Under age magic - just wondering?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 188305


Carol earlier:
> >Good point. There are two kinds of Muggles, those who know about magic and those who don't. Also, magic performed *on* a Muggle would (normally) be punished more severely than magic performed *in front of* a Muggle (obviously, the MoM alters this view on at least two occasions, Aunt Marge, when they're lenient with Harry, and the Patronus performed to save Dudley (and Harry himself), when they're unduly harsh.)
> <snip>
> >At any rate, it's just another instance of JKR's indifference to consistency in details that readers quickly pick up on.
> 
> Christy:
> I would suggest that the Ministry's reaction to Harry's Patronus in OOTP is the exception not the rule, and the warning he received in COS is more the norm. In OOTP Fudge, Umbridge and their "allies" wanted to discredit Harry and neutralizze the threat that perceived him to be (by claiming Voldemort had returned and therefore undermining the peace and security under Fudge's administration). The dementors failed, thanks to Harry; so, they took the opportunity to charge him with underage magic and "take him down" that way. Consequently, JKR wasn't inconsistent.
> 
> Christy
> 
Carol responds:
Yes, I cited the Patronus incident as an exception--when the MoM was unduly harsh for the reasons you cited, just as it was unusually lenient, again under special circumstances, with Aunt Marge. But my point is that there are two kinds of Muggles, those who know about magic and those who don't (the Dursleys vs. Aunt Marge and the cake lady), and there's a difference between performing magic *on* a Muggle, as Morfin Gaunt did (the hex on Tom Riddle Sr.) amd *in front of* a Muggle (a floating cake that happens to land on the Muggle--the MoM didn't know about that part). So, I don't disagree with you, but I think that you missed my pointing out the Patronus incident as an exception. I agree that the Hover Charm incident is dealt with in a more usual way (ignoring the fact that Harry didn't perform it).

Of course, the Morfin Gaunt incident raises the question of how the MoM knew that magic had been performed against a Muggle if Morfin wasn't a minor at the time--and how they knew that the Riddles had been killed if they weren't alerted by Tom Riddle's underage magic. Certainly, Morfin wasn't a minor at that time, which should have eliminated suspicion against him regardless of his record as a Muggle hexer.

Carol, who agrees with Bart that the whole prohibition against underage magic motif is not well thought out