One interpretation of the magical world is that ultimately the greatest power and influence rests not with national Ministries of Magic but with those rare wizards like Dumbledore, Voldemort and Grindelwald whose magical ability is on a completely different level to all other wizards.

On that basis, there are no magical nations which are the "great powers" of the magical world. Rather, the centre of power is constantly shifting, generation to generation, depending on where the most powerful wizards happen to have cropped up.

This raises the question: at the time of the books, how many wizards of that caliber are there in the world? Is it just Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Grindelwald, or are there others who share that category in the 1990s?

If there are others, how many? And where are they in the world?

Personally I like to keep the number very limited, but I think the universe can absorb a small number of additional wizards of that power level.

One approach is also to include in that number some non-wizard individuals, e.g. a powerful leading vampire and/or goblin. Fanfiction tends to be very wizard-centric but it's important to remember, I think, that there are other intelligent magical beings out there with their own powerful magic. And while the general dominance of wizards over other magical species suggests that wizards have the general advantage, there is still room within that for a handful of powerful non-human magical beings, I think.

 

The number should be rather small. Less than ten wizards for sure. Personally I would add 2 more. Both far away from Europe. Maybe from Asia and South America.

Also, Flamel could be one, just a lot less active.

But I would also add many wizards who would be a above everyone else, but below these and you couldn't tell unless they actually fought for real. Makes for a more uncertain political situation when some countries believe they have their Dumbledores, but can't be sure unless they risk discovering that they don't.

 

Magical Britain didn't need the US to beat the Magical axis powers, because they had Dumbledore, or at least that's the way you could read it. If there are no other Dumbledore/Voldemort level wizards in the world, then Britain has had a level of military dominance over all other countries since the defeat of Grindelwald. This puts them in an even more powerful position than say post WWII America, because there's no soviet counter balance.

To bring real world political theory into this, the Cold War era had a bipolar power structure. All countries gravitated around the US or the USSR, and were economically and politically influenced by them. The existence of one powerful wizard who could defeat any other residing in and owing loyalty to magical Britain suggests a unipolar world instead, at least implicitly. Dumbledore prefers to use his political leverage more subtly, and doesn't usually overtly intervene in the political process. He has also refused to run for the office of Minister of Magic, but holds ambiguously powerful positions in the Wizengamot and the ICW. As such, the hegemony of the British Wizarding world is more implied than shown. It likely has a lot of soft power. It's possible that the theoretical hard power embodied in one powerful wizard would actually have a rallying effect on international opposition if that wizard actually tried to use it. In theory, there could be several Dumbledore level witches and wizards who are quietly content, but would rise to the occasion if they/their country was threatened. This might pose a huge problem for Voldemort is his takeover hadn't been so short lived. He ignores international borders and acts with impunity, as shown in his murder of Grindelwald. If he had been an expansionist, he likely would have found himself at war with several other wizarding countries either able to resist him through a combination of lesser but still strong witches and wizards, or one more powerful figure.

I agree that magical power shifts between countries based on the cream of the crop of the currently extant wizarding population. But that raises the question of how the Voldemorts, Dumbledores and Grindelwalds of the world are so strong, and how big of a gap exists between them and other strong wizards. At the very least, normal witches and wizards are able to fight and not instantly die to Voldemort. He simultaneously overcomes, but isn't able to kill McGonagall, Slughorn and Shacklebolt. He also assassinates potential threats. If Dumbledore was the only one he feared, why kill Amelia Bones in secret? Why assassinate Scrimgeour? Why not just kill Dumbledore and openly take power? Why bother with the Death Eaters for that matter? I think that contrary to what we see with Grindelwald in the first Fantastic Beasts Movie, a wizard on that level cannot take on dozens of aurors at once. All it takes is one curse.

Going back to the how, is it intrinsic? Is it based on a magical equivalent to latent genius? Is it based on diligence or creativity? Is it rooted in education or social capital? If it's a combination of all of these factors, you should be able to create a witch or wizard nearly on that level artificially. I think that the way different wand types are presented as having an effect on magical output implies that there is a certain latency for different magical talents that can't be recreated. Ron could probably never be as good at transfiguration as James Potter was, even if they were raised identically, had a similar work ethic, and received the exact same education and mentoring. On the other hand, we have a seemingly untalented Pettigrew becoming an animagus through hard work, so it's ambiguous.

