Headscratchers / Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix The Ministry

Gee, why would I have cast the Patronus charm if I didn't need it?

• When pressed on the issue of his Patronus charm during the hearing at the Ministry, when nobody believed Harry about the Dementors, why didn't he ask, "Well, why else would I cast one of those charms?"
  • You're missing the point. They think he did it for the attention. Thats the entire reason they think he cast it and would be their answer to the question you've suggested Harry should have asked.
  • He did. Fudge and company would have decided that he did it for the attention or something and that he was obviously spoiled enough to think he could get away with it. Not that Harry would have thought of that.
  • The Patronus Charm is also used to send messages to other wizards. Harry didn't know that yet, but he would've had a hard time proving he didn't know, and he definitely had motivation to send messages to people during this time (remember at the beginning of this book, Harry was spending all of his time griping that no one was contacting him?). Also, if a dementor wasn't around, it would be easy to summon a happy thought and cast this spell, and it's impressive in appearance. It's probably the perfect "showing off" spell, considering Harry has earned the reputation of an attention-seeker.
  • Originally, the Patronus Charm was described as "very complex magic", which even fully qualified wizards could not necessarily do, and yet, at some point in the books, every wizard and his dog is suddenly pulling off a Patronus as a messenger bird with consummate ease.
  • Actually, using a Patronus charm to send messages isn't that common; it's just common around the people that Harry knows. Dumblesore invented sending messages with Patronuses, and he had to specifically teach all the members of the Order of the Phoenix how to do it, and those were the only people that know of and how to send messages with Patronuses. That was from a JKR interview. As far as the complexity of Patronuses go, the only people that we are shown making corporeal Patronuses are Order Members/Teachers (who are, as was pointed out in book seven, "very good at magic") and the students who were taught how to do it by Harry. Of course, there are a lot of people like that, all of whom are close to Harry, which is why we see so many Patronuses over the course of the books.
  • It doesn't matter who the teacher is though, the fact that so many of the DA could make Patronus charms, so easily too. That, and it's not that Patronus charms are used to send messages that's the problem, it is that apparently lots of people can conjure them up to send said messages. It goes against statements that Patronuses are difficult to produce. Plus it's not convincing a non-corporeal form Patronus could send a message, as that is just a whispy cloud of silver gas; it seems likely you need a fully formed one, which again is supposed to be difficult to do.
  • It is highly possible, and supported by Harry's comments to the DA about making Patronuses, that making a corporeal Patronus, while still taking a bit of skill, is much much easier to do when not facing Dementors, and it's being able to conjure one while getting affected that is the truly challenging part.
  • It's not only "highly possible," it's explicitly stated. And w/r/t the supposed near-impossibility of making a Patronus, all that's ever said is that few people are capable of it, which doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't learn to do it if they tried. After all, how many Dementors did people expect to run into in their lives until random searches for Sirius started happening/until Voldemort took over Azkaban? What makes it impressive is that it's an Awesome, but Impractical-unless-you're-Harry-and-his-friends skill that takes a lot of study and practice and understanding of what's required of you mentally, like Legilimency and Occlumency, or becoming an Animagus, not that you have to be blessed with special talent to even have a chance at it. If you met a bunch of teenage drama geeks who had gotten together and put on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for no reason, you'd be impressed and slightly disturbed, but you wouldn't marvel at how such a thing was possible. You'd just conclude that they put a lot of time and effort in.
  • The book outright states that "even many fully qualified wizards" cannot perform the Patronus charm. Which is why it is super impressive that Harry manages it. To have a large bunch of school kids do it with relative ease is bad writing. To later have it as such an ubiquitous act performed by many wizards of varying talent levels, smacks of a soft retcon of its skill requirements.
  • There is no such quote in the book. What Lupin claimed is that "many qualified wizards" had difficulties with the spell, with the implied meaning that they had difficulties casting them in the presence of Dementors.
  • The point is "even many fully qualified wizards" can't do it doesn't mean they never could, it just means they can't. Most wizards can't make a Patronus. It's a special skill. But it's a learnable skill. They could learn if they tried, and the Order and the D.A. all had good reasons to learn.
  • Given how the pre-Second War Ministry relies on dementors for its prison guards, fugitive-trackers, executioners and thugs in general, it's entirely possible that it doesn't want most of the population to summon up a Patronus, for the same reason that few real-world governments like for the average civilian to have access to firearms that can punch through police body armor. Fudge's administration wasn't all that trusting its citizens, what with fanatics like Crouch Sr. and Umbridge having too much say: if there's one non-Unforgivable spell they'd have an unstated, vested interest in keeping on the "You Don't Need To Learn This One" list, it's Expecto Patronum.
  • It is clear that the "even fully qualified wizards" line is implying that it is such a complex charm that even talented wizards can't do it because it is so difficult. That is why it is so impressive that Harry pulls it off. Attempting to frame it as "oh, it just means they have to learn it" is downplaying the whole thing simply to allow bad writing in a future book.
  • Easier than all that to explain: most of the people seen using it are children, and of those, the only ones pointed out to make a corporeal form weren't younger than sixteen or fifteen, and when they were in book five, they were having the time of their lives, screwing with Umbridge. It even made Hermione giddy. And then in book seven, how the DA were able to use it then? They were elated at having seen Harry, so they could make much happier thoughts then. And the Order members could probably be able to think of one another, and Dumbledore, and the bonds that held them together, to make one. Also, since Patronuses, as seen in the books, seem to be fueled Crowning Moments of Heartwarming, and all of the students were on the side of Harry and Dumbledore, they could just think of those two and how heroic they are. That time Harry saved the Stone from Voldemort, or saved the school from the Basilisk, or when Dumbledore was protecting his students, or how Harry had honored Cedric's wish of being brought from the graveyard despite the dangers involved, or any heartwarming thing Dumbledore had ever done for the world would work nicely.
  • Also, there aren't any Dementors around when the kids are making their Patronuses, that's what makes it hard. Harry thinks about how much easier it is when you're in a nice warm classroom with your mates than when you're facing your worst fears. And even then, just being corporeal isn't necessarily enough. Ron and Hermione’s corporeal Patronuses aren’t enough in the final battle in book 7; it takes Harry’s to drive the Dementors back.
  • The entire "even fully qualified wizards" thing does seem to sum up a line of thinking that's surprisingly common in the wizarding world: Wizards, especially adult ones, do seem a little too quick to dismiss something as too difficult to do, when in reality it is perfectly achievable if you have the right mindset and are willing to put in the work. Just think how people keep saying that it's impossible to sneak into Hogwarts, no matter how many times the books show otherwise. Casting a Patronus, especially a corporeal one at thirteen is an amazing achievement but, as the members of the DA show, it's perfectly possible to learn it with the right motivation and hard work.
  • The Patronus charm is one of the biggest, shiniest spells in the wizarding arsenal. There's little that looks quite as cool. The International Statute of Secrecy was probably written specifically for spells like that.
  • Harry did use that defense, and when he had, one of the wizards there had came up with the counter-argument that Harry only thought of that lie because as the only witness there was a Muggle, and they had believed that Harry knew that Muggles couldn't see Dementors, that their only "witness" couldn't even testify whether there was a real threat or not. At that point, the Dementor excuse would have looked like a lame cop-out, if it weren't for the surprise witness of the Squib Mrs. Figg.
  • Dudley already knew about magic. Harry wasn't breaking the Secrecy statute, just the Underage decree. All they would've had to do to get half the charges dropped was question who Harry had been living with the past fourteen years. The Underage thing would've probably been a lot easier to tackle with that.
  • But anyone could've been looking out the window. And a Patronus lasts for a while after its initial creation, too. Presumably, it kept chasing the Dementors offscreen until it faded away or whatever happens to Patronuses when their creator no longer needs them.
  • Actually, they were in an alley, and people don't usually have windows overlooking narrow alleys. And in the film, they were in a subway.
  • Regardless of if in an alley (and Harry and Dudley seemed to be under an overpass of some kind in the film, not a subway, which would be enclosed), that isn't the part that they're in trouble for. The Dementors attack them in a place where they are vulnerable and where others might not notice they're in trouble, but obviously for the Patronus to be effective, it has to chase them away. Since the Dementors actually leave the alley with the Patronus's efforts, the Patronus also must have left the alley, into an area in which Muggles could have spotted.
  • Harry was also underage at the time and using his magic outside of school, which is a separate offense. Therefore, he is in trouble regardless of Dudley's knowledge of magic.
  • Plus, they couldn't care less if Dudley knew about magic or not. They were just stringing on as many offenses as they could. They wanted Harry convicted of whatever they could, so they resorted to the letter of the law rather than the spirit.
  • Actually, there's a simple reason not to use that defense except as a last resort. The government has painted him as an attention-seeking liar in the press. It could end up being a Pyrrhic Victory if they used the argument Dudley already knew magic- Even if it's accepted at face value, it could easily be reported as "Harry Potter doesn't care about using magic in front of Muggle" then in small print, "muggle was his cousin, already knows about magic"- not to mention, the Statute says "used magic in front of a muggle", not "used magic in front of muggle who doesn't know about magic". If they instead prove that Harry was defending himself, it cuts off a possible avenue for the Ministry to discredit him further. Not to mention, looks better to the Wizengamot, who, if you watch the trial, start to swing in Harry's favour when it is clear he respects the law, but had no choice when Fudge was making Harry out to be an arrogant arse, thus swaying the other way. Dumbledore, who that body dismissed less than a month before, would have known that was what it would take to get Harry off.
