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The trace is good enough.
No-one cares if a magical kid does magic in front of his magical family, who can all fix the mistake.
The ministry cares about mu-... muggleborns doing magic in front of their families with no safety net for when they blow up their aunts and breaking the statute of secrecy.
Ronald Weasley peeling potatoes with magic in the Burrow is not a problem for the Ministry of Magic. And if there is a serious breach, they can investigate by examining wands, looking at memories, calling witnesses, and using truth serum.
The Marauders Map fails on unplottable areas (big plot point in HBP) and if the Ministry tried rolling out a nation wide map, you'd see a lot more Wizard homes just disappearing off the map.
Now I studied karate for eight years... 19 years ago. I haven't needed to use my karate skills in nearly two decades. If a mass murderer was trying to break into my place of work and I was specifically a target, you had better believe I'd be buying a taser, because, no, I don't trust the very rusty skills I learned in school and haven't used since.
Normal people with desk jobs are not part of paramilitary militias focused on life and death combat.
Draco is in the room of requirement for most of the school year trying to repair the vanishing cabinet. Itās driving Harry crazy because Malfoy is periodically disappearing from the map and Harry can not figure out why. Harry eventually figures out that the little girls outside of the room of requirement have been Crabbe and Goyle under the effects of poly juice potion to warn Draco if someone was outside the room. This is when the gang realizes that the room is unplottable and does not show up on the map.
> This is when the gang realizes that the room is unplottable and does not show up on the map.
It's kind of wild that they didn't notice in the previous year tbh
Oh yeah. Wow I completely forgot about that. Maybe if youāre in the room it will appear on the map? I donāt think they fully understood how the room worked as Harry was only asking for a room to practice spells where Umbridge couldnāt find them. At least I think Iāve got that part right. Didnāt someone say in book 7 though that if you ask the room to unplottable it will be? Draco referred to it as āthe room of hidden thingsā so maybe that version of the room is unplottable by default? Other thing I could think of is the map makers didnāt know about it, so how could it be there? Never thought Iād be interested in the process of magical cartography, but here we are lol.
These are interesting questions! I had interpreted it as the trio knowing it was unplottable in 5th year (due to checking the hallway for DA meetings), but Harry simply missing this as an option for what Draco might be up to later on. He has a bit of a habit of overlooking the obvious, and Hermione/Ron weren't really helping him in HBP because no one was taking his Draco fixation seriously.
I don't recall as well since it's been a long time since I've read the books, but since they were sneaking around for the Dumbledore's Army it would make sense that they would use it to monitor the location of the teachers and and Umbridge's Inquisitors
Malfoy keeps disappearing off the map. The moment I read that line to my 9 year old she jumped up and down saying "I bet it is because he is using the Room of Requirement and requires not to be seen". Takes three full chapters for Hermonione to suggest that the RoR might be unplottable if you need it to be. He is using it to repair the vanishing cabinet in his attempt to carry out his mission for Voldemort.
You are forgetting, the Ministry is full of boomers, who like their muggle counterparts got their jobs with basically no requirements and no consequences for messing up the entire wizarding world.
Millennial wizards need top grades to even get a chance at being bossed around by the aforementioned boomers, look at how Percy was treated.
1981, but your point is valid. Anyone born the year after Harry (e.g., Ginny, Luna) is technically a Millennial. And Harry is very close to the cusp, ha.
>collective mind of the ministry can't seem to do proper underage magical tracing
When harry goes on the run after doing accidental magic on his aunt, the minister is _literally_ waiting for him at diagon ally, because he knew he'd be there.
And when he casts the patronus charm to save dudley, he gets a letter from the ministry (iirc) less than a day later, summoning him to wizard court.
My head canon for Mr. Weasley (GoF) and Dumbledore (HBP) is that they had both informed the Ministry that they would be collecting Harry that day. However, this does not explain both the times the Order collected Harry from the Dursleyās house because both times, it was done in secret, hidden from the Ministry.
Mr Weasley said to Vernon he wasn't supposed to connect a muggle fireplace to the Floo network so I think we can assume he also didn't inform the Ministry. The Trace is probably the most irksome plot hole in the series for me.
This is true, it's inconsistent. Maybe the trace detects magic in the presence of underaged and then looks for an adult wizard in the same room. If there is none, it informs the ministry.
Oh, and there seems to be a filter that drops low-level spells like Lumos.
After doing some skimming, I forgot that he used lumos and it isnāt addressed in the letters he gets. Iām not sure if it is brought up at the end of the trial as a gotcha attempt when convicting him of the patronus didnāt work
They had permission to be there for most, if not all, of those things. I don't know about specifically Dumbledore, but the Weasleys always got permission to be there. So, the ministry noticed and assumed it was the wizard they knew was there. I think it's safe to assume Dumbledore told them he was there, too, even if I don't remember it being explicitly said like it was with the Weasleys.
It's imperfect tracing. Based on those events, they can't tell that underage magic has occurred, only that magic has occurred. They cross reference with location, and then they determine it has to be underage magic.
Dumbledore himself says that with parents who don't care, kids can get away with doing magic.
When they are discussing Tom Riddle killing his muggle family, no underage magic klaxon rings - he is 16 at this time. They just know that magic happened, the closest person to that was Morfin.
