- Location
- Australia
I feel like this conversation has been going on loop for a little while.
Spells in Silence (Harry Potter)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
I feel that the reason most Wizards have a difficult time doing silent/wandless magic is simply because they believe it should be difficult. By believing that silent/wandless magic is near impossible, they create a mental block of sorts with their own magic that makes it so. Meanwhile, literal babies are doing this shit left and right.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
As I said in the post previous to yours, I probably should have specified that, yeah.
I'm mostly curious because in canon it's a known (if rare) thing for witches/wizards to do (see: Quirrel, Harry trying to accio his wand in HBP, etc), but here it's claimed/believed to be impossible; I'm interested in what prompted SW to make that change.
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Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Partly too many fics where wandless magic is overpowered (and I FULLY admit to writing some of them myself
), and partly because I was thinking about what the books show, and honestly? Almost nobody uses magic without a wand in canon. To the point that Voldemort not needing a wand is a Big Deal in canon and Harry breaking his wand is a major plot point in book 7.And to touch on Quirrell, I don't know if him catching Harry in ropes at the end of book 1 was Quirrell's doing if you catch my drift…
Wow, poor Silently. Sorry you have a headache
Tumblr tells me authors like long comments, so to make you feel better here is my analysis of Spells in Silence (so far). This is from memory, so apologies if I get something wrong. It's been like six months or whatever since I re-read it.
Spells in Silence explores and dismantles the dogma of the Wizarding World, specifically as seen through the experience of Hazel, who leaves the Dursley's on a quest to better understand her strange abilities. The story is currently in its third major arc, where, after journeying throughout Great Britain and Europe in a Quest to find Magic, Hazel is finally enrolled in her first year at Hogwarts.
SiS is most closely isomorphic to a travelogue, as after Hazel leaves the Dursley's, she is homeless and not rooted to any one place. Her early adventures include refinement of a few abilities first actuated via accidental magic. She also goes looking for hints of magic in the myths and legends still available to the muggle world. Her Quest begins with an exploration of various magical sites in Great Britain, covering the length and breath of the island, including visits to various sites linked to Arthurian legend. She does discover a few notable and hidden magical enclaves in these locations, which inform her of an existent magical community, although it is unclear to her at the time whether those communities are extant.
What we, as the readers, are left to infer in this first Arc, besides seeing Hazel's growth and refinement of her abilities, is that the history of magical Britain is left almost entirely untouched by the current magical community. Indeed, despite her exhaustive search, and her lack of susceptibility to muggle repelling charms, Hazel finds hidden sites and glades that are entirely absent from the wider wizarding world. Curious how this is possible - her only encounters with wand wavers were them chasing her apparition trails!
Once Hazel has had enough of Britain, she leaves for France. Here we being Arc 2; her journeys through Europe. Notably, she begins to interact with magical communities, the werewolves and the hags, and these communities are ones oppressed by the wand wavers. Thus, while finally finding the people she ostensibly belongs too, she experiences those communities through the lens of the people they oppress.
This is where the central thematic deconstruction of the dogma of wizards begins. Hazel's skills, further refined by further encounters with magical places that are left unmolested by wizards, do not fit neatly into the experiences of the ruling class. This dissonance between her obvious skill and the disregard that they give her allows the reader to understand that there is no one right way, and that drawing wisdom from only one source will make you rigid and stale.
We see this in depth with her learning of potions and the making from the Hags, and their oral histories will doubtlessly inform more Hazel's disregard for the veracity of the Wizard's history. (Although this is yet to be seen in the text). Other adventures of Hazel's include several instances of violent racism perpetrated by the ruling wand wavers, whose twisting of facts leave us readers further sympathetic to the oppressed classes. These experiences also further Hazel's own ingrained perspective of being other; she has a strong attachment to a druidic identity which is related to her rejection of the wand wavers.
Finally, we have arrived in the latest chapters (Arc 3) at Hogwarts. The central thematic elements are on display; Hazel in her meeting with Professor McGonagall allows the witch to lead the conversation in order to gain information. This is read as passivity, and thus the Professor does not engage with Hazel, rather she begins dictating terms. Hazel decides independently that she is interested in access to a library, and that she can always leave if the terms become onerous. Thus, her true disconnect with the wizards is finalized, and her relationship with them becomes purely transactional.