    • The Statute clearly excludes the close family of a muggleborn wizard, as Hermione's parents know about magic as did Lily's parents. Harry even needed Vernon's signature to go to Hogsmead so it's doubtful the Ministry is going to assume that Dudley doesn't already knows about a magic.
  • The detection of underage magic is so inconsistent in the books. Dobby uses magic in Harry's house, and Harry gets blamed for it. That makes sense, because we are told that pureblood children don't get punished for underage magic because their houses have adult wizards. That means that the detection of magic is based on the location of the child and the other inhabitants of the house's ability with magic; otherwise, they would know that Harry specifically performed the magic in the house. But in the case of the Dementors, Harry's magic is detected while he's outside of the house, so there must be some kind of a spell on HIM that tells the Ministry he's using magic. The fact that they DON'T detect the magic from the Dementors as being Harry as well mean that all of the sudden, the way they're finding out about underage magic is different. It feels like she just conveniently changed it so that Harry would have the conflict with the government and their refusal to acknowledge the Dementors, which would be hard to overlook if they were monitoring magic they way they were in book 2.
  • Most fans like to Take a Third Option and suggest that both are active, but normally a student wouldn't get as much attention as Harry.
  • An alternate explanation is that Fudge said they had no other registered wizards where Harry lived, so if they detect any magic at all, they automatically assume it's Harry's fault.
  • Another take is it's the wizarding world's version of invisible privilege. Sure, the intention is that all underage wizards are restricted from using magic from outside of a school environment, but it winds up affecting Muggle-borns (and Harry) more than anyone else. The Twins are able to get away with magic experiments, and Malfoy's parents haven't stopped him from using magic.
  • This is all covered in book 7, it's called The Trace. The Ministry can detect any magic done in the vicinity of an underage wizard, hence Harry getting blamed for Dobby's magic. And yes, it is covered that if the kid is living with other wizards, it's up to the adults there to keep them following the rules, it's only kids that have no other known wizards in their house that get noticed. And as to them not detecting the Dementors, The Trace only seems to pick up actively cast spells, not any magic of any kind.
    • And house elf magic exists outside the normal wizarding laws. Whatever system they have in place to detect magic picked it up in Harry's area. And with him being the only wizard there, he got the blame for it - because a house elf was Beneath Suspicion.
    • In addition the Trace only seems rigged up to detect humans and whether those humans are magical-capable. The Ministry knows immediately that there isn't another wizard anywhere nearby when Dobby uses the Hover Charm, so they slam Harry with a warning. Likewise, they know immediately that Dudley is right next to Harry when he does the Patronus Charm, so the (at this point) antagonistic Ministry hits him with the expulsion order (despite as argued above, it not technically being a breach of the Statute of Secrecy because Dudley is already aware that Harry is a wizard). But in addition, only a few days later, a whole group of wizards show up at their house to take Harry away, and Tonks uses a few spells while standing within feet of Harry, and the Ministry keeps quiet. So clearly, it detects magic in its vicinity, detects how many wizards and muggles are nearby, and only alerts the Ministry if the numbers don't add up.
  • All of that aside, it's explicitly stated that Harry is the only wizard living in Little Whinging. When Mrs. Figg said she was a resident of LW near Harry's house, she had to specify that she was a Squib and thus didn't actually show up in the registry as a witch even though she had knowledge of the magical world and wasn't exactly a Muggle. Madam Bones also says 'that situation has always been closely monitored given past events', hinting that since the Hover Charm incident in book two, they've been paying special attention to magic use in Harry's area.
  • Who set the Dementors on Harry? Umbridge. Now, if she could pull strings to have Harry attacked, what's to say she didn't change a few things with however they keep track of The Trace? She might have manipulated things to look even worse for Harry behind the scenes.
  • Exactly. She must have been trying a Xanatos Gambit in which Harry would either have his soul sucked out for trying to obey the law and not defending himself, or defend himself but break the law in the process (allowing the Ministry to have his wand snapped.) Either way, Harry would be too dead/disgraced to be a menace to the Ministry any longer.
  • Is it ever stated why Umbridge sent the Dementors after Harry, other than her being a complete bitch? Was she already in place as the next DADA teacher and didn't want to deal with Harry's rebelliousness? If so, having a 15 year old's soul sucked out or wand snapped seems like a lot of trouble and easy to figure out if someone on the counsel, like Madame Bones investigated a bit.
  • Well, Harry, along with Dumbledore, was "telling dangerous lies" and generally being a potential nuisance to her Ministry. Having him done away with while he was in the Muggle world would be a great convenience and mean less of a headache for the Ministry.
  • 'Can't' doesn't mean 'it takes a special skill', just that it's something most people haven't learn to do. Most anyone can put together a computer, it's actually fairly easy to do. Just because it doesn't take any special ability, it doesn't mean anyone can do it instinctively. It's something you still have to learn, and by extension, have a reason to do so. Most wizards aren't actively involved in day-to-day fights against Dark Magic, just as most people don't have lives that revolve around building computers, hence learning to do it is not high on their list of priorities.
  • Has anyone considered that the reason the DA had an easier time casting the Patronus charm was the same reason why the Dementors didn't effect them as much as Harry? Conjuring a Patronus requires an extraordinarily happy thought, which is something most adults probably would have trouble bringing to mind, especially if they've already lived through one magical war with Voldemort and are on the verge of starting another. Lupin's line "Even very skilled wizards can't conjure one" could easily mean that casting one has nothing to do with skill, not that they just aren't skilled enough.
  • Patronus only seem to be used commonly because we're looking at a biased sample of wizards and witches. Learning combat magic is the equivalent of learning a martial art. Most fully qualified wizards can't cast a Patronus in the same way most high school graduates can't break a stack of boards with their bare hand. The main people we've seen cast a Patronus are either members of the DA or members of the Order. The Order is full of Aurors (cops/military) and Professors and a few highly motivated civilians who made the effort to train in combat so they could help the cause. The DA is a group that formed specifically to learn how to fight with magic, like a martial arts club on a college campus. The rest of the campus doesn't know how to break a single board, but we don't see all of those people who can't because the main characters are all members of the martial arts club.
• This is all ignoring that most of the people gathered to prosecute Harry Potter are surprised that he can cast a patronus and are in outright disbelief that he can summon a corporeal one. The minister himself has to get them back to the manner at hand, Harry Potter committing a crime. The only unusual thing here is Dumbledore's army being able to do it, given that with the exception of Hermione, none of them are exceptional wizards/witches. But that also might be a sign that they will eventually become exceptional witches/wizards and are just late bloomers. It's not like they've had ideal dark arts/counter dark arts education, so it's kind of like discovering someone is actually good as something like singing, swimming or bike riding years after they were first introduced to the activity in way that turned them off to it. Almost every coach has had a "how did we miss you" moment or two.
• For how a lot of the DA were able to do it, the ones we hear about casting it are Hermione - who's particularly brilliant - and Cho - who's in Ravenclaw so she has to be smart. The film shows Ron, Ginny and Luna being able to do it too, but it's the older students who are able to pull it off (Harry was thirteen when he first started learning). And this is after they've been part of the DA for months - building up a real camaraderie in their resistance against Umbridge. So the euphoria of casting it in a controlled environment like that,surrounded by friends, is much easier than doing it while in a fight with a creature that's trying to suck your soul out.
  • And Harry also had a good teacher, so he's passing on the knowledge he was taught. You'd be surprised how often that happens - particularly with professional wrestling. Australia had a small wrestling scene until the 2000s. Then a woman called Madison Eagles went to Japan, trained to an exceptional level and was wrestling all over the world. So she came back to Australia with all this knowledge and soon enough, more talented Australian women started popping up everywhere. Harry had the benefit of a) a knowledgeable teacher and b) lots of field experience so he can tell them what mistakes to not make.
• Not all of the DA was able to conjure a corporeal patronus, even in a relaxed, well-lit environment. Seamus, Lavender and Neville for example were unable to do more than conjure some white smoke. It is also mentioned several time that even Hermione has a bit of trouble with the patronus charm, and when they need a patronus (i.e. when dementors are actually there), Hermione and Ron are barely able to conjure a weak and quickly-disappearing patronus. It is also implied that magic power, or skills is not the only thing necessary to successfully conjure a patronus. Harry has some trouble at first because he can't decide/find a happy enough thought, and his advice for Neville when the latter was struggling was to think of a happy thought. Harry's first successful attempt was him thinking about how happy he was when he learned that he would be leaving his mistreating family. i.e. when he learned he was not fated to be unhappy all of his life. His happiness meter was probably off the charts. It seemed to click when he saved Sirius, but most people probably don't have that kind of intensely happy memory, or at least manage to recapture that happy feeling accurately enough to produce a strong and corporeal patronus. But the DA were training to fight a war (at least with that level of determination), and it probably made things more real than ever before, allowing some of them to conjure a patronus as long as no dementor was nearby.