Perhaps Dumbledore and Voldemort have a latent aptitude for all kinds of magic, unrelenting work ethic, natural genius, and great educations, a perfect storm, explaining their rarity. Perhaps there is no latent magical aptitude, in which case there probably would be more room at the top. I think that circumstances are what make these incredibly powerful, era defining wizards emerge. If there was no Grindelwald, would Dumbledore have filled that vaccuum? Would he have become as powerful without that competition? If he had, and if he had been content at Hogwarts, would anyone have seen him the way they did? If Tom Riddle had been raised by loving parents, would he have become as strong as Voldemort? If he did, would he have used his power in a similar way, or would he just be a quietly influential civil servant or academic?

 

Schroedinger’s Dumbledore.

Flamel, and wizards like Armando Dippet add another dimension to Wizarding power. Can wisdom, a robust constitution, and constant education in later life put ancient witches and wizards on the same footing as new prodigies?

 

I feel like there has to be more, although not too many either, D/V/G-level witches and wizards because we see that there were two born in the same age group (D and G) and one who was born a few generations later (V). Harry is very myopic about the world around him; he doesn't know a lot about wizarding Britain even after seven years at Hogwarts and virtually nothing about the rest of the magical world (he knows there are two other magical schools in Europe, you can work with dragons in Romania, be a curse-breaker with Gringotts in Egypt, that the giants all live in Russia nowadays, and some magical creatures and wizarding history trivia).

That being said, Europe is probably safe to be ruled out as having other accomplished D/V/G-level people in the 1990s, as opposed to people of their level who are still very young or 'on their way to greatness' so to speak. I can easily imagine there being between a handful to a dozen of actually accomplished and more or less recognised domestically or worldwide 'powerhouses' with perhaps an additional handful or less of 'powerhouses-to-be' at any given time.

Of course, that doesn't meant they're all active, and most probably aren't at any given time. By Harry's first year, of the three great powerful wizards we know, one is 'less than the meanest ghost', one has been in prison for four decades and a half, and only one is active but is benevolent and does not seek power.

While some, as I already mentioned, are too young yet, others would be too old, even older than Dumbledore and Grindewald, to be active in any meaningful capacity and are basically retired. Certainly, perhaps some witch or wizard has made a warlord of themselves and controls some minor wizarding nation in a part of the world JKR doesn't care about through sheer magical might. Alternatively, perhaps one of those rare wizards has 'squandered' their gift by being really into ancient runes and history instead of more practical disciplines.

 

I like the idea that Taure promulgates in his fics of the canon Dumbledore / Voldemort peak as being artificially sparse bc Voldemort killed anyone else around their level. Makes the world building in canon fit together better.

I also like the idea of goblins and vampires having some similarly exceptional individuals.

What feels off is how quietist most powerful wizards seem to be. They don't seem to try to take control of government much outside of grindelwald and Voldemort? Why aren't there more attempted coups? Or are lots of wizarding govs already effectively controlled by an oligarchy of powerful wizards?

 

Well, once you include a powerful vampire, you basically have to say that the wizarding nation of Transylvania is ruled by a powerful vampire.

 

I imagine there are likely around 15-20 wizards who reach that echelon at any given time. Although the highest-caliber wizards we know of are all from Western Europe, it would be statistically implausible for no comparably skilled individuals to exist in other areas of the Wizarding World. They must be rare – there seemingly wasn't any besides Dumbledore/Grindelwald in 1940s Europe – but I suspect there's mostly 1-4 in every continent.

Non-human individuals with that kind of raw magical potency are a trickier question. Without wands, their abilities would likely be more constrained. While the Wand Ban, IIRC, is Britain-only, the International Confederation of Wizards is able to enforce the Statute of Secrecy globally, which suggests a certain universal monopolization of power, IMO. So although theoretically a creature could reach comparable levels, their powers are likely denied similar enhancement. That doesn’t entirely preclude exceptions, but those would be extremely rare. There's a reason fanfiction tends to exclude them.

