Otherwise it is getting close to being intelligent! Harry will have to start worrying about stopping casting some shields in case they are sentient.
My opinion is that this is exactly where the story is going. Harry will eventually conclude that magic must be intelligent to do what it's doing. (The best outcome, from Harry's perspective, would be a single AI consciousness that merely fakes the sapience of snakes, the Sorting Hat, etc, so no harm done. A better outcome, for us readers, would be Harry's sudden realisation, almost too late, that his research into the fundamentals magic is causing an exponential explosion in the number of tortured sophonts.)
- This thread has run its course. You will find newer threads in the discussion section.
Another discussion thread - the fourth - has reached the (arbitrary?) 500 comments threshold, so it's time for a new thread for Eliezer Yudkowsky's widely-praised Harry Potter fanfic.
Most of the paratext and fan-made resources are listed on Mr. LessWrong's author page. There is also AdeleneDawner's collection of most of the previously-published Author's Notes.
Older threads: one, two, three, four. By tag.
Newer threads are in the Discussion section, starting from Part 6.
Spoiler policy as suggested by Unnamed and approved by Eliezer, me, and at least three other upmodders:
It would also be quite sensible and welcome to continue the practice of declaring at the top of your post which chapters you are about to discuss, especially for newly-published ones, so that people who haven't yet seen them can stop reading in time.