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Harry Potter and the Skittering Spouse
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Ace Dreamer
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Magicals would appear to live maybe twice the length of mundanes? Have a much longer adult life before they look to be beyond middle age? Only look 'old' towards the end of their lives?My youth was the 90's and 00's.Stable the world was not. Mentally scanning the past three hundred years, one decade at a time... "We didn't start the fire; it was always burning since the world was turning".
One of my objections to the films was casting the excellent Maggie Smith (aged 60s/70s) as McGonagall - she's not supposed to look to be an older woman, though born 1889, i.e. more than a hundred.
The point being? A lot of magicals are likely to be socially and politically active but with youth quite a few decades past - selective memory which emphasises the 'good times', filters-out the bad, far longer to apply to.
Not wanting to recall the previous Voldemort mess, not wanting to believe a repeat is possible - entirely reasonable.
Possibly worth considering? Digital cameras, as often carried by tourists, from the late 1980s. The Japanese having a particular reputation for 'snapping everything'. A sophisticated magical might Obliviate and tell the mundane to 'expose the film' in their camera. Cameras without film? How could those work?
So, when looking through the images your camera has taken... And not recalling what looks like a spectacular one...
(No, I'm not prepared to believe 'magic fries all electronics'. Thermionic valve stuff, maybe, but there's been (portable) transistor electronics all through mundane society since the 1960s, see transistor radios, for example. There would be serious searches for anything that 'mysteriously fried electronics'.)
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Possibly worth considering? Digital cameras, as often carried by tourists, from the late 1980s. The Japanese having a particular reputation for 'snapping everything'. A sophisticated magical might Obliviate and tell the mundane to 'expose the film' in their camera. Cameras without film? How could those work?
And even before that, what about Polaroid instant cameras (I had one as a kid in the late 70s)? Would even "sophisticated" magicals know how to confiscate or destroy the pictures they took (especially the later versions that developed their pictures much faster than the early models)?
Transistors were also part of "educational" electronics kits that I got as gifts while I was still in primary school, and I vaguely recall making various different radio receivers using the plans supplied, although I don't think any of the kits I got had any ICs included (although more expensive kits probably did) until I was in high school and playing around with interfacing various bits of self-assembled electronics to my BBC Micro.
This used to be true (probably) when non-magicals on average didn't make it past their 40s. This hypothesis is reinforced by the fact that there aren't records of that many long-lived wizards. Dumbledore was considered to be an aged wizard, he was barely past his 100s.
In short, this looks to be magical-supremacy bias.
Uh, you do realize that the woman that gave Dumbledore his NEWT exams is still alive, and is the current head of the wizard educational office right?
That implies that people that don't get into fights can, in fact live much longer than muggles.
Speaking of which, did we ever see a magical human die of old age?
Dumbledore is 160, and he's considered to be reaching retirement age
Flamel isn't even alone for having lived to 600, iirc there were a couple of wizards (in the movies) who had their 300-something and 500th birthdays remarked upon
Also, people have been reaching their 60s/70s for a long ass time, the average life expectancy was only so low because all the infant deaths were bringing down the average
Flamel isn't even alone for having lived to 600, iirc there were a couple of wizards (in the movies) who had their 300-something and 500th birthdays remarked upon
Also, people have been reaching their 60s/70s for a long ass time, the average life expectancy was only so low because all the infant deaths were bringing down the average
Kinsfire
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...except that I've never seen a relationship where BOTH parties are looking at cheating/breaking up and discovering that the person they intended to cheat on was who they were going to cheat WITH. There's always that "Are they getting tired of me again?" if anything changes. They don't communicate, and I doubt they'd communicate afterward, as much as they would for a little bit, due to habits.
As I said, I've always been a bit weird, and had a more adult POV than most at an early age. My response to having a very cute girl that I had a crush on proposing to me IN KINDERGARTEN was to say that I would love to, but we had to wait until we were older because of age restrictions. (Using kindergartener language, mind you.) What five year old does THAT?
Outliers exist. And she is a less extreme example compared to the Flamels.
When Dumbledore died he was 115
That's what I said, though? "On average"
Also, I'm not refuting the claim that magicals live longers than their non-magical counterparts. They do, considering magical healing even if you disregard magic itself extending lifespan. Not enough real data on that one. However, they certainly don't live twice as much as nomajs. If they did, then the claim of them going nearly extinct if they didn't breed with muggleborns or normal people has little merit.
