Did Harry return to finish his Hogwarts education after the books?

 

The question is answered in Dumbledore's commentary from Tales of Beedle the Bard. An animagus is able to keep their human mind while in animal form, whereas a person who is transformed into an animal with regular transfiguration will have an animal mind until they are returned to human form.

Which implies that actually yes, Krum is a partially trained shark animagus, since he was able to retain his human mind and complete the task.

 

Well, damn.

Good on Krum.

 

I'm pretty sure he did not go back to Hogwarts for a final year.

 

So what about Slughorn transfiguring himself into a couch?

Does he have the brain of a couch? And if he did, wouldn't that make it impossible for someone to untransfigure themselves as they would be incapable of rational thought?

 

If he was fully a couch, it wouldn't have hurt him to be poked. I believe he transfigured his robes to resemble a couch, in a way that would allow him to hide comfortably in a sitting position for a while.

 

That was probably an illusion. Dumbledore stabbed him with a wand and he was hurt by it.

 

Is there a difference between Dark Magic and the Dark Arts?

We know that Jinxes, Hexes and Curses are Dark Magic, and that almost everybody (including Harry, Ron, Hermione and other students) use them, and are even praised for their use (Ginny, Slughorn and the Bat Bogey-Hex).

At the same time, there is this passage in an article written by Rita Skeeter:

So while students and adults using jinxes, hexes and even some curses is never addressed as being bad, unusual or worrying, at the same time the idea that Harry might use the Dark Arts is used to create public outrage.

Do we know what the difference is? I know it's never clearly defined, but maybe some of you remember something else from the books that could shed light on this.

And a second question: It is said that at Hogwarts students are not taught Dark Magic, only the defence. Is there ever a lesson where they are taught a hex, jinx or curse, or are they all self-taught in that area?

 

I would have said that Dark Magic is part of the Dark Arts. The latter is a large branch of the magical world that includes more than spells.

Uhm is this canon? It never occured to me that curses are simply considered dark. Thought I have to admit that the difference between different kind of spells dosen't exist in the translation I read.

But for me something is not dark jsut because it is a jinx.

 

JKR wrote on her old website that hexes and jinxes have a (minor) "connotation of dark magic" (with a hex being worse than a jinx), while the term curse is "reserved for the worst kinds of dark magic". Web Archive and hp-lexicon


On Pottermore it was later stated in "The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1" that Hexes, Jinxes and Curses are Dark Charms:

hp-lexicon and pottermore.wikia

I guess if it canon or not depends on how strict you define it. As JKR said that this was her working theory, I think of it as canon.

 

Mh intresting point I didn't knew. My problem is, if I see that as canon, for me it means that the whole construct of dark magic, as it is normally shown, is bullshit.

If I hear dark magic I make connections, dark, dark something truely evil, a shadow hiding in the unseen, a phantom ruling from afar and unknown. It is either silly or arbitary to call something like some of the jinxes we see as 'dark' and with that regard evil.

An in universe explantion could at best be that either the difference a blurrrey line with no stricte rule as to what is dark or there is a strict rule that was once put in place and simply never updated.

An outside explation is simply that I wonder what JKR was thinking.

w/e back to your question, I would stand with what I said as I prefer my first in universe explanation. There is something called the 'dark arts' and something called 'dark magic' both with no strict meaning execpt that everyone agrees that its evil. The dark arts being something greate, more universal thing and part of that is dark magic.

 

The fact of the matter is that the phrases "Dark magic" and "Dark Arts", which are used interchangeably, are used in varying manners. In this sense they are not so different from real life language in which phrases can often have separate technical/formal and common use/informal meanings. Further, within the realm of technical meanings, terminology can have varying meaning depending on the discipline you are in or even a particular faction within a discipline.

Wanting a nice, neat, universal definition is IMO the impulse towards bad worldbuilding. Imaginary worlds should allude to a level of complexity and natural chaos comparable to the real world, and the avoidance of neat categorisation is important to that.

There seem to be 3 main uses of the phrase "dark magic":

1. That which is inherently dangerous

2. That which is inherently immoral.

3. That which possesses a distinct and objective magical quality that resists other magic and in particular reversal.

There are seem to be another two lesser-used meanings:

4. That which is inherently gruesome (e.g. use of human body parts in potions).

5. That which is not necessarily immoral but is nonetheless suspicious.

But of course it's too simple to even say that the term means one of these things depending on context, because the three meanings are not unrelated. Depending on one's point of view they feed into each other. For example, in Muggle Britain gun ownership is considered inherently morally suspicious: a person is considered to need a justification to need a gun - wanting a gun for the sake of owning a gun is looked on as immoral by most of society. This is a good example of how something being inherently dangerous can be conceptually linked to it being immoral.

(Of course, the above comparison to guns immediately invites speculation about magical America. Pre-Fantastic Beasts, I always used to enjoy the idea of the magical US being a place where the practice of dark magic was considered a right, and therefore a relatively anarchic and potentially sinister place, a haven for scum and villainy. Very wild west-esque. But that seems to be no longer viable given Fantastic Beasts.)

Another fun comparison might be with a fascination with gruesome subjects. Recall how Snape was considered somewhat suspicious for being interested in Dark magic from the time he started Hogwarts, but that it was more of a matter of being shunned socially rather than a disciplinary matter. Further consider how many children seem to have a natural interest in jinxes and other mild dark magic which is considered largely harmless. A comparison here might be drawn with the rather popular book series Horrible Histories, which goes into gory detail about torture, executions etc and are loved by children for that fact. This kind of fascination with gruesome subjects is considered natural curiosity... but if a kid started collecting specialist books about torture, their peers might begin to think they were a bit weird. And if they started making their own torture devices - just for fun, mind you, not to use - it would definitely raise eyebrows.

(Finally, I would like to note that this entire discussion does not really belong in this thread, which is for questions with clear and definite answers).

 

Wow, thanks, I really didn’t expect such an elaborate answer, but it sure is helpful (especially the part about there being difference between the technical and informal meanings of the phrases). I’ll keep in mind to make a new thread if I want to discuss the subject some more.

I’ve researched the answer to my second question myself now, and in case anyone else is interested:
At least “on screen”, they are never taught any jinxes, hexes or curses in DADA, only how to defend against them and dark creatures. In HBP in Snape’s first lesson, when they learn non-verbal casting, Snape instructs the students to cast a jinx and counter-jinx at each other, but they are not told which jinx to use or how to cast it.
They learn them in their own time, a few in the first three books (like the Leg-Locker Curse in PS) but only really in GoF when Harry is preparing for the Tournament, and later in OotP during the DA meetings.

 

Are there any symptoms of someone being under the imperious curse?

 

Not that I remeber. If there were any many things in the books wouldnt make sense. Remeber eveb the minister of magic was under it,

 

I think it messes with the mind. Crouch (Sr.) broke free of the curse but was completely demented after so much time. His son wasn't the image of sanity either. And there's this passage in HBP:

 

There is a scene in GoF after the Triwizard Champions were chosen, where Harry noticed that Crouch looked ill, and Dumbledore seemed worried too, but nobody suspected the Imperius Curse because of it.

Of course we don't know if he looked ill because he was trying to fight off the curse, or because he was living under the same roof as Pettigrew and Voldemort...

Also, in HBP, when Harry revealed that Rosmerta had been placed under the Imperius Curse, everybody was surprised, so she didn't seem to show any signs.

 

One more question.

Did the public know that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were childhood friends?

 

I don't think it was a known fact. Lily was amused and did not believe it when she heard from Bathilda Bagshot.

Lily's letter to Sirius:

 

Of course not. That was the "shocker" about Rita's book.