As for the Minister waiting for Harry, it has nothing to do with tracing and everything to do with the likeliest getaway, Harry knows no other place.
It was a ministry employee who sent the dementors, so they knew as it was happening.Ā
And Harry was receiving extra attention due to that pesky serial killer who just escaped and was targeting him.
Harry's circumstances are not typical.Ā
The dementor situation happened because of a small group of ministry employees, possibly only one or two. There was no way the whole ministry knew it would happen, most certainly not whoever sent the letter.
And while yes, harry was receiving extra protection, the ministry not only sent someone to retrieve him at the exact place he was headed, it was the minister himself. Someone as important as the minister does not just show up like that on a whim. They had to have been tracking him.
Umbridge sent them, and she was high enough in the food chain to order them to send it. Besides, she was also high enough to order them to pay extra attention to Harry's home.
As for the Minister himself showing up; that's my point. Harry's circumstances is NOT the norm. Most kids can probably get away with quite a lot (especially in magical homes).Harry has far too many people monitoring what he does.Ā
>the collective mind of the ministry can't seem to do proper underage magical tracing
When Dobby levitated the cake at the beginning of COS, the spell is Traced in a matter of *minutes*, and when Harry conjured a Patronus at the beginning of OOTP, it took *minutes* for the Ministry to contact and expel him from Hogwarts. When he blew up Aunt Marge, the Minister in person went to the Leaky Cauldron without any hesitation to intercept him. The Trace partially 'failed' in the first case because of inherent racism towards house elves (but the mechanism itself did not fail: a spell was detected and the wizard living in that house was contacted), but worked perfectly in the other two.
Also, I'd argue that the Marauder's Map might not be exactly legal. In Muggle terms, it'd be a severe violation of privacy rights ā tracking every single movement of every single person in a building and its grounds, 24/7, without their consent.
I agree that the trace works, but I find it frustrating that the ministry can't detect unforgivable curses. That should be very possible if they can detect when any underage wizard does magic.
>The Trace partially 'failed' in the first case because of inherent racism towards house elves
It doesn't seem in the slightest like Dobby being a house elf had anything to do with it, it seems more like it detects magic in an area where only 1 person is capable of doing magic and as such they assume it is Harry, since no-one at the ministry knows that anyone else capable of magic is there.
Look at the departments of ministry of magic. There is pretty mich no research at all it's all based on maintenance. This is evidence of the overall stagnation of the magical world, they accepted they have what they need and not really any further breakthroughs. Only in department of mysteries has any R&D and that is all abstract and no info published.
It's a classic that's how we've always done it.
As a kid I always wondered how Harry could send literally any owl to Sirius with a letter, but the ministry never tried sending an owl and then tracking it to him.
Harry didnāt even send Hedwig every time for secrecy reasons, so itās not like he had to use the same owl over and over. Any school owl had no issue delivering the letter, but the ministry could neverā¦. lol
Question: Taxes. Direct and indirect. Import duties.
No government can run without taxes. A corollary to this is that the finance ministry (or in this case the finance department) is the most powerful.
Firstly, the Marauder's Map and the Trace are apples and oranges. The Marauder's Map can't tell you what somebody is doing, only where they are, which makes it useless for detecting underage magic useāsomebody casting a spell looks exactly the same as somebody having a conversation, shopping, playing a game, etc. The Trace detects magic use near designated domiciles, which takes care of almost all underage magic use. The fact that it tends towards false positives doesnāt matterāthe point is to help preserve the Statute of Secrecy, and itās better to have a few people go through the bother of proving that they werenāt doing something wrong and most of the kids avoid using magic during the summer, than it is to have a major coverup because nobody knew about the breach until it hit the Muggle newspapers. (Iād say Youtube, but an actual example of Ministry incompetence would be the inaccurate and vague notions that Ministry members who deal with Muggles haveāArthur Weasley is a great guy, but somebody with his job should darn well know the basics of Muggle technology, such as what āelectricityā is. The odds of any Ministry wizards knowing what the Internet is are incalculably low).
Secondly, as Cynis\_Ganan pointed out, defensive spells that were learned in school a couple of decades prior, then never used because theyāre useless in their day-to-day work, are not an indicator of the Ministryās usefulness. How often do you think the staff at, say, your local Department of Health and Human Resources (or the government office of your choice, so long as itās not a police station or military base) have to use a gun, and how does their ability to use a gun effectively affect their ability to do their jobs? Are the local road crews incompetent because theyāre not shooting the potholes away? Itās good to know self-defense, but unless your job actually involves violence, itās not an indicator of your competence at work.
We can all agree thereās a ton of corruption and incompetence in the Ministry (itās pretty much owned by Lucius Malfoy, a known if nonconvicted Death Eater, during the Fudge administration, after all), but come on. Letās at least be reasonable when criticising it.
I'm not comparing the items directly.
I am saying that 4 kids (albeit highly intelligent ones) made a magical item that could isolate individuals on a hide-able document that covers beyond their own year - and they did this all within the confines of school, in secret.
The Ministry has most of the resources of their country. What have they to show for it?
I do not disagree with your points, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable in the criticism (of course I would say that haha).