Neruz
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Umbridge is definitely based on Rowling's own personal experiences with a certain type of person yeah, her depiction is far too accurate to reality, especially when compared to Rowling's depiction of other characters.
Magical aging is all over the place.
On the whole, magicals definitely live longer than muggles. The average expected lifespan for magicals in the 1990s is 137, but in extreme cases it can go far beyond that: The oldest wizard on record, Barry Winkle, celebrated his 755th birthday in 1991. To celebrate the occasion, he held a massive party, inviting every wizard and witch he had ever known, a total of thirty million people, to his birthday party.
Incidentally, the fact that Barry is still alive and kicking at 755 implies that the reason the expected lifespan of magicals is 137 is probably not because of old age, but rather because given enough time something inevitably kills them.
Other examples of absurdly long-lived magicals include:
Armando Dippet - 355
Elton Elderberry - 300
The Trolley Witch (the one who brings the food cart on the Hogwarts Express) - 190
And an unnamed Irish witch who awoke from a bewitched sleep in the late 19th century after 600 years, in her ancestral home in Donegal. She was found in her family home by an descendant in a locked room, who commented that she was a strange heirloom who came with the house. - At least 600
If that sounds comprehensively insane, that's because it is; welcome to Potterverse worldbuilding.
(And if you're wondering why Harry never mentions the massive difference in lifespan between magicals and muggles, he's a dumb child and so the ridiculous ages some magicals have simply do not register as abnormal to him. I imagine Hermione noticed at some point, but likely hasn't really processed what having an expected average lifespan of nearly 140 years actually means.)
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Wait, I need that chain of logic, please. How exactly, does a longer lifespan keep you from the dozens of issues surrounding a too small gene pool?
Ten years, one hundred years, one thousand years, doesn't matter if you've only got X bloodlines, and most of them are mingled.
That the purebloods are in trouble shouldn't be in dispute. Even in the books, it's obvious. Failure to maintain a population, for one. Most families only have one child, so in those lines, two families marry off two children, who only have one child.
The malfoys are a prime example. Abraxas married another pureblood, they had one child. One family, whomever his wife came from, doesn't continue. Lucius married a Black, has one child, and if not for Sirius giving it to Harry, Draco would have been the Black heir and the Malfoy heir. Two families gone.
Draco marries a Greengrass, has one child, and the Greengrass family is gone, since Daphne had no children.
The whole pureblood group is like that, except the Blacks, who had five children in one generation...
But wait, Regulus died, Sirius died, without children. As of the End of the Harry Potter series, there are zero Black children. Andromeda was cast out, Narcissa is a Malfoy and Bellatrix died a LeStrange, so the Black family is gone.
Between the Dark Lords, and their insistence on proper bloodlines, the pureblood lines are, in fact, breeding themselves out of existence. Or killing each other off, one or the other, sometimes both.
It's also notable that the three most powerful wizards were all halfbloods. Riddle, Potter, Dumbledore. Two halfbloods, and Harry, with two muggle grandparents.
The only exception to that rule among the British purebloods is the Weasley family. And you will note that they may marry magical people, but they don't insist on staying in the same bloodlines. Bill married a French girl, Ginny a halfblood, Ron a muggleborn.
TL;DR: None of their breeding issues are solved by their life span, so how are you asserting that a longer life would prevent them from extinction?
Kinsfire
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I'm seeing some bizarre numbers tossed around here. Are they coming from Pottermore, by any chance? If so, further proof that one should never listen to Rowling about her own work, because her verbal and later written WoG varies wildly. Early on after the series ended, she said that Dumbledore might have been in his upper 80s, and that wizards didn't live THAT much longer than non-magicals. Now she's tossing around 300 year lifespans?!?
Ace Dreamer
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Classically speaking, wealth and reduced infant mortality reduces family size. Maybe longevity does that too? You don't even need to say having four magicals as grandparents reduces fertility... Never mind increases chances of children being barely-magical...
Being a magical might not even be connected to genetics... Magic might cling to gametes, 'infect' germ-lines, but has an optimal level to not interfere with fertility? Too much magic in your ancestry prevents 'fresh' magic flowing in, and making it less likely you'll be a 'full' magical, maybe more difficult to train to be 'powerful'?
Maybe male magicals hoping to have children should be... de-magic-ing certain external parts of their anatomy?
