Unforgivable Curses and Underage Wizardry

[elady25]

No: HPFGUIDX 127410


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Dysis" <d.marchel at c...> wrote:
>snip
 
> The Ministry uses special magic to detect when an underage wizard 
> has done magic. Yet, we see a teenager doing magic in his own 
> bedroom without any qualms. Does he know some sort of spell that 
> shields him from the special magic that the Ministry uses to detect 
> underage magic? But what bothers me even more is that the Ministry 
> doesn't have a special detector of the Unforgivable Curses <I>in 
> general</I>, and not just by underage wizards. Why can the Ministry 
> detect Underage Wizardry, which isn't more than a felony, when it 
> can't detect Unforgivable Curses? Magic is magic, isn't it? 
snip
> dysisgirl

imamommy:

I can think of a couple of possibilities.  The first is the Hogwarts 
protections; if Snape was in his room <at Hogwarts> he may have been 
beyond any sort of detection, just as, apparently was Crouch!Moody 
when he performed the curses.  However, how is it that the ministry 
never detects when VM or Wormtail use the curses (ie Bertha Jorkins, 
Crouch SR., Frank Bryce)?  Another is simply free agency; these 
curses are illegal, but we are not going to invade peoples privacy by 
tracking what magic they can perform.

This reminds me of present-day efforts to fight terrorism.  Many 
people in the US want the government to wage war on terrorism using 
whatever means necessary, until and unless it infringes on their 
privacy.  So people got annoyed with increased security checks at 
airports, and they definitely don't want the government reading their 
email, the arguement being that if we stop living free the terrorists 
have already won.  I'm not saying where the balance should be, but I 
do think it needs to be a balance between safety and freedom to 
choose.  But I think the wizarding world is a lot like real life, and 
it may be that to detect unforgivables the MoM would have to track a 
lot of other spells that people think are their own business. 

Also, detectors seem to have only a vague degree of accuracy.  When 
Harry is disciplined for the violet pudding incident, for example, 
the MoM can only pinpoint that it happened at his house.  They can't 
actually say with certainty who did it, or they would have known it 
was Dobby.  This is further evidenced by the Weasleys; I think F&G 
have been cooking stuff up in their bedroom for a while, and they 
definitely jinx the "Bighead Boy" badge while at the Leaky Cauldron 
before term has started, and it seems I also remember Ginny 
performing cleaning spells prior to boarding the Hogwarts express.  
So it wouldn't seem that wizarding children have quite the same 
expectations in this regard as those who live with muggles.

Another thought that came to mind is, IIRC, I think the curses are 
Unforgivable only if used *against another human.*  So while I hope 
there are severe punishments against those using them against 
animals, hitting a fly or a spider with one may not be enough to 
warrant any sort of action, even if you were detected.  

Those are my thoughts.
imamommy