Magic Is Might: The Dark Arts and the Workings of Human Magic

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I was going to post an excerpt from my half-finished Severus and Voldemort essay, but instead it became an essay of its own.

Magic Is Might: The Dark Arts and the Workings of Human Magic

In her latest post, “Seclusion and the Dark Arts,” terri brilliantly brings together the two main strands of Voldemort’s and the Death Eaters’ interests, overturning Secrecy and dark magic, theorizing that they were seeking to make useable again the old communal magics that shamans and village magic-workers would have used to tap into the emotion-driven power of muggles to boost their own magical ability.

In my comment in reply I wrote, “You've also anticipated an argument I'll be making in Indestructible when I talk about Severus and Voldemort and flight being one of the dark arts.”

My thinking about the nature of unsupported human flight, the reasons it may have taken so long to be developed, and what role it played in Severus and Voldemort’s relationship led me to formulate some ideas about the nature of the dark arts more generally. And now terri’s essay has pushed it all into much clearer focus for me.

We’ve got a number of terms for the working of human magic, and they all mean something specific. Which has implications for understanding what Tom might have thought regarding the nature of human magic and the relationship of muggles to magic-users. Whether or not he was even correct in his suppositions.

Though he may have been.


Terri writes:

The Dark Arts comprise many things; that’s part of the problem with defining them.

But we’ve hypothesized they include, 1), (all or most) Old Magic.  Pre-wand, pre-domesticated magic.

And 2), (all or most) magic powered by emotion.

And who says the emotion must be the caster’s?

[…]

Why should practitioners and students of the Dark Arts be preferentially attracted to ending Secrecy, or be suspected of doing so?

Because the Dark Arts include magic spells and rituals that can no longer be used under Seclusion (or that are believed to be now unusable).  Because that magic was originally designed to be used with, and either for or against, Muggles.  To draw on Muggle crowd emotions.

To amplify the power available to the magic-user, at least temporarily.

Possibly to a huge extent.

Old magic, emotion- and will-based, permitting vastly more powerful acts of magic than are workable under Seclusion today. Because wizards cannot make use of the emotions of muggle crowds, cannot draw on their numbers and energy, now that wizards and magic must remain concealed from muggles.

But it’s potentially more than that. Depending on just how much of human magic-working in general can be reliably divorced from the influence of human psychological states, and how far this is true even of wizardry itself.

Neither of which might, possibly, be quite so complete as we—or wizards—seem to think.

*

Allow me to make a brief detour here away from consideration of the dark arts themselves to propose a basic classification system.

A while ago, in her essay “Sorcerers,” swythyv noted that most of the characters in canon get the name of the law restricting underage magic incorrect, speaking of the “the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Magic,” or “Underaged Wizardry.” When in fact the actual wording is, “the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Sorcery.”

Sorcery, she proposes, is the broadest term for human magic-working—and is, apparently, a subject that wizards seem a little…hesitant to consciously and overtly recognize. Children’s legally-excused acts of accidental magic are pure sorcery, though not called such, whereas the juvenile working of wanded wizardry outside of Hogwarts is restricted.

I’m going to adopt this definition, though I’m going to alter and deviate a bit from her further breakdown of the other types of human magic.

So.

Sorcery encompasses all forms of human magic, deliberate and inadvertent, wanded and not, controlled and uncontrolled.

Wizardry, as we’ve long theorized meanwhile, is controlled, usually wanded magic that relies on technical mastery (incantations and wandwork) over emotional involvement or will. “Domesticated” magic, in terri’s word. Magic that is far less frightening to today’s average witch or wizard than any other form.

Wizardry was gradually developed out of the earlier, more chaotic and less technical dark magic. The exact boundaries of this class of magic are a bit blurry at the edges, but in general let’s go with terri’s breakdown above for the moment, and say that dark magic (in the non-crude sense) encompasses:

• all forms of old magic, pre-domesticated wizardry


• all forms of magic that are emotion-based - or, more precisely, that require the psychological or spiritual involvement of the caster, and possibly others

I’m also going to add a category here, a potentially more recent and mostly-implicit addition due to the forces terri outlined on her LJ in “Dark Magic Doth Never Prosper” (here, Part I, Part II). Encompassing the “crude sense” of the term, though not restricted to it and overlapping with the other categories.

Dark magic, in the present day, can also be understood to include all forms of human magic that are obscure. Or obscured. Not commonly taught or easily available and learned. This would include in one sense Saint Albus’ restrictions to the Hogwarts curriculum, but also in another sense the traditional cloaking of powerful knowledge in obscure language and symbols that we see in disciplines like alchemy.

It also includes another, rare, form of magic as well. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

*

Now, we’ve been using the terms “dark magic” and “dark arts” interchangeably, and at first glance it seems as if characters in the books do as well. But I’m not sure that it’s necessarily the case that they are actually true synonyms, given the present-day slipperiness and confusion of terminology surrounding all mentions of things “dark,” as per “Dark Magic Doth Never Prosper.”

Rather, I think that the dark arts are, strictly speaking, a subset of dark magic more broadly. Those forms of dark magic that, unlike wizardry, still require the involvement of the caster (whether wanded or not), but that are relatively stable, defined, and well-understood, and so are not as chaotic as the wilder, inadvertent, and unconscious forms of magic are. The precursor class of wanded magic to wizardry, historically.

The dark arts are so called because they are arts. Specific, known ways of doing things that are roughly bounded and repeatable, but still dependent upon the involvement of the individual caster (at minimum). Not quite the science of wizardry, but with certain kinds of fundamental principles of their own nonetheless. Thus Professor Snape’s description of them in HBP:

"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your defences must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the Arts you seek to undo."