(Messing with the internals of female magicals - that sound like a disaster waiting to happen. OTOH, a... discreet... fertility-assistance first-gen magical male, maybe with Polyjuice (might ensure child looks like the alleged father...), could be a way 'Pureblood' families make things work.
Talk about this? Never! Might be how there were so many Black children... Might be how Ted Tonks got to meet his wife...)
How does all this affect Taylor? Children with Harry are likely to be really scary on a magical front. And? Odds of them being 2nd-gen parahumans, with easy Triggering, and a QA bud, seems pretty likely... The ability to Administrate magic could be fun...
Being a magical might not even be connected to genetics... Magic might cling to gametes, 'infect' germ-lines, but has an optimal level to not interfere with fertility? Too much magic in your ancestry prevents 'fresh' magic flowing in, and making it less likely you'll be a 'full' magical, maybe more difficult to train to be 'powerful'?
Maybe male magicals hoping to have children should be... de-magic-ing certain external parts of their anatomy?
(Messing with the internals of female magicals - that sound like a disaster waiting to happen. OTOH, a... discreet... fertility-assistance first-gen magical male, maybe with Polyjuice (might ensure child looks like the alleged father...), could be a way 'Pureblood' families make things work.
Talk about this? Never! Might be how there were so many Black children... Might be how Ted Tonks got to meet his wife...)
How does all this affect Taylor? Children with Harry are likely to be really scary on a magical front. And? Odds of them being 2nd-gen parahumans, with easy Triggering, and a QA bud, seems pretty likely... The ability to Administrate magic could be fun...
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Honestly, just pretend Pottermore never was a thing, much better (like the whole grandparents of HP thing, Charlus Potter makes sense as it is the same naming scheme as James and Harry. But Fleamont? Seriously?)
Ace Dreamer
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Nice and simple. 'Canon' is the (HP) books, add bits from films if compatible, add bits from later books ditto. The game/plays ditto. NOTHING ELSE is canon. Full Stop.
Wildbow, well known for trolling fans. 'Ward' contradicts 'Worm', so, 'Worm' is canon, plus the footnotes on the actual Worm chapters. WoG - worse than useless, in many cases. So, Potter-verse should reasonably be held to the same standards.
Author comments about their work, the characters therein? In any media bar the original published work? Irrelevant, take as entertainment. Might use as idea in a fanfic, but, not canon.
Really, not wise to do anything else. That way leads to madness. And, we're mad enough already.
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No actually, these are all numbers that were coming out while the series was being made
If she's now coming out with lower numbers, those are the retcons
Like, if you can read the Daily Prophets that appear in the series, that's where some of them come from, others from various bits in the series (books and movies)
Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
Also Fudge, at least the scene where he's sending Hagrid to a Hell-on-Earth prison, not out of any certainty of guilt, but because he's 'got to be seen to be doing something.' That is how far to many politicians think in a crisis, it's just that most don't have the power to get away with something like that.
Slith10
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I'm fairly sure that 755 year old wizard was from the first book, when everything was more 'storybook'. He's celebrating his 755th birthday and inviting 30 million people? Wow, how magical! It's stretching the setting in a way that's different that what she did later, but it still is beyond the 'main' body of the story.
Hmm, not exactly what you're asking for, but the fic that immediately came to mind was "Disillusion, by Hermione Granger" by esama on AO3.
Ace Dreamer
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For some reason that made me think of Hermione doing a 'Dis-Illusion' spell, which reveals what's under illusions, on Hogwarts. Getting a pretty perfect result.
And finding it's really a few stacked-up portacabins and tarpaulins...
Then, never daring to tell anyone.
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Why am I suggesting this? Do you believe the magicals are skilled enough at castle/civil engineering to build and maintain Hogwarts? Or, is it more likely mundane engineering, probably on the cheap, with Obliviated builders, has been providing the actual physical bits for all those centuries?
Think about some of the tricks the Fay are reputed to have pulled-off... As, yeah, if they're feeling generous their magic keeps you healthy while you 'feast' on grass, leaves, twigs, and quaff that amazing wine which is really stagnant rain water...
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Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
I thought it was movie-only, not in the books, but I'm not totally sure about that.
SemiSaneAuthor
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It's movie only.
It's not Rowling doing her weird Whimsy thing or trying to channel the spirit of Roald Dahl and angering him by doing it wrong.
This is hopefully a book canon fic, so that shouldn't come up. Remember the difference between Book 4 and the 4th Film with Dumbledore's "Asked Calmly," thing.
