First Spell

What is the first spell that Harry Potter learned at Hogwarts?

 

I don’t know. In his first week of class, “there was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.” In Astronomy, Herbology, Potions, and History of Magic, there may not have been much or any spellcasting. Defense Against the Dark Arts should have had some, but Quirrell didn’t teach any. That leaves Charms and Transfiguration. No mention is made of what Flitwick asks his first-years to do in class, but McGonagall has her students attempt to turn a match into a needle. No one succeeded on their first try but Hermione came closest.

 

It’s not until the midnight duel when Alohomora, the door-unlocking spell, is cast. But it’s Hermione that does so. The next spell mentioned is in Charms class on Halloween morning: Wingardium Leviosa – to levitate objects. Ron is doing poorly at it. Presumably Harry has also tried. And once again Hermione is the first one to cast the spell successfully. Later we are told that over Christmas break, Harry sneaks into the Restricted Section of the library, but Harry lights a lamp rather than casting Lumos. Can Harry cast any spells successfully in his first semester? I’m not sure.

 

What spell should Harry have learned first? I would like to claim it should be Lumos. It’s a simple spell that produces light at the tip of your wand. Like turning on a tiny flashlight, or nowadays, your mobile phone magically works just as well. Since the purpose of a wand is to focus energy, casting a spell involves absorbing energy into the wand and then emitting energy to produce the effects of the spell. Since the wand is made of matter, and all matter contains atoms and electrons, the effect of absorbing energy is to excite the electrons from the ground state into an excited state. Electrons in an excited state are unstable, and so an easy path for them to become more stable is to lower their energy by returning to the ground state. Conservation of energy means photons are emitted. If the wavelength of these photons is in the visible range (400-700nm), then we observe it as light.

 

Other spells would require channeling that energy to say, levitate an object, or turn the latch of a locked door. But that requires more from the spellcaster. After your wand has absorbed energy, you need to direct towards a very specific task. Emitting light from your wand, however, just requires you to absorb that energy and then let it go as emission. This is easy to do if some of the compounds in the wand have energy level differences that correspond to photons in the visible range. Wood has many of these types of compounds, i.e., organic molecules with a bunch of C=C double bonds in conjugated pi-systems. Simple as pie. So I expect Lumos should have been the first spell Harry learned, but who really knows what goes on in Hogwarts? I’ve yet to get my hands on a more detailed curriculum.