Reasonable Restrictions, Inspired by Oryx_leucoryx

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Oryx, your comments inspired me to further thinking. But it got long again….

The Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Sorcery was passed in 1876.


On the surface, and I’m sure as it was originally presented, the Decree seems a reasonable extension of the Statute of Secrecy. By the terms of the Statute of Secrecy, adults are forbidden to perform magic where Muggles can see (except under emergency conditions). This puts a heavy burden on a witch or wizard to show good judgment, discretion, and awareness of their Muggle neighbors when using magic anywhere but in enclaves invisible to Muggles. Spells that are perfectly permissible in Diagon Alley might make a witch Azkaban-fodder if performed outside the Leaky Cauldron a mere twenty yards away.

We saw at the QWC, with its harried teams of Obliviators, that quite a number of adult witches and wizards, when put to the test, have trouble adjusting their behavior to what the Statute of Secrecy would require. Even Muggle-loving Arthur could not avoid rousing Mr. Robert’s suspicions.

Children are notoriously indiscreet and lacking in good judgment.

So, rather than trying to make them live up to adult standards of restricting their performance of magic whenever Muggles would (or might) see it, which their elders visibly have trouble doing, the Decree takes the simpler approach, much kinder to children than imposing the burden of adult judgment, of simply restricting their spell-casting to school. Anything else is forbidden.

Nothing to remember, nothing to have to think about to guess whether something is acceptable. Raising your wand outside Hogwarts is forbidden and can get you expelled.

With the unspoken exemption that children casting spells within the bosom of their families are assumed to be spell-working on Muggle-warded properties and/or under adult supervision ensuring the spell’s safety—from the point of view of the all-important Statute of Secrecy.

Only—the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Sorcery was passed in 1876. When the Muggle-borns had become a significant presence in the WW. And in practice, the Decree was enforced with draconian fierceness against the Muggle-raised (which are in practice all of the Muggle-borns, and some of the Half-Bloods), and not at all against the Purebloods.

And the Decree was written to ban only spell-casting. It’s written to permit unlimited use of pre-charmed objects. Even if enforced strictly across all bloodlines (which it never was), it was never written to allow punishment of children for, say, riding a broom.

Even for riding a broom in full view of Muggles, which Draco, Ron, and Seamus all claim to have done.

Well, the obvious effect of this Decree…. Let’s back off and consider what the old-family Purebloods wanted to accomplish with regard to the (worryingly, increasing) influx of Muggle-borns.

On the one hand, the Purebloods were utterly determined not to relinquish one iota of their cultural and economic supremacy.

On the other, the simplest way of accomplishing this, utterly dismissing all the Muggle-borns from the WW and training, bumped up against the Statute of Secrecy. If Muggle-borns (especially given that their number seemed to be increasing) were NOT incorporated into the Secluded Wizarding World, they might instead start experimenting with their magic, even eventually connecting with each other, and alert the Muggle world to the existence of magic while remaining outside the WW’s social and legal control.

No, Muggle-borns MUST be assimilated; this is imperative. A single Muggle-born with sufficient power and good connections could, potentially, destroy Secrecy entirely.

Moreover, there aren’t enough Purebloods left to run the WW. The mixed-bloods and Muggleborns are needed for the menial positions. Moreover, there must be a mechanism to allow the best and brightest of the new blood to be co-opted to the service of the WW as it is. If you don’t allow talent any chance at all to rise, it will instead revolt. Hence the Slug Club.

But at the same time, the Purebloods don’t want to give the Muggle-borns any chance of taking real power from their own scions.

Therefore the Decree. Reasonable (it even calls itself that). Since children cannot fairly be expected to judge whether their use of magic might violate the all-important Statute of Secrecy, the Ministry instead bans all use of deliberate spell-casting by minors outside of school.

So what happens? In Muggle families with magical children, like the Creeveys or the Dursleys, any out-of-school display of magic is met by the full weight of the Ministry’s displeasure.

In families like the Weasleys, children perform magic ALL THE TIME—they ride brooms, they drive charmed cars, they de-gnome the garden, they play Exploding Snap. But they avoid using their wands to cast spells, because that’s illegal magic which could get them (and their families) in trouble. And Mum will yell at us if we disobey openly.

In families like the Malfoys, children also do magic all the time. But these children know that their out-of-school use of magic is accepted, so long as they are reasonably discreet. The real rule is, don’t do anything the Ministry would be required to notice.

However, the brightest kids among the half-blood and less well-connected Pureblood families will eventually notice that their brewing and wand-waving bring no untoward response from the Ministry—as long as they are done on the family property. The twins and those explosions coming from their bedroom, the half-blood Prince zapping flies in his….

(Actually, brewing, like using charmed objects, may be another quiet built-in exception—Mafalda’s citation of the Decree specifies spell-casting and that alone as the forbidden activity. And if Severus or Lily noticed that, that may account for why Potions in particular became one of Severus’s—and according to Horace, Lily’s—specialties. If they figured out early that brewing wasn’t monitored, that would have seemed the one subject they could safely practice back at Cokesworth. And once one gets a reputation for being particularly talented in one subject and becomes the object of positive attention from that master, the reinforcement will lead one to keep it up. Even if one subsequently discovers that wand-waving in the Evans home gets one busted, but in Eileen Snape’s home does not… )

Now think of the effects of this Decree over the next century, as it affects child after child, Pureblood or Mudblood, privileged or not.

Starting Hogwarts, a wizard-raised child will have pronounced advantages over the Muggle-raised.

This was obscured for us readers by the fact that our paradigmatic Muggle-born was Hermione, while our wizard-born exemplar was Ron. Hermione is a dedicated swot and ambitious, grimly mastering any material presented in her books (which she’d been memorizing for five weeks before we met her)—and she’s above-average in power to boot, plus being the oldest (or nearly so) in her year. Whereas Ron was essentially raised (or at least acculturated) by the Twins. Much of what he “knew” starting Hogwarts was wrong, and he followed their lead in skiving off schoolwork as much as possible. Why, we are even told, “Harry was very relieved to find out that he wasn’t miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families…. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn’t have much of a head start.”

