There is nothing “silly” about incantations in Harry Potter

Snape once used the phrase “silly incantations” in Harry Potter, but there is certainly nothing silly about incantations in the Wizarding World.

In the Philosopher’s Stone movie, Professor Snape’s rant about the superiority of potions include a mention of “no foolish wand waving or silly incantations in this class. However, incantations are one of the key types of magic in Harry Potter and are important socially as well as in their power. Incantations can be a form of group magic and so lend themselves to an extra collective source of power.

This group magic can be seen both when used by death eaters to cast the mark of the skulls and by opposing groups such as the Order of Phoenix. Casting magic as a group means that you can use all of the strength of the sum of your parts. However, such magic can also be deployed against groups such as when Lord Voldemort managed to simultaneously whisper to almost everyone in Hogwarts during the Battle in an attempt to persuade them to betray Harry Potter.

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Yet, incantations have another sort of strength, which is that they do not require a particularly powerful wizard to use powerful incantations. This sounds strange but incantations seem to be like following a recipe. Take for example Wormtail, he was not a strong wizard at all. Yet by following Voldemort’s advice, he could bring back to full strength one of the deadliest dark wizards of all time. In fact, Voldemort himself used an incantation to open the Chamber of Secrets.

One question that immediately comes to mind is how were incantations preserved? Before they were written down they might have been whispered from wizard to wizard especially hushed for the eviller incantations. Were scrolls of incantations accumulated and stored? Did wizards fear having their own incantations used against them?

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This leads to an interesting situation, have certain incantations become lost over time, and if they were rediscovered what would happen? Could this give a wizard of average power considerable potential for good or ill by accident? Perhaps so, in the same way that computer hackers used backdoors to cause destruction on systems.

It is strange that Snape should make reference to “silly incantations” considering his own delving into dark magic, perhaps he was trying to downplay their potential to keep hidden his own knowledge of them? Yet it seems there was another reason for Snape’s apparent contempt for them. This contempt wasn’t directly specifically at the incantation itself but towards those who could not use the spell without audibly saying it.

Snape mentions to his class in the Half Blood Prince book that one can “gain an element of surprise in their spell casting” by not mentioning the spell while using it. This certainly stands to reason, if your opponent cannot predict your next move then they are constantly on the back foot. Nonetheless, some of the most powerful wizards like Snape himself and even Voldemort are recorded as having said the spells as they used them.

So why would they choose to utter the spell? The answer seems to be to add an extra terror. Not knowing an attack is coming is one thing, but being aware of this impeding spell and not being able to do anything about it is quite another. Few wizards could counter the spells of either Snape or Voldemort, so there is that as well.

This works for good wizards as well. Would Dumbledore be as impressive if he spoke with a horsy whisper instead of the big powerful boom he has?  Not so much, which is why his voice and thus power seems weakened when he drinks the foul liquid during the Half Blood Prince in the attempt to obtain the locket horcrux. With incantations it is as much how you say it as what you say. Incantations work well with the theatrical; you can convey your confidence through the spells utterance.

Potions is certainly a powerful subject and key to the armoury of any wizard but so are incantations with their ability to pass down the magic of the ages. Incantations are many things but they are not “silly”, that is unless you actually want a “silly” incantation!