WMG / Harry Potter Magic

The reason you can't create money out of tin air: galeons, sickles, and knuts can only be fabricated by trained goblins, and while you can technically create money out of tin air, upon closer inspection it'd look blatantly obvious it's fake, and most prestigious wizard stores know a way to instantly detect fake currency running on this principle. Goblin magic or some sort of protective spell also prevents currency from being modified, multiplied, altered, transfigured, charmed, or messed with in any way. Otherwise, galeons, sickles and knuts wouldn't be considered special enough to be used as money on Wizarding Britain. And for other countries that use other forms of currency, something similar hapens as well.

The unforgivable curses are distinguished from other magic in that they specifically target the soul, not the body

• Voldemort's soul was unintentionally broken when he was hit by his own killing curse, allowing a piece of it to stay with Harry.
• Likewise, the last piece of Voldemort's soul was destroyed by a killing curse.
• It's suggested in the books that using these curses also damages the caster's soul. Dumbledore insisted that Snape be the one to kill him rather than allowing Draco to do it, in part so that Draco would not have to "tarnish his soul."
  • Bellatrix Lestrange and Barty Crouch Jr. were easily the two most unhinged death eaters - even more so than the others who spent the same amount of time in Azkaban. Incidentally, they were both known to use the cruciatus curse more extensively than anyone else - perhaps their newfound madness is the result of a tarnished soul?

Prophecies are in fact very powerful spells that manipulate the future, not tell it.

However they harness an even greater power than magic...they harness the power of self fulfilling prophecy. In other words 'prophets' are like people who understand psychohistory and every once in awhile they see how to control future events by saying certain cryptic things to certain people at certain times, and through that those people self fulfill the prophecy.

It's not incompatible with known physics.

A wand is a cold fusion reactor, with the "magical" core sustaining the reaction. Magic works by manipulating electric and magnetic fields, which is why advanced Muggle technology doesn't work near a lot of it - the constant changes in flux are the same as an EMP. And there are ways to do everything that we see a spell doing, with very precise manipulation of those fields. Apparition is traveling through higher dimensions - the crushing sensation is your cells suddenly having a much higher ratio of volume to surface area than they are supposed to. Time Turners use wormholes, and Divination is just the same effect the other way working differently.

Wizards are less powerful than other magical creatures because humanity isn't magic as a whole.

Arithmancy is the art of creating new spells

Which an only be done by incredibly dangerous experiemtation, eg: shouting random words , or an incredibly complex combination of maths and etymology.

• Jossed. Arithmancy is a magical discipline that studies the magical properties of numbers, including predicting the future with numbers and numerology.

The spell that Dumbledore cast at Voldemort at the end of Order of the Phoenix was an Elder Wand-level Petrificus Totalus.

It's effects are never revealed, and it's listed under Fate Worse than Death, so, it could be a Petrificus Totalus so powerful it trapped Voldemort for all eternity.

• Holy shit...

Ambient magic has no effect on modern electronics on its own; the mental aspect of magic and the perpetuation of the myth that it does makes it so.

Electricity is a primal, elemental force, just like fire, light, earth, etc.; there are spells and incantations and potions that allow a witch or wizard to create or manipulate them, so electricity should be no different. (Light and electricity are very similar forces...) Plus, the effect of ambient magic on electronics has been displayed rather unevenly throughout the book series; sometimes it shuts them down altogether, and sometimes it leaves them entirely unfazed. Supposedly, a laptop or cell phone won't work on the Hogwarts grounds, but a motorcycle or car would; why would lead-acid batteries be more resistant that lithium-ion batteries? And there's a department in the Ministry of Magic created specifically for the discovery and confiscation of magicked Muggle items.

Given that much of whether magic works a certain way is in the belief that it'll work that way, the only reason ambient magic in an area would affect electronics is because the wizarding world believes that it does; otherwise, like anything else not intended as the direct target, the effect of magic on such items is negligible at best.

• If magic truly stopped electricity from working, then the portion of London that contains the Ministry of Magic should be dealing with an irreversible blackout. It isn't. It's TOO MUCH magic which overwhelms electricity. This also means that too much electricity should cancel out magic. But if you keep them balanced, both should work fine.
  • One badass fanfic assumes that lots of magic can cancel out technology and vice versa and goes on from there - it's why satellites don't pick up Hogwarts. Long story short, there's a squib with a grudge trying to expose the magical world; to protect herself from the wizard manhunt she's started, she hides out on a tech college campus (it might have been MIT), where there's so much engineering and technology that magic doesn't work. It's much less goofy than it sounds.
• Whats it called?