For the 1990s specifically, I’d expect that the global distribution of Dumbledore-level wizards would include: three in Europe, a couple in Africa, three or four in East Asia, and so on. Maybe there were one or two powerful creatures worldwide who found access to wand-like amplification for their powers, and thus could be able to challenge the top-tier.

 

What do people think about the idea that items like the Elder Wand could equal the playing field between a powerful but unexceptionally so witch or wizard like Bellatrix or Snape and the likes of V/G/D? Dumbledore's victory over Grindelwald despite the latter's possession of the wand suggests that it can only do so much for its owner, but there may be other factors to that fight. The idea that Grindelwald could have been an order of magnitude weaker than Dumbledore without the Elder Wand has occurred to me. He acquired it so early on in his magical career that it's difficult to separate his achievements with it from his latent potential without it. If so, he could be an example of the situation I described above.

Dumbledore describes himself as a touch more skilled than Grindelwald. To use crude power scaling, D > G + EW. Voldemort and Dumbledore fight inconclusively in OotP, and Voldemort flees when ministry officials start to floo in. Voldemort is also explicitly assumed to fear Dumbledore, and doesn't move openly until after his death. D + EW ≥ V. A rough hierarchy emerges amongst our powerful wizards. G < G + EW < D =? V ≤ D + EW. How much of an edge the Elder Wand gives Dumbledore over Voldemort is left up to our imaginations. The gap between Bellatrix/Snape and Grindelwald hard to determine. Anger/'meaning it' also seem to give combatants a temporary edge, as seen when Molly overcomes Bellatrix while enraged, and then when Voldemort blasts Slughorn, McGonagall and Shacklebolt away after Bellatrix's death when they had previously been holding him at bay. Presumably he was winning that fight anyway, but for the sake of argument S +McG + Sb ≤ Voldemort with an uncooperative Elder Wand. I would nebulously scale Bellatrix above any of those three individually, alongside the likes of Moody and a few other senior Death Eaters. To put McGonagall's abilities into context, she gains the upper hand over Snape during a brief duel while she is trying to kill him and he is trying to act non lethally, and then he's driven out of the castle by her, Slughorn, Flitwick and Sprout. Finally, Lily and James, and Frank and Alice Longbottom both ambiguously, but in a way identifiable to both couples, 'defied' Voldemort three times each, presumably while he was trying to kill them. This could be briefly holding him off on the battlefield, escaping him, or foiling him in some less direct way. If it's the former, it gives credence to the idea that Voldemort isn't that more powerful than everyone else except Dumbledore. If he was the equivalent of a walking nuclear bomb or a one man army, we wouldn't have so many examples of less talented witches and wizards walking away from duels with him.

My point is that we don't know how much of a gap there is between the top three wizards and everyone else, and without the insurance policy of horcruxes, any mistake in a fight on the part of your average D/G/V level wizard could result in instant death.

 

Personally, I think the Elder Wand doesn’t really function as a straight “power boost” in the way some might assume. My sense is that it tries to perfect the magic that its master is already capable of, which can result in certain magical miracles nigh-impossible to replicate with typical wanded magic, but can't make up for truly large gaps in magical skill. And for top-tier wizards, who are already operating near magical perfection, that extra precision only makes a marginal difference, which is why Dumbledore could beat Grindelwald even though Grindelwald had the wand.

If the Elder Wand could elevate wizards to a mythical extent, I feel that the wand leaving behind such a bloody trail of former masters wouldn't really make sense. Of course, many of those Elder Wand owners were killed unawares, but certain ones were defeated in straight duels, like Emeric the Evil being beaten by Egbert the Egregious.

In that sense, someone like Bellatrix could potentially use the Elder Wand to pull off before-unseen magical feats, but she wouldn’t suddenly be able to stand toe-to-toe with Dumbledore, Voldemort, or Grindelwald. For whatever reason, there's an oddly large gap between the true powerhouses and the tier below, and, IMO, that gap is just too large to bridge even with the Elder Wand.

 

No more than a handful. Too many and you run into "if everyone's super, no one is".