THE WORLD

[Kieran]

MAGIC

WHERE MAGIC COMES FROM?

Genes aren't the source of magic, but it links to them. The very first magical person in the world was probably born at the dawn of humanity by a gene mutation, gaining a gene that receives magic. This was the world's first muggle-born witch or a wizard. Muggle-borns are rare. As magic is rare in humans. By the end of 20th century there were over 50 million people in Great-Britain, but only half a million of them were wizardkind. The same relative figures applies to the rest of the world. No one knows where magic comes from. It's a mystic combination of supernatural and science.

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HOW MAGIC WORKS

One can cast spells without a wand or anything else, ie. by just waving one's hand or only focusing and intending hard enough. But that way--except for potion brewing--it's usually not nearly as successful as when channeled though something physical. Wands are by far the best to do so as they have magical properties themselves too. A wand does not do anything in the hands of a muggle, in their use it's just a regular stick.

Possible success in spell-casting requires:

- Intent. You can't cast a spell if you don't know what it does.
- Pronouncing clearly and with the correct emphasis, incantations derived from a foreign language. (Anyone can potentially cast spells non-verbally but doing so on purpose rather than accidentally, is rather difficult so only the most powerful in magic usually succeed.)
- Concentration on the matter and visualising the intended spell in your mind.
- Channel your magic towards casting it.
- Wave or flick your wand lightly or heavily, depending on the complexity of the spell. There's NO need for complex wrist-movements or patterns, as long as you wave/flick the wand a bit while holding it towards the target.

Emotions, will-power and spiritual strength are essential as well.

- Someone who's depressed or has low self-esteem cannot manifest their magic very strongly and successfully.

- Someone whose mind is for some reason broken or damaged may never be able to control their accidental magic as it requires a strong mind and faith that the magic is not needed.

- Someone who is especially intelligent, determined and self-confident in addition to hard work and practice of course, may succeed in spells and potions better than the average person of their age.

- A very young child or even a teen can't succeed in producing a perfect and solid Patronus. (Harry was capable of casting a perfect Patronus at age 13 only because he was far away from the Dementors and he realized he'd done it before in that situation. That was Harry number 2 who had arrived into the situation by Time Travel.)

- In addition to magical power and skills, succeeding and advancing in potion brewing you'd need to have accuracy, patience and excellent ability to concentrate. Wands are not needed.

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MAGIC IS UNSTABLE

In canon, as well as in this rpg, there already exists a downside to the magical methods of travelling – all of them have tons of remarkable dangers to them. And that nothing conjured up out of thin air can last for more than a few hours. But there needs to be a downside to using magic in general, so I visioned something.

Magic is magic because it can, to some degree, bend the rules of nature. Spells with natural results are stable and lasting, that is spells that technically just speed up a natural process. But any other spell's effects wears off eventually, or can suddenly break if not cast strongly enough. Ie. repairing a broken object, it will break again someday back to what it was before the magical repair because objects don't naturally repair themselves. Glueing or sewing the thing back together like muggles have to do may in some cases be a longer lasting solution but of course won't make it a seemless fix.

Nobody's unnatural spells and curses hold up forever, anybody's spell can unexpectedly break (though the more powerful and skilled the caster the less likely it is), and anybody can fail in the casting to begin with.

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MAGIC CAN'T DO THESE THINGS

- Bring back the dead. Even the Resurrection Stone brings back just sort of a ghost.

- Create life/soul.

- Create love. Any potions really cause just obsession.

- Gain knowledge. Everything has to be learned from somewhere, just likes muggles have to.

- Make a cold object hot and the other way around.

- Create energy.

- Turn an animal into a human.

- Although there are spells to cause minor local weather changes, such as to snow on a very small area, magic can't: end non-magic rain or snowing, control the wind, boil or cool water nor raise or decrease air temperature. (This means also that to dry anything you need to do it muggle way.)

