question about bubble head charm

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 47266

Karen wrote:
> I've been wondering about the bubble head charm Cedric used in the
second task.  The gillyweed that Harry used had a limit of about one
hour.  What about the bubble head charm?  Would it last as long as the
caster wants it to, or does it also have a limited time frame?  Anyone
have any thoughts or ideas on this?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Karen

Hi, Karen, and welcome to active posting.

I'm going to give you my own views in the matter of magical theory.
These views have been expressed by others before, but there is no real
consensus (or worse, canon) to base on.

So far in the books, charms seem to come with a pre-defined end in the
incantation. This end (as most of the other details in the spell) is
implicit, and it seems to draw heavily in the *intent* of the person
doing the spell. That is, "accio" alone will serve almost every
purpose, from fetching sweets from the twins' pockets to attracting a
cup that is two tombstones away. A Magician pwerful enough, in fact,
doesn't even need to specify the spell - his will alone seems to be
enough (Dumbledore summoning hundreds of bedrolls, Snape shooting
ropes out of his wand). All this seems to imply that the details of
the spell are worked in the head and that all of them are proyected
unconsciously into it.

Which means, of course, that the bubble head charms could have
included a limited duration (say, about two hours, just in case) and,
since Cedric didn't drown, it was either long enough to make it to the
surface and then it disapeared on its own, or it was still in force
when he arrived to the beach and at that point he dispelled it (you
can see from the bouncing ferret incident that there are indeed spells
to end spells, even if that one especifically was a transfiguration
and not a charm).

Another school of thinking (which I haven't seen in this list so far,
but I might have missed it) just popped into my mind to me while
writting the post. It is based on the reality rules of another fantasy
world (Forgotten Realms underdark drow language, for anyone
interested, but the ties are minimal). According to this theory, most
of the details could be included in the "swish and flick" that
accompanies each spell. The number of positions a hand can take and,
by extension, the number of patrons the wand could follow and draw in
the air in the couple of seconds it takes to work a spell in the
Potterverse is virtually infinity, specially since the "grain of
spell" (that is, the smallest possible movement which is identifiable
as different from any other, thus serving as a "letter" or "idea") can
be very small indeed.

Canon for this is the famous wingardium leviosa class. While most of
the action concentrates around the pronunciation of the spell, we know
that they have spent a lot of time practising the movements too. Thus,
it could be argued that those movements define the spell as much as
the wording does, at least at the very begining (any number of spells
have been created with a simple flick of the fingers, which brings us
back to the will-based spells theory I mentioned above, since later on
it seems that movement can be overriden just like wording).

Finally, there was a theory stated some time back that said that
either charms or transfiguration are permanent, while the other is
not. I am unsure of the details, though, so you should check the
archives for that (if you do try, good luck wrestling with yahoomort),
or maybe some other listee remembers the details or at least the post.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf