https://www.fanfiction.

net/s/10194198/1/Magi
cal-Theory-by-Adalbert-Waffling
Contents:

Foreword, Backward, and Edward by Marcus

Montefiore -3-

Chapter 1

The Basics -9-

Magic as Energy -12-

Thaumatalurgical Energy -14-

Basic Rules of Magic -16-

Thaums -17-

Measuring in Thaums -19-

Internal Thaum Reserves -21-

The Syntax of Magic -22-

The Number Seven -27-

Slood Dynamics -29-

Magical Temperament -33-

Chapter 2

The Fundamental Magical States and the

Elemental Spectrum -36-

Fire -39-

Water -43-

1
 Earth -51-

Wind -55-

Electricity -61-

Void -65-

Surprise -69-

Chapter 3

The Seven Fundamental Laws of Magic -73-

First Law -75-

Second Law -79-

Third Law -85-

Fourth Law -89-

Fifth Law -95-

Sixth Law -97-

Seventh Law -98-

Chapter 4

The Phylogeny of Magical Creatures -101-

Chapter 5

Disciplines of Transfiguration and

Transmutation -113-

2
Foreword, Backward, and
Edward by Marcus Montefiore

dalbert Waffling was the

19th century's most eminent
magical theoretician. His
flagship work, Mesolithic
Conduits and Their Influences on
Transfiguring Rubber Ducks, redefined how
the wizarding world approached the problem
of retroactive combinatorial conjuring and, to
a lesser extent, communal bathing. Within
his lifetime he would write a further 37
books, one of which, Simplified Locomotion,
is 187 volumes long and any library that
wishes to add it to their collection has to
build on a new wing. It was after this whale of
a textbook with its sadistically deceptive title
that Adalbert Waffling stepped down from
his cloud and realized, inspired as his work
was, the common wizard could never
3
understand it. The common witch had a
passable handle on it, but it was just beyond
the common wizard. This was a common
problem at the time. All over the world
witches and wizards were using magic without
actually knowing how it worked. The results
were as disastrous as you would expect.
Kelpies were running amuck in a loch in
Scotland. Fire rained down Burwick upon
Tweed. For three weeks, a bunny ruled over
Britain. Mr. Cuddles implemented social
welfare reforms the Muggle Kingdom of
Great Britain is using to this day. In those
chaotic, admittedly entertaining, times there
was no widely accepted theory of magic. The
research on it was scattershot, books on the
subject were thin on the ground, and the
headmaster of Hogwarts had his hands full
looking for his pet rabbit. Adalbert Waffling
took up the call and assembled a rudimentary
explanation on the fundamentals of magic

4
that a beginner could grasp and build on in
the future. It took him two years to complete
the work, and another twenty of editing
before he could get all the words under seven
syllables. Despite his honest intentions, the
book is still a hard read and takes up the
whole first three years at Hogwarts and is
referenced in Charms, Transfiguration, and
Potions. The Houselves have strict
instructions to whisper passages from it to
sleeping students. The publication of that
work, Magical Theory, was one of those rare
and beautiful things that did exactly what the
maker wanted it to do: it gave the general
wizarding public a working knowledge of
magic. While it's true that there are some
wizards and witches that, through a limit of
their own talent or inclination, will only ever
think of magic as pretty lights that make
things happen, there were wizards that
ingrained the new information and ran with it

5
to the cutting edge. That basic knowledge of
how the smallest parts work they could
gradually build up more complex spells. In
the decades following Magical Theory's
addition to the syllabus of Hogwarts there
was a dramatic increase in magical
innovation. In the centuries before, new
spells were invented once in a lifetime. In the
first year of Magical Theory's publication,
seventy-two new charms were invented.
Concurrently, God only knows how many
new curses were invented that first month,
which goes to show that knowledge is the
arms dealer that sells to both sides.
Nightmarish implication of tailor made
curses notwithstanding, Magical Theory,
while debatable as a force for good or evil,
was indisputably a force to be reckoned with.
When the pureblood supremacists lost the
battle to have muggleborns excluded from
Hogwarts in 1880, their next move was to

6
attempt to have Magical Theory restricted as
reading material. Their plan backfired in the
most hilarious way possible; nothing makes a
book more popular than banning it. Magical
Theory has been translated into more than
thirty-two languages, though the title has
never been available in French. When wizard
kind came out of hiding at the conclusion of
the WWIII, Magical Theory was the first title
to be digitized under the new government's
reformation initiative.

The second title was Simplified Locomotion;

no library would ever have to build a new
wing. Honestly, with the advent of digital
storage, no library would ever have to be built
at all. You, dear reader, are about to embark
on that same journey of enlightenment our
forerunners made so long ago. The journey
from unknowing into the unknown. You
might think you're coming in late in the

7
game; that everything that can be invented
has been invented; what with our forests that
generate electricity, and floating buildings.
However, I remind you of a time when fire
was high tech. We had a long way to go then;
we have a long way to go now. You could be
the one that brings us to the next level and it
all starts here: the first level.

Best Regards,

Marcus Montefiore

8
Chapter 1

The Basics

t's often disagreed how and

where magic first came to
exist. The Indus people of
Asia Minor told stories of a
light striking from heaven
and turning people into monsters.

But it was before that that the Akkad people

of Mesopotamia told of a beast that came out
of the ocean and imbued people with the
power to shoot fire from their fingertips.

9
But it was even before that that the Mayans of
the Yukatan told of a Cave that led to the
underworld and those who made the
pilgrimage would be unstoppable warriors
and great lovers. The Mayans did not go half
way on their fairy tales.

But it was even before the Mayans were

talking themselves up that a tablet was carved
by a civilization that has been forgotten for
centuries that told the story of a city
surrounded by walls so high that even the
clouds could not pass. The city disappeared
in one night, leaving nothing behind.

10
The tablet was found at the bottom of an
impressively deep mineshaft in a region of
Canada that has oddly variable gravity to this
day.

While the origin of the mystery forces might

be resolutely mysterious, ever since then
people have strived to discover what it is, how
it works, an what else it can be used for.

At its simplest, magic is energy, like heat,

electricity, or speed. It works in fairly
predictable ways (with a boatload of
exceptions), which, once understood, paves
the way for more complex uses.

11
Magic as Energy

nderstanding the simplest

operation is the building
block for every complex
mechanism.

Heat for example, produced by rubbing two

rough surfaces together, used to keep warm
on lonely cold nights, all fairly straight
forward. Rub the two surfaces together long
enough you'll get fire, or combustion.
Combustion can be used to affect all kinds of
changes. It can turn rocks in to iron; water

12
into steam; pigs into bacon. Combine the
iron, fire, and steam in the right pattern (what
the hell, throw in the bacon) and you've
created a steam engine. This engine (with or
without bacon) can swiftly move huge, heavy
loads vast distances.

