Charms Classroom
Welcome to Charms. The teacher is Professor Angel Skylark. She will be posting the first lesson shortly.
Until Professor Skylark sends a lesson, Professor Cassity will be the substitute teacher. See below for your first lesson. Thank you!
Before you start the work of learning how to perform various charms, you are going to learn the basic outline of what a charm is. For all charms, there are two components: the word, and the wand. The wand is the simpler of the two, as there are approximately thirty different wand movements that are used in 98 % of all cases. The other two percent have specific wand movements that need to be taught, but for this year, at least, you will be dealing only with the basic wand movements.
Accompanying the wand movement is the proper word or phrasing. Every charm has one word or phrase that will begin the charm. Most charms, having been invented in ancient times, will have words in Latin or other language. Very few will be in English. This makes it imperative that we learn the correct pronunciation. One slight mistake in inflection and the spell will not go off right, sometimes leading to rather disastrous circumstances. Many of the great disasters in the world were caused by wizards mispronouncing spells. For this reason, we will work to perfect the word and wand movements separately before putting them together.
For some charms, there is a third element, a thought element. Several charms will only work if you are focusing all of your concentration on the charm. Others require only a token amount of thought, and aren’t draining in the least. Most everyday charms require little or no thought. However, there are some that are rather difficult, such as the Patronus charm, which you will probably learn somewhere in your fifth or sixth year here. The Patronus charm requires intense concentration and focus. However, it is doubtful that you will learn any this year that require that diligence, at least as long as I am the substitute.
Homework
1.) What are the two elements of a successful charm?
2.) Give one example of a charm whose word or phrase comes from Latin.
3.) Approximately how many wand movements are there?
4.) Give one example of a charm that requires quite a bit of thought.
5.) Give one example of a charm that requires almost no thought.
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