Cake levitation

• Minor issue, but it seems odd that Harry never tries to get Dobby to fess up for the cake levitation charm. He'll only have one official warning then for then (blown up his aunt in book three which he is guilty as charged for).
  • He's technically not even guilty of underaged magic for that, either. He did that without a spell and without using his wand, aka, it's the 'accidental magic' that underaged kids sometimes do, and that is specifically not illegal. (Because they can't control it.)
  • Well he does tell Fudge twice that it's Dobby who's responsible and Dumbledore backs him up saying that Dobby works at Hogwarts and can be called for questioning. Fudge simply doesn't want to listen.
  • And even if Fudge did allow Dumbledore to summon Dobby to testify about the cake levitation, Fudge could just claim that Dobby was lying under Dumbledore's orders due to the elf being under the latter's employ.

That Liar's Not Lying

• Why didn't Harry attempt to prove he wasn't lying about Cedric's death? He could have smuggled some Veritaserum into class, he could have recorded his memories in the Pensieve, and there's even a straight-up mind probe spell introduced in the same book. Sure, it's risky and illegal, but that never stopped him before; he could have had basically all the students on his side within a week.
  • He did: That's what the interview with Rita Skeeter was all about. Once that was published, the entire student body (bar the Slytherins) was back on his side. And as Slughorn proved, even Pensieve memories can't be trusted 100 percent: there's no guarantee the memories are 100% accurate.
  • Even if he did use Veritaserum, it could make things worse, because they might use that as proof that he was insane, because he believed his lies, and have him put in St. Mungo's. If people are not sure whether you're a liar or insane, it's better that you don't eliminate "liar".
  • It's evident that Veritaserum can only compel truth as you know it, not absolute truth. Remember, Barty Crouch Jr. directly stated under Veritaserum that Voldemort was back, and Fudge still refused to believe him, claiming that he was obviously delusional. If Harry had been questioned under Veritaserum, Fudge would simply have said that Harry was delusional and should be put away for his own protection, rather this than face the terrible possibility that Voldemort is back.
  • Word of God says that Veritaserum cannot be used in court for evidence because it's not reliable enough for legal proceedings. Its effects can be resisted if the victim is properly prepared for it.
  • And there's no reason as to why Harry can't let the Ministry decide on what method they use to get the truth out of him? Because we all know Harry was telling the truth, he has nothing to lose by letting the Ministry choose their own means - particularly means that possibly most students couldn't lie their way through or resist. Heck, he could have even let the Ministry choose when and where to do this, without telling him, so that way they'd have the added advantage of getting Harry when his guard is down, minimizing any chance to try to prepare an immunity. And we are talking about an entire group of fully grown wizards, some of them considerably powerful (like the Aurors), so it's odd how none of them could think of a plausible method to get the truth out of a fifteen-year old boy who has yet to finish school.
  • Fudge didn't want to have proof that Voldemort was back. He was too scared of dealing with that, hence his plugging his ears and going "La la la, Harry's lying and Voldemort's not back!" Hence also the massive discrediting and the hearing. Why would Fudge willingly try to shift for evidence to shatter his comfort zone, even if Harry offered the Ministry their choice of interrogation. Harry also had every reason to not consider such methods. Considering how unethical the Ministry gets later, imagine what would happen if they were left to poke around in his head with no guarantees of safety. Plus, as has been proven, there is no ultimate way to tell the truth. Veritaserum, the Imperius Curse, memories, Legilimency, all of those things have been proven to be resistible.
  • Fudge was not the supreme ruler of all Britain. The majority of the Wizengamot acquitted Harry's innocence. So none of them were interested in knowing the truth? "even if Harry offered" - that's the point. He didn't offer, he didn't dare them when he could've. It's one thing to call a boy who cries "Wolf!" a liar and another one - to step back when he offers to prove it. If you refuse that, you practically admit that you're afraid of the result. "Considering how unethical the Ministry gets later" - so the Scarhead took into consideration the circumstances that were yet to happen? Wow, the boy must've been slacking at Divination - he was a friggin seer! "With no guarantees of safety" - suggest to do it in the presence of people he trusts (DD, MG, Weasleys, Moody, you name it). "...have been proven to be blockable or resistible" - right. A fifteen year old boy is gonna, what was that, "seal his own throat or transfigure the serum before it touches his lips" (seriously, did this woman even read her own stories?), and nobody is gonna notice. Are you kidding me? "Fudge would have said that Harry was delusional..." - so you're saying there is no way to establish clarity of mind in that wretched Verse? "Crouch Jr. directly stated under Veritaserum...Fudge still refused to believe him" - nope, Fudge was only told Crouch testified, and he fed the kid to a Dementor before the testimony could be repeated. Thus he could claim that DD'd lied about the whole thing.
  • Direct quote from Fudge on the matter: "Crouch may have believed himself to be acting upon You-Know-Who’s orders — but to take the word of a lunatic like that, Dumbledore..." At this point he's not claiming Dumbledore is lying; he's saying that Crouch was insane and that his word couldn't be trusted. When Dumbledore says that Harry saw Voldemort return, Fudge then accuses Harry of being mentally unstable and untrustworthy (the articles in the Daily Prophet being convenient "proof"). So yes, there is no way, at least no quick and easy way, to establish clarity of mind in that wretched 'verse. Had there been an easy and foolproof way to declare Harry completely sane, why on earth wouldn't Dumbledore suggest it then?
  • The direct quote doesn't change the fact that Crouch Jr. died by then. It's easy to write off the words of a dead man as lies or insanity, but not so much with a living one.
  • Why not, if said living man is already starting to get an (admittedly undeserved) reputation as a mentally disturbed attention-seeker? Especially if there's no reliable way to say he is of sound mind, and it suits you damn well to cling to the hope that he's delusional? Fudge is doing the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and going "LALALALA I can't hear you," and we already know that there are several higher-ups in the Ministry of Magic who are former Death Eaters, and to whom Fudge's willful blindness is convenient indeed, and they'll of course be on his side and thus take it upon themselves to make it more difficult for anyone genuinely interested in finding out the truth.
  • Because Fudge is not the supreme ruler of magical Britain. He's not even in the majority. Remember, a considerable margin of votes aqquitted Harry, and since the whole trial was a complete joke, it can only mean that many of the ministry higher-ups sympathized with Harry and at least entertained the possibility that he's telling the truth.
  • The jury are the members of the Wizengamot, not necessarily Ministry higher-ups. Yes, they might be, but as Dumbledore was Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot (though he's been removed from that post at the time) and definitely not working for the Ministry, there's nothing to say that you need to be a higher-ranking employee of the Ministry to be on the Wizengamot, so there's nothing to directly state that "many" of the Ministry high-ups sympathized with Harry. And no, Fudge is not a dictator, but he is the Minister, and with the backing of several powerful and wealthy people. Openly going against him would not be a wise career move (and indeed, Sirius directly states that people like Tonks and Arthur will "lose their jobs if they started to shoot their mouths off"), and without actual proof that Voldemort is back, it would be easier just to go along with it. It's the "what's right vs. what's easy" thing all over again.
