Detecting magic (was: re AKs and Horcrux!Harry and soul-ripping )

[eloise_herisson]

> > Eloise:
> > I think Dumbledore suggests that his interest in Muggle news is 
> > unusual. I doubt many ordinary wizards would have heard of it as
> they  would have to go out of their way to read the Muggle press or
> listen  to the Muggle wireless (I suppose they might have gone to 
the
> cinema  and seen a news reel).
> 
> Pippin:
> Um, the business of the MoM is to look into unusual events before
> the Muggles start suspecting magic. 

Eloise:
Presupposing they know about the unusual events to begin with.
You seemed to be suggesting that members of the general wizarding 
populace would know about this murder and press the MOM to 
investigate and that was what I was addressing.

If they have other ways of detecting it, then fine. But it leaves us 
with problems.

Pippin:
>  In the course of this, if they uncover what seems obviously to be a
> wizard's murder, moreover one which they can easily solve so that 
it 
> looks like they are doing their jobs, why would they even try to 
keep
> it out of the Daily Prophet?

Eloise:
Sorry, where did the Daily Prophet come into it? 
Yes, I can see that if for some reason they became aware of a set of 
Muggle murders and decided that it was worthy of their attention and 
convicted the fall guy then they would trumpet it. But that wasn't 
the point I was answering, which was to do with why they would get 
involved *in the first place* and the MOM's apparent ability to 
detect underage magic except in a wizarding household, or the (Muggle)
Riddle House.
 
Pippin:
> OTOH, Cedric's death, supposedly on the Hogwarts grounds, was 
> not something that would attract any Muggle attention. Frank 
Bryce's 
> disappearance did not attract much attention from anybody either.
> 
> Maybe there were traces of magic in the graveyard that Dumbledore
> could detect. But unless they were independently detected by
> the ministry, that wouldn't help  any more than Snape's showing
> off his dark mark.

Eloise:
I accept  that Dumbledore's ability to detect the traces of magic 
were probably greater than anyone else's.
> 
> 
> > Eloise:
> > Oh, agreed, but that still leaves some ambiguity (IMO) of why the
> MOM  detects magic in some circumstances and not others, assuming, 
> as  seems to be implied in the text, that there is some way that the
> MOM  has of remotely sensing when magic happens.
> >   
> 
> Pippin:
> I agree. But I think it's easily explained by the vagaries of
> enforcement and the cunning of the Order and the DE's, who seem to 
be 
> able to hide some kinds of magic but not others.

Eloise:
Whilst I think that it's explained by the vagaries of the author who 
isn't always as consistent as she might be.

> > Eloise:
> > I accept your reasons for why there might not have been an 
enquiry. 
> > But *magic always leaves traces*. And his death, which therefore
> bore traces of magic also thus bore the marks, or rather the lack 
of 
> marks, of an AK.
> > 
> 
> Pippin:
> But if there's no enquiry, they're not going to be discovered, are
> they?

Eloise:
Well, if those present at the time weren't competent to see them, 
then no.

Pippin:
I suppose that I find it incomprehensible that there were *no* 
formalities. In the Muggle world you'd have a post mortem even if it 
didn't proceed to an inquest (which, at least over here, it would 
*have* to).

> 
> Eloise:
> > What I'm saying is that if the prosecution themselves couldn't
> bring forward the witness who had informed the MOM that they had, 
> err,   witnessed magic being performed in front of a Muggle, then 
> they  hadn't a leg to stand on. 
> 
> Pippin:
> They had the Muggle himself, so why would they need to produce
> the witness who told them the Muggle was there? The MoM's
> methods of evidence collection aren't on trial.

Eloise:
Because in the WW, Muggles are less than nothing and their testimony 
would be worthless. If challenged, they ought to be able to produce 
evidence, or wizarding law enforcement is even more corrupt than I 
thought.

As I said, Vernon would never have given permission for Dudley to 
testify. He could have been threatened into it, perhaps, but not 
Petunia, who would have been supported by Dumbledore.

Pippin:
> Dumbledore might raise the issue, and they'd blow him off, just
> like they did about what the dementors were doing there in the
> first place.

Eloise:
Because at that point there was no witness that there were Dementors 
there .

Pippin:
> Anyway, I'm sure Umbridge could have found a way around that one. 
> There must be  lots of people who owe her favors and could have 
> been "just passing through when they saw what happened."

Eloise:
Perhaps she would have done. But Dumbledore didn't even try. OK, 
perhaps it would have made the hearing too long for the book, but it 
leaves a lot of unstated reasoning to get to the point where 
Dumbledore decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Which is better? "Produce the prosecution witness who saw this", 
or "Here's my potentially unreliable witness who might well say the 
wrong thing and fatally injure my case"? If the MOM *did* have an 
independent witness, even a false one, why didn't they produce 
him/her to challenge Figgy? If they didn't feel the need to produce 
one, then it implies that they have (generally known) automatic ways 
of detecting specific spells and who performs them outside of magical 
households, in which case they should have known that Morfin didn't 
perform the Riddle murders.

Perhaps all this tells us is that the MOM is corrupt, one way or the 
other. As if we didn't know.

~Eloise