We've got Wormtail taking out twelve Muggles with a single blasting curse, and Dumbledore disabling about as many Death Eaters with a single binding spell in OotP.

And that's Death Eaters. If we assume that Voldemort is at a similar level of skill (a reasonable assumption), that he is more ruthless (also reasonable), and that his enemies are not of Dumbledore's caliber, then I'd say probably not.

 

And yet he fled the atrium in OoTP and needed an army to storm Hogwarts in DH.

 

In the Atrium, I think he was more interested in regrouping after so many of his Death Eaters had been captured and getting away from Dumbledore. There's also the fact that Harry had just forcefully ejected him from his mind, which might have been something that made him feel vulnerable, especially after failing to learn of the prophecy again. Could he have stayed to stomp the Aurors? Probably. But was it worth the risk, with both Dumbledore and Harry there? We know Harry wasn't going to be able to really do anything to Voldemort, but did Voldemort know that?

I think with Hogwarts he was trying to swing a better PR image, as in, not go in and wreck everyone so mercilessly that he's hated forever and can never truly hold the castle. Could he have taken the castle by himself? Maybe, but again, Harry is in there, as a sort of unknown quantity, and he figures after a few hours of lighter punishment they'll give him up and surrender the castle without him having to start murdering left and right. Remember, he was basically like, "If you don't send him out in an hour, I'm going to come in myself . . . and you don't want that." And they didn't. So Harry left the castle. He knew, and they knew, and Harry more than anyone, that if they tried to shield Harry from him, they were all going to die.

We have to remember, I think, that Voldemort seeks, above all else, to mitigate risk as much as possible, at nearly any cost. He wants as many barriers as there can be between himself and any challenge or obstacle he might have to face. He tries not to go in until he's sure it's going to be a no-contest bout, even if it's likely that he's going to pwn. After Halloween 1981, he was convinced never to go in half-cocked again.

 

I'd say Voldemort is more powerful than Dumledore when it comes to battle magic. Dumbledore said that Voldemort was the best student to ever go through Hogwarts, that obviously includes Albus as well, so Dumbledore thinks that Voldemort was at least a better student than him.

 

Well, Dumbledore was in the atrium too, so presumably if Voldemort is roughly equal to Dumbledore then the addition of 10 Aurors on Dumbledore's side just about tips the balance.

As for Hogwarts, beyond "JKR wanted a battle and a single man doesn't have the same effect", one could say that while wizards acting together can't beat Voldemort in "live action", enchantments made by many wizards can (see also the enchantments on the Tonks house at the start of DH). So he needs an army to overcome the defensive enchantments, not the wizards inside.

If Harry hadn't killed Voldemort, maybe he could have won the battle of Hogwarts basically single handed. Who knows.

The "enchantments can't be overcome" reasoning could also be applied to why Voldemort never tried to simply conquer the Ministry, opting for a power grab instead. The Ministry seems to have access to several rather powerful enchantments, such as the Taboo.

The power gap between Voldemort and "normal wizards" has always fascinated me, in that it's hard to justify if one rejects the idea that he simply "has more magic".

Voldemort's strength is meant to be his genius which gives him amazing skill with magic. But if you could convert genius directly into physical strength, while Albert Einstein would be a juggernaut, he wouldn't be a one man army. So clearly there's some other fact to introduce to the analysis.

I'd suggest two possible factors:

1. Magic itself is "top heavy" in a way that favours those of high skill against those of medium skill working together. Intuitively, one would think the opposite: that as skill rises, one ekes out increasingly marginal returns on the extent to which you can cast ever more powerful spells. And accordingly you could increase power by adding more people much easier than by adding more skill.

But it's possible that it's the opposite: as skill rises, the power of your spells rises disproportionately. That means that you'd see the top levels of magical skill as very spread out. Even being slightly more skilled than the person below you would lead to much more powerful spells.

So you have someone like Snape, who seems to be a master at all areas of magic, and then someone like Voldemort, who is similarly a master of all trades, but just more masterful. And yet Voldemort is godlike compared to Snape.

To put it into Muggle terms, I guess you could say that while Einstein wasn't ten times more intelligent than an average scientist (which would require an IQ over 1000), even the relatively small edge he had in intelligence was enough for him to do what ten average scientists working together could never have done.

Similarly, while Voldemort isn't ten times as skilled as an Auror, the edge he has in skill is significant enough to allow him to cast spells of power that ten aurors working together could never overcome.

The problem with this idea is that Voldemort, Dumbledore and Grindelwald basically have to be identically skillful because even the slightest variations would create massive differences in power, which we know isn't the case. The likelihood of them being absolutely identical skill is low... unless there is an upper ceiling to skill which those three had all hit, in which case it can work.

2. The "chopped off bell curve" idea from TOHF. The idea here is that the massive gap we see between Voldemort and the next wizard down isn't natural. Rather you'd normally see a normal bell curve of talent where, though Voldemort (top of the curve) could handily beat a load of average wizards, he could be defeated by just two or three wizards who were just a bit down the curve from him. It's just that by the time the HP series starts, there are no wizards in that "talent zone" left alive due to the war, thus creating the apparent gulf. This would also explain why the first war was so much longer than the second.