  • Ok, maybe not Ministry officials precisely, but definitely influential and powerful figures. One of them, Amelia Bones, was the Head of the law enforcement! That's a person directly responsible for dealing with situations like Voldemort. And she supported Harry. And then just forgot all about it? Others would hardly be much lower - that just couldn't happen in a medieval society like the HP world. Only big cheese got to be jury there. As for the threat to the careers, sure, it could be an issue for a rookie like Tonks or a petty drone like Arthur, but we're talking about the powerhorses here. And again, the majority of them openly showed bias in favor of Harry and DD. How did Fudge even push DD's removal through, if the majority of people involved are opposed to him?
    • It's worth noting here that the Wizengamot was investigating Harry on the unlawful use of magic while both underaged and in the presence of a muggle. They weren't there to determine the truth behind whether Voldemort had returned or not. Yes, the two are related (as Dumbledore points out in his closing statement), but that wasn't what the trial was about. The trial was about Fudge and Umbridge trying to get Harry expelled from Hogwarts and breaking his wand. Fudge, Umbridge, and the Daily Prophet used "Voldemort isn't back" was a smear campaign. Because we only see things from Harry's perspective, he could have swayed Madame Bones to accept that it's possible that Voldemort has returned, a claim substantiated by Susan Bones's interest in the DADA course Harry offered.
  • Why didn't Harry attempt to prove he wasn't lying about Cedric's death? Simple. He's fifteen years old, and frankly, not the smartest fifteen year old alive. He's not a good strategist. He can think on his feet and come up with plans on the fly, but rational, thought-out planning? Not his strong suit. Add to it that he's gone through the trauma of seeing someone he knew die, and knowing he was indirectly responsible for the death (Cedric wouldn't have been there to die if Harry hadn't suggested they both take the cup), and that he's told Dumbledore what happened and for several weeks believes that Dumbledore will make people listen. So what happens when he finds out this isn't the case? Harry's reaction isn't to set out to prove he's right, it's to get angry that people don't believe him. He starts shouting. He gets sarcastic. He all but outright demands that people believe him because it's the truth, dammit. It's a realistic reaction for teenagers.
  • Yes, he's an idiot, that much is clear. But you'd think that one of the many adults that are supposed to be on his side would bother to explain to him what the state of affair is and what should and should not be done about it. Explain in advance that is.
  • What exactly should they be explaining, that they aren't explaining? As far as they knew, Harry already knew the Ministry's official stance was that he was a delusional liar. The Daily Prophet arrived at the Dursleys, and he would have found out soon enough reading it. Nobody knew that he was only glancing at the important headlines and skipping the actual content of the paper. When they first meet him at Grimmauld place, Hermione and the Weasley kids are surprised that Harry doesn't know how he's being presented to the Wizarding World, and they immediately tell him what the situation is. Later on, the adults of the Order do mention that issue, and how the Ministry is cracking down on Harry and undermining people who might be sympathetic to Harry. Admittedly, they don't tell Harry how to react, but it seems that none of them had expected that his main mode of operation that year would be teenage angst and hissy fits, things he'd been good at avoiding until now.
  • It was indeed stupid for Harry to start shouting and insult people when they did not believe him. He actually gave them more proof that he is an attention whore. How would people react when Harry would have reacted this way: "I know I can't prove that Voldemort is back. I wish I was wrong, but I know what I witnessed. You do not have to believe me. If I am wrong, than we can all live happily ever after. But, what if I am actually right?"
  • This is what they should've been explaining, for starters. And then carry on about how to behave in court, something he has no experience with and cannot be expected to be familiar with. And how to deal with a hostile person of authority who's not hamstrung by the Headmaster and can actually do him some real harm. And on the nature of psychic warfare that they're well aware will be likely used against him. And so on.
  • Well if you take note of the new members of the Order, they have been convincing people. It's just that Fudge is refusing to listen to reason, so they have to do things quietly and slowly convert people to their cause. Harry also asks why they're ignoring evidence that he's back, and the Order points out that there's little evidence - because Voldemort is doing everything in secret too so as not to blow his cover. Cedric's death is traced to Barty Crouch Jr and besides that, there's little other evidence.
  • And aren't most of the Ministry higher-ups survivors of the previous war? Madame Bones for instance lost half her family. So it's likely more than just Fudge who doesn't want to believe Voldemort is back.
  • A common thing you see in Rowling's writing is that she loves to invent cool stuff that is typically interesting in the book it's introduced in, but she never bothers to check what consequences it might have for the stories she already had written or planned to write. In this case, wizarding society has several 100% surefire ways to confirm if someone is lying or not. That ability alone should have a lot of consequences of how their justice system works. But for some reason whenever we have a trial or something similar, no one even thinks about it. Here, Harry should have demanded to have his memories checked in a Pensieve regarding the Dementor attack, but he doesn't even think of that. If there was one line where it was established that Fudge was blocking all attempts to have a hearing under the influence of Veritaserum or with Pensieve viewing, this whole headscratcher likely wouldn't exist. Harry's memories can prove without a doubt that Voldemort has returned, and what happened in the Dementor attack, but neither set of memories gets used for the same reason Veritaserum isn't used: because it would break the plot.
  • This was Fudge's attempt at a kangaroo court. Thew first thing he did was try to convict Harry in absentia by moving the trial without notifying him. That failed as they heard about the time change. The time change also would have prevented Harry from having counsel even if he had gotten there in time, but Dumbledore anticipated this trickery and arrived early enough to be there for any earlier trial time. Fudge only reluctantly agreed to listen to Mrs. Figg's testimony and refused to listen to Dobby's. Fudge didn't care about Harry's innocence and nothing Harry said or would agree to would convince him of that.

That Liar's Not Lying, Part II

• Dumbledore is Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. That means he has a significant amount of political influence himself, even on an international level. So why didn't he try to get Harry's story out to the public? He could've circumvented Fudge in any number of ways: he could've had Harry sit down for an interview with the Daily Prophet or the Quibbler. He could've arranged for Harry testify to Voldemort's return in front of the Wizengamot or the Head of Magical Law Enforcement. He has several ways of proving that Harry speaks the truth, and he uses none of them. As it were, it seems like 15 year old school girl Hermione is the better politician/spin doctor in service of Harry's cause.
  • Dumbledore was voted out of the ICU and Wizengamot prior to the start of the book because Dumbledore had been trying to use whatever connections he has to convince the world to prepare for Voldemort. He might have been able to circumvent Fudge in some ways, but by this point, the Daily Prophet is already under Fudge's control and on board with his views on Dumbledore and Harry, the Quibbler is relatively unknown and mostly seen as the 'lunatic's tabloid', and testifying before the Wizengamot would also require testifying before Fudge now, since he's taken it upon himself to take over from Dumbledore, and as seen during the shame trial, Fudge would do everything he could to spin Harry's testimony to make him deluded. It also needs to be remembered Dumbledore didn't want to involve Harry beyond what is absolutely necessary, and pulling him away from the Dursleys just to talk with one person on the off-chance of her believing him when Dumbledore could do so himsef isn't necessary.

