I realize it's unfair to compare him to Hermione, but he tended to rely on her a lot for even simple spells. He was only ever good at potion making when he had the Half-Blood Prince's notes.

The only class he excelled at was Defense Against the Dark Arts, and that mostly because he impressed people with his ability to conjure a corporeal Patronus at a young age (although his fellow students didn't seem to have too much trouble when he taught them how).

 

Wrong. He got Exceeds Expectations in his Potions OWL, Outstanding in his DADA OWL with the Patronus being a bonus point, and was perfectly capable of casting the protection spells around their tent in Deathly Hallows when Hermione wasn't up to it emotionally. I'd happily give you more examples, but I'm at work.

Edit: he got the top two grades in all his exams apart from Astronomy, Divination and History. Divination speaks for itself, in Astronomy they were distracted by Hagrid and McGonagall being attacked, and he fell asleep in History.

 

You're talking about Hermione as if she was the next Dumbledore or something. There are examples of students doing better than Hermione and never dropping classes because they were exhausted, like Percy or even Barty Crouch Jr.

Yeah, but they weren't surrounded by a hundred dementors when they had to cast it, and were two years -mostly- older than Harry was when he did it.

 

I think the effects and mental abuse of Harry's childhood impacted him during his hogwarts years. He was forced to be "normal"by his aunt and unlce, i also believe he was called a freak, and he was starved for love and affection. That made harry want to blend in and not stand out in Hogwarts. As an adult though, Harry over came this and was able to become a powerful wizard.

The argument could also be made for Ron being a forced that hampered harry during his early year.

 

Good wizard? Of what? Bookish good? Practical good? Personalty good? And many more.

 

I think Harry was a very good wizard.

Firstly, it's important to remember that Harry knows a lot more magic (and a lot more about magic) that we do. We see the series through his eyes but we don't see everything he does. Most notably, we see very little of Harry's time learning magic which is, of course, what he actually spends most of his time doing at Hogwarts. You know, given that it's a school of magic and he attends his classes and does his homework.

We see the above when Harry frequently pulls spells out his arse that we've never seen him learn. This was especially true during DH: confringo, deprimo, expulso, etc, not to mention the spells protecting the campsite.

Secondly, it's important to remember that the average wizard isn't actually very good at magic: recall that most wizards can't cast a shield charm, for example, which is a spell on the Defence O.W.L. curriculum. O.W.L. exams are the magical analogue of the GCSE exams which English children take IRL at age 16. The "passing grades" are generally considered A*-C. About 70% of children achieve at least one A*-C grade, meaning 30% of people fail completely in all their subjects. When you narrow this down to students who get 5 A*-C grades including the core subjects of English and Mathematics (which might be called the equivalent of a US high school diploma), that percentage falls to 54%. (Source).

And from a more anecdotal perspective, it continually astonishes me how many people cannot perform basic writing tasks like writing a coherent, non-rambling, correctly spelt and punctuated letter, or perform basic mathematical tasks like calculating percentages. That includes people with university education.

So general wizarding failure to achieve basic proficiency is analogous to general Muggle failure.

With this in mind, one appreciates how getting solid Es with a good O thrown in is far above the average. The average student likely manages to get an A in at least one subject but has a roughly 50/50 chance of getting an A in all the core subjects.

Thirdly, I think we should not underestimate the fact that there are different routes to magical understanding. While reading books is perhaps the most direct route, experience and experimentation can also apparently result in understanding magic. So, for example, Harry finally masters occlumency and is even performing deliberate legilimency by the end of DH.

Fourthly, I think we should appreciate that Harry was a late bloomer. As mentioned above, despite initial problems he did finally get the hang of occlumency and legilimency. He also started using non-verbal magic more casually. His understanding of magic at a deep level also grew considerably in DH. And his promotion to Head Auror after the end of the books was presumably not based on fame alone.

Fifthly, I do not think many people appreciate the extent to which Harry is an expert on the Dark Arts (and their defence). Sirius and Remus bought him a long series of books on the subject which he was enthused to read, and presumably did so. By HBP his ability with Dark magic was such that he could cast the Sectumsempra spell successfully first time. His Patronus speaks for itself, and I don't think it's friendship alone which makes Hermione mention several times that she respects his knowledge and understanding of Dark magic (and defer to him on the matter). And of course Harry's duelling ability is unusually high. By the end of DH he seems to be able to deal with most Death Eaters without much trouble, and his Shield Charm is also notably strong.

In conclusion, yes, I think Harry is a powerful wizard and good at magic. I just don't think JKR spent much time on showing this fact.