The dark arts are broader in reach than wizardry and allow for a greater range of continual invention and expansion than wizardry does. Wizardry is confined only to types of magic, and specific effects, that can be achieved via some form of technical input (though with nonverbal casting I think we see a place where wizardry edges up against dark magic). The dark arts, on the other hand, are as expansive as human ingenuity, will, and desire allow. Any witch or wizard who goes into inventing new spells and magical doings is going to be dabbling in both dark magic and the dark arts, whether or not their inventions ultimately end up as strict wizardry or just an addition to the arts.

This also makes sense of the term “Defense Against the Dark Arts.” Even with Albus and company’s terminological shiftiness, it doesn’t quite make sense to think of defending against “dark magic” as such. Whereas one might very well wish to know how to defend oneself against specific uses and types of dark magic, and against those employing more flexible, non-wizardry (and thus potentially unknown or unpredictable) magics in combat.

The dark arts would include a variety of established, well-understood magics we see in canon, some of which may not, given the recent lexical confusion, get labeled as dark but that are not collapsible into wizardry, including:

• the animagus transformation (I owe swythyv for this insight)


• the patronus spell, the Riddikulus spell, etc.


• the Unforgivables (of course)


• apparition


• alchemy


• unsupported flight (more on this later)

The patronus spell, the boggart banishing spell… Lupin refers to both spells as “charms,” but this—despite the implicit claims of the formal branches of wizardry, and given the paranoia about acknowledging anything as potentially “dark”—tells us nothing about the dark or non-dark nature of the spells. Charms seem to be a class of spell along with jinxes, etc. as well as a type of wizardry like Transfiguration. (Indeed, when wizardry was being formally established and defined, the term “charm” might have been repurposed into a catch-all for miscellaneous types of non-dark spell that fit into neither Transfiguration nor combat magic. Nicely blurring, as well, the nature of many important wanded spells that are technically dark but not harmful or innately criminal…)

A dark charm seems to require a wand and incantation, but not a particular wand movement, and they are highly dependent on the caster’s attitude, as Lupin tells us in POA:

“The charm that repels a Boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a Boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing.” [Chapter 7]

"And how do you conjure it?"
"With an incantation, which will work only if you are concentrating, with all your might, on a single, very happy memory." [Chapter 12]

They’re one of our edge cases, places where controlled, wanded wizardry and the older dark arts brush up against each other, showing the historical development of magic. Apparently only certain things, or kinds of things, can be done with wizardry, or at least done effectively.

Ritual magic, like Tom’s rebirthday process and the old communal magics, are of course another class of dark magic. Some of the more established types of ritual would be arts themselves, but one-off and experimental rituals would also exist.

Swythyv lists alchemy as separate from dark magic, citing its relation to Ancient Magic and the Mysteries and suggesting it’s a parallel to wizardry’s relation to dark magic. But Ancient Magic strikes me as extending beyond the bounds of sorcery and encompassing broader forces, not as a class of human magic as such. And alchemy very much requires the psychological and spiritual involvement of the caster. Therefore I consider alchemy a dark art, not a parallel to wizardry – indeed, it’s probably one of the oldest and most well-established of the formal arts, making use of an earlier form of working magic than wanded wizardry.

The Mysteries of the DOM would then be, essentially, a more formal and general name for human research into broader magical forces, into dark magic, Ancient Magic, and so on.

The two obscure mental magics of occlumency and legilimency may also be considered dark arts, or they may be understood as something of a class of their own within dark magic. I suspect, however, that the actual magic of them is rigorous enough and similar enough to the workings of the other established arts that they can relatively easily be classed simply as further examples of the dark arts.

We’ll come back to the actual workings of the dark arts in a bit. First let’s finish up our classification.

*

Potions, meanwhile, is a curious subject to fit into our classification.

It seems at first to be another class of magic, but it appears at first glance for the most part to be as technically-demanding as wizardry, at least in the present day. Plus we have theorizing here and there about “dark potions,” and would such a term make sense, etc. And Tom made use of a potion, or something very like a potion, in his rebirthday ceremony.

Potions, I suspect, is something of another kind of magic, a form of it long pre-dating wizardry but anticipating some of its effects and developing in parallel to it. The term “dark” neither strictly applies nor strictly doesn’t apply to it or its products. Because potion-brewing is a method, not a class, of magic. Its products can be somewhat “dark,” and it can form a method of working magic within some of the dark arts. But it’s not a dark art itself, nor a form of wizardry.

Wizardry refers to controlled, technical magic performed with a wand. Potions are another method of controlling the magical forces altogether—in general somewhat more technical and less dependent on the practitioner than pure dark arts are, but ranging across that line that separates strict dark magic from wizardry and allowing for effects that are difficult or impossible to achieve with either.

Potions can be – and these days often are – as technically complex and dependent as wizardry is, or even moreso, but the method of channeling the magic is different (through a solid stirring rod) and is more difficult to do and control, requiring, not perhaps exactly the emotional involvement of the caster in the potion itself, but a certain focus and force of will behind it. What the cored wand replaced for working magics previously falling under the umbrella of (what we now call) the dark arts.

Neville’s problem in potions was a subconscious refusal to acknowledge, control, and properly engage and channel his magical power. Thus it came out haphazardly and at times spectacularly. Just as his attempts to perform wizardry with a wand were haphazard and sometimes uncontrolled. Only the innate magic of the ingredients amplified the effects in potions class.

