Harry Potter Magic / Headscratchers

Harry Potter headscratchers relating to magic and magic theory. Please add new entries at the bottom.

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Dueling purpose

What in the name of Merlin is the point of dueling? I think JK originally intended it to be the Wizard's Duel from Sword in the Stone - turning one another into animals and whatnottery - but in dueling in the later books, the intention is almost always to either kill or incapacitate the opponent, so why would you ever use any spell other than Expelliarmus, Stupefy, or Avada Kedavra? There is no reason a death eater would cast JELLY LEGS on Neville in Book 5 rather than killing him stone dead. The only excuse I can think of is that magic is like sword-fighting - you have to beat the other sword out of the way (arbitrary jinxes and hexes) before you can stab (curses) - but that seems a pretty weak excuse, given the description of Sirius's defeat at the hand of Bellatrix in book five; it's not described that he was finally beaten down and unable to defend himself, it's more that her spell just managed to hit. There's also the fact that Avada Kedavra is UNBLOCKABLE. If your spell is on target, and your target ain't Harry Potter or the master of your wand, you can't fail. On a similar vein, why is Avada Kedavra so ridiculously underused? As far as I recall, only four characters are said to have definitely used the spell: Voldemort, Snape (on Dumbledore's request, so rules may be different), Rowle (used a LOT in the heat of conflict), and Wormtail (not too difficult to use). Then if you consider that it's uncurable and (almost completely) unblockable, you'd think it'd be used a lot more.
- A possible reasons for underuse of AK might be the chaotic nature of most magic fights. It's not an ordinary shootout, where the opposing sides are more or less lined up against each other and thus can shoot without fear of hitting a comrade. But in the magic battle everybody keeps shifting and teleporting around? and friendly fire is much more probable. Bad guys most likely don't care about such trifle. Of course, its underuse on the villains' part is inexcusable.
- Imagine it like a Muggle fistfight. Sure, if you hit your opponent in the face with a flying side kick, sweep them to the floor and cave in their ribcage you have won immediately, but that's hard to do and quite easily dodgeable. AK requires lots of power to use, thus why the people who use it most are Voldemort and powerful Death Eaters like Bellatrix. It's also a freakin' massive green bolt of deathy doom. Quite easy to dodge if you've seen the DE psyche himself up first and gather his strength to cast the spell.
- Well the non-outlaws likely don't use it because of how very, very illegal it is and so when they can kill people with a curse that won't get them sent to Azkaban then they will.
- Are you implying that killing somebody with anything but AK will NOT end you in Azkaban?
- That is what's implied in the novels... which is why I say just blow them up with bombarda.
- Wasn't Sirius wrongfully send to Azkaban by using a bombarda-like spell that killed a lot of people? so no, killing with magic get you into Azkaban no matter what spell you use.
- I believe it's because of the hardness of some of those spells. AK is a VERY difficult spell. Not all can successfully attempt it. As said in Goblet of Fire, if a wizard's magic skill isn't enough, it won't work and will just give the enemy time.
- It depends on the situation. Say you're an Auror and tracking down a dangerous fugitive that you can't subdue or several and they keep reviving each other. If the Unforgivables haven't been authorized then you can't use AK. If you use another spell and slit their throat then it would be more forgivable in the eyes of the law. Also, if you kill somebody without authorization, using AK would just get you into more trouble than another method of execution.
- I think the explanation is that some wizards/witches duel for FUN. Or practice, so that in the event that they are faced with a real threat, they can react well and defend themselves. Why would you want to AK your best friend when you could just cast Jelly Legs? It's just that in the novels all the duels we see are between the Death Eaters and the Order. When Harry taught them other spells in the DA, it was so that they could hold their own in a duel while they were still 14-15 and didn't want to or couldn't summon up enough power to off somebody. I think that in times of peace dueling is more like taking a karate class or learning to shoot a gun even if you don't intend to ship off to Afghanistan.
- Also, a reason Avada Kedavra likely isn't used often is because it can only be done if you truly WANT to kill the victim. Magic takes a lot of desire (the more difficult the task, the more will it takes to perform), and the Unforgivable Curses require the user to truly want what they're doing. Voldemort thinks nothing of murder, so he can cast a killing curse almost casually. Bellatrix is a sadist, so it's trivial for her to cast the Cruciatus Curse (while even Harry couldn't achieve much despite his rage at Sirius' death: he didn't want to see Bellatrix tortured enough to actually cause her that excruciating pain). AK can't be used in self-defense unless you're already willing to casually kill someone with no remorse, so someone willing to throw it out is likely not a very nice person.

Inventing spells

Snape invented the Sectumsempra spell when he was a teenager at Hogwarts. So does that mean every other young wizard is able to invent their own spells?
- It's probably like real life inventions; everybody can potentially make them, because there is no law or physical constraint that prevents them from doing so, but few actually get to do it for a number of reasons.
- Hermione possibly invented the Point Me spell.
- She also invented the blue-fire-in-a-jar effect from the first book, and Ron at least tried to invent a spell to turn Scabbers yellow. The Weasley twins were the creators of dozens of prank spells and items, even before they left school. Inventing minor spells probably isn't especially unusual for a pupil; it's inventing spells that last, or that will hold up to the rigors of combat with another wizard, that require expertise.
- Invention takes a lot of skill and intelligence because magic is a volatile "science", if you can call it that. A lot of magic is still unknown and most spellwork is intuition, while wordless casting takes great concentration and practice. Theoretically, anyone could have invented an internal combustion engine when the technology allowed it. It took someone with intelligence, knowledge of the sciences involved in creating an engine, and the tenacity to work hard at creating it. Creating a spell, likewise, likely takes a smart mind and a good understanding of what you're doing to create something usable that won't suddenly falter or blow up in your face (possibly literally). It's notable that all of the people who are seen creating spells are depicted as having great skill and knowledge in magic.
- It's called spell crafting in the series. The author does not elaborate on how it is done since we never see Harry attempting it but it is a practice that can be dangerous as Luna's mother was killed in a spell crafting mishap.
- Every single spell had to be invented by someone, is not like all of the sudden someone said "aveda kadebra" and killed someone and the like. Most of them are probably very old and that's why they use latin but is like the difference between inventing the wheel and inventing the cell phone.

Divination disdain

So, why is Divination looked down upon in the Wizarding world? So, they can believe that they can use sticks the blow people up and fly on broomsticks, and yet predicting the future is too far fetched. Sounds like an Author Filibuster to me.
- I think this falls victim to the fact that in our world the magic to make things fly and to tell the future both don't exist and so they seem equally likely. In the world of Harry Potter, though, flying and blowing things up with magic are clearly real while divination is much less obviously true. It's really like saying 'Well, magic isn't real and aliens aren't real but magic exists in Harry Potter so why don't any of them believe in aliens? Don't they know that if one fictional thing is true in their universe, everything else must be, too?' I think that everyone respects that there are some true predictions (even Hermione or she wouldn't have taken the class). The problem is, though, that it's such an imprecise art. From what we've seen, you can't force a prediction. No one can ask 'so will we win the war against Voldemort', for example, or how to defeat him. You just have to wait until the Seer gets a vision that they won't remember anyway and hope that somebody else is there to witness it and reports it. Teaching Divination is frankly a waste of time because if you have the gift then you can't control it and you won't remember anything so what do you need to learn? If you don't have it then you can't gain it and the gift is very rare anyway. There's also the fact that none of the prophecies are guaranteed to come true. Dumbledore explained that there are hundreds of prophecies in the Hall of Prophecy that didn't come true. If Snape hadn't overheard part of Trelawney's prophecy then that wouldn't have come true either and Voldemort never would have come after Harry specifically.
- Divination in general is not looked down in the Magical world, after all, a large section of the Department of Mysteries is devoted to storing and studying prophecies. But the problem that Dumbledore has with it is that divination in the Potterverse seems to be a purely innate power and cannot be taught and is therefore unfit of being part of the school curriculum.
- I don't think Divination is looked down upon by the Wizarding World so much as Prof. Trelawney is looked down upon by Prof. McGonagall. It's abundantly clear in Book 3 that McGonagall considers Trelawney a no-talent hack with delusions of grandeur. In her defense, Divination seems to me like a profession that lends itself well to flim-flam artists. There's nothing stopping a so-called "Seer" from using all the tricks that Muggle "psychics" use to "predict the future". They can play they odds, manipulate marks, and use cold reading (Trelawney herself may be subconsciously using cold reading for the majority of her "predictions").
- Also, most magic has obvious effects. You can whip up a fireball just fine and dandy even at a young age, and it's pretty obviously there. Divination? Highly imprecise and heavily dependent on the individual. You can't really tell if a prophecy will come true without waiting to see (and the vague nature of prophecies means that details can change easily even if everything falls in place to come true), and (as stated above) it's an easy school to fake. Most wizards have likely never seen authentic prophecies or even a minor prediction of the future. The Ministry obviously has plenty of knowledge regarding the true power of Divination, though even then it seems like most of their studies fall into "Record the prophecy and see what happens." Even the real world US government looked into psychic powers just because they thought there may be something there.
- Probably the issue is that Divination is like the Social Science of Magic; is not an exact science, it depends a lot in personal interpretation and other many factors. Most people won’t consider Psychology to be less important that Medicine, yet they know that while a Medic can do certain tests and figure out what’s exactly wrong with the organism and prescribe what is necessary to fix it, a Psychologist needs much more time to figure out what’s wrong with a person's mind and works with a much more subjective matter. Divination is something similar.

Silencio

This goes out to combat in Harry Potter in general. Why isn't the Silencio spell used as often? It's clearly the most powerful disabling spell in Harry Potter, preventing spellcasting. It's more defensive than using Stupefy.
- While you have a point when fighting students, you seem to be forgetting how big a deal nonverbal spells are. Silencio, against someone who can use nonverbal magic, would do just as much as doing nothing, making Silencio a huge waste of time when you could just stupefy or kill them.
- Avada Kedavra was never used nonverbally.
- That may be true, but if Dolohov's spell against Hermione in Book five can be used as an example, spells seem to be less powerful if used nonverbally. In Hermione's case, that made the difference between 'severely injured' and 'dead'.
- From what we've seen, Silencio isn't a Projectile Spell-type spell. You don't have to land a hit with it; you just cast it and you instantly cover a wide area. Then, you can take extra time to aim your Stupefy with less concern with what your enemies are doing.
- I see it as an Invisible Missile. Crucio doesn't have a missile either, but you can avoid it, as Goblet of Fire shows us.
- Also, remember that while trained wizards can do nonverbal spells, they seem to prefer to say them out loud if they can. So silencing an attacker might just guarantee that they will use nonverbal spells, making it that much harder to defend against. Also, remember when Dolohov hit Hermione with that purple fire stuff. Madame Pomfrey said that if he had done it verbally, it would have killed her, so verbal spells are probably stronger.
- Didn't Dolohov actually try to say the spell? For all we know, it was a Killing Curse that got changed or something due to the Silencing Charm.
- This is it exactly. Dolohov wasn't doing a nonverbal spell, he was attempting to cast a curse verbally without being able to speak. This on its own would probably be debilitating to the spell effect. Also, was Silencio cast on him while he was trying to cast it or earlier? Because if it was the former, then it's even worse for him, because it would likely be similar to Cho Chang setting her friend on fire by screwing up the incantation for the Disarming Charm in The Order of the Phoenix, or Ron's Hover Charm failing because he was mispronouncing 'Wingardium Leviosa' in PS.
- Related to that, there are a lot of very useful spells that just don't see use in combat, for some reason. People can get up after Crucio, break out of Petrificus Totalus, and maybe even withstand a Stupefy or Reducto if they're Determinators. Get hit by Obliviate, though, and you're not going to know what's going on. Granted, this is one of those cases where a Killing Curse would be more efficient.
- I could be wrong, but Obliviate modifies memories, it doesn't just wipe them blank. You have to actively create a memory in someone's mind, which would require much more concentration than just stunning, petrifying, or blasting.
- Nah, making a Killing Curse requires you to seriously mean to kill the person you are in front of. Harry tried to torture Bellatrix in Order of the Phoenix, but it didn't work. Harry wasn't that resentful, and it shows us how bad the Death Eaters were if they could do the Unforgivable Spells with such ease.
- It would take an extremely powerful Obliviate just to make this happen, as in "regress them back to a juvenile state" powerful. The caster would have to erase their memory far enough to make the opponent forget about their fighting skills if they want to kill them off. Alternatively, the caster could just make the opponent forget why they're fighting if they're only looking to make peace. Even then, the person could get treatment to get their memory back.
- Not immediately. Breaking memory charms is a difficult and time-consuming process that can permanently damage the victim's memory. Just look at Bertha Jorkins.
- It's implied Voldemort tortured it out of her. If a powerful wizard such as Dumbledore wanted to restore her memory without doing damage, it would probably have been easy. Lockhart was only damaged so badly because of the broken wand he was using.