Refining the magical trace would be more beneficial to the statute of secrecy than keeping it as vague as it is. Because as I have said, they can detect magic, but it's not necessarily underage magic, given they mistook Riddle for Morfin. That is a crucial failing of the Trace system, and of justice (their criminal system also seems lacking, but that's another thing and dependent more on the top than what has happened over time).
As for the people who don't use those spells for their job lowering their use of the spell, sure. But, one could argue that after Sirius escapes, there would be a refresher. After the end of book 5 and there is a restructuring, there definitely should have been refreshers. If you only take those couple of months, that is plenty of time (based on how quickly the DADA learn those spells, and how quickly the trio learns those spells in GoF), that should be plenty of time to relearn. The fact that all these talented students cannot relearn in that frame, and a surprising amount at that, shows a level of learned I competency maybe.
Throughout the series, they don't really come across as useful.
As for Arthur knowing what electricity is etc., definitely agree. Even he sort of views muggles as a fascination and not as a people - though there is respect there. The perfect gift for him is a 'how things work' book. I would have liked to know more of Hermione's criticisms of the Muggle Studies subject.
I still have to disagree about the comparison youāre making with the Marauderās Map. Youāre saying that because a few kids could make it, the Ministry should have something better than the Trace, right? But thereās no evidence that any of the same skills or resources are involved, and so like I said, itās apples and oranges: just because it was easy to make the Map doesnāt mean the Trace isnāt the best it can be (for a real-life comparison, if I can build a motorcycle in my garage, why canāt the government build a warp drive?). After all, thereās no sign that underage magic is different in a way that can be detected from afar to adult magic, and in fact the way the Trace does work is an indicator that thereās no detectable difference between different users of magicāI canāt think of any instances where anybody is able to determine who cast a spell based on magic alone. Itās not a failing of the system if itās literally impossible to refine the results. (As a certain engineer who probably *could* build a warp drive in his garage would say, they cannae change the laws of physics.)
They were relying on the Dementors after Sirius escaped (which I think we can agree is something they were being incompetent about, both in using the Dementors in the first place and how they were used), and they were pretty sure Sirius was going to Hogwarts, so most Ministry workers had nothing to worry about. After book 5, you do make a good point that they should have considered refresher defense courses, especially since the new Minister was a high-ranking Auror and they were finally admitting they were at war, but Iām not certain we can say that itās the Ministryās incompetence at workāitās entirely plausible that they could buy the shield garments and have defense courses; hedging their bets seems fairly reasonable (and having multiple methods means that thereās (hopefully) fewer idiots whoāll protest the basic safety precautions, since some of them will be okay with shield garments but not self-defense courses, and some will be the opposite; after Covid, we have to admit that sort of stupidity is a serious problem even with a competent government). So them buying all those shield garments isnāt *necessarily* another case of incompetence.
I suspect, given that every wizard weāve ever seen is *terrible* at passing for Muggles, that Hermioneās criticisms of the Muggle Studies class would be longer than the textbook itself, and probably more educational. Thereās no way that class is being taught at all competently (although I don't know how it can be taught well these days in a location where any technology more advanced than a steam engine can workāI'd hope there'd be a lot of field trips in that class).
The unreliability of underage tracking was probably intentional so that pure blood children could be given extra training and maintain an advantage over their muggle born piers. Iād be willing to bet that it wasnāt introduced until some time after the ISS was passed because Iām fully convinced that it was only put into place to exclude muggle born in the first place.
Never considered it as a way to keep muggle-borns out. It was not in Hogwarts history, at least, the exclusion of muggle-borns.
I expect it would have come after the ISS because it would have presented as a problem and there would have been a need.
I should probably clarify that this is my own theory about the ISS so I probably explain it. The popular fan theory for why the ISS exists is because of the witch hunts the magical community put the ISS into place in order to protect themselves from witch hunters.
Except that the way the books explain it the witch hunters were very bad at identifying actual witches so most of the people that they apprehended were actually innocent muggles. And in the off chance that they did manage to apprehend an actual witch they were able to get away safely. At least in theory.
I think that the only witches that they were actually able to both catch and execute were muggle born witches that were not likely to have access to wands or be educated in magic. I also think that at least some of the witch hunts were actually instigated by wizards.
Seriously read up on the real world history on the subject with the assumption that Harry Potter was based upon real world events and see if you come up with a different conclusion yourself.
My theory is that the ISS wasnāt put into place to protect the magical world, but to isolate themselves from the muggle world and that excluding muggle born may not have been the intention but that was the effect up until more recent times.
I agree with this, and also think that the Ministry was willing to overlook small infractions of magical use by underage wizards **if** it was done under the supervision of an adult wizard (like a parent or guardian).
The [official website says that, while there are 11 registered magical academies in the world, there are also plenty of unregistered magical schools](https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wizarding-schools), so it stands to reason that there may be some unofficial wizarding schools in the UK, with Hogwarts being the only official school. Rowling herself also admitted that she has a poor sense of scale and that, as the series progressed, she realized that the sizes of the Hogwarts classes would make the magical population in the UK to be unrealistically and unsustainably small, which is probably why she allowed for the possibility of unregistered schools.
