There are many things and many people under the protection of Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic. What has always intrigued me has been the little hints to Harry that he is being watched and protected far more than even he has realized. So I developed a little theory as to how the Ministry of Magic operates and how they detect magic.

Something that I never liked was in CoS when Harry gets in trouble for Dobby's using magic. In the book Harry, gets in trouble; in the movie, he does not. I like the movie better in that scenario. It never made sense why Harry should be in trouble when he used no magic. Then it hit me - the Ministry has Number 4 under surveillance. Anytime magic is detected at Number 4, the Ministry is notified. But... why did no owl swoop in when he blew up Aunt Marge? Harry assumed he'd be in trouble, but there was no owl, no warning, no nothing. Then in Book Five, the Ministry knew of his Patronus Charm, but that didn't even happen at Number 4, so that took me back to square one. What's with all the double talk? Why do they care in some instances and not others? How do they know in the first place? Then I hit upon something - Harry is under the protection of the Ministry.

At the age of one, Harry took out the most feared wizard of all time. But his followers were still out there. The Ministry knew this kid was special and needed to be watched and protected. So after Dumbledore did the Evans Blood Charm, I believe a special order was taken on the house that detects the use of any magic as a code red. Just in case a Death Eater were to track Harry down and make a move, the Ministry would be instantly alerted to any use of Magic on the premises and Ministry officials would be able to Apparate there instantly to protect Harry. But then Aunt Marge happened, and Sirius Black escaped. Suddenly Harry was not only in danger, but he was also a flight risk. The Ministry could no longer guarantee that Harry would stay at his Aunt and Uncle's house. So they expanded the detection of magic to a certain mile radius around Number 4 so that if any magic was done in the vicinity of Number 4, they could be on it like white on rice.

Seems pretty cut and dry, but is it? Why should such care be taken to detect magic on Number 4? I should think there would be a way to detect if a particular wand did a particular spell. The Ministry was able to know that a Hovering Charm was produced in Book Two and that Patronus Charm was done in Book Five. But what is interesting is that they also knew in the second case that a Muggle was present. Now my Magic detector theory holds up the spells, but how do they know about the Muggles? Petunia is always talking about how much better than her neighbors she is. Well... what if she isn't? What if some of these neighbors that she tries so hard to impress, tries so hard to be better than, tries so hard to spy on are really Ministry plants? These plants are people whose job is to spy on the Dursleys and Harry in ways undetectable to them. Perhaps they are Unspeakables. Perhaps they are merely Magical Law Enforcement. It has always troubled me that Harry got busted for the Hovering Charm Dobby used and not for blowing up Aunt Marge. I never bought the Sirius excuse that "oh at least Harry is okay, we can let this one go just this once." Yet when Harry did the Patronus, they were able to know exactly where he was, what spell he did, and how many Muggles were there, yet not know that Dementors were there. If they could detect Harry and Dudley, why could they not detect the presence of Dementors? The whole thing is just too fishy. Now see, this is the old Pre-Law student in me. Somewhere a log or record should be kept of all the Harry surveillance. Now unless Muggles and Squibs are out watching out for Harry, wizards should be able to see Dementors, so on that log should be exactly what happened if Harry was being watched. Now given all the conspiracy surrounding the last situation, it is perfectly possible that the records were destroyed so that could not be used to help Harry's case. But now I have to modify my theory.

Assuming my magic detectors do exist, then I can concede that they are probably programmed to detect Wand and Wandless Magic, what spells were used, and if Muggles were present. These three conditions would account for Harry being in trouble each time. In the first case (CoS), it detected wandless magic, the Hovering Charm, and that Muggles were present. It was not designed to detect other creatures, so Dobby wouldn't have been detected. It would appear to someone reading the detector that only six beings were in the room when the spell was cast when in fact there were seven. In the second situation, it detected Wand Magic, the Patronus, and the presence of Dudley. No Dementors. I think this theory is probably the closest one to the truth of Ministry surveillance.

But one thing I thought about was what if magic detectors had always been set for Number 4 Privet Drive. To tie back into my Petunia as a "Muggle, but" theory, suppose you cannot practice Magic without having graduated from a school of some sort? In that case, Petunia would no doubt be on the list of people to watch as she is a non-practicing witch. The Ministry would need to know if she was using Magic because that would be a huge no-no.

So. The Ministry has these magic detectors that they use to detect underage magic, right? So why can the same technology not be used to track down Sirius or, more importantly VOLDEMORT? All of those wands were purchased from Ollivander's so it probably wouldn't take much to get some type of registration number to be able to detect their usage. This technology could have detected Voldemort's wand being used by Peter Pettigrew (though few probably know that the wand bought many years ago by Tom Riddle is Voldemort's wand). The same technology should have been used to determine exactly WHO blew up the street full of Muggles that Sirius and Pettigrew had their showdown on. If the detectors are skilled enough to know Harry is using magic, and since Harry is an underaged wizard it is safe to assume that there are probably detectors set for all underage wizards especially in Muggle inhabited areas like Hermione, then why are there not detectors skilled enough to detect adult magic or UNFORGIVABLE CURSES or extremely advanced magic?

For the same reason they don't use Veritaserum. I believe that there is a Wizards Bill of Rights that protects people from the government and from the tools that wizards have that Muggles don't, like Veritaserum. The only problem with the system is that it only favors the court of public opinion. Sirius was sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban for a crime he did not commit with no trial whatsoever. Where was the wizard bill of rights? Where were the Wizard lawyers. In the wizarding world, it seems the only real court is the court of public opinion. It the public thinks you are guilty, you are guilty. So such tools like magic detectors and Veritaserum could be used but are not since the people and not the law seem to decide who is guilty and who is not. (That is my political rant for the day.)

One more to go.

1/20/05

Posted by: Nicole

If you would like to contact Brandon, you may do so at Greatbman at aol dot com.

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