But some potions – like Tom’s rebirthday one – are less dependent on niceties of measurement and proper preparation of ingredients, and more on the intent and involvement of the practitioner. They’re “darker” in a loose sense; but still dependent on outside requirements in a way that separate dark arts themselves, strictly speaking as defined against wizardry, aren’t.

What sort of magic is this, then? Neither purely technical, nor strictly practitioner-based acts of will or emotion, but a little, it seems, of both?

Perhaps it would be helpful here to turn to another term, one that we’ve been neglecting.

Potions are a craft magic. One of the oldest, most extensive, and best-understood of the traditional forms of witchcraft. A form of magic that hasn’t been completely subsumed into or replaced by wizardry, or with that development, entirely relegated to the dark arts.

Though with the dominance of wizardry over older forms of magic, the general dependence upon the wand, and the growing confusion of the wizard in the street over what “dark” means in relation to magic—as well as, quite likely, the widespread influence of sexist thinking and the Seclusion-induced lack of need for village wisewomen and the like—witchcraft seems to be regarded as the also-ran of the wizarding world. Even its best-known branch, brewing. Something our dear Professor Snape seems to take almost, just a little, as something of a personal affront…

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word -- like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic….”

Given his appreciation for beauty, verbal dexterity, and the nature of both of his magical specialties, I can’t help but see the Artist as one of our professor’s archetypes. An archetype that blends together at the edges with its close cousins the Artisan and the Crafter.

Nor is it surprising that someone with an affinity for potions would also end up with an interest in and knowledge of the dark arts, or vice-versa (especially considering the relevance of both to healing, another key interest of our professor’s). They fit quite well together, witchcraft never having quite divorced itself so radically from older magics as wizardry has. The craft element and focus on working with external material foci other than a wand have long provided enough stabilization and psychic-emotional distance in their working that they didn’t need to take the route that the narrow, cored-wand-dependent arts that became wizardry did.

Indeed, might the development of the cored wand and the resultant increased ease of casting even the most psychologically-damaging spells have gradually led to the need for such a break? Channelling magic in that pure and potent a fashion having a more pronounced effect upon the caster over time, but this taking both a certain amount of historical time to be recognized and an effective way of at least partially remedying the problem to be found… Are we certain that the widespread use and dependence upon cored-wand-wizardry really has had no significant detrimental psychological effect upon magic-users this whole time? Or is it, perhaps, just subtler and lower-key?

Because the use of external material components or foci that are not quite so directly and profoundly linked with a magic-user’s core as is a wand I think is a feature of both traditional and modern-day witchcraft. I suspect that Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology are both really forms of witchcraft. As are whatever forms of non-strictly-wand-based magic that may go into the creation of certain kinds of magical objects, and any other forms of craft and artisanal magic. (Though given the economic situation of the post-Seclusion WW, I have to agree with swythyv that there’s a reason this stuff isn’t taught much at Hogwarts. Trade secrets, whose protection is now vitally important for all those small shopkeepers given that only other wizards and witches are their customers. Passed down through families. To the (of course) disadvantage of muggleborns.)

The general subject of “divination,” meanwhile, both makes use of forms of witchcraft—tea leaves, astrology, crystal-gazing, etc.—and includes one example of that other form of magic that I think also falls under the classification of dark magic, which I alluded to earlier: magical gifts. Individual talents that cannot (the nonsense in DH aside) be picked up purely through study or necessarily easily controlled. The Seer’s gift of prophecy (interacting with the prophecy demons), which is in-born and rare just like the parselmouth’s ability to speak to snakes… Or Voldemort’s ability to possess living creatures.

Wizardry, strictly speaking, consists of our technical wanded arts: non-dark Charms, Tranfiguration, and Duelling magic/Defense magic where this isn’t a mere euphemism for the dark arts—jinxes and hexes, most likely, with the strongest spells, curses, more likely to require emotional involvement and willed intent, and so to be generally dark (whitehound’s idea, though it’s not strictly necessary here).

This leaves our theoretical magics and classes of magical knowledge, rather than praxis: ancient runes, arithmancy, and astronomy (and if we include them as magic, history of magic and muggle studies). They seem to be generally subsumed under the heading of wizardry today, but really they form a knowledge base implicitly shared by the various classes and methods of working magic.

Though the performance of wanded spells within wizardry generally seems to require little of them. Witchcraft and most of the forms of dark magic, however? Do rely on this knowledge. Written letters, numbers, stars and celestial movements. Organizing principles and ways of retaining, encoding, and transmitting knowledge. Structural features of the human-inhabited world, beyond those of speech and gesture that are inherent to wizardry.

*

Now, back to the dark arts.

We keep talking about how dark magic, and the dark arts in more regulated form, require the emotional, psychological or spiritual involvement of the caster. I added the broader terms to the discussion deliberately, because we’re not dealing only with emotion here, strictly speaking.

Simple emotion, as we saw in Harry’s patronus lessons and in his attempts to cast the Cruciatus, isn’t enough. It’ll give you a feeble, brief flash of effect, but nothing solid or lasting.

So what is it, exactly, that you need to properly perform the dark arts?

Emotional involvement of the caster of any dark art or similar magic affects the working of it, but doesn’t encompass the real nature of what’s actually going on internally. But emotions can certainly get in the way.

Here I’m going to be using excerpts from my coming discussion of Voldemort and Severus and my theory of flight:

*** I suspect that a facility with occlumency and its underlying base skills may help in the practical application of the theory behind human flight. At least at first in developing the necessary mindset, and probably in continuing practice, by allowing one to manage or block out inconvenient, ah, distractions. Such as fear and other emotions that might get in the way of what one is trying to do.