• This Troper assumed that electronics didn't work on Hogwarts Grounds because they'd included anti-electronics spells in the wards around the school, intentionally so that muggle-borns get fully involved in the Magical world. They can make exceptions for teachers and lower the barrier during the summer, while the students are away. They made the wards, after all.
  • I figured that they make electronics not work so that the muggleborn children are even more disconnected with their home lives. Not even a payphone anywhere, means they will not be speaking to their parents for months at a time, except through owl(and how many kids like writing letters), and never to their friends, it's not like they can send their muggle friends an owl. This also weans them off technology tv, computers etc, making them technologically illiterate, more embracing of a witch/ wizards lifestyle. Also making sure demonstrations of interesting tech will not be available to purebloods, thus not challenging their assumed betterness over muggles. this was probably cooked up by headmaster Black...
• Or it's simply that all that magic -which we know can make light and whatnot, ie. electromagnetic interference, overwhelm electronic circuits and fry'em. A lead-based battery, with relatively short cables (compared to their diameter) connecting to the ignition wouldn't be affected, but the oh-so-delicate electronics just give up and spout the magic smoke of doom.
• Alternatively, Magic has no impact on Electronics. It's simply a myth that it causes them to cease functioning because Wizards lag so far behind the mundane world. Notably, we never see anyone TRY to get it to work in the stories other than Arthur Weasley.
• Alternatively alternatively, magic doesn't cancel out magic... when it's being used correctly. Hogwarts is full of students struggling to master spells, potions, etc; the concentrated misuse of magic in a small enough area is enough to disable electronics.
  • Triple alternatively, it's all a lie to keep students focused on the whole "learning" aspect of school instead of the "goofing off during class" one, like mundane schools banning cell phone usage, mp3 players, etc during school hours.
• Both the motorbike and the car that operated on Hogwart Grounds had been magically modified. They likely didn't run on electricity any more, the ignition system was probably magical after Sirius' and Arthur's tampering respectively.
  • And there's also the Knight Bus, which also, clearly, has been magically modified, what which incredible acceleration, and the whole, things jumping out of its path trick.

Unconscious Magic is Much More Effective Against Muggles.

We only ever see this kind of magic used against Muggles i.e. Harry Apparates away from bullies. However, this never happened against a wizard - Neville didn't do magic to save his parents, Harry doesn't Apparate away from Voldemort, etc. This would also tie in with the Muggle vs. Wizard scenario. Assume that a wizard can detect Muggle threats as they can the traces of magic, and a Muggle's a goner. Plus, a wizard world vs. Muggle world war would be a curbstomp battle in a wizard's favor: Apparate into the Heads of States' homes and capture them, break up supply lines, hide in Muggle-impenetrable areas, Transfigure armies' guns... the possibilities are endless. Finally, enchanted bulletproof vests, anyone?

• You do know that Harry and Neville were babies and didn't understand what was going on at the time right? Unconscious magic happens when the user is angry or scared, besides, who says Neville was even with his parents at the time? If he had been, the death eaters would probably have tortured him to insanity as well. It'd probably be far more effective in making the Longbottoms talk. Besides, wizards who use unconscious magic aren't going to be more effective as trained wizards, because trained wizards can direct their magic in a more effective manner.
• No, this makes perfect sense. If wizards have an instinctive use for magic that can leak out unconsciously, then it makes sense to assume they also have instinctive defenses against magic. So those little random bits of unconscious magic would be automatically and unconsciously blocked by wizards as well. Muggles having no magic would not be able to defend against these. So like all those times Hermione yelled at Ron, if he had been a muggle hey would have gotten zapped. This would also explain even more the need for the separation between the wizarding world and the muggle world, wizards are just inherently dangerous to muggles.

Magic makes wizards dumber.

Throughout the series, there are examples of wizards doing things that range from offbeat to wacky to downright mind-bogglingly dumb. And they show a remarkable lack of knowledge of anything Muggle — Arthur Weasley has no concept of how a bus route would work, or how to work a telephone even though one entry into the Ministry of Magic building involves one! — despite a sizable fraction of them having at least one Muggle parent or grandparent. This has to make you wonder. And then it turns out that electronics in the presence of ambient magic tend to have (in the best of cases) little glitches and skips ... and what is the human brain but a great big meat-based gadget passing a lot of electronic signals between its parts and pieces? It's only to be expected that a brain might not work quite as smoothly as it should when there's a lot of magic around. (The survival value thus conferred on magic blindness through improved brain function may explain why the magic gene hasn't made itself ubiquitous in the population at large.)

