Spells in Silence (Harry Potter)

Darth Bayes · Mar 4, 2021

Silently Watches said:
Hazel will not practice any form of divination as defined by Hogwarts.

Really? From what I remember, Harry had pretty prophetic dreams (that for some reason fanon consistently fails to acknowledge), and I'd assume Hazel would to, and given dream journals were the major assignment we hear about for divination, I assume that's something "defined by Hogwarts".

Also, given the mentions of star charts in the canon class homework, it would seem to rule out centaur mentor.

I suppose this is more in line with tabletop/D&D divination then, with extra and distant senses?

WillRobinson said:
I'm pretty sure the teleporting aspect of the sword was something that Godric Gryffindor did, and the ability to absorb Basilisk Venom was the part that came from Goblin magic.

I wonder how Goblin ideas of ownership apply to items with more than one maker...

Post-purchase modifications void the warranty and cause ownership to revert to the original seller.
(Would be my guess)

ROTH963 said:
Her mind powers effected flesh eating ghosts, so they might effect dementors.

Why you can't use mind magic on dementors is an interesting topic, because they certainly seem to have minds. I lean towards "you can, they're just way, way, way better at it then you (and thus functionally immune), being mostly made of (single-purpose) mind magic."

Earth-Destroyer said:
Magic shutting down electrical stuff is a Hogwarts only problem. Mainly because students don't have proper control over their magic. We see the adults have no problems with enchanting whatever they want.

Actually, the one example I know of of long-term enchanted modern muggle artifice is the Weasley's/ministry car/Knight bus. And we know about the Weasley's car

Chamber of Secrets said:
Fred laughed. "Yeah, Dad's crazy about everything to do with Muggles; our shed's full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again.

The fact that he takes it apart and puts it back together is really interesting, and if I interpret Silently Watches' interpretation correctly, this would be the way to imbue new intent into it that wasn't there already due to machine manufacture, thereby rendering it capable of functioning with magic: taking it apart, understanding the function of the pieces, putting spells on the pieces aligned with those purposes, and then putting it back together.

Earth-Destroyer · Mar 4, 2021

Silently Watches said:
You'd have to point me to a source on that because I don't recall anything like that in the books. (BTW, the only sources I treat as canon in HP are the books themselves, so if this is some shit JKR decided to spew in an interview, I don't care.)

The information is all over the books never directly stated but clear if you look.

Silently Watches said:
Was James intelligent with a degree of talent? Sure. Becoming an Animagus at fourteen/fifteen and creating/co-creating the Marauder's Map shows that. Was he considered a prodigy and a genius by anybody besides his friends? Like I said, I don't recall any evidence of that.

James stomped over Snape thou out their entire school time, we know Snape was good, James was outright better. Created his own spells in school, When taking the OWL Snape works hard to pass, James complains they are to easy. Became as secret Animagus and hid it from Dumbledore, Explored the entire school with a Werewolf a creature that attacks humans on site, without ever getting noticed made a map of an Unplotabe location, with active real time untraceable monitoring of everybody within it. Fought Voldemort several times and survived.

Silently Watches said:
Likewise, implying that Lily was a fool or even just average is also wrong. We know that Slughorn considered her exceptionally talented with potions, and my mind is pulling out as well that she was talented at charms as a student though I can't remember where I read that (and that might be pervasive fanon). Regardless, based on my own reading of the series, the few times Lily-Evans-the-person was mentioned (as opposed to Lily-Potter-the-plot-device) she came across as at least James's intellectual equal and maybe slightly his superior.

Snape was good with potions Slughorn did not remember him. And its worth noting that apart from potions, a class where we know he hid his skills as the Animagus potion is both very hard to make and requires repetitive daily casting of specific incantation to work, something he had to hide. Also a Newt level potion. While Lily was strongly remembered by one person, everybody remembers James not Lily. When they speak to Harry its pretty much always in the context of being James son, not Lily's son. Pretty strong indication that James one the that sticks out in people memories.

