Found
within this encyclopedia are potions strange and wonderful. Those whose
titles appear in bright green are named in the books. The others are referred
to but not named. Ingredients are listed where known, but even if Muggles
would gather and brew the correct herbs, insects, and other matierials,
they would not be able to create the potions listed here. The most important
ingredient to any magic is the magical power of the wizard creating the
effect.
Aging
Potion
Causes the person
drinking it to grow older. The more Aging Potion one drinks, the more one
ages.
-
Fred and George Weasley and Lee Jordan
took a few drops of Aging Potion in an attempt to con the Age
Line around the Goblet
of Fire into thinking that they were a few months older. The Line wasn't
fooled. They were thrown back out of the circle, then they sprouted full
beards. (GF12)
antidotes
ingredients vary, but often
include mandrakes
There are antidotes
for many poisons and for potions effects.
boil
cure potion
Dried nettles, crushed snake
fangs, stewed horned slugs, porcupine quills (added after taking the cauldron
off the fire)
Simple potion to cure boils.
-
taught to First Years in their first
Potions classes with Snape. (SS8)
-
If you add the porcupine quill before
you take the cauldron off the fire, the mixture produces clouds of acid
green smoke and a loud hissing, melts the cauldron, and burns holes in
people's shoes. This happened to Neville, who was splashed by it and sprouted
angry red boils.
-
c.f. Furnunculus
(spell)
burn-healing
paste
Medical
magic: this is an orange paste is used to heal burns.
cleaning
solutions, magical
Cleaning and polishing
is usually accomplished with magical means, including various potions
-
diluted Bundimun
secretion (FB)
-
Mrs.
Scower's Magical Mess Remover
-
one of the twelve
uses of dragons' blood is rumored to be a cleaner (interviews with Steve
Kloves about JKR's contributions to the script of SS/f)
-
when Ron had to
polish awards in the trophy room, he came back into the dormitory smelling
of metal polish because he was not allowed to use magic for it (CS
-
In preparation
for the visit by the delegations from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, the castle
was spiffed up. Armor was polished and oiled so it didn't squeak when it
moved. Some of the more dingy paintings had been scrubbed so that their
subjects sat with their faces pink from the effects.
Confusing
Concoction
Effect apparently
is to cause confusion.
Deflating
Draught
Antiote to swelling
solution
-
Snape has some on hand while the second
years are mixing up Swelling Solutions, which turns
out to be a handy thing. (CS10)
Draught
of the Living Death
asphodel in an infusion of
wormwood
Causes someone
to fall into a deep sleep.
Elixer
of Life
ingredients unknown, but
it is derived from the Philosopher's Stone
The Elixer of
Life grants immortality for as long as it's imbibed. When a person stops
drinking it, they will die.
-
Nicolas Flamel and his wife have lived
over 650 years by drinking Elixer of Life (SS13)
-
Voldemort seeks immortality, and stealing
the Philosopher's Stone was one way he hoped to attain it (SS
Exploding
Fluid
ingredients include Erumpent
fluid
Effect unknown
(well, it explodes of course, but besides that)
Forgetfulness
Potion
Effect uncertain,
probably makes a person forget things
Hair-Raising
Potion
ingredients include rat tails
Exact effect unknown
Ingredients
Potion ingredients
are available for student use from the Student Store cupboard.
Students also buy their own ingredients as part of their school supplies,
and purchase additional materials and refills every year. The Apothecary
in Diagon Alley is where many Wizards buy their potion-making supplies.
Snape maintains his own private stores which include ingredients not available
in the Student Store Cupboard, including Boomslang Skin and Gillyweed.
Abyssinian
shrivelfig
needs to be
peeled (CS15)
aconite
(also called
monkshood and wolfbane) (SS8)
Antipodean
Opaleye dragon
eggshells
(FB)
armadillo
bile
used in Wit-Sharpening
Potion (GF27)
Ashwinder
eggs
(FB) frozen
asphodel,
root of
(SS8)
powdered
belladonna,
essense of
(GF10)
bezoar
(SS8, GF)
comes from
the stomach of a goat, protects from most poisons
bicorn
horn
powdered (CS10)
Billywig
stings
(FB) dried
black
beetle eyes
(SS
boomslang
skin
shredded (CS10)
bubotubor
pus (GF)
good against
stubborn acne; yellowish, smells of petrol
Bundimun
secretion
(FB)
caterpillars
(PA7) sliced
daisy
roots
(PA7) chopped
dragon
hide, blood,
heart, liver, horn (FB,
Erumpent
horns, tails,
and Exploding Fluid (FB)
fluxweed
(CS10) picked
at full moon
frog
brains
(CS
gillyweed
(GF
eating a wad
of this grows gills and webbed fingers and toes so that a person can swim
and breathe underwater. Native to the Mediterranean Sea.