We don’t see or hear of any of our three flight school entrants ever making use of any sort of incantation, wandwork, or other external (magical) technical means in working this particular form of magic; indeed, one did not even yet have a wand when she developed and practiced her form of proto-flight. It might be necessary, or at least helpful, to be carrying a wand when one engages in true sustained flight – though like the animagus transformation it may also be something one can do wandless with enough effort and motivation. But some particular use of a wand is manifestly not needed in the actual performance of the magic, judging by our glimpses of it in action.

It’s fairly clearly a direct act of will on the part of the caster, the flier. One desires to fly, and if one knows how to do it and has the requisite willpower, one flies. Thus my designation of it as dark arts, rather than technical wizardry.

Will and directed intent are two key drivers of the magic, rather than adherence to external technical forms.

But there must be more to it than that, or else a good portion of those various poor sods we see falling from brooms and other high places would be flying right and left. But none of them, nor apparently anyone before Severus – and before him Lily, somewhat – ever did manage to move from the ‘falling’ part to the ‘not falling’ part, much less the ‘flying’ part. No matter how fervently and wholeheartedly they must have willed and intended it.

So what else is needed?

Well, what did Bellatrix tell us was the key for casting our most prominent examples of dark magic?

“You need to mean them, Potter!”

You need to want it, yes. And clearly intend it.

But that’s not enough. You need to genuinely mean it.

Could we perhaps say, to believe it?

“If I can see it, then I can do it
If I just believe it, there's nothing to it
I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky…”

I expect that the third component is belief. Genuine, deep-seated belief that one can catch oneself, one can fly, one is flying. That it is possible both in general and for oneself specifically.

Willpower, intent, and belief.

Go back to the three D’s of apparation: destination – that’s intent; determination – there’s your willpower; deliberation – contemplation, perhaps, of the image of oneself already being at the destination? Believing it? Only…misstated somewhat, by trainers who were never properly taught the theoretical basics of the dark arts, or even perhaps that apparition is a dark art in the first place? (Or at the very least, knew better than to suggest anything of the kind in Albus Dumbledore’s Hogwarts.)

To quote for a moment from another book on the art of flight:

“Can you teach me to fly like that?” Jonathan Seagull trembled to conquer another unknown.
“Of course, if you wish to learn.”
“I wish. When can we start?”
“We could start now, if you’d like.”
“I want to learn to fly like that,” Jonathan said, and a strange light glowed in his eyes. “Tell me what to do.”
Chiang spoke slowly and watched the younger gull ever so carefully. “To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is,” he said, “you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived…”
(-- Jonathan Livingston Seagull)

Belief in one’s own power, one’s own abilities, in the existence of the reality one desires, because one desires it. Belief in oneself, that one can do it, that one is doing it, has done it. The knowledge that one already can do it. Like the Olympic runner mentally running through every step of the course, over and over, until the image of hirself winning becomes as solid as reality. Belief as firm as knowledge before the reality, in order to create that reality.

A belief, a knowledge, that for simple evolutionary reasons is likely very difficult to spontaneously generate when one is rushing headlong at the ground, one would think. The very opposite belief would quite naturally be an overwhelming thought at the moment in question. Rendering the most obvious and intuitive path to learning to fly -- get oneself airborne and then try to stay up -- rather counter-productive. Except, of course, for a gifted occlumens capable, at need, of strictly managing his own fears and doubts and beliefs at moments of immense stress. Once he understands just how he needs to do so.

Flying is an act of faith.

Which suddenly makes sense of how an untrained/self-trained child, ignorant of the existence of the wizarding world and the formal workings of magic, could have independently invented the precursor skill to sustained human flight when generations of formally trained adult witches and wizards thought it impossible.

Nobody ever told her she couldn’t do it.

And she likely already knew she could do things other people thought impossible, sometimes without even consciously trying. She was quite confident in her own abilities, young Lily was, no? That “brimful of confidence” line didn’t apply just to young Severus there, I don’t think.

All one needs to do is imagine that, as often happens with kids on swings, Lily one day went a little too high, a little too fast, when she leaped or fell from the swing. And her magic spontaneously kicked in to save her, just as it kicked in to let her son jump onto a roof.

And after that, Lily knew she could fall lightly, almost fly. She had faith in her ability to do it, possibly because she’d been able to repeat other weird tricks before when she put her mind to it. (Though it’s just possible that this was her first spontaneous act of magic, the one that led her to keep experimenting…) Wanting it hard enough and intending it clearly enough. And so eventually she did it, without trouble, again and again.

Imagine Severus’ face when, looking back on that memory for clues or perhaps simply in reminiscence, it suddenly clicked for him.

I wonder how many tries it took him, and how many unhappy meetings with the ground, before he was able to summon up the requisite faith in his own abilities and catch himself before he crashed again. Probably a few, given his general track record. But he did manage it.

And I do think that Severus was the one to have at last managed it precisely because he had that early memory of Lily. Because he knew that it could be done.

He already had faith in the possibility of flight.

He just needed to develop the requisite faith in himself. In his own ability to do it. ***

So.

“You need to mean them, Potter!”

Anger, or happiness, or what have you, isn’t going to power the magic properly. The emotional energy of additional participants might help to amplify the effects somewhat, but it can’t work or sustain the magic on its own. You need something more. You need to mean it.

I think that the dark arts—any somewhat-defined, repeatable class of dark magic—generally fit the broad model of caster-based magic we see active in apparition and that I have proposed here for flight. A dark art generally requires a set of three internal components to be properly engaged and related to each other:

“Destination, determination, deliberation.”