Once we arrive at Hogwarts and begin to settle in, the Dogma of Wizards becomes the central conflict in the plot. There is no allowance for mute children at Hogwarts, and there is no allowance for a lack of a wand. Also, there is no investigation as to why. The rules are clear; we wield wands via incantation. To not follow this stricture is to be ostracized. Literally, Hazel is incapable of re-entering her dorm. The dorm of the "welcoming to the rest" house. What casual hypocrisy.
This is where we have left Hazel; shut out. Does she care? No. She's here for the fucking library.
Tumblr tells me authors like long comments, so to make you feel better here is my analysis of Spells in Silence (so far). This is from memory, so apologies if I get something wrong. It's been like six months or whatever since I re-read it.
Spells in Silence explores and dismantles the dogma of the Wizarding World, specifically as seen through the experience of Hazel, who leaves the Dursley's on a quest to better understand her strange abilities. The story is currently in its third major arc, where, after journeying throughout Great Britain and Europe in a Quest to find Magic, Hazel is finally enrolled in her first year at Hogwarts.
SiS is most closely isomorphic to a travelogue, as after Hazel leaves the Dursley's, she is homeless and not rooted to any one place. Her early adventures include refinement of a few abilities first actuated via accidental magic. She also goes looking for hints of magic in the myths and legends still available to the muggle world. Her Quest begins with an exploration of various magical sites in Great Britain, covering the length and breath of the island, including visits to various sites linked to Arthurian legend. She does discover a few notable and hidden magical enclaves in these locations, which inform her of an existent magical community, although it is unclear to her at the time whether those communities are extant.
What we, as the readers, are left to infer in this first Arc, besides seeing Hazel's growth and refinement of her abilities, is that the history of magical Britain is left almost entirely untouched by the current magical community. Indeed, despite her exhaustive search, and her lack of susceptibility to muggle repelling charms, Hazel finds hidden sites and glades that are entirely absent from the wider wizarding world. Curious how this is possible - her only encounters with wand wavers were them chasing her apparition trails!
Once Hazel has had enough of Britain, she leaves for France. Here we being Arc 2; her journeys through Europe. Notably, she begins to interact with magical communities, the werewolves and the hags, and these communities are ones oppressed by the wand wavers. Thus, while finally finding the people she ostensibly belongs too, she experiences those communities through the lens of the people they oppress.
This is where the central thematic deconstruction of the dogma of wizards begins. Hazel's skills, further refined by further encounters with magical places that are left unmolested by wizards, do not fit neatly into the experiences of the ruling class. This dissonance between her obvious skill and the disregard that they give her allows the reader to understand that there is no one right way, and that drawing wisdom from only one source will make you rigid and stale.
We see this in depth with her learning of potions and the making from the Hags, and their oral histories will doubtlessly inform more Hazel's disregard for the veracity of the Wizard's history. (Although this is yet to be seen in the text). Other adventures of Hazel's include several instances of violent racism perpetrated by the ruling wand wavers, whose twisting of facts leave us readers further sympathetic to the oppressed classes. These experiences also further Hazel's own ingrained perspective of being other; she has a strong attachment to a druidic identity which is related to her rejection of the wand wavers.
Finally, we have arrived in the latest chapters (Arc 3) at Hogwarts. The central thematic elements are on display; Hazel in her meeting with Professor McGonagall allows the witch to lead the conversation in order to gain information. This is read as passivity, and thus the Professor does not engage with Hazel, rather she begins dictating terms. Hazel decides independently that she is interested in access to a library, and that she can always leave if the terms become onerous. Thus, her true disconnect with the wizards is finalized, and her relationship with them becomes purely transactional.
Once we arrive at Hogwarts and begin to settle in, the Dogma of Wizards becomes the central conflict in the plot. There is no allowance for mute children at Hogwarts, and there is no allowance for a lack of a wand. Also, there is no investigation as to why. The rules are clear; we wield wands via incantation. To not follow this stricture is to be ostracized. Literally, Hazel is incapable of re-entering her dorm. The dorm of the "welcoming to the rest" house. What casual hypocrisy.