• The average wizard's ineptitude and insularity in regards to the muggle world that surrounds them may be Truth In Literature. Have you ever been to Quebec? In spite of being surrounded in their nation and all over its subcontinent by the two largest English-speaking nations on earth, not to mention being isolated from other francophones by an ocean, many Québecois go all the way through adulthood without knowing more than a lick of English. Modern-day speakers of various archaic British languages (Gælic, Cymric, Armoric, Manx, Cornish, etc…) might be even more precisely what Rowling was referring to.
  • By "Cymric", do you mean Cymraeg? Like, Welsh? Sorry, nitpicky Welsh person speaking.
  • It's an alternate term, or a general term for things having to do with Wales. (/also Welsh, for the record.)
• Maybe so many of the older, male wizards have beards because they don't trust themselves with big sharp razors? That is, they are too dumb not to cut themselves.
• Alternatively, given the size of the wizarding population and the number of pure-blood families still in existence, maybe it's just all the in-breeding.
• Further support comes from almost every muggle-born wizard being smarter. Hermione, Harry (a half-blood), even Tom Riddle (another half-blood despite what he tells people) - they all had a break every summer from magic brain-frying, in addition to having their important childhood brain development outside of wizard interference. The children of Purebloods are educated by wizards because of the Masquerade, and wizards are already dumber than muggles for environmental reasons; thus, the Pureblooded wizarding world is in a vicious cycle which is making it dumber and dumber every generation.
  • Going even further, Dumbledore knows this, which is why he spends so much time in Muggle society and why he sent Harry to live in Muggle-world.
  • This explains why Ron got progressively stupider and goofier as the series went on.
    • Ron was never "stupid" what are you talking about? He was always smart just like Harry was.
    • And that Brain-sucking jellyfish thing was beneficial in the long run, reversing the process to a degree by book 7.
    • Ron never got "stupider" at all, what are you even talking about? He was always smart, brave and loyal just like Harry.
• It's not necessarily magic that makes wizards dumber; it's the overemphasis and over-reliance on magic to wizards. To wizards, magic is pretty much everything (fear of muggles, discrimination of squibs and those with muggle parentage, etc.); as a result, they exclude such things as muggle sciences and a lot of the arts from their education. All they teach in Hogwarts is magic: no English, no live foreign languages, no art, no theatrics, no psychology, no humanities in general, no courses on ethics. The only mathematics is Arithmancy; the only history taught is Wizard history, and that is taught very badly. Not an intellectual group for a race that reads a lot. If they were, many pure-blood supremacists would be against the concept of the Hogwarts Express because the steam engine and railroad system are a muggle invention; but none of them have seemed to realise that.
  • Reminds me of the "instinct vs. technology" aesop in Twister. Also, maybe in the HP 'verse, wizards invented steam power, but it took muggles to get it going, so to speak.
  • The children are taught those basic things until they were eleven, and it wasn't needed anymore once they went to a Wizard school. Maybe their brains developed quicker in Muggle studies, but then again that contradicts the whole theory.
    • Again, where do the children of Purebloods and other assimilated wizards learn these things?
    • And having a collective education level of an eleven-year-old about anything other than magic still explains a lot...
  • We only know what Harry knows, so maybe courses like "Magical Art History" exist.
    • It's highly likely that "Magical Art" and/or "Magical Art History" exists in particular, given the unusual nature of the paintings at Hogwarts (which must require magic paint, canvases, brushes, and a vivid imagination in order to create). A "Magical Photography" class is also probable. There are Wizard rock bands, who presumably use magical abilities in their music-making, although it's never explained precisely how (is magical music "better" somehow?). There don't appear to be any music or art teachers at Hogwarts, though. Based on statistics, there are probably not many Wizard musicians/artists in Britain, and so young wizards interested in studying music or art would probably have to become someone's apprentice.
    • Word of God via The Marauder's Map (which Rowling supposedly drew herself) shows rooms like "music room" and things like "charms club" are mentioned, so it's possible they exist, just as extra-curricular activities. Here's a link to a replica on ThinkGeek. And in the movies, it's implied that Flitwick is the choir teacher.
  • This troper recalls how much worse his ability to do simple calculations got since being given his first calculator in middle school...
    • Precisely. How badly did your ability to spell decrease once you stopped getting assessed on it? Unless the teachers also correct any spelling, punctuation or grammer errors (unlikely), then the average wizard is going to write like a muggle sending a text. Their should be some class where wizards learn basic english and mathematics, just to get their heads above water.
• Or perhaps many wizards lack a decent capacity for critical thought due to their education at Hogwarts. Boarding school is a conformist place where standing out or thinking for yourself is a definite no-no. With no university or third level education to speak of, wizards and witches aren't going to be thinking outside the box. Consider the following points:
