There were a bunch of times when some less experienced wizards (read teenagers) were able to temporarily beat much more experienced wizards by an element of surprise. On top of that, wizards were pretty much powerless, if a wand was knocked out of their hands.

This raises a question: Why don't wizards (especially those who have to participate in some battles) wear some magical protective items (to protect from simpler attacks, to get back their wands and so on)?

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    You mean like the shield spell? Or the listening ears like the kind the Weasley twins made? Or protecting places with portkeys? – LincolnMan Oct 9 '17 at 5:56
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    I guess during peacetimes (which was most of Harry's time from the average Wizards point of view, really) nobody really bothered? – Layna Oct 9 '17 at 10:00
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    How about putting a string on the wand so you can't drop it? – Clint Eastwood Oct 9 '17 at 16:35
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    @ClintEastwood All the wizarding world think think they're too smart for such simple solutions. Gotta make a long-winded retrieval spell instead! – DCOPTimDowd Oct 9 '17 at 18:06
  • @LincolnMan And the Fidelius charm. Yada yada yada. Lots of protective spells, apart from the "old magic" of "loving sacrifice". – Deepak Oct 10 '17 at 1:51

They did. Half Blood Prince, Chapter Six:

“We’ve just developed this more serious line,” said Fred. “Funny how it happened …” “You wouldn’t believe how many people, even people who work at the Ministry, can’t do a decent Shield Charm,” said George. “ ’Course, they didn’t have you teaching them, Harry.”
“That’s right. … Well, we thought Shield Hats were a bit of a laugh, you know, challenge your mate to jinx you while wearing it and watch his face when the jinx just bounces off. But the Ministry bought five hundred for all its support staff! And we’re still getting massive orders!”
“So we’ve expanded into a range of Shield Cloaks, Shield Gloves …”
“… I mean, they wouldn’t help much against the Unforgivable Curses, but for minor to moderate hexes or jinxes …”

It's entirely possible people do use them, and we just don't notice. Harry, as a narrator, doesn't tend to pay attention to this sort of thing.

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    Stop dumping on Harry's narration skills, he's got other things on his mind – Mikasa Oct 9 '17 at 9:24
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    Hang on, Harry's supposed to be the narrator?! – Muzer Oct 9 '17 at 9:48
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    Although it begs the question why the MoM hadn't thought of it before Fred and George did. – The Forest And The Trees Oct 9 '17 at 9:51
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    @TheForestAndTheTrees exactly. It seems before the twins there was not much of it (if we discount Dung's fake 'protection against dark magic' potions). – user68762 Oct 9 '17 at 10:02
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    @Muzer it's third-person limited, Harry isn't telling the story but the entity that is can generally only see the world through Harry's eyes. Either that or Harry took to referring to himself in the third person when he started writing his memoirs (now that's a story I'd like to hear). – DaaaahWhoosh Oct 9 '17 at 14:52

In The Half-Blood Prince, the good guys use the most powerful protection, the only other one that works against Avada Kedavra : Felix Felicis.

“Neville and Professor Flitwick are both hurt, but Madam Pomfrey says they’ll be all right. And a Death Eater’s dead, he got hit by a Killing Curse that huge blond one was firing off everywhere — Harry, if we hadn’t had your Felix potion, I think we’d all have been killed, but everything seemed to just miss us —”

Chapter 29 of The Half-Blood Prince.

You can't resist Avada Kedavra (if your name is not Potter) if you are hit, no matter what magical protection you have. But in order to survive all you have to do is not getting hit.

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    Your reasoning. If I can't protect from the worst spell then it doesn't make a sense to protect. However, it's not completely true. You can avoid being hit by Avada Kadavra (just jump from it). However, if you lose your wand, you are pretty much done. And it looks like Expelliarmus is much faster spell than Avada Kadavra. As result, it makes a lot of sense to protect from spells like that. – Victor Ronin Oct 9 '17 at 18:05

Usually adult wizards, who participate in battles, do use very strong protecting spells can only make well cast spells a little weaker or no weaker at all, like Avada Kedavra. I think that's why, they don't use protective clothes.
It might be also cheating in battles. Wizards usually do use some kind of rules in their battles.

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    Can you provide a source for the fact that they wouldn't help block spells and that there are "rules" to battles? – Edlothiad Oct 9 '17 at 6:03
  • In Harry Potter 5, when Harry where in ministry of magic, he used varjelum against death eaters. I don't remember the spell they used, and I have readed the book only in Finnish. – Dogg1 Oct 9 '17 at 7:47
  • yeah because following the rules is more important than surviving. Especially when you are a bad guy. – dna Oct 9 '17 at 9:25
  • ("Varjelum tyystilys" is Protego Totalum) – ANeves Oct 9 '17 at 12:27
  • Well right. That's nice point dna, and thanks Aneves. – Dogg1 Oct 9 '17 at 12:53

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