Imagination

Is it just me, or are the wizards and witches incredibly unimaginative? Okay, so maybe the "good guys" stick with approved spells and uses, but what about dark wizards? How about "Accio Spinal Column" to summon a person's backbone right out of their skin? And that crazy bone removing spell used by Lockheart would sure cause a stir if used offensively. There just seems to be a lot of untapped potential.
- An 'Entrail-expelling curse' was mentioned in the Order of the Phoenix.
- Something that would be exceptionally useful in this regard would be transfiguration spells. Turning a wizard into an animal, a rock, or a fruit would remove their ability to fight far more effectively than anything else short of a Killing Curse. Yet we never see any wizards actually using transfiguration in battle.
- Transfiguration is implied to be more difficult than charms and hexes, especially on the fly. Slughorn's ability to demolish the room and still have time to turn himself into a chair in Half-Blood Prince is seen as a mark of his exceptional ability.
- And yet Mad-eye Moody could turn Malfoy into a ferret in the blink of an eye. Although it is true that students only learn human transfiguration in their final years, it is implied that more intelligent wizards, at least, all possess some proficiency at this.
- Mad-Eye Moody (and presumably Barty Crouch Jr. also) is himself exceptional at magic, so it makes perfect sense that he would be highly skilled in all sorts of magical fields, including transfiguration. But there's no reason to assume that his skills are representative of adult wizards in general.
- Transfiguring yourself is different, because creatures Transfigured into other things normally end up with the mind of that other thing, and hence you can't get back without help. They talk about this when they talk about Animaguses, who have to learn how to keep their own mind, and we've never seen anyone manage being an inanimate object before. Slughorn could have easily ended up thinking he was a chair!
- The "Slughorn chair" example was probably just some sort of illusion, as Dumbledore poked the "chair" hard in the "cushion" (Slughorn's abdomen). It did say he was squatting, and the fat, fairly round person that he is, Slughorn could easily cast a modified Disillusionment Charm on himself to turn his chairlike-shape into a chairlike-appearance.
- Good point. Perhaps they have a strong distinction between 'combat spells' and 'other spells', so they normally use them according to the situation. The bone removal spell was more of an accident, Lockhart wanted to mend the bones, so it is not entirely clear if there is a spell that is intended to remove bones. Also, some spells seem to be very specialized: For example, Leviosa, Levicorpus, Mobilicorpus, and Locomotor all make things float, albeit different things and in slightly different ways. So it is possible that certain spells only work in certain ways.
- Perhaps Accio only works for discrete units of matter, like 'Accio Book' as opposed to 'Accio Page 42'. But none the less, Accio could be very useful, even if you cannot rip out someone's spinal column. Being able to summon someone's wand, or even the whole person should give you an edge in most duels. Interestingly enough, Expelliarmus, when it doesn't just simply blast the wand out of someone's hand, often flings the wand in the general direction of the caster as well!
- How do you know using Accio on a person's spinal column won't instead throw that person back-first straight at you? I can understand Accio will simply give you that specific object requested if, say, I wanted a bottle of ink and it happened to be tucked somewhere in my bag, but if I used Accio on my favorite bookmark, and said bookmark was tucked in a closed book that was locked inside a chest across the room from me, will Accio be courteous enough to unlock or break the chest, open the book (or rip the bookmark out of it otherwise) and toss the bookmark at me, or will it just throw the "bookmark" to me, book, chest, and all?
- We know from Order of the Phoenix that it's very hard to summon something out of someone's hand, especially if they're very determined to hold onto it. Ripping someone's wand out of their hand would probably be impossible for all but the strongest wizards (and maybe not even then).
- "Dark wizard," does not, for the most part, mean "psychotic lunatic." A lot of people are capable of shooting someone in the throat and recording their last bubbling breath so they can play it every night before they fall asleep. They don't. Most people, if forced to shoot someone, will either go for the wound or go for the kill, not for the gore. They're wizards, not Mortal Kombat characters.
- It's not that they're unimaginative - if you want to kill someone, Avada Kedavra is far more efficient, and unblockable to boot. Why bother trying a complicated but "showy" bit of magic that might not even work, when you can simply kill your target instantly?
- There's also probably restrictions on what Accio can do based on what you're summoning. At its simplest it would be "The heavier it is, the harder it is to pull to you." Otherwise anyone could simply Accio a building out of the ground. A spinal column, for instance, is also attached to a person and surrounded by material that it would need to break through. If your spell isn't strong enough to both pull it out of place AND rip it through the body, it'll likely just pull their body toward you with the spine as the center of the force. And since bodies aren't exactly lightweight, it may just knock them off-balance like a kick in the ass.
- It's possible, actually, that you could do something like "Accio Spinal Column" (albeit, squick). It wouldn't necessarily yank the whole person. When Fred and George make their grand escape into the sunset in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it's mentioned that there are broomstick-shaped holes in the walls. If they can summon brooms through walls, it doesn't seem completely beyond the realm of reason that a Big Bad could yank someone's bones out (or even just make them disappear, a la Lockhart). Although given that there was no mention of Harry's Firebolt doing the same thing in the first task at the Triwizard Tournament, it seems reasonable to assume the doors flew open for him (implying less raw power, as he was still inexperienced with the spell), thus it wouldn't be something just any wizard could do.

Unforgivable Curses

What exactly makes a curse 'unforgivable'? Bellatrix Lestrange says in Book five that you have to 'mean' them, but can that be all? It can't be their effects: While torture, mind control, and killing aren't exactly nice, one could kill or torture with literally hundreds of other spells that are not 'unforgivable'.
- The unforgiveable curses are considered such for a different reason each. For Avada Cadavera it can't be blocked or repaired, any other spell as long as the person is still marginally alive you can apparate them to a magical hospital and they'll live. Cut them open, blow them up, set them on fire, etc so long as the body is still there and the heart beating or only just stopped thanks to magic it can be fixed but however Avada Cadavera operates though it's an instant irreversable death no matter how quick you get into restarting someones heart. For Cruciatus it's literally the worst possible physical torture, nothing can actually surpass it, which is why extended use rapidly drives people insane. Finally Imperius not only completely brainwashes the victim to do anything you like no matter how horrible it has a history. Specifically it was invented in the middle ages so wizards could enslave people. Given how the modern world reacts to historical slavery and the mountains of baggage it still carries it's understandable why this curse is considered unforgivable both from a legal perspective and for cultural reasons.
- I'd always assumed it was merely a classification of the spells when they were made illegal. They, unlike other spells, have no other use than to torture, kill, or control minds.
- Okay, good point. But as with all things, good/evil is more a question of intent than of the tools used. This Troper could think of at least one 'good' use for both the AK and the Imperius. Can't think of something for the Cruciatus at the moment, though.
- If you think about it hard enough, then, yes, they can be used for good. Cruciatus can be used in controlled situations for damaged nerves. AK can be used for peaceful death with agreement. Finally, Imperius can be used to fix harmful personalities. However, all of those possibilities would have to be regulated by either the government or a medical professional, and thus any unauthorized usage of them would be grounds for lifetime in Azkaban.
- "Imperius can be used to fix harmful personalities." Yeah, that sounds like a very good reason to make the Imperius Curse even more illegal. Sure, in theory it can be used to help people. But do you really want to give the government, any government, the power to legally brainwash "problem" individuals? The term "Orwellian Nightmare" comes to mind.
- But that's the problem. Take the AK for example: It has a 100% fatality rate and cannot be blocked by shield spells. That alone makes it one of the, if not the most useful spell in any life or death combat situation. But if a wizard uses it to defend his family from a Death Eater attack (for example), he would go to Azkaban for self defense.
- Perhaps it's a Human Rights thing. All of the things that they could possibly be used for good are downright controversial. Assisted Suicide, forceful personality change, torture to reveal information, taking away the will of others. The Twilight Zone probably has an episode or two on one of these.
- It probably has to do with the fact that, to get these curses to operate at full power, you seem to have to literally revel in them (we never see a heroic character produce a lasting Cruciatus, for example, or anything more than a crude Imperius, though Snape probably had enough pent-up rage at life in general to fuel his Avada Kedavra at Dumbledore). Sure, there are plenty of other spells that can do bad things, but to effectively use these, you have to put yourself in a very scary place emotionally. That, or you have to be a sociopath.
- Also, Snape didn't need the rage, not that it didn't help. He WANTED to kill Dumbledore, because Dumbledore wanted Snape to kill him. All part of Dumbledore's plan.
- You still have to "mean" an unforgivable, whether it's a mercy-kill or not.
- Do you? Bellatrix says you have to mean a Crucio to get it to work properly, but all faux!Moody says about Avada Kedavra is that you need a powerful [talent for] magic to back it up, and he didn't think fourth years were capable of it.
- Snape could have been just that pissed off Dumbledore was making him do this.
- You probably need both power and a strong intent to kill to make AK work.
- So how did Krum build up the necessary hate to cast Crucio on Cedric, if he was under the Imperius Curse himself?
- Because Imperius doesn't just control someone like a puppet, it completely dominates their mind. If you cast Imperius on someone and tell them "You are a Neo-Nazi" they'll believe it for as long as the Curse lasts.
- Isn't that similar to the way muggle Britain deals with firearms? It's perfectly believable.
- While you can use other spells to kill, coerce, or torment people magically, the Avada Kedavra, Cruciatus, and Imperius curses cannot be used for anything else. They exist for the sole conceivable purpose of murder, torture, and enchanted puppetry of another human being. That is what makes them unforgivable to use at all.
- That is only partially correct. The AK kills instantly, but not every killing is murder. The self defense I mentioned above would fall under that category. Like another Troper said: In a way, it is comparable to firearms legislation.
- Not necessarily. A gun has no purpose other than to fire a bullet which can, and often does, kill. There are spells that can be used to stop an intruder/attacker non-fatally, such as Stupefy or Petrificus Totalus (and these are actually probably easier to cast than AK, and probably more instinctive, with the added bonus of being reversible if you happen to hit an innocent bystander or ally).
- No, the point is not that a wand or spells are like a gun, it's that Avada Kedavra is like a gun. Hence the comparison of the real U.K., where you would face a pretty strong punishment for having or defending yourself with a firearm, to wizarding Britain in which using Avada Kedavra on a human being for any reason is treated harshly.
- The reason the "AK in self-defense" argument doesn't work is because wizards have countless other options for self-defense besides AK. In the real world, killing in self-defense is generally only justifiable in a "him or me" situation where there are literally no other options besides lethal force. If other options are present and you fail to use them, most courts will charge you with murder or manslaughter. A wizard with a wand in his hand has EVERY option at his disposal. A wizard who casts Avada Kedavra against an attacker could have just as easily cast Stupefy or Expelliarmus or any of a hundred other spells. Ergo, there is no justifiable reason to use Avada Kedavra.
- The counter argument for this is if the person that's attacking you has really good shields and you can't penetrate them. AK can't be blocked, so casting it could be used in self defense if there's no other way to get through the shields.
- You're forgetting that in order for AK to work, the caster must have a strong desire to kill their target. If you kill a person in self-defense, your strongest desire isn't to kill your attacker, but to make sure they don't kill you. It would be almost impossible to use AK in self-defense, even if you tried. The same applies to using AK to save another's life.
- Okay, let's list it out: Crucio's only possible purpose is torture, a practice which is not accepted by civilized society. The Imperius removes free will, which is not only not accepted in civilized society, but is complete Fridge Horror. And Avada Kedavra... pretty much the only justifiable reason to use AK would, in fact, be mercy killings, and if that's even considered acceptable in Wizarding Society, then there are most likely fast, painless poisons that could be used. To use the usual comparison, you don't use a gun for mercy killings, you use chemical injection. Putting a blanket ban on Avada Kedavra, then, just makes sense.
- Imperius can be used if someone wants to do something, but do not have the willpower. For example, here's an infomercial: "Having trouble losing weight and keeping it off? Want to quit smoking? Well worry no longer! For the low low price of just 10 Galleons, I will personally Imperius you in whatever manner you desire! Want to jog a mile every morning? Imperius! Need discipline to start learning a new instrument? Imperius! Call today!"
- Again, you're forgetting that in order to even use an Unforgivable Curse you must have malicious intent. You can't properly cast Avada Kedavra without murder in your heart. You can't properly cast Crucio unless you genuinely want to hurt someone just to hear them scream. Therefore, in order to properly cast the Imperius Curse you must have a deep and overriding desire to enslave another person. It may not even be possible to use Imperio for a benevolent purpose like curing bad habits or breaking an addiction. But even if it is, I know I wouldn't trust my health and well-being to a person who's able to put themselves into such a dark emotional place. And I don't think anyone else would either. I mean, once this hypothetical entrepreneur has you in thrall, what's to stop him from using it to turn you into his personal rape slave? He could even make you think it was your idea.
- Not necessarily malicious intent. Harry was able to cast Imperio on an otherwise innocent goblin in Gringotts so he could do something for the greater good. The problem isn't that it takes malicious intent, but that it takes desire and belief that you're right in what you're doing. Harry couldn't cast more than a weak Cruciatus Curse because he was simply angry and wanted to put Bellatrix in pain, but wasn't so hateful toward her that he wanted to cause her the most excruciating pain imaginable. He was angry, but still had his morals to go on. Harry could cast the Imperius curse because he believed that mind control was right in this situation, and even McGonagall could cast it to keep a Death Eater safely locked away; I don't think she had malicious desire to enslave him to perform it. Avada Kedavra, on the other hand, could never be used by someone who didn't desire to kill the victim because it requires true desire to kill them. Self-defense wouldn't work, because (as said above) the desire is to save your own skin, not to cause death. The only people we see using it (other than Snape, who had to kill Dumbledore as part of the master plan to save the world) are Death Eaters, who would obviously be quite casual about killing people in their way. Not only are torture, murder, and mind control inherently bad acts (even if they may sometimes be justified), but the aforementioned curses can only be performed by people who WANT to do those acts. Even if they're using them for what seem like "greater good" uses, it doesn't take much to corrupt someone who already thinks that casual murder, torture, and enslavement of the mind is the way to go.
- Also there's a facet of the Imperio curse that's often overlooked as is often seen as the "lesser" of the three or the least evil, but we see it in Fantastic Beast 2, and is that Imperio can be use for rape. You can use Imperio to force someone to be your sexuall partner, e.i. sex slave. So there you have it; murder, torture and rape, those are the three greatest crimes in Real Life, why would be different in the magic world?

Non-unforgivable spells

So 2 of the Unforgivables are unforgivable (and therefore banned) because they can be used to kill or torture. No one seems to remember that a spell like Bombarda is basically a freakin hand grenade explosion and would just as easily kill people. Especially since we've seen many times that the most of the commonly used spells can easily be avoided by hiding behind random scenery which would completely shatter in the face of an explosion.
- Bombarda could conceivably be used for demolition or clearing large obstacles. The Unforgivable Curses literally are not meant for anything other than murder, torture and mind-control. Therein lies the distinction. Just because you can pick up a brick and smash someone's skull in with it doesn't mean bricks aren't otherwise useful. You could also use Wingardium Leviosa to lift someone up and then drop them to their death, but that's not the only thing that spell could be used for.
- On "Spells that should be unforgivable" I don't get why Obliviate isn't an unforgivable - or at least restricted. Talk about the molester/rapist's friend...
- The Wizards live in a secret society that, unlike Narnia or Wonderland, is interwined with the world of Muggles. Memory spells are needed to keep up The Masquerade as we see in Books 4 and 5. If it were banned, any time something magical happened, the wizards would be exposed. Such as car or dragon flying over London, or a bunch of wizards blowing up a bridge, or a bunch of wizards attending a flying broomstick tournament. Memory spells are a requirement. It can be used for good or evil. Unforgivable Curses can only be used for evil.
- The unforgivables require a specific state of mind to cast, one that generally indicates that you are a bad person. Obliviate has no such requirement, and while it can be cast to wipe someone's memory clean or just use them and make them forget about it because you don't want them to remember, it can also be used to erase memories of people who themselves don't want to remember. Sure, you could rape someone and use Obliviate on them afterwards, and it's kind of morbid and a piece of Fridge Horror; but on the other hand, you could also have someone who saw someone die or got raped and wishes to forget but can't, in which case using Obliviate on them would be sort of like therapy. It's still questionable either way, but then again that's a society of people who use something that can be used to hurt people around them with relative ease anyway, so the view of such things is bound to be different than the one people living in a "normal" environment would have. And who's to say the spell isn't supposed to be somewhat restricted? The people we see in the story who use it are either people who would be able to get permission if necessary or people who were forced or otherwise already outside of the law so it changes nothing for them.
- You've pretty much made a case for the existence of the Ministry of Magic and aurors in the first place. Spells leave traces just like weapons and drugs, so you have wizards who are trained to find and apprehend those who misuse magic. Also part of the whole Unforgivable categorization was that those three spells were used the most by Death Eaters during Voldemorte's first campaign. They are a sure fire way to land you in prison but not the only way. Such a use of Obliviate would probably be an Azkaban-worthy offense but it would be prosecuted under a standard court procedure. It would need to be established that the spell was used on a victim and that it was the offender who cast it. Prosecuting someone for an Unforgivable Curse would just be a matter of proving that the offender cast one of those spells. Since wands remember the spells they cast, they would most often be the main evidence in a trial. However, this system is not perfect as criminals could use someone else' want to commit their crime and even frame an innocent wizard. Like the Justice system that muggles use, it is imperfect and exploitable but it is the best they can do.
- Real-world laws in a given country are often inconsistent, at least from some perspectives (for example, people constantly debate whether all illegal drugs are really uniformly more dangerous than all legal ones). This is partly because laws have distinct and complex histories. In fact, we even know the year those curses were made unforgivable: 1717. Maybe it was politically difficult at that time to ban any spells, and they could only afford to pick three.

