Hello everyone, and welcome back to another lesson of Charms! As I announced last lesson, we will be focussing on movement today. To be more precise, we will discuss all different kinds of charms that you can use on either yourself or another person to create a movement, and take a look at the limitations and chances that research is still facing in this area, especially when it comes to flying. We have quite a lot of magic to cover today as well as some background information, so take out both your quills and your wands: you will learn about five spells today.

 Flying is a concept which has fascinated both Muggles and magical people alike for centuries. Some people believe that the dream of flying like a bird is almost as old as the human race. Looking at birds, many people before us have, and many generations to be born in the future will dream about simply spreading one’s wings and soaring into the skies. Unfortunately, this proves to be an impossible dream for everyone but avian animagi, yet it is from this idea that the creation of the “flight” charms you discussed in your First Year began. As you all know, these spells will not work on a living creature though, as demonstrated by the tale of Jarleth Hobart, whose first public application of the Levitation Charm on himself lifted only his clothes. While theoretically possible to cast these spells on living beings, it is quite complex and not recommended in most everyday situations.

 Some of you may remember tales from the Second Wizarding War that included Lord Voldemort flying seemingly unsupported. This is indeed possible, yet very risky and beyond any magic that we teach here. The charm needed to make yourself move in the air unsupported requires a very long yet non-verbal incantation, coupled with an immense amount of willpower and concentration. These requirements exceed your abilities right now, and it is highly probable that not everyone in this room will be able to master this spell in their lives, no matter how hard they try. And this is not even considering the risks. Imagine getting distracted by something, no matter how unimportant and miniscule it may seem, and losing your control of the spell. Depending on the height that you are at when it fails, the consequences might range from serious injury to death. When flying with a broomstick, it is the broomstick’s enchantment which is focussing the relevant spells. Recreating them all by yourself, while theoretically possible, is not recommended and certainly nothing that will be encouraged at Hogwarts. As I do not want to tempt you, you will not receive the spellcasting details for this spell.

Pulling the Strings

Which spells are safe for you to learn, though? We will go through them in chronological order, starting with the oldest. You will notice a pattern: the first spells are only applicable to people other than yourselves, while more recently crafted spells sometimes work on your own person as well. As the accident of Jarleth Hobart spectacularly proved, casting Wingardium Leviosa has a great downside: you are unable to control your movements in the air at this point in your education. The same is true if you were to try to levitate another person: it is impossible to control their movements safely, as clothes are not meant to support a person’s weight for an extended period of time. If you take a moment to consider situations when you are most likely to need to move another person by the means of levitation, I am certain that many of you will think of unconscious patients who need to be moved to the Hospital Wing. While it is theoretically possible to levitate them, this method has fallen out of practice. Any basic first-aid course will teach you to not move an injured person unless it is necessary, and the movements of a regular Levitation Charm have been proven to worsen severe injuries. Instead, the spell Mobilicorpus is to be used.

Taking a look at this spell block, you may wonder what exactly the spell’s support is supposed to be. The amount of willpower required to properly cast Mobilicorpus depends on many factors. If a person is conscious, their muscular system will support their bodies and you will not need to put in much effort. We need to keep one downside in mind though: it is impossible to overpower a person’s physical strength with this spell. If you were to cast Mobilicorpus on me to try and make me move to the classroom door, all it requires for me to break the spell is to consciously decide to move differently. It follows then that the main application of Mobilicorpus is in casting the spell on people who are unable to move by themselves, either due to unconsciousness, paralysis, being stunned, or another medical condition. If necessary, the spell will add support to a person’s muscular system to make it safe to move them, which makes this charm vital for medical staff. If this spell seems familiar to you, it is most likely due to the fact that it is similar to a charm which you learned in your second year of Herbology: Mobiliarbus. Both spells share the same roots, and were developed simultaneously. As with the restrictions on Wingardium Leviosa, plants and trees as living things cannot be moved easily with standard levitation either.

I am going to ask you to practice casting Mobilicorpus on your classmates. This will require a high amount of trust, and concentration of both the caster and the target. You will need to allow the spell to take hold of you, and try not break its effects. When Mobilicorpus is cast on you, you will notice that you will be floating a few inches above the ground, and you will be moved almost as if you were a marionette with someone pulling on invisible strings. It is a bit scary at first, but keep calm and remember that you can always break the spell.  

Escape Velocity

The next two spells that we will discuss join Mobilicorpus in the category of emergency spells. The main difference is, however, that instead of being used after an accident, they are preventative and may help you to avoid needing medical attention. While not enabling you to create independent movement that resembles flight, it is a manipulation of motion: The spells in question reverse the movement or slow down an object or person. Depending on your target, the required willpower may increase, and you will need to pay even closer attention when working with people. Theoretically speaking, you could have learned these spells in earlier years already, but due to the associated dangers they have been moved into Year Six.