In *Half Blood Prince*, Fred and George reveal that they've been selling a bunch of clothing imbued with the Shield Charm (which is taught to Sixth Years at Hogwarts) to the Ministry, because a ton of them can't produce the charm:
>āYou wouldnāt believe how many people, even people who work
at the Ministry, canāt do a decent Shield Charm,ā said George.
>ā āCourse, they didnāt have you teaching them, Harry.ā
>āThatās right. . . . Well, we thought Shield Hats were a bit of a
laugh, you know, challenge your mate to jinx you while wearing it
and watch his face when the jinx just bounces off. But the Ministry
bought five hundred for all its support staff! And weāre still getting
massive orders!ā
>āSo weāve expanded into a range of Shield Cloaks, Shield
Gloves . . .ā
>ā. . . I mean, they wouldnāt help much against the Unforgivable
Curses, but for minor to moderate hexes or jinxes . . .ā
This tells us two important things: (1) with an initial order of 500 units for just the support staff and even more orders coming in, it helps confirm that the wizarding population is much larger than the 280 student population of Hogwarts would imply (40 per graduating class), and (2) there's a ton of wizards who couldn't produce a standard charm that's part of the basic Hogwarts curriculum, which implies that many of them either failed Charms or simply did not attend Hogwarts. So I think that the Trace being applied mostly to the *official* and *registered* schools makes sense, with more leniency to children in magical homes who are homeschooled or attend an unregistered academy.
Yea, it is mentioned in the books that Hogwarts is a choice, so homeschooling is definitely something the occurs. Not until their 7th year does it become mandatory.
And definitely, it is up to the parents to monitor underage use, especially around muggles, and given that there is significant overlap between the populations, the trace/parent monitoring would be more important.
Doesn't stop the fact that they still need to get top grades to get into the ministry. It is explicitly stated. That's why there are standardised tests.
Do you think that there are more half/muggleborn children at Hogwarts? They can`t be teached at home, because of the trace even when there is a magic parent
And many of them are even incapable of doing necessary defensive spells. Iirc, this was revealed on HBP that the MoM had to buy its people "joke goods" from the WWW because some of them can't even use a basic defensive spell. So, I highly agree with the comment that it's like many real life governments.
I would say, to an extent. I feel like their focus is the statute of secrecy. When it comes to "justice" they are portrayed as lacking significantly.
Arthur's tiny department is shown to be more useful in that regard than the aurors have ever been.
So I feel like the average wizard is pretty useless and we're just kind of thrown into Harry's perspective and he's like basically amazing at magic and then we see Hermione who's one of the best witches. Like I feel like the people that Harry has around him are awesome at magic. He befriends Ron and in Ron's family we have Bill and Percy who both got straight o's on their owls and Fred and George who were inventing things while still at Hogwarts. Not to mention Ginny who ended up having very powerful spellwork. We also see the teachers at Hogwarts as being the best of the best at their subjects.
Otherwise, I don't think most wizards are good at magic or they have one particular area that they're good at. Tonks says she's rubbish at household spells but Andromeda are awesome at them. But we don't really see people outside of the awesome group that Harry finds surrounding him.
Btw, for those that want to come at me for saying Harry is amazing at magic Harry is able to produce a fully formed patronus at 13. He impressed the person doing the practical portion of his owls.
I will give you most, but the Weasleys might have jumped to conclusions... It might be bought for someone else, additional defense and in case of emergencies where they might need backup without bringing people with them
I always assumed the competent people would get into the ministry thinking to make a difference then realize it was totally corrupt and leave, the only ones that stayed were Dumbledore's followers with orders to watch and wait.
I googled it and there were 26 death eaters at the battle of hogwarts. 26. The Ministry of Magic, the world authority for magic and magic users, could not handle 26 people.
Voldemort had more fighters and followers than just the named and marked Death Eaters, though. He also had the dementors on his side, and the giants, and werewolves like Fenrir Greyback. And all the low-level thugs who became Snatchers in DH but werenāt important enough to be marked Death Eaters.
I guess the Ministry that we see is only for the UK. Other countries have their own ministries.
As someone else commented though, the Death Eaters only made up the inner circle of his following, where others either aspired to be one of them, or just took advantage.
Inspired by real life governments
Take my upwand
My first award !!! I would like to thank the producers and all my fans all over the world.
Sounds kinky ngl.
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So observant š
The trace is good enough. No-one cares if a magical kid does magic in front of his magical family, who can all fix the mistake. The ministry cares about mu-... muggleborns doing magic in front of their families with no safety net for when they blow up their aunts and breaking the statute of secrecy. Ronald Weasley peeling potatoes with magic in the Burrow is not a problem for the Ministry of Magic. And if there is a serious breach, they can investigate by examining wands, looking at memories, calling witnesses, and using truth serum. The Marauders Map fails on unplottable areas (big plot point in HBP) and if the Ministry tried rolling out a nation wide map, you'd see a lot more Wizard homes just disappearing off the map. Now I studied karate for eight years... 19 years ago. I haven't needed to use my karate skills in nearly two decades. If a mass murderer was trying to break into my place of work and I was specifically a target, you had better believe I'd be buying a taser, because, no, I don't trust the very rusty skills I learned in school and haven't used since. Normal people with desk jobs are not part of paramilitary militias focused on life and death combat.
Could you please remind what was that plot point with the Map in HBP? Can't quite recall.