Roth963 · Mar 4, 2021

Earth-Destroyer said:
Snape was good with potions Slughorn did not remember him. And its worth noting that apart from potions, a class where we know he hid his skills as the Animagus potion is both very hard to make and requires repetitive daily casting of specific incantation to work, something he had to hide. Also a Newt level potion. While Lily was strongly remembered by one person, everybody remembers James not Lily. When they speak to Harry its pretty much always in the context of being James son, not Lily's son. Pretty strong indication that James one the that sticks out in people memories.

Didn't the part goblin charms teacher spoke of Lily?

Earth-Destroyer said:
James stomped over Snape thou out their entire school time

He had the help of all the maradurs and they still said that Snape gave as good as he got.

Earth-Destroyer said:
Became as secret Animagus and hid it from Dumbledore,

By not telling him?

Earth-Destroyer said:
Explored the entire school with a Werewolf a creature that attacks humans on site

They took him to trips on the forest, keeping him from going off course with their big and strong animagus forms, they didn't take a fucking werewolf through the halls.

Earth-Destroyer said:
without ever getting noticed made a map of an Unplotabe location, with active real time untraceable monitoring of everybody within it.

How will he get noticed making the map, anyway, it was a group work and we have no indication people can feel attempts to scry on them at Harry Potter (and such abillity will probably be divination, which is rare when done in any kind of skill), the map is an impressive bit of work, but isn't exactly groundbreaking special, merely means they were good.

Earth-Destroyer said:
Fought Voldemort several times and survived.

Probably in groups, don't get me wrong, it is still super impressive, but I doubt he duked it out in a dual.

There is a reason people think that if a ritual protection was in play, than Lily did it, it is because that she was next to Harry, begging for his life and asking for Voldemort to take her's instead, while James had already been killed like a faceless mook in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie when Voldemort broke into the house.

Earth-Destroyer said:
And its worth noting that apart from potions, a class where we know he hid his skills as the Animagus potion is both very hard to make and requires repetitive daily casting of specific incantation to work, something he had to hide. Also a Newt level potion.

If he did it, it is quite impressive, but don't forget one of his strongest abillities, the power of money, he was a member of old family that had means, he could have probably got his hands on such potion secretly.

Silently Watches · Mar 4, 2021

Darth Bayes said:
I suppose this is more in line with tabletop/D&D divination then, with extra and distant senses?

Nope! Or not necessarily. It actually has more to do with the weakness of divination education in canon than anything I'm actually changing from folklore.

Darth Bayes said:
The fact that he takes it apart and puts it back together is really interesting, and if I interpret Silently Watches' interpretation correctly, this would be the way to imbue new intent into it that wasn't there already due to machine manufacture, thereby rendering it capable of functioning with magic: taking it apart, understanding the function of the pieces, putting spells on the pieces aligned with those purposes, and then putting it back together.

Earth-Destroyer said:
everybody remembers James not Lily. When they speak to Harry its pretty much always in the context of being James son, not Lily's son

Just going to sum up my thoughts about two points.

1) Memorability does not imply a higher degree of intelligence or capability. It means James was flashier, which fits with his prankster nature.

2) You say "everybody remembers James". Considering 99% of the information we have about James comes from Sirius and Lupin, two men who were with him for the entirety of their 7 years in Hogwarts, that more than anything else just highlights the fact that JKR never showed anybody who could be counted as a friend of Lily's. Harry knows basically nothing about her.

But honestly? If you want your headcanon to be that James was a once-in-a-generation genius and Lily was just an average ho-hum witch, that's fine. It's your headcanon, and I don't care enough to get into an argument about it. Just don't expect everybody else to agree or play along with your opinions.

GrimTheMad · Mar 4, 2021

Earth-Destroyer said:
The information is all over the books never directly stated but clear if you look.
James stomped over Snape thou out their entire school time, we know Snape was good, James was outright better. Created his own spells in school, When taking the OWL Snape works hard to pass, James complains they are to easy. Became as secret Animagus and hid it from Dumbledore, Explored the entire school with a Werewolf a creature that attacks humans on site, without ever getting noticed made a map of an Unplotabe location, with active real time untraceable monitoring of everybody within it. Fought Voldemort several times and survived.

Snape was good with potions Slughorn did not remember him. And its worth noting that apart from potions, a class where we know he hid his skills as the Animagus potion is both very hard to make and requires repetitive daily casting of specific incantation to work, something he had to hide. Also a Newt level potion. While Lily was strongly remembered by one person, everybody remembers James not Lily. When they speak to Harry its pretty much always in the context of being James son, not Lily's son. Pretty strong indication that James one the that sticks out in people memories.

