Anyway, assuming there is no difference in kind (which I doubt), at the very least there is a vast difference in degree. The Potter books are saturated with occult practices, performed by witches and wizards.
Perhaps Snow White and Cinderella can serve as a parallel. In Snow White the witch practices spell-casting and makes potions and she is depicted as completely evil.
In Cinderella, the fairy godmother works "magic" for Cinderella. But the use of magic in the two books is diametrically opposed. In Cinderella, the fairy godmother appears out of thin air at her own volition. She is not "conjured" by Cinderella. It would be very easy to construe her as Cinderella's guardian angel.
Therefore, I have no problem with the representation of witches or "magic" in either Snow White or Cinderella.
Additionally, my position is very much like O'Brien's, particularly the parts I've highlighted above.
Few people notice that the story begins in the "real world" and moves on to another equally "real world." This worldview is emphatically gnostic, as O'Brien states. Importantly, as O'Brien also notes, the hero Harry violates the moral codes in both.
Well, here's part of O'Brien's answer anyway.
Christian use of magic in fantasy literatureBoth Tolkien and Lewis use magic in a way fundamentally different from Rowling. In The Magician's Nephew, the first volume of Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, the corruption of Narnia begins when an elderly Londoner dabbles in occult activity, and opens the doors between worlds. The ensuing struggle for the restoration of Narnia to its original order is the direct result of the very activities the Potter books portray as forces for good. Lewis depicts them as forces allied with chaos, disruption, bondage, and violation of the dignity of creatures. Throughout the Chronicles witches are portrayed in classic terms, as malevolent, manipulative, deceiving and destructive-not the least of whom is a character called the White Witch.
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a selfish boy who has no understanding of the supernatural meets a dragon. Entering its lair he seizes its treasure hoard and is changed into a dragon. He is liberated from this condition-"undragoned"-only by the intervention of the Christ figure, Aslan, who alone has the authority, the "deep magic", to undo what evil has done. Supernatural powers, Lewis repeatedly underlines, belong to God alone, and in human hands they are highly deceptive and can lead to destruction.
Man will continue to search in the realm of the quasimystical as long as the vacuum of genuine spirituality spreads
In The Silver Chair, the crown prince of Narnia has been kidnapped and brainwashed by a witch, and the children in the tale embark on a quest to rescue him. The witch captures them and seeks to enthrall them by reprogramming their minds while at the same time lulling their natural defenses to sleep. They are close to utter enslavement when the brave Marsh-wiggle deliberately burns himself in order to shock his mind back to reality. When he does so and challenges the witch, she reveals her true nature by taking the form of a powerful serpent, thus alerting the children to their peril.
In his great fantasy epic, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien also portrays magic as deception. Supernatural powers that do not rightly belong to man are repeatedly shown as having a corrupting influence on man. While it is true that Gandalf, one of the central characters, is called a "wizard" throughout, he is not in fact a classical sorcerer. Tolkien maintains that Gandalf is rather a kind of moral guardian, similar to guardian angels but more incarnate. (Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1981) In letters 155, 156 and 228 he explains his depiction of matter and spirit, and the distinction between good magic and evil magic. In essence Tolkien's "good magic" is not in fact what we think of as magic in the real world. Gandalf's task is primarily to advise, instruct, and arouse to resistance the minds and hearts of those threatened by Sauron, the Dark Lord of this saga. Gandalf does not do the work for them; they must use their natural gifts-and in this we see an image of grace building on nature, never overwhelming nature or replacing it. Gandalf's gifts are used sparingly, and then only so far as they assist the other creatures in the exercise of their free will and their moral choices.
The central character, Frodo Baggins, is asked by Gandalf to bear a ring of magical power to a volcanic mountain in a region ruled by Sauron, in order to destroy the ring in the volcano's fires and thus weaken the grip that Sauron has over the world. Frodo agrees to undertake the journey but soon realizes that the ring has a seductive hold on him. As he carries the very thing that could ruin the world, he is constantly tempted to use it for the good. But he learns that to use its supernatural powers for such short-range "goods" increases the probability of long-range disaster, both for the world and for himself.
Supernatural powers, Tolkien demonstrates repeatedly, are very much a domain infested by the "deceits of the Enemy", used for domination of other creatures' free will. As such they are metaphors of sin and spiritual bondage. By contrast, Gandalf's very limited use of preternatural powers is never used to overwhelm, deceive or defile. Even so, the author mentions more than once in the epic that these powers must pass away from the world as the "Old Age" ends and the "Age of Man" (and by inference the Age of the Incarnation) approaches.
Much of the neopagan use of magic is the converse of this. It is frequently used to overwhelm, deceive and defile. In the Harry Potter series, for example, Harry resists and eventually overcomes Voldemort with the very powers the Dark Lord himself uses. Harry is the reverse image of Frodo. Rowling portrays his victory over evil as the fruit of esoteric knowledge and power. This is Gnosticism. Tolkien portrays Frodo's victory over evil as the fruit of humility, obedience and courage in a state of radical suffering. This is Christianity. Harry's world is about pride, Frodo's about sacrificial love. There is, of course, plenty of courage and love in the Harry Potter series, but it is this very mixing of truth and untruth which makes it so deceptive. Courage and love can be found in all peoples, even those involved in the worst forms of paganism. The presence of such virtues does not automatically justify an error-filled work of fiction. In Potter-world the characters are engaged in activities which in real life corrupt us, weaken the will, darken the mind, and pull the practitioner down into spiritual bondage. Rowling's characters go deeper and deeper into that world without displaying any negative side effects, only an increase in "character". This is a lie. Moreover, it is the Satanic lie which deceived us in Eden: You can have knowledge of good and evil, you can have Godly powers, and you will not die, you will not even be harmed by it-you will have enhanced life. There is so much that dazzles and delights in Rowling's sub-creation, the reader must exercise a certain effort to see these interior contradictions and mixed messages.