Time the freight right, and put the rails in the

right places and you have functional
infrastructure of large scale, thriving
economy. What's true for the long term
benefits of rubbing sticks together is also true
for magic.

13
Thaumatalurgical Energy
ake pure Earth Element
thaumatalurgical energy. It
can be arranged in a
tetrahedral, syzygic, or a
Hadron array to conjour a variety of ferrets,
transfigure a teacup into a waterfowl, or
varnish a deck chair.

By logical extension, an Ornithological

varnish conjugation can be effected to shield
a large filing cabinet from ashwinders,
redcaps, and muskrats. An arrangement of

14
these well defended filing cabinets, pentagon
shape, ten to fifteen layers deep can create a
dampening field, extending seventy
kilometers in any direction, excluding south
by southwest, that will prevent earthquakes.
This arrangement would be useless in New
Guinea without the preliminary
Ornithological inclusion of at least four
nuthatches. This is probably a bad example,
if for no other reason than it is impractical to
varnish a deck chair.

15
Basic Rules of Magic
here are four basic rules to
remember when
understanding magic.

First is how magic is measured. If you want to

build a house, you have to know how long
the planks are. If you want to bake a cake,
you need to know how much flour you need.
And as every child can tell you, overestimate
energy consumption, your attempt to make
an egg timer do a summersault is going to
end in exploding timekeepers.

16
Thaums

he basic unit of magic is

the Thaum. One thaum is
the amount of magic
needed to pull a rabbit out
of a hat. The unit can be fractured or
compounded to measure smaller or larger
amounts. One thousandth of a Thaum is a
millithaum. One thousand Thaums is a
Kilothaum. (In the era before metric, 1/5th
of a thaum was a therin, 1/20th of a thaum
was a ducat, 1/100th of a thaum was a ping, 7
thaums was a kinnea, 10 thaums was a rhea,
4 kinnea was a krona, 5 krona and 4 rhea was
a planchet, 6 krona was falstaf, 2 falstaf was a
furlong, and half of a furlong was a langly.

17
The International Confederation of Wizards
resisted metricizing for decades because they
believed it was too complicated.) The tool
used to measure magic is the Thaumometer.

18
Measuring in Thaums
our average thaumometer
looks a bit like a cross
between a telescope and a
mirror, if either were made
of wood. If you don't have a precision
instrument handy, which people generally
don't, it only weighs a few kilos, but it's the
size of a passenger bus, there are some rules
of thumb to estimate thaum usage.

The object to be enchanted would use 3

thaums for every cubic meter. For every
meter per second it's moving, if it wasn't
moving before, thaum usage is multiplied by
one and a half.

Depending on the color of the finished

product, add between 4 (periwinkle) and 17
(burgundy) thaums. So a breadbox turned
into a lime-green cement mixer that can

19
make the trip between Totleigh and
Heathrow in less than four hours would use
84 thaums.

20
Internal Thaum Reserves
t's important from a safety
perspective to know how
many thaums you,
personally, can use before
fatal exhaustion sets in.

Internal thaum reserves are different for each

person. Unlike muscle strength or alcohol
tolerance, an individual cannot increase their
personal thaumatic reserves; what you get is
what you get.

It is important to note that magical power is a

different animal from magical skill. A person
can have enough power to levitate an island
and still have trouble managing transfiguring
a paperclip into a fountain pen.

21
The Syntax of Magic
econd is the syntax of magic.
As any child, and many
species of parrot, can tell you,
if you want to cast a magic
spell, you have to know the magic words.

And while 'Please' and 'Thank You' will help

with most things, no amount of pleading and
thanking will make a coffee pot sing
'Someone Like You'.

A skilled wizard can make an item levitate

just by concentrating, and many young
witches have been known to make things
explode when in high dudgeon, but these are
special cases, expatiated on in rule four.
Wizards can cast wordlessly, sometimes even
wandlessly, but the right incantations must at
least be thought. It's generally assumed that
magical incantations are Latin (Latin is a

22
dead muggle language that refuses to die).
Lumos, clearly is Latin; Ducklifors, clearly
isn't. The fact is magical syntax is actually its
own language unto itself.

Research from the most ancient Magical

Library in the world (found in Elmore
County, Idaho) revealed that Latin sounding
incantations date as far back as the Early
Egyptian dynasty.

It was a time when Latin wasn't even a

suggestive glint in the Romans eyes. We can
deduce that it was actually Magical Syntax
that inspired the Latin language.

In fact, throughout all of human history, from

the Akkad people to the Jersey Shore, we see
words that are homophonic with Magical
Syntax.

The implications of this are that:

23
A) Magical Syntax predates every other
language and has outlasted every one of
them.

B) It has inspired every other language in

civilizations that wizards have had contact
with, which means that

C) Wizards are not as secretive as they are

supposed to be.

Where this language originated from, and

why it is inextricably linked with magic, is
anybody's guess.

The magical historian, Iwakona Hariyama,

postulated that it was the language spoken in
the city of walls that vanished so long ago.
She attempted to translate the tablet that
spoke of it into magical syntax. She had
significant success, but made the horrible
mistake of reading the translation out loud.
She was never seen again. Well, she was,

24
several times, for decades, but not in the way
that decent people would describe in print.
(For further reading on the subject, see
Hariyama's biography:
AAAAHAHAAAAAHAAHHHH!)

It would seem to the layperson that, with a

fully functioning language, all you would have
to do is phrase the correct sentence and you
could do anything. That is, in many cases,
true.

Several sophisticated charms are several

pages long, such as the Fidelius Charm.

25
 n Culinary magic, making a
pot of coffee just right
requires chanting for half an
hour. Most spells, though,
have simple keywords such
as Alohomora, or Jellylorum. Magic is not so
much a servant that requires careful
instructions, but can be compared to a lover
that needs to be wooed, and in some cases a
politician that needs to be bribed.

An additional difference to conventional

communication is the importance of the
number 7.

26
The Number Seven

even is the most magical

number (Three is the most
perfect number, but that's for
something else altogether
(Additionally, it is generally agreed that the
number 4 is a complete skank)).

Every magical society, both present and past,

has acknowledged its significance and it is
always of integral importance in executing the
most powerful spells.

27
In reflection of this, the field of arithmancy,
the math of magic, calculates in base 7.
Instead of going 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
counting would go 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11,
12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, and going a little
further 64, 65, 66, 100, 101, 102… and so on.

It's only the graphical representations that are

different: e.g. the number 11 in base 10 and
the number 14 in base 7 both represent the
same empirical amount.

28
Slood Dynamics
hird is Slood Dynamics.

Slood is a naturally
occurring substance that can
be found easily and
abundantly.

On the scale of difficulty, it's easier to

produce than fire, but harder to find than
water. Slood is not, itself, magical, but Slood
Dynamics affects every type of magic.