  1. Everyone was afraid of Voldemort when the Death Eaters did all the leg work.
  2. Some Death Eaters would have continued Voldemort's reign of terror when Voldemort disappeared, with it being business as usual.
  3. Being a Death Eater would be a lot harder, with many people going for the Dark Arts, homemade explosives, costly last stands, hit-and-run attacks, and vigilante work to make them pay, even using the same tactics they use.
  4. No one seemed to realise that a lot of Death Eaters attended Hogwarts when Dumbledore was teacher or headmaster, and aside from a few speeches, he and his staff did almost nothing to stamp out the rampant pure-blood supremacy or prevent students going to the Dark Side.
• You have a very good point there, especially if you consider that both Hogwarts and the ministry are keen on proclaiming their opinions on young ones.
• In the first book Hermionie even says 'Most wizards don't have an ounce of logic.' when faced with Snape's potion puzzle, which supports this theory.
• This is pretty much canon if you look at what Hogwarts actually teaches. They have a lot of pratical, technical, and vocational classes, but there's nothing in the way of culture or literature or language or critical thinking, or anything else that most modern places teach. And, when you get down to it, they were complaining about things like writing four inches of an assignment or by the end 'Two Feet'. That's... two pages. Hand written. With a quill. 3-5 pages, Typed, is pretty much the norm in most Highschool Level courses these days.
• ouch no wonder they were complaining their hands must have ached
• Yeah, it's much more likely that the wizarding worlds complete lack of common sense is more of a cultural thing- they aren't going to know things that are exclusive to a culture they deliberately segregate themselves from. Their way of life is different, and it seems normal to them, the right way to go about things (sort of like how people in dysfunctional families sometimes have no idea they're actually dysfunctional, and don't know there's another way of going about things, which also means that the cycle can get repeated when the children grow up and start their own families... Not the most precise analogy, but good enough.) Although to add to the theory, I actually recently wondered myself whether or not magic does affect people's brains. Specifically, I wondered how wizards could be so stupid yet have such good memory. They learn all these spells, and seem to have to know how to brew all these potions by heart and so on, and it makes you wonder whether or not magic enlarges the parts of the brain involved in memory, and perhaps leads to other parts of the brain shrinking in response (maybe the part responsible for logic and decision making or something like that). I'm not sure whether of not their memory is only specialized in regards to spells, but I think it makes sense. Hermione is renowned for brains and excellent memory- maybe she developed it and treasured it because among muggles such good memory is extraordinary and those around her likely praised her and encouraged her to capitalize on that gift, wheareas with wizards such a thing is normal and nothing out of the ordinary, and as such they weren't really encouraged in the same way Hermione was. Thus, ordinary grades. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Neville. Neville who was at first suspected to be a squib by his family- maybe his terrible memory is one of the reasons they thought he wasn't magical? (Even then, as far as I can remember, Neville doesn't seem to have trouble remembering spells and plant names- just other things.)
  • It doesn't necessarily take magic to make the brain favor memorization over, say, logic. Mental skills reflect useage even under perfectly mundane circumstances, sometimes to a surprising extent.
• It's not stupidity, but a lack of logic and critical thinking skills. Classes seem to be teaching how to do things (cast spells, make potions, ect.) without explaining how things work. Combine the follow-the-leader educational system with a belief that the best way to solve a problem is to magically get rid of it. This also may explain why the wizarding world has such a static class structure: new and innovative ideas (like Fred and George's snackboxes) are not encouraged, and all education is standard, so most witches and wizards have no way to move up the socioeconomic ladder.
  • By this logic then Snape, Dumbledore, the Flamels, and Minerva are all dumb when in fact they are all extremely smart or brilliant people. Snape is very logical and so is Dumbledore. You have to remember that the books are from Harry's point of view and as such we are not given the whole picture. Also, it's not that they are dumb it's they are dumb by our definition. Some people are technology dumb, like my 50+ year old mother for example. She's not an idiot or dumb by any means it's just that she is not very 'smart' when it comes to things I consider easy. Also Snape created spells, made his potions book better and his manner of speech are all show of an intelligent and creative man. He might not be able to use photoshop or use a computer very well but he's still not dumb, he's just dumb in my culture. Also culture plays into this too. They don't need computers, guns, etc. They use magic and what ever else so of course they will be un educated and confused by our muggle stuff. Just like I would be confused by how their wizarding world works. Also Harry himself isn't that intelligent. Harry constantly blames the same person for a few books, relies too much on Hermonie to figure things out and runs right into traps and such. Being half-blood (like Snape) or muggleborn means nothing it's just some are smarter then others. So I'm going to say Jossed since there are intelligent pure bloods and dumb Half-bloods/Muggle borns.

