I thought I would try to decipher the spells upon the Trio's campsite in DH, and Flitwick's spells on Hogwarts, to expand our spell knowledge a little bit.

We know that the campsite had spells protecting it from Muggles, that it was Disillusioned, and that they had some sort of protection against Dark magic.

These are the spells that Hermione used after the escape from the Ministry:

Salvio Hexia
Protego totalum
Repello Muggletum
Muffliato
Cave Inimicum

There could be more, but if there are, we don't know them.

Now, some of them are obvious. Muffliato is clearly there to prevent the campsite from being overheard. Repello Muggletum is obviously the Muggle-repelling charm.

Protego totalum is clearly an area-effect variation of the shield spell. As for what it does, we can't really be sure. It could be that it prevents harmful magic from being cast within its bounds, or it could act as a physical and/or magical barrier to stop people entering/casting spells into the campsite.

This leaves Salvio Hexia and Cave Inimicum.

"Hexia" obviously refers to spells, and according to the Lexicon, "Salvio" comes from the Latin "salvia" - "without breaking". So I would say that this is either:

1. A spell that joins the other spells she has cast together so that they work together(the spells form an "unbroken" continuous protection).

Or,

2. "Salvio" could be the incantation to the unbreakable charm. When the suffix "hexia" is added it could be that it makes spells unbreakable, rather than objects. Thus, it's a charm that fixes the other spells in place, making it so they're harder to dissipate with canceling spells.

I'm a fan of #2.

I had thought that Cave Inimicum was the incantation for the Disillusionment charm - Hermione points her wand upwards when she casts it, and we know the disillusionment charm begins at the top and travels downwards. Also, "Inimicum" sounds a bit like "imitate" and "mimic", and that's what the disillusionment charm does: make your body imitate whatever is behind it in a chameleon effect.

However, the Lexicon tells me that "Inimicum" comes from the Latin for enemy, so presumably this is a charm which repels those with harmful intent.

It'd be cool if someone could verify the Latin. I don't entirely trust the Lexicon's translation abilities.

Unfortunately, this means we still don't have the incantation for Disillusionment.

Lastly, we have Flitwick's Protego horriblis that he casts around Hogwarts, along with a massive amount of other magic which unfortunately we don't hear. Presumably this is like the Protego Totalum, but with a nastier effect than just blocking. Maybe it tries to harm anyone that tries to break it.

Far more interesting from Flitwick's short appearance (no pun intended) is that he's muttering "incantations of great complexity". Combine this with the Trio's casting of Salvio Hexia and I think we've had a glimpse into some of the more complex higher levels of magic, where magic is layered on other magic, and spells cast upon other spells. Apparently, when you get to this level, incantations increase in complexity by a huge amount, and if I may venture a guess, I'd say that much of it is improvised - joining spells to other spells and so forth, I think, would involve lots of stuff like Salvio Hexia - spells that don't do anything in and of themselves, but augment other spells. The combination of these spells would be down to the intuition and improvisation of the caster. I also think that many of the spells have been personalised through the addition of extra phrases to them - Protego becomes Protego horriblis, for example.

This kind-of matches with my previous spell-theory which argued that there are far fewer spells than many think and that each spell would have far greater scope for variation and customisation. The difference being that in my theory, customisation was something that took place in the intent of the caster, whereas in canon, customisation appears to take place with adjusting the Incantations slightly.

Thoughts?

 

Inimicum definitely translates into 'personal foe/enemy' according to the InterTran website. On a Harry Potter Latin website the spell Cave Inimicum was translated as follows:
cave: beware (this seems to be the general usage, eg. Cave cibum - Beware the food);
inimicum: enemy;
Considering the way the word cave is used it may also be something of a warning spell to alert the caster and those under the spell of the presence of an enemy. Like Beware the food means a warning about the quality of the food, we may take Beware the enemy to mean a danger alert.

But salvia on the other hand seems to translate to 'salvo, save, except for', which seems like a word that is used to denote an exception being made. There seems to be no other translation for it (Wiki of course lists Salvia as a genus of plants with the name derived from Salvere (to heal) but I doubt that is relevant here).

Salvo (english) has a rather interesting meaning:
Main Entry: salvo
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s):plural salvos or salvoes
Etymology: Italian salva, from French salve, from Latin, hail!, from salvus healthy
1 a: a simultaneous discharge of two or more guns in military action or as a salute
b: the release all at one time of a rack of bombs or rockets (as from an airplane)
c: a series of shots by an artillery battery with each gun firing one round in turn after a prescribed interval
d: the bombs or projectiles released in a salvo

So Salvio Hexia could just as well mean a salvo of curses or a salvo of a particular curse...

As for the Unbreakable charm, Infragilis seems to be the proper latin translation. Protego translates to 'to protect' so those two spells, Protego Totalum and Protego Horriblis are self-explanatory. Muffliato is anti-eavesdropping enchantment and Repello Muggletum is clearly the muggle-repelling ward.

Agreed. Case in point is the Inanimatus Conjurus spell that seems to be the only incantation for a whole class of Transfiguration. So if one wished to conjure a silver container, then the incantation would be: Inanimatus Conjurus Silver Box (Argentum insum)...or something similar. If one wished to conjure a chair on the other hand, the spell would be: Inanimatus Conjurus chair (or sessio/cubile).

 

I'm glad we see more high level magic in DH, but I thought JKR totally sold out with "Protego totalum" and the other Protego upgrade by Flitwick. That reeked of fanfic influence and/or lack of imagination and creativity.

I'm against the 'one shield covers all' theory in regards to dueling and other protections. It's pretty lame.

