I feel confident in saying that, if there were official high school auto racing teams, the students would be required to provide their own cars.
No, Voldemort believed that nobody else knew about the room at all. This makes no sense at all, of course, but I think the whole point is that Voldemort was so powerful that he could never have been defeated if his arrogance hadn’t led him to make dumb mistakes like that.
I’m having trouble remembering where we’re told that. Can you help me out?
Deathly Hallows. Harry is monitoring Voldemort’s thoughts (after Voldemort learns of the retrieval of the Hufflepuff cup), and Voldemort is going over a list of where all of the Horcruxes are, with the intention of checking up on them. He considers the diadem the lowest priority because, in his thoughts, he’s the only one who “knows all of Hogwarts’s secrets; no one else but him ever found that place.”
Who knows, maybe he thought he had discovered the place where everything goes after it’s been Vanished.
He didn’t tell the Order about the Horcruxes because Dumbledore told him not to. His last instructions from Dumbledore was that he was not to tell anyone but Ron and Hermoine. He stuck to that after Dumbledore died because he assumed tht there was a reason that Dumbledore had not told the Order himself.
How about this one. Voldy wants to kill Potter. Ok. Best way to do so is to get him out of Hogwarts via Portkey. Only way to do that is to touch the Tri-Wizard Cup.
Up till now fine. But did’nt someone point out a bit of a flaw in the plan, namely that through the Tourny he will learn so many hexes and curses that he will actually be able to fight well. I mean the guy eats Death Eaters for breakfast in the last three books.
Or are Death Eaters the Stormtroopers of the harry potter universe?
As did Crabbe, IIRC. He was killed by his own Fiendfyre.
What mostly bugged me was the stupid lack of communication crap that Harry kept pulling, especially during his fourth and fifth years. I feel like a lot of the Triwizard frustration he was having could have been solved by sitting down and having a chat with Dumbledore about what was actually going on. And don’t get me started about his temper tantrum in the fifth book. I don’t care if he’s a teenager, that shit is ANNOYING.
Also, obviously how you pronounce an incantation or magical spell is important. What if you had some sort of speech impediment, or just an impossible accent? Would your ability to do magic be hindered, or could you find some way around it?
Something I’ve been wondering about: does culture affect the way one does magic? What would Chinese magic look like compared with, say, Ghanaian magic? Would cultural norms dictate what sorts of spells were acceptable? Would certain types of magic be perfectly okay in one culture, but taboo in others? Are the “unforgivable curses” universally unforgivable? Historical events like Salem probably would’ve had a huge effect on American magic in particular, or at least on the East Coast. Would American magic also be influenced by the American Indians, or African slaves? Same with Europe. Would there be some influence from countries that Europe had colonized? I find it hard to believe that there wouldn’t be some manner of difference between magic of different cultures, and that there wouldn’t be some manner of mixing between two or more of these cultures.
I’m embarrassed to admit I almost considered writing a thesis on this very topic.
These are my pet peeves:
What was arithmancy?
Based on so many wizards’ complete ignorance of muggles, they do not go to regular school from 5-10. They don’t appear to have other wizard schools, as none of the kids seem to know each other from before, never mention previous schooling, that one of the young brothers of a Hogwarts student was killed at home during book 6 or 7.
So how did the wizard kids learn to read, write, socialize for 10+ years?
Assuming that Beauxbatons and Durmstrang are similarly populated as Hogwarts, where do the rest of the wizard kids go to school? There have to be other schools in Europe. There were some hints too in books where non-squibs said how they were worried about their getting in, how the Slytherins want to make it more selective.
And there have to be other schools because Hogwarts can’t support enough fully qualified wizards to populate the British wizarding world.
5 boys in Harry’s year and house. Let’s say that’s average. That’s 40 kids per year. 280 students. That’s not enough to staff the Ministry of Magic, Diagon Alley, The Quibbler, the Daily Prophet, St Mungo’s, just for starters. There isn’t mention that there are a lot of foreigners, so it ain’t those dang immigrant wizards stealing the good jobs. 
And let’s not forget that despite wizards being able to live longer, they’ve had a high death rate since Voldemort entered Hogwarts.
And if the community were so small, everyone would know each other, but they don’t. If they all went to Hogwarts, then they’d all know Slughorn, for example. Some of the students were like “Oh you know the Weird Sisters?,” but if they went to Hogwarts, then all the teachers would know them. Everyone would be like one or two degrees of separation.
I forget the number, but I think JK herself gave a fairly high number of wizard population that could not be supported by Hogwarts’ numbers by my above guesstimate.
So therefore there has to be more wizarding schools in the British Isles.
A variant of numerology I think.