 

Taure when did Harry use Legilimency, it's a long time since I read DH but I don't think I could have forgotten it.

Do you mean the Voldemort connection I never got the impression that he used any kind of Legilimency there, especially not skillfull enough not to be detected I always thought it was more of a cursescar thing.

I also can't remember Harry ever really getting the hang of nonverball spells either.

IMO Harry allaround is a above average wizard but not all that impressive he does know more esoteric magic than many and seems to be good with spells when he masters them, though he needs some time for it.

But even his duelling while always being praised is not that impressive in action, sure Rowling tries to say that Harry is a awesome duellist with things like standing up the longest in the battle of the ministry etc. it always feels like random chance that he wasn't taken down sooner.

He also was not that great against Malfoy in HBP after what is said about his DA skills and teaching the DA with students older than him, he should have beaten Draco someone his age without to much problems but he just barely made it.

While I think JK tried to display Harry as a talented wizard she failed imo, she never really showed it only told it except the Patronus which is a special charm based on emotions besides it is really lame that Harry only is much better than the average wizard because they suck.

 

It's also worth considering the wider environment. Objectively, Harry is an above average student at Hogwarts. However, this isn't analagous to being just above average across the Wizarding World. Hogwarts is without a doubt the best magical school in the UK. Arguably it's in the very top tier of magical schools world wide.

Therefore, being above average at Hogwarts is more like being above average at Cambridge or the Ivy league. There is a huge difference.

Take my school as an example. I got broadly the same, if not slightly better, grades on my GCSEs as Harry did in his OWLs - 7 A*s, 5 As and 1 B. At my school this was unexceptional. I was probably in the top 30% of my class, but by no means the best. However, based on Taure's figures for GCSE attainment, this is exceptional when compared to the country as a whole. It got me onto a highly competitive course at a well regarded Uni, where I am currently on for a First.

Oh, and a further consideration, as Head Auror, Harry reports directly to the head of the DMLE, who in UK muggle terms would be the Secretary of State for Justice - a cabinet minister and the Lord Chancellor - in theory the number 3 position in the government.

 

Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelward, and Tom Riddle were the absolute prodigies. Kingsley, McGonagall, and Snape would be what I call the regular-powerful ones. Sirius Black and Hermione Granger are examples of talented individuals. But Harry Potter was just average.

He was good at flying, but if nobody calls Ludo Bagman powerful, neither should anybody call Harry powerful. He was also good at defense against the dark arts, but that really only happened in his 3rd and 4th year, where he spent a lot of time with Lupin, practiced the patronus charm over and over again, and later learned all the jinxes and counter-curses in the world to get through the maze. And he pretty much survived the tournament because Barty Crouch Jr. was pulling the strings. He did a lot of big things, but he was exceptionally lucky. There wasn't much that he actually got through with magical skill.

He did okay on his OWLs, but he's lacking the entire 7th year training. And let's see, Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Snape all commented on how his powers were very mediocre, and Snape loved to sneer at how abysmal Harry was at potions. McGonagall pretty much told him that he had to try much harder in almost all his subjects if he wanted to become an Auror. The Slytherins laughed their heads off when Rita Skeeter called Harry a top student, though none of them could possibly show any disrespect to "the mudblood"'s academic success.

I think he's okay, since apparently there's only something like 40 magical students per year in Britain, so being average doesn't kill you. In fact, Ron and Draco weren't that brilliant either but they were prefects, which essentially makes them among the strongest students of each house. But still, that's far from calling them powerful wizards.

 

I think warner is one of them trolls I keep hearing about. Can we get him banned already?

 

Occlumency:

DH Chapter 24

Legilimency:

DH chapter 30

The scar connection with Voldemort is a conduit for legilimency without physical proximity, see OotP:

OotP chapter 24

 

The problem with Harry, is that it was plot needed to keep him ignorant.
Yet we do have glimpse of his power.
3rd Year Patronus, his ability to summon his broom.
His ability to master various spells above his education level.
I will differ to Taure account of his skills in the 6th and 7th year.

We also don't know if his early years baggage effected his school he had his yearly brush with death, the pressure of being the Boy who Lived, been raised in extremely poor way.
We don't really know how powerful Harry is, many people reach their potential years later.
In addition one must never forget Harry had crappy teachers.
They might be gifted in their art, but still crap for various reasons.
Harry managed to do quite impressive feats despite the shitty reality he lived.
I will even go and say he could have surpassed Dumbledore and Riddle, and Hermione.
We just don't know because our view point is very much limited

 

Taure: There was also the part where Hermione asked him to look into Voldemort's mind, and which gave them the knowledge he's in the Shrieking Shack. And all those times during the second half of DH in which he closes his mind to Voldemort.

