Creating spells

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 186080

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "becks3uk" <becks3uk at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" <gbannister10@> wrote:

Geoff: 
> > 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?"
> 
> <snip>

Becks3uk:
> I think it has less to do with the word and more to do with focusing the wizard on a certain thought. Wizards can do magic when they are young and have not yet learned that they are wizards. Some wizards  can do non verbal and even wandless magic. Wizards use their wands as a focus for their magical energy (for want of a better word) and though they could do wandless magic before they went to school (e.g. setting a snake on Dudley), they later find it difficult to do magic without a wand. I think the incantations work the same way, it is about finding a word and a way to express what they want to do to themselves and to their wands and that enables them to do it. Then when they have learned it a certain way they can only do it if they repeat it exactly because that is how they focus on that one narrow thought. I mean, even patronuses require the wizard to find their own thoughts within themselves that enable them to produce one. If the incantation was so important how could they do non verbal spells?

Geoff:
This message is a re-post of some things I wrote a couple of hours 
ago and which seem to have disappeared into the mist....

I think that, in some ways, younger wizards can get involved in 
wandless magic by visualising the result that they want rather than 
verbally in their mind possibly because they may be too young to 
really appreciate the words.

It sounds a little crazy perhaps but while I was thinking about this 
post, an analogy came to me. Children, particularly very young ones, 
can often have accidents - particularly falls - and come out possibly 
unscathed while adults suffering the same accident are injured. The 
reason is that the child does not fully understand from experience 
what is happening and so may be relaxed and therefore land safely 
whereas the adult, with memories of other mishaps, tenses up when 
they sense a fall and hold themselves more rigidly.

Hence, a young wizard perhaps comes up against a potential danger 
or threat and  subconsciously thinks of a visual response - Harry 
finishing up on the school roof or re-growing his hair might be 
cited as examples.

As has been already suggested, the adult wizard wants a response 
but voices it and uses the wand as a focus - perhaps even like a 
conductor's baton - to get the required result. Wandless spell-casting 
needs a wizard who can focus internally on the result sought. In my 
analogy, the young wizard relaxes and achieves a result, possibly 
totally unexpected as they go with the flow, but the adult tenses and 
braces themselves for the result.

I hope that makes some sort of sense.