Most of these sound like fanon, to be honest.

As to 'everyone remembers James not Lily'- they compare Harry to James more because he looks like him. And also most of the inormation on Harry's parents comes from Sirius and Remus, who were James' friends more than Lily's.

As for 'Fought Voldemort'- I'd assume you're talking about 'born to those who thrice defied him', which you may note refers to those, plural. Both parents had to have thrice defied him- and 'defy' doesn't mean 'fought', anyways.

Lily was doing directed wandless magic before Hogwarts, which definitely points to her being a bit ridiculous, as the only other person we know of that did that was Tom Riddle.

Ultimately, though, we have so little information about either of Harry's parents (and Lily especially) that its pretty pointless to try to guess which one was more 'talented', which is a nebulous concept anyways.

I will say that I appreciate the 'Lily was actually a badass' take, however, and almost always enjoy it when it comes up. I also enjoy the whole 'Lily is the one that vanquished Voldemort, not Harry' take, mostly because its true. Harry definitely didn't do anything.

KhazintheDark · Mar 4, 2021

Silently Watches said:
and my mind is pulling out as well that she was talented at charms as a student

Ollivander mentions that Lily's wand was, willow, pliable and suited for charms IIRC.

Just checked, 10 1/4", willow and swishy.

James Birdsong · Mar 4, 2021

I'm enjoying the hags dynamic. I hope she stays true to hag ways instead of wizard/witch ways

Sivantic · Mar 4, 2021

My thinking about both Potters being powerful wizards is that they were put on the same level as the Longbottoms in the prophecy and the Longbottoms were said to be badasses before being tortured.

Taijutsu_ · Mar 4, 2021

I will note that Hagrid stated way back in book 1 that both of Harry's parents were quite good wizards and that they were both head boy and head girl at Hogwarts in their time. Similarly, Mr. talent-scout himself Prof Slugworth considered Lily one of his all-time favorites and quite skilled at potions and charms.

serra2 · Mar 4, 2021

The thing is, the idea that the Potters were massively powerful wizards, and that Harry's protection was the result of some ancient ritual, seems far less supported by the original text than the interpretation that Voldemort, as a fascist, is a moron and got blown up by fairly weak protections from a Mother's Sacrifice, that any other wizard worth his salt would have been able to get rid of in 2 seconds.

veekie · Mar 5, 2021

FlyingWaffle said:
Good point, but I would clarify that even if the end product of a mass production system lacks passion/intent they definitely still have purpose. I would also argue that manufactured items have an enormous amount of magical inertia behind them (an entire manufacturing process does not spring into existence fully formed from nowhere after all). Of course, I'm coming from the presupposition that all living things are magical on some level, and all actions and thoughts leave an imprint on the world and magic around them.

Probably all irrelevant for this specific story, I just wanted to share my perspective on how magic and technology interact.

I'm coming at this from the perspective that while they have magical purpose its all weak and going at cross purposes:
-In the earth, the ore's purpose is to be part of the earth.
-The miner who drills out the ore with a large drilling machine is not adding much because they are working through a machine, and their main purpose to it is to stop doing it at the end of the day for their paycheck.
-The smelter is working with the ore through a large device with a team of other workers and heavy machinery. They're mainly concerned with doing it safely or getting it over with. This does not imbue useful purpose to the fresh metal, though the smelting machinery they use might pick up some kind of "oh god please don't fail" intent.
-The factory worker drawing tungsten into wires doesn't intend anything, The one down the line cutting the wire into exact segments doesn't intend anything either, nor does the one twirling it into filament, or the one assembling it, its a repetitive chore to all of them.

The system may have a purpose, but it is not clear, because none of the people carrying out the parts of the system care about the final goal. Whatever they do is spread extremely thinly across the vast amount of product of the system.
And when you come down to it, its not even about making lightbulbs. Its about making money out of raw materials and manpower.

Roth963 · Mar 5, 2021

GrimTheMad said:
I also enjoy the whole 'Lily is the one that vanquished Voldemort, not Harry' take, mostly because its true. Harry definitely didn't do anything.