Talking portraits

How come only painted portraits talk? Small photos of people in the Daily Prophet and in photo albums never talk. Why? And for that matter, why does the Daily Prophet print photos in black and white? Surely if magic can make pictures MOVE, they could bother making them in color.
- Probably has to do with how they're printed. If they're using a printing press or a magical equivalent, perhaps it only has black ink. So for mass produced pictures, it's easier to just have them black and white and moving but not talking, as that might take more magic than necessary.
- This Troper assumed it had to do with the creation of the object. A photograph takes only a second to capture a person's appearance (though the films make it look like a photograph covers more like a minute of time, repeated indefinitely). On the other hand, a painting, especially a handsome old-fashioned oil painting, takes hours to create. The sitter poses for a long time. That gives the wizard artist a much longer timeframe in which to work the mind and spirit of the subject into the painting. What does this mean about the Headmaster's paintings, I don't know.
- I also think it has to do with the creation. Not only does it take only a second to capture the image, but it can be reproduced without much effort. You could have fifty copies of the same photo, but a painted portrait is unique, and as such it is probably infused with more magic ability of its own.
- Wizard photos aren't mobile initially, they're made that way by developing the film in a special potion. Presumably the paint used to make a talking painting is brewed using a more exotic/expensive potion recipe.
- When it comes down to it, it may be POSSIBLE to create a photograph that speaks. But when it comes to newspapers, you would never want that. The person who sells them would be driven crazy, and after you'd finished reading the paper it would continue talking from the bin. Not to mention, if you're trying to actually read an article, it would be very distracting to have the figures from every photograph in the paper trying to talk.
- Colin Creevy needed to develop his photos with a potion to make them move. The ink used by the Daily Prophet is probably a potion as well, and brewing inks that make the pictures talk as well as move would make the paper too expensive to be profitable.
- It's probably not a special potion for paintings, but rather a spell. As said, it takes many hours of effort to create a lifelike painting. Dipping a photograph in a special potion can apply apparent life, but it's only a facsimile and the people involved likely wouldn't do anything beyond what's in the nature of the photo (a picture of Lockhart and Harry is depicted as Harry struggling against Lockhart to avoid getting in the frame, for instance). A painting is a more complex and careful endeavor, with the result being almost like a living person with sentience.
- I recently came to the conclusion that every talking painting we've seen has been of someone deceased(correct me if I'm wrong. I know Lockhart has portraits while he's alive, but do they ever speak to him?). It seems to me that, since a talking portrait is an extension of the subject's consciousness(having all their memories, their personality, etc.), for a person to be alive and have a talking portrait of themselves they'd essentially have to divide their consciousness between the portrait and themselves. I imagine it would be very uncomfortable to be talking to someone and in the back of your head you hear everything your portrait hears. So my guess is that when someone dies, and a portrait is painted of them, there is some way in the afterlife to access your portrait. Or something along those lines.
All of this would make sense — except there are also chocolate frog cards. Ron specifically said that Dumbledore's portrait didn't stay in the card because Dumbledore was a busy man who couldn't hang around on a trading card all day. Surely trading cards given away with candy aren't hand-painted; they have to be mass-produced. And true, they don't talk. But they still apparently require some kind of act of will or attention to remain in the picture, which newspaper photos clearly don't. (Which, of course, means that magic trading cards are definitively worse than non-magic ones, which may not animate but at least always have an image!)

Conjuring food

Exactly WHY is food one of the Five Exceptions of Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration? I mean, they can conjure live animals and transmute things into animals (remember Hermione conjuring a flock of birds? Or Cedric Diggory turning a rock into a dog during the First Task?). So... why can't food be Transfigured? There shouldn't be anything that makes it different than any other conjurable substance.
- Perhaps the animals are not really alive, or transmute back into inanimate objects after a time. If that were so, if you turned a rock into a pig, killed it, cooked it, and ate it, it would at some point turn back into a rock, possibly in the middle of your digestive system. As for conjuring food out of nothing, Rowling has said that conjured items 'don't last very long'.
- The REAL big question is why money is one of the exceptions. If we assume that the Philosopher's Stone is the only thing that can transmute gold, what about transmuting silver? Or diamonds? Or paper money? Or 8,000 pound Micronesian Rai stones? There's no reason why any wizard shouldn't be able to wave a wand and create limitless wealth.
- Surely the reason that the things used for money ARE used for money is precisely because they can't be copied: in other words, you are confusing cause and effect: (1) find something relatively rare that can't be copied, (2) use it as currency.
- Sounds smart, but don't forget that most Muggles don't know about magic, and only think of stuff that can not be copied by the means that they know. What prevents a wizard from transfiguring something that can be sold/pawned in the Muggle world, or even sell a Muggle some Leprechaun Gold and getting out of Dodge before it disappears?
- It is likely that this would only be possible in small amounts. Muggle paper money is usually very complex these days, so that it would be difficult to transfigure. Precious metals and stones would be possible, but when someone starts to sell a few tons of silver, or a bus load of Rai Stones, it would get suspicious very fast. That being said, it would probably be quite easy for a wizard to get by "without money" in the Muggle world if he keeps a low profile. The wizarding world probably has safeguards against that kind of thing.
- You also have to take into account the reason for value: that you can't just get it anywhere. If wizards used magic to conjure a buttload of silver, Rai stones, or even paper money, the value of those things would drop like a stone. That's the same reason why no one abuses the ability to buy a gold coin the size of a hubcap for five pounds, sell it to Muggles at market value (significantly more than five pounds), and then repeat the cycle for massive profits.
- What really bugs me about the 'you can't transfigure stuff into or conjure food' is not just that it was a blatant Ass Pull, but that it is contradicted in at least one instance; in the fourth book, Ollivander makes a wand spout wine.
- Ah, but the reason food can't be conjured is because, as per Word of God, "Conjured items tend not to last long", so while you CAN technically make food/drink appear out of nowhere, you wouldn't be able to actually get any sustenance out of them because at some point whatever you ate/drank would simply disappear from your system.
- To add to the above, Dumbledore conceded in the Half-blood Prince that Tom Riddle's mother could have used her magic powers to feed herself if she still had them. Probably the real reason for the new "Law" is that JK Rowling felt uncomfortable about the above facts and added a Retcon to lessen the potential for the abuse of wizard powers. Although, in doing so, she contradicts herself somewhat.
- There are ways she could have used her power to feed herself even without conjuring food.
- Exactly; there are numerous ways to interpret that statement. If we take your average corner shop as an example she could have done anything from basic things like using Alohomora on the door or summoning the goods through the window right up to the extreme end of the scale like blasting her way through the wall or using the Unforgivable curses on the owner and forcing him to hand over his food. As long as you have a wand there are very few things you can't get hold of in the Muggle world provided that you are careful and/or have no concern for breaking rules.
- If Gamp's Law does indeed dictate that wizards can't conjure food out of thin air, where does Dumbledore get the random tray of tea and cakes from in Goblet of Fire, when he and the main three are comforting Hagrid about Rita Skeeter? I really doubt he had them waiting in his office for such an occasion and he just summoned them, or summoned them from a shop nearby and effectively stole them.
- He is Headmaster of the school; perhaps he has a house elf have tea on standby in case he needs to summon it.
- None of the above. Gamp's law says only that you cannot conjure food out of nothing, or something that is not food. You can Summon it from somewhere else, or multiply it if you've already got some but you can't simply make food appear out of nowhere. The tray of tea and cakes that Dumbledore "conjured" was likely something that the house elves in the kitchens had prepared it beforehand, and Dumbledore just transported it to Hagrid's hut. Same with money. (Although you probably can't Summon anything from Gringotts). If the world worked that way, then governments would just print more money and hand it out, and all of our problems would be solved, tada.
- Are you sure about the multiplication thing? Because being able to "clone" an object you already have isn't much different from conjuring it from nothing. It certainly wouldn't stop wizard counterfeiters.
- You can still duplicate and change food, right? Couldn't you just duplicate the meat that you happen to be made of, and then change it to something less squicky?
- This just makes me think of this method going horribly wrong and giving you "magic" tumors.
- Food is also a lot more complex than conjuring a steak or cupcake. it has to be made of very specific chemicals in order for your body to digest it and for it to be of any use to you. While some things can be transfigured into looking like things that can be used as food (like a rock turning into a dog), it's very possible that if one inspected the "dog" more closely, the chemicals would be more similar to a rock and the dog-like appearance is only superficial. In short, you probably could summon a four course meal out of thin air, and it might even taste and smell good. But you wouldn't be able to digest it, which means you wouldn't save yourself from starvation, and you'd probably get a terrible bellyache.
- Ok, so the food can be "duplicated". Well, what is the extent of such multiplication? Can a wizard literally feed a crowd of people with five breads and two fishes? Or, on the practical side, carry small pieces of non-perishable food with them and duplicate them whenever they are hungry, and regular food is available, such as, I don't know, when three teenagers are on the run from the authorities and are forced to spend their time in the wilderness?
- There's probably a limit to how well you can magically multiply items and how much. Sort of like how splitting cells leads to the copy being a tiny bit imperfect, repeatedly multiplying food may cause it to lose some of its natural properties until it's eventually too much of a "corrupted copy" to be useful.
- On the subject of money, magic also has a lot of intuition and desire behind it. It's probable that you can't magic money into thin air because you're consciously trying to make it, and the laws of sorta-physics won't allow that.

Unblockable curse

So, the Avada Kedavra is stated multiple times to be unblockable. That's its main advantage: It's instant death that can't be parried by any known defensive spell. Well, we've seen that people can duck behind statues and walls to avoid being zapped, right? So, shouldn't the killing curse theoretically be easily countered by strategically-chosen conjurations? I mean, if a flimsy Protego charm can't block it, couldn't a wizard summon a physical steel wall to intercept the blast?
- Dumbledore does this in his battle in the 5th book with Voldemort. He summons parts of a statue to block the curse. I'd assume transfiguring a steel wall would take a bit more time than the curse takes to travel. Perhaps rocks or something similar would be easier to conjure or transfigure quickly enough if you were prepared. However I don't recall if conjured or transfigured objects were shown to stop the AK or not.
- We never see that much conjuration (aka "making something out of nothing") in the books, and Dumbledore is supposed to be a transfiguration master (He taught it at Hogwarts before becoming headmaster). So it is possible that a quick conjuration or transfiguration that is strong enough to block the killing curse cannot be done by everyone. As for summoning something into the curse's path: You need something to summon, and the killing curse seems to have some effect on dead matter (it sets fire to a desk in book five), so it is entirely possible that it could shatter a weak barrier.
- You'd also need to be prepared to pull up this barrier, and conjuring or summoning something that can deflect a spell is probably either more difficult or less intuitive (or both) than simply delivering a Protego on instinct. Also, we've seen that physical barriers tend to shatter and/or catch fire when hit by the Killing Curse, so anyone who DOES bring up a barrier can be showered with potentially lethal shrapnel or set aflame.
- Well, the killing curse obviously penetrates clothes, so it can bypass very weak barriers. On the other hand, something the strength of a small statue can take the hit (and be destroyed in the process), so it has an upper limit somewhere.
- Why not just make some sort of magical reflective armor, or at least encase yourself in a pillbox type enclosure where you could shoot out, but it would take a very precise shot to shoot in. Mirrors seem to reflect spells to great effect, so a giant magical mirror-plated automaton would be nearly unstoppable.
- Do mirrors really deflect spells? At the moment, I can't really remember reading that. But I like the idea with the automaton. Could be dangerous, though, as most spells will be reflected at odd angles and could hit the wrong persons.
- At least, until they did a Glisseo on the floor and you fell on your ass. Or attacked you with flying birds. Or Accio'd you against your armor. Or did a Finite and turned off the magic. Or just Vanished the stupid thing. And this is a bit like asking 'Why don't soldiers just wear head to foot bulletproof armor?' or 'Why doesn't everyone fight in a tank?' Well, because all the battles we see are footfights where movement matters? (I'm now imagining everyone attempting to lug magical armor to, and through the Department of Mysteries. We have to save Sirius...let me build some quick armor! We might have to take it apart to get it through the phone booth, though.)
- A better question, in fact, is why people aren't constantly Disillusioning themselves during battle? Sure, it's not perfect invisibility, and it would be pretty easy for the other side to keep undoing, but it can't hurt, during any pause in action, to do it. (Unless you're worried your allies might hit you by mistake.)
- There are a few reasons that people have come up with. Firstly, we know the Disillusionment charm doesn't work prefect with movement, so it probably doesn't work right with moving lights near it either. Like most dueling magic causes. If a Stunner passing near you causes a reddish 'Predator effect' in midair for a second that they can aim the next Stunner at. And, of course, they can see where all your Stunners come from, regardless.
- There is also a theory that casting magic through a Disillusion charm undoes it. And the same with a standard invisibility cloak. (But not Harry's, because it's actually the Cloak of Death himself, as described in the Tales of Beedle the Bard)
- Additionally, having your allies hit you by mistake seems be a common concern in magical duels, which is the 'reason' they tend to be one-on-one. However, despite 'accidentally hitting your allies' not making much sense in general, it does make sense if you literally cannot see them or tell who they are, and can just see that some guy, right there, is casting spells.
- The real problem is that magical dueling itself doesn't make a lot of sense as presented. The 'smartest' fight in the entire series is when Draco realizes that Peruvian Darkness Powder plus Hand of Glory means no one but him can see anything, and at that moment he could have taken out all the good guys with a switchblade to the throat if he had felt like it. No one else seems to have any grasp of tactics.
- That's probably not a surprise, seeing what we're talking about. Wizarding combat seems to mostly consist of the most obvious tactic: take cover and fling spells. Even if you were to give wizards the same logic used by real life gunfighters, you'd probably see the exact same thing. Why? Because real combat isn't like a video game or fiction, where clever fighters use their brains to use ingenious tactics and combinations of devices and have plenty of time to consider their options. In a real fight, your adrenaline levels are high and you're likely operating on reflex. Most real world fighting tactics are very simple actions that can be thought up on the spur of the moment, rather than complex battle plans.
- Same person as above: magical dueling takes a lot more effort than a gunfight. In a firefight, you have a handful of options and most of them end with either "I run away" or "I point this and pull the trigger." Magical duels involve many more variables and it takes concentration merely to perform an attack, let alone cause it to hit. It takes a skilled wizard to perform nonverbal combat magic, let alone fling spells about on reflex like a fistfighter or SWAT officer would. It's simply more practical to focus on one guy at a time, since a minor lapse in concentration can rapidly result in death.

