connection between a wand and its owner (e.g. a strong bond like Harry and his holly wand would be very difficult to break, but winning the loyalty of Neville's pre-HBP wand might be very easy). The Elder Wand is the ultimately disloyal wand, showing the absolute extreme end of the "lack of loyalty" spectrum.

 

Isn't anytime you take an AK for someone (out of love) included in this? This whole Lily love protection thing is the biggest thing that doesn't sit right with me. How does the link between love, the willingness to die and a killing curse create a protection on someone else?

What happens if the mother is in a different country and voldemort tells her he has a Death Eater on the phone about to AK her son and would let her go after seeing the expression of hurt on her face (Because Voldemort gets high on crushed emotions). She says no, kill me instead (She, like Lily, is stupid enough to think Voldemort would let her son go after killing her). He kills her. Does it protect her son?

 

I don't think so. Choosing to die for someone isn't quite the same -- you have to be explicitly offered the choice of not dying, but choose dying nonetheless. Most times it would seem that the person who takes the curse as a sacrifice was in danger anyway - it's unusual for a murderer to be happy to kill one person and to be willing to go out of their way to avoid killing another.

 

What if it's a stray Killing curse heading toward a bystander?

 

Well, that seems to not fit the bill of being offered the choice.

 

Her website explanation is one of those thinks she writes when she digs herself into a hole when it's pointed out, like 100% of her interviews. I tend to ignore them like I do with pretty much everything on Pottermore.

 

How does 'easy' and 'hard' relate to winning wands, anyway? Do they get part ownership? A percentage, perhaps?

It probably means how hard it is to win over the wand.
I guess that no matter how good the bond is, killing the original owner transfers ownership. What about disarmers? They don't work? What about other curses?

 

I don't think the wand loyalty is a plot hole. It's vague, and not easily reducible to hard and fast rules, but that's not a bad thing. The only issue I have is that of the Fidelius Charm-- if the Secret Keeper can be the people being protected, why didn't Lily or James use themselves as Secret Keepers?
Dumbledore was Secret Keeper for Grimmauld Place and was there pretty frequently.
That seems like the logical choice.

 

Well, Voldemort gave Lily a choice to live because of Snape's request.

I dont see Dark Lords or wizards giving their victims a choice when the victim in question has been targetted for more than a year due to being a thorn in their campaign.

Cheers to Voldemort for giving the choice and self engineering his own downfall. Talk about unlucky Dark Lords....

 

I think the easiest solution for the Timer Turner 'why not go back in time and help yourself' is simple: it just never happens. Since the Time Turner creates 'closed loops' (fulfills actions which have already occurred), if the loops refuse to start, there is nothing you can do to force them to. And in fact, their non-existence is self-enforcing. Say you plan to ambush an enemy with the help of your future self, and go all 'and an hour afterwards, I go back an hour and make it happen.' Well, you go fight him... and bam, what do you know, your other self didn't show up. Which means that you can't go back and be him, because you /weren't/.

This is also how I figure the Hermione situation happened. She runs into a future self of hers with a Time Turner, who tells her the unspeakables gave her a time turner. Now, they /have/ to because they already did!

 

The fact that some people seem to need to go back for a second or third wand supports the theory that people lose their wands, or the ability to use it. The elder wand is hundreds of years old yet seems fine, they don't wear out, they lose ability.

Also think, when was the last time you were in a serious enough fight to have been considered "defeated".

We were watching a world at war, in normal life people don't fight and thus it is a massive non issue.

 

Time-turners don't change time, they create stable time-loops that are determined by an unexplained process (source of magic, or something outside the universe). We know this is true because they use information from the future to create themselves, which means that the future has already been computed, but also means that something caused that time-loop to begin with.