Post by Prof. Destiny Smith on Apr 25, 2009 23:27:29 GMT -6
Pepperup Potion
This is a potion used by Madam Pomfrey to treat colds, although it is unclear whether it simply addresses the symptoms or actually provides a cure. As October came on during Harry's second year, a spate of colds swept through Hogwarts, and Madam Pomfrey treated the sufferers with Pepperup Potion [COS8].
It feels very hot when drunk, and although it provides immediate relief, it does cause large amounts of steam to come from the drinker's ears for some time afterwards [COS8, GOF26]. When Ginny Weasley was bullied into taking some by Percy, the steam coming out from under her bright red hair made it look like her head was on fire [COS8].
Madam Pomfrey also administered the potion to people who had been in the water for a long period of time during the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament, which indicates that it is also useful for treating exposure. Both Ron and Harry were given some to perk them up after their ordeal in the lake [GOF26].
Photograph Developing Fluid
Even though Colin Creevey had an ordinary Muggle camera, he was told by a boy in his year that he could still produce wizard-style moving photographs by developing them in the correct fluid. Whether this is true or not was never made clear, but we'll give Colin's friend the benefit of the doubt and so the magical Photograph Developing Fluid is included here [COS6].
Polyjuice Potion
Ingredients: Fluxweed, Horn of Bicorn (powdered), Knotgrass, Lacewing flies, Leeches, Skin of Boomslang (shredded), plus a bit of whoever you want to assume the appearance of
This potion allows the drinker to assume the appearance of another person. The effect lasts for exactly one hour after the potion has been drunk, but as Bartemius Crouch Jnr showed when impersonating Alastor Moody, repeat doses can be taken indefinitely. This does, of course, require a large supply of Polyjuice Potion [COS9,10, 12; GOF35].
Perhaps the hardest ingredient to obtain for this potion is a part of the person you want to look like. There are other complications, however. The Fluxweed has to be picked at full moon, and the Lacewing flies stewed for 21 days before the potion is made. All the details of how to make it are included in Moste Potente Potions, a book that can be found in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library [COS10].
The part of who you want to look like is the last ingredient to be added, and is only put in just before the potion is drunk. The remainder of the potion takes the full 21 days to prepare, due to the need to stew the Lacewing flies for this length of time. Before the last ingredient is added, the Polyjuice Potion is as thick as treacle and looks like dark mud. When the last ingredient is added, it hisses and froths, before changing colour. The colour it takes on depends on the person whose bit of body you have put in [COS12]. Goyle's looked like bogies, whilst Harry's turned gold [COS12, DH4].
Polyjuice Potion has been used on numerous occasions over the years. The first came when Harry, Ron and Hermione wanted to sneak into the Slytherin common room to question Malfoy to see if he was the Heir of Slytherin. Luckily for them, Hermione had been listening during Potions classes when Snape had mentioned Polyjuice, whilst Harry and Ron hadn't heard of it. Harry and Ron successfully turned into Crabbe and Goyle, and gained entrance to the common room, although they had to make a sharp exit when the potion started to wear off. Hermione failed to transform into Millicent Bulstode, however, having accidentally got a hair from Millicent's cat rather than herself [COS12].
This proved disastrous for Hermione, as Polyjuice Potion cannot handle animal transformations. The effect was partial and semi-permanent, and Hermione required over a month of treatment in the hospital wing under the careful supervision of Madam Pomfrey before she recovered [COS13].
Bartemius Crouch Jnr successfully used Polyjuice Potion for almost an entire school year when posing as Alastor Moody and teaching at Hogwarts. For this he required large quantities of the necessary ingredients, which he stole from Snape's personal stores (and for which Harry got the blame). He maintained Moody's appearance by constantly swigging the potion from a hip flask [GOF12, 27].
In both the cases of Crouch's transformation into Moody, and Harry and Ron turning into Crabbe and Goyle, the potion changed their voices as well as their appearance. Anything external to the body does not change, however, and so different clothes are required if the person whose form is taken is a different size to the drinker. Crouch also had to take the real Moody's magic eye and wooden leg to fix to his own transformed body [COS12; GOF35]. In addition, during the Seven Potters operation, all of the Harry impersonators required glasses [DH4].
When Draco Malfoy was using the Room of Requirement to try to fix the Vanishing Cabinet in his 6th year, he used Crabbe and Goyle, disguised as various younger female students, as lookouts, although they didn't seem too happy about the transformations they were asked to make. On this occasion, rather than making the potion, Malfoy simply stole it during Slughorn's first Potions lesson [HBP9, 21].