It's a VEIL. How bad can it be?

• Why the hell doesn't anybody stick their head past the damn curtains? Harry assumed Sirius is straightforwardly dead and tried every possible thing to contact him, but why not look behind the damn curtain? You'd think one would stick their head into a mysterious magic curtain to nowhere just if it was there, let alone having a surrogate father fall into it.
  • Would you stick your head into a magic curtain which causes people to disappear when they pass through it? The head might not come out.
  • That room is the "death chamber," and the veil is referred to as the barrier between life and death. Presumably, whatever living thing goes through the veil is not coming back, including the cells in your head. Besides, Harry would have probably been eager to stick his head in the veil had he not been held back.
  • More than one fanfic has had the Death Chamber be an execution chamber, with the Veil the wizard version of the guillotine. So it was probably a good thing nobody put their heads through the Veil (or any part of their body).
  • It's a common theory among fans that that's the purpose of the Veil (or was at one point). After all, what are you going to do with a veil that only causes people to die? Use it as a means of punishment for criminals so you don't have to go casting unforgivables.
  • The first book made it seem like an execution chamber, but considering it is inside the Department of Mysteries that's doubtful now. As for what to do with such a veil, Nick mentions that wizards in the department of mysteries are supposed to be researching the secrets of death.
  • The execution chamber makes a good deal of sense. Remember, while it's in the Department of Mysteries, it's also in the basement on the same floor as the criminal courtrooms.
  • Maybe it used to be a execution chamber, but it was changed once they made an agreement with the dementors to house criminals in Azkaban. Now it merely is used to study death, whereas before it was used for both. Since before Sirius, no one had ever broken out of Azkaban, and most sentences are life in Azkaban, which is a lot worse than an instant death), it makes a lot of sense that the room isn't used anymore for executions.
  • That, and the death penalty is illegal under European law.
  • Considering that the wizarding world is 200 or more years behind the times, referencing anything that has to do with current laws as at all relevant to what wizards do or think is just plain silly.
  • Maybe if you touch it it'll pull you in or something.
  • Word of God has stated that the veil was used for research, not executions.
  • The wizards don't follow Muggle law. If it existed, the Dementor's Kiss would be banned under EU law too, but they still order it used on Sirius.
  • As someone from the UK, destroying someone's soul isn't covered under EU law. The veil was supposed to be the literal 'veil' people talk about when talking about death i.e. from the John Taylor quote "While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil." in which case the ministry probably didn't created it. It's more likely a thing that has always been there and the ministry was built around it and serves as a sort of connection to the afterlife
  • And how are the people studying this veil, with a ten-foot pole? Sticking one's head in a veil is one thing, but wrenching it open and watching from a safe distance is another.
  • Even the 10-foot pole option sounds bad. Forcibly wrenching open the veil between the here and the hereafter seems like a recipe for a "Divide By Zero" event. ("Existence has performed an illegal operation and must be shut down.")
  • Perhaps they just finished constructing the veil as a means to study death? Though whether it's been there since the dawn of time or was put up yesterday, why it isn't covered in a dozen warnings, caution signs and general safety charms is anyone's guess.
  • Well, it's kept deep within the Department of Mysteries, an area that's difficult to access without authorization. Anyone who makes it all the way to the Death Chamber would presumably be an Unspeakable and would already know how dangerous the Veil is. And if they weren't supposed to be there and managed to fall through it, well that's what they get for being somewhere they shouldn't have been.
  • Indeed. How many people did we see get access to it? Only a bunch of kids. And a bunch of terrorists. And a bunch of vigilantes. One of whom got killed by it. And we've seen that it draws people to it, compels them to open it and presumably get sucked into it. Meaning that "deep within the DOM" doesn't mean squat.
  • Probably they have an advanced equivalent of Extensible Ears available to study the Veil, or perhaps there are ghosts in the {{=Do M=}} who are willing to risk peeking in to see what they're missing.
  • Why didn't Harry even think about the Veil at all in book 6? He spends all this time frustrating over the mirror, but doesn't consider researching the veil, or going back. Even if JKR had given some reason not to pursue it further, it would have made a lot more sense for him to at least give it some thought in Half Blood Prince.
• Harry was tempted to walk through the archway when he first saw it prior to the battle, but Hermione held him back. She admits she doesn't know what it is, but she was smart enough to realise that if Harry was tempted, it was probably dangerous. Bellatrix clearly knows what the archway does, so it's fair to assume the rest of the Death Eaters would have known. It is likely that they surveyed the DoM] quite extensively while planning to steal the prophecy, and Rookwood used to work there. The Order members who come to fight seem to know what the archway is, because Lupin certainly does. Dumbledore clearly knows a great deal about the DoM. It is likely that Dumbledore had dealings with them when making many ground-breaking magical research. He would have passed on this information to the rest of the Order as they were discussing how to stop Voldemort from stealing the prophecy if they didn't know much about the department already. Word of God also denies that the veil was ever used for executions and says the DoM was only ever a place of study.
  • Why not just have a D-Class do it?
  • Hermione and Harry come from muggle families, sort of, so why didn't they put a video camera through it and see what happens? If it comes back, they've got footage about the other side, if not they know to stay the feck away as anything that goes through ain't comin' back.
  • Would that work, though? The books mention repeatedly that muggle technology doesn't work at Hogwarts, but it's never made clear whether or not muggle tech would work at the Ministry. Given how the Department of Mysteries is a important part of the Ministry, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to think that a video camera wouldn't work there.
  • Also, when were Harry and Hermione supposed to do this? They didn't have a video camera handy when breaking in to 'rescue' Sirius, and even if they did, that wasn't their priority at the time. A few of them (including Harry) were behaving so weirdly around the archway that the best decision did seem to be to get the hell away. After Sirius dies, there is no real opportunity to try this, and even if there was, Harry's came to terms with Sirius' death by that point. Obsessing over what's behind the veil is clearly going to be unhealthy. On a shorter note, he and Hermione have been wizards for a good few years now, and grown accustomed to magical solutions, it wouldn't be that surprising that it doesn't occur to them (especially Harry, with his upbringing).
  • Perhaps if they did that, the video camera would simply vanish, just as Sirius's physical body did.

The Ministry of Magic needs some safety procedures...

• No OSHA Compliance: If going through the Veil meant instant death, shouldn't they have at least put a velvet rope around it? Or some kind of sign that implicated mortal danger?
  • This one makes sense, as the only people that should be in the Department Of Mysteries would be trained personnel, the Unspeakables themselves, or someone being led by them. That room itself wouldn't have any reason for visitors, unlike the prophecy room. It's akin to putting up a rope around a bottomless pit in a top secret facility; anyone that knows about it should know of the danger.
  • Even people who know about a danger can trip. OP's right; there should be a rail or something around it.
  • The veil was on a dais. It's not like it's just sitting there in the room, you have to walk upwards a bit to get to it.

What kind of crazy room is Heart, anyways?

