[HPforGrownups] Limitations of magic - Dobby/Harry's Magic

rosie crana at ntlworld.com
Sat Jul 6 21:22:29 UTC 2002


No: HPFGUIDX 40856

Eledhwen said:

"I've allways wondered about the limitations of magic. It seems pretty 
certain that you can not just conjour up whatever you want (food, 
clothes etc) because then nobody would be poor and all the stores 
would go bankrupt, but in PoA Dumbledore conjors up sleeping bags for 
the whole school, while searching the school for Sirius. This doesn't 
make sense. If you can make sleeping bags by magic then you can make 
anything else you want, but that doesn't work as I've written above. 

My theory is that you can conjour things up only for a certain amount 
of time and then they disapear. Thus food made by magic will disapear 
afte a while and leave you just as hungry as before, clothes made by 
magic will also disapear after a while as will money and everything 
else. This would make it necesary to earn money and either buy or 
make other things, since the ones aquired by magic will not last.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense and I admitt that my theory 
probabaly needs some fine tuning, but the fact that Dumbledore was 
able to just get sleeping bags like that has always bothered me.

Got any ideas or opinions?"

Yes, I like your idea that the objects might be only temporary. Another explanation could be that Dumbledore already had the sleeping bags, and was just (in a way) summoning them. Presumably, an event like a troll break-in meaning that all the children had to sleep in the hall would happen often enough to make having the sleeping bags worthwhile. Perhaps in the past, Hogwarts had entertained guests who did not have their own carriage or ship to sleep on, and who had to sleep in the hall.... I don't know. It could be possible, though.

For example, Mrs Weasley's book "Charm your own Cheese": presumably, you would have to have the milk and the charm would just turn it into cheese?

+++++++++++++++++++++

Jenny said:
"He got in trouble when Dobby used magic at the Dursleys 
and in PoA, even though Harry didn't get in trouble for the Aunt Marge 
incident, the MoM knew about and were there to clean it up.  Using the 
invisibility cloak, I'm guessing, would register on the MoM's magical 
use map or whatever they use to find out wizard children who are using 
magic outside of Hogwarts."

I've always wondered why Harry got into trouble and not Dobby. The MoM seemed to base their presumption that it was Harry who was responsible on the fact that he lived there. What if an underage wizard did magic in a public place? You would think that a magical detection system could detect who carried out the magic, not just where it was. Just a plot device? Evidence of the MoM's incompetence? or a clue about the mysteries of house-elf magic....?

Rosie 









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





More information about the HPforGrownups archive