To be fair, he surely knows his magical creatures and I could imagine that he knows a thing or two about crossbreeding many wizards don't.

That said, the average wizard doesn't seem to know many things.

 

"You know nothing, Wizard."

 

I meant in terms of the Transfiguration used to create the Quintapeds, but fair point.

 

The breeding of new magical creatures is an established wizarding ability.

We know Herpo the Foul bred the first Basilisk. Further the acromantula is 'believed to be wizard-bred, possibly intended to guard wizarding dwellings or treasure, as is often the case with magically created monsters'. The last also hints that other magical beasts were created with magic.

The Wizarding World apparently does not like creating new magical beasts and hence there is the Ban on Experimental Breeding, which bans such creations.

As to your question if non-magical creatures can be transfigured into magical ones, I want to say no. IMO, magic should be one of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration. Otherwise you could transfigure a muggle into a wizard, which breaks the series. However, I must admit canon is against me on this point.

Basilisks are bred by putting a chicken egg under a toad and waiting for it to hatch. ("chicken egg hatched beneath a toad would produce a gigantic serpent possessed of extraordinary dangerous powers."). There's no evidence that the chicken needs to be special in any way and it turns into the magical basilisk.

 

I think there must be some magic involved, at the very least to force the toad to stay on the egg.

 

Not really a question about Harry Potter Per Se... But I just watched the Chamber of Secrets and noticed that there was no scuffle with Lucius and that Lucius never threw a book into Ginny's cauldron.

Now, I know the movies cut many things out but I could have sworn I remember seeing it on screen. I actually watched the first three movies before reading the books and I could have sworn it actually happened.

I specifically remember the words "It's all your father can afford".

Does anyone's copy of COS have this scene? Do I have like a special edition or something? My copy is two hours fourty-five minues long if that helps.

Of course, I could just be being stupid.

 

There wasn't a scuffle but there was a tense argument, during which Lucius slipped the book into Ginny's cauldron.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvWihzwI2uY

 

First thing that springs to mind would be pepper up potions, IIRC they can cure/treat a cold.

 

Do Hogwarts' robes have any indicator of the house the student belongs to? I was always certain they didn't have any indicator and they only had the Hogwarts' crest on them -mainly because of the time Harry and Ron mistake Penelope with a Slytherin student-, but recently I've begun to doubt. It might be influenced by the movies, in which only in Tom Riddle's time they seemed to have the Hogwarts' crest.

 

No, they don't, otherwise this scene from CoS where Ron and Harry are Polyjuiced and trying to find the Slytherin common room would make very little sense:

 

Honestly, the uniforms are one of those things I outright prefer in the Movies. Having a tie that shows your House isn't a bad idea, especially for First Years.

Do the Books ever tell us anything about Quirrel as a DADA teacher? I know Umbridge thought he did a good job (which isn't a good sign), but otherwise what else do we know?

 

Why does Dumbledore do nothing about Draco even though he nearly murders Katie and Ron?

 

Urge to shitpost rising.

Because a) there was no evidence pointing at Draco's involvement, and b) Albus didn't want to condemn Malfoy to life as a Death Eater.

This is one of those questions without an easily defined canon answer, too.

 

Could James use nonverbal magic with 15? Can't really remember the Snape memory in detail but did he use nonverbal magic there?

 

He uses magic without any incantation being given, but that happens plenty of times. Other than that, no evidence either way. Of the four spells he casts in the memory, three of them are verbalised, so make of that what you will.

 

Language font guides at the beginning of fics.

Whenever I open a new fic, if in the beginning author's notes it gives me a guide to different forms of speech being used (French, parseltongue, thoughts), showing me how each will use italics, or bold, or weird squiggly things, I immediately close the tab. Is this just me? I feel like if the author needs to denote 5 font styles to have us understand the dialog, then they just can't write, and the fic isn't worth my time.

 

^Nope, I do that too.
It happens with pokemon fanfics too. Mostly, if the pokemon are talking that's a bad sign for the fic.

 

So, in the books it said Merope was barely a witch. I always took that to mean she was practically a squib and didn't have much magic. A fic I read took it the other way around, that she didn't know how because she didn't go to Hogwarts, so not a witch in a more cultural way.

First time I've ever seen this idea, which way do you all think J.K actually meant?

 

We know for a fact that she was able to do magic as she was capable of brewing a love potion, which requires magic.

 

I don't think magic is quantifiable so people who are "near Squibs" just don't have a instuctual grasp of magic or are not intelligent enough to understand theoritical concepts to perform it properly.

Besides Dumbledore mentioned that Merope was just as bad as she was because she was constantly abused by her father and brother and as soon as she got away from them she actually was quite good for not even having any kind of formal education she could after all brew iirc Amortentia she just couldn't keep herself alive with magic because after Riddle left her she was emotionally devasted and her magic again became weak, it's almost the same deal with Tonks and her Metamorphmagus abilities because Remus rejected her.