The Seven Potters operation, designed to get Harry safely from the Dursleys' house to The Burrow before his Horcrux quest, required six people to use Polyjuice Potion to look like Harry. The six were: Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Fleur and Mundungus. Moody brought the potion and handed it out in eggcup-sized glasses [DH4]. Shortly afterwards, Harry attended Bill and Fleur's wedding Polyjuiced to look like a Muggle boy from the village, and introduced as "Cousin Barney" [DH8].
Harry, Ron and Hermione used Polyjuice Potion to impersonate Mafalda Hopkirk, Reg Cattermole and Albert Runcorn when they broke into the Ministry of Magic to retrieve Slytherin's Locket [DH12].
Finally, Hermione also used the Potion to disguise herself as Bellatrix Lestrange when she, Harry, Ron and Griphook broke into Gringotts to steal Hufflepuff's Cup. She used a hair that had become attached to her sweater during the Malfoy Manor escapade [DH26].
Protective Potions (Fake)
Ingredients: Bubotuber Pus, Gravy
Following the return of Voldemort, a vast market appeared for protective potions, most of which were fake and did nothing. Small-time crooks like Mundungus Fletcher sold them to the frightened hordes, who apparently didn't notice that they were often made out of gravy [HBP5].
Scintillation Solution
Effect unknown. However, Madam Z Nettles of Topsham, a satisfied customer of the Kwikspell course, happily wrote to tell them that her recipe for this potion was now in great demand [COS8].
Shrinking Solution
Ingredients: Caterpillar, Daisy roots, Leech juice, Rat spleen, Shrivelfig
This is an acid green potion which is on the 3rd year syllabus at Hogwarts. Harry's class made it in the first Potions lesson they had after Malfoy had been injured by Buckbeak during Care of Magical Creatures. Malfoy was milking his injury and Snape made Harry and Ron do most of his work for him. Snape also used the lesson to bully Neville particularly badly. Neville was making a mess of his potion, and Snape told him that he was going to feed the final product to Trevor, his toad. If Neville had made it correctly, Trevor would turn into a tadpole. If he hadn't, Trevor would be poisoned. In the event, Hermione managed to secretly help out Neville, and the potion worked perfectly. Snape twigged and took five points from Gryffindor [POA7].
Trevor's transformation into a tadpole suggests that the effect of this potion is to made things younger rather than smaller. As such, it has the opposite effect to Aging Potion.
In addition to making the potion in class, Snape set an essay on the subject for summer homework between the second and theird years. Harry referred to the potion as Shrinking Potion rather than Shrinking Solution at the time, but it is likely to be the same thing [POA1].
Skele-Gro
This causes lost bones to re-grow, which is a slow and painful process. Harry had to undergo this treatment after the Quidditch match against Slytherin in his second year, when Dobby enchanted one of the Bludgers to attack him. The Bludger merely broke his arm, but it was Lockhart's attempts to mend it (against Harry's will of course) that led to the entire removal of all 33 bones in his arm. Lockhart gave up at this point and left the real healing to Madam Pomfrey, although unfortunately growing bones back is far harder than just mending them [COS10].
Skele-Gro does the job, but it takes all night to work, and it isn't any fun taking it. The potion burns as it is drunk, which made Harry cough and splutter as he took it. The process of re-growing the bones also makes it feel as if the limb in question is full of large splinters [COS10].
Five years later, Fleur Weasley treated Griphook using Skele-Gro when he had his legs broken by a falling chandelier at the Malfoy Manor [DH23, 24].
After Rita Skeeter had revealed Hagrid's half-giant heritage in a nasty article in the Daily Prophet, Malfoy remarked that he'd had no idea and had just assumed that Hagrid was a human who had swallowed a bottle of Skele-Gro when he was little [GOF24].
Sleekeazy's Hair Potion
This is used to calm down problem hair so it can be styled. Hermione used liberal amounts of it when she went to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum, with fantastic results. She said it was far too much trouble to do every day, however, so she chose to leave her hair in its usual bushy state the rest of the time [GOF24].
Sleeping Draught/Potion
Causes the drinker to fall asleep. A standard Sleeping Draught differs from the Draught of Living Death, which is a much more powerful version.
Hermione spiked two plump chocolate cakes with Sleeping Draught when Harry and Ron needed to get hair from Crabbe and Goyle for their Polyjuice Potion. Harry and Ron left the cakes on a banister, and sure enough, Crabbe and Goyle stuffed them into their mouths without a second thought. Seconds later they keeled over backwards, unconscious. The swift and strong effect of just this ordinary Sleeping Draught is enough to raise questions about how strong a Draught of Living Death really is - presumably, it is extremely strong [COS12].
Another example of how potent even the standard Sleeping Draught can be comes from the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament. When Hagrid, Olympe and Harry snuck off to get a preview of the Dragons, Charlie Weasley informed them that a Sleeping Draught was used to knock them unconscious for the trip over to Scotland, but now they were awake they were snapping, snarling and being generally extremely vicious [GOF19].