In 1745, the Alchemist Panzeer Bjorn

attempted to make a Slood free environment
and then to use magic within it. He described
the results as "A bit like trying to dance to
funeral music without a floor." For whatever
reason, Muggles have never discovered
Slood. This is not due to wizard intervention,
as is the case with Dragons, Unicorns, and
the Flying Spaghetti Monster; they simply

29
never found it. They've gotten along fairly
well without Slood, but they always have the
feeling that something is missing, and this has
caused a lot of psychological issues.

Slood has a rhythmic cycle that lasts exactly 2

years, 27 days, 6 hours and between 19 and
60 minutes. The Slood Cycle is divided into
seven seasons, each of which is named after
one of the Beatles.

The length of each individual season is

variable, influenced by a combination of
lunar cycles, pigeon migrations, attendance at
horse markets, and celebrity gossip.

Slood has weather patterns. There are:

-Slood floods,
-Slood tides
-Slood rain
-Slood snow

30
- Slood blizzards
-Slood typhoons
-Slood quakes
-Slood eruptions
-Slood drought, and more.

Each Slood season lends itself to certain

weather patterns. It slood snows more often
in Ringo than Paul, and never in Sutcliffe.

Each slood weather pattern has an effect on

certain spells. To name a few: if you apperate
during a slood blizzard you will arrive at your
target late. Summoning charms executed
when the slood is at high tide will attract
snakes. Curses used during a slood quake will
backfire on the user. The list goes on.

Slood weather and cycles are fairly

predictable. You can find a variety of slood
calendars at any book seller with intensive

31
explanations of the different effects, so we
won't delve into it in this text.

32
Magical Temperament

ourth, please remember, by all

means, plan for the fact that
rules can be, frequently are,
broken. Magic is not like the
other fundamental forces that make up the
universe.

In the case of gravity, if you drop a brick the

brick will make its way toward the ground. If
magic was in charge of the same operation,
an occasional brick would pause on the way
down to punch you in the crotch.

33
When water gets below a certain
temperature, it will turn into ice. If magic was
the authority in that domain, every so often
cold water would turn into good whiskey to
avoid freezing.

Magic is a capricious force, most of the time

it follows the rules people have come to
expect, but once in a while it will fly off the
handle and throw a right tantrum. You can
cast the same cheering charm the same way
100 times and get the same result, but the
101st time the same spell will make the sitting
room sofa explode.

Magic has a unique personality onto itself. It

has moods, it has desires, it has ice cream
preferences. A skilled wizard can try and use
magic when it's feeing lazy and be unable to
transfer a teabag. A young wizard can
accidentally Apparate to the top of a tall
building simply because magic was feeling

34
bored. It is this distinctly human inclination
to cause trouble that makes the study and
implementation of magic difficult and very
often dangerous.

35
Chapter 2

The Fundamental Magical States

and the Elemental Spectrum

agic has seven possible

states that each have unique
attributes. It is important to
remember that there are not
seven different types of magic, but seven
aspects to one force.

To better understand this quantum duplicity

we reference that one girl we all knew in
school, she’d be sitting in the library
humming herself, a few minutes later she’d
be sobbing in the lavatory scrawling poetry on
the walls (if I have to be honest the poetry
was quite good), that afternoon it would
possibly have been her that punched a hole
through the charms classroom wall, a few

36
seconds after her story fell apart due to the
fact that it in no way reflected the physical
evidence, eyewitness testimony, and damning
evidence written by her on the bathroom
wall, she would be weeping contritely and
promising to amend her ways.

Throughout all these histrionics it was always

the same Agnes acting differently depending
on her mood. In the same way that Agnes is a
mad cow, Magic can have very different
effects depending on what state it is in.

Concurrently, two or more magical states can

be blended for a different effect. The effect is
analogous to blending spices to make a

37
unique flavor, mixing red and blue to make
purple, or combining country and western
music to create evil.

38
Fire

he first of the fundamental

elements is Fire. As
advertised, in its purest
form it creates fire, such as
with Incindio.

The Fire element has been used all

throughout remembered history, but the first
time it was every objectively defined and
studied was in the late Hsia Dynasty by So
Pek, a Witch who made her career hunting

39
dragons. She was the first person recorded as
saying, "Where there's smoke, there's fire."

Hunting dragons is not the safest of

occupations, so there were two constants in
her line of work: fire and grievous bodily
injury. Eventually she learned to control the
fire element: how to amplify it and, more
importantly, how to disperse it. She also
made a discovery so astonishing that to this
day, 4000 years later, people are still startled
to hear it.

She was able to use her knowledge of the

Fire element to heal her injuries. While fire

40
is classically associated with destruction
(forest fires, volcanoes, arson, burnt pasta) it
is actually a living element.

Fire grows, breathes, and moves. In the later

years of her life, which at this point was 300
and something, she traveled all throughout
Asia and as far west as the Egyptian empire to
spread her knowledge of the healing fire
element. The entire field of medical magic is
based on her work. The fire element is used
for basic heating and light charms. Fire is the
basis for all healing magic, as earlier stated.

When Fire is used as a component in a more

complex enchantment it adds a regenerative
aspect to the spell. For example, Feldspar
Duplication Charm, which replicates the
charmed object at regular intervals, uses the
Fire element.

41
Fire element does not like being used when
the sun is not up. It acts persnickety if used
with Water. It will be more voracious if there
is a large party nearby. It will occasionally
cause people to get sick the day before an
important meeting or wedding.

42
Water

he second fundamental
element is Water. Water is
the sustaining element,
everything that lives needs
water, and by extension, pees.

The Water element was extensively studied

by the people of Atlantis. Atlantis is possibly
the worst kept secret of the wizarding world,
but has fortunately never been linked to a
larger magical community.

43
Technically speaking, it's disappearance
wasn't magical. The issue started with the
Witch Thocekles, who lived in Atlantis.

Atlantis had the minor problem of being built

slap-bang on top of a dormant volcano. Later
it would have the much larger problem of the
volcano no longer being dormant. The
constant eruptions caused massive casualties,
expensive damage to infrastructure, and did

44
nothing for tourism. Thocekles had been
studying the Water element and its defensive
applications.

Water could be used to create shields of

various strength and size. This should come
as no surprise to anyone familiar with soap
bubbles or how hard it is to get ice off a car
windshield.

For whatever reason, Thocekles’ answer to a

volcano wasn't 'moving to a new city' but
'creating a massive subterranean barrier.

Thocekles rallied her fellow wizards and cast

the most massive shield charm of it's time
that focused the power of the surrounding
ocean towards the magma chamber below
the island. The eruptions never, to this day,
happened again.