Loveless union

Word of God is that Voldemort can't feel love because he was born under the effects of a love potion, ergo there was no true love between his parents. Reaches a bit of Unfortunate Implications when you think about artificial insemination. I mean, does that mean that all people born through artificial insemination are heartless sociopaths or what?
- That's not Word of God at all. Full quote as follows:
  J.K. Rowling: It was a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union — but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union.
- It wasn't the lack of love itself, it was the fact that Riddle had the potion in his system which could easily damage sperm.
- So the most dangerous dark wizard in history is just the result of damaged sperm?
- What? I took it more as an artistic stroke on Rowling's part, the love potion in itself having nothing to do with how Voldy turned out but just giving the reader a nod to the fact that he is a creature without love. Like JK said, symbolic.
- Is that really the Word Of Rowling on this topic? That makes no sense at all, considering that arranged marriages seem to be the norm for pureblood high-society. Wasn't it more a matter of his childhood? (Being abandoned by his father, his mother dying, growing up being abused by his peers in a Muggle orphanage...)
- Again, symbolic. Pregnancy caused by a love potion doesn't cause a change in the baby by itself, but was symbolic of the situation that caused his birth. It was a child raised in a marriage in which there was no true love. That would fuck up any kid as soon as the magical manipulation wore off (which it did), and it's doubtful that a relationship brought about purely through what's essentially Mind Rape is indicative of good parents. Showing that Riddle was the product of a love potion rather than true love was a sign of what kind of parenting would bring about his personality, not a direct cause.
- I'm not 100% sure that pureblood marriages are arranged. And even if they are, "arranged marriage" is not always synonymous with "loveless marriage". Often, the parties in an arranged marriage go through a courtship or they grow to love each other after the marriage, i.e. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. It could be that, in Voldemort's case, the absence of his mother's love plus the fact that his father was body-and-soul raped by his mother plus the inherited instability from the Gaunts plus growing up in a grim Muggle orphanage all combined to make him how he was. (If you'll notice, it wasn't just Lily's sacrifice that kept Harry from dying; it's explored in detail in Fridge Brilliance.)
- I also don't think pureblood marriages are arranged. There's actually no evidence of this, it's more of a Fanon idea. The only one I can think of is the suggestion of the Gaunt family's severe incest that must have been related to arranged marriage. There are certainly restrictions on who is acceptable to marry, hence all the blasting-offs on the Black Family Tree, but for most of the characters in those societies, it would be a non-issue finding a pureblood mate. Out of all we see from pureblood society, Sirius and Andromeda are the only two that we see who do not consider bloodline when it comes to their companionship. The belief in pureblood supremacy would limit who those individuals would associate with, befriend, and fall in love with. Bellatrix seems to have been in a loveless marriage because she knew it was expected of her to marry a pureblood man, but it is never suggested that this marriage was actually arranged.
- I think you guys are a little bit missing the point. Voldemort couldn't feel love because he never understood it, and he never understood it because he never experienced it. The love potion goes to show that Voldemort's father didn't love his mother, and also that his mother was willing to date rape his father, which shows that she didn't truly love him in a selfless way, but was only obsessed with possessing him. Then when he left, she died of heartbreak, despite the fact that she had a child to care for - JKR says it herself: "things would have been different if Merope had raised him herself and loved him." Voldemort's father didn't love his mother, nor did he love his child enough to stay. Voldemort's mother didn't love his father, and didn't love her child enough to not die. Certainly nobody at the orphanage loved him, because nobody had time. Nobody has ever loved Voldemort, ever. Woobie Destroyer of Worlds indeed, although I think there's also a healthy dash of psychopathy there also, which may or may not be because Voldemort's ancestry is extremely inbred.
- For what it’s worth, there was the introduction of another character in Crimes of Grindelwald who came into being via circumstances almost identical to those of Tom Riddle. May I introduce Leta Lestrange — whose mother was forced by magic into a loveless marriage, and subsequently died giving birth, leaving Leta to be raised by a father who didn’t show an ounce of affection for her or even her late mother. The fact that she still grew to develop a friendship and some romantic love for both Newt and his brother Theseus proves that a loveless conception, whether induced magically or otherwise, isn’t enough to make someone a sociopath on its own.

Using killing curse in self-defense

Why do the Aurors and Harry and his gang not use the killing curse when fighting the Death Eaters? I don't remember if they do, though, but is it really that bad if used for self-defense?
- First: it's illegal, even in self-defense. It has been legalized under certain conditions for certain people (see here). Second: As Bellatrix says to Harry in Book five, you have to mean an Unforgivable. Just pointing a wand and saying the incantation does nothing if you haven't got some homicidal tendencies (Also see the 'Unforgivable' discussion above). That said, I agree, it would be dead useful in many self-defense situations. But I guess the protagonists in a 'young readers' book can't go running around killing people.
- Also, the fake Moody said that it also requires a lot of power; "Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it - you could all get your wands out and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed."
- And the series has shown us that Aurors are exceptionally powerful wizards, being the elite of the elite, and Harry and co are all exceptionally powerful wizards...
- Exceptionally powerful fifteen and sixteen-year-olds who had never so much as tried the curse before, when it was shown during the series that it is very important to actually practice with spells before attempting to use them in a combat situation.
- Refer to a JBM higher up in the page.
- Using the Killing Curse requires more than just waving your wand and saying the magic words. You need to truly desire the person's death and view it as the right thing to do. An Auror using Avada Kedavra would be indicative of something rather troubling, as this implies that said Auror wants his victim to die above all else. Even flinging it in self-defense wouldn't work, because the desire is to save yourself rather than cause death. Someone casting the Killing Curse only wants the person's death (though as we saw with Snape, it can even be death for the greater good, but the death has to be the absolute intention regardless of the effects; Snape still 100% intended to use it for murder, which is why it worked).
- If an auror or even a civilian wizard or witch find themselves in a situation where they really have to kill someone, there are plenty of ways to do it that don't require using a curse that's a huge taboo, illegal and very difficult to cast. The killing curse has the advantage of being quick and impossible to block but it's not the only magical way to kill someone.

Duplicating food

Wizards can duplicate food. Why aren't they out there feeding the starving people in sub-Saharan Africa, or at least making life a little easier for the urban poor and homeless? Same real world economic constraints that prevent these things in real life?
- First of all, when does it say that wizards can duplicate food? I thought that was pointed out in Deathly Hallows that they couldn't. Second, assuming they can, there's that thing called the Statue of Secrecy. You don't go helping humanity when you're trying to stay completely secret from them.
- It says they can't create food. It says you can modify it and duplicate it, but not create it. All this goes under the whole not giving Muggles magic thing.
- Giving away food to nations doesn't work in the long-term perspective. You'll inevitably end up with a whole country of dependents on your hands who no longer see the point in sustaining themselves.
- So? That's only a problem when it's costly for you to sustain them. Give a man a fish: he eats for a day. Give a man a fish every day: he eats for a lifetime. Also, they could probably make a magic item that gives endless food, though that can be problematic as it's easier for tyrannical governments to hoard it. Of course, since they don't have magic, you can just overthrow them.
- The saying goes: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime". Give him a fish every day and he just becomes dependent and easily exploited.
- The problem is that it's not normal to sustain a whole nation at your expense for indefinite time - they'll degenerate.
- If people don't have enough food, they'll degenerate. Keep it up long enough and they'll die. Also, people in first-world countries that don't have a job can beg for enough to live on. Have we degenerated?
- Studies on the dependency caused through constant aid are very well-known and based on established cases. The primary reason we don't simply throw a lot of food and medical care at countries is because the people learn to rely on that aid instead of using it to grow as a nation. Building infrastructure and reforming the government is a lot harder than just taking what comes off of UN trucks. You can't solve world hunger through "Give people more food" any more than you can solve poverty through "Give all the poor people more money." If wizards just magically provided food and clean water, they wouldn't be building infrastructure. They'd be giving people who have no infrastructure free food and water and then expecting them to start work on making infrastructure, reforming the economy, etc. There's been no case where aid by itself has actually resulted in the reform of a nation.
- How exactly do you plan on exploiting someone who can't do magic? You might as well try to exploit a rock on the basis that it can never fight back. Also, not being normal just means that they don't do it, which is exactly what I have an issue with.
- Expense? What expense? We are talking about magic, aren't we?
- This blog post details exactly why letting another country become dependent on you is a bad thing, whether or not cost is an issue.
- I don't see how. It seemed to be something about the war on terror or the war on Iraq. I didn't see anything about giving anybody anything.
- Still, giving some extra water to refuge camps wouldn't hurt anyone. This troper finds that most magical societies have an issue with exhibiting almost evil levels of negligence. For example, Muggle 5-year-old girl is raped and murdered. Muggle-born wizard is not going to help either because he/she is forbidden by law or just aloof to the whole issue. "They will just want magical solutions to everything" is a terrible reason to allow people slow and terrible deaths. That said, JK doesn't spend too much time world building, so it is ignorable in the story.
- If you brought in large amounts of food to a nation going through a war, all you'd do would be to undercut the local businesses. Aid groups prefer to buy food locally when they can and only ask for food donations when there simply isn't food available. Of course that doesn't explain why wizards don't use magic to handle easily curable diseases rampant in the Third World or cure injuries beyond the abilities of Muggle groups.
- Maybe it would break the statute of secrecy for those diseases to be completely eradicated over night for no apparent reason. Or maybe the wizards can only cure one person at a time and/or need to physically be there to heal people. And maybe they're just not that altruistic.
- No, charging for your services, when you don't really need the money, or refusing to help your folks with the garden is "not that altruistic". Hogging cures to diseases and devices that could save thousands of lives is being an inconsiderate callous asshole.
  - Star Trek. Prime Directive. Even if the intentions are good the end results are never ideal. Cruel as it may sound, not doing anything is the better option.
  - I have serious doubts that Wizards are on the same philosophical level as the United Federation of Planets.
- Dumbledore was altruistic enough to allow Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages to be published in Muggle editions to support Comic Relief, wasn't he?
- We've established why wizards can't simply hand out food - it breaks the economy, makes people dependent on wizards, etc. - but what about subtly influencing the weather, or conditions of terrain, in third world countries to make growing crops easier?
- Wizards can't conjure food from nothing, remember? But they could multiply the food people already had.
- Now this is from someone who kinda dozed through geography, but I remember that the weather of every place on the whole planet is connected to the sun, the angle the earth lies to the sun, closeness to water and the weather of of other places. If you change the weather so it rains over Africa or Texas, the ensuing cooldown of air and change in waterfull-ness of the air ^notewould influence wind and the weather of other places.
- Yes, it might be possible for wizards to overall improve the planet but are these people really going to feel obligated to fix the world?
- Ain't it kinda an obligation of every person living in the world to try and improve it?
- Is it? One person's moral obligation is another person's moral oppression. If you feel an obligation to do anything and everything you can to improve the world, that's your prerogative. But once you start preaching that everyone must do what YOU think is right, else they be dubbed an inconsiderate callous asshole (to use the words of another troper on this page) then you're coming dangerously close to a dystopian society. And "improve" is a very subjective word. One could argue that an Auror "improves" the world by bringing criminals to justice. One could argue that every shop owner in Diagon Alley "improves" the world by creating jobs and driving the economy. Do these "improvements" not count? Is there some objective metric of how much "improvement" an individual must add to the world in order to fulfill their quote-unquote "obligation"?
- To all the people saying there would be no cost for wizards to feed the third world with magic, you're forgetting one very important cost: Time. Magic may (in theory) eliminate the monetary and material cost of feeding the third world, but it will never eliminate the time necessary to do so. Witches and wizards will have to set aside their own time to conjure food and other items with magic, and then more time will be needed to transport the food to where it needs to go, then even more time will be needed to distribute the food once it arrives. You can't just magically get that time back. Well, I guess you can (with a Time-Turner) but it's incredibly dangerous and ripe for abuse.
- Also, how do you know they don’t? We never see what happens outside the UK or even in some parts of the UK itself, and the UN does provide of humanitarian aid to many places in the world with the help of the rich countries. As far as we know some of that aid could be produce magically by wizards but kept a secret in order to maintain the Masquerade. And also, having people miraculously cure and/or food appearing out of thin air for poor people can explain all the saints and miracles of the different cultures. Is curious how some people just assume the worst.

Secret keepers to their own hiding places

In the sixth or seventh book, some of the people in the Order are secret keepers to their own hiding place. So, why didn't Lily or James become secret keeper to their own hiding place? If that person just stayed in the house, there would be no chance of them being captured, thus, no chance of Riddle finding them. I've also wondered why no ever tried to make Harry the secret keeper. Protect the baby (who can't talk, at that point), and the secret's safe. Of course, I can buy that no one would try the latter (and that there could be a plausible explanation for why it wouldn't work in the first place), but the former? No.
- This was discussed on the Deathly Hallows page, and it's assumed that someone made a discovery that allowed the person being protected by the secret to be the secret keeper since James and Lily died (plus we wouldn't have a story). Also making a baby that can't talk the secret keeper wouldn't be smart, because if only the baby knows, then no one else knows, and the baby has no way to tell others which can be very bad, especially if the secret is "keep X hidden". It's never explained entirely who knows what about the secret when it's cast; for instance, does the caster know the secret, or does the secret keeper have to tell them? If the latter, good luck ever finding the baby again.
- I think it's because to be a Secret Keeper, there should be a mutual agreement between the Keeper and the other people involved. Obviously, a baby is too young to understand the circumstances, let alone agreeing to it. As for why James and Lily cannot become the Secret Keeper of their own house is beyond me.
- Maybe the target of the spell can't be a secret keeper for the spell. The reason the Order members became secret keepers is that they specifically weren't targeted, only the house itself was the secret, while Lily and James were specifically targets to be kept secret and so couldn't be their own secret keeper.
- So you mean the ones hidden aren't the Potters' house, but the couples themselves? That's not going to work because the Fidelius charm doesn't seem to work on living objects that's constantly moving around. If so, then Sirius could just use a Fidelius charm on himself instead of going to hiding.
  - Working under the "target of the spell can't be secret keeper" assumption, Sirius would have to get somebody else to be his Secret Keeper. That wasn't gonna happen during Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and after that, it would've been incredibly inconvenient if you think about it. Even on the run, even hiding from the rest of magical Britain, there would almost have to be times Sirius would need to interact with someone unfamiliar, if only in passing and/or in dog form, to get food or directions or something, and that wouldn't be possible or feasible if he had to go through someone dozens or hundreds of miles away to give that stranger clearance every single time.
- It could work if the requirement was that the Secret Keeper not be resident at the location in question. However, that does not work because Arthur kept Aunt Muriel's home, and Bill kept Shell Cottage. If only father and son had switched so they kept each other's secret, that would be a sound rule.
- Possibly James and Lily wanted to leave somebody who wasn't part of their Secret with the means to locate them directly, in case of an emergency. If they'd been their own Secret Keepers, but their friends suddenly needed help, the Fidelius charm would've prevented anyone else from getting in touch with the Potters in time for them to do any good.
- But, as mentioned earlier, the charm is on the house - not the couples themselves. It won't block of all contact to the outside world. Besides, just because they aren't secret keeper, doesn't mean their friends/relatives can't be in the secret. In The Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore was Secret Keeper of the Grimmauld's Place, but all the members could go in and out as they please. The charm merely prevents anyone besides the Secret Keeper from blabbing about the place to enemies.
- How about this idea: the spell can be cast by anyone, but the secret keeper cannot get inside the place put under Fidelius until it completely stabilises because if they do the spell will fail. This means that the Potters couldn't become secret keepers of their house in Godric's Hollow because they were currently living there (and thus the spell would fail), but the Fidelius on 12 Grimmauld Place could be cast and left to stabilise because Dumbledore did not have to immediately spend time there, and the one on Shell Cottage either has only been cast once Harry and company arrived there (considering that Harry was able to tell Dobby where the place was, while not being a secret keeper for it) and they weren't there for long enough to see it destabilise and stop working which it would given time or alternatively had a different primary secret keeper who never went there and then something was done to make both Arthur and Bill secret keepers (we know it is possible, because that's what happens when the secret keeper dies, and likely there is a way to induce this artificially) which weakened the Fidelius enough that everyone who got to know the secret could count as a secret keeper (which, too, would explain how Harry was able to divulge it). If this theory were true it would also explain how people who might not necessarily have known the secret were able to see the Potters' house in Godric's Hollow: after divulging the secret Pettigrew followed Voldemort (we don't know where he was and there's no proof that he wasn't there at least for a moment), and by being there for even just a moment before the Fidelius could stabilise he had caused it to stop working completely.
- Everybody is trying way too hard to pick apart the minutia of this spell without looking at the big picture, and missing the obvious: spells are decided by, among other things, symbolism, power, and intent. The purpose of Fidelius is to contain a Secret within another person's soul: it is about trust, and fidelity, and leaving your own safety in the hands of a loved one. Could you make yourself your own Secret-Keeper? Yes. But that would most likely drastically weaken the spell, for the same reasons that Crucio won't work right if you don't want to torture a person. You need to have the right mindset to cast a spell to its full potential, and making yourself your own Secret-Keeper completely negates the aspect of trust that affords the Fidelius Charm its great power. James or Lily could have been their own Secret-Keeper, but against Voldemort, they needed the best protection possible, which meant using the spell for its intended purpose to get the maximum effect, and finding somebody else to hold the Secret - and since they did trust Peter, in their minds, using him as Secret-Keeper was much safer than using themselves. Dumbledore can be Secret-Keeper for Grimmauld Place because he was intending to protect his friends for the purpose of beating Voldemort, not keep himself holed up behind an impenetrable spell. (James and Lily were in it for their kid, yes, but they would have still themselves been living under the protection for an extended time and they knew it.) Bill is Secret-Keeper for his and Fleur's own residence at Shell Cottage, and it does work, but it had an obvious hole, namely house-elf magic bypassing the protection with a non-Secret-Keeper's help. Similar holes probably existed in Arthur's Fidelius over Aunt Muriel's.
- How about this one then, Why couldn't James be Lillys and Lilly be James' secret keepers respectively? It wouldn't violate the rule that you can't secret keep yourself.