Of course, if most people can’t control magical flows until they reach a certain level of physical maturity—which normally starts shortly before puberty, around age eleven—then hardly anyone would be able to start Hogwarts with a “head start” in actual spell-casting, whatever magical tutoring their families might have given them, But in magical theory, knowledge of incantations, basic potions-making techniques like measuring, mincing, and stewing…? (Sirius said, “Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year.” He never said Snape was already able to cast them all.)

But really, Hermione and Ron are exceptional. Harry shouldn’t have been comparing himself to “people like Ron,” but to people like Draco and Ernie. (Notice that we never see Justin congratulating himself that his wizard-raised housemates don’t have much of a head start.)

No, most of the time, the Decree would work as it is designed to. Maintaining that original advantage held by all the wizard-raised, and ensuring that a further advantage accrues to the scions of those families in the know of how the Decree is really enforced.

Children would attend Hogwarts from diverse backgrounds. Some of them would be Muggle-born, and utterly befuddled by their new experiences.

And however much they learned and struggled to catch up to their magically-reared compatriots, then they would go home for the holidays, forbidden to practice. And start the next term behind, again.

Especially given the fact that spell-casting involves proper physical wand technique and enunciation—remember Flitwick’s lessons. Hermione, if not Harry, can at least crack the books at home. But she can’t practice. Imagine training to be a concert pianist, and being told that for two weeks each Christmas and Easter, and then for TEN weeks over the summer, you’re forbidden to touch a keyboard. Meanwhile your rivals are busily practicing away….

The smartest and most ambitious of the Muggle-borns would figure out early on that if they didn’t want to lose ground every holiday, they had to stay at Hogwarts. (And eventually some might realize—or be told, if they’d made the right friends—that if they stayed with Wizarding friends’ families for the long summer vacation that would give them an additional advantage.) So the best and brightest would be under strong pressure to leave behind their Muggle families, to associate more and more completely with their magical peers, just to keep from falling behind.

Hermione’s response, to associate more and more with the Weasley family and less and less with her own, was what the Purebloods who passed the law were AIMING for. She and Harry were effectively adopted into, and ended up marrying into, a Pureblood family. Which, if it keeps its marriages clean, will in six generations be considered pure enough again to marry back into the noble and most ancient houses, like the Blacks. We saw that with Ernie’s family.

Moreover, even within the WW, those old families who know the Decree is not going to be enforced against their children are able to give their children an advantage over the simpletons like the Weasleys who make an attempt at restricting their children’s wand-waving.

Why, after all, should Hogwarts follow the custom of having a long summer vacation (ten to eleven weeks)? It was founded before the Norman Conquest—why should any of its traditions match ours? And who says for how long the tradition of starting on September first and ending shortly after the summer solstice has been in place?

Teachers of my acquaintance complain that the summer vacation is too long—that it’s so long that children forget much of what they’d learned the year before.

And maybe that’s the point. To give the Pureblood families the chance to give their children an opportunity to pull ahead. Since their children can practice at home under parental supervision, or even (for the richer) with tutors. (As in—how did Severus know that Draco knew Serpensortia?)

I point out again: Draco, our example of a Pureblood being groomed by a rich family for a position of power in their culture, started his first year knowing how to brew, how to fly, and how to cast (at least) the leg-locker jinx. Compare that to either Ron or Harry. His second year, Draco demonstrated a hex before the Dueling Club that was NEWT level. The summer before the sixth year, he was trained in Occlumency (to a high level!) and the Unforgiveables by his aunt. Whatever we may think of the ethics of that last course of instruction, he was clearly being tutored to perform well in advance of his peers. So, since we see evidence of advanced training prior to three of Draco’s school years, I think we may safely infer it was the Malfoy practice before all of them.

Of course, the Decree only restricts Underage Sorcery. Once the ambitious witch or wizard turns seventeen, sometime during or after sixth year, s/he can practice as much as s/he wants at home.

Only by then it’s too late. The OWLs are administered at the end of fifth year (and the Beauxbatons qualifying exams at the end of sixth).

By the time a Muggle-born (or not-in-the-know Pureblood or half-blood) is free to practice at home, it’s too late to make any difference on those all-important exams, which determine both one’s initial reputation in the wider Wizarding World (maybe lifelong reputation, given how memories linger in a small community—consider Griselda’s century-later cooing over Albus!), and also whether one is to be permitted further training.

The OWLs and NEWTs are presented to everyone as a fair assessment of students’ magical attainments and ability.

Oddly enough, the scions of the families like the Malfoys and the Crouches just happen to garner more OWLs and NEWTs than the general population does. Just reflects the old families’ merit, you see. Blood tells.

Well. We’ve already seen that in practice, a favored student or two may be offered an opportunity to earn extra credit in the practicals. Tofty was perfectly open, too, in soliciting Harry’s Patronus—the thing cantered right down the examination room in front of everybody, including Umbridge. That was business as usual, not a favor covertly offered Harry by a fan.

But even without bias in the examiners, the scions of the old families have an automatic advantage.

Only the most driven and talented of the Muggle-borns and Half-bloods even have a look-in at doing equally well, and no wonder. For all of their first years at Hogwarts, they’re missing up to one-quarter of the practice time (and possibly of the training) the more privileged Purebloods get!

Ten weeks summer vacation, two weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter. It adds up.

For any Muggle-born who doesn’t effectively repudiate hir family of birth, and stay in the WW over term breaks. And find a way to do so even for the long one.

Oh, the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Sorcery is reasonable, indeed.

But oryx_leucoryx has made me realize there may even be another reason for the Decree as well. Why, after all, were Hermione’s parents willing to let her spend all her holidays away from them?

Consider Harry’s bursts of uncontrolled magic. Consider their timing. We don’t know their periodicity when he was little, but we do know that they were rare—perhaps a couple of times a year max, starting about when he started school. (The hair-regrowing was the only constant before then, and hair may be a separate issue. See Petunia’s theories.) Then when he was eleven, he had a outbreak on Dudley’s birthday, June 23rd. And then no more between then and when he started Hogwarts, even though he was under considerable emotional excitation during that time.

At the end of his first year he was almost killed in the encounter with Quirrel!Mort—and he had no outbreaks, even when he was locked up by the Dursleys, before the Weasleys boys rescued him in early August. At the end of second year, he had the encounter with Diary!Tom in late May—but he didn’t noticeably use much magic to defeat him. (I should imagine that the sword of Gryffindor took some magic, as well as courage, to wield—but it’s an object of magical virtue in itself). Exams were cancelled that year, so he didn’t have anything magically draining to do in June (though he did practice Expelliarmus on the Hogwarts Express). That year, after six weeks of not using magic at all, he “blew up” Aunt Marge.