A third factor would be that Voldemort and Dumbledore are freaks where magic has boosted their intelligence to orders of magnitudes higher than even someone like Einstein. While Dumbledore's uncanny ability to predict highly specific events a year after his own death would go some way towards that, it leads you into all sorts of problems so best to leave it out.

 

We actually see something like this tested in DH, when he fights Kingsley, McGonagall, and Slughorn. All are tremendously skilled . . . but it's just not enough.

 

Well, it's impossible to know how McGonagall etc. would position on a bell curve if such a "chopped off bell curve" happened. Perhaps the only reason we consider them the upper end of "normal skill" is because all the wizards who normally bridge the gap between them and Voldemort/Dumbledore are dead.

 

Gah! You guys are making me wish that there was a HP fic which would show an AU in which none of the Canon Deus Ex Machinas existed: No Power of Love, No Prophecy, No Voldemort-Makes-Bad-Decisions-Because-Plot.

I want a fic in which Voldemort is and always has been this ultimate genius badass we were led to believe he was.

 

True, there's no way of knowing how they would be positioned on the bell-curve, but they're certainly said to be skilled, and yet Voldemort is able to hold them off. They may not be near him but they're closer than the average wizard, and Voldemort still comes away looking basically untouchable.

Just thought it was an interesting, potential example of the top-heavy magic system and the bell curve.

 

In that fic Voldemort wins, everyone dies and it's game over.

 

Not in the hands of a good author. I'm sure there are ways of having a decent story without using deus ex machina.

 

I think it's a Catch-22 situation. If the characters act rationally, you give the reader all the information and don't pull anything out of your arse, then the ending is predictable. If you do pull something out of your arse, the readers call foul.

 

A possibility:

1. Voldemort takes over the magical world in the early 70s, because he's just on that level.

2. The Statute is enforced even more strongly. I don't think Voldemort is like Grindelwald, he wouldn't be interested in being a King. Magical children are not allowed near muggles.

3. As in Canon, Harry is born in 1981, but there was no prophecy. However, as JK said through Dumbledore, there will eventually rise someone to oppose the tyranny. Introducing Harry Potter: the magical prodigy on Voldemort's level.

4. Fast forward to when Harry is around 27 years old. He's not a scared kid, raised by magic-hating muggles, but an adult man and a powerful wizard.

5. Basically, Voldemort is Skynet and Harry is John Connor leading the resistance.

 

If Voldemort is as competent as you say, he'd kill Harry the moment in his education it became clear he would grow to be a threat.

 

Yeah, the problem with that situation is that Voldemort has taken over. You need Albus there at least long enough for Harry to graduate, as we know from Dumbledore's own education that by the time he was 17, he's making NEWT testers say 'wtf.'

Also a good opportunity for there to be a darker wizarding world where there's no nice 15-year break between wars.

Harry being smart enough to play dumb is also an interesting idea.

 

Not if he's not aware Harry is such a genius.

Perhaps Harry is schooled in secrecy? Perhaps he plays dumb? There are countless possibilities.

 

Yeah, Voldemort is just not a good villain. Rowling explicitly said once that everyone except Voldemort is grey. The fact she made him such a one-dimensional bad guy is honestly kind of boring. Even at the orphanage (which she could have used to 'explain' how he became evil), he is quickly described as a bully, and never as a victim. He later takes up the Pureblood cause (albeit probably nominally), even though he knew damn well it doesn't matter all that much. And his entire goal (beyond Immortality) is to basically become Adolf Hitler.

That kind of stuff is why I'm just so drawn to Grindelwald. He has a legitimately fascinating past. His goal, if not his methods, seem to be relatively legitimate. He managed to rule a whole lot for years. Even if he had nothing to do with WWII, he still apparently did crazy shit in his own war. And there's even the Grindelwald/Dumbledore aspect to it to add to the fascination. And, of course, the Duel between the two was supposedly ridiculously epic.

 

I would give credence to the idea that Albus, Gellert and Voldemort each had an unusual advantage that propelled them into this higher category; early legilimency. If you accept that young Tom Riddle could already see into the minds of his fellow orphans, and that Albus wasn't surprised by it but was both impressed and wary because of it, it would go far to explain their inherent but never explained key advantage.

Snape learned Legilimency later, so it wasn't a mind-bending developmental cheat the way it was for Albus and Tom (and in this theory, Gellert as well).

Works for me.

 

I liked your idea, Xandrel. Writing the post-apocalyptic fic or not, you still got a problem: Dumbledore needs to die for Harry (genius, average, etc) to be victorious, and Lord Voldemort still has 42 years of experience over him.

You need to lessen the experience gap difference in order to avoid a Deus-Ex-Machina.

 

One could argue that there's only so much a wizard can learn.

And I assumed Dumbledore's death is implied, given that Voldemort took over the magical world.

Then you simply place Voldemort's Horcruxes all over the world instead of Britain, give the 27yo Harry some sidekicks and boom, you have an epic journey which may last about 7 years, so Voldemort's defeated when Harry is about 34.