Destination – that’s clarity of intent. You have to know what, specifically, you’re aiming to achieve and picture it clearly. This gives shape to the magic.

Determination – that’s sustained willpower. Your engine, powering the magic. Emotion is a thin substitute for this (or really for all three components).

Deliberation – this is where, I suspect, a lot of Hogwarts grads struggle with the magic. Because the word doesn’t communicate what is actually required of the caster. What “deliberation” really means here is belief. Contemplation of oneself already at the destination. Faith in the possibility and the reality of the desired effect, of the magic’s efficacy. The spark that transforms a willed intention into a reality.

In the archaic Masonic phrase much favored by modern neo-pagans: “so mote it be.” An idea transformed into something that might be.

*

And belief in the efficacy of magic is the other thing, of course, that Seclusion has affected on a large scale.

Neo-pagans and the families of muggleborn and halfblood wizards aside, most muggles simply don’t believe in magic anymore. Magic’s departure from the pages of overt history allowed science to become the predominant way of conceptualizing, understanding, and working with the world. And so the range of what muggles think possible -- of what they understand and believe might be -- shrunk to what science says is possible. Absent the wild, reality-bending effects of magic.

Voldemort can kidnap as many muggles as he likes, and take the time to prove to them individually or in small groups the existence and effectiveness of magic—or, that is, of whatever it is he’s using to torture them. But to get the really powerful effects of old times, lasting effects, he needs, not only numbers, but real belief on the part of the muggles.

Not just their emotions, though that will do in a pinch for a brief amplification. But their ongoing faith in the existence and power of magic, and of its wielders.

And that is something that only the widescale, effective overturning of Secrecy can bring him. Public demonstrations of both the existence and the might of magic, to counteract the dominance of a scientific-based understanding of the world.

And he might not need or want the muggles just for certain large-scale ritual magics, either, though certainly that alone would be motive enough for him. But if there was any suggestion, anywhere, in any of the old lore Voldemort combed through that the widespread belief in magic of old times had affected also smaller workings, or the efficacy of magic in general – that it was tied in a broader way to the surrounding level of belief, or could be influenced or amplified even apart from specific rituals…

The more the muggles know about magic, the more it is demonstrated to (and upon) them, potentially the greater the effect, always?

It need not even be true. Just a possibility that had occurred to him. A thought that the rather pathetic, quotidian and piecemeal working of magic today might be something that could be counteracted by breaking Secrecy and exposing the muggles to magic on a large scale.

Until all the muggles believe again. Allowing wizards to regain their old status and powers…

Er, or maybe a bit more than that. Now that wizards are organized. And I mean, knowing Voldemort...

Comments

Gaah?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Er. Will need to take some time to process. But, um, brilliant extrapolation of some lines of thought that I'd written.

And, er, also what I hadn't written.

Your ending?

"Until all the muggles believe again. Allowing wizards to regain their old status and powers…

Er, or maybe a bit more than that. Now that wizards are organized. And I mean, knowing Voldemort..."


Um. Something I thought, but didn't write. Those traditional lines of transmission, master to apprentice, within very tiny communities? Each line continually broken by differences between master/student of intrinsic power and POTENTIAL understanding? So that whatever knowledge survived to be transmitted, mostly was what could be made to work across the lowest common denominator of power in the magic-user?

So. Most of the people working as their community's designated magical-adept in medieval times, never mind before, would be disdained by modern wiz-witches as utter, useless Squibs.

The level of innate magical ability required to rate a Hogwarts letter is vanishingly rare, after all. Forty eleven-year-olds in all of the UK rated in 1991, we are told.

That would give us one or two a DECADE, if the proportions to the Muggle population were the same in 1066.

So. Pretty much ALL of the people being trained up in magic in ancient times would, by Hogwarts standards, be regarded as hopeless duffers deserving of what Neville Longbottom kept expecting.

So rituals designed to amplify THEIR magic enough to do anything effective, used by modern wizards...

Re: Gaah?

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :) I was just going to put a little paragraph relating my excerpt to your essay, but then it mushroomed...

Also I re-read your essay again a time or two, and saw you'd mentioned the belief component there already - gah, YES. You spotted it first. There's so much packed into it, as usual. ;)

So rituals designed to amplify THEIR magic enough to do anything effective, used by modern wizards...

Oh god, yes. Very good point. Urgh.

Also, in RE squibs: Considering the horror that squibs are viewed with especially in the old families, and the accompanying fears about the line, etc.... Would some of our young hotheads potentially also be wondering if the old ways might not provide some means of compensating for or 'fixing' any unfortunate squibs their family might throw? I'm fairly sure I read a fanfic once where DEs were holding bloody rituals involving muggleborn infants in an attempt to transfer power to their squib children... And squibs, we know, do have some passive magical abilities - seeing dementors, seeing and interacting with the castle, etc.

Also, something struck me RE Severus on noting your wording at the end of this:

So of course any Dark Lord worth his salt is eventually going to be tempted to overthrow Secrecy. Anyone seriously interested in maximizing his personal magical power (and who knows his history, which Hogwarts tries quite desperately to ensure that no-one will) will in time start wondering what power might be his if he could only resurrect some of the Old Ways.

It's probably just the fact that it's a common phrase, but it echoed Severus' own words in a way that made me sit up a little:

"He wouldn't give me the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, you know. Seemed to think it might, ah, bring about a relapse... tempt me into my old ways."

