What an Idiot!/Literature/Harry Potter

"A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of logic,--"

—Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone

• The Polyjuice Potion can give you the appearance of anyone you can get a sample of hair from. Thus anyone important can be replaced.

You'd Expect: The potion to be illegal for use by anyone but Aurors and high-ranking Ministry officials. Meanwhile, some wizards would work on methods of authentication and identification that could mostly obsolete it as anything more than a practical joke.

Instead: Although the Polyjuice Potion is considered very advanced magic, it is not only legal, it can be learned at Hogwarts, if not taught. To be fair, it is in the Restricted Section of the library, so Lockhart is the idiot for giving unrestricted access to the Restricted Section to a second-year student.

• Another Voldemort example from Deathly Hallows. By the 400-page mark of the book, Voldemort has already checked the cave, shack and vault, realizing that Harry has gone Horcrux hunting. Voldemort has every reason to believe that Harry may try to go to Hogwarts next, which is confirmed by the Caterwauling Charm and a call from his Death Eaters.

You'd expect: Voldemort would station his most competent and trustworthy lieutenants (yes, I'm getting at Bellatrix) in the Room of Requirement, keep his snake Nagini by his side at all times, and use his current Death Eater faculty stationed at Hogwarts to silence the school while Voldemort goes after Harry.

Instead: He launches a full-scale six or seven-hour assault on Hogwarts with unnecessary reinforcements; stations three barely of-age proteges in the Room of Requirement, all of whom are sons of treacherous Death Eaters and one of whom has a record of casting Fiendfyre but is unable to control it, putting the Horcrux itself at unnecessary risk; and, while he keeps Nagini with him at all times, puts her in danger by using her to murder Snape, later trying the same thing on Neville which gets the snake killed.

• Then there's Voldemort's set of six magical MacGuffins keeping him immortal.

You'd Think: He'd make them impossible to discover either by using nondescript objects that wouldn't stand out to someone or by hiding them in places only he knows about, that are unconnected to him in his history. Where they can be found, hide decoys, booby-trapped to at least mark the interloper and send alarm to him and/or his minions.

What's More: Since you don't need to have a horcrux available to hand in order to use it to resurrect yourself, nothing stops him from putting one or more of them in nigh-impossible to find places, such as sealed into a barrel of cement and dumped overboard at a random spot in the ocean.

Even Worse Yet: A spell exists in the canon that can render a given object or place absolutely impossible to find by anyone except one specific person and the individuals he chooses to allow access. Voldemort has known of this spell's existence since at least 11 years before the books started (as I am of course referring to the Fidelius Charm, which was used to conceal the Potters from him until Wormtail, who was the Secret-Keeper, escorted him there). Furthermore, the spell, while rare, is demonstrably not impossibly obscure to find as the people known to have cast it include non-prodigy wizards such as Arthur Weasley (its mentioned in book 7), in addition to Voldemort being second only to Dumbledore re: being the most skilled wizard alive and deep into researching impossibly rare and obscure magicks. If Voldy had so much as Fidelius'ed one Horcrux, he'd be ruling the world right now.

Instead: He uses rare and impressive artifacts and hides them in places connected personally to him, most notably, at Hogwarts, where most of his enemies have been for the past 6 books.

• In Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter is headed into the Third Task of the contest. Dumbledore already knows that Voldemort is stirring again (from Harry's vision) and that at least one hostile wizard willing to use the Imperius Curse on a contest judge has taken an interest in the contest (from Barty Sr's last warning to Harry, before "Moody" took him off into the woods to kill him). Furthermore, Dumbledore's own chief security advisor has already advised Dumbledore that he thinks this entire "enter Harry into the Tournament" thing is just a set-up to get him killed. No murder attempt has been made on Harry yet, and we're heading into the last act.

You'd Think: Dumbledore would realize that if anybody's going to make an attempt on Harry's life its going to happen during the Third Task, the last possible moment it can happen before the Tournament ends. And that he would then check the maze for booby traps. And that he would have people watching the contestants during the maze. Or, for that matter, that they would not send the contestants into a giant bloody opaque maze at all!

Especially Since: It is normally considered common sense to check sports equipment for tampering when in the final round of a high-stakes tournament that has previously claimed the lives of contestants. As well as designing the venue of a sporting event so that the audience can actually see the players. Or stationing the referees so that no one single referee could interfere with play without another referee being in position to see him do it.

Instead: The final act of the Tri-Wizard Tournament involves sending all the contestants separately into the middle of a maze full of booby traps where nobody can see them, with the sole security precaution being one security man left in there alone with them. Not surprisingly, the security man (who is also the saboteur) proceeds to use this perfect opportunity to do whatever he wants without anyone being able to see him to spam Unforgivable Curses on the contestants, rig the entire game, and hex the prize cup to send Harry on a trip off to meet Voldemort.

Final Score: A crooked official, tampered-with equipment, a tampered-with prize, and only one contestant out of four who didn't cheat or have someone cheating on their behalf -- and that one contestant being the guy who gets murdered during competitive play. In the history of sports organizing, it would be hard to do worse than this without setting the audience on fire.

• In Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort lures Harry to the Ministry of Magic and sends his goons there to retrieve the important Prophecy that only Harry can touch.

