Finally we are learning new charms, especially as these two are charms that can be used in everyday life! I must admit, I am looking forward to learn them much more than for example the Hover Charm - there are so many possibilities! I cannot wait to experiment a bit with their limitations at home!

Out of the two charms, the Mending Charm seems to be the most useful at a first glance, as well as a more honest one. It is a gruesome notion that at every time during the last years, a wizard could have gone into our house without us having even the slightest chance of prohibiting it! What about privacy? I mean to say, it doesn't take but a short backward S curving and any door is open to you!

The Unlocking Charm

• Incantation: Alohomora (‘al-LOH-ha-MOR-ah’)
• Wand Movement: Backward S curving up at the end
• Focus: Visualization of yourself, unlocking the lock.
• Willpower: None for simple mechanical locks; minimal to very high for locks ranging from complex mechanical to complex magical.
• Concentration: None

When we were learning the spell, I couldn't help myself but be excited at the first moments. There are so many possibilities! My parents would no longer be able to lock the sweets away, well, they would be able to, but I'd get my chocolate anyways.But then I realised the consequences. Nothing I had with me was safe! With a simple Alohomora, anyone would be able to open my diary, my piggybank, my trunk, everything! Especially if my dorm mates are even the slightest bit as nosy as my cousins. If they had the chance to open any lock, there wouldn't be a lock that remained unopened! I definitely have to look into getting a magical lock, or learn the anti-Alohomora-Charm. Anything of these would work.

Opening a simple mechanical lock actually is very easy, I would not have imagined it. I wonder if it would still work if the lock in question was destroyed - my little cousin poured some glue on one of my diaries' lock, and I won't get it to open anymore. And I just started using it, it's still empty except for my name. And it's so nice, this would be really great. At least I managed to open mechanical locks without much trouble, on the magical ones I still do not have success all the times. But I managed to open a simple lock three times out of five, that's a start.

Mending, as I already said, is even more interesting for me. I just wonder what about more complex things. I mean, are you able to repair something complex as well? Like for example a computer, or a play console, or something like that? But surely this couldn't possibly work, I mean to say you have to pay loads of money to get these kind of things repaired in the non-magical world. If we were able to do it just like that, ... Anyways:

The Mending Charm

• Incantation: Reparo (‘reh-PAH-roh’)
• Wand Movement: Inward pointed spiral, continued until the object is fully repaired
• Focus: A visualization of the object undamaged.
• Willpower: Minimal
• Concentration: High. Visualization should be maintained until the object is repaired.
  

I must admit, I didn't think that it was that complicated to keep the wand movement going regularily until the object was mended completely. It was quite ok for a simple tear, but if the damage is any bigger, it will be hard to not lose focus on either the visualisation or the wand movement. But the possibilities of this charm are immense. I keep wondering whether the quality of a mended object will be the same as it was before being broken. If this were true, you would never need to buy new clothes or shoes as long as you don't grow, and you'd never need new appliances in the house, and so much more. But this would crash any economy, this can't work! I mean, it is impossible that every appliance or all clothes are magical objects that cannot be repaired with a simple Mending Charm. Come to think of it, I never saw any shop selling appliances in Diagon Alley. But there has to be a catch. I'll definitely need to research that.

Excerpts about the Charms are taken from Quintessential Magic: An Introduction to Charms (2nd Ed.), Chapter 13.