- Almost any inanimate object can be multiplied, but the copies are of lesser quality and don't last time as well as the authentic object. But wands, other complex magical objects, motor vehicles or buildings can't be copied. Also food and any kind of organic matter can't be copied.

- Re-attaching severed body parts is not possible if the injury was caused by dark magic, and in any other case it's possible only in a limited time from the incident just like with muggle medicine.

- Destroyed body parts can't be grown back if the injury was caused by dark magic, and in any other case only the kind that would grow naturally such as bones, skin and hair. You can't get back an eye if it's destroyed. Also, you can't improve your senses with a spell forever, such spell's effects last only for a couple of hours at most.

- Erase a bad smell caused by a spell, it can only fade away or be removed with muggle methods.

- Give natural diseases (ie. flu, cancer, diabetes ect.)

- Cure or prevent natural diseases. (Such as flu, diabetes, cancer, and so on.) The wizardkind are not immune to natural diseases, and there are no spells or potions to cure anything that muggles don't have a cure for.

- Shrink, enlarge or transfigure anything larger and/or heavier than furniture. That is, those spells don't work on buildings, trains, cars, or such objects. Also, food or anything else organic can't be enlarged or shrunk.

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RARE ABILITIES

Both Legilimency and Occlumency have been around since at least the 11th century, and since the Ministry of Magic's foundation both skills have been taught there to all aurors in training. Learning those skills at least on their basic levels has always been a mandatory part of Auror training. Basic level of Legilimency being ability to intrude a person's mind enough to know if they're lying to you, and basic level of Occlumency being the ability to empty your mind of all emotions and thoughts as in to make it appear blank. But an auror trainee can choose to continue further, to whatever extent the current auror trainers are able to and/or the trainee wishes to learn them. It is mandatory part of the training as those skills are extremely useful for the job.

The Ministry does not offer Legilimency or Occlumency courses to anyone else. Originally both skills were passed down from parent to child and from friend to friend, and it still does. So, you can learn both or either skill if you get selected for auror training or happen to know someone who has learned the skill from somewhere and trust him or her to teach you.

Practising Legilimency in itself is not illegal, nor does the Ministry attempt to regulate it in any way as there really is no efficient way it would be possible, But a person using this skill for a crime or in some other way seriously misusing it, if caught they can be prosecuted and sentenced to a punishment ranging from a fine to time in Azkaaban, depending on the case.

These skills are not part of Hogwarts' curriculum for Charms, as in they have never been taught at Hogwarts. By the decision of Hogwarts' Board of Governors, possibly because of the privacy issues it would create to everyone. Harry was an exception because of his unique situation with the Voldemort mind connection that threatened Harry's safety and the outcome of the war. Harry was asked to keep a low profile about it, so him studying Occlumency wasn't common knowledge at the school.

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ACCIDENTAL MAGIC

A child begins to show magical abilities, in the form of accidental magic, usually on his/her third year that is after his/her second birthday. Magical powers show by the age 7, after which it's more likely that the child is a squib. It's still possible for the magic to activate at later age - even at late adults years - but it's extremely rare. A person can't attend Hogwarts before showing magical abilities, and of course no longer as an adult. 

Accidental magic can happen when a witch or a wizard is deeply angry, or extremely scared or confused. This is why it's common and unavoidable in children, as they're often not able to control their intense emotions well enough. It happens without a wand and is self-defensive or offensive in nature, depending on the emotion and situation. The spell itself also depends on the situation, ie. as Harry was escaping from Dudley's gang who were about to beat him up, Harry accidentally apparated on a roof top way out of their reach.

Accidental magic happens, because defending or attacking with magic is instinctive and primal need for a magical person. If angry, scared or confused you must restrain that need by thinking really hard that you can survive the situation without magic, and trying to come up with other methods as if you were a muggle. It's possible only if you know what's going on with you and recognise it as a primal need - as in, a muggle-born child can't learn to control their magic until someone tells them what they are and how to do it.

As years pass you'll get so used to it you don't have to think of it anymore, you don't need to think - the magic simply doesn't manifest so easily anymore.