This is where we have left Hazel; shut out. Does she care? No. She's here for the fucking library.
FictionPack
Monochromatic Ursine
- Location
- Tennessee
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I just realized, but shouldn't the barrels activating to drench someone in a needlessly foul liquid have alerted someone? The Head of House, or at least a Prefect?
It's also a little odd(?) that Hufflepuff makes sure to take first years to class, but apparently don't do a roll call at curfew. They'd need to head out on night parltrols anyway, be good to know if you should be looking for someone.
It's also a little odd(?) that Hufflepuff makes sure to take first years to class, but apparently don't do a roll call at curfew. They'd need to head out on night parltrols anyway, be good to know if you should be looking for someone.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
>Expecting logic from witches/wizards.
EFW3
This is Walter Wireless signing off!
- Location
- Charleston
So if I've got the dates right, D&D should be making its way to England soon. Who thinks that a muggleborn student has a parent that sent either a monster manual, or players handbook with them to school for comparison?
Also, @Silently Watches since Jean Luc is in France, I would expect him, or more precisely one of the kids there, to make an Asterix or Getafix joke at some point. I forgot if she told them she thought she was a Druid yet.
Also, @Silently Watches since Jean Luc is in France, I would expect him, or more precisely one of the kids there, to make an Asterix or Getafix joke at some point. I forgot if she told them she thought she was a Druid yet.
Deep down, I wish the staff made her amazing at living magic, or specifically plant manipulation. I think it would make it magical to take the rainbow rose and turn it into a golem to help guide her. I know she communed with the tree, and think it would be an amazing flourish on something she is in wonder of. That or at least animate it enough to dance with. Little girls either want to dance with magic or summon demons, and she's not interested in meeting with the dark side of magic again.
Looking at the argument over the last couple pages, hooboy do we need more chapters to establish context. I agree that two days is not enough time for anything. A straight anomaly that nobody has had a chance to ask questions about, children that find comfort in assigning people and situations to boxes, and a bunch of teachers that primarily learned the safe way of doing magic.
This is easily solvable by advancing a few days *wink wink nudge nudge*.
I'm still in love with this story and I can't wait for more.
(I included Hazel in the kids assigning people to boxes)
Looking at the argument over the last couple pages, hooboy do we need more chapters to establish context. I agree that two days is not enough time for anything. A straight anomaly that nobody has had a chance to ask questions about, children that find comfort in assigning people and situations to boxes, and a bunch of teachers that primarily learned the safe way of doing magic.
This is easily solvable by advancing a few days *wink wink nudge nudge*.
I'm still in love with this story and I can't wait for more.
(I included Hazel in the kids assigning people to boxes)
Let me clarify then. Hazel defended her friend by attacking Peeves with a lethal spell. To which he reacted unusally and aggressively before retreating. He's definitely hostile to her now and could come after her anytime, anywhere. He might not restrict himself to simple pranks either.
It would have been better to finish him off because now she most likely has an enemy running loose in the school.
While an ordinary Hogwarts student would ignore Peeves because he's part of the scenery, Hazel tends to be more cautious and paranoid.
Uh yeah. I already wrote that she doesn't care because that's obvious from the chapter. So you're confirming my confirmation of your story? Ok then.
But that is precisely the problem. She doesn't exist in a vacuum, she is now a part of the student body. She can no longer fly solo, she is forced to interact with others on a daily basis. Not caring about these things is a problem in itself. Or at least something that prevents her from making progress.
She already knows how kids treat her for being different, she doesn't have to double down on it.
FictionPack
Monochromatic Ursine
- Location
- Tennessee
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, it's not very unusual when you are a spectral entity that has spent hundreds of years in a school where noone has ever even known how to get him to leave them alone let alone actually cause him pain and injury.
He might just decide to steer clear of the only thing that has endangered his existence to date. Non existence isn't fun, and he has plenty of other targets.
It might actually help her reputation if people see her as a better Peeves deterrent than the Baron.
It's also probably important that Peeves is a guest, he might not be capable of causing actual harm to occupants if he wants to stay as a guest.