Strengthening Solution
Ingredients: Pomegranate juice, Salamander blood
Effect unknown, but presumably this potion makes the drinker stronger. It could, however, be designed for inanimate objects if the potion was intended to be applied to them. Harry made this potion (very badly) in a 5th year class whilst Snape was being assessed by Umbridge. Umbridge disapproved of teaching this particular potion to the students, and Snape took very little notice of her He did, however, make Harry write an essay on where his potion went wrong, as it had ended up a congealed mess that smelt of burnt rubber [OOTP17].
Strengthening Solution has to be made over a number of days. The class began theirs before the weekend, leaving their mixture to mature before finishing it off in the following lesson [OOTP17].
Swelling Solution
This potion causes whatever it touches to swell up in size. It is on the 2nd year syllabus at Hogwarts.
Harry's class were making this in the Potions lesson when Harry created a diversion so that Hermione could sneak out and steal some ingredients they needed for their Polyjuice Potion from Snape's personal stores. Harry did this by throwing a Filibuster firework into Goyle's cauldron, which then exploded, showering the class with Swelling Solution. Wherever someone got hit, the body part in question swelled up to enormous size and had to be treated with Deflating Draught. Snape was very angry indeed, and Harry was convinced he knew it was him [COS11].
This is a potion used by Madam Pomfrey to treat colds, although it is unclear whether it simply addresses the symptoms or actually provides a cure. As October came on during Harry's second year, a spate of colds swept through Hogwarts, and Madam Pomfrey treated the sufferers with Pepperup Potion [COS8].
It feels very hot when drunk, and although it provides immediate relief, it does cause large amounts of steam to come from the drinker's ears for some time afterwards [COS8, GOF26]. When Ginny Weasley was bullied into taking some by Percy, the steam coming out from under her bright red hair made it look like her head was on fire [COS8].
Madam Pomfrey also administered the potion to people who had been in the water for a long period of time during the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament, which indicates that it is also useful for treating exposure. Both Ron and Harry were given some to perk them up after their ordeal in the lake [GOF26].
Photograph Developing Fluid
Even though Colin Creevey had an ordinary Muggle camera, he was told by a boy in his year that he could still produce wizard-style moving photographs by developing them in the correct fluid. Whether this is true or not was never made clear, but we'll give Colin's friend the benefit of the doubt and so the magical Photograph Developing Fluid is included here [COS6].
Polyjuice Potion
Ingredients: Fluxweed, Horn of Bicorn (powdered), Knotgrass, Lacewing flies, Leeches, Skin of Boomslang (shredded), plus a bit of whoever you want to assume the appearance of
This potion allows the drinker to assume the appearance of another person. The effect lasts for exactly one hour after the potion has been drunk, but as Bartemius Crouch Jnr showed when impersonating Alastor Moody, repeat doses can be taken indefinitely. This does, of course, require a large supply of Polyjuice Potion [COS9,10, 12; GOF35].
Perhaps the hardest ingredient to obtain for this potion is a part of the person you want to look like. There are other complications, however. The Fluxweed has to be picked at full moon, and the Lacewing flies stewed for 21 days before the potion is made. All the details of how to make it are included in Moste Potente Potions, a book that can be found in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library [COS10].
The part of who you want to look like is the last ingredient to be added, and is only put in just before the potion is drunk. The remainder of the potion takes the full 21 days to prepare, due to the need to stew the Lacewing flies for this length of time. Before the last ingredient is added, the Polyjuice Potion is as thick as treacle and looks like dark mud. When the last ingredient is added, it hisses and froths, before changing colour. The colour it takes on depends on the person whose bit of body you have put in [COS12]. Goyle's looked like bogies, whilst Harry's turned gold [COS12, DH4].
Polyjuice Potion has been used on numerous occasions over the years. The first came when Harry, Ron and Hermione wanted to sneak into the Slytherin common room to question Malfoy to see if he was the Heir of Slytherin. Luckily for them, Hermione had been listening during Potions classes when Snape had mentioned Polyjuice, whilst Harry and Ron hadn't heard of it. Harry and Ron successfully turned into Crabbe and Goyle, and gained entrance to the common room, although they had to make a sharp exit when the potion started to wear off. Hermione failed to transform into Millicent Bulstode, however, having accidentally got a hair from Millicent's cat rather than herself [COS12].
This proved disastrous for Hermione, as Polyjuice Potion cannot handle animal transformations. The effect was partial and semi-permanent, and Hermione required over a month of treatment in the hospital wing under the careful supervision of Madam Pomfrey before she recovered [COS13].
