Creating spells

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186059


> Geoff:
> I think we may be on the same wavelength here, Alla....  
> I was really working along the same route as you in that 
> Snape wanted a spell to produce that result and then 
> considered what he thought the wording could possibly 
> be.
> 
> But then, he actually came up with the correct spell - 
> maybe after a lot of test runs?
>

Pippin:
We're told that wizard Baruffio said 's' instead of 'f' and ended up with a buffalo on his chest.  Was there already a buffalo conjuring spell, or did Baruffio accidentally invent one? Canon saith not.

But  magic seems to be a trial and error process. Perhaps the wizards themselves don't understand how it works. We know that Luna's mother was experimenting with a spell when she died, though we don't know if it was a *new* one.

But as far as how Harry was able to perform 'sectum sempra' and 'levicorpus' when he didn't know what they would do -- Harry had his wand with him when he dived into the pensieve in SWM. And while Harry couldn't detect the words of a non-verbal spell, wands obviously must be able to. Is it possible that Harry's wand perceived both spells as Snape performed them, and thus knew  what it was supposed to do when Harry tried them out later?

(I know, not everyone thinks that the cutting spell Snape used on James was sectum sempra, wielded with precision and restraint instead of careless abandon. But  lashing out in one area while acting with peerless self-control in another, is emblematic of adolescence and consistent with Snape's other behavior in this scene.

Pippin