Intoxicated with her success, Thocekles built

on her success and made another shield

45
surrounding the city. Atlantis was forever safe
from their enemy's armies, as well as the then
problematic lobster people. Without having
to worry about maintaining a standing army,
Atlantis could dedicate its resources to
innovation.

They became the world capital for

technology, art, philosophy, and juicy

46
vampire fiction (the undisputed highest
earner).

However, the cause of their prosperity was

also their undoing. The charm that held the
volcano at bay worked too well. Underneath
any volcano is a magma chamber filled with
molten rock. The one below Atlantis was
bigger than the whole island on which the city
was built. The charm not only prevented the
volcano from erupting but was slowly pushing
the magma back into the Earth.

Year after year a hollow was growing under

the island, and the prosperous island was
building bigger and heavier buildings on the
surface. Finally, the heavy island fell into the
massive cavern underground.

The disappearance was total and swift. It left

people scratching their heads for centuries.
The moral of the story is: if you live next to a

47
volcano, move, because it will do whatever it
takes to murder you.

The Water element is used in all shield

magic, such as protego, protego horibilis,
protego maxims, protego macarena, and so
on. In a less creative capacity, it can conjure
streams of water.

Because of this ability, most wizards in

history had no concept of 'wasting water', and
were easily identified during a drought as the

48
one house with thriving begonias while all the
muggles were trying to keep their babies
alive.

When water is used in a larger enchantment,

it adds a defensive aspect to the spell.

Kromrants Marionette Charm uses the water

element in creating a puppet that can work in
harsh environments (mines, burning
buildings, local markets, etc.)

Water is strongest during high tide, especially

so during spring tide, by logical extension it
weakens during low and neap tides. It is
easier to invoke the water element during an
election year.

49
Water hangs around on commuter trains and
makes people suddenly and severely need to
use the bathroom.

50
Earth

he third fundamental
element is Earth. Earth is
the element of substance.
Earth is the simplest and
hardest element.

It was fully understood very early on in our

history and is still a challenge to grasp. The
Witch (the study of all seven elements were
pioneered by witches, make of that what you

51
will) who originally studied and cohesively
explained the Earth element has become
something of a legendary figure. Her true
name has long been forgotten, whenever she
is referred to in antiquity, she is simply called
'The Old Potter Woman'.

In spite of an unremarkable moniker, she is

credited with training the shamans of ancient
Tibet, singlehandedly building the
underground city of On Beh (On Beh is a
50,000 year old city underneath the Tibetan
Plateau. At its peak it could hold a citizenry
of 400,000 people, and today it holds a
citizenry of a truly terrifying number of
Goblins), and she is the mother of all
Goblins (Don't Ask!).

Earth is used in Transfiguration and

Conjuring. It is the element that builds and
alters. If Earth is blended with other elements

52
the resulting enchantment would create or
change an object.

Repairo, the fixing spell, uses Earth. Earth is

the simplest element, but it is also the most
stubborn.

Which is why Transfiguration is the most

difficult branch of magic. It performs
consistently, regardless of time or
environment. It is not generally mischievous,
but has been known to make cracks on the
sidewalks and spread rumors about your
mother's spinal integrity.

53
54
Wind

he fourth fundamental
element is Wind. Officially,
Wind is the element of
change, but people in the
field casually refer to it as the Douchebag
element, and throughout this text it will be
qualified with a similarly derogatory adjective
whenever it is brought up.

Wind is the most capricious element.

Seriously, it's a total airhead. It's completely

55
unaccountable, has no sense of responsibility
or punctuality, and keeps making fart jokes.

Wind was first studied and explained by

Morgana. In the days when ships had sails
and the world was flat (the world wasn't
round until 1440) Morgana had the idea to

56
control the winds and send her ships farther
and faster, thus cornering the market on
trade.

While her studies gave her an unprecedented

understanding of the Asshat element, using
it consistently turned out to be impossible
and resulted in the occasional hurricane. She
spent the rest of her life tormenting King
Arthur and cultivating cheese.

57
The Dungbreath element is used in
hovering, flying and levitation charms. It can
also cause weightlessness when it's used as
part of a larger enchantment.

The Pus-For-Brains element is famously

unreliable. For no good reason the
enchantment will just give up and pack it in.

Morgana could make a frigate clip the Cape

of Good Hope in under an hour one day and
be unable to make a feather move the next.
It's for this reason that wizards have never
enchanted anything bigger than a carpet to
fly, and even in that case they had to enchant
every thread individually.

58
In the case of brooms every single twig has to
be charmed to ensure the broom doesn't start
phoning it in midflight.

Tom Riddle was the first wizard to be able to

fly independently of an enchanted object and
taught the technique to his fellow racists
Death Eaters. When the war turned against
them, this new ability inexplicably stopped
working, leaving them unable to escape from
the vengeful wrath of the people they had

59
previously been oppressing. This leads
theoreticians to believe that Wind has a real
mean streak.

60
Electricity

he fifth fundamental
element is Electricity. This
is one of those times when
Muggles were ahead of the
Wizards.

61
A muggle named Benjamin Franklin
discovered how to make miniature lightning.
The Ministry for Magic thought he had
stumbled upon some kind of magic and
ordered the local prefect, Vicera Bathroy, to
eliminate him. Since the muggle was
prominent in the local government and a
widely published journalist, so in the interest
of not drawing attention to the lightning
machine, Bathroy confiscated all his research

62
and inventions, wiped his memories of the
machine, set fire to the street, and blamed it
on the redcoats.

In the years that followed there was a massive

war, and Benjamin Franklin shifted the focus
of his work. Bathroy used his research to
formalize her own theory of Electricity in the
Magical Community, elevating her to
celebrity status and disgusting wealth.

Electricity is used in offensive magic. Jinxes,

hexes, curses, anything that has to strike hard
and fast uses Electricity. Electricity when used
as part of a larger enchantment increases the
spells speed and intensity. If electricity isn't

63
included in the execution of the full body
bind, the victim wouldn't feel the effect for a
week and a half. Electricity is more powerful
when used in areas that have high metallic
concentration; muggle cities are a prime,
tragic example.

Electricity acts unpredictably when used

within a few kilometers of Earth's magnetic
poles, thus explaining the lackluster
performance of Greenland's Dueling Society.
It plagues women who've just had their hair
done.

64
Void

he sixth fundamental
element is Void. Void, as
the name implies, is used in
dark magic. Void is used in
spells that makes objects vanish, break,
explode, or causes harm to something alive.

The cohesive theory and laws for

implementation were formalized by the
Witch Kana of the Xhosha. She was feared
throughout the South African belt and her

65
notoriety spread as far as Egypt. She is
credited with creating the first Nundu (a
Nundu is a colossal murder-beast that has
never been neutralized by less than 100
skilled wizards working together.)