Slughorn gave Snape's old textbook with the notes in it to Harry on purpose to give him an edge.

Slughorn prides himself on kingmaking - hand-picking and fostering up-and-coming young witches and wizards. He could have noticed that Snape had a gift for potions and a bad habit of writing in textbooks and put two and two together, giving Harry the old textbook with the brilliant notes in it so The-Boy-Who-Lived would excel in a subject he has no real talent for. Plus, it's been established that Slughorn was teaching at Hogwarts when Lily Evans was there, so it's hardly out of the question that Snape, who started the same year, would have been taught by Slughorn.

• The favoritism thing would be understandable, but his social networking skill relied more on finding already-talented people and giving them a leg up (tying a string of obligation and gratitude to them in the process). Harry had no talent in Potions outside of using Snape's notebook and, outside of possible Auror work, wasn't likely to use the subject at all, let alone achieve the kind of fame for it that Slughorn would be looking for.
  • Slughorn knew that Potter wouldn't be able to make it into Auror training without decent marks in Potions and suspected that becoming an Auror would make him that little bit more famous. And it would make Potter all the more grateful to Slughorn; Potter was already sufficiently famous to call in a few favors on Slughorn's behalf.
  • Harry needed more then decent potions marks to become an Auror. He needed better marks in everything else and face it, he was an average student at best on a good day but was manly unmotivated, lazy, and relied on Hermonie too much during homework. To become an Auror you need amazing marks in everything which Harry did not have. However the idea that Slughorn, like Minerva, was willing to help Harry out by cheating or making it easier for him is not such a bad idea. Slughorn is a whore for fame and favors and Harry has lots and would make more of both. This idea I am a fan of. I'm still bitter over Harry getting lucky and becoming an Auror after the war because they were short on people, instead of on his skills and marks like everyone else. But hey, it's Harry, he gets super lucky all the time.
  • I'm not sure how growing up with abusive guardians, people trying to kill him every year, unwanted attention from the media and government, and unreasonable teachers counts as "super lucky". On a good day, Harry is motivated and has genuine reason to trust the people around him. On a bad day, he's reeling both emotionally and physically from another attack.
• But Harry did have some potions talent. He had a pretty good O.W.L. score despite receiving no positive reinforcement, after all. As much as Snape was devoted to flunking him, Harry did more or less all right even with a clearly faulty (if Snape's notes are to be believed) textbook. Perhaps Slughorn noticed the latent talent and wanted to give him a better guide.
  • Snape just forgot it was there. Also Slughorn had no idea he was basically cheating, he was all head over heels with Harry and went on and on about his amazing potions skills that were a result of Snapes notes. Also the potions book isn't outdated. The thing is Snape is the Tony Stark of Potions. He made things better and easier but didn't tell anyone, that doesn't mean his book was outdated it only means he found short cuts and a better way to do things. Like how Tony does with Technology. Harry was average, that's it. The only reason he did so amazing is because of Snape. With Snape's notes ANYONE could become an instant talent and genius. If Potter had done such amazing things without the notes then I would say he's talented but as is he's only average and that's it. And if Slughorn did give him the book then that's completely unfair to the other students who have to get by using skill and their own talents. After all, it's easier to do amazing things with a genius whispering in your ear and walking you through things.
  • Snape was talented at potions, but that doesn't mean that Harry is incompetent at it. It was probably easier to focus now that Snape wasn't breathing down Harry's neck and randomly insulting him. Snape was very competent at the subject matter, but he was a terrible teacher. It's very plausible that all Harry needed was a boost. My college sells used books for class. They come highlighted in places and contain notes in the margins. This isn't much different.
  • Harry's not so much dumb. He's not even really lazy. He has patterns of a kinesthetic learner, which sometimes doesn't translate very well to the classroom. As mentioned before, he did manage to earn an 'E' on his Potions OWL despite a myriad of distractions going on that year. The Potions OWL was primarily practical, which plays to Harry's strength. But he also had a professor that was not only somewhat ineffective but would occasionally dock Harry's points out of pure spite in a way that most other professors would not have done. If it had been Slughorn, for example, that had taught him the entire time, he might have learned much better even managed an 'O' on that OWL. And to put things into perspective, "Exceeds Expectations" is probably roughly equivalent to a "B" in American grading parlance, which, all things considered, is actually pretty good.

