Creating spells

[eggplant107]

No: HPFGUIDX 186046

, "Geoff Bannister" <gbannister10 at ...> wrote:

> When I said "How do you invent a spell" 
> I thought it was clear that I was looking
> at it from a Wizarding World point of 
> view and not "ours" 

But that was my point, we can't look at it from a Wizard point of view because we don't have the magic gene. If I could look at writing from Shakespeare's point of view then I could write as well as Shakespeare. I can't.

> if we were given the relevant ingredients 
> and the instructions for a potion, we ought
> to be able to make it; why should we become
> hopelessly confused? 
   
Alchemists were notorious for using obscure symbolism and being very confusing in their instruction manuals. You may have noticed that in the Potter series we are never given a lengthy quotation from a potions book, probably because it would all sound like gibberish to us. The following comes from a Alchemist book and is supposed to be
a step by step guide on how to make a potion; if you have the magic gene the meaning is obvious, clear as a bell, but if you don't, well, imagine that you had one hour to complete this potion and Snape was yelling at you and asking you why you don't just follow the very simple instructions:

"One becomes two, two becomes three, and by means of the third and fourth humor achieves unity; thus two are but one. Invert nature and you will find one part in eight what you seek. Join the male and the female, and you will find what is unrecognized. You will touch with your hands the parts in the fourth house and, you will see with your own eyes the Azoth, the Mercury of Philosophers, which alone will suffice to obtain for you our Stone of Darkness which will appear on the ninth face of the Abyss but not at the flower of night for Saturn and the Antimony of the Sages will appear in blackness and the raven's head without the fifth intersession and all the colors of the world will appear at the hour of the second conjunction and the rainbow also but not the peacock's tail for that is forestalled by the river of lead. Differentiate after the matter has passed through wormwood from ashen-colored to white and yellow with exhausting rectitude you must integrate the stone, our King and Dominator Supreme, issue forth from his glassy sepulcher to mount his bed or his throne in his glorified body. Diaphanous as crystal; compact and most weighty, as easily fusible by fire as resin, as flowing as wax and more so than quicksilver the color of saffron when powdered, but red as rubies when in an integral mass." 

And now Snape says "you have 4 minutes left to complete your potion". Yea, right, just follow the instructions, easy as pie. Actually the above would make far more sense even to Neville than it would to any of us. 
 
 Eggplant