You'd expect: Lucius Malfoy, who's in charge of the operation, would only take those Death Eaters who, like him, had weaseled their way out of Azkaban and into the Ministry ranks, and thus would have a legitimate excuse to be there. When the kids arrive, ambush them in the atrium, disarm and take them hostage therefore ensuring Harry's cooperation. Walk him to the storage room and make him take the Prophecy.

Or better: Act as loyal Ministry personnel for as long as possible, and at least try good old "we are ordered to keep it out of enemy hands, and it needs a new hiding place" trick. Preferably after a choreographed "fighting off Voldemort's evil minion(s)" scene (or even "saving" Harry from ambush) for credibility. Then fall back on trading it for hostages if Harry suspects something and holds onto it, or simply say "thank you, we shall mention your help in our reports for the Ministry" if he doesn't.

Instead: He a) takes the recent escapees from Azkaban with him, so when the Cavalry arrives, his true allegiances are exposed, and b) has them wait for the kids inside the storage room, thus wasting time, and only reveal themselves after Harry takes the Prophecy ball, and they can no longer shoot him with spells for the fear of breaking the ball.

• Also in Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore determines it is necessary for Harry to learn Occlumency, a magical art based on controlling your emotions and impulses, in order to keep Voldemort from reading Harry's mind through their magical link.

You'd Expect: Dumbledore would arrange for Harry to be taught by someone that Harry can get along with, or at least has no strong emotional reactions toward, even if it would take several months to find such an instructor or train them from scratch. After all, Occlumency can demonstrably be taught in less than two months if student and teacher get along well (witness Draco and Bellatrix in between books 5 and 6), and Dumbledore has at least six months to try and get Harry up to speed.

Instead: Dumbledore picks Severus Snape, a man who cannot so much as be in the same room as Harry without driving both parties to teeth-gnashing rage, to be Harry's instructor in Occlumency. A magical art that, we reiterate, is based on controlling your emotions. And then has the gall to actually be surprised when the entire effort crashes and burns.

• From the second book onwards the same situation repeats itself: some crucial events take place with either no witnesses or kids (usually Harry) as witnesses, and afterwards nobody believes them.

You'd expect: They would use the Time Turners to send back an invisible observer and oversee the events in question.

Instead: They never do, and it constantly gets worse.

• In Deathly Hallows the bad guys at one point capture the heroes.

You'd expect: Knowing full well that in the wizard world even the most innocuous tackle can be a magical artifact of unknown power, they would strip their prisoners of all possessions, down to the clothes. And bind their hands well, so they couldn't use fingers enough to grab anything dangerous within reach anyway, just in case.

Instead: They content themselves with taking away heroes' wands. Naturally heroes have some spare artifacts that help them escape.

• Also in Deathly Hallows, after Voldemort's takeover of the Ministry of Magic and Grimmauld Place getting compromised further the heroes are living out of a tent, running low on supplies, have very limited access to research materials, and having to move frequently to avoid being found by Death Eater search parties.

You'd Expect: They would remember that Voldemort's people only have freedom of movement within the United Kingdom as that is the only government Voldemort controls at this moment, and that there is no reason they have to stay in the country, just merely to visit it whenever they think they've found a Horcrux location. And simply relocating to France would allow them a safer territory to stay in, access to sources of supply, possible allies (such as Fleur's parents or Madame Maxine), and much greater access to research materials (such as the library of Beauxbatons). As to how they could get there? Wizards are demonstrably capable of Apparating from northern Scotland to London in a single jump, which is enough distance that you could hit Germany in a single jump from London, let alone France. Alternately, people who can turn invisible, shapeshift, teleport around security barriers, and rewrite memories don't have much trouble getting through Customs.

What's Worse: Hermione's family takes vacations in France, the most recently being three years ago right before the Tri-Wizard Tournament. And its specifically lampshaded in the text that one of the reasons the Trio was able to use the Forest of Dean was because since Hermione had vacationed there when she was a small child, she remembered the place well enough to use as an Apparition destination! And yet she can't remember a place she's been to far more recently, because it would be inconvenient for the script if she did.

Or At Least: Hermione would remember that the muggle world is full of places where you can buy food — or, if you're worried about leaving a trail, you can use your magical wizard powers to steal food from after hours. Again, its not like people who can turn invisible, teleport, and trivially open any non-magical lock are short of options, and the Trio had already shown a willingness to 'midnight requisition' food from isolated henhouses and suchlike.

Instead: The Trio consistently act like the United Kingdom is the only nation on the entire planet and never even idly ponder the idea of operating from a base area beyond Voldemort's span of control, despite easily being able to reach one. Likewise it is literally months before Hermione thinks to buy more food at a grocery, and even that only for a special occasion instead of as a regular occurrence.

• Voldemort, for Merlin only knows what reason, considers it essential to hide one of his horcruxes in Hogwarts. (To be fair, he does have multiple horcruxes, and hiding one in the last place you'd think his enemies would look for one is not entirely a stupid move -- in theory.)

You'd Think: He would hide that horcrux in the Chamber of Secrets, which as of the time he places the Horcrux in Hogwarts is location unknown to everyone except Voldemort and can be entered only by Voldemort himself. And which is also guarded by a giant basilisk that obeys Voldemort's every command.

Instead: He puts it in the Room of Requirement, which while unknown to the general student body and faculty of Hogwarts is still a publicly accessable space without even a lock on the door, that anybody could wander into at random. And worse yet, he puts it in the iteration of the room specifically intended for 'holding lost and forgotten things', IOW, the first place anybody searching the Room of Requirement would look for anything.