As scary as she was abroad, in her home

village she was the archetypal benevolent
grandmother. She used her dark and
terrifying skills to keep threats away from her
people. Any warring tribe that was carving its
way towards her home was harshly and
mysteriously vanished away, never to be met
with again.

While there is no confusion of Void as the

destruction element, Kana always said that,
sometimes, destruction was a good thing. If
something old is gone, then something new
can take its place. If people use the
destruction element for evil purposes, that sin
is on the caster, not the magic.

66
Void is strongest when the sun is down and
during an eclipse. It will make exactly one
sock disappear from the laundry, leaving you
with an odd number.

67
68
Surprise

he final fundamental
element of magic is
Surprise. The Witch who
first discovered Surprise
was Dactylos, a German who owned the
largest flobberworm ranch in the civilized
world during the great flobberworm craze of
the 1700s.

69
Cultivating flobberworms is less time
consuming than, say, making a sandwich, so
she had time left over to study the mysterious
seventh element.

At this point the other elements had been

discovered. It was obvious that there was a
seventh element. In Magic everything
happens in sevens, additionally some spells
had attributes the remaining elements
couldn't account for.

Apparition, for example, which could move

things over vast distances without passing
though the intermediate distance. Cheering
charms, for another, could affect a person's
mood. She studied many days, she studied
many weeks, (seven days to each week, I
would think). Yet she could not pin any
significant attributes or any hard and fast
rules for this element. It would seem that this
mysterious Element was determined to

70
remain mysterious, the wild card of magical
chemistry.

Surprise can be invoked fairly easily. Merging

it with any other enchantment has
unpredictable results.

The Protean charm was created when the

Surprise Element was folded into a charm for
engraving trophies.

Eventually, the flobberworm craze died

down, and Dactylos was unable to fund
further research. She retired to a small
hamlet in Fiji and published the results of her
research: "Things just happen, what the hell."

Three centuries had come and gone since

then and that remains the most cohesive
theory available.

71
72
Chapter 3

The Seven Fundamental Laws of

Magic

he Seven Fundamental
Laws of Magic As we
previously explained, then
emphasized, then restated,
magic will do whatever it wants.

How then, can we apply laws to such a

capricious force that has such a seditious
attitude towards authority?

Magic may have its own will, but like a turtle

with aims of being a speed racer, there are
some things it just can't do.

Also like our doomed-to-be-disappointed

turtle, there are certain things you shouldn't
do with it. The laws are an authoritative list of

73
things that either can't be done or can't be
done by sane people.

74
First Law

irst Law of Magic: Tamper

with the deepest mysteries –
the source of life, the essence
of self – only if prepared for
consequences of the most extreme and
dangerous kind.

This first, highly ominous sounding law, is at

first a tad nebulous. What are these
mysteries? What are these consequences?
What constitutes tampering?

75
In simplest terms, if you mess around with
the foundation, you'll shake everything at the
top. There are very simple basic things that
we all take for granted and some misguided
people try to mess with them.

The classic example is the Warlock's Hairy

Heart. The story is about a Warlock who
does not want to fall in love. While most of
us would just avoid dating and buy a pet, he
decided to remove his heart. For those of
you with a basic grasp of Anatomy,

76
Physiology, Medical Science, or Sanity, you
know that a heart isn't supposed to be outside
the body. Miraculously, the first symptom
wasn't death, and his blood kept pumping as
normal. As he so wanted, he did not fall in
love. Probably because he had mutilated
himself, no women were willing to test his
resolve.

However, in his folly, he had created a beast

that could neither give, nor receive love. This
critical difference forever separated him from
the rest of humanity, leaving him friendless
and alone.

His steep decline sent him on a killing spree,

of young women of course. The very last
young woman was actually a witch who
cursed him to smithereens, ending his
horror. It's fairly easy to judge what should
never be altered or divided.

77
Examples include the heart from the body,
the body and the soul, the soul itself should
remain whole. The mind shouldn't vacate the
body if for no other reason that something
else might end up in the body while it's
vacant. It isn't even possible for the casual
person to even conceive spells that would
affect the indivisibility of such things.

The casual person knows well enough not to

do that. Even still, every so often, someone
gets it into their head that they're smart
enough, skilled enough, strong enough, to
break the law and get away with it.

In Ancient Greece, Herpo the Foul designed

a ritual that would split his soul so he could
forever anchor it to the world so he would
never truly die. It worked. His body died, but
his soul remains earthbound to this day:
screaming in unending agony and of less
substance than the meanest ghost.

78
Second Law

econd Law of Magic: The

wonder, beauty, and miracle
of life is a magic that cannot
be made magically.

Life is the great, self-propagating mystery.

Why are we here? How did we get here?
What comes next? Can we stop for ice-cream
on the way there?

Creating life is pretty easy. You put two

willing sheep in the same pen, turn down the
lights, put on some music, and in a few
months you have a lamb. The biological
simplicity of the process makes it surprising
that life cannot be created by a spell.

There are certain charms that will animate a

doll to make it dance around or even talk,
but it is not alive. It cannot feel, nor fear, nor
laugh. A witch skilled at transfiguration can

79
turn a writing desk into a hog. However, this
is merely a facsimile. If you were to cut open
the hog you would find it's not flesh, but
sawdust, and the hog would be strangely
laidback about being cut open.

There has been many a sad story of a lonely

witch who has tried to make herself a
daughter. They have been accompanied by
even more stories of crazed witches
kidnapping children.

80
The wizard Geppetto once made a very
convincing puppet, the legendary Pinocchio.
The story tells of a fairy that turns Pinocchio
into a real boy.

In real life, Pinocchio dry rotted. Some

enchanters have tried to circumvent this by

81
duplicating a living animal, working under the
assumption that life can be multiplied, or at
least divided.

Initially, it seemed to work, you could

multiply animals all you wanted. Wizards that
ran slaughterhouses doubled production.

The flaw in this spell was revealed with a

witch who tried to make extra coin in her
poodle breeding business by duplicating her
prize poodles. Things went fine for a few

82
months, and then she started getting
complaints that the dogs she sold couldn't
learn any new tricks. They did not seem to
grow fond of their owners. A few more weeks
and she was getting complaints that the dogs
were…rotting. The minute the real poodle
was duplicated, it stopped being a living
animal and became two self-propelled meat
bags. The problem was remedied by putting
two real poodles together and mainlining
doggy love potions.

83
84
Third Law

hird Law of Magic: Any

substance can be neither
created nor destroyed.

It's well known among

Muggles that you can't create something out
of nothing and things don't just disappear.
Wizards know this is not true. A skilled
wizard can conjure elephants out of thin air.
A clever witch can make her annoying
neighbor vanish.

However, in a very practical sense, the

Muggles were right. The easiest thing to
understand, as well as perform, is vanishing.
When you vanish, let's say a brick, it does not
pop out of existence, but it disassembles into
its most minute elements. The brick turns
into a fine red dust that disperses into the air.

