Caring about people

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 184595

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Philip" <philipwhiuk at ...> wrote:

Zanooda:
> When Moody explains the plan, he also doesn't say that Thicknesse and
> the DEs can track Harry, if he Apparates, only that Thicknesse made it
> "imprisonable offense" to Apparate from or to Privet Drive (p.46). I
> don't know what this means exactly, but it seems obvious they can't
> trace an apparating wizard, only to put a spell on a place (a house in
> this case) which lets them know that someone *did* Apparate. 

> Maybe the spell even shows *who* Apparated, otherwise how would they
> know whom to "imprison" :-)? If Harry's apparition was traceable, I
> believe Moody would have said so, instead of ranting about
> "imprisonable offense" :-).
 
Philip:
> Oh, come on. This is the Ministry who captured people like Stan Shunpike
> without questioning. You don't actually think they care who they imprison do
> you? <grin>

> But yes, I do think that the spell is applied to the house rather than being
> a function of the system itself. 

Geoff:
I wonder whether there's a tie in with underage magic spells here. I 
think I'm right in that underage magic is only picked up by the Ministry - 
when it's looking for it - as a spell being performed in that location and 
hence the reason Harry was detected and reprimanded was because he 
was the only wizard in the vicinity and obviously underage.

There was some discussion a long time ago about this and also about the 
use of spells including Unforgiveables at an incident such as the battle at 
the Ministry in OOTP where it was suggested that it was impossible to 
detect who threw which spell.

By the same token, is the "imprisonable offence" only workable when 
one wizard is involved? Can Thicknesse's minions actually identify 
individuals who have been wicked enough to want to Floo, Portkey or 
Apparate to number 4? Or are we going to be mulling this over for 
the next x posts?