To the best of my knowledge the only time Harry has exceeded Hermione in anything magical was The Patrous Charm. Everything else, Hermione has either matched him or beaten him.

I think you're mixing up combat prowess and magical prowess. Yeah, Harry is better when it comes to a fight since he knows stuff like dodging (Yeah it's stupid but the characters acutally dodge spells in canon though not as over the top as in canon) from quidditch, able to think fast when put in a fight (Unlike Hermione who would freeze up) and just has more experience.

Who's knows more/is better at magic? Hermione. Who's better at using magic in a fight? Harry.

 

Patronus charm (and actually using them to fight off a large number of dementors)
Fighting off the imperius curse
Casting the cruciatus curse
Casting sectumsempra
Teaching the DA
Scoring higher than Hermione in DADA OWLs.
EDIT: Let's not forget. Actually being able to get on and use a broom competently.

Perhaps you are mixing up theoretical knowledge of magic with magical prowess?

I'll repeat it again, both Hermione and Harry have things they're good at. They're both well above average when it comes to magic, but with different approaches to it.

 

Except Hermione never got a chance to do most of those things.

• Nobody ever cast the Imperius curse on her so we don't know if she can fight it off
• She's never cast the Cruciatus so we don't know how good she'd be at it
• ^ Same with Sectumsempra.
• As for teaching, let's just remember, "Those who can't do, teach", shall we?
• As for her DADA grade being the only non O Grade (being an E), that's more a case of Rowling just wanting to make Harry look good in one thing compared to Hermione.
• And what has being able to ride a broom got anything to do with this?

 

Really, this is an argument you want to make?

 

That's a joke, not an ironclad rule.

Also, I distinctly recall Hermione getting #rekt fast in the Ministry break-in, especially in comparison to Harry.

 

They chose Harry to teach the DA over Hermione — at her suggestion — because he could do more than rattle off a bunch of spell names and how their respective wand movements. He had practical experience actually defending himself (and against Death Eaters/Voldemort in particular). But even scholastically Harry's been beating her in DADA since third year any way.

 

Whether Rowling wrote this with that purpose in mind or not, it's canon. You can't just ignore it because it doesn't fit with your views, Hermione is extraordinary but no one is good at everything (except that she is good at DADA too, just not as much as Harry).

Also, broom riding skills are part of a wizard's repertoire, don't forget they had a class about it, which means the ability to use one appropriately was considered essential enough to be in the most prestigious magical school's curriculum.

I'm going to tell that one to my uni's professors, they'll be thrilled to know the true reason why they are wasting their lives teaching and not doing stuff that people who 'can do' are busy with.

 

And you'd be wrong.

He beat her in divination. I do not know why everyone wants to forget that Harry actually foresaw the future. That the class might be mostly bullshit does not change the fact that Harry successfully did it.

Flying is a magical skill, and Harry also beats Hermione at it.

He also beat her at Potions, like a boss. Once he had a class and professor not sabotaging his work. Seriously, just imagine what that class was like, when NEVILLE of all people actually enjoyed taking his Potions OWL, compared to a standard potions class. An exam students freak out over for a year, and Neville looked happier in a potions lab than Harry had ever seen him.

And of course, Defense.

So 3 of his classes, plus flying, at least.

Possibly, Harry's Apparition where he side-alongs Dumbledore at the end of Book 6 also shows an aptitude greater than Hermione.

Hermione is not a genius. She's a very bright girl capable of following instructions very quickly, but she's not innovative or ever really shows an intuitive understanding of magic. She does not invent spells, or win awards for exception spell casting, or recognize when a potion could be improved, or do anything remotely on a level that would tend towards actual genius.

And what is this *knows stuff like dodging.* Where in the books is Harry ever acclaimed for knowing how to dodge. Sounds like fanon mumbo-jumbo to me.

 

Sorry dude, but out of all the ridiculous arguments you could have picked, this is probably the worst. Never mind the fact that a huge number of scientific/humanitarian breakthoughs happen within universities IRL, but you're talking about the freaking Wizarding World, here. Look at the Hogwarts staff roster, and then look at the Ministry.

