[HPforGrownups] prior incantato/priori incantatem & Sirius' wand

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 35877

Mercia
> When someone queried that on the 
> basis of Dumbledore's description of priori incantatem as something 
> extremely rare and the involuntary effect of two wands sharing the 
> same magical core it was pointed out that these seem to be two 
> different matters. Prior incantato is definitely a spell (it is even 
> called simple by Fudge) whereas priori incantatem is more of a 
> curious effect - Dumbledore or Sirius (can't remember which and 
> haven't got GoF to hand at the moment) call it the reverse spell 
> effect. It is certainly not in the control of the wizard and if it 
> depends on the wands being 'brothers' it would not be of general use. 
> But I am a bit confused by all this. My Latin is very rusty and never 
> was that good but these just look to me like declension differences. 
> 
Hi! It was me (Eloise) who pointed that out.
My Latin is also very rusty, but even so, I don't think JKR uses it 
grammatically. The spells etc are *based* on Latin, but the forms have 
changed.
I get the impression she frequently uses the 'o' ending, which in real Latin 
would be a first person singular present verb ending as a spell word. It's a 
bit odd, because you'd expect an imperative, whereas the spells seem to be 
saying 'I do whatever' .A clear one is Imperio, obviously I rule/control ( 
although I'm not clear if it occurs in real Latin in a verbal form). Crucio 
is a bit different. It apparently means to inflict crucifyingly intense pain, 
but of course, we only have the word 'crucify' because of *two* Latin words, 
cruci fixus, later transmitted through Late Latin, Ecclesiastical Latin and 
old French. The curse has completely lost the 'fixus' element.  Similarly, 
the 'em' ending of Incantatem, would indicate a noun, only accusative case, 
which again is odd. And what about Lumos? Lumen, lumenis is  Latin for light. 
 'Os'  is a *Greek* noun ending. 
So I don't think we can tell much from these endings, we just have to accept 
that they mean what JKR says they mean.
To me Prior Incantato is the spell that works on the same principle as the 
natural phenomenon, Priori Incantatem. The latter is a wand forcing the last 
spells out of its brother wand (and it is only capable on its own of doing it 
to its brother), whereas a wizard in conjunction with his wand can use Prior 
Incantato to force the last spell out of *any*  other wand.



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