• "There is a room in the Department of Mysteries,' interrupted Dumbledore, 'that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible... the power of heart." What's up with that? How can you lock the power of heart inside a room? What, do they keep an imprisoned angel there? Or Ma-Ti?
  • Word of God: The Love Room in the DoM contains a fountain of Amortentia.
  • A fountain of potion that induces strong lust and obsession, the stuff that more or less turns people into slaves, the thing that was aptly named "the ultimate date rape drug" in the HBP section? Seriously?
  • It's quite clear that originally Rowling had different ideas for how the series would progress after book five, but she changed her mind when writing the last two books. That's why plot points like what was in that locked room and the purpose and eventual use of the Veil in the story, relationships between characters (Luna clearly liking Ron, Hermione and Harry not giving a crap about Ron and Ginny respectively while slowly developing an attraction to each other), etc, are dropped. So maybe something else would have been in that room, and Rowling just handwaved it away as a fountain of love potion.
  • There is zero evidence that the veil and love-room were ever meant to be recurring plot points. Sure, there are a lot of Chekhov's Guns in this series, but that doesn't mean everything has to be one.
  • Why would they even create a room, then keep it permanently locked? Why did they decide that love is off limits, but not death, time, space, knowledge, or whatever else they have?
  • The books stress time and again that love triumphs over all other forces and magic.

Oh, sure, sending the Dementors after an underaged boy is a great idea... NOT.

• What exactly was Umbridge counting on, when she sicced Dementors on Harry? Let's say they succeed. Now instead of a boy who since the end of the year hasn't made a single attempt to press the matter of V's return they've got themselves two teenage corpses with distinct "marks" of a Dementor's Kiss. And since all the Dementors were supposed to be under Ministery control, she'd as well lay her business card on the scene of crime.
  • To go one worse, if Harry Potter turned up dead (or kissed, whatever) mere months after reporting that Voldemort had made his return, it would basically confirm that someone was trying to silence him. It would be impossible to cover up the death of such a famed individual, and no matter what, it wouldn't end well for the Ministry. Umbridge should be glad her attempt failed.
  • Did she say that she specifically wanted them to get rid of him somehow? Or could she have given them orders to attack him, maybe pretend to perform the kiss, but leave him? Just to try and scare him into behaving?
  • Was she that dumb? Like Dementors could just pretend to kiss him and then rise up and leave! They are vile creatures who attacked Harry on their own in the past. And Ministry knew about it, and so did Umbridge.
  • Not to mention, that if they could do that (can the Dems be Imperiused or something?) it would've been even worse, because it would've instantly excluded Voldemort or Sirius Black from the list of suspects, leaving only Ministery.
  • Possibly she'd ordered them to crowd around Harry (who is known to be vulnerable to their aura) until he was genuinely driven insane, thus "verifying" the Daily Prophet reports that he's mentally unstable. As Harry is a loner when he's not at Hogwarts, she didn't count on there being another person there with him, whom the ravenous dementors would try to Kiss on sight.
  • Except that the other dementor was trying to kiss Harry as well.
  • The attempt was never supposed to "succeed", that is to say, Umbridge knew Harry could do a patronus, and so expected him to use one to fight the dementors off. Umbridge knew Harry would never be able to convince the ministry that the Dementors were there, so he would have been expelled and therefore out of the way. The only thing she didn't count on was Dumbledore and Mrs Figg showing up at the trial.
  • Yes, such plan would make more sense, but could she rely on Harry to act? The only time Harry ever casted a Patronus in public was during the Quidditch match in Prisoner of Azkaban and the Dementors were not real then. Even if Umbridge somehow, third-hand, heard about that time, it would be a huge stretch and risk to expect that he'd be able to repel two real ones. And even Madam Bounce apparently didn't know he could cast a corporeal Patronus, so Umbridge probably didn't either. And as for "would never be able to convince", again: Veritaserum, Pensieve and most importantly Time. Frigging. Turners. The whole problem is completely artificial.
  • Occam's Razor would suggest that the answer is "Yes, Umbridge is that much of an idiot". This has a lot of support in canon. We're talking about the same woman who could bitch up something as simple as 'put veritaserum in a tea cup and then force Harry to drink it', after all. It takes a noteworthy lack of savvy to not notice that the person you're staring directly at the whole time isn't actually drinking anything and is just spilling it down his shirt instead.
  • Why not just Apparate outside #4 Privet Drive at 3:00 AM and fire off a bunch of spells? Harry gets blamed for illegal use of magic, expelled, etc., and there's no possibility of dangerous Dementors killing him.
  • It's possible to tell by someone's wand which spells they've cast recently. If Dumbledore managed to get Harry a trial to prove his innocence, all they would've had to have done would be check his wand (this was how it was proven that it was Harry's wand Crouch Jr. had used at the Quidditch World Cup to cast the Dark Mark). Also, they probably would've found it suspicious that Harry would just fire off dozens of random spells without having any reason to.
  • Also, Harry is not capable of apparition at this time.

Redefining Cardboard Prison

• In the end Malfoy taunts Potter, saying that the Dementors had left Azkaban, and so his father and other Death Eaters would be out in no time. They know V is back. They know the Dementors would most likely join him on the drop of a hat. And they still put all the captured villains in the Azkaban like nothing happened? Wouldn't the first thing they'd want to do in this situation be relocating all the prisoners to a more secure location?
  • Something seems to be disturbingly true: Wizards have no redundancy. They have one banking organization (goblins), one hospital (St. Mungo's), and one prison. They didn't have the foresight of having any place more secure than even a compromised Azkaban.
  • At least there's Nurmengard.
  • That's in a different country.
  • So? That's even better. Now, if V decides to liberate his cronies, he'd have to antagonize a whole new country. And it was almost empty anyway, why waste the place?
  • In the magical world, much like in the real world, the British government would not have authority over the German prisons.
  • No, but the government could negotiate deportation of criminals to said prison. After all, it was DD who ended Grindelwald's reign of terror, surely they wouldn't deny him a little return favor. And the real importance of Nurmengard is that it demonstrates the possibility to contain the magical criminals without use of dementors. Since DD is dead sure V would eventually return and dementors would immediately join him, why didn't he borrow their experience and have a back up containment procedure prepared in advance? Yes, the majority of wizards are idiots, but isn't he supposed to be different?
  • You assume that Britain has something to bargain with. For all we know, Magical Britain is equivalent to muggle Zimbabwe. Maybe that's why no other countries bothered to intervene the first time Voldemort rose up.
  • That would explain much, although there's also DD's personal authority and esteem as the vanquisher of Grinewald and his standing as the most powerful sorcerer in the world. You'd think his favour would be valued enough to warrant a little cooperation.
  • Watch Crimes of Grindelwald to learn why transferring prisoners between different nations isn't as effective as it sounds. Apparation across long distances is only possible for the most powerful of witches and wizards, which doesn't leave those who can't with a lot of options of how to easily move prisoners around while also keeping them contained and concealed from Muggles. Even if the Brits were able to arrange for transfer to Nurmengard (which is a bad idea on its own, seeing as Grindelwald is still being held there) or some other prison, getting the Death Eaters there would be another hurdle entirely.

CIA, MI- 6 looking for volunteer security guards. No experience necessary.

• The Unspeakables sound like the (obviously) top-secret arm of the Ministry. Confidential and dangerous information, research in the deepest and most fundamental magic, etc. So why on earth does it take a volunteer task force, of which include a clumsy rookie policewoman, a permanently inebriated thief, and desk jockey to guard the nation's most sensitive secrets? Why is nobody else guarding it? Why would they even be called the Unspeakables if security is so low that anyone could just waltz in there at night if it weren't for a few volunteers camping out in front of the doors overnight?
  • Because 'the Unspeakably Incompetents' didn't impress anybody?
  • Because the Death Eaters wanted Harry to get in. Presumably Lucius, Bella, and their buddies 'removed' all guards beforehand.

Why not just suspend Harry?