It took four wizards to Stun McGonagall into submission. Flitwick was a duelling champion. Snape not only invented spells, but was considered by the most powerful wizard of the age to be one of the most skilled practitioners of mind magics alive. And Professor Sprout is just badass, siccing plants on wizards and shit.

So the fact that Harry was able enough to essentially teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at a post-OWL level in Hogwarts, of all places, is rather remarkable.

P.S. In case you want to use the argument that Snape wasn't supposed to be a teacher in the first place, I point you to his predecessor: a man who duelled Voldemort and lived, was capable of warping memories, brewed Felix Felicis, and was a glorified chair Animagus.

Seriously: don't underestimate teachers.

 

I think fake Moody cast the Imperious Curse on her in 4th year, and if that's the case, we do know that she couldn't throw it off. We also know that she could barely cast a Patronus, so Harry has that on her.

As for the teaching thing, I'd like to remind you that Dumbledore was a Professor mentored by Nicholas Flamel.

Harry and Hermione were two different people with different skills. Hermione was far more academic than Harry and, in certain areas, more intelligent, but by the end of DH Harry had a better understanding of magic. And going by canon, a motivated Harry is quite talented.

 

What exactly has flying got to do with how powerful a wizard is? Herblore is a magical skill, you don't see nayone using that as argument for why Neville is powerful.

The only reason Harry excelled in potions in Year 6 was because he had Snape's book which were basically the cheats to potions. He essentially just followed the instructions, anyone can do that.

At what point did Harry foresee the future? Divination is not a skill that can be learned, only a few people can be seers. This is more or less canon.

As for dodging - Why are you refuting a point I made in Harry's favour when you seem to be on his side? But what I meant by that was he seemed to be able to take cover quite a bi in Goblet of Fire (Which I admit is far away from "Dodging").

Okay guys, I probably went the wrong way about the teacher thing. I was just trying to point out that just because you're able to successfully teach a subject does not automatically mean that you can beat everyone else in that subject.

We seem to have strayedaway from the thread slightly so I'll just reiterate. Harry is not an average wizard, he is at the very least above average but may in fact be "Gifted". The only reason I brought up Hermione was to make a comparison and how "powerful" may be interpreted. Hermione is better at magic, Harry is better at using that magic.

 

Harry saw the future during his final in third year when he saw Buckbeak escaping.

And what do you mean Hermione is better at magic?

 

I believe he's doing that because he believes in actually talking about canon when one is debating about canon. This is a difficult topic, I'm given to understand.

I'd rather contest the notion of "Hermione is better at magic", really.
Hermione is better at rote memorization, of theory or of spells, which has nothing at all to do with magic, since it's a talent that can be used just as well for other areas of study.
Harry is better at using magic, so I'd rather call him the one who is "better at magic", as meaningless as that label is.

 

1. You'll note I highlighted part of your quote in my original response. We are discussing elements of magic in which Harry > Hermione, not how powerful (for some undefined metric of powerful) Harry is. Harry exceeds Hermione in flying. Flying is a magical skill. Ergo, it is false that the Patronus Charm is the only thing Harry succeeds Hermione relating to magic.


2. Cheats at potions - wtf are you talking about?! Hermione reads a book of instructions. Harry reads a book of instructions. If literally the only thing that matters in potions is being able to copy instructions, then something is very wrong regarding Harry's first five years of class, because clearly he can follow instructions perfectly. And that thing was Slytherins and Snape actively making the class a hostile environment.

If 'anyone' can do that, we ought to see every Hogwarts student getting an O in potions, but they don't. At some point, to brew a perfect living death requires more than just reading super seekrit instructions. Harry has that 'more'. Hermione doesn't. Sucks for Hermione.

Course, even with all that bullshit Harry still pulled an E on his OWL. Good work, Harry.

And Harry isn't just regurgitating shit from a book like a robot, he retains knowledge and can use it in high-stress situations. See: Bezoar.


3. Harry foresaw the future when he looked into the crystal ball in his 3rd year exam and saw Buckbeak escaping.

It doesn't matter if divination can or cannot be learned. It's a magical talent, and one that Harry exceeds Hermione. But I think you're wrong here, and that while Divination is mostly an innate ability, the ability to predict the future can to some extent be learned. See: Arithmancy. I don't buy Divination being a 100% bullshit class. Maybe 90%, but Harry's crushing the 10%.


