Lily and magic outside school

[meltowne]

No: HPFGUIDX 108108

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Cathy Drolet" <cldrolet at s...> 
wrote:
 
> DuffyPoo now:
 
I've always considered that stuff to be 'potiony' type things.  Stuff 
they could do with a Muggle chemistry set, kind of.  While I think 
the MoM may be able to stop underage wizards using wands to create 
magic, I think they would have a harder time detecting mixing up of 
concotions to create, say, ton-tongue toffees. 'We spent six months 
developing those!' Fred shouted at his mother, as she threw the 
toffees away.  Most of that six months was time at Hogwarts, anyway.  
They also said, 'we've been looking for someone to test them on all 
summer...'  They could have been finished just before school let out 
for the summer, and no one in the Weasley family would be stupid 
enough to eat them, as a tester.  Also, Ginny said 'We've been 
hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought 
they were actually making things, we thought they just liked the 
noise.'  We also know that F&G know a lot about Muggle tricks, like 
using a hairpin to pick locks...stuff that most wizards think is a 
waste of time to know.  F&G thought 'they're skills worth learning, 
even if they are a bit slow.'  After all, they spend 10 months at 
school and two at home (approximately).   I think most of the stuff 
was developed at school  They're planning on starting a joke shop, 
they don't want to get caught by the ministry and be expelled/have 
their wands snapped.  They're obviously both quite intelligent kids 
to come up with this stuff. Even Hermione is impressed by the 
Headless Hats when before that she said 'Oh, they only know flashy 
stuff that's of no real use to anyone.' 

I suspect that for the most part the restrictions on underage sorcery 
are mostly applied to muggle-born students.  When Dobby uses magic at 
the Dursley's the ministry thinks it's Harry.  When he casts the 
Patronus they know i's him because there are no other wizards in the 
area.  This suggests that even when they are watching a particular 
wizard, they don't know who cast what.  Many of the Wizard children 
come from Wizarding families, and magic may be cast in their homes on 
a regular basis.  It's probably up to the parents to keep an eye on 
those kids.