Which makes little sense strictly from the perspective of considering Secrecy-breaking as such. It's bullshit, of course, but it has to be bullshit that would make sense to a fellow dark arts specialist. But consider his wording: "bring about a relapse" into his "old ways."

If it were commonly assumed that practitioners of the dark arts had likely engaged in experimenting with some of the old multi-participant magics, and further if it were suspected or known that engaging in them - with OR without *consenting* others - and experiencing that amplification of power had any sort of even mildly addictive effect, even just psychologically...

Whether or not Severus had ever actually done much or any experimenting in that regard himself - or if he had been present at any, er, events put on by the Dark Lord - the story he and Dumbledore cooked up for Voldie about his being denied the DADA job suggests that, at the very least among those with an understanding of the nature of the arts and the history of magic, it would be unsurprising if a former practitioner of the arts who had played around with such magics, upon being re-exposed enough to ANY stimulus related to them, might find themselves caught in something resembling an addict's spiral. Possibly leading from the more benign and consensual magics to the less so? (I mean, it wouldn't be impossible to find the odd neo-pagan muggle or two interested in seeing the 'sex' part of the 'sex and death' magics, it's not *completely* out of reach for the thoughtful practitioner...)

For practitioners working under post-Seclusion conditions, at the least.

(And that Severus and Dumbles, of course, were doing their best to convince his former fellows that he was totally not morally opposed to any of that, not at all, Big Bad Conscienceless DE here....)

Re: Gaah?

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

I do think we might have to consider that 40 students in Harry's year has at least a little to do with the first Voldy war. Yes, some people like Molly and Arthur saw the war as a reason to marry and have children before they might die -- hopefully leaving their line to continue after they were dead.

But I think we also have to contemplate that perhaps others might put off having children until after the war As well as remembering that all those inferi cam from somewhere, I think Voldy (not necessarily his DEs as has been pointed out before) managed to 'disappear' an awful lot of magicals and so reduced the amount of adults present to even have children.

Hogwarts was apparently built to house MANY more people than it does today. Unless the Founders felt that the action of continually building was somehow magical in itself, then there must be a reason for it's size. Of course, part of that size might also be as a fortress for all of Hogsmeade to run to in case of witch hunts, but Hogsmeade is not so large that it's population would fill Hogwarts.

But I do think that the mere size of Hogwarts suggests that there was once a much larger student base, even if it was not during the Founders' Time. but enlarged afterwards.

Re: Gaah?

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I think it was either jodel or swythyv who pointed this out, but there are two things about the size of the castle:

1) It may originally have been a much smaller building, added to over the centuries.

2) It may have originally served, not only as a school and fortress, but also as the seat of British wizarding government and/or the hospital. St Mungo's is in a MODERN building downtown - it wasn't originally there way back when it was founded. And the wizengamot and Ministry too. So the size of it isn't directly tied only to the student body.

The 40 in Harry's year might be due to the war, yes. But there's nothing to suggest that they normally would have seen hugely more than that in a 'regular' year. 50 tops, I'd say. To go back to jodel here (Estimating Wizarding Population):

"there are still only 12 subjects taught at the school, and only one professor to teach each subject, and class sizes run to about 20 students per class, and no more than about 6 classes are held in a day. This doesn’t add up to 1000 students. It doesn’t add up to 600, either."

"Ms Rowling shows us a 7-year school with only ONE instructor of each subject offered (at least until Firenze showed up), dorms which house no more than five boys or girls per house per year, and combined classes with equipment enough to only serve 20 students."

"If we calculate a standard birth cohort of 40 with a projected lifespan of 90–120 years you get a total population of 3,600–4,800.

Offset against a Muggle population for Great Britain and Ireland that is now up to around 65,000,000 that doesn’t really look proportionally that far off from Rowling’s estimate of 3,000.

And most wizards don’t actually make it to the age of 90–120. There are a lot of magical illnesses out there that tend to carry them off before they realize their full potential life spans. And besides, magic is dangerous."

I don't think the castle really was built to hold a massive student population. It's just that students are the only ones LEFT, now that the building's other functions have been reduced.

Magical Population Size

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Just adding some thoughts to the discussion...

I don't think we can use the current ratio of magicals to muggles to estimate the magical population size 1000 years ago. The factors that caused the real-world population explosion of recent centuries - sanitation, agricultural methods, medical science, literacy, etc. - would not have affected the magical population nearly as much. The magical community was a comparatively "developed" society centuries earlier. So the current student body size may not be significantly different from what it was, say, 500 years ago.

Something to consider, in terms of a possible population decrease, is emigration. There are huge swaths of the Americas and Australia with extremely low population densities, large enough to potentially hide a small city. And there may have been an exodus from Europe during the witch hunts, which began around the same time as European exploration (maybe not a coincidence, given who the experts in astronomy were.) More recently, some families may have left the UK because of either Voldemort or Dumbledore, which might have made Harry's class size smaller than that of his parents.

Re: Magical Population Size

[sunnyskywalker]

Emigration might make a big difference, when we're working with numbers as small as the wizarding world's! We don't hear about mass emigration, so I don't think it was toodramatic. But if, say, three couples who ended up having children in Harry's year had them in Canada or Australia instead, there's 3 fewer students in Harry's year, and maybe 3-8 fewer students for Hogwarts overall. Plus a few other families reducing the other class sizes as well. I don't think there could have been mass emigrations or we ought to have heard, but enough to give Hogwarts 40 or 50 fewer students than it otherwise might have had? Maybe! It doesn't explain the whole size difference between the Marauders' year and Harry's, but it helps.

