She can help them research how to combat magical advantages.

1. Put up different shields and let them see what kind of weapons will go through it.
2. Disillusion herself and let them see what methods might allow them to detect her. Same with silencing charms and other assorted stealth spells.
3. She can explain what kinds of spells there are and what they do, so the muggles know what to expect.
4. She can divulge key magical locations like the Ministry building, Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, etc.
5. She can make them aware of the current political climate, the names of wizards whose 'loyalty' the muggles might be able to 'buy'. This also helps them spread propaganda amongst the wizards and lets them know what motivations are making the average wizard fight; that's a very important thing to know in any war.
6. She can give them access to her own magic books and tell them about magical creatures that they might encounter and how to deal with them.
7. She could shrink an air/fuel bomb and smuggle it into any sensitive location. Blowing up Platform Nine and Three-Quarters along with the Hogwarts Express (wherever it sits when not in use) might be a good start.
8. The Trump Card: Harry will likely have the same opinion of the war that she does. Harry siding with the muggles is a huge blow to the morale of the wizards AND he knows the prophecy. He knows that without him, the wizarding world goes tits up. He could sit on his hands until Voldemort does the muggles' job for them and when the wizarding world is so beat up it can't put up a fight, he can swoop in with the muggles' help and kick Riddle's ass.
9. Any info she has regarding the Floo Network can be used to help bring it down. Anyone who can't create a portkey or apparate will be slapping the shoe-leather express.
10. She can inform them of who they need to eliminate to gain a tactical advantage.

For example: Destabilize the Ministry by assassinating Fudge/Scrimgeour, Amelia Bones and top aurors.
​

Limit wand availability by eliminating Ollivander, Gregorovitch, etc.

Hit the Daily Prophet employees, the Wizarding Wireless Network and other Wizarding methods of communication.
​

Muggle Aversion charms only kick-in from a certain distance. The effectiveness of a soldier firing a shoulder mounted rocket from outside the aversion charm isn't going to be affected. Hogwarts is unplottable, but it can still be located and the fact that it appears to be a pile of ruins to muggles is of little consequence if Hermione has already told them what it really is.

This perfectly illustrates what damage Hermione could do as an informant. This is the information age but no matter what age it is, Information Wins Wars. Hermione and muggle-sympathizers like herself have a lot of information to give. This is why the Statute of Secrecy exists; one person spilling their guts to the muggles could crush the Wizarding world. The Ministry already knows they have scarcely any chance against the whole of muggle humanity and they dare not take any chances.

On the issue of electronics: It is true that electrical devices do not work in Hogwarts and, maybe, Diagon Alley. This is because of the sheer levels of magic in the air, since these are very magical places with a lot of people performing magic in them. However, we already know that you can perform magic around appliances and it does not affect them. Harry has powerful magic protecting him at the Dursleys, you don't see their TV exploding, do you? The Weasleys have a magical, flying car and its ignition and lights still work (though one could claim they run on magic). The Knight Bus is magical but it doesn't cause traffic lights to explode and every car it passes to stall. Muggle trains, watches, cell phones, etc. still function at King's Cross, despite its proximity to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

Your average spell is not going to affect electronics in any way, other than the obvious. Firing a Reducto at a computer is going to destroy it but we have no clear evidence that technology consistently fails around magic. There is nothing to say that electronics cannot be used to measure and observe magic. In fact, Diagon Alley is so close to the muggle population that the anti-tech affect is either non-existent there or so negligible that it has no affect on the surrounding muggles. If a place like Diagon Alley can't make nearby equipment fail, a few spells aren't.

Electrically based technology fails at Hogwarts because the amount of magic left in the area by hundreds of students each year for centuries and centuries is incalculable. You aren't going to run into an affect like that pretty much anywhere else in the UK and it can't be duplicated by a couple of wizards slinging stunners and whatnot.

