h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Most spells take more to perform than merely speaking them. Even the summoning charm took a lot of will power and concentration. The Septumsempra curse was overly easy to perform for such a serious curse.

hannakuhbush

What's hannakuh?

yeah, but they don't celebrate other feasts, pagan or otherwise - shouldn't solstices and easter be major?

I honestly can't be arsed getting bogged down with minor details - it's all going a bit Lord of the Rings round here!

Pretty much every wizard we have encountered (if not all of them) have performed magic without a wand at least once.

That is how they get the magical breakthrought that the quill records, und thus generates their invite to Hogwarts.

Sure, Harry did it before, too - when he was angry, which focused his thoughts - so that's what I think the wand is for!

Celebrating christmas helps the reader (epecially the children reading) to identify with wizarding culture more.

Where does it say Harry was christened- I think I missed it?

He must have been, if he has a godfather!

good point.

You don't have to be baptised to have a godfather

Francis Ford Coppola, for example.

B

Ah! Good that you say it, I thought that too, but wasn't sure (that he doesn't really has to be baptised I mean).

Harry was christened in a rushed ceremony with just his parents and Sirius and very few other people present, as it was just before the Potters went into hiding from Voldemort... JKR said as much in an interview recently - the one given to the Mugglenet and Leaky Cauldron website teams... I think it was in answer to a question about whether Harry had a godmother...

http://www.mugglenet.com/jkrinterview3.shtml

Somewhere near the bottom of that page...

... in fact the whole interview is worth reading.

Right! So that's cleared that up...

Guilty as charged.

Ok, must remember to read the last page before posting a reply in future...

Okay, it seems pretty clear that wands are not necessary to do magic, but why all the emphasis, then, on choosing exactly the right one for the person? Hagrid, after all, seems to do okay with his pink umbrella, even though his education was cut short.

Well, but his wand is inside of the umbrella.

You mean hidden in the shaft of the umbrella? I always thought the umbrella WAS the wand.