Creating spells

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 186047

Eggplant: 
> 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.

Potioncat:
Speak for yourself. I live in the real world where there are no magic genes, but if I lived in the Potterverse, I'm sure I'd be a witch. Heck, there are people in the RW who would tell you I am a witch.

Mabye we can't all write like Shakespeare--or even like JKR--we can understand what he's doing. We can write HP posts, and letters and professional reports. We can learn Shakespeare and make his magic reappear on stage....some of us better than others.

You're assuming every wizard can invent new spells. I disagree. I can't create new novels <sigh> but I can enjoy the written ones, and I can enjoy writing here. So I think some wizards and witches can create new spells and adapt existing ones to new purposes--but others can't.

Eggplant:
>    
> 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. 
<sni>

Potioncat:
But we did get instructions from the board. Very simple, actually. Add a certain amount of an ingredient at a specific time, stir a certain number of times in a specific direction. Neville didn't seem to not understand the directions, it was that he somehow didn't get the expected results. I can identify with Neville. The same thing used to happen to me in chemistry class. And the few times the experiment went right I was dumbfounded, as well as clueless.

But, to Geoff's question, how does one create new spells? Well, it's hard to determine from JKR. She was fairly inconsistent about that. As someone else already said, Harry sometimes had to practice very hard to make a spell work, but other times the spell worked when he didn't even know what it was supposed to do.

I think Snape is the only active character who that we see invent a spell. And we didn't see the actual process. Hermione may have invented a spell for the DA with both the coins and the curse. At the very least, she took a type of spell and adapted it to her purpose.

I imagine it would take wanting some result and working out a way to make it happen. So maybe Severus thought he'd like a spell that would do more than just nick an opponent (cutting James on the face) and he played with different incantations till he got a very nasty type of cutting spell. Is it a combination of intent, words, and "magic"? Once created, the word, wand and intent to harm an enemy do their magic. I wonder what would have happened if Harry had pointed the wand at someone or something else and said the words in a moment of curiosity rather than as he was being attacked? Afterall, he didn't know what the spell did, but he really wanted the spell to work.

We also see that when Snape used it, the spell removed an ear, but it didn't "keep" cutting. 

Which brings up a more important question...once you create a spell, how do you create the counter-spell?