He can detect magic? How? Was it in the 7 books or somewhere else?

 

The vast majority of people obey the vast majority of rules the vast majority of the time. You're looking for an explanation for a problem that doesn't exist.

Students don't memory charm Filch (or any teachers, for that matter) for exactly the same reason you don't steal shit from shops.

 

Ignore this post. Was answering a post which had already been answered

 

Book 6, end of book, at the cave containing the locket. This is where he realizes that the door requires blood to open.

 

Speaking of the end of Book 6. Why would Voldemort not consider an underage wizard a threat? He after all created a Horcrux when he was underage. You'd think he'd be more weary than that, right? Otherwise, he was just one cocky bastard not thinking there could be someone at his level at that age.

Anyway. Dark Arts, are they illegal or just frowned upon? When not used to commit crimes that is.

 

Because he was and is an arrogant piece of shit, heh. He probably thought that nobody else could possibly be as talented as he was, is, or will be.

 

The books didn't say anything about the Dark Arts being reglemented besides the Three Curses being made Unforgivable, IIRC.

 

Yep. Doesn't the word of god/pottermore say that curses, hexes, jinxes and otherwise harmful magic are dark magic?

If so, then Harry pretty much taught a large group of people dark magic in his fifth year, and the presumably learned a lot of it in DADA.

I mean, it may not make you puke out your intestines, but the blasting curse seems pretty fucked up. Or that hex that made Hermione's teeth grow out of control.

Maybe there's a difference between dark magic and capital D Dark magic (Dark Arts, if you will)?

 

FWIW, there's a current discussion on Reddit/HPfanfic about this topic.

 

How do you think Voldemort spell in the cave "messures" people?

Harry is only a year away from being a fully qualified wizard, and only months away from being of age. And apparently he is rather talented which might put him above others in this "power" reading.

It seems such a stupid plot device. Almost as if she wanted to remind us that yes, Harry is just a magical schmuk.

Would Hermione trigger it? Being quite a lot more advanced? And of age by this point? Would three under age wizards trigger it where one full and one half didnt?

 

I think its the opposite of the trace that is used to detect underage magic. We have no idea how it works, only that it does.

 

I've always felt it had to be one of either two things:

1. It's simply a matter of Harry being under 17. This seems to be suggested by the text, as Dumbledore says "I do not think you will count, Harry: You are underage and unqualified." We know that magic recognises a wizard's magic as changing in some sense at 17, from the way the Trace broke. I've written elsewhere about how I think magical power* increases with age up to the point of 17 years old.

2. The enchantment is like the Goblet of Fire and is capable of making a holistic assessment of a person's magical power, taking into account all the factors which contribute.

In the following diagram, option 1 would measure the single factor of age, whereas option 2 would measure the entire box entitled "Passive (long term) components".



The one thing which doesn't work is an idea of quantifiable fixed magical power, because in that situation it would seem absurd that Harry's power would be so much smaller than Dumbledore's that he didn't even register.

*Essentially, I do believe that individuals have magical power or "magical footprint" which is magically real, but I don't believe that this is a set value. Rather, magical power is determined by a range of factors (such as age) which contribute to the power of the wizard's spells, factors which only change in the long term and therefore from the perspective of the present can be considered fixed. It's more accurate to say a wizard has magical powers than magical power, however, as in different wizards the "balance" of this power will be different, in terms of tendencies towards certain branches of magic.

 

In complete defiance of everything else presented about magic...

I've always had the impression that this trick operated on a magical signature basis- that there is an 'aura' of influence surrounding your average wizard which emanates farther if said wizard commands a greater influence over their local area. Each wizard's aura can be distinguished by the particular mix of colors and patterns they radiate (for those who can see such things).

Dumbledore by dint of skill, experience and ego commands a very wide radius of nearby space, enough so that his aura 'outshines' Harry's, making Harry effectively invisible to Voldemort's detection on the raft. House-elves are similarly dim, as their power is tamped to only being usable at the will of their owner (plenty of power but no ego).

 

Maybe I'm overlooking something very obvious, but how did Dumbledore and the rest actually know that Voldemort tried to use the killing curse on baby Harry and not a different curse or ritual or whatever?

 

They found his robe and wand, presumably they did prior incatem and saw a killing curse hit harry and bounce off

 

Didn't Pettigrew steal Voldemort's wand from Godric's hollow that night soon after the Potters' deaths? Or was that later?

 

In canon it was never mentioned that the wand was found or later stolen, but Voldemort had it when he returned.

harrypotter.wikia.com says the following on the matter, apparently JKR published that information on her site a few years ago.

Without a wand, no priori incantatem, then how? Was it ever mentioned or hinted at in canon?

 

My theory is that Rowling simply didn't think it through just what happened in the roughly 24 hour period from Voldemort going to the Potters to dropping Harry off at the Dursleys, and it's best left without thinking too much about.

 

Where's the fun in that?

 

EDIT: Didn't know if it was me, but I didn't want to be the guy either way.