Levicorpus

"That one had a great vogue at my time at Hogwarts. There were a couple of months where you couldn't move without being hoisted into the air by your ankle."

- Remus Lupin about Levicorpus

Levicorpus is a Jinx invented by Severus Snape under the guise of the Half-Blood Prince. It causes a victim to be hoisted into the air and dangle upside-down. It is better performed nonverbally. The Counter-jinx is Liberacorpus. Given its use in duelling and in the Lestranges' vault in Gringotts, the spell and its counter-jinx have the same effect if cast non-verbally as well as spoken aloud.

Known practitioners

 * Death Eaters (during the Quidditch World Cup in 1994)
 * Harry Potter
 * Hermione Granger
 * James Potter I
 * Lord Voldemort (Possibly)
 * Luna Lovegood
 * Severus Snape

Behind the scenes

 * In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the video game, Levicorpus is a verbal spell that Harry teaches to Dumbledore's Army. In the film, Cho Chang is seen using it on Nigel Wespurt, and later, Luna Lovegood uses it on a Death Eater in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. However, this spell was not learned by Harry Potter until Half Blood Prince because it was contained in the Half Blood Princes potions book.
 * Also, in the film the spell seems to levitate people rather than hanging them by the ankle. In the video game the spell remains like it is in the books, except in the case of Death Eaters.
 * Levicorpus was used verbally by Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This is unusual not only because the spell is best used non-verbally, but also because Hermione is noted to be highly skilled with nonverbal magic. A possible reason for this is because Hermione didn't want Harry to be unprepared for being hoisted into the air by his ankle.
 * As this spell has come to be fairly well-known, it may be true that some other common spells were invented by Snape.
 * Although invisible in other mediums, in the video game adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince the spell manifests as a large bird made out of orange light that collides with the victim and disappears in a flash of light, following which they are hoisted into the air as usual.
 * When Luna Lovegood uses this spell in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, the Death Eater is blasted away rather than being levitated.

Etymology
The spell's name may come from the Latin words "levare", meaning "to raise", and "corpus", meaning "body".

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Notes and references
Levicorpus