Skip to main content

magic - Did Harry Potter ever invent any spells?


Many of the greatest wizards in the Harry Potter universe invented their own spells.




  • Dumbledore, acknowledged as one of the greatest wizards of the age:




    "Examined him myself in Transfiguration and Charms when he did NEWTs ... Did things with a wand I'd never seen before..."
    -- Griselda Marchbanks, HP and the Order of the Phoenix, chapter 31: OWLs.





  • Snape, perhaps not one of the greatest but certainly a very talented student while at Hogwarts, and a master of the rare art of Occlumency in later life, invented numerous spells including Levicorpus, Liberacorpus, and Sectumsempra.




What about Harry Potter? After defeating the Dark Lord, he's surely seen as one of the greatest Aurors of his time, and he always topped his Defence Against the Dark Arts class (I think?)
Did he ever invent any of his own spells?



(I'd also be interested in Hermione, who's perhaps a more accomplished witch in everything other than Defence Against the Dark Arts, or indeed anyone in Harry's generation - students at Hogwarts during his time there - since I can't recall any mention of spells invented by any such people.)



Answer



Taking inspiration from Himarm, I can offer another half-answer. Fred and George's headless hats certainly use an innovative extension of an existing spell, if not a spell of their own creation:



'How do those hats work, then?' said Hermione, distracted from her homework and watching Fred and George. 'I mean, obviously it's some kind of Invisibility Spell, but it's rather clever to have extended the field of invisibility beyond the boundaries of the charmed object ... I'd imagine the charm wouldn't have a very long life though.'


Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - p.477 - Bloomsbury - Chapter 24, Occlumency



To further expand on this part answer, it's clear that the invention of spells is, if not illegal, regulated to some degree:



'Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness ...'



Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - p.34 - Bloomsbury - Chapter 3, The Burrow



And, regarding Hermione in particular, I think it's worth taking note of her attitude to the Prince's spells:



'So you just decided to try out an unknown, handwritten incantation and see what would happen?'


'Why does it matter if it's handwritten?' said Harry, preferring not to answer the rest of the question.


'Because it's probably not Ministry of Magic-approved,' said Hermione. 'And also,' she added, as Harry and Ron rolled their eyes, 'because I'm starting to think this Prince character was a bit dodgy.'


Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - p.226 - Bloomsbury - Chapter 12, Silver and Opals



Now, obviously, her attitude here is partly towards who wrote the spell, but also, it's clear that trying out someone else's spell, without knowing what it does is different to conducting your own experiments. It could be anything. It could be a prank. But, I think her reasoning is suggestive. "'It's probably not Ministry of Magic-approved.'"



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more