I think the issue boils down to:
-Hazel's side:
--She's spent a great deal of time without social interaction, and the exceptions were unpleasant or limited in some way.
--She routinely avoids drawing attention in the manner of someone expecting hostile attention...and thus draws exactly the same kind of automatic suspicion from people who aren't used to being suspected. She moves furtively, does things without asking, and ignores social norms of interaction(funny enough this is how Wizards behave to Muggles anyway)
--She has reflexive and automatic Legilmency, and so she gets what people think before they even speak...as an aside, most people think stupid shit continously, and a massive chunk of learning to adult is to acknowledge that most ideas are dumb and pick out what's actually usable. Hazel assumes all these momentary thoughts to be true and heartfelt.
--The combination means that she doesn't have asking people on her menu of options at all, and her go-to reaction codes as exceedingly dismissive and condescending even while doing something nonsensical...which again is exactly how Wizards behave around Muggles anyway. Yes, it makes sense from her perspective, but she's never bothered to communicate her perspective, having already reacting to what people are thinking rather than asking them.
--And of course she'd rather believe she's special and thats why she doesn't fit into these normal peoples, rather than her life just plain sucking for no reason.
-Teachers' side:
--This is the start of the year, everything is in chaos, and priority goes to stopping the troublemakers before they get enough momentum to cause some real shit.
--They're dealing with spoilt rotten purebloods, ignorant muggleborn, whatever fresh hell the foreigners and mixed-blood are coming in with. True isn't important, correct is. Get everyone on the same level to teach, because you don't have enough to personalize your lessons to such a varied student body.
--Hazel is coding as a know-it-all who manages to be a few years ahead in a few spells and considers it justification to just ignore what's in the lessons because she knows 'better'. And her casual display of magic is encouraging potential troublemakers to follow her lead, so it should be shut down as expediently as possible.
That said I doubt she's actually going to get into trouble for Peeves, because:
1) Nobody actually LIKES Peeves, its just that they can't get rid of him.
2) Peeves is likely 'just' a manifestation of the stray magic of a large body of teens and tweens. He's scared of the same things most students are scared of, and theres no point getting rid of him when something possibly worse might form in his place.
-Hazel's side:
--She's spent a great deal of time without social interaction, and the exceptions were unpleasant or limited in some way.
--She routinely avoids drawing attention in the manner of someone expecting hostile attention...and thus draws exactly the same kind of automatic suspicion from people who aren't used to being suspected. She moves furtively, does things without asking, and ignores social norms of interaction(funny enough this is how Wizards behave to Muggles anyway)
--She has reflexive and automatic Legilmency, and so she gets what people think before they even speak...as an aside, most people think stupid shit continously, and a massive chunk of learning to adult is to acknowledge that most ideas are dumb and pick out what's actually usable. Hazel assumes all these momentary thoughts to be true and heartfelt.
--The combination means that she doesn't have asking people on her menu of options at all, and her go-to reaction codes as exceedingly dismissive and condescending even while doing something nonsensical...which again is exactly how Wizards behave around Muggles anyway. Yes, it makes sense from her perspective, but she's never bothered to communicate her perspective, having already reacting to what people are thinking rather than asking them.
--And of course she'd rather believe she's special and thats why she doesn't fit into these normal peoples, rather than her life just plain sucking for no reason.
-Teachers' side:
--This is the start of the year, everything is in chaos, and priority goes to stopping the troublemakers before they get enough momentum to cause some real shit.
--They're dealing with spoilt rotten purebloods, ignorant muggleborn, whatever fresh hell the foreigners and mixed-blood are coming in with. True isn't important, correct is. Get everyone on the same level to teach, because you don't have enough to personalize your lessons to such a varied student body.
--Hazel is coding as a know-it-all who manages to be a few years ahead in a few spells and considers it justification to just ignore what's in the lessons because she knows 'better'. And her casual display of magic is encouraging potential troublemakers to follow her lead, so it should be shut down as expediently as possible.
That said I doubt she's actually going to get into trouble for Peeves, because:
1) Nobody actually LIKES Peeves, its just that they can't get rid of him.