I want to one day see a comedy story that make it exactly true, that Harry did kick Voldemort ass as a baby, and continue to be a badass in a way that doesn't really make sense when you think about it.

serra2 said:
The thing is, the idea that the Potters were massively powerful wizards, and that Harry's protection was the result of some ancient ritual, seems far less supported by the original text than the interpretation that Voldemort, as a fascist, is a moron and got blown up by fairly weak protections from a Mother's Sacrifice, that any other wizard worth his salt would have been able to get rid of in 2 seconds.

No no, you are right, one of the the greatest wizards to have ever lived, a dark lord, fell to a trick that every other average wizard will nope, a trick that probably came up dozens of times in this war alone with all the "fun" his followers had been getting up to.

And people don't think it was an ancient ritual, because the death curse was never deflected before, especially not be weak protections any wizard can get rid of in two seconds, they think it is a new invention the Potters (either Lily, James or both) figured out, when Voldemort was doing his thing he also didn't get rid of it in two seconds, because he is a weak and useless wizard apparently, he needed to go through a whole complicated ritual in which he used Harry's blood to make his new body, any other wizard would have obviously just needed to wave their wand.

Dopplerdee · Mar 5, 2021

ROTH963 said:
I want to one day see a comedy story that make it exactly true, that Harry did kick Voldemort ass as a baby, and continue to be a badass in a way that doesn't really make sense when you think about it.

No no, you are right, one of the the greatest wizards to have ever lived, a dark lord, fell to a trick that every other average wizard will nope, a trick that probably came up dozens of times in this war alone with all the "fun" his followers had been getting up to.

And people don't think it was an ancient ritual, because the death curse was never deflected before, especially not be weak protections any wizard can get rid of in two seconds, they think it is a new invention the Potters (either Lily, James or both) figured out, when Voldemort was doing his thing he also didn't get rid of it in two seconds, because he is a weak and useless wizard apparently, he needed to go through a whole complicated ritual in which he used Harry's blood to make his new body, any other wizard would have obviously just needed to wave their wand.

1. That sounds like some BS from a Xania novel and it aounds funny as heck

2. Aomething something he cannot understand love something Aomething cop out.

eschwartz · Mar 5, 2021

I'd just like to point out in book 7, Harry claimed to Voldemort that his offering himself up to Voldemort constituted a valid repeat of the same protections Lily offered, and we see it play out, supposedly, with Voldemort's silencing spells being unable to stick on anyone in Hogwarts.

There is quite a bit suspicious about the scene though. :/

Roth963 · Mar 5, 2021

eschwartz said:
I'd just like to point out in book 7, Harry claimed to Voldemort that his offering himself up to Voldemort constituted a valid repeat of the same protections Lily offered, and we see it play out, supposedly, with Voldemort's silencing spells being unable to stick on anyone in Hogwarts.

There is quite a bit suspicious about the scene though. :/

Just offering yourself seems awfully simple to create protections strong enough to deflect death curses, like, I could buy accidental magic (even if I think ritual protection as a cooler explanation), but just offering yourself up being enough sound so simple that it will confuse me why wizards didn't discover it before or found a different way to block death curse before it.

ShyGuy · Mar 5, 2021

Earth-Destroyer said:
James stomped over Snape thou out their entire school time, we know Snape was good, James was outright better.

Pretty sure that James only stomped on Snape because it was 4 against 1. If they actually had fought one on one my money would have been on Snape the entire time.

Drake49 · Mar 5, 2021

ok not sure if this is correct but my interpretation of the Harry/Lily sacrifice is the they were in essence make a ritual deal as when lily said not Harry take me not Harry she was offering herself up and saying that Voldemort could kill her and she wouldn't fight back as long as he didn't kill harry in killing Lily Voldemort solidify the pact and so his attempt to kill harry was violating his agreement and magic responded preventing him form killing harry and lashing out at Voldemort for breaking the pact similarly Harry walked to his death under the deal that Voldemort would not harm the people that were fighting him in the battle of Hogwarts and so after his killing of harry magic made sure he could not harm the people harry sought to protect so less a love sacrifice and more a ritual that requires one to willing give up their life to grant protection form the killer to one or more people kind of like the unbreakable vow only all you have to do to except is kill the other party of course the spreading of the protection to multiply people weakened it so it could not longer retaliate like it did for Harry

serra2 · Mar 5, 2021

ROTH963 said:
Just offering yourself seems awfully simple to create protections strong enough to deflect death curses, like, I could buy accidental magic (even if I think ritual protection as a cooler explanation), but just offering yourself up being enough sound so simple that it will confuse me why wizards didn't discover it before or found a different way to block death curse before it.

