jaelin910
habitual lurker
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Right. Irl alchemists often kept their records in code that nobody could read... including modern historians wanting to learn about the early days of chemistry.Modern wizard society in the Harry Potter books, at the very least, knew enough about thaumatology that even people who hadn't even graduated Hogwarts could invent new spells/potions.
Snape invented new spells while he was a student, it's implied Hermione did the same, and the twins sold things they invented in their joke shop.
So magic is a science they understand well enough that making new spells seems to be analogous to writing a new computer program in terms of achievement.
Which suggests progress not regression, with new spells constantly being invented, advancing the state of the art.
Obviously not all new spells are shared, hence why not everyone has a philosopher's stone, so it would seem some spells were lost to the ravages of time.
Another reason they might lose some things without constantly trending backwards is extinction. Apparently, there was once a plant that could be used as a contraceptive which the Romans found out about and used. They used all of it, in fact and if something like that were to happen in their world, the potions or whatever that the organism was used for would be impossible to make until and unless someone found an alternative.