This is probably an unanswerable question, but how does Hogwarts find the magical kids in non-magical families? They can tell when magic is being performed (although not who is performing it) at a particular address: when Dobby shows up at Privet Drive, the MoM thinks it was Harry who performed the magic. Harry apparently manifested magic on numerous occasions before his letters started arriving. Is there a sub-sub-department at the MoM that then monitors an address carefully to see which kid in the family is magical? Speculation welcome.
A wizard did it.
Speculation is unnecessary.
There’s a magic quill that can detect when a magical child is born and writes their name down. So presumably each year McGonagall checks all the names that were written eleven years prior (more or less) and sends out the letters.
AClockworkMelon got it. I was going to say that there was some sort of magical births record somewhere, but I didn’t know the exact mechanism behind it.
Even so, you have to pretty much stalk these children for 11 years, so they probably also use the “detect magic” thing to keep tabs on them if they move. Either that or they cast some sort of tracking charm on them.
My question is what if they move out of the country? Do they still get the letter if they move to Boston at the ripe old age of 6? Do they notify the nearest Wizarding school that <Child> is moving into their district?
Well, I don’t remember if JK Rowling really said how it works outside of Britain, but I assume it works essentially the same in the US as it does there. One thing I remember is until Voldemort takes over, magical kids aren’t required to go to Hogwarts. They can be home taught, but usually (as demonstrated by the Rita Skeeter kerfluffle about Ariana Dumbledore) those kids are viewed with suspicions of being squibs. I expect they still have to follow wizarding law, and I assume ignorance of the law is not an acceptable excuse to Magical Law Enforcement. After all, they came down hard on Harry when Dobby did magic in the Dursley’s house despite Harry’s innocence.
Kids can also go to other schools if the wish; Draco’s dad wanted him to go to Durmstrang.
what i’m curious about is the trace. is it a spell cast onto the young wizard (say, at hogwarts?)
i question the magic quill though. some wizards take years before they display magical abilities.
Which ones? Longbottom was close to his eleventh birthday before he did, but I don’t recall reading about anyone else that old or older when their magic manifested for the first time.
nevermind
If the quill writes their names at birth, it seems clear that it doesn’t require the active use of magic in order to detect a potential wizard.
As far as I know, the mechanism isn’t clear, but obviously someone working with Hogwarts had a magical way to keep track of Harry’s movement as his birthday approached in “Harry Potter and the ____ Stone”, (fill in as appropriate for your local edition ;).) What with all the letters that kept coming no matter how far from home Uncle Vernon tried to take him, and finally when all of them went unopened, Hagrid coming to tell them in person.
Harry had accidentally worked magic a few times accidentally, but he wasn’t casting spells non-stop as his family was taking him from place to place running from the letters.
the gaunts didn’t go to hogwarts. merope in particular could have really used the time away from dad.
no doubt there are some that consider hogwarts subversive or something and keep their kids home. it doesn’t seem to be many of them though.
So I suppose everyone politely doesn’t notice when the quill doesn’t note a squib?
About tracking their movements: A wizard’s owl is a magical creature, not just a trained carrier pigeon. Even if I (or my owl) doesn’t know your location I can still send you mail and the owl will find its way to you. I’m assuming the quill only writes down the names of children born in the UK. So if someone was born in the UK and their name was written down and they subsequently move elsewhere they’ll presumably still get a letter. They can either ship their kid off long-distance to still attend Hogwarts or they’ll use a local school.
About tracing them: The trace is an area spell likely covering the UK that detects whenever magic is cast within a certain distance of an underage wizard or witch. They can tell what magic was used, but not who actually used it. Some Ministry desk-jockey will check the location and if there are adult wizards or witches known to be in the area they’ll assume it was the adult that used the magic. If not (like in Harry’s case) they’ll send the juvenile delinquent a written warning.
There isn’t someone constantly watching the quill to see if it’ll write a name down. Parents won’t know their kid is a squib until their letter fails to arrive.
