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harry potter - Why wasn't the magic performed by the Advance Guard at 4, Privet Drive detected by the Ministry of Magic?


In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when at Number 4, Privet Drive, to fetch Harry Potter, the Advance Guard used magic (specifically Lumos, Locomotor and an unnamed charm used by Tonks to pack Harry's trunk).


If, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Hover charm by Dobby was detected, and Harry was recently almost expelled from Hogwarts, why were these spells not detected and prosecuted for?


It appears that the Ministry cannot seem to detect who performed spells (see Dobby's Hover charm).


Also, Fudge wanted reasons to expel or discredit Harry at the time; he would have eagerly taken up this opportunity.



Answer



There were adult wizards around at the point when this magic was performed.


Most probably the ministry is able to detect that there are also other wizards around the one who has the Trace. Else they will get lots of false positives from boys and girls living (and traveling) with their wizard parents.


If the ministry would start an investigation then there will be like 5+ witnesses (some of them aurors) who will confirm that Harry did no magic.



In both cases when Harry was detected and prosecuted there was no adult wizard around. Most probably the detection mechanism does not consider house elves - they are generally overlooked by wizards.


This also raises the question would someone living in a house where there are House Elves be prosecuted if he/she is alone and some elf does some magic. Most probably the ministry also has a list of locations where lots of magic is expected to happen - Malfoy Manor for example - and they ignore signals from the Trace if they come from such places. This would be more or less enough to cover the most "House Elves" false positives since they rarely leave their houses (with Dobby being an exception).


Note that the Ministry is usually extremely low on resources and (usually) government clerks are lazy. So they need to have lots of "tricks" else they'll have to run around like crazy on false signals.


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