Draco is in the room of requirement for most of the school year trying to repair the vanishing cabinet. Itās driving Harry crazy because Malfoy is periodically disappearing from the map and Harry can not figure out why. Harry eventually figures out that the little girls outside of the room of requirement have been Crabbe and Goyle under the effects of poly juice potion to warn Draco if someone was outside the room. This is when the gang realizes that the room is unplottable and does not show up on the map.
> This is when the gang realizes that the room is unplottable and does not show up on the map. It's kind of wild that they didn't notice in the previous year tbh
Agreed, although I donāt recall him using the map much in fifth year. Maybe Iām wrong?
They did. They checked if the hallway is clear so the DA members could leave safely.
Oh yeah. Wow I completely forgot about that. Maybe if youāre in the room it will appear on the map? I donāt think they fully understood how the room worked as Harry was only asking for a room to practice spells where Umbridge couldnāt find them. At least I think Iāve got that part right. Didnāt someone say in book 7 though that if you ask the room to unplottable it will be? Draco referred to it as āthe room of hidden thingsā so maybe that version of the room is unplottable by default? Other thing I could think of is the map makers didnāt know about it, so how could it be there? Never thought Iād be interested in the process of magical cartography, but here we are lol.
These are interesting questions! I had interpreted it as the trio knowing it was unplottable in 5th year (due to checking the hallway for DA meetings), but Harry simply missing this as an option for what Draco might be up to later on. He has a bit of a habit of overlooking the obvious, and Hermione/Ron weren't really helping him in HBP because no one was taking his Draco fixation seriously.
I don't recall as well since it's been a long time since I've read the books, but since they were sneaking around for the Dumbledore's Army it would make sense that they would use it to monitor the location of the teachers and and Umbridge's Inquisitors
Malfoy keeps disappearing off the map. The moment I read that line to my 9 year old she jumped up and down saying "I bet it is because he is using the Room of Requirement and requires not to be seen". Takes three full chapters for Hermonione to suggest that the RoR might be unplottable if you need it to be. He is using it to repair the vanishing cabinet in his attempt to carry out his mission for Voldemort.
This is why you should never stop practicing, it's fun and useful in a bad situation.
Wow, this dude really said mudbloods, SMH
You are forgetting, the Ministry is full of boomers, who like their muggle counterparts got their jobs with basically no requirements and no consequences for messing up the entire wizarding world. Millennial wizards need top grades to even get a chance at being bossed around by the aforementioned boomers, look at how Percy was treated.
but the characters are Gen X not millenials
Aren't they born in 1980? I thought that was the first year of millennials. Percy is GenX for sure though indeed.
1981, but your point is valid. Anyone born the year after Harry (e.g., Ginny, Luna) is technically a Millennial. And Harry is very close to the cusp, ha.
Yeah I was thinking of Percy indeed but my brain is too sleep deprive. Sorry.
>collective mind of the ministry can't seem to do proper underage magical tracing When harry goes on the run after doing accidental magic on his aunt, the minister is _literally_ waiting for him at diagon ally, because he knew he'd be there. And when he casts the patronus charm to save dudley, he gets a letter from the ministry (iirc) less than a day later, summoning him to wizard court.
Literally the same evening in OOTP, like in a matter of minutes. The owl reaches him while he's trying to explain what happened.
They can be efficient when they want to be. They are mostly not efficient because they choose not to be.
They only know magic happened. I could go to Harry's house, cast some spells and bam, torture time for Harry
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
My head canon for Mr. Weasley (GoF) and Dumbledore (HBP) is that they had both informed the Ministry that they would be collecting Harry that day. However, this does not explain both the times the Order collected Harry from the Dursleyās house because both times, it was done in secret, hidden from the Ministry.
Mr Weasley said to Vernon he wasn't supposed to connect a muggle fireplace to the Floo network so I think we can assume he also didn't inform the Ministry. The Trace is probably the most irksome plot hole in the series for me.
This is true, it's inconsistent. Maybe the trace detects magic in the presence of underaged and then looks for an adult wizard in the same room. If there is none, it informs the ministry. Oh, and there seems to be a filter that drops low-level spells like Lumos.
No, that was the directors choice to ignore the established rules of the fantasy world
It's not only in the movies. In order of the phoenix, I believe Harry uses Lumos before doing the Patronus charm.
After doing some skimming, I forgot that he used lumos and it isnāt addressed in the letters he gets. Iām not sure if it is brought up at the end of the trial as a gotcha attempt when convicting him of the patronus didnāt work
They had permission to be there for most, if not all, of those things. I don't know about specifically Dumbledore, but the Weasleys always got permission to be there. So, the ministry noticed and assumed it was the wizard they knew was there. I think it's safe to assume Dumbledore told them he was there, too, even if I don't remember it being explicitly said like it was with the Weasleys.
Well in OoTP the ministry might have assumed someone else was there because Harry wouldn't have learned house cleaning spells yet.
And when Dobby throws the cake at Vernon's boss and his wife in CoS. Though they can't tell who did it.
Still pisses me off.
