What are Dark Arts?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 91072

Sigune:
> (As to the Marauders' map, I believe, like you, that Snape 
knows very  well who made it; and I think his purpose in calling it 
Dark is  simply to confront Lupin with it.)<

Are we sure the Marauders would never sully themselves with 
Dark Magic? Maybe James wouldn't willingly do so, but it could 
be that one of the others wasn't above taking a short cut and not 
telling James about it. 

Sigune said: 
> I believe that a classic example of Dark magic (I am in fact 
thinking  of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus here) would be 
Necromancy. In Faustus'  case this involves conjuring a devil to 
serve him. There are the  obvious religious connotations here - 
Faustus' magic (as indeed /all/  magic, in this context) is Dark 
because he forsakes God and calls in  a devil to help him to 
whatever he may like. There is nothing of this  kind in the 
Potterverse; there is not a single mention of devils or  demons, 
so that is not very helpful to any attempt at definition. <


Actually the word 'demon' is used several times. Lupin calls the 
grindylow a "water demon' in PoA. I am wondering about that, 
and also about the 'odd red gleam' that appears for a moment in 
Tom Riddle's eyes. As Steve has pointed out in the Lexicon,  the 
Dark Creatures  don't seem to have normal life-cycles.  They 
seem to prey on fear and suffering rather than flesh and blood. 
They also don't fit into the Being/Beast/Spirit classifications 
which Magizoology uses to classify lifeforms. Many of them, 
though alive, seem to be less than substantial. The Hinkypunk 
looks like a wisp of smoke, the Boggart has no fixed physical 
form, and the Dementors' bodies seem weightless, swooping 
away into the night when Harry defeats them in OOP.  

So I am wondering if there is some sort of evil entity, lets call it
a Whatsit, since Entity sounds so Stephen King, that tries to 
colonize magical species and, if it can,  gradually turn them into 
soulless, bodiless copies of itself. The Grindylows, Hinkypunks 
and Dementors would be in various stages of this process.  

Dark Magic, then,  would be any magic which makes it easier for 
the Whatsit to take possession of a living thing, or which cannot 
be performed without the aid of the Whatsit. One wonders if 
Salazar Slytherin was himself possessed by this Whatsit and if  
Voldemort is now. 

That would be an interesting reason for Voldemort to seek 
immortality. He wants to free himself but  he knows that if the 
Whatsit stops possessing him he'll die, as Quirrell died when 
Voldemort stopped possessing him.

Thoughts?

Pippin