Harry Potter and his friend Ron Weasley hated potions lessons. And the point is not in the subject of magical discipline, but in the person who taught potions.
This teacher was called Severus Snape, and he barely tolerated the presence of Potter, Weasley and upstart nerdy Hermione Granger in his lessons. Why? It is difficult to explain, in fact this is a completely different story. Our task is to investigate the potions in Harry Potter, to understand their meaning and to reveal the method of preparation.
What is potions?
Potions are regularly used in Harry Potter books. Properties, methods of preparation, ingredients of potion tinctures are studied at Hogwarts by a special discipline.
Potions explains how healthy, healthy, or dangerous drinks, powders, or ointments can be created from plant, animal, and mineral components.
At Hogwarts, pottery was studied from the first to fifth year, and from the sixth to the seventh year students with the best performance in potions were selected according to the results of the "S.O.V." exam to further study this subject.
Potions as an object has a number of subtleties. It is necessary to carefully select the ingredients, accurately use the necessary herbs and liquid substances, otherwise elixirs will lead to unexpected, and sometimes deplorable, results. In potions, as in mathematics, we need the correct error-free calculations. If you make a mistake in one milligram in the preparation of the potion, this can turn out to be fatal for a person who drinks a tincture or a magic drink.
The ingredients for potions in Harry Potter are selected competently, mainly of animal and plant origin: skin, wings, flowers, etc.
Famous Potions Teachers
The Harry Potter books tell us not many names of potions teachers. The most famous among teachers are:
- Vindictus Viridian;
- Horace Slughorn;
- Severus Snape.
Very little is known about Vindictus Viridian. He taught potions at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, and then was elected director of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Horace Slughorn. We meet him for the first time in the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Wonderful, good-natured, sometimes funny person. A close friend of Dumbledore. Slughorn was a wizard of pure blood, came from an old family of magicians. A great specialist in potions, has great knowledge in the field of this subject. His students were the most famous wizards, including Harry Potter and the dark lord Volan de Mort.
Severus Snape. He taught potions in the years of Slughorn's absence. A very intelligent and overbearing teacher, students and individual Hogwarts teachers were afraid of Snape. A talented compiler of spells and potent drinks, the author of the Half-Blood Prince's diary, which Harry Potter found and used.
Each potion teacher at Hogwarts held the honorary title "Master of Potion."
Essential Potions Equipment
To prepare a potion, you must have a set of required items that will be needed in potions classes. Potions in Harry Potter are often used, so it’s important to know what items are needed to prepare.
Such necessary items are the following attributes of a potion, such as:
- Libra;
- boiler;
- glass, crystal bottles;
- Magic wand;
- textbook, parchment and pen.
Let us dwell on especially important items, without which the potion can hardly be made.
Libra. These are two bowls on a suspension mechanism, with small weights for obtaining error-free data when weighing the necessary materials. The simplest scales are made of brass. Harry bought the first scales in Diagon Alley, they were accurate and very attractive in appearance.
The cauldron is a vessel with a wide neck, where not only porridge or soup is cooked, but also herbal tinctures and magic potions. The boilers have different sizes, there are even those in which a person can fit. They are made of stronger or less durable metals. A cauldron is the most important potions item. At Hogwarts, the simplest boilers were used - copper, bronze or tin. The most expensive are a collapsible boiler and a boiler capable of mixing the ingredients itself.
Glass vials are vessels of various shapes with a narrow neck, where the finished potion poured.
The textbooks that were used at Hogwarts were authored by Jig Mysyakoff. However, from the 6th year, students who want to continue studying potions, studied according to the book of Borago.
Transformation Potion
Potions should start with a drink that is regularly used in Harry Potter books and has the ability to change appearance. So called in "Harry Potter" reverse potion.
Harry, Hermione, and Ron regularly use potion potions to find out what they need.
A revolving potion makes it possible for a short period of time to turn into the person you want. To do this, you must have the hair or nails of the desired mage or muggle (not a wizard). The Harry Potter books use mostly human hair to make a potion.
The recipe for the potion from Harry Potter is very simple. The process usually takes a month. A revolving potion consists of ingredients such as:
- dried lacewing (insects, butterfly);
- algae, leeches;
- knotweed (buckwheat plant);
- two-horn horn;
- Boomslang skin (poisonous snake from the family
- human hair.
