The Complete Idiot's Guide to the World of Harry Potter (43 page)

The Wizengamot has repeatedly sent Dark Wizards to prison, which is essentially a death sentence. The Wizengamot can also dole out lesser punishments, but only rarely hears cases that do not involve Dark Magic. As with Muggle courts of law, accused criminals can exchange testimony on other criminals for lighter sentences.

The name Wizengamot likely has a double meaning, both that of being made up of wise wizards and being made up of
old
wizards.
Gamut
means “entire range,” (and in Tagalog, the largest of the Philippine languages,
gamot
means “medicine”) while
wizen
means “dried up and shriveled.” A range of dried up and shriveled people? The medicine of the dried and shriveled? Hmmm. Perhaps, but
wizen
is likely derived from
wizard,
which means “wise.” The Wizengamot, then, can be thought of as made up of a range of wise, albeit a bit old, people. Or the medicine of old, wise wizards … tough medicine to swallow, for those found guilty.

In nearly all democratic societies, punishment has four purposes:

In the wizarding world, retribution and rehabilitation tend to be ignored; the focus is, instead, on deterrence and incapacitation. Underage criminals are deterred by the risk of expulsion from school, and adult criminals are deterred by the risk of fines and public humiliation. Evil criminals are supposed to be deterred and incapacitated by sentences in Azkaban prison, but the most evil ones tend to break out and continue their criminal ways.

The Ministry of Magic has no power to punish Hogwarts students for the crimes they commit at school, nor does it have the power to expel students from Hogwarts. However, the Hogwarts headmaster does have that power, and he uses it as a chief deterrent to underage mischief.

Wizards-in-training are not allowed, for all practical purposes, to practice magic outside school grounds. However, this violation tends to be prosecuted by school officials only when it allows Muggles to see magic being performed or when it employs the use of Dark Magic. Playing Quidditch (see Chapter 6) in the backyard, for example, with no Muggle neighbors nearby, would not result in expulsion. Messing with helpless Muggles on the subway, on the other hand, would. This legal turning of the head happens all the time in the Muggle world … think of a police car sailing past cars going well over the speed limit on some major highways, for example!

Like Muggle high schools, although wizarding students do drop out of Hogwarts before completing their seven years, most wizarding jobs require education through at least the fifth year (when O.W.L.s are taken—see Chapter 8) or the sixth (when Apparition lessons are offered— see Chapter 5), so incentive is high for students to remain at Hogwarts until at least that time.

Wizards are considered to be “of age” when they turn seventeen, which is either late in their sixth year or early in their seventh. (In the Muggle world, it’s usually sixteen to drop out of school; eighteen to be considered a legal adult. The wizarding world does both at seventeen.) As such, seventh-year students cannot be expelled from Hogwarts for underage sorcery, as they are no longer considered underage. They could, possibly, be expelled for being gits and prats, though!

For the most part, wizards are kept in line for their minor crimes by small fines and public humiliation, if they can be caught. Repeat offenders of minor crimes are viewed with annoyance, and most are simply yelled at when they make their next public appearances. This sort of public embarrassment has recently been employed in the Muggle world, as when judges sentence bad teen drivers to several months of riding the bus, or sentence litterbugs to clean up the highway.

On the far other side of the spectrum from fines and humiliation is the deadly serious punishment of a sentence at Azkaban prison. In fact, the very name Azkaban strikes fear into the hearts of wizards. It is a place from which few wizards return, and when they do, they are often just a shell of their former selves.

Azkaban is much like the U.S. federal prison called Alcatraz (nicknamed “the Rock”) that operated from the mid 1930s through the mid 1960s, both in name (three-syllable words beginning with the letter “a”) and in location, as they are both island prisons. Both are maximum-security prisons that house the most dangerous criminals: in the case of Alcatraz, the most deadly mobsters and other murderers; in the case of Azkaban, the most evil Dark Wizards. Alcatraz has had only one successful escape attempt; Azkaban has had several.

The major difference between the two prisons, however, is the presence of dementors at Azkaban. Dementors (from the Latin
de,
out of, and
mens,
mind; or “to make insane”) are Azkaban’s prison guards: ghoulish, cloaked creatures (think of the Grim Reaper) who, just by being in the general vicinity of wizards and Muggles alike, suck happiness, peace, and hope right out of them. Victims in the presence of dementors feel a deep, whole-body coldness and remember painful events from the past. Because of the presence of these guards, many prisoners go mad in just a short time. In addition, for those requiring more serious punishment, they administer the Dementor’s Kiss; dementors actually suck out the person’s soul, so that he or she is nothing more than a walking shell. Most wizards die soon after the Dementor’s Kiss. Compare this to even the meanest guards at Muggle prisons, and there’s really no comparison.

Dementors can be kept at bay by conjuring up a Patronus (see Chapter 13), which acts as a positive force that shields the wizard from the soul-draining effects of the dementor. However, because the Patronus Charm is advanced wizardry, only the most accomplished wizards possess the ability to drive away the dementors. Happily, if one has been in the presence of a dementor and escapes, the ill effects can be quickly reversed by eating copious amounts of chocolate. Just one bite spreads warmth throughout the body and begins to bring joy back to the wizard. This is not unlike the role of chocolate in the Muggle world!

Rowling’s depiction of dementors may have been influenced by the work of Philip Pullman, a British fantasy author. Rowling’s dementors bear

a striking resemblance to Pullman’s Spectres in
His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife,
published in 1997, two years before dementors first appeared in the wizarding world
.

The word spectre, by definition, means any object of fear or dread, but Pullman’s Spectres are especially dreaded. Although they cannot harm children, Spectres move toward adults as would a host of insects, and then they eat out the person’s soul, leaving a mere shell of the person behind. Children can only watch this slow, soul-sucking death happening to their parents, older siblings, and other loved ones; they cannot stop the attacks or help defend against them. And children know that, in time, they, too, will be subject to Spectre attacks. The only defense against Spectres is the Subtle Knife, which can be borne only by the designated Knife Bearer.