85
To the casual observer not armed with a
microscope, the brick has disappeared. This
theoretical brick was tested in practice by the
witch Phirela in ancient Sparta. She vanished
a brick in a completely sealed room then
apparated outside.

She apparated back in a week later and there

was a thick layer of red dust on the floor.
Thus proving that vanished objects still exist
and explaining why her kitchen was always so
dusty.

With conjuring, the other thing happens.

The indivisible particles in the air fly together
to form whatever is being conjured.
Conjuring becomes more difficult depending
on the complexity of what is being conjured,

86
and also depending on what is in the air at
the time.

On a day when there is a lot of detritus fling

around you can make a full dinner set. If
you're flying through the vacuum you'd be
unable to conjure a handkerchief to slow
yourself down.

Phirela discovered that you can make a

conjuring more successful by performing it
over a long period of time.

She conjured a gold coin and managed to do

it by making the spell continue over the

87
course of a day. There wasn't enough gold
flecks flying through the air to make the coin
all at once, but eventually enough of it blew
within range of the spell. She posited that you
could make a self-casting device, possibly
many, that would collect gold like a reservoir
collects water.

There was never any evidence that she

created such a device, but the goblins were
always strangely friendly to her.

88
Fourth Law

ourth Law of Magic: Death

can be cheated, but never
denied.

No spell can bring the dead

back to life. Not gonna happen. Nope.
Never. Nu-uh. There is a field of magic
called Necromancy which attempts to do that
very thing. They have never had anything that
can be viewed as success; not in measurable
terms, not by a hopeful, drunken madman,
not in the faintest.

The Voodoo shamans claim to make bring

back the dead as servants, but these have

89
been either Inferi (a human corpse that is
moved around by an enchantment to do
certain tasks) or a person, who never died,
under a debilitatingly strong Confundus
charm.

Other charlatans, claiming to bring back the

dead, have in fact just reenvervated a
seriously ill person with a very slow heartbeat
and respiration. Mistaken burials are a
popular, horrifying urban legend. The story
goes that a person is thought to be dead, but
is in fact in a very deep sleep, brought on by
some kind of sickness or poison.

Their breath and heartbeat so slow and

delicate the doctors cannot detect these faint
signs of life. Their grieving families, similarly
inept, have a funeral and bury them. Years
later, their caskets are dug up, and there are
scratches on the inside of the lid of the casket

90
from the occupant waking up and trying
desperately to claw their way out.

You may or may not be comforted by the

fact that this is a myth in the sense that no
one has ever been buried alive accidentally.

Even the most inept medicine man can tell

the difference between a live patient and a
dead body. There have been people buried
alive on purpose, but that is endemic of a
separate problem altogether.

Antiquity has many stories of people coming

back from the dead. Most of these stories are
very circumspect about the state of the
person after the fact. These narratives talk
about a person dying then coming back as
some kind of an ethereal force, but never as
an actual walking around person. The idea of
coming back from the dead is such an
impossibility that even the most fanciful of

91
legends don't even make direct eye contact
with the idea.

The exception, and indeed the most

compelling case, comes from Asia Minor
about a carpenter who was executed on
trumped up charges after getting on the
wrong side of the local religious officials.

The joke was on them; the charges didn't

stick and neither did the punishment.

Ghosts are the faintest echoes of those who

have died. They have no potential to be real

92
people, nor can they communicate with the
dead, nor can they give us any hint as to what
is on the other side.

Death has something of a bad reputation.

What most people don't realize is that they
find Death deeply comforting. The dead do
not return. A monster that dies stays dead.
The same is true for any despot, murderer,
warlord, or mother-in-law. Any evildoer that
gets conquered, stays conquered.

93
94
Fifth Law

ifth Law of Magic: Everything

exists in Balance. Everything
in the world exists in a
balance. This balance is both
perfect, and vengeful. This balance is most
easily demonstrated by the shape of the
planet you are now on. The western
hemisphere isn't a modicum heavier than the
eastern hemisphere. If you mail a spoonful of
dirt from China to Canada, then Africa will
steal a tree branch from Bermuda to settle
the score. Similarly, when magic is used to
alter something as simple as a tablespoon or
as cumbersome as a porpoise, the natural
balance will get its kick in. The most
dramatic, or rather, entertaining example of
this is the after effect of love potions. As any
child can tell you, you can't create love by
mixing some oils and frogs eyes together.

95
The only thing a potion can accomplish is
creating a fixation, an obsession with a
person. The sensation only lasts as long as
the potion is in the victims system. Once the
effect wears off, the balance kicks in. In the
hours following the recovery the victim who
was previously seeing sunshine and rainbows
will have a change in attitude that can best be
described as homicidal. The person they
were previously smitten with will be the
object of their vindictive disdain. This after
effect is the reason love potions aren't actually
used very often. There is a similar effect with
cheering charms. There is a comedown
period after the charm wears off, the victim
would be hard-pressed to feel excited about a
dancing bear in a revealing nightgown.

96
Sixth Law

ixth Law of Magic: There is

no Sixth Law. There is no
sixth law, as stated above.
Where magic is concerned,
things occur in sevens, so a blank placeholder
was put in to round out the total number to
seven.

Most Magical Theoreticians have full faith

that we will discover a Sixth Law. There are
other, kill joy, theoreticians that contend that
continued studies will yield more than seven
laws. In that eventuality, we will label them as
6a, 6b, 6c, and so on. In at least a
bureaucratic sense, we will have seven laws.

97
Seventh Law

eventh Law of Magic: Magic

can accomplish many things,
and many things should
never be done.

This law can best be summarized as: just

because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Many muggleborn witches and wizards enter
the world of magic and are startled to find
that witches and wizards have all the same
problems as mere mortals.

Magical people have crime, poverty,

heartache, illness, also dragons. Muggles are
sure that magic can solve every conceivable
problem. They aren't wrong, but it also
causes as many problems as it solves, if not
more.

98
For every spell that repairs a horse cart, there
are five curses that cause a horse plague. For
every spell that makes gold, there are five
goblins that will steal the shirt off your back
and bill you for the defrocking.

And at the end of the day, no matter how

many spells we have that heal, you only need
one curse that kills. These magical problems
have a non-magical solution. Don't cast any
spells, no matter how much you want to,
unless you absolutely have to cast them.

Self-control will solve problems magic never

could. Should you find yourself in want of
money, work harder and tighten the belt. If

99
you have a cold, sleep it off. If you want
revenge on your enemy, learn to forgive. If
someone you love doesn't love you back,
we've all been there honey; get rip roaring
drunk, sleep in the next morning, and move
on; there's someone out there for you.

100
Chapter 4

The Phylogeny of Magical Creatures

here are many species,

besides wizards and witches,
which have inherent
magical attributes.

