I just had a fun idea for the spell creation process that I thought I'd share. I've always liked the idea that spell creation is exactly that: an act of creation, not discovery, meaning that the creator has to actively do something to bring the spell into the world. This idea is a variation on that theme.

The idea is that you have to teach magic the spell. For example, when Snape is creating Sectumsempra, once he has done the academic side of things and decided upon the spell concept/theory/incantation, the spell is still essentially "dead". It's just abstract writings on paper. It's a possible spell, but not yet a real one. What he has to do next is essentially train magic into doing the right thing by "casting" the spell, then manually creating the outcome e.g. cutting.

I picture this as having to occur in specific ways and in specific environments. It's not enough to just sit on your bed doing it - magic has to be "prepared" to receive a new spell. It also has to be shown the spell in all sorts of different situations so that the spell is properly flexible and varies its outcome.

The interesting thing about this idea is that it goes someway to explaining the aversion to the dark arts. If every harmful spell had to be taught to magic, then it means every dark spell has victims in its creation. So the killing curse, for example, may have taken the ritual sacrifice of a great many people in order to teach to magic. The cruciatus would have required torturing people.

This spell creation theory does run into a few problems when you get into the more abstract spells. How would you teach the fidelius, for example? Perhaps by manually destroying every extant piece of evidence for the secret being hidden? I'm not sure.

Anyway, that's more or less it. Just thought I would share it as I thought it was a fun idea and relatively original.

 

It is a pretty neat idea, but I'm left with several questions.

First, how broadly could you define a new spell in magic's "memory"? For instance, assume you make a spell to make something move. This'd require moving an object multiple times, if I've understood everything correctly. But what if you always move that which you're moving in the same direction? Say you're moving everything to the left, again and again. Would magic understand this as "this spell moves things" with a slant towards moving it to the left, or as "this spell moves things to the left"?

Second, like I said, magic needs to "understand" what you're doing. Isn't this basically assigning intelligence to magic? I'm kind of leery of doing that, because the road that generally leads to is anthromorphization (as a hot chick, naturally). More seriously, it brings a whole lot of other questions with it, like how aware magic is, what else is intelligent...

Finally I can't get over the impression you're basically training magic like one would a dog.

 

I like the analogy that spells are like music. Each wizard has an instrument (wand) which they can play notes/songs/spells/whatever. Most people can sing or play existing music, as a wizard can learn existing spells. But not every musician can write music, much like most wizards cannot create spells. But created spells can be "played" by anyone with an "instrument" and knowing the tune ("for enemies") can make learning that piece much easier.

So, spell creation would be the ability to bring together several elements runes/charms/authorialliscencegoeshere like how some musicians bring together notes/tempo/cadence/Iknownothingaboutmusic to create a piece.

 

This whole training magic idea just leaves me thinking about the chicken and the egg... any ideas on how this gets resolved? Unless accidental magic isn't affected by the training magic concept, but if that's the case then what's the point?

Otherwise it's a cool idea, very interesting, but you'd have to nerf accidental magic for me to not lose my SoD.

 

Personally I think creating magic is like coding a certain program.
You first need to make it and it takes a lot of effort to make and when it is made it goes into the central magic database a bit like a computer and it can be then used by magic users to use the spell.
I also guess that you can make the spell without actually performing the spell itself but that it takes a lot more effort and you need to have prior knowledge on the type of magic to create it so someone should know dark magic when making a new dark magic spell whilst the same happens with light magic.

Using language for magic is also a means to focus the intention of magic and make sure that part of the magic is done by your own willpower and part of it by the words and whilst it is possible to do soundless magic it is harder because you need to focus more on your intent then before.
The same happens with wandless magic I think since your wand works as a focus you are able to do wandless magic but it is harder then magic with a wand since again you need to have more willpower and intent to do it and even more magic since some of the magic you use might get wasted and fed into the environment.

 

I second the "Magic as coding" analogy. I'm working on a fic where Harry is decidedly more freaked out by Voldemort's resurrection (I mean, he did see something 'lower than the weakest ghost' get a living body back) and decides to see what kind of real limits Magic actually has. HP-brand magic is weird in that it is both horribly overpowered and broken compared to other fantasy series, but has very narrow limits on what can be done (no real 'love' can be created via manipulation or potions yet somehow it can be studied in the Department of Mysteries, no outright conjuration of real food, etc). I have a sneaking suspicion that part of what limits HP Magic is fear of the unknown (why bother learning to fly when brooms are refined and safe?) and a lack of curiosity. "Magic" as we know it in the HPverse may already know how to do literally anything, but Wizards/Witches have to figure out how to harness it via language and (maybe fanon, I'll double check) ritual.

 

The magic as coding idea is interesting and pretty common. However, I feel like after a certain point magic will become too powerful. Just look at what we can do with programming now compared to a couple of decades before. You can easily stack many effects and call many different spells in rapid succession with a single word using this type of magic system.

I think the magic system should have a bit of unpredictability and blocks that prevent people from stacking spells too easily.