Near the end of that third year he performed a feat of magic that was considered extraordinary (even without considering his youth)—casting a Patronus powerful enough to repel a crowd of Dementors. And at home that summer, even with the pressures of the Scar-o-Vision starting up and sharing Dudley’s diet, he had no magical outbursts before mid-August when the Weasleys collect him for the World Cup. That school year, of course, ended with his duel of wills and magic with Tom, and with Harry’s forcing the Priori Incantatum effect back upon Tom’s wand. And again, despite all the CAPSLOCKING Harry engaged in that summer, Harry had no magical accidents before the Dementor attack.

So the only summer Harry does have a magical outburst, is the year he’d been doing nothing magically depleting for a month before the end of school. And then the outburst happened after six weeks of no magic.

If we hypothesize that magic channellers, if they fail to use magic for too long, have a “charge” build up until an strong emotion triggers an explosive release—well, how long does it normally take for that charge to build up? I’d love to interview Aberforth on this issue.

Severus said that kids are let off when they don’t have wands and can’t help it—and not after. But Fudge’s excuse, if not his reason, for letting Harry off about blowing up Aunt Marge was that Harry couldn’t help it. What if Fudge really did realize that Harry’s outburst was (or at least might be) involuntary? That living with Muggles, constrained from doing magic, his magic might have broken out explosively?

One possible mitigating factor—is it possible that just carrying a wand channels enough magic to prevent a buildup? If so, those Muggle-borns whose families, like the Evans (parents) and Grangers, supported their children’s developing odd talent would be protected from outbreaks. And then Sev’s comment to Lily could be accurate as well as sincere—children carrying wands are known not to be subject to accidental outbursts, so any magic done by them may safely be inferred to be deliberate.

But if merely carrying a wand does NOT ground the energies… How long would a child or teen living in a Muggle home, with no charmed objects or magical creatures** or plants to interact with… how long, on average, would one expect someone to go without using controlled magic before a magical outbreak becomes increasingly likely?

Twelve weeks? Eight? Six?

Put it this way—unless it averages well over ten weeks for the energies to build up, it is predictable that a number of Muggle-raised children will have incidents like Harry’s with Aunt Marge every summer. And maybe that’s considered a bonus of having such a long vacation, not a drawback.

It gives the Ministry the opportunity to frighten the children and families with that firm automatic first response from Mafalda Hopkirk. And then the Ministry has its choice of what to do next, depending on how much of an asset to the WW the particular young witch or wizard seems to be. A second offense could be prosecuted with severity. Or, someone could explain to the frightened child and worried parents that magical children really need to be around other magic-users to ground their powers and prevent such outbursts, and that summer visits to good wizardng families should really be encouraged for the child’s—and family’s—own safety….

Recall what Petunia flung at Lily at King’s Cross—“It’s good that you’re separated from normal people. It’s for our safety!”

One might use many adjectives of Petunia, but imaginative is really not among them, is it? She’s not good at making things up. So she had that taunt from somewhere. The only wizard with whom she’d been in private communication was the headmaster of Hogwarts.

And really, the last two pieces of accidental magic Harry performed on his family were releasing a dangerous wild creature to threaten Dudley, and blowing up Aunt Marge, either of which could have been lethal. What height would Aunt Marge have attained when Harry’s magic finally wore off and she deflated spontaneously? Harry wasn’t purposefully trying to kill her, but he might easily have done so. Magical temper tantrums are indeed not to be sneezed at.

A final consideration—if failure to use controlled magic condemns a magical human to uncontrolled outbursts, what happens to people who, like Hagrid, are punished for youthful crimes by expulsion from Hogwarts plus wand-snapping? They’d be breaches of the Statute of Secrecy waiting to happen!

Unless, of course, they are offered menial jobs in the WW that keep them using enough low-grade magic to prevent eruptions. A lifetime sentence to community service, if you will. Hagrid may have even less reason to be grateful to Albus than we’d thought—his being offered a place somewhere might have been a foregone conclusion.

(And how does St. Mungo’s address this problem, with those in long-term care?)

The biggest problem with all this is that it requires someone in the WW to be quite a bit cleverer and more attentive to consequences than seems the norm. But of course if Phineas Nigellus, like Albus, spent his entire career at Hogwarts, by his late twenties he’d have seen the problem of Muggle-born incursions first-hand…. Conversely, if his lifelong goal was to control the effects of the increasing Muggle-born (and half-blood) population on Wizarding society, to arrest the decline of Pureblood culture and bloodlines, what better position than Headmaster of Hogwarts to do it from? Sirius somehow doesn’t give one the impression that his great-great-grandfather held the post of Headmaster because he liked kiddies….


**Oh my goodness—magical creatures, animal associates, as siphons to keep magical energies from building up to excess. Witches have always had familiars! A possible reason for Argus and Arabella to have such close relationships with their cats. There’s a magical connection which is, among other things, keeping their limited magic from ever erupting out of control. And Hagrid was given the job of assistant gamekeeper, and Harry’s one outburst after he started Hogwarts came after he’d sent Hedwig off a week earlier…. And in the Weasley family, the twins are cruel to animals—they’re the only Weasley children we see who never have or want a pet, never form that magical connection, and Fred is the only one we know to have had a magical outburst!

In which case Crookshanks may have protected Hermione from (further?) magical outbreaks. We’re free still to imagine that she previously had had some magical tantrums and badly spooked her parents, who were, we saw, increasingly willing to let her stay with the Weasleys. Indeed, acquiring a familiar may have been suggested to Hermione as a solution to the problem of accidental magical outbursts. Or possibly it was just suggested to her that an owl would be so useful, you know, for staying in touch. Then you wouldn’t have to rely on your friends contacting you. So Hermione might or might not have realized that Crookshanks would afford her protection against having accidental outbursts—and she might or might not have told her parents if she did. It must be pretty heady for a not-quite-fourteen year old to have her parents be a little scared of upsetting her too much.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

So glad to be a source of inspiration.

