Who needs Harry? (was: GoF CH 27-29 Post DH look/ Snape and Harry redux)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 182326

> > Magpie:
> >  <snip> Most Wizards in Britain pretty much went to Hogwarts and 
had
> access to this library, actually, which means a lot of people with 
an
> interest in Dark Magic could have read about them (before 
Dumbledore 
> hid all the books on the subject). 
> 
> Carol:
> Most wizards in Britain had access to this *library,* yes, but not
> necessarily to the Restricted Section and not to those books.
> Dumbledore hid the books while Tom was still at school, fifty years
> before Harry entered Hogwarts and roughly thirty-nine years before
> Godric's Hollow (and roughly a dozen years before Tom's altered
> appearance gave DD any cause to suspect that he might actually be
> making Horcruxes). Even when the books were accessible, they were 
only
> for the use of advanced DADA students (with permission from a staff
> member) and perhaps the staff members themselves. Students don't 
just
> walk into the Restricted Section and choose a book. They need
> permission even to enter. 

Magpie:
Older ones can get permission to enter. So before Dumbledore hid the 
books that would have been possible--obviously, since presumably Tom 
found out just that way. I of course concede that once Dumbledore 
decided to remove any books with mentions of them nobody would be 
finding out about them from this library. However, they could still 
find out about them outside of Hogwarts. I'm not counting on dozens 
of students stumbling across it, I just didn't think you could claim 
information was totally cut off from people when what you mean is 
that it's in their local library but in a section you need permission 
to enter.

I can't just assume that Hermione really is the only Wizard in the 
whole world who's ever had an interest in reading about anything--
Ron's joke aside. (It's a joke. He's exaggerating.) There are Wizards 
who invent stuff and come up with stuff about magic. I would assume 
they'd learn about magic to do that, outside of Hogwarts. If somebody 
was interested in the immortality question, sure they might have read 
about it. Or they might have researched a related subject and looked 
elsewhere in the book. But anyway, I'm not relying on students with 
no interest in studying here. I'm saying there are supposed to be 
adult Wizards who study advanced magic and so *they* might have 
studied advanced things enough to have come across this subject 
*after their time at Hogwarts.* Like Dumbledore and Slughorn 
obviously did. Snape maybe just had different interests, perhaps 
especially after he was an adult.

But more importantly, I'm not relying on people having to know about 
Horcruxes *before* they turn to the Voldemort problem. The Voldemort 
problem could also lead them to that information--just as it 
apparently did with Regulus.

Magpie:
The only time it's ever used
> in the books is by Hermione with permission and Harry without.
> 
> Seriously, your statement that "a lot of people with an interest in
> the Dark Arts probably read those books" is an exaggeration even 
with
> regard to the over-seventies who attended Hogwarts with Tom Riddle 
and
> earlier (many of whom are dead by the time of Godric's Hollow, in 
any
> case). 

Magpie:
Considering "over 70" covers a thousand of years, I don't know if "a 
lot of people" is that much of an exaggeration. But no, I didn't mean 
that there was a ton of people reading about them. I do, however, 
assume that there should be experts on magic in the WW, people who 
know more than your average person, and I don't think it's so crazy 
to think that they'd know about this just as Dumbledore and Slughorn 
do. They could also be younger than Dumbledore and Slughorn, and have 
learned about them in their studies after school. 

Or they could START studying immortality magic because Voldemort is 
obsessed with it and therefore seek out everything written about it, 
which ought to include Horcruxes.  

Carol:
And with regard to people under
> seventy, it's simply false. *The books weren't available.* 
Dumbledore
> hid them. 

Magpie:
The books weren't available AT HOGWARTS after Dumbledore hid them. So 
no *students at Hogwarts* would be coming across them in the library 
at any point after Dumbledore hid them. A person studying advanced 
magic, particularly immortality magic, could seek out books with this 
information outside of Hogwarts.

Banning all books on a subject from your school library does not 
effectively erase the existance of that subject in the entire world 
from the moment you do that. There is canon that Wizards continue to 
study magic after their teens.

Carol: 
> Perhaps you're thinking that "a lot of wizards" read about Horcruxes
> after finishing Hogwarts, but why would they? 

Magpie:
Because they are researching advanced dark magic? Because they're 
interested in immortality? Because they're being taken over by a 
wizard obsessed with Dark Magic and immortality and they're trying to 
know their enemy? There are plenty of reasons for intelligent adult 
wizards who were facing Voldemort to go to the trouble of studying 
stuff in this area. There is canon for Wizards actually doing stuff 
like that. The world is supposed to be at least a bit like our world, 
with Wizards inventing things and studying. There are even Wizards 
who are supposed to be more accomplished in their study than Snape. 
Wizards lack extensive fiction, but there are supposed to study stuff 
like death and love magically.

And remember, I'm not saying there are wizards in canon that we know 
of that have been studying immortality (err...except Dumbledore and 
Flamel, which is already two). We're talking about whether Voldemort 
could have been brought down without Harry. So the question of "why 
would they?" is always answered by "because it would help bring 
Voldemort down." They don't have to have been doing it before the 
war. It makes sense for a resistance movement to set people to do it 
in response to the war. 

Carol:
Such books wouldn't be available in
> Diagon Alley, and respectable Witches and Wizards avoid Knockturn
> Alley (which might or might not sell such books; we aren't shown any
> books of any sort in Borgin and Burkes.)