ginger
roots (GF27)
cut
Graphorn
horn
(FB) powdered
horned
toads
Neville
had to disembowel a barrel of these for Snape
horned
slugs
(SS8)
Jobberknoll
feathers
for Memory
Potions and Truth Serums (FB)
knotgrass
(CS10, 11)
lacewing
flies
(CS10) stewed
21 days
leeches
(CS10,11)
leech juice
(PA7)
lionfish,
spine of (GF10)
mandrake
An important
plant which is used as an ingedient in the Restorative Draught (CS
monkshood
(see aconite)
nettles
dried (SS8)
gathered in
Queerditch
Marsh for nettle tea (QA)
porcupine quills
(SS8)
puffer-fish
eyes
(CS11)
rat
tails, spleen
rat spleen
(PA7)
tails - used
in hair-raising potion (CS
Romanian
Longhorn dragon
horn
(FB) powdered
scarab
beetles
(GF27) crushed
shrivelfig
Abyssinian
(PA7) skinned
snake
fangs
crushed (SS8)
spiders
(CS
tubeworms
(CS9)
Harry
had to stay behind in Potions and scrape tubeworms off a desk
unicorn
horns, tail hair
horn (PA
tail hair
used for wands (SS
wolfsbane
(see aconite)
Scott
Cunningham's "Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs" informs us that a folk
name for the highly poisonous Wolf's Bane is "Dumbledore's Delight"
wormwood
(SS8)
Love
Potion
ingredients include frozen
Ashwinder eggs (FB
Causes the person
who drinks it to fall in love with someone.
-
Lockhart suggested that (CS13)
-
Love potions are against Hogwarts
school rules
-
(PA5, GF27, FB)
Mandrake
Restorative Draft
ingredients include Mandrake,
of course
This powerful
antidote will revive people who have been Petrified.
Mature Mandrakes are needed for this
potion, which Snape brews in May, 1993, to restore the people who were
Petrified by the Basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets (CS9)
There has been some discussion as to
how Petrified people would be able to drink a potion. Clearly this particular
concoction is not always ingested. Perhaps Madam Pomfrey applied the potion
to the skin of the victims.
Memory
Potions
ingredients: include Jobberknoll
feathers
Effect unknown
(FB)
Mrs. Scower's
Magical Mess Remover
Magical cleaning
product.
used by Filch for variuous cleaning
jobs. It wouldn't remove the foot-high painted letters on the corridor
wall near where Mrs. Norris was Petrified, however (CS
advertised at the Quidditch World Cup
(GF
stored by the case in various broom
closets around the castle (GF
Pepperup
Potion
Relieves symptoms
of the cold or flu.
Madam Pomfrey dispensed quite a lot
of this as flu season hit the castle. It leaves the person's hair smoking
(CS8)
it would seem that this potion doesn't
actually cure the common cold. If it did, Filch wouldn't have had to suffer
with his case of the flu in October, 1992 (CS
(GF26, 35)
photograph
potions
If you develop
normal Muggle photographs in certain potions, the resulting images will
move.
Colin Creevey discovered this in his
first year at Hogwarts. He was pretty excited about it. (CS6)
plants,
magical
The ingredients
for many potions come from plants with magical qualities.
Polyjuice
Potion
ingredients: lacewing flies
stewed 21 days, leeches, powdered bicorn horn, knotgrass, fluxweed picked
at full moon, boomslang skin, a bit of who you want to turn into
"poly"Gr. many + juice
Transforms a person
to look exactly like someone else.
