Adventures in Spellmaking (open)

Clara sat in an alcove of the library with several books open in front of her. One of them was Miranda Goshawk's Book of Spells, which she had finally succeeded in obtaining from the Restricted Section after promising not to practice any of them without a professor's permission and supervision. She was also not allowed to take it outside of the library, so when she finished with it today, she would have to return it to its shelf. She was fine with that--they were reasonable caveats, and did nothing to hinder her in her pursuits. The other books in front of her were Miranda Goshawk's The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6, opened to the page on nonverbal spellcasting, something she shouldn't be able to do for another three years, and a Latin/English dictionary that she had brought from home. She also had a notebook and a pen, which she was using to take notes.

One of the first questions Clara had asked herself during her first year at Hogwarts was "how does one go about creating new spells?" The ability to create one's own spells seemed to her to be the ultimate understanding of magic, so that was her goal. Most of the incantations she had seen seemed to have Latin roots, but apparently verbal incantations weren't necessary if you had enough concentration, so the power couldn't come from there. However, from what she had read on nonverbal spells, you still had to think the incantation, so the word was still important. With that in mind, she was studying spells and their Latin roots.

Incendio would obviously come from "incendium," the Latin word for "fire." But that meant it was either in the dative or ablative case, which would either be "to/for the fire" or "by/from/with the fire." This seemed a little arbitrary, so Clara found another spell to compare it to. Diffindo came directly from the Latin verb "diffindo," meaning "I divide/split." Clara figured that made sense, since the severing charm was an action, so it would be a verb, while the fire-making spell was a conjuration, so it would be a noun. It also made sense that most of the action spells she had seen ended with "o," because that meant they were in first person, present tense: "I do this." However, this didn't answer her original question about incendio, so she found another conjuring charm. Avis apparently conjured birds, and it came directly from "avis," the Latin word for bird, either in the nominative, genitive, or possibly vocative case. But not dative or ablative, Clara mused. She continued looking for patterns and writing them down.

On another page of her notebook, she started writing suggestions for possible spells. If I wanted to conjure an apple, would I say "malum"? Or maybe "malio"? If I wanted to send a message without an owl, could I just say "mitto"? Her head full of ideas, she soon blocked out the world around her and became completely engrossed in her work.

The nearby voice startled her and she looked up. Clara hadn't noticed anyone approach, and even after staring at him for a few seconds, it still didn't quite register that he was talking to her. She blinked, and her brain finally caught up.

"What? Oh. I, uh, asked the librarian at the beginning of the year, and he said that if I proved my character throughout the year he would consider it. And then he gave me a signed permission slip yesterday and said I could read it, as long as I don't take it out of the library, or practice any spells without adult supervision."

She studied the boy who stood before her. He was in her year, and her house--she vaguely remembered seeing him in the common room at some point. His arms were laden with books, and she recognized some of the titles.

"Is that Achievements in Charming? I read that two weeks ago, it was fascinating. Apparently the bubble-head charm was first discovered written in the margins of this book," she pointed to the Book of Spells, "by a Hogwarts student about a hundred years ago. In fact," she flipped through the book for a few moments, then stopped on a page covered in scribbles and notes, "I found it right here on the bottom right corner of page one hundred and seventy-seven. The handwriting's terrible though, you can barely tell what it says."

As the boy put his books down, Clara's eyes lit up at the question. Finally, someone was asking the same things she was asking, and she could talk about her research. She didn't talk to many people, and she rarely initiated conversations, as she wasn't one for small talk. However, this was a topic that she could discuss excitedly for hours on end, should anyone bother to listen.

