Now, your Charms class will more adequately teach you the small, intricate details of how these components work overall. The key part is that most of them are dependent on you. If you are not concentrating enough or if you are not exerting any willpower, then I cannot be held responsible when your spell does not work. Now, let us take a general look at the components of spell casting. These components are: concentration, willpower, wand movement, and incantation.

Concentration - This concept is actually an interesting one. This is the only term that has an interchangeable equivalent. Through the course of your studies, you will encounter people who refer to this as “focus.” These terms mean the same thing. The only time that listings will be consistent is in official spellbooks or spell blocks. Do not be confused. Both terms refer to the mental process that goes into channeling your magic on a specific target to accomplish an effect. When casting a spell, the spell needs to be instructed. This is partially done through the incantation, but it is primarily done by thinking specifically of what you want the spell to do and what you want the effect to affect.

Willpower - Willpower is a component that seems relatively simple, but takes time to train properly. In the simplest terms, willpower is the magical force you exert to make the spell happen. Some spells will require little to no willpower and the use of the incantation and proper wand movement will be enough. However, most spells require at least some level of willpower - you have to want the spell to work and be willing to make it happen. Think of willpower in terms of physical force. If you want to push a desk across the floor, you need to exert physical effort; in the same way, you need to exert mental effort if you want a spell to work.

Wand Movement - This is probably the second most familiar component of spellcasting to you. When you think of casting a spell, you probably think of someone saying words (the incantation) and waving their wand or their hand. The wand movement is a way to help witches and wizards channel their magical energy and draw on the energy both within and around them. Some wand movements will be simple - in Defense Against the Dark Arts you will often find that they are easier, since many of the spells in this course need to be cast quickly; however, they can also become extremely complex. As you progress through your education, you will find that you will be able to cast spells without performing the specific wand movement. This requires a great deal of concentration and none of you are to experiment with it until such time that you are taught how.

Incantation - Then we come to the funny words that you are so used to hearing. Despite the ideology that the words can be random or you can just make things up, incantations are extremely important to the process of spellcasting. While accents are acceptable, it is important that you, to the best of your ability, say the incantation with the appropriate pronunciation. I will endeavor to provide the approved and tested pronunciation for each spell in this course. The way these pronunciations are written out have everything to do with phonetics. I will not bore you with the nuances of phonetics here (though if you are curious, I highly recommend looking into it). It may seem like it is not important, or that slight alterations to the pronunciation when written out phonetically will not make a difference, but the phonetics are important because they have been reviewed many times by professionals, both magical and Muggle, who have determined how to write out the words we say to represent how they are said.