2) Peeves is likely 'just' a manifestation of the stray magic of a large body of teens and tweens. He's scared of the same things most students are scared of, and theres no point getting rid of him when something possibly worse might form in his place.
- Location
- Neptune
D&D has been in England for a long time. D&D has been in England while her parents were at school.
While I agree that the target couldn't have been chosen much better, I was of the impression that lethal spells in the hallways was against school rules?
Yeah it's fairly telling that she is surprised a lot by people despite being a mind reader. She is still just a kid and not good enough at understanding people to grasp beyond the first layer in general.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
I think there's a mention by JK somewhere (not in the main books) that they tried to get rid of Peeves once. The end result was the castle being evacuated for three days while he rampaged around with a worrying variety of weaponry, and they ended up having to negotiate with him and offer him privileges to get him to stop.
I'm honestly not sure if that speaks more to Peeve's threat level or to general magical incompetence.
- Location
- Hug the Moebot; Save the world
Did anyone other than Sally-Anne even notice Hazel do anything to Peeves? She didnt (couldnt) say any spell incantations and didnt have a wand out so most people would probably assume she wasn't responsible for what happened.
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
Eh. I'm not sure it is a separate issue. If he had a good record of looking out for the welfare of the children in his charge, both their safety and their education, I'd be more inclined to think he refused to hire Tom Riddle because of such concerns -- but as it is, it looks to me a lot like he just personally disliked Tom Riddle.punster lv1 said:
And as for Riddle indoctrinating them or the like, that'd be a risk, true, but it'd be something that'd have to happen under Dumbledore's own nose.
That is an excuse, yes -- but it's a bit undermined by him still being able to get Lupin the year after. And Dumbledore has contacts, or the capacity for having contacts, around the world. He could use the curse as an opportunity to rotate Defense Masters from all the great living magical traditions (or the human ones, at least) of the Earth through on two-semester contracts. Instead, before he even gets to Remus Lupin and Alastor Moody, he's accepting Gilderoy Lockheart, without apparently much of any background checking.punster lv1 said:
I'm not sure what the canon state of affairs there might be -- but is Binns still drawing a salary? Even if so, is the school, supposedly one of the finest in the entire wix world, so strapped for cash that having more than a single teacher for History for the entire student body is out of reach?punster lv1 said:
Yeeep. I was thinking of that too, but I didn't mention it specifically because, well, it's not as if it was very effective, was it? At least not at what it was ostensibly supposed to be doing.Isiri Pudireach said:
Thanks for the reminder.Isiri Pudireach said:
But yeah, my impression so far is that this story's Dumbledore is falling down where Hazel is concerned mostly because he's just so busy with other things, and has made some bad assumptions. Which is plausible for many Dumbledores, given how many hats he wears (whether he should be trying to wear all of those hats at once is arguable, of course...). And we have Word of Author that the local Dumbledore is genuinely well-intentioned; I assume, therefore, that he's going to be quite unhappy with himself when he finally has the horrible realization of just how badly he failed Hazel.
(Of course, it can also be argued that Hazel ended up better off than she would have with a Mundanely Good Muggle Upbringing -- but there was significant suffering along the way to get to this point, and Hazel is, I expect, very much not what Dumbledore would have wanted her to be.)
But we'll see how things go. I don't expect Hazel to trust Dumbledore or his close loyalists any time soon, though, and not without justification.
Even if one takes the view that he genuinely valued Harry's safety as more than the raw iron from which to forge a Voldemort-killing arrow, though, it seems questionable whether the Dursleys were the best place for it. Yes, blood wards, impressive. Voldemort and his followers probably can't break those, at least quickly. Probably none of them are even going to think to try and track down Lily's muggle family. But Harry isn't even as far away as Ireland, he's living with relatives who are connected to his magical parents via publicly available information, and Voldemort is actually notably rather good with magic. If Harry was, say, hidden as Harold John Platte of Hysham, Montana, maybe the wards on him wouldn't be so strong, but so long as he can be shielded from ranged detection, what Death Eater is ever going to think to look for him there?NSMS said:
But, okay, maybe there's no sufficiently reliable way to shield him from long range detection, other than the blood wards. You have a good point about Dumbledore perhaps having different thresholds for child abuse, but even still, the Dursleys are clearly, or would be clearly to monitoring actually matching the degree of responsibility Dumbledore should have here, treating Harry distinctly worse than Dudley. Why do nothing about that? Even if you don't want to threaten the Dursleys, how about bribery? Hey, bribe them in part by giving Vernon a "promotion" to somewhere warm, sunny, and expensive, and a nice house there that you just happened to have heavily warded before they arrived to further boost protection on the blood wards.
