Potterverse magic is notoriously vague, as we all know. Besides the few concrete and explored examples like Mind magic, human-to-animal & shape-shifting, we don't really have much to go with. So I tried my hand a few hours ago at a make-shift system that I want you guys to look over:

Abjuration & Evocation: Abjuration is the study of protective magic, while Evocation is the study of offensive magic. Both disciplines draw from the six schools of magic and the fifteen sub-disciplines:

Schools of Magic:

Conjuration: Conjuration deals with the generation, summoning and manipulation of natural forces as well as summoning forth embodiments of the elements. Ferromancy, Geomancy, Aeromancy, Pyromancy & Hydromancy are all sub-disciplines.

Transmutation: Transmutation is the study of manipulating space and time, such as altering the physical attributes of a creature, teleportation or even slow fall spells. Kinetomancy, Animagi, Metamorphmagi are all sub-disciplines.

Illusions: Illusion consists mostly of deceiving the senses of others by summoning phantasmic phenomena. Illusion is the art of deceiving reality itself. The mist of illusion can make a mage invisible or inaudible to the world or twist the image of a location into something entirely different. Illusion can be used for disguise for manipulation. Holomancy, Phonoturgy and Psychomancy are all sub-disciplines.

Necromancy: Necromancy is the practice of magic involved the dead. Necromantic magic has many functions beyond simply raising the dead. Masters of this tainted field of magic can conjure festering diseases, harness the shadows into bolts of incendiary energy, and chill the living with the power of death. Necromancy can also be used to reconstruct the flesh of undead creatures, allowing them to function again even after the foul monsters have been destroyed. Ectomancy is a sub-discipline. (Basically the Dark Arts.)

Enchantment: Enchanters are those who enchant normal items to give the items magical abilities or enhance already magical items. They also destroy magical items in order to get materials to enchant other items. Enchanters learn secret ways to seize the arcane or divine power imbued within every magic item, drawing it into themselves as the item is destroyed. They then redirect this raw energy into an existing item through the use of mystical formulas only they can hope to understand. The refocused magic provides the object with new abilities, above and beyond what it may already possess. (Peasant magic, ftw!)

Divination: Divination is the school of magic dedicated to gathering information. Powerful divinations can allow the mage to see targets from a great distance, or even view what may normally be invisible. One of the most common uses of divination magic is scrying, which is the art of seeing something that may be far away - perhaps even on another plane of existence. Thaumaturgy, Anthropomancy, Neuromancy are all sub-disciplines. (None of the prophecy bullshit.)

Can't figure out what to do with Potions/Alchemy/Herbology/Care of Magical Creatures, etc...

 

Here's a few divisions I think you might find helpful: Charms, Transfiguration, Dark Arts, Potions, Divination.

To be less flippant: this doesn't seem to map onto canon magic very well at all.

 

Taure just ended this thread.

 

Hash, what you list is a reasonable start, though totally incomplete, for an AU magic system. You need either vastly more 'schools' as you call them, or to make the ones you list vastly less specific.

 

Yeah, I realized that I pretty much ignored canon in my attempt to do this not two seconds after posting and consequently reported this and requested a deletion. :facepalm

Transfiguration falls under Transmutation, as does Dark Arts under Necromancy. Charms is spread across all of them, while I mentioned Divination was going to be very different in the section called Divination.

Meh. I've gotten far less and less interested in the HP verse over the last few years. This was sort of my attempt at kick-starting some enthusiasm within myself.

 

How is Dark Arts a subset of Necromancy? Surely it should be the other way around?

 

The majority of the Dark Arts are just malicious curses, jinxes, hexes and charms. I would think it would belong with abjuration and evocation, because it draws from all the other subcategories as well.

 

You used the D&D 3.5e schools of magic names nearly verbatim, and then completely twisted what some of them do (Evocation and Enchantment are pretty much completely different things, Teleportation belongs in Conjuration not Transmutation) and tried to apply it to HP.

While it's a far more physical system than HP, it would have probably been better to apply some ideas from it to HP schools of magic rather than the other way around.

 

I don't really see why there needs to be schools at all. Why can't you just have magic, and various ways humans have organised that magic into disciplines in order to study it? I don't see why there have to be magical distinctions between different areas of magic. Social is surely sufficient.

 

There is only power...

 

Damn mods never delete something stupid when you ask them to. :facepalm

Edit: Rhys, would you believe I cribbed the concepts off of the WOW wiki and some Dresden stuff and then did some retooling? Never even played D & D

@Taure: I don't know man. I'd legitly prefer if you made a thread to discuss this sort of thing, because I'm too lazy to be arsed to do anything proper.

@Lord Anarchy: When I mean Dark Arts, I mean how they're seen: the evil malicious shit. Which would be Necromancy and Ectomancy. Offensive spells and that sort of things was basically all the other stuff.

But yeah, this idea was stupid and I feel stupid for half-assing the effort.

 

There already was a thread about the magic 'system' in general I believe in which Taure participated. I'm just too lazy to look out for it. Search and you'll find.

 

I think you'll find that Taure wrote many an essay on the topic, available on ff.n...

 

Off topic, but Brandon Sanderson is a master of creating unique/interesting/bawse magic systems. I remember some quote from him where he expressed (amusement?) that he's known as "the magic system guy". Rothfuss's system is definitely my favorite though out of recent books that feature magic systems.

I agree with those above who said there's no real need for encompassing "schools" of magic, but it still appeals to me for some reason; perhaps due to rpg's/dd/fantasy books that influenced me over the years.

 

The structure isn't bad... but it kind of makes it sound like a video game or a table-top game.

Reminds me of Dungeons and Dragons.

Looks like something out of World of Warcraft.