How difficult and strong the accidental spell is depends on how powerful the person is in magic, not on age. Although usually children's power-levels are relatively low. All children, regardless of how powerful, may accidentally apparate to a safe® place if they're scared enough. Unless there's an anti-apparation spell cast on the area the child is at the moment.

Someone with a broken mind can never fully control the accidental manifestation because they're much less in control of their anger, fear and confusion. In example, Ariana Dumbledore was brutally beaten up by a group of muggle boys when she was only six years old, because they saw her doing accidental magic. This event traumatized her which means she re-lived the moment often, triggered by things normally a person wouldn't interpret as a threat, and she was more easily prone to intense anger and deep fear - never feeling like she'd be safe without attacking with magic. And therefore her magic accidentally exploded out often and she could never be taken out to the public again.

Accidental magic never happens randomly or just for any emotion, but only during one of the three previously mentioned emotions while they also have to be deep/intense enough. If one doesn't learn to control their accidental magic manifestation, it doesn't get worse in time – it simply won't stop and keeps risking their safety and the secrecy of magic's existence. The Ministry of Magic will help such people/families to relocate and arrange them a home and means to live in a village or town where the vast majority of residents are wizardkind.

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MAGIC VS. ELECTRICITY


Electric equipment react to magic in the air by disfunctioning or completely shutting down, it happens ie. nearby the Hogwarts Castle in Scottish Highlands. But inside the Hogwarts castle and grounds any electric equipment (ie. camera) work just fine. They function by the magical atmosphere.

So, when there's enough magic in the air it substitutes the electric source. Any electric equipment works fine on an area where there's some 99,9% more magic than electricity in the atmosphere.

In example the Hogwarts Castle has been enchanted in many ways, inhabits hundreds of spell-casting kids and adults, magical objects, and in addition there are magical creatures nearby. Diagon Alley has more than 100 magical shops and services, magical objects and countless spell-casting people. Saint Mungo's Hospital inhabits a lot of magical diseases and accident being treated with magic. The Leaky Cauldron may also have enough spell-casting and magic going ton to replace electricity. In the Weasley family's house as well, as it's pretty much held up by magic and has that grandfather clock.

But if you're only nearby those kind of places the electric source get distracted and may stop working. In the Central London, near the Leaky Cauldron, the Ministry and St. Mungo's the problems probably are non-existent as there's tons of electricity in the air.

In a wizarding home living like muggles the electric equipment run on electricity, as there is little to no magic in the air. Except of course if accidental magic happens or someone practices spells next to you when you're trying to watch television or something.

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CONJURATION

That is conjuring stuff out of thin air. It's a branch of transfiguration, that most of magical people can practice. In Hogwarts they begin to teach it from the first year on, though only simple ones such as fire and drinkable water. Most of these kind of transfiguration are advanced and difficult and they start to teach them on sixth year, on the N.E.W.T level.

Out of thin air can be conjured only inanimate objects and one of three elements, (fire, water earth.) Animals can be conjured seemingly out of nothingness - from the tip of a wand - but really they just move there from some other place.

The bigger and more complex the object or animal, the harder and more exhausting it is to conjure out of thin air or in the animal's case to ?call? from elsewhere - for even the most skilled and powerful.

Nothing that forms out of thin air can last very long. It can exists from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on how powerful the conjurer is, and of the spell's strength which is for one thing affected by if it was cast spoken or non-verbal. Anyway, at the latest within a few hours it will disappear into the air as if it never existed.

Five things nobody can conjure up from thin air:
(only the first one is canon)

1. food / food ingredients (and generally anything organic)
2. money
3. things that don't exist or the conjurer doesn't know what it is
4. house/cottage or other buildings, or motor/engine vehicles
5. magical objects and potions

* Those things can't be magically copied either.

+ Video cassettes, CD albums and such basically can be conjured, but only as empty versions - no specific movie or album. And empty versions are useless as they wouldn't last. So if anything like that was wanted it would have to be purchased with money or copied by magic.