Magpie:
I hardly think being "respectable" is a good reason for not studying 
information that's going to bring down your enemy--and that's what 
I'm talking about, people studying this subject in response to 
Voldemort. Leaving aside that the world isn't populated 
by "respectable" Wizards at all--people go to Knockturn Alley when 
they want stuff there. And I think if they need books on arcane, 
possibly dark subjects, they find out how to get them even if there 
isn't a specific bookstore with the book you want in the window 
around the corner. I'm talking about a resistance movement seeing 
this as a good subject to study because Voldemort is interested in 
it. They don't have to have the interest for themselves.

Carol:
 And Wizards other than Snape,
> with his book-lined walls (and probably Dumbledore) don't spend much
> time reading that I can see. 

Magpie:
So you're basically agreeing with Betsy that the reason that Wizards 
can't bring down Voldemort without Harry isn't that Harry is in any 
way particularly qualified, but that Wizards are actually nothing 
like adult humans, but are in fact so dim-witted that owning books is 
beyond the grasp of most of them. Sure these books are written by 
people and printed and sold, but nobody actually reads except for 
towering geniuses like...Snape. So if a Wizard obsessed with 
immortality and Dark Magic comes along we can't expect anyone in the 
country to be able to do any research because they don't like 
reading. If Snape hasn't learned something in his extracurricular 
reading, the information doesn't exist for anyone.

Carol:
> If older Wizards interested in the Dark Arts (or fighting them) knew
> about Horcruxes, surely either Mad-Eye Moody or Mr. Crouch would 
know
> about them (assuming that they're over seventy). But, clearly, they
> don't. Dumbledore and Slughorn are the only ones who know about 
them,
> and neither of them is sharing that information.

Magpie:
Which is incredibly stupid on their part, don't you think? It has 
nothing to do with Horcrux information being impossible to get. It's 
not something that your average auror knows about, but it exists and 
therefore the information can be found somewhere--Regulus Black found 
it. Dumbledore has books about it in his office, books that might 
even have had more than one copy printed. Nobody's trying to research 
immortality magic even though Voldemort's obsessed with it, and for 
some reason every single person in canon who does figure it out keeps 
it a secret and probably directs people away from the subject as 
well. 

Your average Muggle equivalent of an auror doesn't know about lots of 
things that a scientist would know. A scientist who's a chemist 
probably doesn't know things that a biologist knows. Different types 
of specialists come together to fight common enemies.

Carol:
How
> are students supposed to learn about Horcruxes when the teachers
> pretend that they don't exist? And if people somehow knew about them
> anyway and talked about them in conversation (as an exciting 
forbidden
> topic spoken about in whispers) or if information on Horcruxes could
> easily be encountered in books outside Hogwarts, Snape, of all 
people
> would know about them and have at least one book on the topic in his
> book-lined house at Spinner's End. 

Magpie:
I don't consider Snape as the arbiter of all knowledge in the WW. I 
think it's possible for Snape to not know about something that 
somebody else knows about. People have different areas of knowledge 
that interest them. Nicholas Flamel would have more reason to have 
come across stuff about Horcruxes (since he's studying immortality) 
than Snape, who was not. Snape never really seemed interested in 
that, even after Lily died. He had a different reaction to death than 
Dumbledore. 

However, I think if Snape had gotten the idea--say, from thinking 
about Voldemort and Death Eating--that perhaps Voldemort had studied 
immortality via Dark Magic, I think he would have tracked down books 
on that subject and probably would have learned about Horcruxes (as 
it was he probably had Dumbledore directing what he did and didn't 
study anyway). Just like his less astounding colleague Regulus did. 
All this stuff you keep claiming is impossible to do was done by 
Regulus Black. Maybe it never occurred to Snape because he was at 
Hogwarts, but Regulus figured it out.

Carol:
 The only reference
> she finds is one that says that the writer isn't going to deal with
> the topic. It stands to reason, then, that books that *do* discuss
> Horcruxes are very rare--and written by people who were adults when
> Tom Riddle attended Hogwarts and unlikely still to be writing books 
in
> Harry's time even if they're still alive.

Magpie:
Yeah, they're rare. Rare hardly means "they don't exist." So if 
somebody decided to study Dark Magic and Immortality on the level 
that a Dark Lord who isn't squeamish at all might indeed hear about 
them. The guy who wrote Herimone's book felt the need to mention them 
at that level even if he wasn't going to say how they were made. A 
library at that level could have some information on the subject--
Hogwarts does, only those books have been stolen. The information 
isn't as easily available as the latest Quidditch scores, but adult 
wizards focused on the study of this subject because Voldemort's into 
it would still have a chance of learning it. I wouldn't count them 
out automatically.

Magpie: 
> Carol, who thinks that Horcruxes are no more a part of the average
> Wizard's world than necrophilia is part of yours and mine

Magpie:
Except I know what necrophilia is. I probably even read about it in 
my school library--and not because I was hoping to try it myself. I 
just know that there are other people who would do it. So if somebody 
started stealing corpses necrophilia would probably come to mind as a 
possible motive. Horcruxes are even less weird, actually. 
Necrophilia's a disorder. Wanting to figure out a way not to die when 
killed is a lot less crazy.

-m