Wandless magic in Chapter One

[kneazle255]

No: HPFGUIDX 82447


adsong wrote:

On the one hand, Uncle Vernon is reaping the ill will he's sown on 
Harry since he was one year old. On the other, the Dursley's various 
encounters Harry tends to do magic without trying and without a wand 
when he is under great stress, like here (Uncle Vernon was choking 
him) and later with the Lumos (when he was facing the dementors). 
Conveniently, we have seen none of this wandless magic in other 
sticky situations, notable the encounters with LV ( sure could have 
used it while tied to that gravestone). Maybe wandless magic only 
works in the Muggle world?

Kneazle:

I think magic more or less leaks out of him when he is denied the 
opportunity to use it. It may also speak to a psychological 
dependence on a wand that, at least in Harry's case, may not be as 
necessary as a wand would be to some other characters.

This is one of those situations like the Parseltongue discovery in 
CoS. I don't know how significant this is because we are not given a 
baseline to compare Harry to. There aren't that many discussions of 
what incidental/wandless magic that other characters create in the 
books. 

The only one I recall is a story about Neville getting dropped out of 
a tower and bouncing.

It *is* interesting that none of this occurs at Hogwarts. Maybe there 
are incidental magic wards around the school