• Dumbledore is facing several problems during year 5: the Ministry highly suspects him and is trying to catch him doing anything wrong they can slam him for, the Ministry is also itching for any excuse to slam on Harry Potter, and there's a Ministry stooge prowling around the school and deliberately trying to bait people into doing things she can punish them for. Dumbledore's solution, in canon, was to wait it out, because Voldemort would show himself sooner or later at which point all of his lost political credibility would come rushing back. Which is actually an OK idea, it makes sense, and it works. But it would have worked a lot easier had Dumbledore pretended to go with the flow and suspend Harry Potter from Hogwarts for a semester or so, due to his 'horrible disciplinary record' and all that. It does no real permanent damage to Harry's rep (his friends will all know the truth and everybody else will forget it once Voldemort is proven to be back, as the same logic that applies to Dumbledore's situation applies to Harry's), it will actually ease the pressure on the rest of Hogwarts because Fudge will think he's winning, and it's a perfect gift-wrapped excuse to park Harry in Grimmauld Place full-time where he'll be ultra safest during this critical time period, can get all the special tutoring he needs from people who aren't Snape, and can get him the hell away from where Umbridge or the Ministry can keep adding new black marks to Harry's permanent record, like the bullshit quidditch ban. It's a nice fake-out that also has humanitarian side benefits. So its annoying that at no point does anyone seem to think of this; its all part of the even more annoying general pattern where Team Dumbledore never seems to have any proactive or cunning plans at all, just 'react to immediate events' and 'sit there and take it like a lump'.
  • In answer to the objection 'but then Harry couldn't teach Dumbledore's Army', while this is true Dumbledore didn't seem to plan on the existence of Dumbledore's Army. That was an idea the kids had on their own. Dumbledore was willing to cover for them once they were found out, but its not like any of Dumbledore's own plans were relying on its existence.
  • Well, for one thing, part of the procedure of being expelled from Hogwarts involves having your wand broken and being forbidden by law to perform any magic, so to hell with that. To supply Harry with a new wand, Dumbledore would have to convince Ollivander or another wandmaker to illegally sell it to him, and find a new wand that'd accept him. And given the severity of being expelled, Ollivander is almost certainly under some supervision as to who he sells his wands to. Also, if Dumbledore just goes with the flow and acts like Voldemort isn't back he's letting most of the wizarding world believe that too, making Voldemort's eventual takeover even easier, and quite possibly completely covert to the eyes of the public. And given Fudge's paranoia, it's unlikely to actually stop him from sending Umbridge to Hogwarts or interfering with the school curriculum (which, actually, he had probably already announced before Harry was put on trial). This isn't a cunning plan, it's actually an awful one.
  • The solution didn't suggest expulsion, it suggested suspension. The Ministry wouldn't break or even confiscate Harry's wand for suspension. Although, your other points are quite valid.
  • Dumbledore's answer to this would probably be something along the lines of, "Harry deserves to live out his childhood at magical Hogwarts, not creepy ol' Grimmauld Place," or something senile like that.
  • Or JKR did not consider every single possible eventuality when she was writing the book. We may have to put it down to her just not thinking of it.
  • Harry wouldn't be going to The Burrow, or even Grimmauld Place. To keep his blood-kin protective magic going, if he were suspended from Hogwarts, he would have to be sent to his "home" with his "family," that is, back to Number 4, Privet Drive. Harry has had to spend at least half of each summer vacation there, so perhaps he'd have to spend at least half of a semester suspended from Hogwarts living with the Dursleys. No one would be happy with that option, and certainly Harry would rather face death than go back to that house for months, with no clear end to the exile in sight. Not to mention he'd probably have to go back to a Muggle school, one that focuses on subjects he only hasn't studied since he was ten years old!

Seriously Declining Standards at Hogwarts

• Everyone is freaked out that "the Ministry will be interfering at Hogwarts." First of all, isn't it the government's job to oversee the implementation of curriculum? The notion that interference as unprecedented and improper is weird. Second of all, until Umbridge started dropping in to observe teachers, was there a single instance of Dumbledore or McGonagall showing an interest in what was going on in Hogwarts classrooms? Observations, at least in American education, are a frequent occurance at schools, with a strict set number of times they are conducted. Why does the administration of Hogwarts seem to have an "anything goes" approach to what's being taught in classrooms? It seems that if Dumbledore had been the least bit interested, Lockhart's ineffectualness would have been identified early, as would Trelawny's uselessness, Professor Binns' and Hagrid's boring and unengaging curriculum (most of a year dedicated to tending Blast-Ended Skrewts, really!), and Snape's abusive instruction. The only thing Dumbledore does in his role as Headmaster that actually seems germane to student instruction is not hiring Tom Riddle when he applies for a job. So is Dumbledore a bad administrator or what?
  • The students who studied in Hogwarts during those years, had the misfortune of sharing the school with Harry Potter, which caused the petty concerns of education quality being sidetracked by DD's quest of grooming his little shahid for his war with V. Hence hiring Lockheart - he's the visual aid to Harry about the importance of being humble (read "submissive"); keeping Trelawny - she's supposed to desensitize Harry to threats to his life and, hopefully, give some more genuinely useful prophesies; giving the teaching duty to Hagrid - he's the source of "accidental" information leaks to Harry and the "good cop"; letting Snape run unchecked - he's the "bad cop" and the link to the enemy ranks; Binns, meh, nobody gives a damn about history, so who cares? And, just like Dursleys, they all, in one way or another, serve as foils to DD, the modest, all-knowing, competent, funny and compassionate Cool Grandpa for Harry to sign up with and follow without question.
  • Hogwarts seems to operate more along the lines of a Private School, which, in the UK, don't have to follow the National Curriculum. While there is oversight, they have far more of a free reign in terms of the people they hire, and the standards set for these teachers. It's entirely possible that previous Heads have practiced far more stringent policies with regard to monitoring the staff and their performance, but Dumbledore doesn't bother with them. He's a laissez-faire Headmaster. He picks people who know their stuff, and lets them get on with it (Trelawney is an exception - he explicitly keeps her around to keep her and her prophecy safe). In short, the Ministry getting involved in the running of Hogwarts is extremely unusual, as it's a Private institution - it's stated that Fudge had to pass a specific law to allow the Ministry to appoint a teacher if Dumbledore couldn't.
  • Also, Hermione is the one who comments disapprovingly about the Ministry's interference, because she, Harry, and Ron know that the interference stems from Fudge's superstitions about how Dumbledore is running things. They know that it's not out of genuine concern for the school or its students - as Umbridge's teaching methods make clear, she's only trying to look out for the Ministry.
• The point here is that the characters are not worried about the Ministry "working to rise Hogwarts' standards", but the fact that is is a blatant excuse to undermine Dumbledore and indoctrinate students. It shows clearly when the examinator judges the teachers following her biases instead of the qualities of the lessons.

MM Guards

• Why is there no-one guarding the Ministry of Magic overnight?
  • Considering a half-dozen heavyweight Death Eaters are hanging around inside, we can assume something bad happened to the night security people. Harry himself notes that there should be someone at the security desk.
  • Fridge Brilliance: They need Harry and co to get to the Hall of Prophecy so he can take the prophecy off the shelf personally. They deliberately took out all the employees so Harry would have a free path to the room. They were probably following them around the whole time (Disillusionment Charms perhaps?).

Why did nobody tell Harry that the ministry couldn't expel him?

