Wizard Guardianship / House Elves / Godric's Hollow /breaking a Memory Charm

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 37120

Unc Mark wrote:

> Also at the beginning of GoF, Ron wrote that they pick Harry up 
> whether or not he had permission from the Dursleys. Again it sounds
> like kidnapping, unless Dumbledore has Wizard Guardianship.

I don't doubt that Dumbledore is Harry's Wizard Guardian, but I think 
that Guardianship might be much less formal and legalistic in the 
wizarding world than in the modern Muggle world -- I have wondered, 
when the Lestranges were both sent to Azkaban, if they had a young 
child, would the MoM have taken it upon itself to find a foster home 
for the child, or would they do nothing but wait for some relative or 
friend or charitable person to voluntarily take the child, and not do 
anything unless someone made a formal complaint to MoM about an 
abandoned child? Thus, it could be that Dumbledore sent Hagrid to the 
wrecked house to collect Harry and made arrangements for where Harry 
would live and the MoM just breathed a sign of relief that Dumbledore 
was taking care of The Boy Who Lived so they wouldn't have to get 
involved.

Another question is whether Harry running away from "home" with his 
friend's family would be considered kidnapping, or would it be 
considered stealing himself from his owners (as when a slave or an 
indentured apprentice runs away), or would it be considered him 
making his own decision of where to go? The wizarding world might 
give teen-agers more right to make their own decisions than the 
Muggle world does... in the old days, underage students were allowed 
to submit their names to the Goblet of Fire with apparently no system 
for requiring parental consent, and competing in the Triwizard 
Tournament is more dangerous than spectating the Quidditch World Cup.

The idea of guardianship of children being informal and unofficial, 
and the idea of teen-agers having more rights than in the Muggle 
world, both seem to me to fit with the idea of the wizarding folk 
havingn a warrior-ethos culture like Livian Rome (and I don't 
remember to whom to give credit for the idea).

But the existence of an apparently huge bureaucracy at MoM, with lots 
of laws that are sometimes even enforced, e.g. against flying 
carpets, and I have a dreadful fear that many activities are 
government monopolies, like maybe only MoM's Committee on 
Experimental Charms is allowed to invent new Charms and only MoM's 
Committee for Disposal of Dangerous Beasts is allowed to do something 
about that Manticore in the backyard....

It seems to me that there is a  basic contradiction between 
warrior-ethos culture and such an intrusive government.

Grey Wolf wrote:

> notice that, appart from forcing Winky to go to high places, she's
> never been mistreated, and that was *her* idea in the first place

It seems that Winky had a fair amount of *power* in the Crouch 
household. Junior's narrative includes: "I was always with the house- 
elf.... She persuaded my father to give me occasional treats.... 
Winky talked my father into [allowing me to attend the Quidditch 
World Cup]." Also, she kept interjecting: "Say no more, Master Barty, 
say no more, you is getting your father into trouble!" Her Master, 
Senior, does what she wants, and she sccolds her Master, Junior.

Amanda wrote:

> Catlady wrote:
> > The house at Godric's Hollow in which James and Lily were living 
> > in hiding, until it was blown up as a result of Voldemort's 
> > attack on the Potters, was a Muggle house.

> Upon what evidence do you base this assertion? I'm really curious
> about this.

The evidence is because of the Celluloid-Thing-That-Must-Not-Be-
Named. It showed the Muggle house. It was a sadly ordinary Muggle 
house, not an old castle nor even an old cottage. 

I know the Celluloid Thing contains a lot of things that aren't true 
(e.g. those inaccurate uniforms), but IIRC the pre-publicity included 
Kloves and Columbus teasing that this scene in the movie is a scene 
that JKR cut from the book because it gave away too much information, 
but she let them see it to put it into the script.

Finwitch wrote:

>  I *hope* that torture isn't the *only* way [to break a Memory 
> Charm].

I should have put in my two Sickles' worth earlier in this thread 
that assumes that the way to break a Memory Charm is by torturer. The 
source for that claim appears to be Barty Junior: "He had captured 
Bertha Jorkins in Albania. He had tortured her. (snip) He tortured 
her until he broke through the Memory Charm." But Barty wasn't there; 
his evidence is just hearsay. 

I don't find Voldemort himself saying he used torture. At the 
beginning of GoF, he says to Wormtail: "I killed Bertha because I had 
to. She was fit for nothing after my questioning, quite useless. 
(snip) But Memory Charms can be broken by a powerful wizard, as I 
proved when I questioned her." In the Death Eater circle, he says: 
"for -- with a little persuasion -- she became a veritable mine of 
information. (snip) ...but the means I used to break the Memory Charm 
upon her were powerful, and when I had extreated all useful 
information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond 
repair."

Voldemort says "questioning", "persuasion", and "means", all of which 
are known as euthemisms for torture, but he also says "a powerful 
wizard". Generally, a 'powerful wizard' is a wizard with powerful 
magic, altho' in the Potterverse it could also mean a wizard in 
charge of approving or rejecting expense account claims for MoM 
employees. Neither kind of power is particularly relevant to torture 
-- Filch *could* torture students with all the torture equipment he 
has, without needing magic at all.

I believe that Voldemort broke the Memory Charm on Bertha by some 
kind of spell, some kind of Finite Incantatem. Because the Memory 
Charm was so strong, the Removal Charm had to be even stronger, and 
it was the side-effects of such strong magic that damaged her. A 
strong Memory Charm can do damage (as people have quoted in relation 
to Neville): "He put a very powerful Memory Charm on her to make her 
forget what she'd found out. Too powerful. He said it damaged her 
memory permanently." So I believe that a powerful Memory Charm 
Removal Charm can do even more damage, even physical damage.