unforgiveable charms?

[Wendy St. John]

No: HPFGUIDX 79983

Laura wrote:

"To me, and maybe this is just a personal thing, poking into 
someone's 
mind, however you do it, is a whole different issue than making 
tentacles grow on them or turning their legs to jelly or even 
hanging 
them upside down in midair. But I don't get the sense that children 
in the WW are taught at an early age that "we don't do anything that 
involves another person's brain without their permission." 
(Refinements, such as Ministry use of veritaserum would, of course, 
be left to explain at a later age.) And even if those spells or 
potions have legitimate uses, where are the legal safeguards? 
Shouldn't you have to have something like a search warrant before 
you 
use veritaserum on someone? Shouldn't there be witnesses, a court 
reporter, the suspect's lawyer, present? And how can you rely on the 
report of a legilimens? It's just that person's report, after all."

Now me (Wendy):

I think you've made a very good point here, and it's one of the 
things that most bothers me about the Wizarding World as we've seen 
it. I agree that poking around in someone's brain is something I'd 
definitely put towards the "unforgiveable" end of the spectrum. And, 
I'd also add that not only are children not taught not to do these 
things, there is actually lots of evidence that it's seen as 
acceptable in Wizarding society, judging by the use of Obliviate. It 
is certainly common practice to modify the memories of Muggles in 
order to protect the secrecy of the WW. It's less clear whether or 
not obliviating another witch or wizard would be as acceptable. 
Judging by Lockhart, I would guess that it is frowned upon. (Which 
then leads us to what appears a rather ugly biogtry against Muggles. 
Are they considered to be so far beneath witches and wizards, that 
they aren't entitled to the same human rights)? I am very 
uncomfortable with the idea of memory modification and the fact that 
we've not seen what safeguards are in place to assure that it is 
used ethically and responsibly.

Returning to your question about Legilimency, I did think of one 
thing which might justify its use without a warrant or such . . . it 
almost seems to me to be more of an art than a science. We learn in 
OoP that it is not mind reading, but that the skilled Legilimens 
can "delve into the minds of their victims and . . . interpret their 
findings correctly." (OoP, page 469, UK edition). So, maybe 
the "interpretation" part of this makes it somewhat unreliable in 
terms of the certainty that one has come to the correct conclusions. 
It almost reminds me of a form of divination - it's difficult to 
prove that the information given in, for example, a tarot reading is 
accurate, without some external corroboration. So, maybe Legilimancy 
is not viewed as being universally accurate - some people are better 
at it than others, so it would be considered "soft" rather 
than "hard" evidence.

I also have a theory that one of the uses of the Pensieve is as a 
tool for Legilmency I posted about it back in message #72732

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/72732

for anyone who might be interested in reading my thoughts about this.

:-)
Wendy