Also, arguably, him being able to see into Snape's mind by deflecting back his legilimency attack was a crude form of it.

 

Yeah... go ahead and source that for us.

 

I am kind of confused is that really Occlumency and not the power of love.

While the first bolded part indeed seems to suggest that he really learned Occlumency.

The second bolded part seems to say that Voldemort can't penetrate Harrys mind because of the power of love like the possesion in OOTP where Harry could not use Occlumency and drove him off with grief/love and he can't do it now because he feels grief/love for Dobby.

I am not sure if Harry really could stop someone who actually knows love with Occlumency especially if he isn't in a mindset of grief at the moment.

 

It's not the only example though. Second half of DH is full of it.

 

Your question is loaded: what is a good wizard? Everyone seems to be talking about OWL results, but even young Hermione knew that being a good wizard was not all about books and cleverness. Certainly Harry is a good person in the moral sense, so I would be inclined to say he is a good wizard in that sense as well. Goodness as power is a concept as nebulous as power itself is in canon.

1. Invention --> power. Canon might not give us very accurate means of gaging someone's power apart from duelling, however, it seems that at least transfiguration and enchantment require a great deal of "power", if such a concept has meaning in canon. Creating a great artifact is an indication of great power: the Peverell brothers (or Death) were certainly powerful, as was Flamel. What is power if not the capacity to create a means of immortality? Fred and George are clearly inventive and ingenious, and I would argue that their instinctual grasp of magic, or at least parts of it (if true understanding of its parts is possible without understanding of its whole), is superior to the average, as their inventions testify. I'd wager that the vast majority of wizards would be incapable of creating what they do. Same goes for James, Sirius, Lupin and Pettigrew: their enchanted object is such a magnificent creation that, despite its extreme usefulness, it has never been replicated.
Note. Canon is not very coherent with itself. IIRC, Fred and George did very poorly on their OWLs, despite their further endeavours being proof that they are not only bright but also highly competent. They should at least have merited good grades in Charms, Transfiguration, Potions and Defence, which are all ingredients of their inventions. Also, while Ron comes across as extremely lazy in academic matters (indeed, even more so than Harry), he also never seems particularly proficient at anything. Yet he manages grades almost as good as Harry's. Then there are the obvious authorial conveniences, such as making Hermione only achieve an E in Defence, which is merely a device to make Harry's O stand out, and doesn't make much sense outside of this consideration.

2. Intelligence --> power. Intelligence and power are not the same thing. But the two most powerful characters in canon are also supposed to be its most brilliant. Did Dumbledore and Voldemort acquire their power as a consequence of their genius? Dumbledore's prowess in Transfiguration comes across as research-based. Voldemort's immortality is also a result of his research. So at least in part the answer is yes.
Note. I think it's established that Rowling has trouble writing brilliant characters. Dumbledore is unarguably brilliant, though some of his planning comes across as amateurish or plain stupid. Voldemort is, when we see him directly, cartoonishly cretinous. Hermione never seems to progress from bookish know-it-all to truly brilliant (she doesn't do much enchantment or spell creation or anything that would smack of original research, which is how one would expect true brilliance to be illustrated). None of the Ravenclaws of Harry's year are written as geniuses.

3. Intent --> power. Harry is adequately intelligent. Note that he is 1- clearly not bookish by nature (his main passion in the first years is Quidditch, not magic per se) and 2- impeded from becoming so by his repeated encounters with trolls, basilisks, voldemorts, dementors, dragons and other assorted creatures. So even if he had the inclination for it, he doesn't have the leisure to invest in academic brilliance. And despite all these impediments he performs well above average in his OWLs (further, he at least has the competence to become Head Auror, putting him in the Bones-Shacklebolt-Scrimgeour category). Ergo: Harry is many things, but he is no genius. He can produce the Patronus because, in the moment of truth, his will is channelled whole to the need to defend himself and Sirius from the dementors. He can summon a broom because he is focused single-mindedly on his need to do so. What makes Harry exceptional compared to the ordinary wizard is that he has the capacity to apply his will and engage his whole being in a struggle, and this I would say is the hallmark of the great wizard. Magic is not a quantifiable element that can be expressed in units of power. It is a mysterious force that an individual can channel if they have enough force of intent to do so. Dumbledore and Voldemort are powerful because their intelligence is not just a stale, inert matter, but an element that they can squeeze the most out of through force of will. They are geniuses, and genius is a combination of extreme intelligence and the will to apply it.