First, algae (three bunches), knotweed (two bunches) are placed in the boiler, all this is mixed, then lacewing and leeches are used. Mix. The boiler is heated over medium heat. Add a special amount of boomslang skin, two-horn horn, pour the tincture from the lacewing. We pour the hair of the person in whom we want to turn into a cauldron. The potion is ready.
Love potion
The love potion in Harry Potter is known as amortation. There are other love potions, but amortence is mentioned in the book.
Ron Weasley ate the sweets Harry had given and fell in love with Romilda Wayne. According to Professor Slughorn, amortation does not cause love, but only terrible power, an attraction to another person. This is the danger of this potion.
Amortization is very difficult to calculate. It has a light mother-of-pearl color and a pleasant smell of what a particular person especially likes, who is able to fall under the influence of this love drink.
To prepare amortation, you will need the following ingredients:
- 250-300 grams of pink lemonade;
- a glass of strawberries or raspberries;
- juice or carbonated drink (0.3 L);
- chocolate or whipped cream.
Truth serum
In Harry Potter books, truth serum is used to find out information that a person will never tell himself. In the book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore uses this potion to find out about Voldemort from Barty Crouch Jr., and in the Order of the Phoenix, the new director of Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge, pours out information from children about where he is hiding. Dumbledore.
Severus Snape confessed to Potter that he would gladly use this potion to find out all the secrets from Harry. But it was impossible to do. Serum was forbidden to apply to children. The official permission to use the potion must be issued by the Ministry of Magic. As you can see from the book and the film, the characters of Harry Potter used truth serum bypassing the Ministry of Magic. However, Snape did not risk using the potion for personal purposes.
The truth serum is a colorless, odorless liquid, three drops of which can open the mouth of the most inveterate silent man. It’s easy to make a potion. The main difficulty is that the truth serum must be given time to insist, and all because of the feathers of the bolt nut.
Fluid luck
Meet this potion in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The official name is Felix Felicis.
Fluid luck is a potion that brings success to the person who drinks it. However, making a potion is not so easy. If you make a mistake with the ingredients, the liquid can lead to dire consequences.
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Professor Slughorn said that he himself accepted liquid luck twice in his life:
Twice in my life, ”Slughorn answered. “Once when I was twenty-four years old, and once again when I was fifty-seven.” Two tablespoons at breakfast. Two perfect days.
Liquid luck is better to insist a few months after preparation. The inventor of the potion is Sigmund Budge, who left the recipe for his greatest creation:
- Mix the ognevitsa egg with the onion juice, horseradish, stir it all.
- Add egg shells, thyme, grated outgrowths of Strawberry.
- Then heat the boiler, put the ordinary root, heat the boiler.
That's the whole recipe for cooking good luck.
Living death
With a potion called "living death" again we encounter in the book "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Harry Potter brews the potion using a textbook he inherited from the Half-Blood Prince, wins the contest for the best drink of living death, and receives the potion Felix Felicis as a gift.
Living death can lull a person or any creature for a long time period. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a three-headed dog guarded the entrance to the dungeon, but Professor Squirell made a living death to steal the Sorcerer's Stone and resurrect Voldemort. To do this, he came up with a plan according to which living death was to euthanize the animal so that he could pass the dog unnoticed. But we know that he did not succeed.
The composition of the potion includes valerian and asphodel root, special beans (drowsiness), wormwood tincture.
Other potions
In the world of Harry Potter, a lot of potions are used, some of which we easily remember, and some pass unnoticed before the reader's eye.
Here is the description and name of the potions from Harry Potter:
- A bald pepper potion was used to treat colds; dried and grated red peppers were one of the main ingredients.
- Potion of forgetfulness - erased memory, and a person forgot what happened to him in the past. Harry Potter used it against Professor Lokons in the book The Chamber of Secrets.
- Potion of Aging - You can grow old for a short time. The Weasley brothers in the Goblet of Fire used this potion to compete, but that did not help them.
- Star anise extract - wounds on the body quickly heal and heal.
- Kissing Potion - provokes a person to kisses.
Here is an example of the brightest and most memorable potions in the Harry Potter universe.