This spell is found in the book Moste
Potente Potions, which is in the Restricted Section of the library
at Hogwarts (CS
Crouch Jr. uses Polyjuice Potion to
impersonate Moody (GF
Quodpot
solution
In the pots used
as goals in the game of Quodpot, this solution keeps the Quod from
exploding
(FB)
Scintillating
Solution
Effect unknown
One of the students who found the Kwikspell
course helpful wrote that people were now begging for her recipe for Scintillating
Solution. (CS8)
Shrinking
Solution
ingredients: chopped daisy
roots, skinned shrivelfig, sliced caterpillar, one rat spleen, dash of
leech juice
Makes things shrink
in size
(PA7)
"Skele-Gro"
"skeleton" + "grow" (sounds
like a brand name)
Medical
magic: Potion which regrows bones. The effect takes about eight hours
and can be quite painful.
When Lockhart removed all the bones
from Harry's arm, Madam Pomfrey gave him Skele-Gro to grow them back. It
took all night.
Skele-Gro comes in a large bottle and
is dispensed by the steaming beaker-full. It burns the mouth as it goes
down. Regrowing bones is a painful process, and Harry felt stabbing pains
in his arm, as if it were full of large splinters. (CS10)
Ron thought maybe Hagrid had drunk too
much of this as a child, making him larger than everyone else (GF
In CS/f, the bottle has this on the
label:
1100 Drops
Bone Regenerator
SKELE-GRO
Bone-Fide Results Everytime
Sold Only by Rubens Winikus and Company
Inc.
Sleekeasy's
Hair Potion
Used to style
hair.
Hermione used this to style her hair
for the Yule Ball (GF
c.f. Lockhart
dreamed of one day selling his own line of hair care products (CS
Sleeping
Draft/Draught/Potion
Potion which causes
a person to fall into a deep sleep
-
Hermione filled two chocolate cakes
with Sleeping Draught, and Harry and Ron used them to knock out Crabbe
and Goyle (CS12)
-
a Sleeping Potion is a purple potion
which Harry drank after his ordeal with Voldemort in the Third Task. He
didn't drink it all, so he was still awake when Dumbledore was arguing
with Fudge (GF36)
-
The dragons for the First Task were
given Sleeping Drafts to knock them our for transport to Hogwarts. (GF19)
SEE Draught of the Living Death
Swelling
Solution
Causes something
to get bigger.
The second year students were making
this when Harry threw a firecracker into Goyle's cauldron to create a diversion.
Where the solution splashed, people's arms, noses, eyes, etc. were enlarged
grotesquely. The antidote was a Deflating Draft (CS10)
Truth
Potion/Serum
ingredients: can include
Jobberknoll feathers (FB)
Force a person
to tell the truth.
Truth Potion (GF27) (Truth Serum - FB)
Veritaserum
Veritaserum
"veritas" L. truth
The most powerful
Truth Serum available.
A Truth Potion so powerful that three
drops would have you spilling your innermost secrets
Use of this potion is controlled by
very strict Ministry guidelines (GF27)
Dumbledore had Snape use it on Barty
Crouch Jr. (GF35)
Voldemort's
potions
ingredients
In his unnatural
quest to achieve immortality, Voldemort used three different potions:
-
unicorn blood: Voldemort induced Quirrell to kill unicorns and drink their
blood to allow the Dark Lord to survive. Unicorn blood will give only a
cursed life because you have killed something defenseless and pure to save
yourself. Voldemort didn't care, of course, because he was only trying
to stay alive until he could drink the Elixer of Life from the Philosopher's
Stone. (SS
-
potion which kept Voldemort alive from the time Wormtail returned to him
until he could be reborn; it consisted of unicorn blood and snake venom
milked from Nagini (GF1, 33)
-
potion to restore Voldemort to his body - June 24, 1995: bone of his father,
blood of his enemy, flesh of his servant (GF32)
Wit-Sharpening
Potion
ingredients: ground scarab
beetle, cut up ginger root, armadillo bile
Effect is presumably
to make a person think more clearly.
The fourth year Potions class was making
this potion shortly after the second task. (GF27)
Wolfsbane
Potion
While this potion
can't cure a person from being a werewolf, if does prevent the extremely
dangerous dementia which accompanies the transformation.
A fairly recent invention, very difficult
to make. Snape makes it for Lupin. (PA18)
wound-cleaning
potion
Medical potion
used on cuts and other open wounds.
-
Used to clean out Harry's wounds from
his bout with the dragon in the First
Task (purple, smokes and stings) (GF20)
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