Magical properties are also inherent is some

plant species. These magical flora and fauna
are an integral part of wizard culture, which
we have cultivated and coexisted with for
centuries.

In some of these creatures the presence of

magic is more obvious, such as the
Demiguise, a giant ape with long silvery hair
that can vanish completely and instantly. In
some cases the presence of magic is more
subtle, such as the Kneazle, indistinguishable
from a common house cat. Some of these

101
species even possess sentience, which is the
ability to think intelligently, feel emotions,
and act freely. This means that humans are
not the only intelligent species on the planet
(not even the most intelligent species on the
planet).

Goblins, Vampires, Werewolves,

Merepeople, and Giants can interact with
humans without any technical problems.
They may not like each other, to the point of
homicide, but that is more of a cultural
problem than a technical one. They can form
complex social structures, legal systems, and
languages.

The Goblin language, Gobbledegook, is

famous for having single words for concepts
that need several sentences to describe them
in English, and 147 unique terms for money.
Werewolves are human, with 14 exceptions
every year.

102
Vampires were human; they procreate by –
redacted- their human victims (you don't
want to know).

Other species fall into a grey area between

irrefutable sentience and basic animal
instinct.

House Elves are reasonably intelligent, by all

accounts they are emotional, and they even
possess comparatively powerful magic.
However, they have no free will. Their
desires and decisions are always a reflection
of someone else's needs. It is unknown if this

103
is the absence of sentience or extreme co-
dependence.

Centaurs fervently claim to have intelligence

that far outstrips humans. This statement is
contradicted by the fact that they still live in
the woods. Their claim to fame is their ability
to divine the future from the stars. However,
their predictions are less of a forecast and
more of a vague statement about a looming

104
threat. More humble centaurs will freely
admit that the whole thing is hit or miss.

Trolls are famously stupid, it's not

uncommon for them to be outsmarted by
dogs. In spite of this handicap, in their
natural habitat in the mountains they live in
communities, they make and use tools, and
they even domesticate animals. How they
outsmarted these animals is something of a
mystery. It's often contended that their
language consists of grunting and pointing.
This is untrue, they communicate using
infrasound, sound so low pitched that it's
inaudible to humans. This gives them the
advantage of being able to talk to each other
through solid rock.

Ghosts and Poltergeists are ostensibly

sentient, but they freely admit not being, and
clearly has-beens. They are just an echo of
someone who once lived and has now left.

105
They are no more than a phantasmagorical
footprint left in the ether. They are not free
floating souls, as evidenced by the fact that
the ghosts display distinctly human
psychology. They desire to taste food, and
they retain a fear of death. Souls are
immortal and don't fear death any more than
a cat fears a goldfish and don't hunger for
food any more than a rock.

While wizarding society was hiding from

muggles, there was a concerted effort to keep
magical creatures in hiding as well. While
Goblins can be relied upon to be
surreptitious, a dragon doesn't give two
flaming farts about secrecy. Most muggles are
quite happy to go about their lives comforted
by their belief that everything can be easily
understood and clearly labeled. If they saw so
much as a gnome running across the lawn it

106
would shatter their whole world view and
there would be rioting in the streets.

The existence of dragons is probably one of

the wizarding world's worst kept secrets.
Leaked information also includes pegasus,
sphinx, manticore, unicorn, and the phoenix,
among others. There were some fortunate
instances where muggles had free range with
magical creatures and never realized the
species magical properties.

A Spanish galleon once stumbled upon an

island that had a large population of Diricawl,
a flightless bird that can teleport out of harm's
way in a puff of feathers. The Spaniards
named them 'Dodos' and when the Diricawl
teleported to the neighboring island to escape
being lightly breaded and fried, the Spaniards
assumed that the poor creatures had been
hunted to extinction.

107
Muggles are aware of the existence of Octopi,
but have never discovered their vast dark
magic powers, though I can't imagine why.

The magical phylum has been intertwined

with wizarding society for as long as there has
been a wizarding society. There was a large
scholarly movement to study the natural
history of magical creatures to better
understand the origins of magic. This
movement was catalyzed by the discovery by
muggles of what they called Dinosaurs,
reptiles bigger than houses.

Wizards immediately scrambled to destroy as

many of these as possible operating under
the assumption that the muggles had
stumbled upon ancient dragon skeletons.
This initiative was discontinued when no
conclusive proof of magic had been found in
the fossils, and the muggle paleontologists
were finding more fossils than could be

108
destroyed without raising even further
questions. The muggles seemed quite content
with the explanation that these were giant
extinct animals and never brought up the
possibility of magic.

Magizoologists studied these same fossils to

better understand the natural history of magic
and possibly even understand the origin of
magic. Perhaps they could find the skeletons
of whoever built the city of walls so long ago.

They never got any answers about that

ancient city, but they did discover the origins
of the dragon. To their great surprise,

109
Dragons are newer to the world than the
invention of writing paper. A dig in Mongolia
found a protodragons alongside the ancient
bodies of ash encrusted humans.

There was documented evidence of large

reptiles living in the same region in the same
time period. So long ago, some wizards and
witches ingrained magic into a local species.
Perhaps they thought they could travel on the
backs of giant winged reptiles. Perhaps they
thought fire breathing lizards would defend
them from invading hordes. Whatever their
motivation, their creation destroyed them
and then spread all over the planet, adapting
to new environments, meeting new people,
and barbecuing them.

A similar explanation is passed around by

Goblins. They maintain that the 'Old Potter
Woman' who built their city of On Beh, was

110
both fully human and the progenitor of
Goblinkind.

Apparently, humans were the first occupants

of the underground city of On Beh and
adapted their physiology for a subterranean
lifestyle.

The origins of centaurs are often speculated,

though never voiced out loud. Merepeople
can trace their origins back to the sunken city
of Atlantis.

Today it is generally agreed that all magical

creatures were instantiated by a witch or
wizard. This was substantiated by the
Montefiore Guild's creation of the Ethereal
Whale (they passed up the idea of ethereal
shark). The general acceptance of this theory
killed house elf rights movement. It was
reasoned that if they were designed for
domestic work without compensation, then

111
that's what they should do. This does not
logically justify showing them reckless cruelty,
but some people still do it all the same.

It is postulated that, in the same way wizards

imbued other species with magic, someone
(something) imbued humanity with it in the
first place. There could be a species, a
civilization even, as hidden from wizards as
wizards were hidden from muggles.

112
Chapter 5

Disciplines of Transfiguration and

Transmutation

hen new students are

introduced to magic, the
first disclaimer they
receive is how devilishly
hard transfiguration is.

This is not an exaggeration on the part of the

teacher, nor is it because of the age or lack of
skill of the student. Transfiguration is hard
because physical objects are very stubborn.