Heroic sacrifice and the killing curse

Wait a minute. Harry survived the Killing Curse because his mother died trying to protect him, yes? Power of love, etc. So... in Voldemort's entire reign of terror - and, presumably, in Grindewald's, and in similar circumstances - nobody has ever died protecting somebody they loved? Never ever? Not even once until Lily Potter came along? And if they have, then why aren't there more cases of death-curse immunity knocking about?
- It's entirely possible it has happened before, but there were vastly different circumstances. For one, the caster of the killing curse probably didn't use a horcrux, meaning the caster just died. It's probably not a famous case because it happened to no one important, or in the worst case scenario, the person saved died because no one found them in time, plus no witnesses to what exactly happened. Walking in on the scene, you'd see three dead bodies: two killed by the killing curse and one dead from starvation. You wouldn't think someone sacrificed themselves for the child and a rare magical rule took the life of the murderer, but rather a murder-suicide over a child's forgotten body.
- This is the most likely explanation. After all, how could Dumbledore fully understand the mechanics behind Lily's Power of Love protection spell, unless it has happened before?
- Perhaps the person dying has to be standing there, doing nothing, while being killed? That's what Lily did, and it's also what Harry did at the end of Deathly Hallows when he let Voldemort AK him because Harry was a Horcrux, and afterwards the students and teachers were less affected by Death Eaters curses than they should have been. It would account for the rarity of the protective effect kicking in, since how often is someone going to die to protect someone they love by just standing there and letting themselves be killed?
- It's been stated by Word of God that it wasn't just that "I'm going to stand here and protect you", it was the fact that Voldemort presented the choice of "If you just step aside and let me kill him, I won't kill you" in Lily's case, and the weird mash-up of Elder Wand + Semi-Protection in Voldy's blood + sacrifice + horcrux= plot-induced not-quite-dead-yet. And the time in the woods didn't protect Harry completely, it's been stated that he COULD have died if he wanted to, but he was given the opportunity to rise again. The problem is choice...
- Hold on a second. How could Lily have taken "Stand aside girl"(I'm paraphrasing here but Riddle wasn't being very clear on Lily's options here) to mean he was actually going to spare her? For that matter, couldn't James have just escaped if he wanted to? Apparation is still an option in that case. So what makes his sacrifice unworthy?
- While Lily might not have realized she was being offered the chance to live because of how upset she was, I think Voldemort was very clear on Lily having the chance to survive. After all, if he was planning on killing her anyway he wouldn't have ordered her to stand aside so he could kill her child, he would have killed her and THEN gone after Harry. James might have been able to escape, sure, but we don't know if he could have managed it or not (does it require a wand?) but Voldemort didn't give him an opportunity to live. That's why I think that Lily must have realized that she was being offered the chance to live (she already knew he was there for Harry which is why they went into hiding in the first place) and because she was offered that chance, her sacrifice was enough to protect Harry. It has nothing to do with James' worthiness as a sacrifice, Voldemort just intended to always kill him and if any old 'well, he could have escaped but didn't' were enough to get Harry's protection, it would be much more common and Voldemort would have heard of it before.
- So in other words... Snape asking Voldemort to spare Lily made it possible for Harry to survive, setting everything into motion?
- Exactly. Snape asked Voldemort to spare Lily. So Voldemort gave Lily a chance to live. But Lily didn't take it and sacrificed herself, hence the protection for Harry. Had Snape never asked for it, Voldemort would just kill both of them, and there would be no magical sacrifice and no magical protection. It's not "I'm gonna die protecting my baby". It's "I'm gonna be offered a chance to live, but I'm gonna refuse AND die protecting my Baby."
- It's presumably also got to be a genuine chance to survive, not a trick or bluff, in order for it to count. If the killer says "stand aside" merely as a ruse, intending to zap the obstructing enemy as soon as his primary target is dealt with, then what's sacrificed is only a few seconds of life, not an entire lifetime. Voldemort had fully intended to murder James all along — they were enemies, after all — and would've still killed him once Harry was dead, if Harry's father hadn't put up a fight. So James's standing between his family and death, while certainly a Heroic Sacrifice, was too fleeting of an intercession to bestow love's protection.

Transfiguring into an animal

"The Tales of Beedle the Bard" says explicitly, "... the fundamental difference between being an Animagus and Transfiguring yourself into an animal [is,] in the case of the latter, one would become an animal entirely, with the consequence that one would know no magic, be unaware that one had ever been a wizard, and would need someone else to transfigure one back to one's original form." This seems to be a direct conflict with two instances in the original seven books. 1) Krum Transfigures his head into a shark in Goblet of Fire. How did he know what he was doing to continue the task/not go insane with the animal's perspective of having a half-shark-half-human body? (Also, not positive, but I'm pretty sure it says that he unTransfigured himself, which is also said to be impossible.) 2) Slughorn Transfigures himself into a chair. Without knowing that it was Dumbledore coming, was he hoping that a friendly, extremely talented wizard was just just going to come along and guess that the armchair was human so he could return? Because I'm pretty sure it's Dumbledore who puts him right again.
- The first one can be Hand Waved with the explanation that it's a partial transfiguration and he hasn't completely changed into a shark. There's also a bit of a crack theory that he's really a shark animagus and only partially transformed to hide the fact. As for Slughorn, it's never said he transfigures himself into a chair, does it? It could just be an illusion. If, however, that is the case, perhaps transfiguring yourself into a rock or something similar wears off after a while, unlike an animal transfiguration.
- People don't actually need the 'unregistered' theory with Krum. He could be a registered shark Animagus-in-training, and not trying to hide it. Sure, Hermione looked up the registered ones in a previous book, and would have remembered Krum, considering there were only seven names, and would have probably mentioned this...except that was the British list, which Krum wouldn't be on. For all we know, you don't have to register wherever Krum lives, anyway. Or only have to register when you've mastered it, which Krum hasn't.
- It may also be that transfiguring oneself does not entirely erase the human awareness immediately. And while Krum's head was a shark, the rest of his body was not, so possibly he was able to deduce that he was not entirely a shark, either, which kept his awareness lingering. It may also be that the vast majority of animal life does not have the opposable digit necessary to hold a wand - something necessary for most wizards to use magic.
- Or the possibility that while being transfigured, one is put into stasis and would simply be frozen until someone else chose to change him. It may have been likely enough to risk it - Dumbledore knew that the specific piece of furniture was Slughorn, which means that there are probably ways to detect if an object is actually a person transfigured.
- AND judging by the rules that food can't be created from magic, it's possible that transfigurations eventually correct themselves on their own. It seems likely that the length of time it takes for this to happen is significant, since otherwise the subject would be (in a practical sense) useless - it would be necessary that the transfigured item would have to stay in its changed form in order to be useful. And, although wizards "can't" make food using magic, this would be nonsensical if the item transfigured into food remained food. It's not possible to guess the digestive rate of any individual, but it's possible that the amount of time it takes to ingest nutrition from transfigured objects is not long enough (in some cases) for it to then be crapped out and eliminate the risk of a plastic doll turned to cheesecake to damage the individual.
- As for Slughorn, maybe his fear pushed him to do this - living as a chair may be better, in his mind, than being dead. (Voldemort would probably have thought so.)
- We can be fairly certain Slughorn didn't transfigure himself, since it only took Harry looking harder at him to see that he wasn't a chair. It was an illusion.
- Even if he did transfigure himself, we can't know for sure that a wizard's mind is always displaced. This rule may only apply if the thing you're transfigured into has a mind of its own: if it's an inanimate object, or something innately brainless like an ordinary plant, then there's nothing to superimpose itself over the subject's consciousness and they retain their own intellect by default.
- It's also possible that people are reading a distinction that isn't that. Transfiguring yourself into an animal and being an animagus might be the same thing...it's just that animagi know how to do it without hitting the two obvious pitfalls. It's not just Transfiguration, you also have to learn how to keep your mind and do it without a wand, but it is basically Transfiguration. Rather like driving a stick is mostly the same as driving an automatic, but you need to know a tiny bit more. (As for Beedle the Bard, it's a book for kids, and not having kids try to Transfigure into animals is basic 'don't try this at home' stuff.)
- As possible evidence of this, both Sirius and Remus appear to know, and know the other knows, a spell to 'unAnimagus' someone else. Possibly that's because the first dozen times you try Animagusing, you're going to forget you're a wizard or at least be unable to turn back, so need someone there who knows that spell.
- More potential evidence: transforming into a cat is one of the very first things McGonagall does when introducing her new students to transfiguration, implying that it's more or less the peak of her field. (Also, iirc, Sirius says that his mind does become simpler when in animal form).
- Also, since it is a partial Transfiguration in the first place, and since the shark head was probably much bigger than a human head, it's entirely possible Krum was able to just morph his respiratory system and the outer areas of his head without affecting his physical brain or the surrounding bone. A full non-Animagus human-to-animal transformation, on the other hand, would have to change the brain to work.

Ethics of human transfiguration

Even when I was reading the books as a kid, it bothered me that this was never brought up. We’re told that if you transfigure a human into something else, they do not retain their human mind—they literally become that object. But in Half-Blood Prince, we’re introduced to Professor Slughorn when he has transfigured himself into an armchair. This raises a ton of questions.During the time he was an armchair, did Slughorn have any sort of human consciousness, or did he have the nonexistent mind of an armchair? If someone had entered his house, unaware of what had happened, and taken away the armchair to chop up for firewood, would that be considered murder? Likewise, if you transfigured someone into an inanimate object with no intent of ever changing them back, what would be the ethical implications of that? J. K. Rowling never tells us. For all we know, it’s only murder if the victim is human— it’s perfectly acceptable to turn someone into a cockroach and then step on them.

1.) In the above folder, one of the points suggests that your consciousness only gets overtaken if there's another consciousness for it to be overtaken by - meaning Transfiguration only affects the mind if the form assumed is that of an animal. 2.) It's also suggested that Slughorn transforming into a chair was an illusion, not actual transfiguration. 3.) For your last point, if you transformed someone into a cockroach for the express purpose of killing them more easily, that probably still counts as murder. The intent was there, and your actions were directly responsible for the loss of a human life. You wouldn't get off scot-free just because it wasn't human at the time of death.

Overpowered wizards

Individual wizards being ridiculously powerful bugs me. Dumbledore can take out 4 guys without breaking a sweat and single-handedly turn the tide of a battle. Voldemort is rumored not to attack Hogwarts because he is afraid of Dumbledore. Apparently, the only reason Grinderwald ruled so long was because nobody could beat him in personal combat, and once Dumbledore decides to fight him and defeats him, that ends his reign of terror. I'm sorry, but what? This is ridiculous; it's like if the reason Hitler was such a powerful dictator was because he was really good at MMA and could only be brought down by another really good MMA champion or something.
- I always assumed that a wizard's strength doesn't matter as much as how well they've trained and researched. After all, those three wizards were considered geniuses and worked hard and long to get what spells and abilities they have. It wouldn't be that hard to assume that most wizards and witches are complacent, like Ron, and only do what's necessary to pass and graduate. The strongest ones are those that are gifted with learning and keep training for years. Yes, Dumbledore is said to have done things with a wand that OWL instructors hadn't seen before, but he also wanted to reach that ability and had been working at it for years.
- It also seems to be that the actual 'amount' of magic a wizard has depends on the individual. Neville at one point refers to himself as 'practically a Squib'. Given that he is initially a poor wizard that could not compare with his classmates in talent and aptitude for magic, it seems that individuals naturally have a different ability to use magic. It's also notable that Snape tells Lily in the Prince's Tale, 'you've got loads of magic', suggesting that there is a limit to the power a wizard can reach based on the 'amount' of his/her magic, and that some people just have more magic in them than others do.
- If guns didn't exist and the only way to fight someone was in an MMA fight, you better believe your Hitler scenario would work. The wizarding world only has magic to work with. A powerful wizard could therefore only be beaten by a more powerful/cunning wizard.
- Not really. Even before people came up with guns or even advanced melee weapons, other factors than being the strongest mattered in leadership. Using the MMA analogy, you may be the best fighter in the world, but you'll still be taken down by, say, ten competent fighters. Especially as most magic in the Potterverse seems to be of the "point and zap" variety, so being surrounded/outnumbered is a big deal.
- It's magic. It isn't meant to make sense. Dumbledore is simply amazing at magic, and so is Voldemort - that's why, when V died, the D Es lost the war - Voldemort was their Game Breaker, because he was so ludicrously powerful. Ever wonder why those hundreds of D Es didn't overthrow him? He could curbstomp them.
- Partially Conservation of Ninjutsu. Perhaps this is less disconcerting for people who have watched a lot of anime, but how many series are there where people who draw from the same power source, or sometimes even lack something making them inherently better than others, can take out whole armies on their own, only to be stopped by someone else of their class.
- It's not like wizard society had the same democratization of warfare that muggle civilization underwent (thank god). Wizards wage their war in a different, though no less horrific manner. In some ways it is about the numbers but it is also about catching people off guard. Voldemorte has enough followers to prevent himself from being overpowered and out matches most opponents but runs the considerable risk of losing if he faces someone like Dumbledore in a fair fight. So instead he lays out a number of gambits to get Dumbledore alone and cornered. Likewise Dumbledore is formidable but victory is still a matter of finding Voldemorte and out thinking him. And he could not just storm Voldemorte's single handedly since wizards tend to enchant their territory.
- If magic is something that you learn and master and that affect many aspects of life (and not just self-defense), maybe the best analogy won’t be MMA but intelligence. We know that in real life very intelligent people generally have a lot of power and wealth; you can argue that Barack Obama or Angela Merkel for example went to the same college as a lot of other people, or Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, yet not everyone have their power/wealth. Hitler wasn’t a martial artist but have a lot of characteristics that give him an advantage over other people to reach power and maintain it for a while (charisma, social intelligence, eloquence). And actually, it was lack of intelligence what caused his downfall because of the bad military decisions he took. So the magic duels in this universe are more like the duels between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, a duel of brains, just that instead of very complicated schemes and psychological games the effects can be visible to the naked eye.
- It's possible that 'Dumbledore got over his issues, went to Germany, kicked Grindelwald's ass and single-handedly ended the war' is a major oversimplification of events. Trading cards meant for children aren't history books and Dumbledore never talked to Harry about what happened beyond saying that he put off confronting Grindelwald.

