#harry potter spells are kind of underutelized in terms of world building i think

[sunnysidezblog]

This is something I've always found frustrating about Harry Potter and that's that spells are often said to work but it's not explained *how* they work. A lot of spells are just taken at face value.

Spells like crucio don't need to be explained much because they are pretty self explanatory, but I still would like to know why. I assume, for example, that Crucio works because it fires your pain neurons at a rapid pace all over your body without a break until the user breaks its hold. This to me is a no brainer.

However, spells like Avada Kedavra and imperio are never really explained and dont have clear or intuitive reasons for working. At least not in depth. It explains what they do to a person (kills painless and instant and mind control adjacent, respectively) but not the reason why they work. I have a theory on why these two work the way that they do.

Spoilers below

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First up: Avada Kedavra

The killing curse is said to kill instantly and painlessly, and no one but Harry has ever survived it. Anything that the curse hits that's living dies instantly.

This is explained to the readers in one of the books (it's been a while since I've read them) and it's also demonstrated when Fake-Moody kills the spider in the goblet of fire. And we also see that sometimes, depending on the power put into the spell, it can have a physical impact on the victim of the curse as seen when Dumbledore gets knocked off the tower by snape.

However, other than these examples, it doesn't show what it actually does to the body to kill, only that it *does*. I posit that it shuts down the major organs, specifically the heart, instantly.

I say this because that's the only way I can see that Harry could come back to life at the end of the series. If only his heart was stopped, but his brain was alive then he very well could have come back to life. There are documented cases of auto-resuscitation like this one. (Be warned there are some graphic pictures in it and mentions of illness and death. Read at your own risk). [Edit: I can't get the link to work]

It is a rare occurrence, but it can happen and I believe that could have been what happened, especially as Harry came back from sheer force of will it looks like.

As for Lily's sacrifice, I can see him surviving because 1. She put herself in front of Harry and thus absorbed the curse. And 2. The curse might have rebounded and hit him, but caused indirect damage instead. Kind of like how in Frozen, Elsa's power hit Anna's head and caused her harm but later hit her dead on in the heart and caused her death.

In this way, Harry would gain his scar, but only 'die' for a split second as the spell rebounded off of Lily and him and hit voldemort instead. However, the power of love could have also played a part. Hysterical strength is also a thing so it could also apply to magic, making a shield strong enough to deflect the curse from Harry's heart or body and back towards voldemort.

Since we don't know exactly how the killing curse works, we can't really say for sure and I feel the explanation of "it was loves sacrifice" alone to be a cop out answer, but when used in a joint reasoning like this I find it more believable.

So I think that the killing curse targeting the heart is the most like reasonable and logical explanation as to why the killing curse works the way it does and why it is so different from other spells that can cause death or injury that we see (crucio, sectemsempra, bombardo, etc).

Second up: Imperio

This one won't be as long, but I have a theory that it works very much like how Cordyceps (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) affects ants.

This fungus affects ants, not by controlling the brain as one might think but instead focusing on the muscles. It builds scaffolding in the muscles of the ants and controls the muscles and organs inside by the use of biotic compounds like hormones and pheromones. You can read more about that in Entangled Life by merlin sheldrake or here in this national geographic article.

When this concept is implied to imperio, it makes sense why Harry could throw it off with a lot of effort. He was fully aware of what was happening, from what I remember, but he couldn't control his body. This makes me think that the spell acts like the Cordyceps fungus in a way and controls the limbs, muscles, and voice box through signals to the brain in order to do what the caster wants.

I also think that that's why, after the first war, Lucius Malfoy was able to claim he was under to imperius curse with so much success even though he could remember everything clearly.

So it makes sense, to me at least, that someone would be able to break free of an imperio even if it takes incredible mental fortitude and physical strength and why someone like Lucius, who was a known deceiver, was believed. Though half the wizengemont was in his pocket, I think that the other half wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway because his argument/defense would be legally sound if that's how imperio works.

Anyway thats all for those.

I think there's great potential for reasonable explanations on spells and why they work, as well as why certain potions work the way they do. And I've seen several fnfics that explain and go more into depth about this kind of thing as well. It's very interesting to think about, and this was just my take on it.