In 1876 Phineas was about 29, possibly expecting the birth of his first-born. Not yet headmaster, for sure, but likely a teacher. The Decree was the work of his predecessors, perhaps with involvement of older family members, somewhere. But he was probably inspired by their thinking.

So Dumbles wrote to Petunia that she really didn't want to come to a place where everyone was doing magical stuff that could get a bit out of hand? Yes, sounds like him.

Interesting speculations all around. Hermione got Crookshanks after spending the summer with her parents in France. Perhaps they had to deal with French magical officials? That may have been a bit too much.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea about the familiars helping to prevent accidental magic outbursts. That would also make sense that Uncle Algie didn't give Neville his Trevor until the Hogwarts letter came (IF I recall correctly). He wasnted to encourage the outbreaks, not calm them down

It also might make sense as to why the Weasleys took in a 'found' rat in roughly Nov'81. Late that month Bill turned 11. We really don't know when Hogwarts letters go out in relation to birthdays. Considering the squib worries, I think that if someone is born in Fall that it would be cruel (and possibly dangerous to the kid's health) if the letter waits until the next summer. We really have no idea when Hermione was first contacted, but considering she had memorized all her spell books AND found time to read extra materials like 'Hogwarts: A History' and however many books she read for the info about Harry Potter, I feel fairly sure that she received her letter before Harry begins getting his in July'91.

But I can see a harried Molly allowing an 11-yr-old Bill, who still won't be going to Hogwarts for most of a year, to keep the rat that 'followed him home' if it helps keep down the outbursts. This is roughly the time the Twins are in the middle of the 'terrible twos', she has enough on her hands. That sounds much more likely than allowing a 5-yr-old Percy to keep a rat found nosing around in the garden or wherever.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

I'd like to cross-examine this essay with your comment, could you please provide a link to it?

[oryx_leucoryx]

LJ won't post comments with links, but in the discussion of Terri's previous post, one of the things I said was:
The way the Statute of Secrecy is enforced means magical children in Muggle homes cannot regularly perform magic in small ways during school breaks, making them more likely to keep having accidental magic into their teens. Bug or feature?

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

Thanks. You mean the one on parenting?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, if Bill was 5 years out of Hogwarts in June 1995 (third task in GOF) then he turned 11 in November 1982 and started at Hogwarts in September 1983. (And Ginny was 2 when he went, and could have meaningfully wanted to go too.)

Tom's letter was not delivered in the middle of winter. Nor can the book-lists be sent before the staffing decisions are finalized. Thus I believe the letters get sent in the summer to all students. (And in 1995 everyone was in a rush because the letters got sent very late in August.)

IOW Bill's Hogwarts letter was some 20 months in the future when Scabbers showed up.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yes.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Sorry - I went with what Lexicon said was his birthyear of 1970. Oops. Of course there is still always the possibility that when he said it had been 5 years, he had been there for another reason than schooling, perhaps a quidditch game. But, I will accept that Lexicon might have it wrong. Although with JKR and 'maths' it's impossible to know for sure since the Lexicon presumably got Bill's birthdate from something she said, it's too specific a date. And it means that Bill is only 1 year older than Charlie instead of 2. But better to stick as close to the book as well as we can, I wouldn't put it past JKR to get the year wrong on one of these.

So - with an eye at the previous discussion - presumably those parents need to wait even longer to find out for certain if their child is a squib or not.

That also makes it very impressive that Hermione managed to not only read all those extra books but also memorize her schoolbooks in approximately just 2 months - with time left to practice spells to the point that they seem to work for her. Since she doesn't seem to have a photographic memory (she doesn't remember having read about Flamel in her 'light reading'), she must not have done anything else but sleep and eat that summer.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

I swear, every time I read these essays I'm just bowled over by how insightful they are. They're honestly more interesting than anything that actually made it into the last couple books!

"But really, Hermione and Ron are exceptional. Harry shouldn’t have been comparing himself to “people like Ron,” but to people like Draco and Ernie. (Notice that we never see Justin congratulating himself that his wizard-raised housemates don’t have much of a head start.) "

Crap, now I want Harry Potter fanfic from Justin's point of view, where he struggles to keep up with people like Ernie and Zacharias Smith.

(Imagine what it must be like, too, to come to this school and study for years only to meet first- and second-year students who know more about magic than you do. In our society, the fact that someone is new to a subject or out-of-practice might be forgiven, but in the Wizarding World where magic is might...)

"(And how does St. Mungo’s address this problem, with those in long-term care?)"

Well there was that one guy who was given a magical plant, and died when it turned out to be dangerous. And Lockhart's autographs. And...maybe even the chewing-gum wrappers Neville's mother gives him--could they have any sort of magic?

[oryx_leucoryx]

And Justin missed most of his second year because he was Petrified from December to late May. He was doing OK in the DA, but then DADA was mis-taught to everyone most of the time. We don't see him in HBP or the battle in DH so we don't know if he passed any OWLs or anything else about his abilities.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The birthdates for the Weasleys are from birthday wishes Rowling's site used to have on the appropriate day. Ron's is the only one that is mentioned in canon.

[flyingskull.livejournal.com]

First, Terri, your essays are always so well thought-out and pellucid I've always felt the utmost admiration, not only for your excellent brain, but for your style as well.

I've been in this comm since its inception, but generally lurk like anything and lately RL has gobbled me up entirely. So, even when I wanted to participate, I never had the time for it. Today I found myself free and did my best to keep up with DTCL.

All this blather to ask a question: my memory of the books isn't the best, but didn't Hermione say on the train in PS that she had practised spells at home? If so, could it have been another oh dear maths moment or, as usual, the Reasonable Way To Induct Children Into The Cult Of Magic is something that JKR pulled out of her arse later?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Hermione does say so. But she doesn't say whether all her attempts took place on a single occasion or more. IOW she may have tried levitating some small objects and a few other spells from the early chapters of her Charms textbook, until suddenly an angry Ministry owl showed up. The students are not told they are not supposed to do magic outside school until they first arrive at school, which leaves the time between the letter arrives and September 1st in a legal no-man's-land, as far as Muggle-raised kids know.

[flyingskull.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's true and it's quite logical, but somehow I can't imagine Hermione not explaining about the rule to the boys, thus completing her little bragging anecdote with a lesson. IIRC - big if - she talks as if trying spells at home was normal. Didn't she also have a long time to do it? Or are the letter sent in the July before fall term instead than at the eleventh birthday?