It seems like there are a variety of valid options that could have been explored.
No, it's worse than that, as I understand it, where trusting adult wand-wavers is concerned: people have talked with her about that, some. And a fair bit of what that talking was composed of was either astonishment at the very-un-wand-waver-like things Hazel does, or flat denial that she can do things she very well knows she can.shioran toushin said:
Yeah, I think that's basically been key to my feelings on her interactions with Hogwarts so far. I'm a bit nervous she doesn't have a way to teleport out of the wards yet, but house elves appear to provide a potential avenue there; hopefully she figures that out soon, but she does have significant in-character motivation for making sure he has an exit method.Silently Watches said:
Once that's sorted? Say things completely fall apart for her in Hogwarts. Her likely response, I expect?
Along the lines of a shrug and "Oh well".
She's not, IIRC, even been to the Iberian Peninsula yet, much less Africa, India, China, the Americas...
Now, I know, out of universe, that the plan is to have her stick around Hogwarts and Wix Britain for quite some time. But that still doesn't change the fact that the stakes for making things work with Hogwarts just don't feel that high. For Hazel, it's a resource, one it'd be a pity to lose, but it's one of very, very many; there's a whole world out there! And even if she decides she needs information that can only be found in Wix Britain, eh, wait a few years, get stronger and more knowledgeable, and come back.
Would her just deciding to leave for a decade cause other characters major issues? Oh yes. But they're not the main viewpoint character here.
So if it takes Hazel a while to work things out with the adult wand-wavers here? Eh. If she never does? Eh. Can she get away from them if they're a threat? If so, no problem.
The important thing, after her own safety, is her own quest for knowledge -- and that's so far been proceeding pretty nicely, it seems like, for how long it's been.
Where are the system boundaries drawn between "distinct types" of magic, though? Why should the distinction between witch/wizard magic and "druid" magic be less real than the distinction between human magic and hag magic, or goblin? After all, why deny wands to nonhumans via the law unless those nonhumans could use them? And Hazel's "human magic" overlapped enough with what was thought to be exclusively hag magic that that was confusion about her biology.NSMS said:
Well, maybe. On the other hand, she's hardly been going around attacking spirits unprovoked, even when she's been visibly-to-them afraid of their presence. They might well think what she did to Peeves was disproportionate, but that's still a good ways from thinking that she's actively hunting them or something.ccstat said:
Moreover, that she did what she did to Peeves, with its attendant questions of "Why?" and "How?" seems like it might produce some curiosity among the other spirits. Cautious curiosity, certainly -- but if someone's demonstrably not attacked when not provoked but disproportionately attacked when provoked, might that not provide more, rather than less, motivation for opening a dialogue to try and clear things up and sort them out?
Well, except, IIRC, for super high-end stuff. But that still leads to the conclusion that either a: Lily was actually on par with people like Dumbledore and Voldemort, which is itself pretty exceptional, and this isn't being acknowledged, or b: Lily was doing something that didn't fit with what the rules were supposed to be.Silently Watches said:
(Oh, though I suppose there are some forms of magic, like potions, that are exceptions, but those aren't really what's under discussion here.)
Also, I hope your headache is better or gets better soon.
- Location
- Earth
The dementors in the fifth book were able to find and attack Harry suggesting that the blood wards only work while he's actually at the house, so he'd be vulnerable any time he was at school or really just wasn't in the Dursley household.
Also, the ministry knows Harry's living at number four at least they do by the second book and canon suggests that they were always aware of where Harry was living, someone like Lucius Malfoy really shouldn't have had any issues using his ministry connections to find out where Harry was living and then wait disillusioned outside the wards till Harry leaves the protection at which point they been easily circumvented.