Shields don't surround the wizard in a complete sphere that extends below ground (not the ones we've seen so far). Without a complete sphere, you'd be very lucky not to suffer the effects of a simple grenade. As for a missile or bomb; forget about it.
Also, if you can hear sound through a shield, then vibrations will travel through a shield. If vibrations will travel through a shield, then the shockwave from an explosion can still crush and burst your internal organs.

Assuming they have the power to summon all of those guns... I guarantee that after this happens the first time, the soldiers start carrying weapons with an explosive pack attached to them with a pin in them like a grenade. This pin is attached to a lengthy cord which is secured around each soldier's wrist. When the gun is summoned, the pin gets pulled and in a few seconds the wizards will have summoned their own all-expenses paid ticket to St. Mungo's morgue.

 

Some people don't seem to have grasped this yet, so I'll repeat it: there is no changing sides. This is not a governmental conflict where magical people disenchanted with their government can switch sides, it is quite simply every magical person in the world versus every Muggle in the world, no chances of switching sides, as magic, or its absence, is what determines what side you are on.

Even if Hermione did swap sides, she could not tell the Muggles where Hogwarts or any other unplottable location is: for she doesn't herself know. Making something unplottable makes it unplottable to wizards too, which means she can't give directions to get there.

 

Doesn't sound like a reasonable expectation though, does it? Not one single person jumps ship? Not one single muggleborn sides with the muggles? No one protests the war? Though without the governmental bodies actually pushing the war, I suppose there isn't much to protest. Still, with it being every man for himself, I could see a lot of people playing for a different side.

Unplottable means it doesn't show up on a map. We're not talking about the Fidelius charm here, she can still remember where it is and she can lead them to it. If nothing else, all you have to do is follow the train tracks.

 

I is nice to have someone use logic to argue with you. However, on your first point, it dosent matter how fast you can think a word (Which I assure you is slightly longer than a muscle contraction) you still have tou make the wand movement as well. A wand movement ususly has more muscle movement than a single contraction. Thus the gun would shoot first.

On your second point, magic does break the laws of physics but the energy would still be required to stop a moving bullet. The logical assumption is that a shield would provide the energy equal to the bullets energy to stop it.

As to Hogwarts, I have a question, by being unplottable do maps of the surrounding area show a blank where hogwarts is, or do they pucker around the gap?

If Herman were leading the muggles against Hogwarts, why not use ranged weapons out of range of the wards, theoretically an artillery shell with a small nuke (10 kt) aimed in the general direction could still cause considerable damage to the building and people.

Here is an idea, what if with large amounts of magic blocking electricals, couldn't the inverse be true? Like would a shield spell work near a generator? If not, then the muggles are on practically even footing.

If the magics were to imperius the muggle leaders, don't you think that the muggles (led by Herman) could come up with failsafes for such an eventually, if they haven't already?

Hesuse

 

If, as Taure and Cobra are advocating, magic has no limits whatsoever,

then why can't a mad wizard with Imperioed followers / an army of inferi (e.g. Salazar Slytherin) go:

Explodio Universio?

The followers / inferi could prevent any wizards from stopping him.

Better yet, why can't a group of kids go do this?

Or why doesn't Albus Dumbledore use a guided killing curse that never stops and never can be blocked at Voldemort (or vica versa) because after all, magic is unstoppable?

Thus we have to assume that magic has limits. Now, we assume that those limits are the laws of physics becuase those limits are universal; they apply to everything (in the universe). If magic doesn't follow physics, it's not a part of the universe anymore. And they're the only ones that are known in the world; following the theory that you apply the simplest hypothesis to everything, then you must accept physics as regulating magic.

Even if those limits aren't the laws of physics, we must assume that the wizards have found out about them (after all, that's why they have schools - to teach students about the limits of magic). Then all you need is for a muggle to capture one wizard scientist or persuade one to join them. Then you've found out how to defeat a wizard.

 

What if the limits are those imposed by the subconcious mind. Tell me that your mind wouldn't balk at the idea of destroying the universe. If the mind is incapable of comprehending the spell it is trying to cast, then it wouldn't be able to cast it.