[oryx_leucoryx]

My opinion is that the letters can only be sent in the summer, because that is when the staffing decisions are finalized, so that would be when the book lists are finalized. (Things may have been different before the DADA job was cursed, but when Albus goes to bring Tom his letter we don't see any signs of winter weather.)

[flyingskull.livejournal.com]

Right. Had forgotten about the weather during Big Al Dickensian excursion. Letters are sent in July and Herm pretended she hadn't been chastised by the authorities which, now that I think on it, is par for the course for her. Harry sodding Potter had the universe bend to deliver his letter on his birthday because he's that special.

Thanks for making sense of things that do not, Oryx, and for the patience in replying.

[dorea-ysleen.livejournal.com]

IIRC kids are forbidden to do magic out of school once they've started Hogwarts and learned to control it, so there shouldn't be a problem before then. They can't even tell the difference between house elf and human magic with the trace, so it stands to reason that they can't differentiate between accidental and intentional magic either.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Based on the various situations of what underage magic gets Ministry response and which does, we once decided that the so-called Trace was placed on the wand. (Tom avoided it by using Morfin's wand, and presumably hiding his own.) So Hermione should have triggered the Trace. Well, assuming consistency.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

There is also the slight possibility that when Hermione said that all the spells she tried 'worked', she was referring to spells that Minerva helped her learn while she was at their home convincing the Grangers that Hermione really was magical. This is pretty much a half-hearted attempt to make sense of canon,as I must admit that it seems much more likely that she had to have her own personal wand before succeeding, but then it also makes much more sense that to preform these spells, she's been working on them since her birthday in Sept.

As you said - 'assuming consistency'. Basically, I'd say JKR just didn't pay attention.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Harry only gets his letter on his birthday because the Dursleys managed to stop him from getting it before that.

Hagrid is finally send out on July 30th (with him arriving at a few minutes after midnight on the 31st) because the letter asks for a reply by no later than the 31st. It really has little to do with it actually being Harry's birthday.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Hermione tends to succeed with most spells on her first attempt (unless plot requires otherwise). Terri ascribes Hermione's success rate, at least in the first year or two, to the fact that she is older and her magic more mature.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Which is why I said there was the possibility that the spells she referred to were ones Minerva showed her how to do when she came to deliver her letter. It is the other alternative to her using a traced wand without the Ministry threatening her or she was threatened and then didn't bother to say so on the train. Three possible ways it could have happened.

I agree that it might be unlikely since she would be using Minerva's wand or some other wand that a teacher might bring to prove a muggleborn's magic to muggle parents. Just because we don't see it happen on the one occasion where we are shown such a visit (Albus & Tom) doesn't mean it doesn't happen. After all, Tom didn't need convincing and he didn't have parents who needed such either.

But the fact that Hermione does seem to catch on really fast does open the possibility that she might not have had a problem repeating any magic she was shown and performing it right then and there in front of Minerva. Presumably, Minerva would then tell her about the trace.

It also doesn't necessarily mean that Hermione purposely withheld the info about the trace. She didn't necessarily know at that time that only muggleborns get a visit (with the warning).

[oryx_leucoryx]

How confident would Minerva be that a Muggle-born student she never met before would succeed on the spot? Perhaps she was, based on Hermione's age. But if Hermione's magic had been weaker or later to develop such an attempt at demonstration could backfire.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

I really don't know, however it seems rather strange to me that some proof is not required by the parent. Sure, watching Minerva cast spells might be proof enough for some that magic exists. And depending upon just how obvious a muggleborn's accidental magic has been, then it might not be needed.

But there would surely be at least some parents who would require to be shown that their child really is magical. It needn't be that the child actually performs the spell - only that there is a reaction when they use the wand and no reaction when their parent tries it.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

Maybe there's a set of really basic spells--create sparkles, produce musical notes, move a small object three inches to the right--that are specially chosen for this situation, and most eleven-year-olds could be expected to successfully perform at least one of them with any wand. Or at least with a "broad-range" wand that is likely to suit a large number of people adequately.

Until the whole "bimbo wands" motif appeared in Book Seven, the rule seemed to be that anyone could use any wand successfully, but using your own wand just gave you a little boost, or simply felt better. I think we're over-rating the difficulty of using someone else's wand. Maybe if Hermione hadn't known that the stolen wand she was using after escaping from Malfoy Manor belonged to a particularly nasty Death Eater who had used it to torture her, she would have thought, "It's not quite as nice as my own wand, but there's no problem with it."

We're all giving this much more throught than JKR ever did. But that's why we're here, right?

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Well, even if there aren't several 'super-easy' spells, the wand doesn't need to 'choose' you to have an effect. Harry goes through trying several wands at Ollivanders before he is handed the correct one, but all of those 'wrong' wands produced something - usually destruction. I don't recall any of them doing nothing, at least not after Ollivander tells him to 'give it a wave'. I don't recall when they were testing out the wands in DH (after Malfoy Manor). Does any one recall any of them doing absolutely nothing? Even with an ill-suited (Bella's) wand, Hermione was able to do magic - just not as easily or as well.

Going back to the first train ride. Ron SHOULD know about the trace - but notice that HE doesn't pipe up and tell Hermione what a risk she took practicing before getting to Hogwarts. Does this mean that he really doesn't know about the trace?

Or that he might think it's more his parents' rule than the Ministry's? After all, his brothers seem to get away with using their wands over the summer, as long as their parents don't see it.. As discussed above, the trace doesn't seem to work on minors when near adult magicals. It appears that in a magical household the parent must do the policing.

And does that mean that the trace really isn't on the wand? IF it was on the actual wand then the Ministry ought to be able to tell exactly WHO (minor, adult or house-elf) is using the wand. Obviously, House-elves don't have wands, but that just means that in bk2 they should have thought Harry did accidental magic since it wasn't apparently tied to a wand. Note that in his 'trial' in bk5, when Mrs. Figg comes forward (before she says she's a squib) it is mentioned that the Ministry didn't know there were any other magicals living near Harry. That seems more to point to the idea that the Ministry is monitoring the area, not the wand.

Or does Ron not mentioning the possible consequences to Hermione on the train just mean he disliked her enough immediately that he didn't care whether she was warned?