Let’s proceed with the spell to decrease an object or falling person’s velocity, Arresto Momentum. I am certain all of you can easily see how this spell can be used to prevent accidents. In fact, according to a Ministry of Magic survey, its most common use is catching a Quidditch player who has fallen off their broomstick. It is not much of a surprise that the creation of this spell is connected to Quidditch as well. Mister Courtenay talked about enchanting snitches last lesson, and Velocity Decrease is a spell which is commonly used on so-called Pennifold quaffles. For those of you who are not as familiar with Quidditch terminology, those quaffles are enchanted to drop very slowly, as if they were moving through water instead of air, so that chasers will have more time to catch them. Invented by Daisy Pennifold in 1711, no one ever suspected that a spell meant to make practice quaffles easier to catch would have such a great impact when it comes to preventative measures for possibly fatal accidents. In fact, the discovery that the spell decreases the speed of a falling person or being as well was fully unintended. While witnessing a Quidditch match during which a player fell off their broomstick at several hundred feet, a young Hogwarts student intuitively cast a spell which most people believed to have no effect on humans, slowing the fall sufficiently to prevent permanent injuries.

The biggest problem when it comes to this spell is that you need to have a very quick reaction time. While intuitively speaking, the falling object’s weight ought to have a big influence on the time that it takes for it to hit the ground, it does not have much of an impact at all. For example, if a Quidditch player is falling off their broom, it does not matter whether it is a small Second Year student or one of your yearmates who are definitely larger. You all know the heights at which Quidditch players usually fly, and I ask you to think about how much time you would have to react if you wanted to catch a quaffle dropped by a Quidditch player at a height of 50 meters. It is remarkably short: the ball would hit the ground after approximately 3.19 seconds, at a speed of 113 km/h. The higher you get, the quicker you fall, so even if you were at twice the height, the quaffle would hit the ground after only 4.52 seconds, less than twice the time. While you are still young and your reaction times are certainly good, no one expects an accident to happen and it will take you a second or two to even start moving. If you want to test your actual reaction time, feel free to try this reaction test, but do keep in mind that in a real situation, you are not waiting for something to happen, and it may not be as apparent as a screen turning from red to green. Given the short time span, this is the most critical aspect, as the longer you take, the faster your target will be moving and the closer they will be to the ground. While it is theoretically possible to fully stop a movement with this spell, it is unlikely that this will ever happen in any circumstance that is not merely experimental or in other controlled environments.

How does this spell work? I am sure that all of you know that objects fall at different speeds when you drop them in a liquid. Yet to make sure that we are all on the same page, I have brought you four different jars filled with water, corn syrup, oil, and honey. If you watch the speed in which a regular marble falls in these fluids, you will certainly notice a difference.

The spell works along these lines. While air regularly behaves similar to water - in fact, objects fall even faster if dropped in an empty jar - we want to slow down the marble’s speed by making it act like syrup or honey. The concept behind this is called viscosity, which defines how much resistance there is that may prevent an object from falling freely in a liquid. Though not exactly what happens when the spell is cast, just picture that more air is being put underneath the falling object or person. This influx of air slows down the fall just as if you drop the marble into a different fluid. It is your willpower which defines the amount of air that is drawn in and hence determines how much you will be able to break the fall. Do not be discouraged if you are unable to slow down your marble very much. Even slowing down a person’s fall very slightly will increase their chance of surviving, especially if you are not the only person to cast the spell.

Closely connected to the previous spell’s incantation’s roots, yet completely different with regards to the effect, is the Momentum Reversal Spell. It will not allow for a controlled movement, but rather create an invisible barrier around you and the target will bounce off this barrier. The original movement is enhanced, making the spell a very effective offensive strategy against all physical attacks. Keep in mind that the resulting bounce is rather unpredictable in its movements. You should not use it on living beings, animals, or humans alike, except for the case of an emergency. It will be a great help in teaching you more about controlling willpower and concentration, though, as those are used to determine the strength of the bounce and the speed at which the movement will be reversed.

As you all have got some marbles already, I will ask you to work in pairs and bounce them back and forth like you're playing tennis. Keep your volley for as long as possible. If you happen to miss one, your partner gets a point. The first person to five points wins!

So far, all of these spells have one thing in common: you cast them on a person other than yourself. While it is theoretically possible to cast the Velocity Decrease Spell on yourself, it has so far proven to be ineffective. The most likely reason for this is that while in the air and falling, you have no relative knowledge of your height and speed, nor will you be able to exert the necessary concentration when fearing for your life. This application of the spell is still a matter of spell research. If you are interested in following current discoveries, I recommend taking a look at the bi-weekly publication Chronicles in Charming, as they were running a series of articles on this spell last November.

The next spell that we will examine is different from the ones we have looked at so far today as it can be more easily cast on yourself and allows for slightly directed movement. A small downside, however: you can only move upwards, and it is sorely lacking with regards to control.

Always Dreamed of Flyin’

As presented during the second task of the 1994 Triwizard Tournament, Ascendio will allow a wizard to shoot upwards very quickly, regardless of the environment that they are in. The spell works underwater as well as in the air, and would possibly work in tunnels or ice as well. Those environments are not recommended at all, though, as there is an immense force behind the spell: you will move through whatever is above you, be it water, air, ice, or rocks. The last two would almost certainly prove to be fatal. The movement resembles a human cannonball and is just as unpredictable.