Given that old Vmort seemed to be of the Black Mage school of self-atrocity, it's quite likely that that he is almost uniquely weak to such protections, having turned himself into a degraded, evil, barely human thing over the course of his existance.

Roth963 · Mar 5, 2021

Drake49 said:
ok not sure if this is correct but my interpretation of the Harry/Lily sacrifice is the they were in essence make a ritual deal as when lily said not Harry take me not Harry she was offering herself up and saying that Voldemort could kill her and she wouldn't fight back as long as he didn't kill harry in killing Lily Voldemort solidify the pact and so his attempt to kill harry was violating his agreement and magic responded preventing him form killing harry and lashing out at Voldemort for breaking the pact similarly Harry walked to his death under the deal that Voldemort would not harm the people that were fighting him in the battle of Hogwarts and so after his killing of harry magic made sure he could not harm the people harry sought to protect so less a love sacrifice and more a ritual that requires one to willing give up their life to grant protection form the killer to one or more people kind of like the unbreakable vow only all you have to do to except is kill the other party of course the spreading of the protection to multiply people weakened the so it could not longer retaliate

My personal head canon is that Lily needed to do a ritual before hand, with this verbal agreement oy finalising it, blocking the death curse in my personal opinion feels like something that will need more than just a verbal agreement of a magical saying kill me instead (and such a simple requirement will also make me think such thing will be much more common and death curse won't be known as unlockable otherwise, like, you don't hear about muggleborns doing such thing when their families are attacked), but such a verbal agreement does sound like a good way to trick someone into agreeing to a pre prepared thing.

The unbreakable vow is an agreement, but you still need skill and knowledge to cast it, just a verbal agreement (and not even that, Voldemort didn't even agree to her deal) sounds way too simple.

serra2 said:
Given that old Vmort seemed to be of the Black Mage school of self-atrocity, it's quite likely that that he is almost uniquely weak to such protections, having turned himself into a degraded, evil, barely human thing over the course of his existance.

Maybe, fanfics vary in what side effects the horcrux had some make him weaker, some say it made him crazy, some say he was always like it and they didn't have any effect on his mind, so it is possible, but depends on the author.

Kiche · Mar 5, 2021

Personally I prefer the ritual magic approach. The best explanation I've seen was a runic circle hidden under the carpet, with Lily sacrificing herself to power the circle. To my knowledge the house was never investigated in canon, just claimed as a monument and that was that.

The idea that love by itself with no prepwork stopped the killing curse sounds like idiotic care bear ideology.

tfesmo · Mar 5, 2021

I feel like the "willing sacrifice due to love" is probably a lot less common than people are thinking, so I'm ok buying that as what actually happened.

The requirements are actually pretty complicated:

It has to be a sacrifice - in other words, Lily had to have the option of stepping aside but instead chose to die. That only works because Voldemort was willing to let her live, which is due to the unique scenario (prophecy pointing him at a baby) and Snape asking her to be spared. In most cases jumping in front of your friend to eat a killing curse doesn't do anything, because the caster is probably one hundred percent ok with killing you both - it's not a sacrifice.

If we take Dumbledore's words at face value - and fanon aside, he is a hella competent wizard - then the sacrifice only works because it was motivated by love. That's probably fairly common for family, but you're not going to get a get-out-of-death free card because your auror partner eats an AK for you. We can even make it more uncommon if we demand something like "pure love" - Lily's sacrifice is untainted by other motivations, a mother dying for her baby. In most cases people are complicated - a husband might love his wife, but take a hit for her out of what he feels is duty, so it doesn't qualify.

