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

[pippin_999]

> Eloise:
> No, it's not inconsistent with the evidence in HBP. But then if
this  is the case... forgive me, but aren't we back to where we 
started?  How did the MOM know that Harry had been AK'd at GH?

Pippin:
Because Voldemort had no  reason to hide the murder of a family
of blood traitors and Dumbledore supporters who had already
defied him three times. 

But I suppose the larger question is why JKR leaves all these 
perceived inconsistencies in the text. Is she 
unconsciously imitating the sloppiness of pulp fiction, or is she 
doing so consciously and does it then serve some thematic 
purpose?

Now her website portrays her as, er, organizationally challenged,
so it could be that she simply doesn't perceive them. (My fellow
slobs will know exactly what am I talking about, while all you
neatniks will be shaking your heads incredulously.) But I think,
especially when it comes to the uneven application of wizarding
justice, that they are  too obvious for even a born slob  to  
overlook. So, could the uneven enforcement of wizarding law, 
and the apparent inconstancy of the rules of magic be related? 
I think they could.

In the ancient world, one rationale for the RL belief in magic was
that we live in a catastrophic, chaotic world. There is no natural
order and no natural law -- it is all imposed on the fundamental
chaos by the action of supernatural  beings, themselves
sprung from chaos, who have wrested power from the universe
and from one another, and used it to enforce their will. 

These  beings  imposed order on the world  but they could be 
constrained or persuaded to make exceptions (or to stop making 
exceptions and make things proceed 'normally') on behalf of the 
magician. 

Where belief in a disorderly universe was succeeded by a belief
in omnipotently divine or  natural law and order, the rationale 
for magic changed. It was then believed that operating alongside 
the laws of God and/or nature that had been revealed  
(or discovered) to man, there were secret, or "occult" laws, 
which only the adept could use. 

Modern fantasy writers have generally used the more modern
rationale for  magic in their stories. But I think JKR,has gone
 back to the older rationale, with the subversive purpose of 
showing us that if we really wanted  magic to work  it
might mean giving up the belief that  both natural and human 
law should be logically consistent and no human should
be above it.

No wonder Hermione, who understands the theory of magic
much better than Harry does, is terrifed by the idea of working
out spells on one's own. 

Now I don't think that JKR believes that the real world actually *is* 
chaotic, or that the magical world is in 'reality' underlain by
chaos, but if her wizards, with the exception of radicals like 
Dumbledore, don't have the idea of natural order even as an
underlying 
myth, it might explain why they are so tolerant of inconsistency.

It wouldn't bother them that some spells can be hidden and others
can't, or that some seem to require intent while others don't, and
so on. 

It also might be, for example, that Dumbledore applies "innocent
until proven guilty" at Hogwarts, but that the WW's justice
system as a whole is based on the Roman/continental 
standard of "guilty until proven innocent"  and that most wizards
don't think that one or the other has to be the *right* way to 
do things. It could even explain why they've put up for so 
long with Slytherin House even though most non-Slytherins seem to
feel that blatant self-interest is bad form if not morally
dangerous.


Eloise:
> Um...thinking about witnesses...Mrs Figg, as I think you pointed
out  did seem to know independently that Harry was fighting off
Dementors,  although she "came panting into sight" after they had 
left. I think  Mr Tibbles had only warned her that Mundungus had
left. 

Just a  curious detail. I wonder how she knew if she couldn't see 
them and  wasn't close enough to feel them? Perhaps it was the 
lights failing.
> 

Pippin:
Do we know that she wasn't close enough to feel them? Her manner is
much more confident as she describes what she felt. Harry could
certainly feel them before he saw them in PoA.

Pippin