• This was my suspicion at first, but why would Slughorn have done that? He knew that Snape was an excellent potion maker, but he didn't actually give the book to Harry, because Harry and Ron had the completely silent fight about who was to get each book, according to the book...Ron could have just as easily got it

Magic is a public utility

Just like water or the electrics. You pay your utility bill, the Ministry pipes magic to you. That's why the Weasley's being poor matters; they can't afford the magic. Harry has a trust fund (the Gringrots vault) paying the bills, or maybe Hogwarts foots the bill for its own magic (as is likely the case for Muggle students).

• Wizards and witches are BORN with magic. It's part of their DNA as told by Rowling, so this theory makes no sense.
• And there's a limited (either total or slowly regenerating) supply, which is why the Wizards want to keep the whole thing secret.
  • Imagine the "Magic Crisis" and "The War on Voldemort:Is it just for Magic" headlines.
• It exists naturally at low levels as a kind of background radiation; this is not enough to power an adult witch or wizard, but it is enough to get an untrained kid started. The ability to use magic is inborn but must be reinforced at an early age. This would help explain several things about both muggle-borns and squibs:
  • The presence of muggle-born witches and wizards - no adult magic-users to monopolize the magic supply, which allows the kids with magical potential to develop. Also, muggle-born and muggle-raised kids seem to be stronger, on average, than wizard-raised kids, possibly because they learned early on to do more with less.
  • Squibs tend to show up in pureblood families - wizarding children with naturally low sensitivity to magic may have trouble getting any at all if they're surrounded by a large family of magic-using adults. This explains why Ron and Neville both seemed to have trouble in their early years at Hogwarts but ended up being fully capable wizarding adults - both came from large families (Ron's immediate family was large, and it sounds as if Neville spent a lot of time with large amounts of his extended family as a small child), which lessened the amount of magic available to them.
• The idea of their always being little magic to use could explain the small global population of wizard and witches
• Can't be the Ministry controlling the supply though, otherwise how could condemned criminals (like Sirius, not to mention Voldemort himself) use magic if the Ministry could just cut them off?
• I don't know. In one of the books it mentions magical food doesn't actually provide nourishment, and we've all seen spells eventually wear off. Perhaps the Weasleys house is built from regular construction materials, and the magic keeping it up has to be periodically topped up. And isn't the currency gold-based? If so, that also explains why poor wizards exist: it's the only element that can't be transfigured. (Well, it can be, but not everyone has a Philosopher's Stone.)

Dumbledore's unidentified spell in The Order of the Phoenix was meant to destroy or remove Voldemort's soul

The spell is only performed once, never connects, and is described rather impressively. Voldemort retorts that it is foolish that Dumbledore not seek to kill him, to which Dumbledore responds that there are other ways to destroy a man. When "destroy" is used in reference to people, and death itself can be referred to, "destroy" implies something horrible such as complete mental breakdowns or worse. Given the stories' emphasis on the Soul, destroying Voldie's soul makes the most sense. Include that the prophecy indicates that Dumbledore can't kill Voldemort (although the sixth book Jossed how accurate prophecies are), and destroying Voldemort to leave Harry to finish off seems reasonable.

• But then, if this spell connected, Dumbledore would probably become a Dementor by doing the same thing they do.
  • There are so many alternatives... To say, the spell could have worked by forcing Voldemort to feel remorse for his (many) sins. Ghost Rider uses it a lot, and works.
  • That's what this troper thought as well. Hasn't it been said that forcing Voldemort to feel remorse would kill him or cause extreme pain, or something to that effect?
• Bearing in mind that Voldemort's body contained only 1/7 of his soul (so the spell wouldn't have done anything except dely his rise further) and Dumbledore's hatred of Dementors, this seems unlikely. Something to do with love, or the remorse idea above, seem far more useful and in character.
  • Technically, Voldemort only had 1/128 of his soul left in him...
    • You forgot Harry, the accidental horcrux. That makes 8 horcruxes, hence he only has 1/256th of a soul left.
    • Actually, it is 1/128. If there are 8 horcruxes, the last two would both be 1/128 or half of the 6th horcrux (1/64) in order to add up to a whole soul.
  • Nowhere is it etched in stone that every single successive horcrux split leaves the soul in an even, neat division by perfect mathematical fractions. In fact, probably the split is uneven in favor of the part of his soul left in his body, since this is explicitly said to be the central part of him now.