Once you have cast this spell, there is nothing that you can do other than enjoy the flight. There is no known way of influencing your flight once you have taken off, which is why we only cover this spell after you have all learned about Velocity Decrease. While I will be ready to help in case of an emergency, I want you all to act sensibly and to keep an eye on your classmates as well. Showing off, while certainly tempting, will most likely lead to being forcibly slowed down and spending this evening in detention. It is your call.

The discovery of the Propelling Charm is a relatively short, albeit sad tale. Ambrico Caprioglio was an ambitious spell crafter who was captivated by the idea of being able to fly. You might even go so far as to say that he was obsessed. He spent every waking hour analysing the existing flight spells and trying to create one by himself, aiming for unsupported flight. This obsession led to him living like a hermit, not interacting with the outside world at all. He did not work, did not talk to anyone; he just worked on his spells day and night. When he managed to create the Propelling Charm and successfully tested it on a pebble outdoors, he threw caution to the wind and cast it on himself. Spell crafters and researchers agree that the result was predictable and that Caprioglio acted in a most reckless manner.

Taking a look at the incantation, you will notice a similarity to the Rocket Charm which you learned back in Year One. Naturally, the spells are somewhat similar in their effects as well: the movement is not a controlled, gentle flight. Instead, the rocket-like movement is relatively unpredictable and very risky, especially if too much power is applied. While Caprioglio succeeded in creating a spell that allows for slightly directed movement, he did not survive to witness the waves of excitement caused by his spell - nor the limitations and risks connected to it which claimed his own life. To this day, his exact cause of death is unclear. His injuries included blunt trauma from the subsequent fall as well as hitting a tree during his flight.

All of the spells that we have discussed so far today are meant to be cast on living beings, intending to move humans through the air without the aid of an enchanted object, such as a broomstick. For the final section of our lesson today, we will examine a spell that is used to move objects when standard levitation is not the best choice. For example, an object that is sensitive to changes in height, or cannot leave the ground for some reason, but needs to be moved. In this scenario, the Seize-and-Pull Charm is a better option.

At its simplest, the Seize-and-Pull Charm creates a magical rope made of light that you can use to seize an object which is in your direct line of sight and pull it towards you. This magical rope is astoundingly strong and will support massive weights, but there is a disadvantage: the pulling aspect is supported by magic, but you still require physical strength to move your target. When combined with a feather-light charm, however, you can easily avoid this difficulty. It is certainly possible to use this spell on living beings as well, yet the most common application is on inanimate objects that need to be moved. This limitation is caused by the fact that a creature’s (or even plant’s) innate magic will anchor them to the place they are at, so to speak, and your willpower will need to overcome their desire to stay where they are. Though an application of this spell on a living target may appear needlessly cruel - the spell appears to create a lasso and the target is pulled towards you by force - rest assured that no damage ought to occur due to the rope itself. Unlike real lassos, it is next to impossible for our sling to get too tight and to accidentally suffocate our target. This does not mean that you may be careless as it still behaves just like a rope and may still break bones or dislocate joints, but it ought to alleviate your fears of using it. For now, we will be working on inanimate targets.

The beauty of this spells is that it is dynamic. The rope is not at a fixed length, but will adjust itself to whichever length you need at a given moment. This function opens many possible applications: rather than pulling an object towards you, you can use it to pull yourself towards the target object. You may cast it at a tree branch and use the rope as a vine - swinging from vine to vine - however you would need a lot of practice to do this successfully.

As a connection to what we will talk about in a couple of weeks, I want you to take a quick look at the Whip Spell. If you are not familiar with it, it will elongate the tip of your wand to create a whip which you can use to pull a target towards you. Though different from the Seize-and-Pull Charm at first glance, I want you to take a closer look at the similarities as well. While we teach the Seize-and-Pull Charm in this class, the Whip Spell is actually a transfiguration rather than a charm as you are directly working with the given material (the wand), albeit only temporarily. Nevertheless the two spells are closely connected, both from the roots of their incantations and from the effects that they cause. Though we have not discussed the difference between charms and transfigurations yet as you have in Transfiguration class, I urge you to start paying even more attention to details, as these types of comparisons will play a large role in your evaluation at the N.E.W.T. level.

That is it for today’s lesson. As homework, I will ask you to take a compulsory quiz as well as an analysing essay and a practical application of the spells you learned. I know this is a lot of work, and I assure you that you will not be receiving this many compulsory assignments on a regular basis. Yet keep in mind that you are N.E.W.T. students now, and you will notice this by your workload as well. For those of you who are interested in a bit of extra work and delving deeper into theory, I am offering an extra-credit analysis which will ask you to give more details about how exactly Arresto Momentum works. Until next lesson!

Professor Cassandra Virneburg

Image sources: here, here, here and here.