Harry's DADA skill was Re: Albus and Gellert/Voldemort's Power

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182615


> Alla:
> 
> Then based on what we can tell much about Harry's abilities if not 
> his grades?

Carol responds:
He says himself that he's not better than Ron at anything except
flying (and, by extension, Quidditch). He does manage to turn an
eyebrow yellow in a Transfiguration class in HBP, in contrast to Ron's
accidentally giving himself a handlebar mustache, but how many times
has Hermione succeeded in performing a spell (or making a potion
pre-HBP) when ron and Harry don't succeed? Part of it is not paying
attention, of course--they talk a lot in class--but so does Hermione,
yet she, for example, silences her raven and gets a teacup to walk on
legs when the boys fail in the same attempt. She also masters
nonverbal spells long before they do. Now granted, Harry's inability
to perform nonverbal spells in DADA in HBP has something to do with
the mutual antagonism between him and Snape, but he can't do it in
Charms or Transfiguration, either.

So, what can we tell about Harry's abilities besides his grades? Well,
there's that Patronus, the one spell he's better at than Hermione, but
he had lots of help and the advantage of training on a
Boggart!Dementor. And all the spells he learned for the TWT, he
learned with Hermione's help and because his life quite literally
depended on his learning them. (However, unlike Cedric and Fleur, who
performed a bubblehead charm, and Viktor, who transfigured himself
into half a shark, he didn't do any magic of his own to save himself
from drowning; good thing that Crouch!Moody tricked Dobby into
stealing the gillyweed. I concede, of course, that he was only
fourteen at the time and could probably have performed the bubblehead
charm at seventeen, though we never see him do it, but could he have
turned himself into an animal, or even half of one, even at that age?
there's no evidence that he could.)

Harry says himself, and I think that both his modesty and his honesty
are important, that he has no power to match Voldemort's; his wand
acted on its own. The only special powers that he has were transferred
to him inadvertently by Voldemort. He is matched against an enemy far
more powerful than himself. (Compare his Stunning Spells,
Expelliarmus, and Impedimenta to the spectacular magic that DD and
Voldemort use against each other.) And, of course, he can't possess
anyone or perform Occlumency (he gets the general idea finally in DH)
or perform that horrible, invasive Legilimency that Voldemort uses or
fly without a broom or control monsters or any of the horrible stuff
that Voldemort uses, setting aside a couple of mediocre Imperius
Curses and one successful Crucio. Snape defeats him in a duel simply
by parrying all his curses, but Snape is protecting him; a real DE
unconcerned with his survival, especially Bellatrix, would be another
matter.

Harry does have the power to block the Imperius Curse, which is
helpful but odd. Wouldn't that require, as Snape says, similar powers
of concentration to Occlumency? Why can he do one without the other?
Is it a natural ability inherited from his parents or related somehow
to the soulbit in his scar? We aren't told, but, either way, I don't
see how a natural ability would be to his credit, any more than
Hermione is responsible for her own good memory and powers of
concentration.

My intention is not to disparage Harry. Like David with Goliath, like
Frodo with Sauron (or the Witch King, with whom he comes face to
face), Harry is matched with a foe whose power is far greater than
his. And yet Harry, considered by JKR to be pure of heart, defeats
that enemy through a combination of determination, luck, love, and
self-sacrifice. The whole point of the series, IMO, is that despite
certain abilities developed or acquired through special circumstances,
he's really just an ordinary Wizard kid who happened, through no
action or desire of his own, to become the Chosen One. What would have
happened to Harry without the help of what Snape calls his "more
talented friends," chiefly Hermione and Dumbledore, but also Snape
himself (a "freinemy"?) and even Barty Jr., acting temporarily in the
guise of a friend?

Alla: 
> And, um, I understand that you do not make much of Harry's natural 
> abilities for DADA, but this is absolutely the situation where I 
> believe what JKR said to be just an extra support to what is already 
> in the books. And I am pretty sure that she said that Harry's 
> instincts in DA are natural or something like that.
> I do NOT believe that Harry is a genuis of course in anything but 
> DADA, yet in DADA I believe he is very close to one or at least meant 
> to be portrayed as such, Voldemort or not.