• Harry goes through a week at Grimmauld Place worrying about his potential expulsion from Hogwarts. When at the trial itself we finally hear from Dumbledore that the ministry cannot expel Hogwarts students, and this is the first time Harry ever hears of this. Why did nobody else tell him that to calm him down? Not even Kingsley, Arthur or Tonks who work at the ministry and would presumably know.
  • The rule has to have some limitations. Otherwise, it would potentially prevent the Ministry from punishing a student for lawbreaking so long as their headmaster refuses to consent to their expulsion. Dumbledore still needs to produce facts as to Harry's innocence during the trial, which confirms it's definitely not as simple as, "You don't have the authority to expel him, and that's enough to dismiss all criminal charges." It's also stated the Ministry doesn't have the authority to remove Hogwarts staff members from the grounds, even though Fudge was able to have Hagrid sent to Azkaban without consequence in the second book, further implying that the protection doesn't mean anything if the student/staff member is involved in illegal activity. Even if the law is that ironclad, everyone knows that Fudge is not in his right mind at the time of Harry's trial. They aren't going to make any promises because they don't know what lengths the Ministry will go to to get around them.
    • It's still technically true that Ministry cannot expel anyone by its own decision, it's just that keeping a convicted criminal as a student or a staff member is a huge blow to PR, and it's extremely doubtful they'll be able to study anything in Azkaban anyway (one more, even if minor, issue, BTW, where Muggles Do It Better).
    • You've got some notions mixed up. It's true that the Ministry can't just expel Hogwarts students on the fly, even if they have reason to. The government can't expel people from a private school; that's why Dumbledore was able to overturn it and get Harry a proper trial. But if, at that trial, Harry were convicted of using magic while underage and/or breaking the Statute of Secrecy, then he would be lawfully expelled from Hogwarts as part of his punishment of being sent to Azkaban or banished from the Wizarding World. In the same way that being lawfully imprisoned or banished from your home country precludes you from attending school in that country, regardless of what your headmaster has to say about it.
    • It's not a mix-up, it's a reference to the fact that IRL, you can be a student while being imprisoned - even though, obviously, you will not be able to physically attend any school. Somehow the idea of studying remotely has graced muggles but not wizards.
  • Hermione states that they would have to get him off due to the fact that in life-threatening situations, underage wizards are able to preform magic outside of school. Arthur or Bill also states the same thing
    • That still leaves Harry with the task of proving he was in a life-threatening situation, made more difficult by the fact that he was attacked by something that's invisible to Muggles and [supposed to be] under the constant control of the Ministry itself. Everyone's aware of the possibility that the Ministry ordered the attack, and if that's true, they know they're going to do whatever it takes to cover it up.

Harry Potter, The Boy Who Killed

• Throughout the book, the Ministry of Magic, not wanting to believe that Voldemort is back has been engaging in a smear campaign against Harry decrying him as a liar and attention seeker. They also know that he mysteriously appeared a few months ago with the body of a dead Hogwarts student who he'd been competing against, a death that never had been explained. So why doesn't the Ministry go through the simple solution of pinning Cedric's death on Harry which would be guaranteed to turn people against Harry even more than if he was just seen as a attention seeker. Imagine Harry trying to convince people that he wasn't a murderer, in addition to the fact that Voldemort was back and the Ministry countering that Voldemort's resurrection was obliviously a cover story to hide the fact that Harry killed Cedric. It also gives Cedric's friends and family an explanation for Cedric's death and a target for their anger (Harry). When Umbridge was at Hogwarts, she could've used that to sow distrust against Harry, like say, pointing out that Cedric Diggory died in an accident that Harry oh so happened to witness, leading students to give Harry a wide berth making it harder for Harry to talk to them as leading to him being a target of revenge by Cedric's friends who were convinced that he really killed Cedric.
  • They would be able to tell from Harry's and Cedric's wands that neither of them had cast the Killing Curse that night, and Harry's actions don't reek of someone covering up their own act of murdering a fellow student. The Ministry may not have wanted to admit the truth about Voldemort's return, but having Harry Potter declared a murderer would've gone too far in the opposite direction for most people to have taken them seriously.
  • Also, the Ministry glossing over Cedric's death so utterly is probably not an accident. They stick to a general "Potter's a liar" schtick as opposed to getting into the details of Cedric's death for a reason. Aside from the fact that, well, any competent investigation of Cedric's murder would be guaranteed to unveil a truth that Fudge didn't want, using Cedric's murder as a political weapon is something that could have turned Amos Diggory and the rest of the Diggory family against the Ministry in a public fashion, and if they were to publicly claim to believe Harry's turn of events, then that's a huge PR blow against Fudge's version of events. The easiest way to sidestep the Diggorys as a factor is to avoid talking too much about Cedric.
  • And you know they're was that escaped Death Eater Barty Crouch Jr to pin the murder on. Seems like it would be hard to pin the blame on Harry with a far more obvious suspect around.

The Wizengamot mind-blown by dementors in Little Whinging

• The level of absolute mindblown-ness that the Wizengamot expresses when Harry tells them that he only produced a patronus charm because of the dementors makes no sense. Why else would a wizard produce a patronus, but to protect himself from a dementor? Why is it specifically more of an offense to have done this in front of a muggle, when Dudley is Harry's cousin and fully aware that he is a wizard? Finally, did the Wizengamot not expect Harry to claim that a dementor was present?
  Probably even more inane about Harry's trial is that it was the blooming Wizengamot. These are the best witches and wizards, the court that rules on the most important events of the Wizarding World. And not one of them wondered why they were being called to judge a 15 year old boy for underage use of magic? At most, it should have been a meeting with the Hogwarts Board of Governors and/or an interview by Amelia Bones, and Fudge shouldn't have been involved at all. How no red flags were raised is beyond comprehension, considering that several previous Ministers of Magic had been removed from office for incompetence.
  • Because by this point, Harry has been the victim of a smear campaign designed specifically to reduce any clarity his words have, regardless of how true they are. Most of the Wizengamot members probably were confused as to why they were presiding over Harry's hearing, but the vast majority of Wizarding Britain blindly believe the fake news the Daily Prophet puts out that paints Harry as an attention seeker being enabled by Dumbledore. Plus, the hearing was meant to be just with Amelia Bones, but Fudge used all the power he had to step in and make it a 'show-trial' to further ruin Harry's reputation. As for why they never considered Dementors as the reason Harry cast the Patronus, they were all believing the Dementors were under the control of the Ministry, and the Patronus spell is, arguably, one of the more 'flashy' spells, so that, coupled with Fudge's actions, make Harry come across as an entitled attention seeking delinquent.

Seriousness Dissonance

• I've only seen the movie so something may have been lost in the translation from page to screen, but Harry's expulsion here doesn't make sense when you consider he's been involved with magic is in front of far more muggles in the previous stories and not gotten expelled;
  • Accidentally making a pane of glass disappear at the zoo in the first book, causing Dudley to fall into the snake enclosure and a snake to eacape. I assume Harry got a free pass since this was before his found out he was a wizard, plus to anyone who didn't look until Dudley fell in, it would look like a fat kid accidentally shattered a pane of sub-standard saftey glass.
  • In Chamber of Secrets, he helped Ron steal a flying car right outside a busy train station which was sighted by numerous Muggles and led to Snape furiously confronting them from almost exposing their world since the flying car made the front page of The Daily Prophet and Snape even tells Dumbleore they should be expelled and sent right back home, but Dumbledore brushes him off. Ron at least got a letter literally shouting in his face.
  • He accidentally used magic to turn Aunt Marge into a balloon, causing her to float away from the backyard of a very residential neighborhood until wizarding authroities found her circling a smokestack, with it being all but confirmed at least hundreds of Muggles had to have seen her. All Harry got was hearty assurance that young boys aren't sent to Azkaban simply for accidentally blowing up their aunts.
  • With the above now in mind, it seemed odd that, not only Harry was expelled for using magic in front of muggles when A) the Muggles in witness only included Dudley and his three hooligan friends, B) all four of them are known troublemakers who would be accused of robbing Vernon's liquor cabinet if they went running their mouthes about a black ghost attacking Dudley and Harry fending it off with light from a stick, and C) Dudley would have died if Harry didn't intervene. Yeah, he's a horrid fat brat that's more spoiled rotten than an egg salad sandwich after sitting in a humid school locker all summer, but he's not a killer. Plus, It seemed very hypocritical that Harry's notified of his expulsion from Hogwarts by a letter that turns into a face and reads itself allowed to Harry in a room full of Muggles. So was the Ministry just itching for an excuse to expell him after the flying Anglia and Hot Air Marge incidents?
    • There was some loss of context between book and film. The book all but states that the reason Fudge is using all his power to try and expel Harry for his use of magic outside school is because he is determined to ostracise him from the Wizarding World, or at least discredit him to the point he is basically exiled, because of Harry's claims that Voldemort is back. As for the other examples, Harry's in the clear in book 1 because it was underage magic, which can't be controled, he's punished with detention and having a letter written to his family in book 2 (alongside being misblamed for Dobby's use of a Hover Charm), and in book 3, he was let off with barely a warning because everyone at the time was under the impression Sirius Black was trying to murder him.