The amout of magic in the world is finite and will eventully be used up

the world population of wizards is small because there would not be enough magic to fuel the community if it was larger. The difficault to use spells are only difficault because wizards have to gather a lot of magic for their use. Also squibs; like in another WMG are low sensitivity individauls who can't store enough magic to use their abilities.

• None of that is true. Rowling has said that magic within the world is all powerful and will never die since the magical gene is the most dominate. And in order for the wizarding race to keep going, interbreeding with muggles is a good thing. Pure-bloods are the ones dying out but that obviously doesn't make muggle-born or half-blood wizards and witches any less powerful. They still have the magical gene in their DNA.

Squibs are a little more magical than Muggles

Muggles can't enter Hogwarts. Filch, who is a Squib, works there, so he obviously can. Squibs are probably able to see things Muggles don't see. They may also have some sort of ability to communicate with animals, especially cats.

• Wasn't this um confirmed in the books? And even so this doesn't seen like WMG so much as stating the obvious

Just like a wizard can do magic without saying the spell, they can also simply think the wand movements.

In the first book and movie, Flitwick tells them to "swish and flick" for wingardium leviosa. More complicated spells you would assume would require more complicated movements, but you never see anyone ever actually doing them.

• It could be that they are just never mentioned, and Rowling does mention several times people "flourishing their wands" in heated duels, suggesting that they are flicking wands about in complicated fashions.
  • Confirmed. It's called Wandless magic and it's been done several times in the series by only the most powerful of wizards. Snape, for example, has done some Wandless magic through out the book. The thing is that Wandless magic is so difficult because you have to be powerful and it takes LOTS of practice. No everyone can do it and it extremely rare. To do it without the wand and speaking is called: Wandless Wordless magic. Snape can do that too. As can Albus Dumbledore.

Avada Kadavra is pure magic.

Magic interferes with electrical machines like an EMP. Humans also have many electric signals keeping us alive, but we are far more resilient and will survive an EMP blast as all our electronics are fried. However, given enough, even humans will die, although it takes a LOT. Avada Kedavra is just a bolt of pure magic. It doesn't have an intended purpose, it just is a green blob in it's purest form. It takes a lot of will to cast it, with the only piece of will strong enough is the desire to kill. In theory, a wizard could make it appear if they tried hard enough, but no wizard know it's true nature, and no one is testing it.

Magic is fueled by calories.

This explains why the students of Hogwarts eat three enormous feasts every day, and none of them, in fact no wizard that we see, is severely obese. A great many wizards are skinny, and those few who are somewhat overweight are not using their powers to their full potential, resulting in a buildup of magic and resultant fat. Such people include Molly Weasley (kills Bellatrix with relative ease when she gets serious) and Neville Longbottom (whether he's actually overweight is a matter of interpretation, but he's definitely not meeting his potential in the early books).

• Jossed. The reason the students are so thin (not all of them) is because in Hogwarts most of the classes are so far apart. You have children running across the castle from one class to the next and if you are running from the dungeons to the top tower then you will go through calories very quickly. I would think that a lot of magic would consume energy and using too much in one go would make you faint. Also some people are just bigger then others no matter how much exercise they do (my friend is a great example of this. She's more active and does more sports then most people and she's still considered 'fat').

Magic is nothing but a misunderstood remnant of ancient alien technology.

The phenomenon called "magic" is all that remains of the technology from an alien race visiting the earth thousands of years ago. The aliens, much more advanced then even modern men, set up a quantum manipulation field, with which they could alter the environment and, given enough energy, even create things seemingly out of nothing. The energy sources of this field are scattered all through the world, in the form of strange artifacts or even geological formations, such as hills, seas or old rocks. A lot of those sources diminished in power or even disappeared, but the biggest source still remains: the Moon, which had its core altered to relay and power the alien technology.

After the aliens disappeared, human beings very gradually managed to tap into this quantum manipulation field. They did this using trial and error, inventing incantations that resemble the old auditory commands given by the aliens. Human beings generally need wands to focus their own life force to make the field aware of them. Also, not all people have this ability, only the descendants of those the aliens experimented with. The centaurs could also be the result of an experiment gone haywire, involving combining human beings with horses.

Certain combinations of chemicals can also cause interactions with the field, which is the cause of potions. Lastly, most of the strange creatures are the descendants of animals the aliens altered for their purposes.