Given the relatively tiny number of students in each age (compared to Muggle numbers), even small random variations in Muggleborn births could also make a difference. Maybe Harry's year has 8 Muggleborns and James's had 15. Again, not much when spread out over all four Houses, but it helps.

So maybe we're not looking for a single-cause reason why James's class seems to be significantly bigger than Harry's. Say James had a few extra Muggleborn classmates because of random variation, and a few people emigrated whose kids otherwise would have been in Harry's class, and a few more decided to delay childbearing by a couple of years. And maybe James's class also got lucky with three sets of twins, because those things happen sometimes. Add a bunch of little variations together, and it might work to explain the big one without looking for some humongous dramatic factor that somehow left little to no other trace on the Potterverse.

Patroni

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Not that I disagree here, but I'm wondering why IF a patronus is part of dark magic, then why is it assumed that no DE can successfully cast one?

Considering how difficult it is believed to be to cast by most adult magicals -- and considering just how much success Harry had in teaching it to a large group of teenagers -- I agree that 'belief' that one CAN cast it is part of what makes it possible. Harry never cast a fully corporal patronus until he thought he already had -- even though that was really his future self who he had seen cast it.

I think in large part the reason so many in the DA could cast it was because they were learning it surrounded by others who were succeeding. This also might be the reason apparition is taught in a large group -- it helps one 'believe' they can do it when watching others succeed.

Then we also have the fact that the same Harry who could cast one big enough to repel 100 dementors from across the lake, two years later had trouble with repelling just 2 in that alley off Privet Drive. Combine this with Prof. Snape's instructions on another way to defend oneself from dementors -- which we never learn, but I suspect to involve occlumency since Sirius found it easier to withstand them when he wasn't in his 'human' mind. Occlumency makes a lot of sense of why the DEs in Azkaban (like Bella who knew occlumecy) were not entirely insane or dead by the time they escaped.

Of course I also suspect that Snape thought running away to outside their 'sphere of influence' would help tremendously when attempting to cast a patronus and wouldn't Harry despise THAT idea as anti-gryffindor. I wonder whether that might play a part in why the ministry did not believe dementors were in Surrey? That they could not imagine that Harry COULD cast a patronus that would be up to repelling a dementor in such an enclosed space?

I must admit that I long feared during the last 2 books that some member of the DA would be kissed because they stood there trying to cast a patronus while within a dementor's sphere of influence, knowing they COULD cast a patronus, but having no idea that they might not be able to do so in close quarters with one, never having tried to cast one even with Harry's boggart near.

But why can a DE not cast one? It isn't as if none of them can be happy. Surely many of them have more happy thoughts to draw upon than Harry did. That's where I think the 'belief' part comes into play. I think the ministry must have purposely convinced the public that it is almost impossible to cast a patronus once they decided to use dementors to guard Azkaban.

It probably IS impossible for an Azkaban inmate to cast one when a dementor is focused upon them. They would not only be within the dementor's sphere of influence, but long exposure to them would have also made it more difficult to come up with the needed 'happy thought'. But it is interesting to think that there was a ploy to convince dark arts practioners that a patronus was a purely 'light' magic that they would not be able to manage if they continued to practice dark magic.

RE: Patroni

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

I believe the most obvious answer is that DEs don't even have to worry about Dementors since they and the creatures all work for Voldemort...?

Re: Patroni

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Except that they didn't until the last 2 books. Previous to that, the dementors worked for the Ministry. And it has been implied by JKR (or really stated outright in interview) that DEs can't cast a patronus. Not that they simply didn't need to, but that they actually cannot.

Re: Patroni

[oryx_leucoryx]

In addition to hwyla's point, people working with dementors need to be able to control them for their own safety - see Dolores Umbridge's Patronus. Let alone when the dementors were randomly swarming the countryside - Death Eaters have family members, how can they be safe?

Re: Patroni

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Except it's not canon that DEs can't cast or are assumed to be unable to cast the spell. That's PURELY from JKR throwing it out in an interview later. Which...rarely does anything she say there match up with the books. So personally, I don't think there's anything solid to the idea.

We know that Umbridge - who works for the DE Ministry happily enough and claims ties to a DE - can cast it.

Re: Patroni

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

But that does not mean that SHE practices any form of casting dark magic -- with the exception of her attempt at a crucio on Harry (someone please remind me whether it had any actual affect or if Hermione interrupted her before we saw any - I no longer remember anything other than her trying to psych herself up for it).

My point was not that DEs can't cast a patronus because they are dark, but that they have been brainwashed over the ages by the Ministry to BELIEVE they cannot do so. All they would need is to believe they CAN.

That means that Umbridge - whether or not she is a DE or 'dark' -believes she CAN and so she is able. It could be as simple as she knew she already could (like Harry) or that she believes she is right (and NOT dark) and therefore there is no reason (according to what the previous Ministry has said) why she cannot.

Yes, she worked with the DE ministry, but so did Percy. There was after all a figurehead that was under an Imperius Curse. Did they KNOW it was a Voldy-run Ministry? And yes, she claimed relatives which included a DE, but so did Sirius - for that matter since she wasn't claiming a close relationship, one could say the same of the Weasleys and the Longbottoms.

We can only be sure that she utilized a blood quill, which I presume (but is not actually stated in the books) to be a 'dark' object. For all we know, the normal use of a blood quill is for signing contracts and she misused it. (much as the Marauders used presumably 'light' spells in a 'dark' manner)

On a side note, I do wonder whether she really was related to the Selwyns, since DE Selwyn did not call her out as a liar?

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

So anybody want to talk about Lily not jumping out the window with Harry to get out of the non-apparation sphere and get away?

