No Magical Index?

This month's guest blog post, from a chemist and librarian. Enjoy!

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While on vacation last summer, on a whim, I started re-reading the Harry Potter books. All the Harry Potter books. In 10 days (I think). I know there are other things I could have been doing, but this was certainly very enjoyable.

While reading Book 1, my reflex response to Harry, Ron, and Hermione poring over books in the library to find Nicholas Flamel, was, why don't they just Google him? Okay, yes, I should know better. Electronics don't work in the magical world. But old habits die hard.

Further consideration of this problem made me think about why there is no mention of index system for spells and potions. In Book 2, when the trio wants to make Polyjuice potion, they only know about its existence and where to find it because Snape tells them what book it's in.

This got me to thinking about the days before SciFinder, when we used the never-ending volumes of Chemical Abstracts in print. In our current era of structure and keyword searching, the method seems very archaic. Although time consuming, it was very practical and straightforward. You calculate the chemical formula for the compound of interest. Then you check each 10-year index, looking for any references to your compound of interest. Nomenclature has always been my weak point, so I often had trouble identifying the IUPAC names. It was a slow and laborious process. But it worked!

(Photo source: https://flic.kr/p/8bLry1)

So why is there no similar system of indexing in the magical world? The Half-blood Prince and Luna's mother present evidence that there was experimentation among witches and wizards. Professor Umbridge was adamant about "Ministry-approved methods", all of which imply that there were more magical spells and potions available than what students were taught in school.

I wondered if perhaps there was just a culture of secrecy, and the wizarding world didn't want to share new discoveries. But the Harry Potter wiki lists three scholarly journals mentioned in the HP books: Transfiguration Today, The Practical Potioneer, and Challenges in Charming. Their existence suggests that at least some witches and wizards wanted the world to know what they had accomplished.

Would it be too difficult to create and maintain this kind of an index? Seems unlikely, I mean, even Muggles can do it.

This led me to consider that the creative process involved in discovering new spells and potions is not well developed in the books. Professor Slughorn mentions it briefly in Book 6. On the day that most of Harry's potions class is taking their Apparition tests, Slughorn, speaking of Harry's Euphoria potion: "… you've added just a sprig of peppermint, haven't you? Unorthodox, but what a stroke of inspiration…" In the same class, "[Ernie] had most rashly invented his own potion, which had curdled and formed a kind of purple dumpling at the bottom of his cauldron."

There are many examples of spells and potions gone awry due to poor technique; far fewer instances of improvisation and creating new magic, with the exception of dark magic. Perhaps because of Tom Riddle's foray into new magic was incredibly disastrous for the wizarding community, it seemed safer to stick with what is known and "Ministry-approved".

I still don't have a good answer to why there is no magical index in the wizarding world. Perhaps they didn't want to make it too easy for those inexperienced in magic to inadvertently hurt themselves and others, lest it lead to another "Magic is Might" movement. As Dumbledore says: “Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.”