So, I'm writing a story and my beta decided I needed to dip into elves' magic and wands, since its coming up in the story anyway. I wrote the following, but am wondering what DLP's take is on House-elf magic+wand use.

Acceptable? Too much? Not enough? I'm looking for a discussion on the theory here, rather than a review of the scene (which is why it's not in WbA).

 

Well, the wand ban for non-human creatures is in the law for a reason. I guess goblins and house elves are close enough, both have their own magic.

Although... I just can't see it. I mean, unless house elves used to own wands in the past? I don't see wands as some sort of "power stick" that possessing one instantly makes your magic stronger and better if you're a non-human magical being

Just "wand core magic" seems a bit weak. The elves would need experience with wands and knowledge of wandlore before using them would be worth it.

 

Lots to think about in this.

While I loathe the idea of there being house-elf magic that's different from wizard magic, it seems to be canon. The real problem then becomes 'if its different, why would a wand help their spells?' Goblins also have a different sort of magic and yearn to leverage the power and diversity of wanded magic, but it remains a humans-only secret... or maybe they can't even use the wands they capture, and no amount of money or torture can make a wand-maker tell them how to enhance goblin magic.

Back to House-elves- so long as they are simply using the wands to enhance their own (quite limited in variety) magic, it makes sense. If they suddenly can do everything a wizard can, it's a 'tell me how they're still slaves, again?' problem.

If it were my headcanon world, the wands wouldn't listen to them because house-elves are too timid, and goblins interact with existing wandcores like Klingons with Tribbles.

 

JKR is on record as saying a) Elves can do things wizards can't b) wizards can do things Elves can't. We then have to combine this with canon that Elves can use wands.

Obviously the thing Elves can do is powerful wandless magic. The problem is identifying what it is only wizards can do, given that Elves can use wands.

Firstly, it's worth remembering that using a wand does not necessarily mean casting spells. Elves could use wands as a tool but not to cast wizard spells but rather to enhance their own brand of magic. Unfortunately this elegant solution may be barred by belief that an Elf could cast the Dark Mark. (Though it remains remotely possible that the Ministry wizards were in error there).

Secondly, if that route is barred, note that we have never seen an Elf use transfiguration. So this is my headcanon: Elves have powerful wandless magic and can use wands to cast spells, but their magic lacks a transfigurative element, which means they can't change the fundamental properties of objects, just temporarily modify them.

 

As I remember, Wizards banning Goblins from using wands is a popular fanon topic. But I don't remember 'House-Elf' and 'wand' used together, apart from the scene when Winky was found with a stolen wand and accused of conjuring the Dark Mark.

 

I never really understood the limitations of House Elf magic in canon. Dobby could pop in and out of anti-apparation spells/wards with ease and take people with him too. But then, couldn't Harry have used Kreacher the same way when he wanted to break into Gringotts (he could have just apparated to the vault) or when he wanted to get to Hogwarts?

 

Hm. It's almost like JK Rowling had a sporadic, inconsistent, and poorly developed magic system that served solely to hold together the plot, rather than create a larger, consistent world beyond the books.

 

I was going to say that elves probably can't do anything like enchanting or runes, but then I remembered Dobby messed with the bludger in CoS. I can't remember how Dobby pulled off blocking the platform either, was it a ward or something else? Runes may not be out of the question, though it's hard to think of things Wizards can do that elves can't given what we've seen in canon.

Transfiguration might be the only piece of magic that we can infer elves can't do. Though I'm not entirely sure we can rule it out just because we don't have an example. We've seen elves do some crazy shit in canon.

 

There's nothing to suggest—as far as I know—in JKR's world that Runes have anything to do with actual magic besides simply being an earlier language that things many have been written in. Also, "Transfiguration" and "Enchanting" are human methods for accomplishing such ends. Whose to say that Elves use those methods? It may have the same end results, but what an elf does, or the way an elf's magic works, might be completely different to a human's use of magic for enchanting or transfiguration or anything else.

That's all to say, however, that I'm considering "magic" as a catch-all term for numerous concepts. If you or someone else considers "magic" as a single entity, then it will necessarily be the same, or at the very least, similar between all races/species.

 

Every species seems to use magic very differently, but wands at least seem to be believed to help out any of them. I suspect the elves would need some serious practice before they got any benefit out of them though. When humans use wands it doesn't just make their accidental magic more powerful after all.

 

Actually, at this point it's already posted in a chapter. However, I am developing it more, so probably a bit of theory behind it and different ideas concerning it. Also, possible plotholes to sidestep and corners to avoid writing myself into.

 

House-elves get by just fine with finger snaps alone. What takes a wizard years to learn, an elf imagines and snaps to make it happen. Clearly, they have little need for wands.

That said, canon makes it clear that the average Wizard is a bit afraid of what could happen if Elves raised wands against their owners. At the World Cup, a group of aurors were terrified at the prospect of a house-elf utilizing a wand, and while they showed a certain amount of incredulity, they did not seem to express any indication that they thought it was impossible. In other words, while they could not believe that an elf belonging to a well respected pure blood would use a wand, few doubted that a house-elf could, nor even that they could perform such specific spells as the Dark Mark. So, I would say, the idea that a wand simply amplifies a house-elf's power, while valid, is not quite enough to indicate the fear the group of auror's felt. They were not afraid of super-cleaning charms. Rather, they were afraid that a house-elf named Winky had perfected the art of wand-magic and could perform complex charms. If we take a great leap of faith and assume that aurors are not a bunch of paranoid lunatics, like Muggle law enforcement is in real life, then we must conclude that not only are elves capable of performing Wizard-magic, but they do so much more naturally, and can, with the aid of a wand, learn extremely intricate spells with only minimal tutelage.

So yes, elves can use Wizard spells, with the aid of a wand. Presumably, so could goblins or any other sufficiently intelligent magical creature. This alone could explain the profound fear Wizards have for the concept of non-human beings wielding wands, and their determination to prevent that from ever happening.

 

Human wizards don't give goblins or elves wands to keep them under their heels. According to the Wikia, the ban on goblins carrying wands may or may not have contributed significantly to these rebellions.

 

That still helps, to be honest. It gives me a few things to work over to make sure I don't leave plot holes going forward. Thanks!