---------------

BTW - wonderful moment in Rumour of an Alchemist's "Saint Potter?" where Hermione did NOT get the warning not to do magic with her wand while not at Hogwarts. Upon getting her wand she runs out of Ollivander's and waving it around yells 'Abracadabra' (something many a muggleborn would think as 'magical'). Amelia Bones (Head of the DMLE) happens to be on the scene and has a near panic attack, thinking Hermione is trying an unforgivable. Needless to say she gets a very stern 'talking to'.

[oryx_leucoryx]

And does that mean that the trace really isn't on the wand? IF it was on the actual wand then the Ministry ought to be able to tell exactly WHO (minor, adult or house-elf) is using the wand. Obviously, House-elves don't have wands, but that just means that in bk2 they should have thought Harry did accidental magic since it wasn't apparently tied to a wand.

I don't see why. In our version the Trace isn't detecting that the magic was cast with the particular wand, only that it was cast in the vicinity of said wand. It is just assumed that if there is no other magical person around some underage wizard's wand, said underage wizard is the caster.

(Because if the Trace is not on the wand, the Ministry should have noticed 3 AKs being cast by an underage wizard in Little Hangleton sometime in the 1940s.)

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

I don't think so - Little Hangleton had known magicals living in the area. IF the trace is on the area and not the wand, then they only know that magic of some form was done in the area - not far from the Gaunt home. IF it's on the area, instead of the wand, then there is no way to know the age of the caster. I'm not sure that I would even say that there is any way for the Ministry to know what was cast until they got there. They would only know that that the local magicals (the Gaunt family) had gone and cast magic near that muggle home again - better go check to see if an obliviate is needed. At which point they would discover dead bodies that appeared to have been killed by an AK.

There isn't anything I can think of in the canon that suggests the Ministry knows when Unforgivables are being cast (at the time of the casting). They can (of course) check the suspected wand with a priori incantatuem (sp?). I don't know whether or not they DID check wands, but considering Morphin had previously been warned against hexing one of the dead muggles again, it isn't surprising that they look to him first. And since Morphin also apparently believed he DID cast the AKs - I cannot really fault the Ministry for falling for the frame-up.

It is made clear in bk5 at Harry's 'trial' that the ministry assumes any magic done in Harry's neighborhood must come from Harry - otherwise why even bring up the info that the Ministry was not aware another magical lived in the area when Mrs. Figg is introduced as a neighbor? IF the trace is on the wand, then they would say something more like 'we don't have any other wands noted in the area'.

Of course one HOPES that if the trace is on the wands, then it is somehow lifted at the age of adulthood. But are the magicals just supposed to trust that the trace has been removed from their wand without ever taking the wand to the Ministry to get it removed? Especially considering the fear of an upcoming war - we never hear any worry from Ron or Hermione (who really don't seem to trust the Ministry after the end of bk5) as to whether or not they should go to the Ministry and ask for proof that the trace was removed after their birthdays in bk6.

[sunnyskywalker]

In CoS, Harry's warning state that the Ministry "received intelligence" that a Hover Charm was "used at your place of residence." It's odd wording, when you look at it. They "received intelligence"? That makes it sound like someone ratted him out, but that doesn't seem likely, now does it? Maybe that's just their polite euphemism for "we're basically spying on you, a little bit." The "at your place of residence" does strongly suggest that they are monitoring the house, not Harry's wand. I don't have OotP on hand to check whether his warning in that book has similar wording, but I think it did specify that they'd detected a Patronus Charm. So they know what was cast.

The speed with which they can respond to incidents like Sirius and Peter's encounter on a Muggle street suggests that monitor certain Muggle areas independently of the Trace, at least in some times and places. So possibly, they would know if an Unforgivable was cast, so long as it was cast within one of their monitored areas.

They found out about Morfin cursing Tom Sr. somehow. Ogden says, "We have reason to believe that your son Morfin performed magic in front of a Muggle late last night," and he doesn't seem to have learned this through an informant. (Presumably he knows it was Morfin, not one of the other Gaunts, because he's already found out from Tom.) Magical detection seems more likely. Though this one is a bit odd since Morfin seems to have been on the Gaunt property when he cast it, and supposedly all the Gaunts were of age. Maybe the Ministry doesn't monitor the property itself where at least one adult wizard resides, but they do keep monitoring the area surrounding a wizarding property when that property is in a Muggle area? So if Molly cast a Patronus in the middle of Ottery St Catchpole, the Weasleys would get a warning, and Molly specifically if any Muggle witnesses could identify her or had a clear enough picture of her in their memories. (When the Twins did magic tricks for the girl in town, were they actually tricks, not magic? We know they can pick locks the Muggle way and have Muggle magic tricks in their shop as novelty items.)

Then there's Dumbledore's account of how Tom Jr. framed Morfin. He says the Ministry "knew at once" that the Riddles must have been a wizarding murder, though he doesn't specify how. He also says they can "detect magic, but not the perpetrator," and that they rely on parents to enforce the rules in wizarding homes. Notably, the Ministry doesn't seem to have been able to tell that the magic in the Riddle house was performed by a minor; all they could tell was that magic was performed in a Muggle area. Assuming Dumbledore's telling enough of the truth to make this accurate, it does sound like the Ministry monitors Muggleborn students' homes (but not magical-parent homes) and Muggle areas surrounding any magical homes (and maybe select other areas)--and that they use exactly the same monitoring method reporting to exactly the same place for both, since they can't tell the difference between a minor and an adult performing magic in the same Muggle area.

[oryx_leucoryx]

IF it's on the area, instead of the wand, then there is no way to know the age of the caster. I'm not sure that I would even say that there is any way for the Ministry to know what was cast until they got there.

But the Trace is installed specifically to monitor magic by underage wizards. It doesn't report magic if there are no underage wizards around. Are you saying that if Harry went to Muggle London while underage he could perform magic without raising an alert?

The only magical person left in the Little Hangleton area was Morfin, who was an adult. The Trace alerts that an underage person is doing magic. So receiving a Trace alert from Little Hangleton should have raised an alarm. (Especially since the spells involved were 3 AKs. Hmm, and the first 2 AKs were done in front of Muggles, which is a separate offense.).

