Contradiction?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 176125

Barry wrote:
> said:
> > Around page 45 of DH, Mad-Eye says that they can't do a spell to
get Harry out of Privet Drive. Then 6 people take polyjuice. Isn't
this a spell and hence a contradiction?

Random832 responded: 
> No, it's a potion.

Carol adds:
And it's prepared in advance, so even if a wand is involved in
preparing the potion, there's no wand use to detect as they drink it.
Moody explains that "the Trace" on Harry can detect a spell if Harry
or anyone around him casts one while he's underage (DH Am. ed. 47),
but no spell is involved in taking Polyjuice Potion.

Barry: 
> > They can leave on brooms, flying motorbike (isn't this a spell?)
or Thestral. Why then, doesn't Harry use his invisibility cloak and a
 whole different plan?

random832: 
> They use magic, but a "spell" is something cast with a wand - not a
potion or an enchanted object [even though the enchantment may have
been done with a wand originally], they're not using their wands. And
we have ample evidence now that Apparating is simply a nonverbal
spell, despite fandom having long believed it was wandless.

Carol:
Mad-eye explains this, too. Harry can't Apparate or use the Floo
Network or a Portkey as Pius Thicknesse has made the use of any of
those forms at 4 Privet drive and imprisonable offense and the house
is being magically watched (46), which leaves brooms, thestrals, and
the motorbike as the only undetectable forms of magical
transportation. (The riders and their forms of transportation are
concealed by previously cast Disillusionment Charms until they reach
the safety of the Dursleys' yard, still briefly hidden by the Blood
Protection charm.) Mad-eye says straight out, "We're going to use the
only means of transport left to us, the only ones the Trace can't
detect, because we don't need to cast spells to use them: brooms,
thestrals, and Hagrid's motorbike" (47).

As to why Mad-eye and Harry (or maybe someone who could walk more
silently than Mad-eye, say. Lupin, didn't just walk a good distance
from 4 Privet Drive and then Apparate, as DD did with Harry in HBP,
I'm not sure. Apparently, Apparition would be detectable because of
the Trace on Harry and because it does, after all, require the wizard
to have a wand in his possession. But, still, the Ministry might be
able to track their destination. As for Harry and Mad-eye riding
together on Harry's Firebolt, covered by the Invisibility Cloak, with
charms on Hedwig's cage and the rucksack to make them weightless and
semi-invisible, Mad-eye explains in OoP that the Invisibility Cloak
won't stay on when Harry is flying (OoP am. ed. 54). The best they
could have done, as far as I can see, would be a Disillusionment Charm
like the one Mad-eye used on Harry in OoP. Why *all* the Harrys and
all the protectors didn't have Disillusionment Charms on them is
unclear. Surely, it would have been a sensible precaution against
being seen by Muggles, not to mention DEs. Maybe not Voldemort
himself, though.

Carol, wondering whatever became of Sturgis Podmore, a member of the
original advance guard, once he got out of Azkaban