4. Because what I care about are the facts of the matter. That it perhaps superficially supports my position, it's an absurd argument to offer that Harry is *good at dodge ball*. I'm less interested in being right (though that's easy for me to say, since I so often am) than having an argument that makes sense.

 

I've been arguing that Mrs. weasley and Ginny are not the most powerful characters in the series for a good part of the holidays. I simply don't know how my sister came up with that theory.

 

I talked about this fairly recently, but for the life of me I can't find the post or indeed the entire thread where I talked about it in so I'll just go ahead and get into this again with a slightly more expanded version.

Right, I guess the best place to start is here. It's important because it is an area of magic. If you are a squib or a muggle, you aren't going to be able to fly on a broom. There is a class on flying taught at Hogwarts, and Harry is insanely talented at it.

I don't think people really appreciate how talented he is at it. When other first years are struggling to get their brooms to jump up into their hands, his goes right into his hand. His first time on a broom is in that class and without receiving any instruction he instinctively knows how to fly so well that he can track a Remembrall (described as roughly the size of a large marble in the books) through the air while performing a 50 foot dive and he catches it.

Now, this is pretty important as in my opinion this is perhaps the first instance we see where Harry interacts with a very subtle form of magic and simply gets it without needing it to be taught or explained to him. A month or two after his first flying lesson he is beating people at a game he just learned about when they have way more experience flying and playing the game. He also used flying to face off with a dragon and steal what the dragon thought was an egg from its nest while taking minimal damage. It's far from a useless skill to have.

It's just my opinion that the dragon bit is far less important than what it says about his intuitive connection and understand about certain types of magic. This is very different from someone simply learning something quickly after being taught. He understood what he needed to do naturally. I can't stress that part enough because I'm going to continue to build upon it, and it explains why him flying so well with no training is so important.

So, let's move on to third year. This is really interesting because we see him learn his first really advanced piece of magic. It's a spell that most adult wizards struggle with and is introduced as being well beyond the ordinary wizarding level. Harry is not learning in a nice classroom where he can perfect the spell either. As soon as he manages a faint wisp once, Lupin has him start practicing on the boggart. Harry proceeds to faint while attempting the spell the first time and eventually makes decent progress.

More important than that though is how he knew he could cast the spell. It's another one of those moments of understanding magic on a slightly different level. He knew he saw himself casting the spell so he knew he could do it. Not only did he know he could do it, but he could do it so well that it drove off hundreds of dementors. When he asks Hermione if his logic for knowing he could do it makes sense, she replies with an "I don't know-Look at Snape."

Fourth year is when things really get interesting though. I mean of course he learns quite a few spells for the tournament. We know he learns the shielding charm then and that is a spell that most adults apparently can't do, but there is a moment of importance in the resurrection and subsequent duel with Voldemort that steals the show. Their wands connect and multiple beads span the connection between the wands. Voldemort looks frightened by this magical occurrence. He is an absolute genius with years of studying and pushing the boundaries of magic, and he doesn't know what is going on or what to do.

Harry doesn't know what is going on either, but he does know one thing. One very vital thing and that is that he needs to push the bead closest to Voldemort's wand into the wand. He doesn't know what this will accomplish, but he believes in this course of action so strongly that he concentrates harder on the task of pushing the bead into the wand than he has ever concentrated on anything in his entire life, and it works. Not only does it allow him to escape Voldemort but also as we see when Voldemort tries to confront him in the 7th book, Harry's wand attacks back quite viciously.

All of this is possible because in a brief moment Harry understands something about magic that a genius like Voldemort could not grasp. It was never a battle of wills because Voldemort didn't even know he needed to push, and it certainly wasn't Harry being lucky. It was Harry understanding the magic without being told what to do, and he does understand. The passage is specifically written in a way to point this out.

