Magic in the holidays (Re: obstruction of justice

[Rebecca M]

No: HPFGUIDX 44810

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Steve" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:


> 
> bboy_mn:
> There seems to be a school of thought that the Ministry is keeping an
> espicially close eye on Harry's house. Any sign of magic on Privet
> Drive could be a sign that Voldemort had tracked Harry down, and they
> would need to respond right away. 
> 
> Since Fred and George are performing magic all the time, I seriously
> doubt that everyone gets that same level of surveillance. 
> 
>[snip]

Another possibility (which does not exclude the idea that Harry is more 
closely monitored) -- even though 'no magic in the holidays' is a 
general rule, it's really only applied to those who live in the muggle 
world.  The primary intent of the rule could be to prevent muggle 
detection of muggle activity.

Going back to the young Tom, it's unclear to me that anyone really knew 
much about his father.  He didn't grow up with his father.  I don't 
think there's anyone in the ministry dedicated to tracing blood lines 
of all and sundry -- Tom knew his father and knew that his mother had 
been disowned by him, but no one else would know the connection.

So I'd say the ministry monitors known wizards living with muggles, but 
has to be actively monitoring to know that there is something going on.  
The mysterious death of three muggles wouldn't automatically show up on 
their radar screen.

Although, there is a question about how this is consistent or 
inconsistent with the detection of a wizard born to muggles -- is there 
some automatic way that they know when a wizard has been born, but no 
automatic way that they track magical activity, what is the difference 
between the modes of detection?

RM