Conclusion: though Harry does not possess anywhere near the intelligence or inventiveness of Dumbledore, Voldemort or even Hermione (as she was meant to be), he has the ability through strength and purity of will to bend magic to do his bidding.

 

I think Harry is a moderately powerful wizard, but once again the issue is being told vs being shown. We don't really see Harry working to become a powerful wizard but rather are just told he is. Our time with him in the books is spent on the "fun" or relationship stuff. It's due I believe to Rowling wanting to maintain her message...but also a lack of understanding regarding the male psychology. Harry does not respond to a lot of things like a typical guy.

Or even just moving past gender, Rowling in general had difficulty separating her voice from that of her characters. She strikes me as a very passive person and this carries over to her character actors. From Harry (who I think she actually injected more of her personality into) to Ginny (the assertive person she wishes she was) to Dumbledore (her gentle wisdom).

The characters that are least like her, (Ron, Voldemort, Fleur) have a tendency to become caricatures.

 

Most of this has been said before (and before, and before, and before...)

But take away all the lazy homework nights, or Hermione scolding, or anything else blah blah blah, and we get...

1. Harry doing very well on his OWL examinations. No Snape saying he sucked, nobody helping him, just him and the exam. Boom, massive success.

2. Harry using the Patronus Charm, at age 13, to take out an army of Dementors. Maybe other students got it faster in the DA (when not facing a dementor boggart and several years older), but using the charm when it is intended to be used and Harry does it like a fucking boss in a way that the vast majority of wizards could never hope to do.

3. Same year, Harry successfully uses the crystal ball to meaningfully and successfully divine the future. He never gets any credit for it by anyone, but despite his failed OWL in Divination, Harry is the only student we ever see who actually successfully foresees the future.

4. Harry learns how to manipulate the curse scar, despite Snape being a vindictive cunt and the person who he is trying to keep out of his head being the world's master of the mind arts. Who has a soul fragment in Harry's head.

5. Harry has a natural affinity for flying that transcends simple skill and practice.

6. Harry not only knows enough about potions to get an E on his OWL, but is able to destroy the class using notes from the HBP. Either potions is just following instructions aka fanon-it's-just-like-cooking!... or it's not. In which case, Harry is obviously doing something right. If you had the same math book as everyone else but Newton had written some notes in the margins, you wouldn't magically be best in the class. Harry is doing more with the HBP than just doing a better job of count-by-numbers.

7. Harry has an incredible affinity for the Dark Arts, both in the Hogwarts philosophy of 'defense against', but he picks up the flip side quickly enough as well.

8. Harry was able to summon Gryffindor's Sword. No fuckin' way you pull long-lost magical artifacts out of hats without being a goddamn hero.

9. He becomes chief auror.

10. He still finds time to be, when all's said and done, a pretty decent student even 'on paper', despite the fact that he's constantly having to avoid death, rescue priceless artifacts, save his schoolmates' lives, shag Daphne on the DL, deal with morally ambiguous house-elves, and deal with ministerial assassins... and all in all juggle a few more balls in the air than Terry Boot or Ernie McMillan have to fucking worry about. And when he gets home for the summer, he has to try and do his summer work in the dead of night, with whatever he can filch out of the cupboard when the Dursley's are away.

In short, we see Harry has a teenage boy, who like many teenage boys is not particularly excited about doing his homework with due diligence and enjoys slacking off from time to time. This is compounded by the fact that 1. the narrative has to move the plot and 2. Harry has other concerns that transcend schoolboy angst, whether it's a killer in the school, a giant snake, or Voldemort... But for all that Harry tends to be less-than-concerned with being a model student 'on paper', he is very quick witted, is able to understand and manipulate deep and abstract concepts of magic, and has enough talent and 'magical power' to do things that most wizards will never be able to do.

He struggles - with occlumency, with silent casting - but these are particularly challenging elements of magic and in due time Harry is able to overcome them, to a degree that is either implied or explicitly stated to be above the wizarding average.

tl;dr: Harry is a fuckin' Champion and if anyone else had to deal with half that shit they'd have ended up hanging out with Lockhart as a gibbering wreck. I mean fuck, Riddle had so much free time to learn shit he could even take time out to come up with kewl anagramz - must have been nice to level up to Dark Lord without the previous one trying to kill you every spring.

 

The hardest quest of all.