"Yes, that is the question, isn't it? See, in theory, it shouldn't be too difficult. A spell is just a way of directing magic toward a purpose--the magic itself comes from the caster, it's concentrated through a wand, at least, in most Western societies anyway, and then the incantation is a sort of instruction, telling the magic what to do. Most incantations tend to have Latin roots, so, theoretically, you could probably just find a Latin word for what you want to accomplish, and then mess around with it a little using trial and error until it does something. However, that sort of thing could potentially be very dangerous, since you wouldn't be absolutely certain of what might happen. It would also be unreliable and time-consuming. So, that's why I'm looking for patterns in all of these spells that have already been created, to see if I can come up with a comprehensive formula for spellmaking. If I can pinpoint one universal rule of cause to effect in terms of spells and their purposes, then I could quickly and efficiently discover a spell for virtually any purpose with reasonable certainty. The problem is, every time I think I've found a pattern, I find an outlier that breaks the rule. It's like spells themselves are their own language, and half the verbs are irregular--it's very frustrating. I suspect most people who've created spells used the trial and error method. In any case, I'm beginning to think the next step is to just move on and try to create my own spell to see what happens. I've got lots of ideas here," she flipped her notebook around to show the other Ravenclaw, "most of which should be relatively safe to try."

She paused for breath, her mind already beginning to wander back to her research. She had no idea if her housemate was following along, or even paying attention, but she didn't really care. It just felt good to finally put all her thoughts into words.

She suddenly gave the boy her full attention, cocking her head thoughtfully as she considered his hypothesis.

"Huh. I suppose that would make sense of some things. I was always confused as to why Latin, of all languages, when surely wizardry didn't originate in Europe--and surely magic is older than language. The Native Americans were doing magic long before the Europeans even settled there, and I highly doubt they stumbled upon Latin words for their spells. But it also begs the question, what about unintentional magic? Because it is possible to cast a spell without knowing what it does. Plenty of stupid wizards and witches have found unfamiliar incantations and decided to just cast them to see what happens. Maybe it's just the belief that it does anything at all? Or maybe, once one person attributes an intention to the word, it becomes universal, even if nobody else knows it yet? I don't know why it would do that, or how, but I suppose it's possible."

She pushed some of her books out of the way to give him some space.

"But now the question is, how do we test that with an experiment?"

"Well," Clara started, "if we want to make a spell, we should start with one that's unlikely to be dangerous if it goes wrong. I was going to try summoning an apple, but then I realized the Latin word for apple is very similar to the Latin word for evil, which I certainly don't want to accidentally conjure." She looked down at her list. "How about this one: mitto. Presumably, it should send things. So I would write something on a piece of paper, you'd stand on the other side of the room, and I'd try to send it to you."

Then she thought for a second, and flipped to a new page of her notebook.

"Now, I don't know how much you know about experimental design and the scientific method, but there are certain rules you're supposed to follow in order to be efficient and organized. Firstly, you clarify your question."

She wrote down the word "question" and underlined it, then wrote the question underneath.

"How do spells work, i.e. what is the relationship between magic and incantation? Next, you form a hypothesis. In this case, we have several." She wrote and underlined "hypotheses," then wrote them out as she spoke. "Hypothesis one is that the words themselves have power. This means that, for some reason or other, Latin is a special magical language. There's evidence against that, but no concrete proof. Hypothesis two is that the power is in the intention, and words serve to solidify that intention. Again, some evidence to the contrary, but still a solid theory. Hypothesis three is that intention counts the first time, and after that, the power is imbued in the word--so, a combination of one and two. Hypothesis four is that it's none of those, and there's something else entirely that we're missing."

Next she wrote "procedure," and underlined that. "The way the scientific method works is that we have to come up with an experiment that would disprove one of these hypotheses. In science, you can never actually prove anything--you just have to disprove everything else. So let's try to disprove hypothesis one. If words themselves are magical, then it shouldn't matter what your intention is when saying them. So if I say 'mitto,' but instead of trying to send it to you, I concentrate on ripping the paper in half, then one of three things could happen. Either the paper is sent anyway, which would be evidence toward hypothesis one, and would disprove hypotheses two and three, or the paper rips in half, which would disprove hypothesis one, and be evidence toward two and three, or nothing happens at all, which would offer no conclusive evidence because it could be chalked up to any number of other factors. And then we'll base our next step off of those results. Sound good?"

She didn't really wait for a reply, as she was already ripping out another page of her notebook. She scrawled the word "Hi" on it, and folded it in half.