I got this idea when I was thinking about the story Harry Potter and the power of SaveLoad. Read it if you want to understand this more.

But anyway, what if Harry was somehow able to programme spells or edit existing ones according to people's wands.

He could take Malfoy's wand for instance and change it. He looks for the Stupefy spell and this is the code.

on (incantation(Inc.STUPEFY)) {
pointed (stun)
}

This means (For those who aren't even as basic at scripting as I am (This is from Actionscript on Macromedia Flash as I have no experience with any other)):

on (incantation(Inc.STUPEFY)) {

When the incantation stupefy is said do what is contained within {} those brackets.

pointed (stun)
}

Stun who the wand is pointed at.

He could then change it to

on (incantation(Inc.STUPEFY)) {
wand (light)
}

Basically changing Malfoy's Stupefy spell into a lumos.

I've never seen this done before but of course you might have to somehow incorporate wand movements in but what do you guys think?

 

there is, in one of nonjon's fic, harry programming wands for dudley with stun as the command. Apart from that, i believe the wand doesn't recognize just the word. i think it's magic itself that recognize the command, and help the structure of the spell (so you can really do a spell only if you can do it in a non verbal way).

 

I agree with the above. I wand is not simply a pre-programmed repertoire of spells stored in stick form. The whole purpose of it is to channel the users own magic. Hence muggles being unable to use them... Although, you may be able to pull it off by 'confounding' the wand like Crouch Jr. did with the Goblet of Fire. I doubt you could make it shoot a specific spell, but it might just fire off randomly or not work at all.

You could make a pre-programmed wand with spells stored in it I guess... fairly cliche idea though.

 

Well, I did think about it being in the person themselves to begin with, hence muggles not being able to use wands. Then I thought of that so he can mess up with people's wands.

If it was in themselves, they have to learn new spells and everything. Then you could maybe use legillimency and change it.

 

, maybe you should clarify what you idea is exactly... I really have no idea what you're talking about.

 

I'm not that sure either .

I mean that people would still have to learn new spells, they wouldn't just be able to know them. If you had that power or whatever then if you used legillimency then you could change the spells coding. Maybe even delete all of their spell repertoir.

Clear it up?

 

Hum...if you talked about me, what i said is that there is a "memory" in magic. lumos is such an easy spell because it has been used millions of time, so even if you do not have the right focus and willpower, the magic will answer to you. on the other hand, nonverbal spells are harder because there is no imprint in the magic for them: you have to weave hte pattern of magic completely, without help. Of course, it is sooo not what jk has in mind

 

Alright, I'm going to attempt to clarify what you are saying... so bear with me for a moment.

First you said that you wanted to be able to change how a wand interprets spells coming from the caster, thus making them actually materialize as a different spell. I disagree with this because I think that a wand it just a tool and does not interpret anything. It does not have logic of it's own and can not be programmed. Think of it as a magnifying glass... it focuses the wielder's magic.

Then you changed your original idea, saying that you could change the mental aspect of it. Altering the wizards knowledge of the spell/making them cast the wrong spell. This wouldn't work if magic was based on intent/willpower. It would only be possible if magic was a direct result of waving your wand in a pattern and speaking an incantation. Assuming that the wizard is not a complete idiot, they will realize that they are not casting the spell they want to and will know something is wrong after just a few errors.

Your third post just confused me even more. It seems like you want people to learn spells but not be able to cast them... weird. I do agree that it would maybe be possible to clear their spell repertoire through legilimency, but a good old memory charm would be much more effective. Hell, why not just make them forget they can even do magic?

 

Hell, why not just make them forget they can even do magic? <= that's why i believe that against lesser wizards, a memory charm can be as effective as a killing curse. of course, that is also why i believe occlumency protect aghainst those.

 

I see it as the person's magic doing the work and the wand movments and incantation just as a way for beginners to learn how to form the spell. Hence people can do wordless magic etc when they get older/better at spell casting.

You could however possibly cause the wand to backfire, thus hitting the person who cast the spell.