Ugh, just saw this reply because it didn't tag me. So... some counter points because, woof, there's a lot of fanon and mandela effect here.
This isn't even mentioning the fact that we know Voldemort put compulsions on his Horcruxes. Or that wizards interact with things they "can't see the brain of but still think" daily (including books )and that the warning makes no sense.
Hermione is the one who dated someone to make her crush jealous. Ginny just moved on and dated people who liked her... Like a normal person who starts dating.
Other "whores" by the criteria of making out with/dating people that they don't marry? Ron, Lavender, Harry, Cho, Percy, Michael, Dean, Hermione, Draco(? Not actually sure if he dated anyone actually), Penny, etc etc...
They're kids in boarding school. They're going to mess around and date people, it's baked into the setting. And all of them were immature.
Harry doesn't like spoiled and entitled people who are mean to him and his friends. It's why he's so critical of Draco but not, say, Hermione who tends to be way more damaging when she goes off.
The strength of a spell is a matter of imagination, talent(akin to being good at math or music) and execution followed by esoteric wand stuff.
Merope was uneducated, inbred, and abused. She was called a "near squib" because of this but she had the potential to be a fully trained witch. She just was prevented from doing so.
"Near squib" is a cultural insult not a medical diagnosis. Neville was also called a "near squib" because of wand and confidence issues but he was anything but a weak wizard in the end.
Despite this we know Merope was good enough to keep Tom Riddle Sr. ensnared by (assumedly correctly brewed because they worked) love potions to get married and pregnant enough to stop using them. It wasn't because of a fanon "weak magical core" or any such nonsense. It's just how we're told love potions work.
Could some genius potentially change that? Sure. Ginny could also be a mutant mind controller related to Jean Grey. But since both of those situations aren't mentioned anywhere they're just idle speculation with no basis in anything concrete.
Harry was free from any Weasley interference at all for months at a time both before and during the seventh book and he remained super into Ginny. You could have an AU I guess where she's an evil ho who ensnared the boy with a heretofore unheard of love potion but canonically there's no real evidence.
It's what made him such a good hero and why people were disappointed with how passive he seems in the movies.
As to fame? Harry is all about attention as long as it's both positive and has nothing to do with his dead parents. It's why he takes extra loops after the dragon and loves quidditch. it's why he day dreamed about how awesome being in the Triwizard tournament would be (until he was entered against his will and was ostracized for it).
Just a couple of book quotes to finish with here that show the "the monster in his chest" didn't pop up out of nowhere.
Like, do I think they were perfect for each other? Not particularly. Ginny and Harry really didn't get anywhere near as much establishing time as Ron and Hermione. But I do think they could work and that Harry really didn't click with anyone else.
The only other girl Harry hung out with was Hermione and he was constantly bad mouthing how type A and argumentative she was in his inner monologue. Hermione was his ride or die friend but she was too much for more than moderate doses.
A ten year old girl was tricked, gaslit, and taken advantage of by an adult. In no world does that make her stupid. It makes her a victim.
This isn't even mentioning the fact that we know Voldemort put compulsions on his Horcruxes. Or that wizards interact with things they "can't see the brain of but still think" daily (including books )and that the warning makes no sense.
She was caught making out with her two boyfriends over a period of two years. In no sane context is that even close to hypersexuality or inappropriate. Add to that she did like her assorted boyfriends. She dated them on Hermione's advice to "see what she likes in a relationship and to get over her crush on Harry".
Hermione is the one who dated someone to make her crush jealous. Ginny just moved on and dated people who liked her... Like a normal person who starts dating.
Other "whores" by the criteria of making out with/dating people that they don't marry? Ron, Lavender, Harry, Cho, Percy, Michael, Dean, Hermione, Draco(? Not actually sure if he dated anyone actually), Penny, etc etc...
They're kids in boarding school. They're going to mess around and date people, it's baked into the setting. And all of them were immature.
All of which are considered positive qualities when Harry thinks about them in book. Harry has no real issues with people doing mean things to the people he doesn't like. Just look at him being happy about Hagrid hexing Dudley for something Vernon says.
Harry doesn't like spoiled and entitled people who are mean to him and his friends. It's why he's so critical of Draco but not, say, Hermione who tends to be way more damaging when she goes off.
This is another bit of fanon that's pretty pervasive. There are no such thing as wizarding power levels. You are either a wizard(witch) or you're not. What determines how "good" a mage you are is entirely how well you perform spells and how creative you are.