Moody's eye and the cloak

Has anyone wondered how Moody could see through Harry's invisibility cloak? It is obvious that Moody's eye couldn't be fooled by illusions or tricks, but Harry's cloak is a Deathly Hallow, a relic of the Grim Reaper himself. Even Grimmy could not see through the cloak once he gave it to the third Brother. It goes unnoticed in the 4th book because this was not revealed. It just seems that an object made by an entity as powerful as Death could trump a magic eye.
- Perhaps Moody noticed something unnatural about where Harry was hiding. He could have sensed that there was somebody in the room that he couldn't see, and just assumed it was Harry by somehow knowing Harry had a good invisibility cloak in his possession.
- Alternately, the Deathly Hallow Cloak wasn't really made or owned by Death Personified, but was a really long-lasting invisibility cloak that had its reputation inflated by the story. Assuming that All Myths Are True, then it's entirely likely that Moody's eye might have picked up the subtle movement Harry was making as he was panicking at the time. That or Moody's Eye might have something else significant about it making it possible to see through even Death's Invisibility Cloak.
- Simpler theory; Moody's eye was enchanted by his old friend Dumbledore, using the Elder Wand. Therefore it can counteract one of the Deathly Hallows because it's empowered by another one. And there is evidence to suggest that Moody's eye was a unique artifact; Umbridge "repurposed" Moody's eye for her door-knocker, thus suggesting that someone as important as the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Magic could not requisition or purchase one.
  - Indeed, it would be entirely in character for Dumbledore to craft or enhance Moody's eye to see through the invisibility cloak, purely to ensure that a means of detection would be available if the Potter family's cloak ever fell into the wrong hands. He'd had that cloak in his sole possession for long enough to have worked out and tested such a counter-spell, and the Elder Wand to make it work.
- If I recall correctly, Dumbledore says that the whole "items obtained from Death himself" thing is most likely a myth and that the hallows are probably just 3 exceptionally powerful magical items crafted by a trio of genius brothers.
- Maybe it blocked his vision completely, and he was able to infer that Harry was there under the cloak because he had a "dead spot" where he couldn't see anything.
- My theory is as follows: since this is the Cloak of Invisibility, made either by Death himself or some unknown, ludicrously strong wizard (Merlin?), it isn't inconceivable that the Cloak has some form of intellect of its own, and sensing that Moody was a friend (at that time), let Harry be seen, knowing with it's ancient-magic-Hallowy magic that Moody's supposed ability to penetrate the Cloak would come in useful later on. The Cloak seems to be the most subtle Hallow - it doesn't overwhelm with power by completely hiding the user from everything, it influences how things are going to happen; knowing, for instance, that Dumbledore was out to save Harry from the Mirror in Book 1, it revealed itself. Had it been Voldemort in the room, it would have kept Harry hidden. Come to think of it, it does that in Book 7: though Voldemort is around as strong as Dumbledore, the Cloak lets Harry & Co. sneak right past him into the Shrieking Shack.
- Or, on a related note, the Cloak might be just as devoted to its rightful master as the Wand, and do what it must to ensure it remains with its owner. If that includes temporarily reducing its capacity for concealment so its invisibility can be penetrated by Moody's Eye, thus ensuring it will be mistaken for a normal, temporary invisibility cloak rather than one of the Deathly Hallows, then it will do so the instant it becomes apparent that the Eye is good enough to pick up clues (difference in air currents, ambient heat, etc) that something unseen is present. If its true nature as a Hallow were revealed, plenty of people would try to steal it from Harry, but an ordinary cloak of invisibility would be returned to him at the end of term even if confiscated by a professor.
- The most obvious solution is to remember that Harry had, at that point, stepped on and sunken into a trick stair to his knees. Which meant that nothing below the knees was covered by the Cloak anyway. All Moody had to do was look through the staircase and he'd see body-less legs. (Sounds like an odd thing to do, but the ability to see just 'people' without walls and floors would be incredibly useful.) Of course, Harry thinks Moody can see him and is looking right at him, but we have no real evidence of that, and it's just as likely that Moody is staring where there must logically be the rest of a person, but one he impossibly cannot see. Moody calls him Potter before he's visible, but that's after Snape talked about how it's Harry's parchment and thus it must be Harry's clue. And then he gets wigged out by the Map revealing his real identity and basically forgets about the Cloak.
- I think a lot of this confusion amongst fans stem from the fact that the film clearly states that it belonged to Death (we actually see him handing it over) whereas in the book it seems to be pretty well spelled out that the brothers were just three guys who had near-Dumbledore level magic and that the whole story was just a fairy tale. Given the extreme liberties the films take with the source material it really is smarter to base your beliefs on what the book says.
  - Actually, the film doesn't clarify any more than the book does whether Harry's cloak belonged to Death...In fact, it never even specifies that the Invisibility cloak in the story is Harry's! The film was only visualizing the story as Hermione read it; it wasn't saying that it actually happened.
- Could be that Moody's eye lets him see other things beyond visible light - infrared, ultraviolet, air currents, electromagnetic spectrum, etc. We know that the invisibility cloak doesn't protect you from an animal smelling you (Mrs. Norris can apparently sense Harry under the cloak) or otherwise sensing you (Nagini).

Blocking spells

If statues, pieces of scenery, etc, can block spells, then just what else could? How flimsy does something have to be before a spell can get through it? I will accept that spells have impact force, as seen when Dumbledore is knocked off the tower, but it's clearly not that which kills you. So if a spell hits you through your clothing, why doesn't that stop the magical effects? Is it just because it's thin? What if you were wearing a bulletproof vest, or body armour? Why are these people so incredibly uninventive when it comes to protecting themselves?
- Magic is a funny thing; it's not made clear whether spells are designed naturally to interpret clothing, armour, or hats as parts of the body when landing spells. For all we know, perhaps previously wizards tested what exactly blooks a spell with suits of armour and found that when wearing said armour, it made no difference and the spell still connected. This would make sense and possibly brings to mind special magic protecting armour (such as dragon hide gloves, etc.), but large scale armour limited mobility and wasn't as effective in longer battles, so it was gradually decided that dueling robes would be better suited. I think that it depends on the amount of force an object can take and how powerful the spell is for it to blocked by outside interference. After all, some hit objects burst into flame or explode, but still take the spell.
- Also - and I'm sure there's a better way to say this - clothes have tiny holes in them that the magic could penetrate, while something such as a statue would not.
- Given it's magic flimsiness or thickness likely has nothing to do with it but rather whether you perceive an object (or person) to be one thing. In most peoples' consciousness they envision a person and their clothing to be one, so it doesn't matter how thick the armor you wear, a spell would probably still affect you. Though it does raise the question whether that means all you need to do is hold a sheet of paper in front of you.

Polyjuice impregnation

Okay, so say you're a man. Then you take Polyjuice potion to turn into another man, and while impersonating that man, you impregnate a woman. Who is the biological father of the child? You, because you're technically still you, or the man whose body you're using?
- Polyjuice just opens a bag of Squick if you think about it too much. Other questions would be if you were a woman polyjuiced into a man and got a woman pregnant, then who's the father? Questions get worse the more you think about it, so it's best to just smile and nod and forget about it.
- Even disregarding the squicky applications, the possibilities of Polyjuice are "nauseatingly limitless". Say a wizard committed a crime and escaped, but was recognized by witnesses. How can the prosecution prove that it was really him and not another wizard under Polyjuice? Even if he doesn't have an alibi, he can claim that the culprit abducted him, held him captive for the duration of the crime, then Obliviated him and let him go. Apparently, Obliviation is irreversible, as demonstrated with Lockheart, so if he presents a gap in his memory to the court, they won't be able to find out what was in it. And if the court will not accept such arguments, what exactly stops real criminals from using this very scheme to frame people?
- A memory charm is treatable. Gilderoy is being treated at St. Mungo's, and although he can't remember much, they take his fondness for autographs as a sign of recovery.
- Well, giving autographs was always sort of reflex for him. Besides, he fell under a botched spell performed with a broken wand, and it took them nearly three years in St. Mungo's to achieve even such a meager improvement.
- I always thought he was so badly damaged because the wand was broken, so the damaged wand made the Obliviate less memory-erasing (probably easily reversible by someone like Dumbledore) and more magically-brain-damaging.
- Consider this: Twins have identical DNA. But if twin A gets a woman pregnant, we don't consider twin B the biological father, now do we? A polyjuice potion basically turns you into a twin of the person whose organic material you harvest for the potion, ergo the situation you describe would be identical to the one I just described.
- Yeah, but unless they confess, we wouldn't know which twin knocked the lady up, would we? So the problem still remains.
- Polyjuice is only temporary. It probably wouldn't change your DNA either - if you conceived a child while transformed, it wouldn't have the DNA of the person you impersonated, it would have yours. It even being possible to conceive a child while polymorphed as the opposite sex is another question.
- This brings a similar question to my mind: what if you're a man, use Polyjuice Potion to become a woman, and then end up pregnant while still transformed?
- I guess that if you obsessively took Polyjuice Potion (difficult to do while sleeping, you'd need help) you might be able to carry the baby to term but since it only lasts for an hour the egg would have to be fertilized in less than an hour which is highly unlikely. And the odds of immediately ovulating upon taking the potion are really low, too. And is taking another dose causing the transformation to happen again or continuing it? Really, this is the sort of thing that might happen if m-preg's aren't possible and someone is deadset on having a child with another man but it won't happen accidentally.
- It would continue the transformation. Remember fake!Moody in Goblet of Fire - specifically, his regular hip-flask usage?
- Considering it takes a few days for an egg to get fertilized and implant itself, and Polyjuice Potion only lasts for one hour, and human beings have this habit of going to sleep for several hours at a stretch each night, it's not likely to be an issue. Soon as the transformed person stops to snooze long enough for the potion to wear off, the body reverts and any pregnancy that might've been pending is terminated. Same way Trevor the Toad didn't explode from reverting to a tadpole with an adult-toad-sized swallow of Shrinking Solution in his suddenly-minute belly.
- Another possibility may be that the Polyjuice Potion causes cosmetic changes only, not physiological. A man transformed into a woman may gain a female body and reproductive organs, but might not gain any eggs or a normal ovulation cycle, rendering pregnancy impossible.
- Something some people here might be forgetting is that the effect of the Polyjuice Potion does not last "for one hour"; it lasts for the duration of "ten minutes up to twelve hours", and the batch Hermione brewed lasted for about an hour. The better you are at making it, the longer it lasts, and I presume that anyone who actually wanted to try to test the whole "pregnancy when polyjuiced" thing would be making it often enough to actually make something that lasts for several hours at a time. Also, the potion imitates it all perfectly and anything that is not currently a part of the living body of the polyjuiced person does not turn back, so if you polyjuiced into someone and got a woman pregnant, the sperm would not change back and the person you had changed into would be the biological father of the child; do keep in mind that with how the wizarding world functions, it doesn't really make much of a difference since nobody would be able to force the biological father to pay alimony if the child was from outside the marriage and if you somehow managed to sleep with the wife of whoever it is that you are pretending to be then there isn't a reason for him to reject a child borne of his wife and bearing his blood anyway. And as for being a man and using the Polyjuice Potion to become pregnant, there isn't anything that says it is an impossibility (though the child would not be your biological child unless the father did it while being polyjuiced as you, which brings it up to a whole different level of squickiness), but common sense says that missing a dose of the potion will result in you having a miscarriage and then changing back and it won't be pleasant for you as the child is not a part of you (strictly speaking) and would simply be expelled from the body in the one way that is possible if you were to change back.

Spell terminology

I've always been wondering this: What exactly is the difference between a jinx, hex, curse, charm, enchantment, bewitchment, and so on? They never really explained that.
- Well, to start with, the umbrella term for all incantations in the HP universe is spell. As for the rest, I'm paraphrasing here, but Word of God says this; a charm is a spell which doesn't fundamentally change the nature of the object, but adds or changes properties of it. For example, casting a spell to make a pillow talk would be a charm. A curse is a spell which is meant to seriously harm an opponent and cause lasting damage. A good example of a curse would be Sectumsempra. A hex is a less harmful, but still unpleasant, form of a curse, and a jinx is a less harmful version of a hex. Enchantment and bewitchment are interchangeable terms for the effects of a spell.