 

It's not really one shield though, if you think about it. Even if it's the same spell (Protego), the effect is different, so you have one spell resulting in different shields, depending on how you cast it.

 

Semantics.

It's lame. To have one spell (adaptable as it is) that can block virtually all magic is very, very lame.

 

Matter of opinion, I suppose.

Personally, I prefer the idea of a single variable shield spell rather than tons of them. Having a different spell for every possible occasion seems a bit lame to me. Magic is reduced to a list of words. Want a better shield? Just use a better spell.

With one shield spell, it's much more dependent on the skill of the caster: the strength/effects of your shield are directly proportional to how good you are at casting it, rather than just knowing a few extra words.

 

So what about that solid, metallic shield Voldemort used in his duel with Dumbledore? Still the same spell or was it just something he conjured?

If it were the same spell wouldn't it be Protego argentium or something like that?

 

I read that as a physical shield (as in, the type used by knights, or the Romans, or whatever) that he conjured and hovered in the air in front of him, made of silver.

So a variation of the Inanimatis Conjuris (Which we learn of in OotP) probably.

 

In either case, we don't know since he did it silently...

Trying to fit it all together.

In some ways I do like the idea that there is the main spell that is fairly simple and then not so simple variants of it, because it does fill in the gaps in that there doesn't really seem to be all that many spells taught. There doesn't need to be if what is really being taught are classes of spells with the 'anchor' or 'foundation' of the class being the spell we see in the books.

But, that idea only works well for the Latin based spells used in Britain. Unless each language group has similar 'spell classes'...

 

It also explains why the Library is so full, since you could devote entire books to a single spell, and the different variations of said spell and how to achieve them.

 

I have to admit I was a more than a touch diasappointed with the level of creativity in the spells shown in the books. If you look at Shezza's stories or any of the better fanfic tales we see some pretty ritzy stuff...

Also, if you visit some of the HP spell list websites you'll notice that in all there are about 35-40 spells listed which, considering that you are actually talking about a world comprised entirely of witches and wizards, is a bit on the low side (averaging 5-6 spells a book). Though with Taure's idea, I suppose the number could be beefed up rather dramatically.

Aside:
I suppose Voldemort's shield would be a composite of Inanimatus Conjurus Argentum Contego and Locomotor Shield (or Mobiliarbus/Wingardium Leviosa)

 

35-40 is a bit of an understatement. There are quite a few more, though we don't know the incantations for all of them.

Possibly. We can't really know how much of it needs to be expressed in words and how much in the intent of the caster. For example, when Harry used a Protego as a physical shield in DH, there was no change in the incantation. So customisation doesn't always equal more words.

 

Very true. Accio is the most prominent example of this, considering Molly Weasley was able to summon all sorts of goodies off Fred and George without specialising the incantation in GoF.

 

I suppose what is interesting to me is: would Accio be classified as a single spell or a class of spells?

For example we have a spell Locomotor that is used to spell an object into motion: Locomotor Trunks (Flitwick with Trelawney's trunks in OoTP). But at the same time it can also be used to stop the motion of a body with Locmotor Mortis (Malfoy on Neville in PS).

 

The key to that is in the suffix. Locomotor Trunks is easy enough to work out the meaning of: Move these trunks. Locomotor Mortis on the other hand means 'death of locomotion', if I paraphrase what HPLexicon says.

 

I would say that it's a single spell, but with a wide variety of uses. For example, I would argue that Dumbledore's summoning of Madam Rosmerta's mead to Privet Drive in HBP was an extremely advanced form of the summoning charm (accio). In this advanced form, rather than the summoned object soaring through the air, it pops out of existence where it used to be, and pops into existence in the new location.

After all, the summoning charm is always referred to as that: the summoning charm, not a summoning charm, and what Dumbledore has done is summoned the object.

However, it's possible that he simply had vanished the mead before he left, and unvanished it at Privet Drive. We know that vanished objects can be retrieved, and we also know that vanished objects exist, according to McGonagall in DH, "everywhere", so they can presumably be retrieved from anywhere.

 

Which means Locomotor Mortis should be able to stop any moving object.

 

Or at least stop it from moving under its own power. For example, when cast at legs it stops the legs from moving, but presumably you could still move the legs by, for example, taking hold of them and pushing them.

And if you cast it at a falling object, gravity would still cause the object to fall, unless a levitation charm was cast.

 

That would mean that there is a restriction that allows only the vanisher to retrieve what he vanished, because it would be a mess otherwise. For example, in OoTP we see Bill vanishing the order documents, and Snape was aware of their existance. So Voldemort could simply order Snape to unvanish them...

This option sounds cooler to me than the summoning one. But there is some evidence supporting the summoning option too. When, in HBP, AD causes Harry's trunk to vanish, I suppose he cast a more involved Banishment spell that sent the trunk to the Burrow. After all he did not unvanish anything when they arrived at the Burrow and Harry's trunk was waiting for him in his room so it had to be Banishment.

This also gives something of an idea of what advanced study entails. Knowledge of and the ability to perform these little (or not so little) things with magic would be what differentiates a great wizard from a good one.

Edit: Now that I look at it I can't help but admire the simplicity of it. I doubt JKR actually intended this but the idea definitely deserves merit.

 

Presumably you can only unvanish something that you know is there.

Assuming Snape told him of them. Also, why would Voldemort need the documents when he had Snape himself to tell him of the plans?

True.

I would also imagine that much of it can't be taught. If it is customisation of spells, then each customisation would probably be unique and improvised by the caster, though I suppose you could learn other people's customisations.

JKR has said that much of what Dumbledore can do is self-taught as well, which further backs up this idea.