Harry Potter and The Hole In the Plot

I address my biggest irritation with Harry Potter-verse magic: Where do conjured things come from?! Dedicated to a godson, of course.

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At Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Madame Pomfrey rushed to the side of the Quidditch player who had just tumbled from broom to ground in a record nanosecond flat.

"Lie still, dear," she ordered sternly, and using her wand, conjured a warm woolly blanket.

….In Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, 76-year-old John Hyland snorted awake, shivered, and glanced around his cottage. "Bloody hell," he said to his dog, a border collie. "Where'd you take m'blanket off to this time, eh?"

…And then Madame Pomfrey flicked her wand, to stabilize the broken leg, summoned a stretcher from the Infirmary, and toted her patient off for treatment. The blanket was banished.

…John Hyland, age 76, of North Yorkshire, tripped over the wool blanket and swore at his dog. "I'll clip y'up the head, ye do that again! Damn dog, runnin' off with an old man's comforts!"

The dog, named unoriginally Dog, lay down at the threshold, put its head on its paws, and sighed mournfully. It didn't like the threats, but Growly Human wasn't all bad. By tea, the incident would be forgotten, and he'd get bacon!

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In the forest of Dean, a young wizard named Seamus popped loudly into a glade. The deer scattered.

"Bugger!" muttered Seamus. "I mean Dean's house. Feckin' English…"

He sat down to rest, having conjured a chair.

…Mrs. Anne Davies of Bristol turned to sit down, but her armchair was not there. She screamed, dropped her cuppa, and ran from the house. "Thieves! Robbers! Help! Police!"

…Feeling a bit puckish, Seamus conjured a bit of cake and a glass of water.

…Simon Lewes turned from his computer, reaching for the glass of water he knew he'd left on the filing cabinet of his office, to find it wasn't there. "Ah hell," he sighed under his breath. "Getting old and forgetful."

Unknown to him, Hicks Homely Treats was missing a lemon slice. But they were in Exeter, and he was in Gloucstershire, and really, it was only a slice. And a plate, of course. And a fork. The manager of Hicks Homely Treats threw up her hands in dismay at the end of that day, finding half a dozen of everything seemingly gone into thin air, and stomped off to the shops to find someone to install a security system with cameras.

…In the forest of Dean, Seamus finished his slice, belched indelicately, and banished the plate, fork, and glass. Concentrating rather harder this time on his destination, he apparated away.

…Miss Margaret (and do not call her Maggie) Smythe of Hicks Homely Treats in Exeter discovered that she had miscounted, but that wasn't until the next day. At that time, the Hicks family conferred quietly about perhaps giving Miss Smythe a nice rest. Perhaps she could achieve it by working elsewhere?

In Bristol, Mrs. Davies never found her armchair, which rotted in the forest of Dean. Seamus was a rather forgetful lad.

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"Oi, conjuring's grand!" enthused Ron Weasley to Hermione Granger as they waited for Harry Potter to arrive at the Shrieking Shack outside Hogsmeade. "Not near as good as havin' a house elf, of course…"

Hermione's face reddened.

Ron quickly added, "Properly paid and benefits!"

Hermione smiled a tight, thin smile that was very like a certain Transfiguration professor's.

As he shivered in the cool spring breeze of Scotland, which some might term a minor gale, Ron strove for gallantry. He muttered and frowned and moved his wand.

A parka appeared. "There y'go," he chortled, handing it to Hermione.

"Oh for…" Sighing hard, Hermione bit back a few nasty words, banished the parka, and pointed her wand at Ron. "Are you a wizard or not? Warming charm!"

…Enthusiastic cyclist Steffen Angstmann of Mainz, Germany, found himself sans parka in the Scottish Highlands. He was participating in a challenge to bicycle from Lands End to John o' Groats, and had stopped to hydrate and fuel himself. Or, in other words, drink and eat. He walked out of the pub none the wiser that his parka was missing from his gear, which was unfortunate, since the time of year boasted some of Scotland's finest weather. Fine mists, fine rains, fine fogs, and fine chills, indeed.

Fortunately, a certain witch was much more precise than most, and Steffen would find his parka where he left it.

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Harry Potter sat glumly on a gravel beach, staring out to sea, bemoaning his destiny.

"Dobby," he called.

The house elf snapped into existence. "Yes, great Harry Potter, sir?"

"Hot chocolate?"

The elf snapped its fingers.

A mug of hot chocolate appeared in Harry's hands.

"Thanks, Dobby, you're the best."

…At an IKEA restaurant in Belgium (Anderlecht, Brussels, to be precise), a young server named Elena Mertens burst into tears because another mug of hot chocolate had gone missing the moment she turned her back. It was not amusing, nor fair, nor even logical, that someone in her workplace would so torment her during her first month on the job. Now she had to face the scary French couple with an unacceptably tardy mug of hot chocolate!

Elena sniffled quietly, and wondered why she'd let her sister talk her into this job.

…Hot chocolate gone, Harry Potter smiled, and banished the empty mug.

…Elena Mertens emerged from the toilet, returned with head high, and so tripped on a very unexpected, out-of-place mug. She broke her arm near the wrist, letting out a shriek of pain strong enough to empty half the store. The other half continued on, it being IKEA and all.

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Years later, as she presented her mastery in charms, Hermione Granger proved definitively that conjuration was itself merely an intense accio of an item from any available location, within a certain range. She determined the range to be approximately one thousand kilometers, based on the arithmancy behind the charm, designed to ensure that no one location lost items frequently enough for suspicion to land on a specific individual.

"In other words," said Hermione Granger to the assembled faculty, "we are thieves. And now I think I know where all the socks have gone when we think they're lost in the wash."

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AN: Utter absurdity, but of all the plot holes in the Potter-verse, conjuration was possibly my biggest peeve. How. Do. You. Make. Things. Of. Nothing.? You don't. But if conjuration is just a really powerful, specific summoning…