Basically, the wards seem more or less useless and the protection they do give could be just as well accomplished by the Fidelius not to mention that that would protect the location of Harry's residence.
LostArchivist
Sane, unfortunately.
- Location
- The State of Confusion
Wait, really? Okay, so, one, that's a change from canon I wasn't really noticing. IIRC wandless magic is crap in canon, but still usable. Not being possible/considered an option at all is not something I anticipated.
But that also says something very different to me. (The following is what this story has implied to me, not necessarily what this latest conversation has revealed.)
This whole time, I have been under the impression that Hazel has been "inventing" a magic system under the very reasonable (mis)understanding that accidental magic is focus-less magic operated simply by intent. So, she has (half by accident) learned to train accidental magic to happen on purpose under this "druid" theme (which is basically bunk, except that spirits are real, but that's correlation not causation). She has basically reinvented wandless magic, not being under the impression that it doesn't work, but has also convinced herself that she's a fairy sorceress (or whatever similar strange things children convince themselves of, especially with actual magic powers) instead of the perfectly reasonable explanation that she's a witch like all the other magicals, merely one with a brain.
She's basically experimenting and finding out that wands aren't needed, but went too far the other way and is blinded by other assumptions. Also, apparently, spirits are real and other species have magical traditions that humans ignored in a typically bigoted manner, so she's learning legitimately new stuff there, but nothing that anyone else couldn't learn if they actually bothered.
But then she actually can't use a wand now (otherwise she'd find out that she's a witch with
On that part, she's not doing horribly. She needs a mental image for the spell (probably akin to how a wizard needs an incantation and the wand movements to focus the mind/draw the spell for them - silent and point casting show that they're focusing aids or power boosts, not actually required, but that's why wandless is generally considered useless since wizards have the willpower of a mashed potato) but she can cast whatever she sees as long as she can convert it.
So on that note, her attendance of Hogwarts is a good place to get an idea of what can be done with magic so she can integrate it into her own system. I do suspect that she'll never manage the soup bowl to hedgehog transformation or whatever else, though, because her system - based on willpower and desire as it is - will never let her "desire" a frankly useless spell.
I figured this was a misunderstanding and that Lily, as a Muggleborn, was like Riddle in that she could do accidental magic on command along side her normal training. So, she was left with a varied set of whatever she'd done with accidental magic that she reproduced on top of/alongside wanded spells.
Although since no one is talking about her family and Lily didn't share, she might have also discovered spirits too?
But that this is instead an actual different tradition and not just a mental "framework" to casting magic - I have no idea what to think now, or what the real implications are. This would be about as likely, to me, as would be waving a wrench around and discovering that you, literally magically, repaired an engine, with regards to how astronomical the chance is that she stumbled upon an actually different system this way compared to inventing something on accidental magic (which the wizards, for whatever reason, ignore as akin to wetting the bed, and it's not like they do research anyway...).
That was what I thought she was thinking. As you can see, that's not what I thought was actually happening, but it's apparently closer to what really is happening after all?!
Yeah, it really sounded to me that she's basically getting the right solution (wandless magic) from entirely the wrong formula (I'mma druid!) when she's really just slotting bits of accidental magic into place - or so I apparently thought. The truth is even stranger, I guess.
I knew she was using a different "language" but I figured it was more like a different aspect of the same one rather than an entirely different sorta-compatible one.
In hindsight, the hag legends should have told me there was more going on, since they were literally cursed by spirits for stealing the systems of others, but I had figured the fact that she could use the other types meant that these were still "regular" magic done through a method that regular wizards merely ignored.
Is that even making sense? I mean to say that I thought all magic uses the same overall framework, but wizards have regressed and are using a small corner of it (like if they had only used Charms out of what we canonically know, or how so much magic got lost to begin with due to all the dark lords). It sounds instead like there truly are different methods, like how Charms is a branch of wizard magic, apparently there are entire branches of magic on an even higher level using different "shapes" of what is still the same source of magic (that she can still learn them).