Also, 'area' does not include an entire village. It is forbidden to do magic in the presence of Muggles even for adults, unless required for safety. If there was a Trace alert from Little Hangleton, it would be coming from the Riddle House rather than the Gaunt hovel, and that would require Ministry intervention.

The Ministry doesn't know when an Unforgivable is cast if there is no underage person around. But when Harry receives his angry letters from the Ministry they know exactly which spell was cast - Hover Charm, Patronus. So if there was a Trace alert the Ministry would have known that the spells cast were AKs, not because AKs get monitored specifically, but because all underage magic gets monitored.

IF the trace is on the wand, then they would say something more like 'we don't have any other wands noted in the area'.

But that wouldn't be the point. They have an alert that someone did magic in the proximity of an underage wizard's wand. Is it the underage wizard who performed the magic or an adult wizard who happened to be close enough to the underage wizard's wand? The fact that in this case the adult wizard would probably be using their own wand is of no importance. The adult would also be allowed to use Harry's wand, however unlikely the scenario.

The Trace doesn't necessarily need to be removed. It might be designed to expire. (Though Ollivander doesn't ask for Harry's exact birth date. But then, he may know it.) And yes, this system creates a loophole for kids who inherit wands, but as such a loophole tends to privilege purebloods it would be acceptable.

[sunnyskywalker]

This seems all too likely. I'm sure there's plenty of heaping justifications about how it wouldn't be fair to expect those poor helpless Muggle parents to control a magical child's magic during holidays, someone would get hurt, so really it's for their own good... And if Purebloods happen to benefit more, well, that just shows that the Muggleborn kids weren't motivated enough to practice sufficiently during the school year to ensure their own futures, and were not good at making magical friends to stay with during holidays, so really it just shows they're a bit lazy and deficient in character. Did they expect to just waltz in and do everything as easily as those born to it? No, surely it's only reasonable that someone starting with less will have to work harder to reach the same level as someone starting with more! Anything else would mean having different, lower standards especially for Muggleborns, and that's hardly fair, after all.

[sunnyskywalker]

ETA: And that's enough of getting into Pureblood justification/self-delusion for now, because ugh.

Also, I like the idea of magical familiars helping keep magical "output" at a steady trickle to prevent blowups! That makes Hogwarts allowing pets makes so much more sense. It just seems like asking for trouble otherwise. (They could all use school owls; no one needs a personal owl. And a castle full of cats sounds like a recipe for a lot of late-night yowling, not to mention allergies. We saw the problems with toads.)

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

I LOVE scenarios like this!

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

Found the wording of the expulsion notice from OotP, Chapter 2:

Dear Mr. Potter,

We have received intelligence that you performed the Patronus Charm at twenty-three minutes past nine this evening in a Muggle-inhabited area and in the presence of a Muggle.

The severity of this breach of . . .

[sunnyskywalker]

Hm, so "received intelligence" sounds like the standard formulation. The very precise timing also suggests some sort of magical detection, otherwise you'd expect "at approximately 9:20 p.m." or something like that.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Regarding Hermione, there's always another option: that she lied on the train to make herself seem more accomplished and important. Maybe a total lie--we do not, after all, see her perform prodigies in Flitwick's first class, and in McGonagall's, while she manages to make her matchstick silvery, she certainly does NOT transfigure it. It's Halloween before we actually see her performing spells outright. Or maybe, it's an exaggeration-- she's thinking, "When Mr. Ollivander told me to make sparks come from my wand, I DID. And this boy's spell is doing nothing."

But really, if we just remember that Hermione does lie, that solves the problem. Note, too, she didn't whip out her wand and demonstrate for Ron's edification all those spells that work better than his....

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

I DID mean to imply that the alert came from the Riddle House - their house is close by the Gaunts (somewhat similar to Mrs. Figg living in Harry's neighborhood.

However, the more I think about it the more I wonder if there isn't some form of monitoring over all of Great Britain - purely to ensure that obliviators are notified when magic is performed in a muggle area.

The canon back-up for that would be when 13 muggles were killed in Nov'81. Both Peter and Sirius were of age and yet the aurors/and-or/obliviators were on the scene almost immediately. They could not have been notified by a 'wand-trace' for the underaged. And it obviously happened in a muggle area (not near a wizarding residence) for so many muggles to have been involved.

The alternative means an even more corrupt government that was working with Peter to frame Sirius. Not that I wouldn't put that out of the realm of possibility. It would certainly mean that Peter very carefully planned exactly where the show-down took place (which I assumed already because of the explosion) but also notified an accessory. Altho' considering the timing of the arrival of Fudge (and others) I cannot see when Peter had time to notify anyone while Sirius was chasing him.

So, I see it as a distinct possibility that there is a monitoring system to ensure that the Ministry can know about and react quickly to magic done in front of muggles to ensure the Secrecy. Truthfully, it makes more sense. Presumably, they just ignore (or filter out) areas where known magicals live - well, at least their actual houses. Which automatically gives a child with a magical parent a 'pass' on the 'trace'.

As a point of detail - is it ever actually referred to as a 'trace' when the kids are warned? I don't recall. Or are they just told 'officially' that they cannot use their wands over the summer? I can see it being referred to as a 'trace' unofficially even if it isn't a literal 'trace', if they do not understand how the monitoring actually works. Because IF it is a trace that is specifically tied to their wand, then why is it not tied to the wand's actual use? Are the kids also warned that any accidental magic might get them in trouble?

Of course IF the whole point it to hamper the muggleborns (as opposed to protect the secrecy) then it makes sense to not tie it to the actual wand use, as that would enable other magicals to perform magic near a muggleborn and apparate away leaving them to take the blame. I'm a bit surprised that no one takes more advantage of that loophole to get muggleborns expelled. Especially any muggleborns who outperform any purebloods.

Tying it to the wand's use would have (of course) made it impossible to blame Harry for Dobby's magic in bk2. And so we have these things that do not make sense.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

It also seems to imply that the office that sent the notice is probably not the same one that detected the magic. They are sending the notice in response to information supplied to them. In other words, there might be a separate office that does the monitoring.

[sunnyskywalker]

That makes sense.

[flyingskull.livejournal.com]

Right, thanks. I really should re-read the books if I want to participate, but I don't have the time. Sorry for the late reply. Am fagocitated by work.

