Bellatrix was curious what Will was reading so intently. She craned her neck as far as she could, but from her angle, she could make out only a few letters.
The book in Will's hands came from the Restricted Section. Titled Secrets of Spells: Origins, it described how many spells had been developed, including the principles, methods, and ideas behind them.
Of course, it was in the Restricted Section because it also described methods that used wizards as test subjects. Most were crueler than Will's current approach of observing magic structures directly, but some of the ideas were worth considering.
There had never been a shortage of brilliant wizards in any era. Some had even found other ways to glimpse part of a magic structure without the Wizard's Eye.
Several such wizards had proposed Stitching Theory and put it into practice.
What was Stitching Theory?
Their work explained it best. They developed a complete spell in stages, breaking it into sections of different "lengths" depending on how difficult it was.
Their best-known work to this day was the Stitching Charm and the Skinning Curse.
In fact, the Wound-Stitching Charm popular in Healing Magic today had been adapted from their Stitching Charm.
The original Stitching Charm had an interesting effect: it closed a wound layer by layer, joining flesh, fat, and skin separately. That was the result of dividing the spell's development into stages and then combining them.
They first developed a charm to stitch flesh, then one for fat, and finally one for skin. None was particularly difficult, and those experiments went smoothly. Combining the three simple charms was harder.
It took many test subjects, from animals to Muggles, to combine them properly. Along the way, they produced some strange results. Certain failed spells "stitched" a creature's skin to its