The strength of a spell is a matter of imagination, talent(akin to being good at math or music) and execution followed by esoteric wand stuff.
Merope was uneducated, inbred, and abused. She was called a "near squib" because of this but she had the potential to be a fully trained witch. She just was prevented from doing so.
"Near squib" is a cultural insult not a medical diagnosis. Neville was also called a "near squib" because of wand and confidence issues but he was anything but a weak wizard in the end.
Despite this we know Merope was good enough to keep Tom Riddle Sr. ensnared by (assumedly correctly brewed because they worked) love potions to get married and pregnant enough to stop using them. It wasn't because of a fanon "weak magical core" or any such nonsense. It's just how we're told love potions work.
The only sources we have say that a permanent love potion is impossible and they last 24 hours.
Could some genius potentially change that? Sure. Ginny could also be a mutant mind controller related to Jean Grey. But since both of those situations aren't mentioned anywhere they're just idle speculation with no basis in anything concrete.
Harry was free from any Weasley interference at all for months at a time both before and during the seventh book and he remained super into Ginny. You could have an AU I guess where she's an evil ho who ensnared the boy with a heretofore unheard of love potion but canonically there's no real evidence.
Harry very much was an active participant of his fate in the books. He saw things going down and took a moral stand to stop them. He charges into danger multiple times even when it wasn't his responsibility to (troll, chamber, Sirius, the ministry) and would never stop trying to end Voldemort just to have a normal life.
It's what made him such a good hero and why people were disappointed with how passive he seems in the movies.
As to fame? Harry is all about attention as long as it's both positive and has nothing to do with his dead parents. It's why he takes extra loops after the dragon and loves quidditch. it's why he day dreamed about how awesome being in the Triwizard tournament would be (until he was entered against his will and was ostracized for it).
Just a couple of book quotes to finish with here that show the "the monster in his chest" didn't pop up out of nowhere.
(sic) Smelling amortentia which presents itself as what you find attractive.The Half-blood Prince said:
Later that day said:
Like, do I think they were perfect for each other? Not particularly. Ginny and Harry really didn't get anywhere near as much establishing time as Ron and Hermione. But I do think they could work and that Harry really didn't click with anyone else.
The only other girl Harry hung out with was Hermione and he was constantly bad mouthing how type A and argumentative she was in his inner monologue. Hermione was his ride or die friend but she was too much for more than moderate doses.
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So, wow. We see one, count them, one love potion in the books, and on that basis, no love potion is permanent? If you count the unnamed potion Merope used, we see two, if she wasn't using the same potion. And on that basis, you say none of them can be permanent.
Well, I own two bb guns. They're not lethal, so obviously, no gun is lethal. (This statement is sarcasm, not meant to be taken seriously, so don't Whitehall me over it.)
Ginny liked Dean? Go back to the books, read her statement about Dean, the summer she dumped him, and ask yourself; if your significant other was that way to you, would you believe she cared about you?
Ah, yes, the smells of that potion. So harry thinks of Ginny the same way he does his favorite dessert and his broom. Yeah, there's the basis for a firm, strong relationship, after all, what woman doesn't like being compared to a car?
Power levels. Shorthand calls magic that, simply because we don't have a measuring scale. Which first year spell is the easiest to cast? The hardest? But, we don't have anything like that. I must admit to an error in my previous comment; when I said we never saw a squib try to brew a potion.
Merope in Canon, only tried to cast one spell: she failed. We never see her cast a spell at all. While the books call her a witch, there is not one shred of proof that she wasn't a squib.
But while any spellcaster can cast spells, you do need something to contrast Dumbledore, who's actions in the lobby of the ministry are nothing short of spectacular, and whichever of Malfoy's bookends cast the fiendfyre in the room of requirement.
Intelligence, power, determination, training, little green men. Something makes Dumbledore, Harry, Bellatrix and a dozen more stand out from the crowd, and other to sink in the shadows of ordinary mages, like the last three Gaunts.
Whatever you call that Xfactor, could it affect a potion? I don't know, nor does anyone except JKR, and to be honest, after some of her comments about the Wizard world, I think she's as crazy as Dumbledore.
Note, please, that I didn't say crap about some magical core: Mrs Figg and Filch can see Hogwarts, muggles can't. They can't cast spells, though. So obviously, whatever makes a person magical has at least three levels. Muggle, who cannot see magical places or cast spells. Squibs, who can see the magical places, but cannot cast spells. Wizards, who can do both.