Wand components

This is something that I've always found odd: many wands seem to incorporate ingredients derived from fairly rare creatures; Dragons, Unicorns, Veela, Phoenixes. Although some materials are probably centuries old (and perhaps from eras where dragons were more commonplace?), you would think, from what we've seen, that there could be only so many animals to sample from. Why, then, is it so incredibly rare for a Priori Incantatem reaction to take place, as it did with Harry and Voldemort's wands in the fourth book? You would think that there would have to be many wands with brothers/cousins/whatever made. Although, this raises another question- if brother wands do not function against one another, why not avoid creating brother wands in the first place?
- Your second question answers the first. Wandmakers do avoid creating brother wands, that is why PI is so rare. Harry's wand was commissioned by DD with Fawkes' feather after V's fall in order to provide Harry with an extra level of protection. Sure, the wand chooses the wizard, but who said you cannot urge on its choice a little?
- Huh! I wonder which interview that came from. One wonders why Ollivander went through most of the wands in the shop before getting to the final. Maybe it was just like "Crap, where did I put that thing again? Oh, well, we'll find it eventually."
- An interview with my common sense. As for the second part, remember that according to DD's brilliant master plan Harry is to be kept in the dark about...well, everything, for as long as possible. Thus the charade with the wands could've been set up to avoid possible suspicions or to discourage Harry from refusing that wand (which would've been perfectly understandable).
- Would it have been necessary to do so, though? If Harry is told that the wand chooses the wizard and is given at least one wand that doesn't work for him (not the entire freaking shop's worth) then he'd likely be convinced and even if he is told that it's Voldemort's brother wand (which isn't really need-to-know information at the time) if it's the one that works for him then it's the one that works for him.
- Maybe not, but why risk it? If having to rummage through the entire shop is the common practice, Harry might get suspicious if he learns that all the other kid but him went through it.
- Possibly Ollivander, like most of wizarding Britain, was still hoping that Dumbledore was wrong: that Voldemort had already been destroyed permanently and Harry would never need the brother-wand of the Dark Lord's. He offered Harry all those other wands to try out first, in hope that one of them would choose him and thus prove that Because Destiny Says So was no longer in effect.
- Your common sense is lacking, then. You cannot "urge" a wand to choose a wizard. Dumbledore might or might not have asked Ollivander to make such a wand, but there was no way for either of them to know that this wand would react to Harry at all (let alone the most of all wands in the whole store) nor any way for them to influence its decision (so no, you cannot "urge" its choice, not even just a little). Both holly when used as wand wood and phoenix feathers when used as wand cores have conditions—specific in the case of holly and kind-of-vague-and-not-really-known in case of phoenix feathers—that the wizard has to fulfil to be compatible with it. Also, wands with phoenix feathers as cores are explicitly different from wands with other cores (a wand with any other core would not light up when it wasn't held and the wizard tried to use Lumos, for example), so it is possible that only wands with phoenix feather cores can induce the Priori Incantatem effect; add to it the fact that we don't know how phoenixes' rebirth process actually works and it might very well be that two feathers taken from the same phoenix but one before a burning and one after a burning would no longer induce that effect either, in which case the effect would not happen if you only take one feather per phoenix per burning.
- Perhaps PI only works for twin cores. If there are multiple brothers, well, they're not twins anymore, are they?
  - I think you're onto something here. Ollivander does specify: "The Phoenix whose tailfeather is in your wand gave another feather… just one.", as if it were that part that was significant.
- Priori Incantatem is rare for a couple of reasons. As suggested in the original Headscratcher, wandmakers probably avoid using the same animal to create multiple wands. However, they will do so if there's a shortage of donors. Phoenixes are implicitly less populous than unicorns and dragons, so it makes sense that Ollivander would be happy to accept multiple donations form the same bird if possible, since Fawkes is one of only two tame phoenixes in all of Britain. You also have to remember that not all wizards are combatants - wands are their tools for everything, not just battle. It's possible that there are lots of people with brother wands, but since they never happen to duel each other, it doesn't come up.

Spell languages

Most spells are either Latin-based or made to sound Latin-ish. What, then, are the spells for the non-Western European based cultures? (The ancient Egyptians had magic, and predated the development of Latin by millenia.) I can only assume that there are different magical "languages" each following the rules of their appropriate languages, but then, why are most of the featured spells still (pseudo-)Latin? They should have evolved to the point where the majority of the spells are actually spoken in modern English. Alternatively, the spells should still be spoken primarily in Ancient Egyptian or whatever language the first witches and wizards used, with some more modern spells added on. Also alternatively, the magic users should be fluent in Latin/Egyptian/whatever, and be unable to speak or comprehend English. After all, they try so hard to distance themselves from the Muggle world...
- Also, unilingual speakers might be physically incapable of producing the sounds necessary to fluently speak less similar languages. At least some wizards and witches came from eastern Asia (or the Middle East), and would either be unfamiliar with or unable to pronounce Latin spells.
- "why are most of the featured spells still (pseudo-)Latin?" - because all the characters speak a language that derived from Latin.
- Apart from Fleur and her family, none of the characters we meet has a daughter language of Latin as a native language.
- Modern English is basically Middle English (a Germanic language) mixed thoroughly with Middle and Modern French (Romance languages) due to the Norman conquest of England.
- I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that spells are named by their creator (which gets us the English "Point Me" spell), and since Latin is a fairly well known language (that is to say, a lot of people know a small amount of Latin), it just became convention. Also, spells in Latin sound cooler than spells in English.
- Maybe it's the other way around. Could be that in this Verse, Latin was derived from the language of magic rather than vice versa, because its Romans were as well-armed with magic as with engineering and military expertise.

Summoning an object

Following the above. When using the Accio spell they name the object being summoned in English. Any object. Which begs the question, if the Essence of Magic, or (who-)whatever the hell they are addressing when they cast spells, can in fact understand plain English, why can't they say the whole spell in English?
- At various points, characters summon objects without saying the name. I'd guess that you need to know what you want to summon, and saying the name just helps get a picture in your head.
- Language of Magic. Magic in the Potterverse isn't just another language (if it even is a true language; we've seen no evidence of magic grammar or sentence structure or whatnot) it's Words of Power. "Summon Apple" won't summon you an apple because the word "summon" has no Power, while Accio does.

Floo teleportation

I've read the books, but I might have missed something in regards to flooing. It seems an actual fire plus powder and statement of destination has been required when flooing, but in the movies, after the second one, only a fireplace (or toilet) is needed. Fire isn't necessary, and Bellatrix uses the ministry fireplace with no powder or statement of destination to escape; later, the dream team does the same thing. So, what's the canon on flooing?
- I've always understood it that the Ministry fireplaces are a special case. At one point it's mentioned that it's impossible to Apparate into the Ministry so the only ways in are through the phone booth and the toilets, and in the case of the latter it's probably a modified Portkey spell or something, not floo powder.

Power of the Killing Curse

Regarding the effectiveness of the Killing Curse, what exactly are its capabilities? I know that if it hits someone, they die. Period. Also, it seems to have some kinetic force since it can blow chunks of stone away if it hits them, such as in the graveyard fight in the 4th movie/book. But IIRC somebody said that it's unblockable, or something like that, in one of the earlier books (possibly Moody in 4). So if it's allegedly unblockable, and will kill you unless you dodge, why can everyone block it all the time? Seriously, it seems like all Harry does during the final fight with Voldy in the move is repel his Avada Kedavras. So am I remembering this wrong, or does Harry just have so much Plot Armor that he can block an unblockable curse?
- Magic cannot be used to block it. Physical barriers do block it, but they break apart and can't hold for long. The only times spells have blocked killing curses in the series were in Book 4's graveyard duel (because of the twin cores), and in the last chunk of the Battle of Hogwarts (because of that perfect storm of love-induced anti-magic and Voldy's faulty wand). The movies do show wizards regularly parrying what may be killing curses, but that's an entirely different continuity.

Arthur and paper money

When Arthur Weasley is trying to pay the camp manager before the World Cup, he needs Harry's help to distinguish between the 'little symbols' that represent numbers. He doesn't even know what a five looks like! Since he's supposed to be the head expert on everything Muggle, does this mean the rest of the wizarding community have never seen modern numerals in their lives? Of the many problems this would cause, how would they even recognise Platform 9 and 3/4s, for a start? What about essay writing, or textbooks? When a potion recipe says heat your cauldron for 30 minutes, do they spell it out all the time, or use Roman numerals or something? What about transactions at Gringotts, how complicated would the calculations be?
- Mr. Weasley did recognize the numbers; he just didn't spot the "10" on the note at first, because he was unfamiliar with paper money. His mistaking the 20-pound note for a 5-pound note might've been him mistaking the pound sign, which looks strange even to Muggles from other countries, for some kind of weird cursive "5".
- Truth in Television. I just spent ten days in Ireland, being from the US, and I had a hell of a time figuring out euros (though this mainly happened with the coins). I recognized the numbers as I saw them, but it didn't come instantly to me the way it would have with American money, even though the numbers are the same.
- Right, remember that you aren't just recognizing the numbers but the types. A penny and a dollar bill both have a 1 on them after all.
- No they don't. A dollar bill has the numeral 1 on it as well as the text "ONE DOLLAR." A penny has no numerals indicating value, only the words "ONE CENT."
- So I guess you won’t have problem at all in using a coin of CINCUENTA CENTAVOS intead of a bill of CINCUENTA PESOS right?
- For the record, while the US doesn't the UK does have coins in circulation with numerals on them. Also remember that we have the advantage of knowing paper currency is usually the larger amount; since wizards only use coins they might not even know that.

Wands

Here's a big one: why do wizards need wands? Yes, they make magic easier, but how does that work? This is never clarified in the books. Not once. It's not even hinted at. It bothers me that something so fundamental to the magic system gets no explanation whatsoever.
- Wands seem to function as a focus for the wizard's magic, making using magic easier and allowing them access to more effects than they could achieve on their own. Plus it makes the society easier to keep a handle on if every member is dependent on an object to maintain the bulk of their power.
- They may also act as a sort of power multiplier. A spell that is possible to do without a wand may be cast much more powerfully with one. Why else would the Elder Wand be so sought after?
- It's never clarified in most any other fantasy books involving wands. Why should Harry Potter clarify what's already a fundamental aspect of fantasy? It's like asking "Why does Star Wars include aliens?"
- Most likely it is a focus. The wandless magic we see wizards and witches use tends to be a combination of force and wild magic. Harry's emotional spike causing Dudley to pass through glass at the zoo and inflating that old bag like a balloon, Lily growing flowers on a hill, the act of sacrifice that gave her son protection against Voldemorte, a similar act of sacrifice that gave his loved ones protection during the final battle. That kind of magic is powerful and primordial but not reliable enough for everyday utility. Wands give wizards a way to fine tune their innate power to a form that they can put to use for specific tasks. They also like how tools enable you to use your strength to tighten a bolt or cut down a tree. It also seems like wand magic is what has allowed wizards to influence over other magical beings as one goblin enviously noted.
- I figure Magic is like water, you can fill a bucket with water, but you can't control where it goes when you throw the bucket over something, but if you have a hose, you can point it and focus it much more effectively, note that Witches and Wizards never really use wandless magic for anything delicate or complex, mind you it is noted that this is because magical folk have became reliant on wands, pottermore said that the wizarding school in Africa actually focuses on wandless magic more than wand magic, I like to think that the asian school focuses on staff magic.

Finding muggle-borns

How does the wizarding community find out if a muggle-born has magical powers? Was it ever mentioned that there's some spell that scans the area for magical talent or is it simply a matter of attending to those from muggle families who strangely performed magical abilities? If the latter is the case then wouldn't it be better to give the muggle's relatives, such as Petunia a chance to learn magic? After all, they are close enough to the muggle born and magical heritage may be relative. Plus by then the family would already be aware of the wizarding world, the reason other muggles don't get a chance to practice is to uphold the masquerade but by then it wouldn't hurt anymore would it?
- It's magic, they don't have to explain it. Seriously though, in Deathly Hallows the Death Eaters apparently have a spell that lets them track anyone who so much as whispers Voldemort's name. If they can instantly pinpoint someone's location when they say a certain word, pinpointing random manifestations of unintentional magic in muggle areas shouldn't be too difficult.
- Yes, actually, there is magic that detects and locates a magical children. In Hogwarts, there is a quill called the "Quill Of Acceptance" that "detects the birth of a magical child and writes his or her name down in a large book. Every year, Professor McGonagall checks the book and sends owls to the children who are turning eleven, to inform them that they have a place at Hogwarts." In the case of Muggle Borns, they send a teacher to explain everything and collect them.

Name of a spell

How do the effects of a spell attach to its name, which is usually a Latin one, that is, what makes a set of pronounced sounds produce a particular effect? I suppose one may argue that there is a placebo effect here: You already know what the spell does; saying it helps you focus casting it to bring about its effects, until you are able to cast spells silently. Nevertheless, there are 3 ways the books/films contradict this explanation: 1.) When Ron did not pronounce the name of a spell correctly he could not use it effectively (and Hermione had got on him for this); 2.) when Harry tried sectumsempra, a spell he had only heard of as being "for enemies", it had an effect he found completely unexpected (and for which effects Snape had a specific counterspell); and 3.) I remember reading that some spells can't be used silently. This all suggests that there is something to the sounds themselves that bring about the effect; it also suggests that somehow, for all wizardkind, Snape was able to attach a new effect to a new set of sounds for sectumsempra. How does this happen?
- The fact that Ron's mispronounced spell failed, and the fact that Harry could use sectumsempra despite having no idea what it would do, strongly suggests that we're dealing with a Language of Magic, or Words Can Break My Bones, or possibly True Name magic. According to the HP wiki, sectumsempra is derived from two Latin words. Sectum ("having been cut") and possibly semper ("always"), effectively translating to "always cutting" or "sever forever" (which would make it an amusing pun on Snape's first name). Sectum and semper may be two words in the Language of Magic that do nothing on their own, but when combined form a spell. Snape may have been the first person to attempt joining the two words together, or the idea of joining them might have been considered too barbaric to contemplate among magical theorists. It's hard to say for sure because we don't know where these words actually come from and what makes them powerful.
  - I would hypothesize that all magical beings are connected somehow, and when a magical person successfully creates a spell, the incantation they attach to it becomes the norm. When casting a spell, there are two things to rely on: your mental picture of what it is and what it does, versus the incantation you speak. When you mispronounce a verbal spell, the effect can become deformed because the actual word is acting as a "crutch" of sorts, and you just fucked up that crutch. This is what happens to characters like Neville and Cho - they're used to thinking about the spells as reliant on the words, so when they mess up speaking it, they don't have the visualization necessary to carry the spell through regardless. We can also extend this to Dolohov's botched curse on Hermione in the Department of Mysteries. Had he just cast it nonverbally from the start, it would have worked as intended. But because he tried to cast it with the incantation despite having no voice at the moment, it didn't work right. It was still partially successful, though, because he understood the spell well enough that he still could direct his magic into roughly the effect he was aiming for. However, with a strong enough understanding of the spell, you could probably set if off successfully even with slight mispronunciations, as long as it isn't egregious - and this would also be the core concept of things like controlled underage magic and nonverbal casting.

The Ring and the locket

If Dumbledore couldn't put on Marvolo Gaunt's ring for a second without getting mortally wounded, how come the kids could go around wearing Slytherin's locket for months without having it so much as explode once?
- When talking about how he found the ring in HBP, Dumbledore says "And what a terrible curse there was on it too". My interpretation is that Voldemort had put some kind of extra dark curse on the ring for the purpose of killing anyone who put it on, which he neglected to do for the locket. Possibly he decided that in the case of the locket, keeping it in a basin full of poison surrounded by a lake of Inferi was protection enough.
- That, and the locket did sort of have a curse on it; it slowly but surely tore apart the bond between Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but that may have been just the effect of it being a Horcrux.

Life Debt

This whole Life Debt magic appears to be incredibly inconsistent. So Snape owed James for saving his life and Wormtail owed Harry. OK fine. But then why doesn't Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Arthur owe Harry a debt?
- It doesn't seem as Life Debt is a branch of magic, outside of being more of a moral/ethical thing. There's nothing in the books to suggest it is a magical bond.
- Rowling says that Ginny did not owe Harry, Ron saved Harry from being drowned by the locket, Hermione saved Harry's life a few times, not sure about Arthur.
Is there an actual magical Life Debt, or just Dumbledore emotionally manipulating Snape's last vestigial scrap of human decency?
- Snape protected Harry more in order to honour Lily's memory than out of his debt. Snape did not seem to concerned with his Life Debt to James when he sold him out to Voldemort to protect Lily.
- Do remember that Dumbledore (and possibly others considering the locked room in the Dof M) consider love in itself a form of magic. Not in the sense that it is somehow binding or anything, but in that it's an instinct everyone save Voldemort possesses.
- It's a lot easier to feed something noble like, "Snape owed your father his life, and he's repaying a debt" to a twelve-year-old kid than something complicated and kind of weird like, "Snape had a huge weird crush on your mom and then got her killed, and now he's trying to honor her memory." Seriously, which one are you going to feed an orphan?
  - How about "Snape's one of the non-evil teachers and it's his responsibility to protect Hogwarts students"? Why bring up life debts at all?
  - Because Snape still clearly hates Harry even through all his attempts to protect him, so Harry has to know why he's going to all that trouble for someone he treats with such contempt. Moreover, Snape does more to protect Harry than all of the other teachers at Hogwarts, so in Harry's mind, there has to be a reason why he's especially looking out for him.
- Just to reiterate, there is no "magical life debt". Dumbledore means life debt as in, "he saved his life, so now he owes him one." You know, like if someone pulled you out of the way of a bus, you might buy them a drink afterwards? Because it's the least you could do after they saved your life? No magic. Just basic, common human decency.