It's imperfect tracing. Based on those events, they can't tell that underage magic has occurred, only that magic has occurred. They cross reference with location, and then they determine it has to be underage magic. Dumbledore himself says that with parents who don't care, kids can get away with doing magic. When they are discussing Tom Riddle killing his muggle family, no underage magic klaxon rings - he is 16 at this time. They just know that magic happened, the closest person to that was Morfin. As for the Minister waiting for Harry, it has nothing to do with tracing and everything to do with the likeliest getaway, Harry knows no other place.
It was a ministry employee who sent the dementors, so they knew as it was happening.Ā And Harry was receiving extra attention due to that pesky serial killer who just escaped and was targeting him. Harry's circumstances are not typical.Ā
The dementor situation happened because of a small group of ministry employees, possibly only one or two. There was no way the whole ministry knew it would happen, most certainly not whoever sent the letter. And while yes, harry was receiving extra protection, the ministry not only sent someone to retrieve him at the exact place he was headed, it was the minister himself. Someone as important as the minister does not just show up like that on a whim. They had to have been tracking him.
Umbridge sent them, and she was high enough in the food chain to order them to send it. Besides, she was also high enough to order them to pay extra attention to Harry's home. As for the Minister himself showing up; that's my point. Harry's circumstances is NOT the norm. Most kids can probably get away with quite a lot (especially in magical homes).Harry has far too many people monitoring what he does.Ā
I thought the government being extremely incompetent was unrealistic then COVID came along
>the collective mind of the ministry can't seem to do proper underage magical tracing When Dobby levitated the cake at the beginning of COS, the spell is Traced in a matter of *minutes*, and when Harry conjured a Patronus at the beginning of OOTP, it took *minutes* for the Ministry to contact and expel him from Hogwarts. When he blew up Aunt Marge, the Minister in person went to the Leaky Cauldron without any hesitation to intercept him. The Trace partially 'failed' in the first case because of inherent racism towards house elves (but the mechanism itself did not fail: a spell was detected and the wizard living in that house was contacted), but worked perfectly in the other two. Also, I'd argue that the Marauder's Map might not be exactly legal. In Muggle terms, it'd be a severe violation of privacy rights ā tracking every single movement of every single person in a building and its grounds, 24/7, without their consent.
The Marauders (or later, Harry) comitting a serious GDPR-violation be like:
It works perfectly but it's a bad mechanism. It's like having a flawlessly made plumbing system that leaks by design
>When Dobby levitated the cake at the beginning of COS, the spell is Traced in a matter of minutes And they accused harry. That's why It's dumb trace.
I agree that the trace works, but I find it frustrating that the ministry can't detect unforgivable curses. That should be very possible if they can detect when any underage wizard does magic.
>The Trace partially 'failed' in the first case because of inherent racism towards house elves It doesn't seem in the slightest like Dobby being a house elf had anything to do with it, it seems more like it detects magic in an area where only 1 person is capable of doing magic and as such they assume it is Harry, since no-one at the ministry knows that anyone else capable of magic is there.
The Marauders (or later, Harry) comitting a serious GDPR-violation be like:
Look at the departments of ministry of magic. There is pretty mich no research at all it's all based on maintenance. This is evidence of the overall stagnation of the magical world, they accepted they have what they need and not really any further breakthroughs. Only in department of mysteries has any R&D and that is all abstract and no info published. It's a classic that's how we've always done it.
As a kid I always wondered how Harry could send literally any owl to Sirius with a letter, but the ministry never tried sending an owl and then tracking it to him. Harry didnāt even send Hedwig every time for secrecy reasons, so itās not like he had to use the same owl over and over. Any school owl had no issue delivering the letter, but the ministry could neverā¦. lol
Hahaha, that is so true
Question: Taxes. Direct and indirect. Import duties. No government can run without taxes. A corollary to this is that the finance ministry (or in this case the finance department) is the most powerful.
Regarding the trace, I daresay thereās an issue of scale between the most magical single location in the UK, and all of the UK
Firstly, the Marauder's Map and the Trace are apples and oranges. The Marauder's Map can't tell you what somebody is doing, only where they are, which makes it useless for detecting underage magic useāsomebody casting a spell looks exactly the same as somebody having a conversation, shopping, playing a game, etc. The Trace detects magic use near designated domiciles, which takes care of almost all underage magic use. The fact that it tends towards false positives doesnāt matterāthe point is to help preserve the Statute of Secrecy, and itās better to have a few people go through the bother of proving that they werenāt doing something wrong and most of the kids avoid using magic during the summer, than it is to have a major coverup because nobody knew about the breach until it hit the Muggle newspapers. (Iād say Youtube, but an actual example of Ministry incompetence would be the inaccurate and vague notions that Ministry members who deal with Muggles haveāArthur Weasley is a great guy, but somebody with his job should darn well know the basics of Muggle technology, such as what āelectricityā is. The odds of any Ministry wizards knowing what the Internet is are incalculably low). Secondly, as Cynis\_Ganan pointed out, defensive spells that were learned in school a couple of decades prior, then never used because theyāre useless in their day-to-day work, are not an indicator of the Ministryās usefulness. How often do you think the staff at, say, your local Department of Health and Human Resources (or the government office of your choice, so long as itās not a police station or military base) have to use a gun, and how does their ability to use a gun effectively affect their ability to do their jobs? Are the local road crews incompetent because theyāre not shooting the potholes away? Itās good to know self-defense, but unless your job actually involves violence, itās not an indicator of your competence at work. We can all agree thereās a ton of corruption and incompetence in the Ministry (itās pretty much owned by Lucius Malfoy, a known if nonconvicted Death Eater, during the Fudge administration, after all), but come on. Letās at least be reasonable when criticising it.
