While that scale is useful, I think you have to look at different aspects of magic use separately. There's at least knowledge, skill, and power--and those could be subdivided. While Hermione might be a 3 in knowledge, she would probably lose in a straight duel with Harry, who would be a 5 in knowledge.

Knowledge could certainly broken down into different fields. Neville's overall knowledge was rather poor, but when it came to plant lore he was aces. Ollivander knew all kinds of things about wands and was skilled in actually making them, but he was no match for the death eaters who came for him.

Personally, I think skill was the most key factor (other than sheer dumb luck) in deciding who won what. Skill could be broken down to include "wand work", speed of casting, aim, and creative use of spells. Hermione was good with wand work, but in terms of speed of casting, aim, etc. she never showed particular talent. Harry, on the other hand, began to show a decent level of skill near the end of the last books. Nowhere near Riddle or Dumbles, but able to match most DE's.

Power is another issue. I know some people here prefer to think power is a function of skill rather than being an innate characteristic of different wizards, but nonetheless, how powerful a person is is different from their speed in drawing and how they aim. Power normally only comes into it when dealing with shields, dealing with magic resistant creatures, and in the scope of an effect. (Ginny, for example, is shown as being particularly powerful, even if she was not in Hermione's league of intelligence.)

Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Voldemort are still 1's across the board as they never really showed much of an upper limit in any category.
Harry (by the end of the books) I would put at Knowledge 5, Skill 3, Power 3.
Hermione I would put at Knowledge 3, Skill 5, Power 5.
Ron would be Knowledge 7, Skill 6, Power 5.

IMO, canon Harry would never put in the time or effort to gain the skill and knowledge of Voldemort or Dumbledore. And, assuming power is an innate ability rather than a function of skill, his natural power would not quite reach Voldemort or Dumbledore.

 

I'm not denying Dumbledore's knowledge of dark magic. As both Taure and I noted, this notion is supported by canon. I will not even deny that he may have traveled at some point after his final confrontation with Grindelwald. My contention was with the idea that he traveled the world researching magic and delving deeply into the dark arts in his attempt to defeat Grindelwald, which is not only unsupported by canon, but in direct contradiction of what we were told regarding that phase of Dumbledore's life.

 

The CoS quote sounds to me more like it includes non-horcrux transformations/rituals.

Taure, you're saying that Dumbledore's knowledge of Voldemort making a horcrux fully explains Dumbledore's quote. Except that Dumbledore specifically says "underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations,".

Now to me, and probably to most people, that means lots of magical transformations that are definitely recognisably different. So, the possibilities are:

1: Dumbledore was aware of many transformations, all of which were due to horcruxes. After Voldemort failed to die, Dumbledore guessed that the transformations were due to a horcrux. In which case Dumbledore is an idiot for seeing multiple transformations and thinking there was one cause.

2: Dumbledore was aware of many transformations, some of which were due to other rituals he knew about, and so he couldn't be sure after Voldemort's non-death that the lack of death was due to a horcrux. After finding the diary he is sure that it is a horcrux and that there are more than one.

With the first, Dumbledore is an idiot who should be aware of multiple horcruxes after Voldemort's first fall. In the other, Dumbledore is competent and Harry finding and bringing back the diary is important and furthers the plot.

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Oh, and in terms of the Harry thing, no. He wouldn't have become as skilled at the various aspects of magic because he doesn't have someone beside him just as skilled and interested in furthering skills like Dumbledore did, and he doesn't have lots of people helping him out while he delves deeper into magic like Voldemort. And most importantly, he has better things to be doing with his time like his job as an Auror and taking care of his family.

He might become just as skilled as Dumbledore or Voldemort within his specialised field of magic used for Auror work, but thats it.

 

Family? Harry is an orphan

 

Ugh I had forgotten about that. Now if only Harry had taken the route Grindlewald and Riddle took after leaving school. Does Ginny end up as a Molly clone?

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How the hell did Dumbledore become so knowledgeble? He never left Britan. He became a teacher at Hogwarts and then Headmaster. Grindlewald and Riddle both took a world tour and learned every kind of magic.

 

Books are amazing things.

 

Wouldn't some of those books which contain Dark Magic, Battle Magic, Restricted Potions, Necromancy be ministry controlled. And for some things like Occlumency there wouldn't be books at all.

 

Well, Tom Riddle found out about horcruxes from Hogwarts library. It wasn't until Dumbledore was headmaster that he removed mention of them. So there seems to be very little censorship, at least of the Restricted Section.

 

I can learn more than most people ever bother to without leaving my bedroom.

Dumbledore, who was living in the same building as the Hogwarts library for half a century, and managed to collaborate with names like Flamel, likely had a few opportunities to gather information.

EDIT: Also, ninja'd.

 

Yeah but Hermione would have probably read every book in the Library. She wouldn't know much that any competent wizard or witch who graduated from Hogwarts wouldn't know.

 

Lolwut? Every book in the library?

We're never given an exact number, but that library is huge. Thousands of books, at the least. Most of them academic, so difficult reading. You probably couldn't read them all in a lifetime.

 

You win Taure.

One thing that bugged me about the books is Riddle is shown as extremely smart yet he couldn't find a way to kill Harry or atleast totally destroy him by killing all the ones he cared about (The Weasleys).

 

I don't normally like resorting to out of book explanations, but I think the fact that Harry is the good guy and must win is really the only explanation for why Voldemort holds the idiot ball when it comes to Harry but when every character describes him they talk about his intelligence, ruthlessness, and skill.

 

The thing is that from canon Hogwarts students need roughly one book per subject per year, and mastering that magic from assigned books bought from Diagon alley keeps average students busy through the year. More inquisitive students like Hermione would of course take additional books from Hogwarts library, perhaps 20-30 each year. But consider the size of Hogwarts library:

As Taure pointed out, the Hogwarts library before Dumbledore's tenure as a Headmaster wasn't censored at all, given that book with Horcrux making instructions was present. Then it means that Hogwarts library must contain incredible amount of knowledge from practically every field of magic if such obscure, dark magic as Horcruxes was present. How much do you think teenagers at Hogwarts manage to read, comprehend and master, distracted as they are with their friends, Quidditch, hormones...Perhaps 5%?

Tom Riddle was ready to become teacher at Hogwarts after graduating, and perhaps the library was one of his reasons.

 

Yep realistically Voldemort would be ruling the world. The Cave he created is a sign of his brilliance. Other than Dumbledore no one else would have come out of it alive.

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Who would say is more intelligent between Dumbledore and Voldemort?

 

Other people have touched on similar points here, but I think this is the biggest point in favor of the "no" argument. People who attain prodigious levels of knowledge always have a driving desire for knowledge. In Voldemort's case, it was a product of his desire for power. Others, like Dumbledore and Hermione, are driven more by love of the knowledge itself. But in every case there is a hunger for learning that has to be there. Canon Harry doesn't demonstrate this anywhere. He may be intelligent and/or powerful, but he is not driven by a desire for knowledge, so there is no reason to believe he would ever push the limits of magic like Voldemort and Dumbledore would have.

 

Guys create man-caves all the time; it's nothing special.

 

What would Canon Harry do if a new Dark Lord with knowledge and skill like Voldemort emerged? His Auror skills would do fuck all to help him. The one thing in his favour would be the Elder Wand but he would probably lose it. If it weren't for Dumbledore the wizarding world would have been fucked.

 

Harry would beat them through the sheer size of his balls.