 

I totally agree with that. The only sense to change the knowledge how to do a spell is without the victim knowing to trap them. The victim then would want to cast the killing curse and all what happens is a lumos. But I don't believe you could change the whole spell knowledge. Even those without knowing occlumency would know sth. is wrong. And even this wouldn't make much sense. Instead of changing the knowledge you could just cast the killing course.

 

Also don't forget the priori spell that's used at the world cup in book four.

If the wand didn't have some type of memory, then why did all those people come out of Voldemorts wand.

I think it's the magical core that carries the memory, but it's a very complex issue.
If you use Raistlin's staff as an example for programming etc, then it would work. It all depends on how you define magic, and the reason for wands.

Litha

 

I'll give you that, the wand did fire off and vanish the leg of a desk. But I think that the dropping of the wand would likely cause a reaction similar to that of confounding it. It would fire off a random spell if firing off one at all... unless you think of magic as a thinking entity, an omnipresent... err presence.

As for this point, I always thought of it as the wizards magic reacting best to a certain wand. "The wand chooses the wizard," is a saying similar many that we have in that it isn't meant to be taken in a literal sense.

That isn't necessarily true. The wand wouldn't need a memory to remember who it killed. The magic could merely be reacting to the user's own memories, resulting in a manifestation of those that he had killed.

 

But voldemort didn't personally kill Cedric and Bertha, but their echoes still came out his wand.

When I use the word memory I mean hard wired memory, or maybe engraved memory. There is no personality involved it's just an engraved path, like water creating cave formations (if you see what I mean).
With the spell storage, you would have to use Raistlin's staff (Dragonlance) as a template.

That way you could store certain spells.
But like I said it would depend on how you visualize magic. If you saw it as sentient then it could have an impact on wand use.

I read Dragonlance before I read Harry Potter so my view of magic, was initially influenced by Raistlin's type of magic.
These are just several of the theories of magic and are probably wrong.
I'm no author so I tend to speculate on methods and such, I like the little quirks when it comes to wands.

Also not everyone believes in magical core's, but that's where the skill of the author comes forward. You aim to get people seeing magic your way by using your story.

Litha
P.s don't be offended it's just something to think about

 

I'm not offended, I actually agree with you... mostly.
I had forgotten that Voldemort didn't kill Cedric directly, and while I could argue that he ultimately died on Voldemort's orders, that is a very weak argument. I do agree that a wand may hold an echo/engraving of each spell casted, but I still doubt that you could store spells in a wand. The spell, in my opinion, comes from the caster... and I don't think that the circumstances required to cast the spell (the feeling, the motions, the will, the incantation, ex.) could be put in to a basic enough form to allow the wand to cast them on its own.

 

Perhaps not store spells directly, but I could see someway of sabotaging the wand so that spells didn't work correctly. Surely, if wands were straight forward, wandmakers would be common. You may not be able to guarentee one spell gives you another, but (as complicated as it might be) there might be a way to make it so that spells don't work correctly (perhaps in a predictable manner, perhaps not) so sometimes saying a spell will result in a different spell and sometimes saying a spell will result in nothing happening at all depending on what spell is used.

 

We know that the wand channels the magic, so why not doing something to the wand where it only allows a set amount of magic through at one time. So spells that need little amount of magic to be channeled like the Alohomora Charm can be cast but something requiring more like the Patronus Charm would not be able to because the flow of magic is interrupted before it can all be channeled.

 

The wand sends out different types of magic so there could be fragments that stay with the wand. As the power of the spell increases more fragments of it are left behind in the wand. Thus spells like the AK would leave fragments the would stay longer which could explain why the wands reacted the way they did the longer they stayed in contact. The old fragments would have been in the wand so long they became almost part of it and thus resisting the forced removal. As for the the wand vanishing the table leg, no one ever said that a wizard had to be holding a wand to cast a spell through it. If the wand was close enough or already charged with the user's magic it could still send a spell out.

 

If you put a different core they would not be able use it as well because one wizards wand doesn't work as well as the one that you use primarily at atleast by Ollivanders account, so in theory an opposite core would negate the users flow of magic through the wand but not hinder it fully

QUESTION: What happened to Cedric's wand?