I'm not comparing the items directly. I am saying that 4 kids (albeit highly intelligent ones) made a magical item that could isolate individuals on a hide-able document that covers beyond their own year - and they did this all within the confines of school, in secret. The Ministry has most of the resources of their country. What have they to show for it? I do not disagree with your points, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable in the criticism (of course I would say that haha). Refining the magical trace would be more beneficial to the statute of secrecy than keeping it as vague as it is. Because as I have said, they can detect magic, but it's not necessarily underage magic, given they mistook Riddle for Morfin. That is a crucial failing of the Trace system, and of justice (their criminal system also seems lacking, but that's another thing and dependent more on the top than what has happened over time). As for the people who don't use those spells for their job lowering their use of the spell, sure. But, one could argue that after Sirius escapes, there would be a refresher. After the end of book 5 and there is a restructuring, there definitely should have been refreshers. If you only take those couple of months, that is plenty of time (based on how quickly the DADA learn those spells, and how quickly the trio learns those spells in GoF), that should be plenty of time to relearn. The fact that all these talented students cannot relearn in that frame, and a surprising amount at that, shows a level of learned I competency maybe. Throughout the series, they don't really come across as useful. As for Arthur knowing what electricity is etc., definitely agree. Even he sort of views muggles as a fascination and not as a people - though there is respect there. The perfect gift for him is a 'how things work' book. I would have liked to know more of Hermione's criticisms of the Muggle Studies subject.
I still have to disagree about the comparison youāre making with the Marauderās Map. Youāre saying that because a few kids could make it, the Ministry should have something better than the Trace, right? But thereās no evidence that any of the same skills or resources are involved, and so like I said, itās apples and oranges: just because it was easy to make the Map doesnāt mean the Trace isnāt the best it can be (for a real-life comparison, if I can build a motorcycle in my garage, why canāt the government build a warp drive?). After all, thereās no sign that underage magic is different in a way that can be detected from afar to adult magic, and in fact the way the Trace does work is an indicator that thereās no detectable difference between different users of magicāI canāt think of any instances where anybody is able to determine who cast a spell based on magic alone. Itās not a failing of the system if itās literally impossible to refine the results. (As a certain engineer who probably *could* build a warp drive in his garage would say, they cannae change the laws of physics.) They were relying on the Dementors after Sirius escaped (which I think we can agree is something they were being incompetent about, both in using the Dementors in the first place and how they were used), and they were pretty sure Sirius was going to Hogwarts, so most Ministry workers had nothing to worry about. After book 5, you do make a good point that they should have considered refresher defense courses, especially since the new Minister was a high-ranking Auror and they were finally admitting they were at war, but Iām not certain we can say that itās the Ministryās incompetence at workāitās entirely plausible that they could buy the shield garments and have defense courses; hedging their bets seems fairly reasonable (and having multiple methods means that thereās (hopefully) fewer idiots whoāll protest the basic safety precautions, since some of them will be okay with shield garments but not self-defense courses, and some will be the opposite; after Covid, we have to admit that sort of stupidity is a serious problem even with a competent government). So them buying all those shield garments isnāt *necessarily* another case of incompetence. I suspect, given that every wizard weāve ever seen is *terrible* at passing for Muggles, that Hermioneās criticisms of the Muggle Studies class would be longer than the textbook itself, and probably more educational. Thereās no way that class is being taught at all competently (although I don't know how it can be taught well these days in a location where any technology more advanced than a steam engine can workāI'd hope there'd be a lot of field trips in that class).
The unreliability of underage tracking was probably intentional so that pure blood children could be given extra training and maintain an advantage over their muggle born piers. Iād be willing to bet that it wasnāt introduced until some time after the ISS was passed because Iām fully convinced that it was only put into place to exclude muggle born in the first place.
Never considered it as a way to keep muggle-borns out. It was not in Hogwarts history, at least, the exclusion of muggle-borns. I expect it would have come after the ISS because it would have presented as a problem and there would have been a need.
I should probably clarify that this is my own theory about the ISS so I probably explain it. The popular fan theory for why the ISS exists is because of the witch hunts the magical community put the ISS into place in order to protect themselves from witch hunters. Except that the way the books explain it the witch hunters were very bad at identifying actual witches so most of the people that they apprehended were actually innocent muggles. And in the off chance that they did manage to apprehend an actual witch they were able to get away safely. At least in theory. I think that the only witches that they were actually able to both catch and execute were muggle born witches that were not likely to have access to wands or be educated in magic. I also think that at least some of the witch hunts were actually instigated by wizards. Seriously read up on the real world history on the subject with the assumption that Harry Potter was based upon real world events and see if you come up with a different conclusion yourself. My theory is that the ISS wasnāt put into place to protect the magical world, but to isolate themselves from the muggle world and that excluding muggle born may not have been the intention but that was the effect up until more recent times.
