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

[pippin_999]

> 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:

They get involved in the first place because it's their job, which, thanks
to gadflies like the DP, they do occasionally. If Rita had been on the loose,
there probably would have been an inquest over Cedric, and Harry 
probably would have been indicted, it being the editor's judgement that
crazy!Harry would sell more papers than unconfirmed rumors of Voldemort's 
return, which according to Ron in Book One, are old hat.

The MoM detected magic in the Riddle house  when it was young Tom
Riddle, who (apparently) expected the murder to be discovered, and
in fact arranged for someone to take the fall. There was 
already someone in the area that the MoM had pegged as a trouble
maker.

They didn't detect magic in the Riddle house when it was 
uglybaby!Voldemort, greatest Dark Wizard of all time, who didn't want 
to be discovered. I don't think it's inconsistent that Voldemort has ways 
of  hiding his magic from the MoM. Harry says they can't find him, and
yet he uses crucio and AK with abandon.

But if you want to peg it as a Flint instead...shrugs.

As I've said, I don't think we've seen that they have a way of
remotely detecting when a spell is performed by an underaged 
wizard. Dumbledore says they don't. What they 
might have, if Voldemort's boat is a clue, is a way of detecting
traces of a mature wizard. So if they detect a spell, and they
don't detect a mature wizard, then they could conclude it was an
underage wizard, if they bothered to be logical at all and didn't
throw the first likely suspect into Azkaban, which is more their
style.

Would uglybaby!Voldemort register
as a mature wizard? I wonder.

> Eloise:

> 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).

Pippin:
Formalities? in the WW? Look at what happened to Sirius!
The WW government is sort of an English-speaking banana republic,
IMO.

> 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.

Pippin:
The wizarding world is even loopier than I thought if the best evidence
of a Muggle having witnessed magic is not the testimony of said Muggle.
Anyway, they certainly used evidence from Muggles in Sirius's case.

Is there some provision  that children can't be subpoenaed
without their parents' consent? 

Pippin