Expecto Patronum and 6 most-used Harry Potter spells and their meaning explained

The Harry Potter film series is one of the few franchises that has received love from audiences across generations and for decades together. Even ten long years after the release of the final movie, the franchise is an integral part of modern pop culture despite new fantasy fiction stories coming out every day.

With the announcement of HBO Max's latest Harry Potter TV reboot, the buzz around the franchise is high again. The latest film, based on the book Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is in the making.

One of the major reasons the story hasn't lost its relevance among youth today, apart from the brilliant world-building, is the some of the spells and words from the story finding their way into real life.

While some spells are known for sounding exotic and aspirational, others are purely popular for their functions and how easy they would have made life if they were real. Some spells still send chills down the fans' spines while others are routinely used.

Accio, Wingardium Leviosa, and 5 other most popularly used Harry Potter spells of all time

1) Expecto Patronum

The Patronus Charm (Image via Wizarding World)

There is a reason for the Patronus Charm being a popular favorite among every Harry Potter fan. The charm offers hope in an often dark and gloomy world of the franchise.

Remus Lupin introduces Harry to the charm and immediately helps him protect himself from the Dementors. The fact that Lupin becomes such a close friend of Harry Potter during the classes he took to teach him the spell, made it all the more special.

The words Expecto Patronum literally translate to "I expect a guardian," in Latin. The patronus is also a reminder of hope and love as it comes in the form of the wizard or witch's spirit guardian.

The charm channelizes the person's positive emotions and hope into the Patronus to provide protection from Dementors. The spell is introduced in the third part and is used consistently as things get fairly darker after that.

2) Accio

The summoning charm is one every fan would wish to use at some point. Accio is a Latin term that means "I summon." Saying the name of whatever needs to be summoned after the word Accio, would fetch the wizard or witch what they need.

While this seems like a fairly simple spell used to make daily life easier, it saves Harry Potter's life during the Triwizard tournament. When left alone to battle and monstrous dragon, Harry simply waves his wand and utters "Accio Firebolt" to have his broomstick arrive to his rescue. What follows is a sequence of intense chasing and near-death experiences.

3) Wingardium Leviosa

This charm would bring a wide smile onto a Harry Potter fan's face because it was one of the first topics of discussion between Ron and Hermoine. Hermoine charmingly corrects Ron as he mispronounces the spell multiple times, leading up to a beautiful romance over the next few parts.

The charm is typically used to lift an object into the air and is one of the most commonly used in the first few parts before the students learn other, more risky spells. Ron also uses it when trying to save Hermoine from the troll in the bathroom.

4) Expelliarmus

Roughly translating to 'driving out a weapon', the disarming spell is perhaps the most useful when it comes to the dark arts. While the death eaters and the Dark Lord are most likely to wave their arms and end up killing or torturing their enemy, regular folks use Expelliarmus as their go-to when fighting enemies.

The charm simply disarms the enemy and makes the other wizard or witch the owner of their wand.

This spell causes quite some confusion in the later parts when Draco Malfoy disarms Dumbledore and becomes the true owner of the Elder Wand. Voldemort assumed that Snape would be the owner because he killed Dumbledore. This plays in Harry's favor and buys the protagonists time to defeat the Dark Lord.

5) Lumos

Lumos is another simple charm that creates a light at the edge of the wand to act as a torch. While the starting parts show Harry Potter using this spell to simply study his wizarding books at night as he hid from his family, later on, the charm becomes vital when Harry and his friends have to spend sleepless nights in the woods and in the most dangerous of places.

In the emotional climax of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore's death is mourned by the staff and students at Hogwarts as they all use the Lumos charm to raise a light in his memory. The word is inspired from the Latin word 'lumen' which means light.

6) Alohomora

Harry, Ron and Hermoine (Image via IMDB)

Considering how many crazy adventures the Harry Potter story includes, it would be a bit of a hassle if the wizards and witches didn't know how to open locks with magic. Alohomora is a word inspired from the Sidiki dialect of West African origin and means 'friendly to thieves', just like the charm is.

It is seen being used multiple times across the series, mainly by Hermoine, as the trio try to sneak into the strangest of places in search of trouble.

7) Avada Kedavra

Inspired from the Aramaic phrase which means 'I will destroy as I speak', Avada Kedavra is one of the three unforgivable curses which does just that. It allows the wizard or witch to kill the enemy with no possibility of bringing them back to life. The spell is deadly and plays an important role in the story as it was the spell that killed Harry's parents and also rebounded to destroy Voldemort.

The green light that is generated when the spell is used haunts Harry for the rest of his life and brings about a deadly vibe. However, none of the characters from Hogwarts use the spell against Death Eaters, even at the worst of times.

The Cruciatus curse and the Imperius Curse are other popular spells that bring about darkness in the franchise after Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. None of the unforgivable curses are ever shown as legitimate in any context whatsoever until Voldemort's forces take over the government.

Edited by Prem Deshpande