Python Class Inheritance AttributeError - why? how to fix?

To put it simply, you override Wand.__init__ in the class that inherits from it, so CastSpell.wandtype is never set in CastSpell. Besides that, my_wand can't pass information into cast_spell, so you're confused about the role of inheritance.

Regardless of how you do it, you have to somehow pass length and wandtype to CastSpell. One way would be to include them directly into CastSpell.__init__:

class CastSpell(Wand):
    def __init__(self, spell, thing, length, wandtype):
        self.spell = spell 
        self.thing = thing
        self.length = length
        self.wandtype = wandtype

Another, more generic way would be to pass these two to the base class' own __init__():

class CastSpell(Wand):
    def __init__(self, spell, thing, length, wandtype):
        self.spell = spell 
        self.thing = thing
        super(CastSpell, self).__init__(length, wandtype)

Another way would be to stop making CastSpell inherit from Wand (is CastSpell a kind of Wand? or something a Wand does?) and instead make each Wand be able to have some CastSpells in it: instead of "is-a" (a CastSpell is a kind of Wand), try "has-a" (a Wand has Spells).

Here's a simple, not so great way to have a Wand store spells:

class Wand(object):
    def __init__(self, wandtype, length):
        self.length = length
        self.wandtype = wandtype
        self.spells = {} # Our container for spells. 
        # You can add directly too: my_wand.spells['accio'] = Spell("aguamenti", "fire")

    def fulldesc(self):
        print "This is a %s wand and it is a %s long" % (self.wandtype, self.length)

    def addspell(self, spell):
        self.spells[spell.name] = spell

    def cast(self, spellname):
        """Check if requested spell exists, then call its "cast" method if it does."""
        if spellname in self.spells: # Check existence by name
            spell = self.spells[spellname] # Retrieve spell that was added before, name it "spell"
            spell.cast(self.wandtype) # Call that spell's cast method, passing wandtype as argument
        else:
            print "This wand doesn't have the %s spell." % spellname
            print "Available spells:"
            print "\n".join(sorted(self.spells.keys()))


class Spell(object):
    def __init__(self, name, target):
        self.name = name
        self.target = target

    def cast(self, wandtype=""):
        print "You cast the spell %s with your %s wand at %s." % (
               self.name, wandtype, self.target)
        if self.name == "lumus":
            print "The room lights up."
        elif self.name == "wingardium leviosa":
            print "You cast the levitation spell.",
            print "The %s starts to float!" % self.target

    def __repr__(self):
        return self.name

my_wand = Wand('Phoenix-feather', '12 inches')
lumus = Spell('lumus', 'door')
wingardium = Spell("wingardium leviosa", "enemy")

my_wand.fulldesc()
lumus.cast() # Not from a Wand! I.e., we're calling Spell.cast directly
print "\n\n"

my_wand.addspell(lumus) # Same as my_wand.spells["lumus"] = lumus
my_wand.addspell(wingardium)
print "\n\n"

my_wand.cast("lumus") # Same as my_wand.spells["lumus"].cast(my_wand.wandtype)
print "\n\n"
my_wand.cast("wingardium leviosa")
print "\n\n"
my_wand.cast("avada kadavra") # The check in Wand.cast fails, print spell list instead
print "\n\n"