Pronunciation

Is a specific, universal pronunciation important to successfully cast a spell or not? In the film version of Stone, Hermione uses the Petrificus Totalus spell against Neville. She pronounces it "pe-trif-i-KUS toh-TAL-AS." But other people, including Draco Malfoy in Half-Blood Prince and Sirius in Order of the Phoenix, pronounce it "pe-trif-i-KIS toh-TUL-US."
- The official spelling of that one is "pe-TRI-fi-cus to-TAH-lus", so the movies have it wrong on all fronts. But then again, the movies do whatever they want to whatever they touch, so it's not surprising that they wouldn't particularly care about spelling when it's not a plot point. Also, magic is based on a few factors: intent, magic of the wizard or witch, and their ability to focus that magic properly. Proper pronunciation and wand moves make the last one easier, but if you have enough intent and power and are experienced enough with your magic to focus it without that help it's not, strictly speaking, necessary to pronounce it properly (or even at all, what with silent casting).
- I recall a few times where Cho screwed up pronouncing Expelliarmus and set her friend's sleeve on fire, or when Neville couldn't say Stupefy right because he'd got a broken nose.

Verbal vs. nonverbal

What's the difference between verbal and nonverbal magic? Is there one?
- One kind you say the spell and the other kind you think it. More seriously, there doesn't seem to be; non-verbal is just trickier because it requires more concentration. True, Snape did label Levicorpus as non-verbal in his notes, but Hermione casts it verbally in book seven, and while that's likely just a continuity error (Rowling has admitted to disliking re-reading her books), a charitable reading might be that Snape labelled it non-verbal as a reminder to himself as an attempt to stop the Marauders learning it.

Gaze of the Basilisk

Can the Gaze of a basilisk kill if one saw it in a pensieve? Pensieves are depicted as showing the entire memory of what happened in the third person so theoretically if someone were to use one to view Harry fighting the basilisk from CoS they should be able to see the Basilisk, even though Harry didn't look at it until after it was blinded. Would the person witnessing the memory die or become petrified?
- Memories are just how the mind reconstructs things that have happened to you, it's not a direct translation of an image the way a reflection or a vision through a lens is, so I don't think the Pensieve Basilisk would be any more harmful than looking at a painting of a Basilisk would be. (No word on what a photograph of a Basilisk eye would do - we know staring through a camera will petrify, but photographs are unclear.)
On that same note, what about if the basilisk is dead? Does its gaze still have the power to kill as long as the eyes are intact?
- Considering the basilisk's gaze was rendered useless once she was blinded, it stands to reason that she has to see you in order for petrification to take place.
  - Not really. She wasn't just blinded; Fawkes completely pecked/clawed her eyes out. There was no risk in looking into her eyes, because there was nothing left to look into. The gaze of a dead basilisk (or one that was blinded through nerve damage rather than destruction of its eyes) could still possibly be lethal.

Warlocks

What is the difference between a wizard and a warlock? Dumbledore apparently held the position of "Chief Warlock" of the Wizengamot, and a "warlock" is the focus of one of the stories in The Tales of Beetle the Bard, but I don't really see a difference between the terms.
- I don't think there is any — like "sorcerer", it is merely an alternate term. And Chief Warlock is a title, not a description.

What a Powerful Wizard!

Throughout the series, various witches and wizards are referred to as "powerful", and certain spells are considered "incredibly difficult", i.e. Dumbledore is incredibly powerful, and the Patronus Charm is extremely advanced. It is implied that each magic user has certain magical capabilities which they are born with. However, this is never really shown in the series. For example, in Book 3, it is stated that the Patronus Charm is extremely difficult, and in Book 4, the Wizengamot is very impressed that Harry can produce a corporeal patronus. However, fast forward a dozen chapters later, at least a dozen members of the DA are producing their own patroni; note that the DA are about the same age as Harry, or even younger. Neville Longbottom, long considered to be a very weak wizard, suddenly becomes Snake-slayer of awesomeness. Harry and his friends are often considered powerful. However, note that many of their spells are learned, studied, and practiced over the course of the series. We are never shown anyone who is physically incapable of performing a certain spell. Therefore, this troper hypothesizes that the ability to use a spell is based solely on becoming familiar with the words/motions, and holding a state of mind. (Hard work, practice, and confidence). The reason Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape, Hermione, etc. are considered powerful wizards and witches is because they are smart, good at spell memorization, and resourceful enough to seek out new, useful spells that the average wizard might not run into in charms class. Personally, I feel that J.K. should have created more limitations on magic, other than "you can't make food out of nothing". Something like, "If you cast X number of patronuses, you pass out, and if you cast X number of AK's, you pass out," or, "Your wand explodes if you cast twenty spells in a row".
- Why not think of it the same as any other ability, like music, mathematics, athletics, etc.? Some people are born with innate talent, or with specific disabilities, and that interacts with hard work, practice, and training to determine your potential achievement. Dumbledore and Voldemort, for example, probably had some innate genius, which they could develop to the full with the opportunities of a Hogwarts education. On the other hand, the members of the DA were probably mostly average, but with very strong motivation and an unusually experienced teacher, were able to achieve something above average (but probably would never have reached Dumbledore's level no matter how hard they tried.)
- Magic in the HP world seems to be equal parts emotional intent, willpower and magic power, Harry using Cruciatus against Bellatrix seems to be descriptively akin to getting hit with a taser, but Bellatrix used it against the Longbottoms and tortured them into insanity, because Bellatrix is a sadist and Harry isn't, the Patronus requires willpower and a happy memory to work, 2 things Dementors take away just by existing nearby, the reason Harry using the disarming charm works so well, is that he doesn't want to hurt nor kill anyone, simply stop them, accio only works if you need the item in question if you aren't an exceptional wizard.
- Neville slaying the snake, while incredibly awesome, has nothing to do with whether or not he's a powerful wizard. He did it with a sword.

Abusing the Fidelius Charm for Fun and Profit

There's a hilarious fanfiction that showcases a big plothole: namely, why people don't use the Fidelius Charm to fight Voldemort, rather than as a defence. The way it's shown to work is that once a secret is put under a Fidelius, nobody can remember it or find it out unless the Secret Keeper tells them. So what about putting a Fidelius on some sort of nifty 'secret' like "The Killing Curse exists" or "It would be a bad idea for Voldemort to show up at the Ministry and jump through the Veil of Death"?
- There are most likely unspoken limitations regarding what does and doesn't constitute a "secret." Based on the precedent secrets, and the "trust/fidelity" basis of the Charm, I would guess that there has to be a personal element to the secret, and it has to be a secret which you have the right to withhold. So, something like "the location of my house/family meeting space", even if it's known to some people already, is fair game to Fidelius because it's "your" secret to keep. Whereas something like "The Killing Curse exists" is not: you didn't create the Killing Curse, you didn't discover it, and you have no real right to keep other people from learning about it — it's common knowledge. Something like "It would be a bad idea for Voldemort to show up at the Ministry and jump through the Veil of Death" is absolutely out of the question: that's not trusting a friend with a secret of yours, that's just trying to rephrase a mass mind control spell as a secret. You have to remember that magic isn't simple cause-and-effect; the intent and emotions behind a spell, along with the intent and emotion that are supposed to be behind a spell, matter immensely to its execution, especially with the more Deep Magic type things like Fidelius, Horcruxes, etc.

Portrait Sentience

There is good enough evidence that the Portraits aren't a way to communicate with the souls of the real people in the Afterlife (to name only two of them, the Resurrection Stone wouldn't be anything really special if it were the case, and we have occasionally seen portraits of people who were still alive and well), but instead magical copies of the people they are based on. However, at least some of them seem just as sentient as humans, or, at least, ghosts: you can talk to them, they can remember things (the Fat Lady remembers the passwords), etc. So I have to ask, What Measure Is a Non-Human? Shouldn't they be classified as Beings, and the act of creating one considered a very serious thing? And how comes none of the portraits take part in the teaching duties? For some of the subjects, sure, you need someone who can do actual magics for the demonstrations, but if Cuthbert Binns can teach History of Magic, so could a portrait, and more efficiently, too. All the weeping about the fate of House Elves is totally justified, but I really think there was another, crushingly large amount of oppressed sentient beings in Hogwarts that Hermione should have devoted some attention to. Also, do Portraits have souls? If not, all available protections should be put on them, because for a sentient being to suffer Cessation of Existence through no fault of his own in a setting with an Afterlife is just terrible. (Not to mention, it sort of goes against the whole Do Not Fear The Reaper thematic of the books.)

I tend to assume Portraits are sort of like a form of computer A.I.s - they're simulations of intelligences that respond to specific inputs (how they're treated or spoken to) with specific outputs (their reactions). These can be very varied and detailed outputs, because magic drastically cuts down the time and investment a Muggle programmer would need to diversify an AI enough to make it appear to be truly sentient, and they can 'remember' things in the same way a computer can store information, but ultimately, they're just facsimiles of real people.

Animagus

This is something I've been dying to find out. I've looked on Pottermore, but they never say anything on it. Word of God is that your Animagus form isn't something you can choose, and that it's tied to your personality and appearance, and also that your Patronus and animal form can sometimes be the same thing. Could it be possible for someone's animal form to be a magical creature? We know that Patronuses can - Dumbledore's himself was a phoenix. Or is it strictly limited to mundane animals?

Conjuring food at Hogwarts

Dumbledore and McGonagall both conjure food out of nowhere while on school grounds. Since you can't create food, they are presumably summoning forth pre-prepared stashes of food from somewhere, but in that case why isn't it blocked by the anti-Apparition wards? If you can teleport things into your presence and that doesn't count as Apparition, do we have yet another security hole at the so-called safest place in the world? If not, what's going on?
- The food at Hogwarts is generally prepped by house-elves. My guess is that the house-elves have advance-charmed all of the edibles in the kitchen to bypass Anti-Apparation wards (which we know is something that can be done by Elf magic) even when it's wizards who are attempting to summon them. Since we're dealing with house-elves, there might also be a caveat that only themselves or their masters (i.e. the staff, or maybe just the Headmaster and Deputy) have "permission" to take advantage of that.
- Would it really count as Apparation if all you're doing is summoning food? I'd imagine there's a difference between a living thing teleporting into Hogwarts and a living thing sending or summoning an inanimate object into Hogwarts.

Wand cores

How magical does a donor have to be for their body parts to work as a wand core? Could a witch or wizard donate one of their hairs in the same way Fleur's Veela grandmother did?
- I'm guessing the donor would have to be a straight-up magical creature. Whether or not even a witch or wizard would work is unclear, seeing as they can perform magic, but they are also regular human beings otherwise.
- The above person is correct but incomplete. To donate an create a wand with part of a creatures body it has to be an exceptionally powerful magical creature. Dragon, Pheonix, Unicorn, Thunderbird, and Basilisk are all known to possess exceptional power in different regards making them great cores. However there are some poorer substitues used to make substandard wands for example, Troll Whiskers, Kelpie Hair, and Kneazle Whiskers are all considered inferior magical cores for having weakened properties or being generally difficult to work with. Of particular note both Veela and Thestral Hair can be used for wand making but are known to make tempermental wands that may or may not obey their wizard as wands are considered quasi-sentient.

summoning stuff

According to a website of Rowling's, the reason Newt couldn't use Accio to collect his missing creatures during Fantastic Beasts is because living creatures are unable to be summoned...However, Harry does Summon Neville's toad during Goblet of Fire, Newt Summons Jacob to him at one point during the film, and above all, Pottermore states that animals can be Summoned. (And humans are technically animals too, lest we forget.) The website does state that you can Summon someone by proxy of something they're wearing or holding, which would explain Newt summoning Jacob (who was holding Newt's Occamy egg at the time)...except a Death Eater tries this on the prophecy in Order of the Phoenix, and Harry is able to keep it in his grasp without being affected at all. So which way does the Summoning charm work?
- I've always said that Summoning a creature depends on how complex the creature is, and it has been stated that some animals can be summoned, but are rarely worth summoning, to account Summoning creatures. As for why the Death Eater tried to Summon the prophecy but Harry didn't go zooming to him as well...Harry did cast Protego immediately after and tightened his grip on the ball before it could slip out his fingers.

Horcrux creation

How, exactly, are Horcruxes created? Just murdering someone isn't enough - there's a specific ritual.
- This article details one possible (and quite brilliant) theory: Voldemort kisses the dead bodies of his victims, drawing out their souls in a manner similar to a Dementor, and attaching the fractures of his own soul to theirs as it departs, before performing the Horcrux creation spell.
- According to legend, Rowling has only ever told her editor (I think it was her editor) the exact details of the Horcrux creation process; they were supposedly so gruesome that hearing them caused him to vomit. She hasn't seen fit to spill the beans to anyone else, so all we have is speculation.

Electrical interference

If copious amounts of magic are said to cause interference with technology and electrical equipment, which is why none of it is ever seen at Hogwarts, wouldn't that also cause massive technical issues in areas like London or New York? Both of them have massive magical and Muggle institutions operating alongside each other; how could technology function at all with so much magic nearby? And if there's some way the wizards have of limiting the interference levels, why not use that same method around Hogwarts?
- I'd assume concentration is a factor here. Hogwarts and Diagon Alley both have much higher concentrations of wizards and magic than the whole of London or New York, when looking at it perspectively. Diagon Alley, for instance, is a small area inside London. Imagine it like a bath - London is the bath as a whole, Diagon Alley is the base, and magic is the water. The water could cover the whole of the bath base, but the vast majority of the bath is still 'empty'. Therefore, while there is magic in London or New York, it doesn't cover enough to cause any electrical interference.

Killing Curse against animals

This might be a stupid question, but... What happens if a wizard uses the Killing Curse against a feral animal? For an example, consider a wizard taking his family on a vacation to Africa, only for the family to run into a starving lion. Would the wizard still be sent to Azkaban if he used Avada Kedavra to slay the animal before it can maul him or another member of his family?
- Considering the curse is illegal, and there are definitely better methods to incapacitate a rampaging animal like a lion (such as the Stunning Spell or Impediment Jinx), they most likely would get big legal trouble if found out.
- The Killing Curse and the other Unforgivable Curses were demonstrated to students by using them on a spider, and no one took any issue with that. So it seems like it's just using the Curses on people that's illegal.

Headscratchers / Harry Potter Magic

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