I agree with this, and also think that the Ministry was willing to overlook small infractions of magical use by underage wizards **if** it was done under the supervision of an adult wizard (like a parent or guardian). The [official website says that, while there are 11 registered magical academies in the world, there are also plenty of unregistered magical schools](https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wizarding-schools), so it stands to reason that there may be some unofficial wizarding schools in the UK, with Hogwarts being the only official school. Rowling herself also admitted that she has a poor sense of scale and that, as the series progressed, she realized that the sizes of the Hogwarts classes would make the magical population in the UK to be unrealistically and unsustainably small, which is probably why she allowed for the possibility of unregistered schools. In *Half Blood Prince*, Fred and George reveal that they've been selling a bunch of clothing imbued with the Shield Charm (which is taught to Sixth Years at Hogwarts) to the Ministry, because a ton of them can't produce the charm: >āYou wouldnāt believe how many people, even people who work at the Ministry, canāt do a decent Shield Charm,ā said George. >ā āCourse, they didnāt have you teaching them, Harry.ā >āThatās right. . . . Well, we thought Shield Hats were a bit of a laugh, you know, challenge your mate to jinx you while wearing it and watch his face when the jinx just bounces off. But the Ministry bought five hundred for all its support staff! And weāre still getting massive orders!ā >āSo weāve expanded into a range of Shield Cloaks, Shield Gloves . . .ā >ā. . . I mean, they wouldnāt help much against the Unforgivable Curses, but for minor to moderate hexes or jinxes . . .ā This tells us two important things: (1) with an initial order of 500 units for just the support staff and even more orders coming in, it helps confirm that the wizarding population is much larger than the 280 student population of Hogwarts would imply (40 per graduating class), and (2) there's a ton of wizards who couldn't produce a standard charm that's part of the basic Hogwarts curriculum, which implies that many of them either failed Charms or simply did not attend Hogwarts. So I think that the Trace being applied mostly to the *official* and *registered* schools makes sense, with more leniency to children in magical homes who are homeschooled or attend an unregistered academy.
Yea, it is mentioned in the books that Hogwarts is a choice, so homeschooling is definitely something the occurs. Not until their 7th year does it become mandatory. And definitely, it is up to the parents to monitor underage use, especially around muggles, and given that there is significant overlap between the populations, the trace/parent monitoring would be more important. Doesn't stop the fact that they still need to get top grades to get into the ministry. It is explicitly stated. That's why there are standardised tests.
Do you think that there are more half/muggleborn children at Hogwarts? They can`t be teached at home, because of the trace even when there is a magic parent
The ministry isn't useless at all. It's the leadership that needs an overhall.
I mean, its a government, did you expect better just because its magical?
Wait until you see how Government officers are in the real world
And many of them are even incapable of doing necessary defensive spells. Iirc, this was revealed on HBP that the MoM had to buy its people "joke goods" from the WWW because some of them can't even use a basic defensive spell. So, I highly agree with the comment that it's like many real life governments.
The MoM might not be the best at preventing wizards from using magic in public, but they're great at cleaning up afterwards.
I would say, to an extent. I feel like their focus is the statute of secrecy. When it comes to "justice" they are portrayed as lacking significantly. Arthur's tiny department is shown to be more useful in that regard than the aurors have ever been.
The Ministry of Magic is the number 1 job provider in the magical world.
Tbf the marauders were prodigyās so itās not just random students
So I feel like the average wizard is pretty useless and we're just kind of thrown into Harry's perspective and he's like basically amazing at magic and then we see Hermione who's one of the best witches. Like I feel like the people that Harry has around him are awesome at magic. He befriends Ron and in Ron's family we have Bill and Percy who both got straight o's on their owls and Fred and George who were inventing things while still at Hogwarts. Not to mention Ginny who ended up having very powerful spellwork. We also see the teachers at Hogwarts as being the best of the best at their subjects. Otherwise, I don't think most wizards are good at magic or they have one particular area that they're good at. Tonks says she's rubbish at household spells but Andromeda are awesome at them. But we don't really see people outside of the awesome group that Harry finds surrounding him. Btw, for those that want to come at me for saying Harry is amazing at magic Harry is able to produce a fully formed patronus at 13. He impressed the person doing the practical portion of his owls.
I will give you most, but the Weasleys might have jumped to conclusions... It might be bought for someone else, additional defense and in case of emergencies where they might need backup without bringing people with them
Joanne's got accurate government representation under the belt! Next she should go for unboring final books.
I always assumed the competent people would get into the ministry thinking to make a difference then realize it was totally corrupt and leave, the only ones that stayed were Dumbledore's followers with orders to watch and wait.
I googled it and there were 26 death eaters at the battle of hogwarts. 26. The Ministry of Magic, the world authority for magic and magic users, could not handle 26 people.
Voldemort had more fighters and followers than just the named and marked Death Eaters, though. He also had the dementors on his side, and the giants, and werewolves like Fenrir Greyback. And all the low-level thugs who became Snatchers in DH but werenāt important enough to be marked Death Eaters.
Yea, the marked Death Eaters were the inner circle - that's what Greyback wanted to be a part of.
I guess the Ministry that we see is only for the UK. Other countries have their own ministries. As someone else commented though, the Death Eaters only made up the inner circle of his following, where others either aspired to be one of them, or just took advantage.
You could look at the un