Like so:
-
My understanding of how this worked:
- Charms
- Transfiguration
- Curses
- Hag magic
- Potions
- Spirit magic
- "Accidental" magic/Wandless magic
- Hazel's magic (a mix of some of the others, mostly wandless, spirit, and hag)
- Hag magic
- Druid magic (apparently a real thing that Hazel is using)
- Spirit magic
- Wizard magic
- Wanded magic
- Wandless magic
That was exactly what it seemed like to me. It sounded like she (reasonably) didn't understand magic, looked it up in non-magical books, then went wildly off the rails thinking she's a druid while making use of accidental magic. Then, the "lies told to children" kick in and the wizards say "all magic is wanded except for wandless magic which basically no one can do" and she gets "confirmation" that she's obviously not a witch because they themselves "say" it doesn't work that way.
Heck, they might even be right, but Hazel definitely has the power to do wandless either way, so it's not even clear if she's actually discovered a different magic system, is using accidental magic intentionally, or just skipped a few years' worth of teaching to go straight wandless by accident.
I have no idea why she dismissed that. After all, it's not like she knew immediately that she was magical at all, really, so why wouldn't he have ignored it if "wizard" magic was available as an excuse?
Precisely. It seemed like childish stubborness combined with the sunk cost fallacy.
I won't deny that Lily probably did discover something unknown, much like how Hazel can speak to spirits, but I figured that was merely a rediscovered school of regular magic that she found by chance. Especially considering how smart Lilly was.
I'd have gone for that her mother was a genius who did research into forgotten spells and lost magic, not that she, by chance, really was a druid and a witch at the same time. That almost feels like it gives the purebloods too much credit that she "cheated" for her abilities by fiat rather than just being really smart and motivated.
I took that to mean that the wizards are wrong, not that Lily was exceptional (in that regard). There are enough random rules to magic that get broken throughout canon and things that "somehow" can be done that it didn't even factor into my understanding.
Take Voldy's flight, or animagi. The former is "impossible" and the latter is extremely rare. These seem like new discoveries or nearly-lost skills rather than inhuman magic (or alternate branches of human magic). In this setting, these might actually be surviving skills from alternate mechanisms of magic now that those are a thing - flight being outright inhuman or a different path of magic, and animagi sounding shamanistic or druidic now that that's a real thing that exists rather than a mental "convince myself" tool.
To me, the idea that you aren't human if you have magic might make sense, but assuming that you are different from other magic-wielding humans is a lot more of a reach. There's already a category for that, and even if they don't know what you are, it would seem like they might not be fully informed rather than that you're a new type of magic-using human that's still human and can provably still use the same magic.
This is what I had figured happened. They say wandless is impossible so they can give everyone an easily-tracked stick that also lists their spells. Not to mention that it uses a simpler, safer interface that's easy to train or take away.
Very good point. It's not even that she's doing "alternate human magic" she's managing other species' magic. Either she really is part hag or there aren't that many distinctions, making them essentially the same after all.
Are we simply meaning that these are different schools like Charms vs Transfiguration, or is there another level of division above this, and if there is, how is she doing it?
I could see either of these happening, and probably both. These seemed more likely by Occam's Razor than the sudden reemergence of an extinct magical tradition that both of them are correctly reinventing.
It's like finding another use for a screwdriver (pry bar, chisel...
) vs programming a computer by accident.
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NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
In the first book there's mention of people outright coming up to him and greeting him in the street, so Harry's location definitely wasn't a well kept secret (and may not have been a secret at all). The best way I have of reconciling that with Dumbledore not being an idiot plus the Dementor attack happening is the blood protection being anti-Voldemort-follower in an area around the Dursley's, but that's pure speculation.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Oh my fucking god. I regret ever responding to the questions about how Hazel's magic worked. I should have just forced all of you to wait for Hazel to learn shit because then I wouldn't have to correct every single person's misconceptions.
Just keep thinking this.
The only absolute thing to know about magic for this story is NEITHER THE WIZARDS NOR HAZEL ACTUALLY KNOW HOW THE HELL MAGIC WORKS.
Just keep thinking this.
The only absolute thing to know about magic for this story is NEITHER THE WIZARDS NOR HAZEL ACTUALLY KNOW HOW THE HELL MAGIC WORKS.