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

I would say that by that time she had convinced herself that she never really ever 'flew' -- that she had merely jumped from the swing. In other words, she no longer believed it possible.

It is an interesting parallel, that Harry in bk7 jumps out of a window in Godric's Hollow. Not sure though what it means.

Of course, IF Lily had tried to escape by window, then it is doubtful that Harry would have had her protection if she was AK'd in the back while running with Harry in her arms. No that she had any idea that her death could protect Harry.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

That's just so sad. You live in a world where people spit in the face of the laws of physics, entropy (Hannibal Lecter who lost his sister and routinely hoped that "The teacup might come back together" would die of envy in the face of "Reparo") and energy conservation on a daily basis, yet still you set up stupid limitations like "people can't fly"? It's not like experimenting with anti-matter or artificial black holes that would really threaten the world!

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe it wasn't so much that she didn't believe she couldn't fly/fall slowly anymore, as that she didn't believe that she could do so while simultaneously Apparating away once she'd got past the anti-Apparition wards? Like, having to believe two impossible things at once (that she didn't have to listen to gravity, and that she was actually in the alley behind the Hog's Head rather than Godric's Hollow) was just too much at once?

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Probably, yeah, like hwyla says, she no longer thought it possible. Either she'd forgotten that early magic, or convinced herself that it wasn't that close to flying, etc. etc. and so didn't think about it in Godric's Hollow.

Or she'd been so thoroughly permeated by Gryff thinking that the mere idea of turning and running was anathema to her...

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

The idea that it was 'Gryffie' thinking is appalling to me. Not that I don't agree. But why is begging to allow Harry to live better than taking him away?

Except for a fluke of 'old magic' that she didn't even know about, taking Harry and running was much more likely to save his life IF she knew that Harry was Voldy's main target. Personally, I think she had no idea that it was really Harry that Voldy was after. I think she and James thought they were in hiding because Voldy was after THEM - not Harry.

[sunnyskywalker]

Oh, I love the distinction between witchcraft and wizardry you've delineated here. They're both right in the school, after all! By Harry's time, the most common usage for the practitioners seems to be witch/female and wizard/male (and so the school name is more "we're co-ed!" than "we teach two branches of magic!"), but that isn't necessarily the original, technical definition, of course. It's just that historically, men were more likely to get appointed as court wizards and be accounted wise and learned, so "wizard" became associated with men. And witches, well, who usually gets stuck with minor domestic tasks, or the support tasks for greater works, like making potions to cure boils? Right. But among the older families, and in certain job titles, the old categorizations might still be used.

And belief fueling magic, yes. Harry tells us straight up that that's how he cast the Patronus charm in PoA: he knew he could do it, because he knew he'd already done it. Happy memories alone didn't suffice.

[oryx_leucoryx]

For all we know, in prehistoric times, it is possible that only magical males practiced wizardry, with wands, and only magical females practiced witchcraft, with herbs and cauldrons, but no wands. Hence all the phallic references wrt wands.

[sunnyskywalker]

Iirc, on the Continent, some men were burned as witches (in varying proportions to the women, depending on region). But this might be a translation issue--what were they called in Latvian? Er. Anyway, they were at the "village practitioner" level, like the women. Low status = no phallic symbol for you, maybe? (Also, probably many fewer wands were produced in the past and they were probably much more expensive, which might also have been a factor.)

But if we're talking ancient Greece and Rome, yes, only men being allowed to use wands (and staffs?) sounds entirely plausible. Paterfamilias wouldn't want to share that power with his wife or daughters, obviously! (Egypt might be a different story. They weren't a gender-equal paradise, but women had a lot more legal rights and could serve on juries, enter into contracts, act as witnesses, own property, get prenups, file for divorce...)

So the Founders might have inherited some of that tradition, especially if some or all of them had a background in the Church of Rome. There might have been the odd exception, but Helga in particular might have been wandless. (Rowena, if she had noble or royal background and was a powerful abbess before leaving to found the school, might have been one of the exceptions.)

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I was struggling with potions, and then I thought "...Witchcraft and Wizardry..." DUH. The witch with her cauldron. And it clicked.

And yes, a distinction between types of magic being mapped onto a gender framework... It would also fit with Sev's attitude about it, somewhat.

[sunnyskywalker]

He's not just a cook, he's a highly skilled chef, so it isn't girly, so there! Just try and see if you can do as well, and you'll realize it's an equal branch of magic!

Yeah.

[sunnyskywalker]

I've been re-reading PS/SS, and I'll be darned if it doesn't keep tossing up implicit support for belief-powered magic. Here's Molly Weasley's advice on getting through the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, with the suggestive part in bold:

"Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important."

Mind you, Harry's mind is filled with thoughts of how he's going to crash into the wall as he's doing it and so you can't say he really believes he can get through, but crucially, he closes his eyes when he gets close. Maybe not being able to see exactly when it looks like he'll crash is just enough somehow? After all, this barrier is intended for scared kids, so it couldn't be too sensitive to their doubts or hardly any of them would get through.

Still. How interesting that Molly includes that little aside.

Nice catch

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

But by closing his eyes... he can't know when the crash should occur. So there's never a moment where he knows, "I'm hitting it now."

Also--how would Molly know to tell Harry that? It's not like any Pureblood kids ever would stop to wonder if a barrier against the Muggles might apply to them.

Unless, of course, they were or feared they were Squibs.

Magic level plus belief needed?

But then, how did Tuney and the Evans parents get through? It seems to be only belief-based (but maybe Squibs believe that they might/should have difficulty getting through).