So, tell me, how would describe the difference between those three states clearly, without making references to levels?
And last, Ginny was told, repeatedly, by her father, never to trust something if she didn't know where it kept it's brain.
You responded by mentioning a bunch of common items that are in the wizard world. Don't you think the wizards know where the guiding intellect of those items are?
I'm not a hardware person, but I can take the case of my computer and point out the motherboard. I'd bet that most wizards can do that much with common household magic, like portraits, talking mirrors, etc.
But Ginny... She found an unknown magical item, knew nothing about it, decided to keep it. Fair enough, I've found things and kept them.
But then, when she tried to use it; a total freaking stranger started talking to her. What part of that seems right to anyone with half a brain?
If I bought a phone tomorrow from a pawn shop, and holy crap, my first call got diverted to some strange guy, there wouldn't be a second call.
And, it's not like it should have been a big deal. "Hey, daddy, I found this book, it writes back to me. Can you check it for me? I don't know the boy in it."
And that is why I think she's an idiot. She had an unknown object, connected to a complete stranger, and she kept using it.
Never mind her father warning her about that very thing, that's not important. Having this completely trustworthy friend that no one else knows about is more important than Daddy's warnings.
It was by plot and author will that she wasn't another Hogwarts legend, the Girl That Vanished.
Well, I own two bb guns. They're not lethal, so obviously, no gun is lethal. (This statement is sarcasm, not meant to be taken seriously, so don't Whitehall me over it.)
Ginny liked Dean? Go back to the books, read her statement about Dean, the summer she dumped him, and ask yourself; if your significant other was that way to you, would you believe she cared about you?
Ah, yes, the smells of that potion. So harry thinks of Ginny the same way he does his favorite dessert and his broom. Yeah, there's the basis for a firm, strong relationship, after all, what woman doesn't like being compared to a car?
Power levels. Shorthand calls magic that, simply because we don't have a measuring scale. Which first year spell is the easiest to cast? The hardest? But, we don't have anything like that. I must admit to an error in my previous comment; when I said we never saw a squib try to brew a potion.
Merope in Canon, only tried to cast one spell: she failed. We never see her cast a spell at all. While the books call her a witch, there is not one shred of proof that she wasn't a squib.
But while any spellcaster can cast spells, you do need something to contrast Dumbledore, who's actions in the lobby of the ministry are nothing short of spectacular, and whichever of Malfoy's bookends cast the fiendfyre in the room of requirement.
Intelligence, power, determination, training, little green men. Something makes Dumbledore, Harry, Bellatrix and a dozen more stand out from the crowd, and other to sink in the shadows of ordinary mages, like the last three Gaunts.
Whatever you call that Xfactor, could it affect a potion? I don't know, nor does anyone except JKR, and to be honest, after some of her comments about the Wizard world, I think she's as crazy as Dumbledore.
Note, please, that I didn't say crap about some magical core: Mrs Figg and Filch can see Hogwarts, muggles can't. They can't cast spells, though. So obviously, whatever makes a person magical has at least three levels. Muggle, who cannot see magical places or cast spells. Squibs, who can see the magical places, but cannot cast spells. Wizards, who can do both.
So, tell me, how would describe the difference between those three states clearly, without making references to levels?
And last, Ginny was told, repeatedly, by her father, never to trust something if she didn't know where it kept it's brain.
You responded by mentioning a bunch of common items that are in the wizard world. Don't you think the wizards know where the guiding intellect of those items are?
I'm not a hardware person, but I can take the case of my computer and point out the motherboard. I'd bet that most wizards can do that much with common household magic, like portraits, talking mirrors, etc.
But Ginny... She found an unknown magical item, knew nothing about it, decided to keep it. Fair enough, I've found things and kept them.
But then, when she tried to use it; a total freaking stranger started talking to her. What part of that seems right to anyone with half a brain?
If I bought a phone tomorrow from a pawn shop, and holy crap, my first call got diverted to some strange guy, there wouldn't be a second call.
And, it's not like it should have been a big deal. "Hey, daddy, I found this book, it writes back to me. Can you check it for me? I don't know the boy in it."
And that is why I think she's an idiot. She had an unknown object, connected to a complete stranger, and she kept using it.
Never mind her father warning her about that very thing, that's not important. Having this completely trustworthy friend that no one else knows about is more important than Daddy's warnings.
It was by plot and author will that she wasn't another Hogwarts legend, the Girl That Vanished.