They spent their entire lives as a certain thing

and they're very set in their ways. A lemon
juicer has probably lived a happy, successful
life as a kitchen implement and resents your
presumptive attempt at turning it into a
sextant.

113
This is a good thing, for the most part. Most
people who are riding on a broom stick
wouldn't want the broom to get ideas about
turning into a hat rack and making an
unexpected transformation while flying a mile
over the Aral Sea.

This resolution extends to all the object's

individual properties, from color to size to
texture. This means transforming an object
little by little isn't any easier than going from
Shape A to Shape B in one step. This is one
of the few areas where breaking the problem
down into smaller parts makes the task
harder. In addition to the inherent difficulty,
there are some things you simply cannot
transfigure for any reason or at any cost.

These limits were researched in depth, and

carefully described for posterity by Elvendor
Gamp, noted Alchemist who, during the
Roman occupation of Scotland, transformed

114
Hadrian's Wall from a 15-foot tall blockade
to a 3-foot high sheep fence. This impressive
feat is famous for weakening Rome's grasp of
England and driving the emperor Hadrian
insane with confusion. In honor of his
research and subversion, these limits are
refered to as Gamp's 5 Exceptions to
Elemental Transfiguration.

Most young people, studying magic for the

first time, believe it is merely a matter of time
and study before they can conjure up houses,
money, true love, and live comfortably;
happily ever after, if you will. They are

115
disappointed that this is precluded from the
outset, but come to accept that this
arrangement does more good than harm.

Limitations hold people back, but

sometimes, what they hold back, is certain
disaster.

116
 he first exception is food.
Food cannot be conjured
or transfigured from a non-
food substance. This
limitation is often cursed by hungry witches
or wizards who are either lost in the
wilderness or don't feel like walking to the
kitchen. There are work-arounds for this
problem. If food is already present it can be
duplicated. A clever witch can make a bagel
last for a month, though one can't imagine
anyone willing to try. The reason for this
appears to be the complexity of food. What

117
we've always simply labeled as 'meat' or 'grain'
is actually complex chains of acids,
carbohydrates, and salts.

These are concepts that can barely be spelled

let alone spelled (letters and magic,
respectively). In the case of duplication, the
magic already has a rubric, so to speak, to
work off of.

118
 he second exception is
metal. Metal is,
proportionally, even more
stubborn than food. It can't
be conjured, transfigured, or even vanished.
This has been an underlying theme in the
struggle between muggles and wizards. It
started so long ago when humans began
designing an economic system, deviating
from their long history of eating raw meat
and living in trees. Gold had been
discovered, but had no practical application.
It was soft; useless for tools or protection, but
by this same token, it could be easily bent
into artistic shapes. By dint of being pretty, it
119
was adopted as a currency. With the advent
of currency, people could devote themselves
to industries besides growing food and
avoiding tigers.

This led to a boom in the variety of goods

and services being provided. The magical
people of the time got the brilliant, highly
unethical idea of conjuring gold, buying
everything they needed, and never working
again. They failed to produce actual gold, a
metal, so they settled for the next best thing:
making rocks look like gold. Their deception
was discovered and they were dealt with
harshly.

This began a long tradition of wizards and

witches being mistrusted and subsequently
stoned to death. The issue was compounded
when metals were used in the production of
weapons, which increased slaughtering
efficiency and couldn't be magically vanished.

120
The advent of ballistics allowed for ranged
attacks, which were previously exclusive to
wand wielding persons.

Magic can alter the shape and properties of

metals, a discipline known as Alchemy. The
Goblin's have the market cornered on
Alchemy. They are famous for imbibing
weapons and jewelry with magical properties.

The Sword of Godric Gryfindor is famed for

being able to appear in his clutch whenever
he needed it. Some legends say it was so

121
sharp you could cut yourself just by looking
at it.

The ultimate goal in the study of alchemy is

the production of the Philosopher's Stone, an
object of great purity that can turn any metal
into gold and produce the Elixir of Life. How
the Elixir of Life relates to magical metallurgy
is somewhat unclear, but alchemists are
content to just roll with it.

122
 he third exception is slood.
Slood is totally immune to
the effects of any kind of
magic.

Slood cannot be summoned, duplicated,

transfigured, conjured, charmed, cursed,
vanished, engorged, enchanted, jinxed,
amplified, switched, locomoted, levitated,
inflated, pasteurized, calibrated, shrunken,
murdered, bribed, elected, lubricated,
synchronized, blessed, liberated, irrigated,
canonized, bowdlerized, frozen, sublimated,
inveigled, consecrated, melted, galvanized,
alphabetized, calibrated, leavened,
unleavened, coalesced, demonized,
anglicized, pixilated, contained,
compounded, concocted, corrected,
criticized, keratinized, coalesced, karate-
chopped, floccinaucinihilipilificated, or
otherwise effected by magic.

123
 he fourth exception is life.
Life cannot be created by
magic, as discussed earlier
in the fundamental laws of
magic. However, this rule is so important, it
needed repeating. A skilled witch or wizard
can turn conjure canaries out of thin air.

These canaries, when scrutinized, aren't

made of actual flesh, and have a strangely laid
back attitude to being cut open. When left to
their own devices long enough, they will stop

124
moving all together. They are merely a cheap
imitation of life. Unlike with food, life cannot
be duplicated. Any attempt to do so would be
… ugly.

Living things can be altered by magic. Every

few years, young wizards get the impression
that growing long facial hair is cool. It isn't,
but producing an impressive beard is a
simple spell. There are many such cosmetic
spells; easy to perform, generally not fatal.
Though again, facial hair, not cool.

125
 he fifth exception is time.
As anyone who has ever
sat at the bedside of a
dying loved one can attest,
you can't create more time.

You can't steal time from someone else. It

can't be slowed or hastened. Time is
unforgiving, unrelenting, unreasonable, and
punctual. Time is the most fair of all
commodities. It passes at the same rate in all
places for all people. Some people don't have
as much time as others, but what can you do.

126
Honestly, if you wanted to transfigure time,
there's no consensus on which direction
you'd even point your wand.

On the other hand, you can make as much

space as you want; the fabric of reality is
strangely elastic in that respect. This
discovery was, and still is, widely celebrated.
No matter the size of the cottage the witch or
wizard owns, they can fit 3 full bathrooms.

For a long time, it was believed that only

solids could be transfigured. This was
disproved in the year 1640, after years of
tireless effort, by the Sorcerer Cridh of
Irelend, who transfigured water into whiskey.
Cridh died a week after his landmark
discovery of severe liver failure. He drank so
much his liver abandoned ship. He was so
drunk his coffin got tipsy. He was so soused
his corpse still hasn't decayed. He had so

127
much liquor in him after they buried him the
ground threw up.

This is a final reminder of the seventh law of

magic: Just because you can, doesn't mean
you should.

128
129
130