Remember that little kids will typically show evidence of magic long before they turn 11. Neville bounced when one of his relatives nearly killed him by pushing him from a great height, desperate to coax the magic out of him in the hopes that he wasn’t a squib; they didn’t have access to the record kept at Hogwarts which had long had Neville’s name written down. He would have received a letter even if he hadn’t displayed the magic that saved his life.
Too late to edit: Keep in mind that it’s never said that the Ministry knows /which/ wizzle activated the trace. They only knew it was Harry because they knew where he lived and that’s where the trace picked up the use of magic. Given that everyone else living there were muggles it was only logical that it had been him that used magic.
So if I’m an underage wizard who goes out into the wilderness and uses magic, all they’ll know is that a.) There’s an underage wizard in that vicinity and b.) That magic was used by someone. For all they know it’s a family going camping and the parents are the ones using magic.
Think about the consequences of this. It means that children enjoy a degree of protection. Normally I could come up to you and use Imperio to make you dance around for my amusement, but if there’s a little kid nearby the Ministry will be made aware that an unforgivable was used and send someone to investigate. So when Voldy avada’d the Potter family the Ministry was made aware of it soon afterwards. It also means that if you have children the Ministry will know, more or less, exactly what magic you use in your everyday life.
Also keep in mind that the trace will only activate if a spell is used, not just magic in general, otherwise Harry would have received a letter for what he did at the zoo. This is a contradiction in the books, because it was Dobby’s magic that got him the warning and house elves aren’t supposed to use the same kind of magic wizards do (but then, Dobby was /trying/ to get Harry into trouble so maybe they’re capable of both).
Obviously they hack into the cellphones of the families and look for anything suspicious.
Actually, I might be wrong about one thing: The ministry might be able to tell which specific wizard activated the trace, thus Harry’s fear that Voldy was using it to track him in book 7. That being said, Harry didn’t really know how it worked (he thought it might still be on him even though he was an adult), so he could have been wrong about that bit, too.
I’m re-reading the series right now, that the owls are a bit annoying. If someone wanted to find Sirius Black, couldn’t they just attach a letter to an owl and follow it on a broomstick?
That, and when Harry came back with Cedric Diggory, why would anyone in power doubt him? Just extract the memory, put it in the Pensieve and have everyone in power view it.
The owls likely fly up into the air, then apparate most of the journey, then fly the rest of the way to their destination.
Fanwank: They didn’t just not believe him: They wanted to not believe him. They were afraid of what they’d find so they didn’t look.
Real reason: Rowling hadn’t thought of and introduced the idea of pensieves to the story yet. There are a number of times throughout the series where you have to sort of let the wool be pulled over your eyes (the timeturners, for example, perhaps the most devastatingly powerful magical items ever mentioned in the stories and one was given to a 13-year old girl so she could take a few extra classes - good thing they were so conveniently destroyed during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries - you’d think the baddies would have been after a handful of those so they could go Terminator II on all the good guys).
The Pensieve isn’t perfect. It’s shown in Half-Blood Prince that people can tamper with their own memories to conceal information. I don’t think this is ever specifically addressed, but I would think that the memories of someone who was truly delusional would include their delusions, making it impossible to determine what had really happened. IIRC Harry was accused of being mentally unstable, not necessarily a deliberate liar. Pretty much the same problems apply to veritaserum – someone who genuinely believes what they’re saying would presumably tell the same story under the serum, even if they were wrong. (On preview I see that **AClockworkMelon **has pointed out that the Pensieve hadn’t been introduced by book 4, but veritaserum was used in that same book.)
In this specific case, most of the people in power also wanted to doubt Harry…or seem to doubt him. Many preferred to stick their heads in the sand rather than deal with the possibility that Lord Voldemort was really back, and at least a few were Death Eaters who would be deliberately concealing the truth until Voldemort was ready to act openly. We’re shown again and again in the series that wizard government officials tend to be at best clueless and at worst outright corrupt.