[flyingskull.livejournal.com]

When you put it this way it makes sense. I thought that she had started her lying career post-troll to be accepted by famous Harry and his pureblood friend, but that was silly of me. And she was all talk no action on the train. Thanks and sorry for the late reply; I tend to be internetless for days when on dig.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Don't worry - we all miss details now and then. No reason not to participate!

[sunnyskywalker]

There's also the possibility that she hasn't worked up to bald-faced lying and is, er, implying that she practiced at home when actually she just tried a couple of simple spells ten minutes ago on the train. After all, she doesn't actually say when she tried those few "simple spells" for practice. Quite possibly she got in her compartment, made some sparkles appear, and levitated a piece of paper (she does seem to get Wingardium Leviosa fairly quickly later), and then Neville came in looking for his toad. The end. So what she said is true... technically.

Then her lie about the troll would be part of the slow unraveling of whatever ethical compass she started with. (Which seems to have been fairly concrete and rule-bound, but she's 12, that's fairly normal iirc. Something she would grow beyond within a few years with proper guidance.)

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Perhaps traditionally there was a form of patronage where muggle born became indentured to a Pure-blood family. But "blood traitors" got rid of it. After all muggle born are just as good as anyone else, and it is demeaning to bind them in servitude.

[sunnyskywalker]

Fudge was in Magical Accidents and Catastrophes at the time and was one of the first on the scene, iirc. Which was quick enough for Sirius to still be standing there laughing, ie probably almost instantaneously. No mention of any underage wizards in the area.

Which is why it does sound like they are at least monitoring some Muggle areas.

I wonder if that could have been an emergency measure during VoldWar I which was never repealed? Maybe from 1876 to 1970 or so, there was only the Trace (however it works). Then they started monitoring Muggle areas to pick up DE activity, and never stopped because it was also so useful for catching wizards breaking the Statute of Secrecy (not that they would necessarily have to apply equal punishments to anyone they caught, of course). If that's the case, could it account for some of the confusion over the Trace? That is, if they are monitoring Little Whinging and detect a Hover Charm in a house they know is occupied by three Muggles and an underage wizard, they send a warning letter even though the Trace didn't go off because they figure it's probably the kind performing wandless magic and they still want to discourage that.

It's still a bad system, because it would get Harry in trouble if an adult wizard stopped by for a surprise visit. But we know the Ministry's auto-letter systems aren't very smart or they would have sent a person to invite him to Hogwarts after a couple of days instead of flooding the house with letters.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Upon rereading this (of course) excellent piece, it strikes me that we may also have here another small part of the picture regarding the gradual dissolution of the Severus-Lily friendship and Sev's later decision to cast his lot (temporarily) with the supremacist crowd.

We don't really see much of the outside-Hogwarts interaction between Sev and Lily after their first year, do we? Whereas we do see and hear about Severus at least occasionally being welcomed by/spending time with pureblood housemates of his, even if he's not their all-time favorite person. While I doubt that he immediately jumped to spending every summer at other wizarding houses, at some point one or two of the cannier Slytherins probably did start inviting him home for a few weeks, even if only to take advantage of the potions geek's brewing tips for summer study or the like. Though he does seem to develop some degree of friendship with Malfoy at least, so it's not impossible that there was an element of that as well.

And Severus, clever and ambitious as he is, would have intuited - but probably been unable to properly verbalize at first - just how important this extra winked-at practice time could be to any non-pureblood hoping for a decent place in the WW. And would have expected equally-clever Lily to understand that need, perhaps even expected that some of her housemates - Mary MacDonald, perhaps? - would be offering her similar opportunities that she really should be taking advantage of. (As long as it's not Potter and his gang, of course.)

After all, it's not like it's for the whole summer, it's just a few weeks, they can still hang out and all back home for a while before school starts again... etc. Though over time it might grow into a longer and longer portion of the breaks...

And so Severus gradually finds himself immersed in a certain culture, accepted into it in a certain marginal way for the sake of his talents, and growing used to being around powerful people thinking and talking in certain ways, without ever quite consciously deciding 'hey I agree completely with all this without question.' Just...acclimating to it. While gradually moving more and more in a direction that Lily simply doesn't understand, without ever quite getting a clear view of why or how this rift is happening, beyond the part played by Potter and co.

And then after the fallout of the Shack adventure and SWM, when it's clear that he's burned the bridge with Lily, well, he still has NEWTs to complete and a career to establish, etc., and he still has these few lifelines, so why not throw himself at them completely? Nothing left to lose now. And eventually, in whatever form it finally takes to appeal to him, the offer is made. And it seems the best route he's got...

Until he realizes what a truly horrendous mistake it is. But by then it is, of course, too late.

Plausible!

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Oh, that does sound heartbreakingly plausible. Even more so if Lily DIDN'T ever quite figure it out, and blamed Sev for cutting into the only time they could spend together without being harassed by both their Houses. "You can see Mulciber any time at school, but you'd rather spend time with him than with me while we're on the long vacation! I thought we were supposed to be friends, Sev! Best friends!"

Moreover, if potions-making WAS unmonitored and Severus and Lily discovered that and regularly brewed on the sly, that would also explain why Slughorn ended up being the ONLY teacher to rave about Lily's stellar performance to her son. Despite her suited-to-charms wand and the precocity and talent that initially fascinated Sev,she might have scored no better than high middle-of-the-pack in her wand-waving subjects--though doing extraordinarily well for someone from your unfortunate background, of course, dear.

(I mean, just THINK of someone training to be a concert pianist, forbidden to touch a keyboard for 1/4 of the year. How COULD even the most talented student keep up?)

Re: Plausible!

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And he'd stutter and stumble and try to explain, but what seems a natural way of thinking about social politicking to a canny Slytherin alert to the social gears would not necessarily translate well into Gryff ways of thinking.

Lily would take it as a statement of preference for those prejudiced people and their ideas, when young Severus would be thinking that putting up with that sort of talk is just part of the price you pay for opportunity... Until the Lily bridge is burned, and he's old enough to be noticing some of the hypocrisy of the WW's politics, and struggling through his own inner conflict over his background while mingling with the pureblood crowd. I have a lot of thoughts about all that.

And oh, yes, good catch about Slughorn. That would be the area Lily has the most opportunity to practice, so it would be the one where she shows up on people's radar most.

That Statute really is a piece of work, isn't it? You and oryx unpack it masterfully.