 

What if you're a madman?
What of the theory that the insane are merely people who cannot structure and categorize their understanding of the reality they see?

And.

Why couldn't or wouldn't an egotistical, megalomaniacal Dark Lord not create a ritual to open their mind so they could have such awesome powers at their disposal?

 

They wouldn't believe magic could do that.

 

You guys are starting to get onto the path that all those super!harry stories take where he doesn't know the "boundaries" of magic so can do things that other people can't, because they've been told all their lives that they can't.

 

Why wouldn't they create such a ritual, hmmmmm? Maybe its because creating is ritual is an exceedingly time consuming and dangerous task. Perhaps they're too busy trying to take over the world to bother with something they don't really need.

And your arguement that insanity would allow people to do whatever the hell they wanted magic wise, as they don't comprehend possibility the same way as we do, could completely backfire on you. Maybe insane people can't use magic? Maybe their minds can't comprehend the possibility that magic could exist, and since they are insane they can't be reasoned with or taught to use magic.

And just another thing. You can't be completely insane if you manage to hold a countries population in a state of complete terror. That requires intelligence and planning. Voldemort is most likely a genius. Megalomaniac, yes. Egotistical, most certainly. Insane, not in this life time.

 

1. If anything gave them the power of a god, what megalomaniac would not head for it.

2. That was the point. I was arguing against the magic is all powerful and limitless conceit. And how, by the way, would you need to reason with someone to teach them magic; if magic is exempt from the laws reason has given us.

3. Who said completely. Just enough to matter. Serial killers and other insane people can be very intelligent and capable of intricate plans. There is a fine line between genius and insanity and such.

 

1) There are many routes to power. Perhaps creating a ritual is least entertaining/enjoyable/challenging route. Or perhaps its too dangerous/boring for a Dark Lord.

2)You make no sense.

 

Magic is limitless in that it is not bound in any way by the laws of physics and the natural world. It is, however, bound by the laws of magic.

 

Many people in this thread have said that magical power is only limited by the person.

My meaning was that if a person is only limited my their mental and psychological perceptions, would not a person with no definable limits on those perceptions be able to use the full degree of magic at all possible? Do absolutely impossible things - blowing mountains or even the universe apart for instance?

Frank and Alice Longbottom do not seem to be gods.

If magic has entirely unlimited in its capabilities then it could destroy everything. The universe exists because of a balance of forces. Having one allpowerful force that can be used to obliterate itself under the right conditions does not seem stable.

Therefor, from what I see, magic itself has limitations - it cannot be used as a trump to everything.

This may seem like an application of too much reason toward magic. The HP books always struck me as having a very rational system of magic - if that can be said. There was always a feeling that you could never simply cut loose, grab magic by the truckload, and just use it. I always saw it as very structured.

Maybe that is just me.

I apologize if I am not communicating my meaning clearly.


Edit: Laws of magic, eh? Now what would those be.

 

Perhaps in the balance of forces you talked about, magic and physics are opposing forces.

 

If magic and Physics were opposing forces (and your implication is therefore that they are equal), then how come magic trumps physics every time it is used? Levitation, transfiguration - these are all examples of the forces of magic being superior to the forces of physics.

I simply like to think of magic as another force, like gravity, or the electromagnetic force, yet it is far above in strength the other forces of physics and able to suppress them and work above them. In addition to this is can only be accessed or sensed by those with the magic gene.

 

Or perhaps magic just works through physics in a way we cannot concieve of yet. I think this is most evident in charms--most of the things covered under charms could be possible by aplication of electromagnetic fields. Transfiguration and curses seem more complicated. Though some curses perhaps activate or speed up certain celular processes.

 

Nuke meet protego, protego meet Nuke.

The worst the muggles can do is a draw due to a mutual takedown (i.e Earth gets blown up when a few countries empty their entire nuclear arsenals).

 

For all the people who've mentioned shields--it has yet to be shown that shields like protego protect against incoming physical objects. I've always understood them to simply protect against magical energy. Otherwise, photons couldn't transverse the shield and the person would see nothing.