Harry Potter - Underage use of magic question

[Magiver]

@kaylasdad99

He knew what it was, having read the note that accompanied it in January. But he viewed it as an easy way for him to get Sirius caught, so he set it aside, and didn’t remember it in June (until he was packing to go home)).

That’s a pretty big plot hole. Harry forgot one of the few gifts ever received from his only living relative when he needed it most.

The books are full of major plot errors so it’s best not to think of them.

[KneadToKnow]

@Antinor01

And then Harry was summoned to a trial and charged with breaking the underage magic use law and nearly expelled from Hogwarts.

I will not pretend my memory is perfect on this point, but I could have sworn that the charge was using magic in front of a Muggle.

[rocking_chair]

it was both. underage use of magic and magic in front of a muggle. not that the muggle noticed at the time.

[kaylasdad99]

@Magiver

The books are full of major plot errors so it’s best not to think of them.

I know. I’m still trying to work out how Voldemort’s phoenix feather wand got from the debris pile in Godric’s Hollow to Peter Pettigrew’s robes in Little Hangleton.

[fachverwirrt]

@kaylasdad99

He knew what it was, having read the note that accompanied it in January. But he viewed it as an easy way for him to get Sirius caught, so he set it aside, and didn’t remember it in June (until he was packing to go home)).

I’ll look it up when I have some time, but I’m pretty sure Sirius pressed it into his hand and told him it was something to contact him in case Snape was bullying Harry. Harry never read the note or opened it, instead stuffing it in his trunk since he was determined not to put Sirius in danger. Then he forgot about it. He didn’t read the note until later, after Sirius was dead. So he didn’t really understand what it was.

I wouldn’t call a distracted teenager forgetting about something he hasn’t seen in four months a plot hole.

[Arnold_Winkelried]

“I want you to take this,” he said quietly, thrusting a badly wrapped package roughly the size of a paperback book into Harry’s hands.

“What is it?” Harry asked.

“A way of letting me know if Snape’s giving you a hard time. No, don’t open it in here!” said Sirius, with a wary look at Mrs. Weasley, who was tryig to persuade the twins to wear hand-knitted mittens. “I doubt Molly would approve—but I want you to use it if you need me, all right?”

“Okay,” said Harry, stowing the package away in the inside pocket of his jacket, but he knew he would never use whatever it was. It would not be he, Harry, who lured Sirius from his place of safety, no matter how foully Snape treated him in their forthcoming Occlumency classes.

I don’t call it a plot hole - I call it Harry being a total idiot, going to all this effort to sneak into Umbridge’s office, getting a bunch of his friends in trouble, when he should have remembered Sirius’s present.

[Double_Foolscap]

Yeah, Harry was given a solid thumping by the Idiot Stick in OotP. Also known as adolescence

[Anne_Neville]

I just thought of this. The underage magic law is a way to discriminate against Muggle-born witch/wizard children. The law basically doesn’t apply to a kid living with an adult witch or wizard. It’s clear that the law is applied selectively, since Harry gets in much more trouble for using magic at some times rather than others.

Since the spells to detect underage magic can’t see who in a home is using magic, it seems like it would be pretty easy for the authorities to frame an underage witch or wizard they didn’t like. Have an adult witch or wizard Apparate in the kid’s home, and boom, you can accuse the kid of doing magic. Or send a house-elf to do magic, and accuse the kid of doing it.

In one of the books, Harry worries about his magical skills getting rusty without practice over the summer. A kid living with an adult witch or wizard could practice using magic outside of school without the law coming down on them, a kid in a Muggle household couldn’t. This is another way in which this law could be used to discriminate against Muggle-borns.