At this point, Harry doesn't seem to understand what he is doing in these instances though. He will later, but we have no indication he does just then. When the 5th book rolls around, we see Harry teaching the DA. He isn't just teaching his year and younger though. He is teaching older kids as well. Kids who are studying for their NEWTs are included in that group, and he is doing a very good job of it. Plus, as Hermione says herself in the books the one year that they had a competent DADA instructor Harry did far better than her, he also does better than her on the OWLs, and she is consistently shown to struggle with applying magic in real world situations throughout several books. It's not some one off characterization.

While it is true that Harry is quick to try and brush off his accomplishments such as saving the stone, defeating the basilisk, etc. as luck, Hermione and Ron certainly don't see it that way. They smirk at him when he tries to claim it is luck in the fifth book, and as he goes on, they actively start laughing at his attempts to make his accomplishments seem less impressive to the point where he yells at them to stop.

This is a bit of a problem for people who like to claim Harry isn't very good at magic but praise Hermione. If Hermione is truly that brilliant and she really knows magic that well then you can't just throw out her assessment of Harry's magical ability especially given that she is one of his best friends and has seen how much he knows first hand. It's not like she is making an assessment of someone she talked to for a bit and saw perform a few spells. She knows he is better, and evidence from the books consistently back this up.

When 6th year comes along, we see Harry's ability in potions rise. As others have pointed out, if Harry can follow those instructions that well there is absolutely zero reason to believe he couldn't make potions just as well as Hermione did with the standard potions instructions, and he still managed an E on his OWLs in potions even though Snape hated him, and Harry actively despised being in that class.

Harry picks up a few nifty spells here and there, but that really isn't the focus of HBP. I think the most important thing from this book is what Harry learns from seeing Dumbledore in action. Namely, he gets to see a wizard actively just knowing what to do to get passed certain types of magic. Even though I don't think he realizes it, he sees someone knowingly doing something that he has done a few times himself. This plays a big part in DH.

The obvious example from the 7th book is when Harry knows the doe is harmless, and he knows that Ron should be the one to destroy the locket. It is even referred to as something he learned from Dumbledore about the incalculable power of certain acts and a type of magic. Now, I get that some people might want to interpret this as being a metaphor, but the passage clearly states that Harry was not being kind or generous by letting Ron destroy it. It also associates his understanding that Ron is meant to do this with his understanding of an actual magical spell in that of the doe Patronus. This is why I don't particularly think that claiming the type of magic being talked about is a metaphor is a good interpretation.

The next important moment in the book when it comes to Harry's understanding of magic comes after Harry dies. It's arguably the single most important scene at showing how well Harry gets magic. Harry asks Dumbledore how he could be alive after being hit with the killing curse. Instead of answering him, Dumbledore simply says, "I think you know."

Then Harry thinks about it and the answer is described as coming to him easily and without effort. This is to me the moment when you really see Harry come into his own. The killing curse kills everyone not named Harry Potter. The greatest minds in magic have been unable to find a way to block it or to understand how to survive it, and at the age of 17 with only six years of formal schooling and 7 years of being exposed to the magical world Harry answers the question with no effort. Just think of the implications of that for a little bit, and what that says about Harry's understanding of magic.

Now, don't get me wrong. He doesn't understand every small detail, and Dumbledore goes into it while admitting he is doing a bit of guessing himself, but the point still remains the he understood something that even an absolute genius like Voldemort was unable to grasp. It's definitely not something that an average wizard would ever be able to understand.

There is also another important part of this interaction. We see a bit of Dumbledore's assessment of Harry. He knows that Harry understands magic well enough that he would have the answer to the question. That says something very important about Dumbledore's own assessment of Harry's ability. We also find out that Voldemort and Harry have both gone into an area of magic that is unknown and untested which is a pretty big accomplishment for someone who hasn't even graduated.

That whole chapter is one of the best written in the book in my opinion. It's such an important moment and so much is explained though I do wonder how much of Harry questioning Dumbledore about certain things was thrown in for the reader's benefit more so than Harry's given the answer Harry came up with on his own. Of course if you choose to think he really wasn't talking to a dead Dumbledore, then all of the information about the magic of what went down is completely from Harry's mind and it is even more impressive.

After that, we see one last trick from Harry. He beats Voldemort using wand lore. It might not be an epic battle, but it is Harry showing how well he understands a fairly obscure branch of magic and how to use it to his advantage.