Looking at the above, you basically require a contrived circumstance for the anti-AK to work. The vast majority of scenarios are going to either not be a sacrifice (because the killer doesn't want to spare you) or not qualify as being from love, so nothing happens.

The other thing to consider is that if this has happened in the past, it's possible no one knows. Consider what would have happened if Voldemort never made horcruxes. That means no cursed scar - it might mean Harry still has a cut on his head, but that's not for sure either. I've seen people talk about "killing curse residue" but I think that's fanon, not canon.

So you have a scenario where Harry survives, but there's no obvious evidence that he bounced an AK - the evidence could easily fit a mutual kill where Lily took out Voldemort as she died, leaving Harry with a cut on his forehead from shrapnel or the like. So we only know about the "Sacrifice to protect from AK" because Voldemort split his soul, and that's pretty damn rare. If this happened in the past and the caster had not made horcruxes, it's just a situation where, "Surprise! Baby lived as parents took out the attacker!", and not "Surprise! Baby survived the killing curse."

hamof · Mar 6, 2021

It's also worth remembering that, when Voldemort came back in book 4, he's verbally kicking himself for falling for something so incredibly obvious. So apparently it's only just rare enough that most people haven't heard of it.

Roth963 · Mar 6, 2021

hamof said:
It's also worth remembering that, when Voldemort came back in book 4, he's verbally kicking himself for falling for something so incredibly obvious. So apparently it's only just rare enough that most people haven't heard of it.

To be fair, death curses were never deflected before, so either no one had a clue how powerful it was, or it was never done on such a level.

pandadogunited · Mar 6, 2021

tfesmo said:
Lily's sacrifice is untainted by other motivations, a mother dying for her baby. In most cases people are complicated - a husband might love his wife, but take a hit for her out of what he feels is duty, so it doesn't qualify.

I'm pretty sure that most parents feel it's their duty to protect their child.

BenGoldberg · Mar 6, 2021

Darth Bayes said:
So basically human intent and existence as a part of nature possess ontological inertia, and the issues between magic and electronics are the low intent-ional content of electronics and low fault-tolerance revealing a tendency for magic to break everything? It's a cool idea, I like it.
However, that does suggest that transfigured electronics would work. While permanent transfiguration of something as complicated as electronics might be effectively impossible, I suspect that somewhere in alchemy or rituals is an ability to permanently duplicate an object perfectly, perhaps requiring materials to do so. That could be used to make magic-compatible electronics then, which could be an extremely valuable market.

An alternative way to make magic-compatible technology might be to go sneak a muggle factory, and replace parts of the production line with with magical duplicates.

This would result in whatever is produced by that factory being more magically "natural," even if it were visually and functionally the same as stuff from an unmodified factory.

It would require lots more work of course, and unless you've analyzed it to know which manufacturing steps are having the greatest demagicallizing effect, you would need to start at the beginning of the line (e.g. oil drilling before refineries before machine which turns chemicals into plastic before plastic being molded into eyeglass frames), and follow materials along the magically altered production line to ask "is it still compatible with magic?"

The end result would be unlimited quantities of whatever is being produced, though, which would ultimately be much more than a single person could enchant. In other words, not useful for plastic unless the statute of secrecy ends. But possibly useful for things with shorter, less global production chains.

I wonder if magic-compatible AC electricity could produced using an enchanted dynamo, or whether the motive source (wind/hydro turbine) would also need to be enchanted. In the former case, you could spin a motor powered by muggle electricity, and use that spinning to make a magical dynamo work, in the latter case you'd need to build some turbines.

Ooh, I am suddenly imagining a muggleborn technologically inclined mage constructing a setup to provide himself with magic compatible electricity, and then some evil or clueless person hooking up that generator's output to Great Britain's electric grid.

Does "magic breaks things" result in fuses popping, or does it result in fuses becoming permanently conductive, and unable to do their job?

Spells in Silence (Harry Potter)

If I become inactive with this massage, I died

Professional Stalker

May or may not be insane...

Himouto! Sylvanas-chan

If I become inactive with this massage, I died

Accident Prone(Yes the caps are necessary)

Glorious Wordsmith and Author-Whisperer

If I become inactive with this massage, I died

Himouto! Sylvanas-chan

If I become inactive with this massage, I died

If I become inactive with this massage, I died