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harry potter - What is Divination, as practiced by Wizards, really like?


What is Divination really like when it is not just a school subject, but is practically applied by a competent Wizard? Is there a definition of what counts as Divination in the Harry Potter universe?


Most of what we know about Divination in the Harry Potter universe is through the school courses of Professor Trelawney and Firenze, plus a few remarks by Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall. I don't believe these give a fair representation of Divination in the real world, just like how the school curriculum of the first three years of Harry's Defense Against the Dark Arts class wouldn't tell much about how Defense Against the Dark Arts is used by adults.


To give some specifics, which of the following (if any) are Divination?




  • Professor Snape's task of finding out about the Dark Lord's plan.

  • Professor Dumbledore finding out lots of details about the past of the Dark Lord.

  • Professor Dumbledore coercing Kreacher to tell him what's happened to Sirius.

  • Professor Dumbledore detecting magic in the cave.

  • The visions Harry had, showing what the Dark Lord or his Snake were doing.

  • The spell used to reveal the last spell cast by a wand, as seen in Goblet of Fire.

  • The Sorting Hat determining the personality traits of a young wizard.

  • The Specialis Revelio spell cast by Hermione on the Riddle diary.

  • The examination the Ministry of Magic has done on the objects Professor Dumbledore has left in his will to the trio.


  • The tests done on the Firebolt that Harry got as a gift, ensuring that it is not jinxed.

  • The Homenium Revelio spell cast by Hermione to find humans in the Black manor.

  • What the Marauder's Map does.

  • The two real prophecies of Professor Trelawney.


I have guesses about how some of the above are Divination and some aren't, but they are all based on what I've heared of divination outside the Harry Potter universe. There is, however, probably some material in the books, interviews, Pottermore, or other resources that I don't know about.


To address a particular argument you might give about the prophecies of Professor Trelawney, recall that Professor Dumbledore wanted to keep Trelawney in Hogwarts to protect her, after the first prophecy and the immediately following events. The way he insisted that she stay after she was sacked from her teaching position (in the Order of the Phoenix) clearly shows this, together with what he says about the matter in Half-Blood Prince chapter 20:



I cannot ask Firenze to return to the forest, where he is now an outcast, nor can I ask Sybill Trelawney to leave. Between ourselves, she has no idea of the danger she would be in outside the castle. She does not know – and I think it would be unwise to enlighten her — that she made the prophecy about you and Voldemort, you see.




This means that Professor Dumbledore may have applied Trelawney regardless of how good Divination teacher he thought she was, and regardless of whether the prophecy is Divination or not.


Can you give other examples of Divination used by Wizards, other than the ones related to school courses? This is a speciesist question, I'm specifically asking only about human Wizards, not about divination practiced by Centaurs or House Elves or Goblins or other creatures.


Remark. The original reason why this question came up is a disagreement in the thread Why didn't Dumbledore use magic to figure out what Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans taste like?



Answer




What is Divination, as practiced by Wizards, really like?





  • Based on canon, there is no information about any Divination practice among wizards aside from what is being taught in Divination classroom at Hogwarts





  • Moreover, based on interviews, there's no successful Divination practice at all at the time of Harry Potter, aside from Trelawney's accidental Prophecies





which of the following (if any) are Divination?



NONE of the examples you listed is Divination, save last one (Prophecies) which is... iffy.


Divination is defined as practicing magical arts to reveal the future.



From Muggle Wiki definition:



Divination (from Latin divinare "to foresee, to be inspired by a god",[2] related to divinus, divine) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual.[3] Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency.



In Harry Potter world, Divination has the following properties/definitions:




  • Reveals information about the future. Not the present. Not the past. See the sources below for details.





  • Reveals indirect information, via magical means.




    • Not finding out direct information, such as reading someone's plan via Legilimency




    • Not to construct a logical model to predict the future the way a muggle would.







As such, every one of the examples given by you except the last one aren't divination, as none of them show revealing information about the future via indirect magical means. Only the first one is about the future in the first place, and Snape's work isn't done via indirect magical means, but by old fashioned James Bond ways.




Whether the Prophecies are "divination" or not is simply a matter of definition.




  • If we include only conscious, on-purpose attempts to divine the future, then Trelawney's prophecies aren't "Divinaton" in a strict sense of the word. This interpretation is favoured by a train of thought that if something is "Divination", it should be teachable in Divination class (either Hogwarts, or maybe something more advanced). Whereas, Prophecy isn't teachable... it just happens.





  • On the other hand, it's a magical way of revealing the future, so according to the definition we started out with, it IS Divination. This interpretation is in line with thinking that spontaneous magic is still magic - if Harry re-grows his hair, it's still Transfiguration.






SOURCES


What do we know about Divination aside from what the books say relative to Trelawney's class and some remarks by Professores AD and MM?




  1. Divination details aren't really mentioned in JKR interviews. There's one direct mention (proving it's about the future only) and one tangential mention:




    JKR: Yeah, he starts learning Divination, and so...
    LS: Telling about the future...
    JKR: Uh-huh, foretelling the future. I know a lot about foretelling the future, without, I have to say, believing in it... (src)


    JK Rowling: ... at one point there was a blind character who went by the name of Mopsus, ... he sort of ­­ that was a very early character and he had the power of second sight, in other words he was a bit like Professor Trelawney, he was a very, very early character, this was when I was drafting Philosopher's Stone, the reason I cut him was he was too good. As the story evolved, if there was somebody who really could do divination at the time that Harry was alive, it greatly diminished the drama of the story because someone out there knew what was going to happen. (src)





  2. Pottermore offers very little detail, but also confirms it's about the future.


    The textbook for the class used on Pottermore is "Unfogging the Future" by Cassandra Vablatsky.





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