Obviously, I skipped over quite a few things in the books. Harry is fairly good at solving mysteries, and he beats older more knowledgeable and experienced wizards in battle at various times. I also sort of took care of quite a few things in one go by pointing out the scene where Ron and Hermione laugh at him saying it was luck that got him through so many challenges. I wonder if that wasn't put in there because of fanfiction and how many people were calling Harry lucky or saying Dumbledore manipulated things so Harry could succeed back then. Regardless, I think I've made my point fairly clear even if it is a bit long.

My personal view is that Harry is far from an average wizard. He is arguably an genius at certain areas of magic, and he has a very strong connection to magic. His ability to just know certain things about how magic works is remarkable and he is one of the few characters shown to do it. Arguably the only one in the entire series who can do it better is Dumbledore which is not bad company to keep.

As an aside, I have an interesting theory that Harry being the master of the elder wand doesn't actually matter. We see how Harry's wand reacted to Voldemort's borrowed wand at the start of the 7th book. It basically decided to start casting powerful magic on its own. I think the same thing would have happened should Harry not have been the master of the elder wand, and he would have beat Voldemort anyway.

The only reason his wand didn't recognize the elder wand as an enemy was because the magic recognized that Harry was the master of the wand that Voldemort held so it didn't feel the need to lash out. Basically, the events of the fourth book (Voldemort taking Harry's blood and the Priori Incantatem) ensured that Harry would win.

 

Damn Rakkety Tam, way to knock it out of the park.

There was a very similar thread we had regarding Harry's skill and potential here.

Of particular note, and I think it'd be of interest to you Rackety Tam, is Perspicacity's posts here

And here

 

That's actually really cool. It mirrors some of my own thoughts with a few slight differences here and there. In my mind, there are people who are considered geniuses through hard work and memorizing books and spells then there are people like Harry and Dumbledore. They just fundamentally understand magic in a way that you can't learn from a book. It's part of them and they instinctively know things about magic in a way that few ever will and it lets them do things that nobody has ever seen before.

I think the real difference is that Dumbledore realized he had this connection at a much younger age than Harry, but towards the end of the series, we get glimpses of where Harry is going now that he understands more about this connection.

This is actually how I explain quite a few of the unique magical artifacts in the series. You can study magic for a lifetime and still never create the philosopher's stone or a wand quite so good as the elder wand. Their creators understood magic in such a way that they instinctively knew how to do certain parts of the process that no amount of studying the artifacts will reveal. That's why there are so many failed attempts at recreating the wand even though it was made so very long ago.

I have to say after reading Perspicacity's thoughts I'm struggling trying to decide if it is Harry's unique connection with his wand that gives him this understanding or if it is Harry's connection with magic that forms the unique connection with his wand. I really can't decide which I prefer.

Anyway, I think the reason loads of people get the idea that Harry is average or just lucky is because they see Harry as he sees himself. Everyone around him not named Snape sees how special he is from Hermione to Dumbledore. Harry just can't accept that he really is that brilliant.

 

From what I can tell, Harry's use of magic is more on the instinctual side of things than the theoretical affinity Hermione, Dumbledore, and Tom Riddle are known to have. Though, I don't think Hermione and Harry would ever really match the latter two in magical ability. If we say that magic is a function of theoretical knowledge and instinct (from casting spells or being mentally inclined to use magic), then Hermione and Harry are missing one side of the equation to reach Dumbledore-level.

 

You do realize that having a natural understanding of magic can be effectively the same as memorizing theory right? You might not be able to put into words why magic works that way, but you still understand that it does and how to use it.

Plus, you are making an awfully big jump there. Harry did above average on his OWLs, and he wasn't bombing the theory portion of it. He might be better at the practical stuff and he might not know the random bits about magic that may never be useful that Hermione does, but that in no way should indicate that he doesn't know magical theory.

Also, I have zero clue why you are even throwing Voldemort in there when it comes to instinct. His entire defeat stems from his own lack of understanding regarding old magic. Even when he thinks he has figured it out, he is really just doing more harm than good like in 4th year when he took Harry's blood, his lack of understanding of what he was doing to his own soul, or the fact that he thought the elder wand was his and that it would get him around the brother wand effect.