Adva Kadavra is just a spell that stops hearts

In the books they they reaptly say that Adva Kadavra leaves no burn marks and to muggles it just looks like someones heart stops but it dose just stop it basically uses magic to stop the heart somehow.

• Probably not. Heart stoppage =/= instant death. You actually have a few minutes, and a wizard would have likely lucked into some magical method of re-starting the heart by this point. Not to mention that a heart attack (which is essentially what this is) would show up on a Muggle autopsy as a cause of death. It's more than likely that AK causes actual brain death.
• I think it stops all activity in the central nervous system instantly. The way magic disrupts electricity this focused spell just zaps the entire electrical signals of the entire central nervous system, like hitting a computer with an EMP. POW, brain, heart, all muscles, all of it just stops.

Galleons represent the actual amount of quantified magic in the world.

• Galleons are not created per se. The Goblins were able to cast a spell that created 1 galleon per calorie of magical energy in the world. Galleons can probably be physically counterfeited, however a casual magical scan would reveal that counterfeit was not an original. No new galleons can be created because there is only so much magic in the world. Now, having a galleon doesn't control any magic in the world, but the fact that the total galleons equals to the total magic in the world is why they are used as currency for purchasing magical items.However much magical energy was used that is how many galleons the thing costs...or at least that is the theory, of course black market trades are made all the time where the magical value of items is inflated or deflated for one reason or another.
• I always figured that there is a small circle of goblins who run Gringotts who each cast a spell that makes galleons. You can make a physical counterfeit galleon but no one wants to because doing so would get you cursed by the Goblins.

Only magic-users with full, complete and undamaged souls can safely cast a Patronus.

• This is why all of the Order members can cast Patronuses, whereas none of the Death Eaters or any Dark wizards can; if a magic-user murders without a hint of remorse, their souls are damaged and it prevents them from casting one. Snape is a Death Eater who did commit acts of murder, but his soul is repaired because he feels remorse for them.
• If this is the case, it makes things interesting for Voldemort. For someone determined to be the most powerful sorcerer in history, not being able to perform an advanced charm might be a sore spot for him. However, since it's explicitly a charm designed to repel Dark monsters, does he even care?
  • ... Could he have conjured one before his first murder, but found it uncomfortable and doesn't miss not being able to cast it? What would his Patronus take the form of?
  • Do Dementors even affect Voldemort?

Vanishing and Conjuration transfigure solid matter into air particles and vice-versa.

• Vanishing an object is transfiguring its solid molecules into air molecules, and Conjuring an object is transforming the molecules of air into a solid form.

Magic, Mankind, Monsters, and Muggle borns.

• Magic in humans comes from ancient crossbreeding between humans and compatible magical creatures originally. Wizards are people who have a genetic ancestry that isn't human allowing them to access magic despite humans not being inherently magical. A long time ago some humans got it into their heads to claim their magic came from no crossbreeding and dubbed themselves "Pure Bloods/Pure Blooded" as a mark of status. Over time this attitude evolved to the point that Wizards would no longer interbreed with magical beings and actively prevented others from doing so. As a result the only way to keep up the magic was to have kids with other magical families which lead to the occasional squib who didn't have magic and was thus exiled. Muggle born Wizards are the result of those latent magical genes finding their way together with another pair in the descendants of multiple squibs who were cast out.

The basilisk, parseltongue, and horcrux are all connected.

The first person to create a horcrux was an Ancient Greek dark wizard known as Herpo the Foul, and he was also the first person to speak parseltongue(which is passed on through the family line) and hatch a basilisk. Could they be connected? Voldemort shows that if a living being is their horcrux, they have a clear psychic connection and at that point it was only a small part of what used to be his soul. If Herpo made the first/one of the first basilisks a horcrux, that'd make the basilisk an extension of himself and thus a very powerful familiar, and being in the basilisk would be a two-way streak allowing him to understand serpent talk. While it would have the downside of a finite lifespan, basilisks do have a very long lifespan and Herpo may not have intended straight-up immortality when inventing the horcrux. That, or he planned to make a second horcrux out of an inanimate object but never succeeded(and given people know he invented the horcrux, he was likely discovered before the basilisk's age became an issue). It'd also be harder to destroy a basilisk with basilisk venom, like how snakes are generally immune to their own venom. The Slytherin/Gaunt line get their parseltongue because they're descended from a guy who had half his soul in a serpent, and Voldemort looks more and more like a snake from his horcrux creation because a serpent was the original model.