I never understood why Sybil Trelawney was kept on. She made one true prophesy in her life and taught what was essentially a worthless course for the next 18 years. It’d be kind of like keeping on a phrenology teacher because they once wrote a well received paper.
I assumed Dumbledore kept her there for her own protection; he knew if Voldy and the Death Eaters got hold of her, they could torture her for the contents of the prophecy. He prevented her from moving out after Umbridge fired her in OotP.
Which begs the question of why didn’t Voldy just order Snape to flirt with the old fraud, invite her to Hogsmeade for a drink, and hand her over to the Death Eaters once she was out of the castle (or hell, just kidnap her at some point, surely she must go to town sometimes to replenish her supply of cooking sherry), but one thing I know about Evil Villians is they will always choose the intricately plotted and complicated doomed-to-failure plan over the simple and straightforward one.
She was kept on because Dumbledore knew that Voldemort knew she’d made a prophecy concerning him and Harry (remember, Snape heard a little of it), and Dumbledore wanted to keep her both safe from and inaccessible to Voldemort. No telling what he could have gotten out of her if he’d gotten his hands on her.
Plus, there was always the chance she might make more prophecies.
Damnit Marlitharn! How can it be that you’d answer this question just as I was, when it had been sitting there for hours?
Oh, and Marlitharn, as I recall, the prophecy was made the same night Voldemort attacked Harry and his family. He couldn’t give the order as he was short a body. Plus, the attack that night was what made Snape sign up with Dumbledore.
1)There is nothing that 4-11 year olds learn in muggle schools that parents can’t teach. “Reading writing rithmatic” are something most parents can handle. And IIRC JKR did say that many wizards do go to muggle primary school.
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You don’t know the number who are in Harry’s year or in Gryffindor for that matter, only those who are in Harry’s dorm and those he interacts with, for instance he had little interaction with Cormac before 6th year.
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And in anycase attendence is not compulsory it only becomes compulsory in the last year IIRC.
In Harry’s year in Gryffindor, there are five boys (Harry, Ron, Dean, Seamus, Neville), three named girls (Hermione, Parvati, and Lavender), and if the evidence of the Boggart class scene in PoA is taken into account, two more unnamed-in-the-text girls.
Preposterous. The prophecy foretold Harry’s birth. The attack on Godric’s Hollow didn’t occur until nearly a year and a half later.
BTW, wrt MacNair disgustedly executing a pumpkin upon learning of Buckbeak’s escape: isn’t June a little early in the season for pumpkins to set? Should still be blossoms, even with magical assistance, I’d say.
I think the prophecy was made some time before the attack; in book 7 we see that Snape is horrified when he finds out the information he gave to Voldemort puts Lily in danger, and he gives his service to Dumbledore in exchange for Dumbledore’s promise that he’d keep Lily safe. (On preview: yeah, what kaylasdad99 said.)
But I was thinking more of OotP, and the convoluted plan Voldy came up with to get Harry to the Ministry of Magic so he could get hold of the prophecy. It’s been a year since his resurrection; surely it would have been much easier to kidnap Trelawney when she makes a sherry run to Hogsmeade instead? I saw no indication that Dumbledore had her confined to the castle - she never seemed to have any idea she was in danger, and if he’d tried to forbid her leaving the grounds he’d have to give her some reason for it.
How about the “Unforgiveable Curses”? We are told just using them once is enough, but we see the good guys using them right left center and no one bats an eyelid. Harry is actually told off for not using the Avada Kedevra!
I can’t place either of those two statements in context. Can you refresh my memory?
It’s worth remembering that we’re told that the ban on using UC was lifted by the Ministry during the first Voldemort war.
Harry Crucios Bellatrix in OOTP and one of the Carrow’s in DH, the latter in front of McGonagall who later Imperios the same guy. He also attempted to Crucio Snape and got blocked
He also uses the Imperius Curse against the goblin and death eater in Gringotts.
He was told off by Lupin in Deathly Hallows for attempting to disarm a Death Eater instead of killing him.
As for UC and the first war, if memory serves Auror’s were given powers to kill if necessary as opposed to using the UC, we know that other curses can and do kill. Sort of like Anti-Terror Police have the power to kill a terrorist if necessary during operations.
No, not true (I just listened to this part in my audiobook about a week ago). Lupin tells Harry off for attempting to disarm him rather than stunning him, though Harry points out that at the altitude they were flying, stunning him off his broom would be the same as killing him. So yes, indirectly Lupin was sanctioning Harry killing someone, but he wasn’t suggesting that Harry use Avada Kedavra.
Also, it wasn’t a “Death Eater”–it was Stan Shunpike under the Imperius curse.
Shunpike did turn out to be a Death Eater IIRC. And the exact quote was “at least stun if you are’nt prepared to kill”.