Carol:

Oh, well. I'm afraid that JKR's interpretation is sometimes at odds
with the evidence, and canon on occasion contradicts itself.

For example, Hermione talks Harry into giving them all DADA lessons,
yet she's the one who helped him learn all those spells. And what are
all those hexes and jinxes that the DA members use when they attack
Draco and company on the Hogwarts Express? The only spells we know
that they've been taught, aside from jinxes like Jelly-Legs and
Petrigicus Totalus that they learned way back in first year, are
standard DADA spells: Expelliarmus (already taught them by Snape in
second year), Stupefy, Impedimenta, Reducto, and Protego--useful
spells, certainly, but they're the same ones that Hermione made Harry
learn in GoF.

Why does Hermione, whose only problem with DADA is the Boggart she
never faced in PoA (was Lupin trying not to embarrass her? Why not
give her a special private lesson rather than allowing her to blow
that part of his exam and later that portion of the OWL?) need DADA
lessons? She knows perfectly well that Harry didn't defeat Voldemort
in GoF, the Priori Incantatem did. She isn't going to learn to outfly
a dragon and she's not going to need gillyweed. and if she doesn't
know Stupefy and Impedimenta and the rest after studying the theory
and watching Harry cast them, she's not the Hermione I know.

Alla: 
> But I see no reason to downplay Harry's abilities either. He IS 
curious, he does pick the books sometimes. After all he is curious 
enough to open the books before he comes to Hogwarts. He is of course
no Hermione, but he is IMO quite intelligent kid, who earned his Es, 
well my take would be because he indeed earned them.

Carol responds:
I'm not downplaying his abilities. He clearly has above-average
abilities, though he doesn't seem to have a particularly retentive
memory, and he applies his powers of concentration only when he needs
or wants to learn a subject. He's lazy and he procrastinates; he uses
the HBP's hints and takes (implicit) credit for them but he could
never have come up with them on his own. He lets Hermione write many
of his essays for him, which is why I wonder how he managed to learn
the theoretical portions of his various subjects at all.

Under ordinary circumstances, would he have been another James,
sneaking around the castle under an Invisibility Cloak and making
something along the lines of the Marauder's Map? I have no idea. I'm
pretty sure he'd have been the Seeker on the Quidditch team, maybe
even in his first year, but would he have learned DADA the way he did
under special circumstances? Would he have turned to Transfiguration
like James, who also had special incentive, a werewolf roommate? It's
impossible to say.

As for curiosity, that particular trait gets him into a lot of
trouble, for example, entering Pensieves without permission. As for
curiosity about his studies, I think he lost that after his classes
became old hat. Certainly, he lost all curiosity about the history of
magic thanks to Professor Binns. And both he and Ron think that
reading your schoolbooks for entertainment is unnatural in anyone
except Hermione--unless that schoolbook is the Prince's Potions book
(paraphrased from the Levicorpus scene in HBP).

Alla: 
> Does he care much for studies? Sure he cares for action first and 
foremost, but as I said the fact that he opens his books before he 
even starts his studies tells me that had he cared he could have done
 even more with his studies.

Carol responds:
He opens his books before he ever enters Hogwarts because he's just
discovered that he's a Wizard and wants to learn as much as possible
about his brave new world. But with each passing year, he becomes more
accustomed to that world, and it loses its newness and excitement. He
also becomes more preoccupied (as is perfectly natural and normal)
with the things that interest him, such as Quidditch or whatever
mystery he and his friends are solving or whatever problems he happens
to be facing. And, of course, those problems all too often relate in
some way to Voldemort, which takes us back to DADA.

Carol, who prefers a Harry who is not a miniature Dumbledore capable
of casting spells like those that DD and LV (or Snape and McGonagall)
cast against each other and is instead forced to rely on luck,
resourcefulness, courage, and friendship to defeat his nemesis