Creating spells

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 186039

Geoff:
This post has been prompted by the fact that there 
has been some recent discussion on spells and hexes 
and it opens a topic which I have felt I wanted to 
see aired for a very long time and just haven't got 
round to launching and I do not recall it having been 
touched on previously.

To kickstart the thread, in HBP for example, Harry
used the Sectumsempra spell which we learn was 
invented by Snape. This for a long time has posed 
the question for me "How do you invent a spell?"

Did Snape just think up the Latin for "cut always" 
and imagine its result and – hey presto – it becomes 
a curse useable by anyone who knows of it? Is this 
how spells developed? Can anyone do this because 
this could mean that the Wizarding World could be 
awash with amateur spells just lurking and waiting 
to be used perhaps unknowingly.

There surely must be some way that new spells are 
"registered" by the magic environment of the 
Wizarding World for want of a better term. There 
must have been a time when spell creation was in 
its infancy. For instance, is it to do with the 
will of the wizard to really want the result, to 
really mean what the spell was for – as Bellatrix 
pointed out to Harry in the  battle at the Ministry 
when he tried to use Crucio on her?

What are the thoughts of fellow members on this?