Bartemius Crouch Jnr successfully used Polyjuice Potion for almost an entire school year when posing as Alastor Moody and teaching at Hogwarts. For this he required large quantities of the necessary ingredients, which he stole from Snape's personal stores (and for which Harry got the blame). He maintained Moody's appearance by constantly swigging the potion from a hip flask [GOF12, 27].
In both the cases of Crouch's transformation into Moody, and Harry and Ron turning into Crabbe and Goyle, the potion changed their voices as well as their appearance. Anything external to the body does not change, however, and so different clothes are required if the person whose form is taken is a different size to the drinker. Crouch also had to take the real Moody's magic eye and wooden leg to fix to his own transformed body [COS12; GOF35]. In addition, during the Seven Potters operation, all of the Harry impersonators required glasses [DH4].
When Draco Malfoy was using the Room of Requirement to try to fix the Vanishing Cabinet in his 6th year, he used Crabbe and Goyle, disguised as various younger female students, as lookouts, although they didn't seem too happy about the transformations they were asked to make. On this occasion, rather than making the potion, Malfoy simply stole it during Slughorn's first Potions lesson [HBP9, 21].
The Seven Potters operation, designed to get Harry safely from the Dursleys' house to The Burrow before his Horcrux quest, required six people to use Polyjuice Potion to look like Harry. The six were: Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Fleur and Mundungus. Moody brought the potion and handed it out in eggcup-sized glasses [DH4]. Shortly afterwards, Harry attended Bill and Fleur's wedding Polyjuiced to look like a Muggle boy from the village, and introduced as "Cousin Barney" [DH8].
Harry, Ron and Hermione used Polyjuice Potion to impersonate Mafalda Hopkirk, Reg Cattermole and Albert Runcorn when they broke into the Ministry of Magic to retrieve Slytherin's Locket [DH12].
Finally, Hermione also used the Potion to disguise herself as Bellatrix Lestrange when she, Harry, Ron and Griphook broke into Gringotts to steal Hufflepuff's Cup. She used a hair that had become attached to her sweater during the Malfoy Manor escapade [DH26].
Protective Potions (Fake)
Ingredients: Bubotuber Pus, Gravy
Following the return of Voldemort, a vast market appeared for protective potions, most of which were fake and did nothing. Small-time crooks like Mundungus Fletcher sold them to the frightened hordes, who apparently didn't notice that they were often made out of gravy [HBP5].
Scintillation Solution
Effect unknown. However, Madam Z Nettles of Topsham, a satisfied customer of the Kwikspell course, happily wrote to tell them that her recipe for this potion was now in great demand [COS8].
Shrinking Solution
Ingredients: Caterpillar, Daisy roots, Leech juice, Rat spleen, Shrivelfig
This is an acid green potion which is on the 3rd year syllabus at Hogwarts. Harry's class made it in the first Potions lesson they had after Malfoy had been injured by Buckbeak during Care of Magical Creatures. Malfoy was milking his injury and Snape made Harry and Ron do most of his work for him. Snape also used the lesson to bully Neville particularly badly. Neville was making a mess of his potion, and Snape told him that he was going to feed the final product to Trevor, his toad. If Neville had made it correctly, Trevor would turn into a tadpole. If he hadn't, Trevor would be poisoned. In the event, Hermione managed to secretly help out Neville, and the potion worked perfectly. Snape twigged and took five points from Gryffindor [POA7].
Trevor's transformation into a tadpole suggests that the effect of this potion is to made things younger rather than smaller. As such, it has the opposite effect to Aging Potion.
In addition to making the potion in class, Snape set an essay on the subject for summer homework between the second and theird years. Harry referred to the potion as Shrinking Potion rather than Shrinking Solution at the time, but it is likely to be the same thing [POA1].
Skele-Gro
This causes lost bones to re-grow, which is a slow and painful process. Harry had to undergo this treatment after the Quidditch match against Slytherin in his second year, when Dobby enchanted one of the Bludgers to attack him. The Bludger merely broke his arm, but it was Lockhart's attempts to mend it (against Harry's will of course) that led to the entire removal of all 33 bones in his arm. Lockhart gave up at this point and left the real healing to Madam Pomfrey, although unfortunately growing bones back is far harder than just mending them [COS10].
Skele-Gro does the job, but it takes all night to work, and it isn't any fun taking it. The potion burns as it is drunk, which made Harry cough and splutter as he took it. The process of re-growing the bones also makes it feel as if the limb in question is full of large splinters [COS10].
Five years later, Fleur Weasley treated Griphook using Skele-Gro when he had his legs broken by a falling chandelier at the Malfoy Manor [DH23, 24].
After Rita Skeeter had revealed Hagrid's half-giant heritage in a nasty article in the Daily Prophet, Malfoy remarked that he'd had no idea and had just assumed that Hagrid was a human who had swallowed a bottle of Skele-Gro when he was little [GOF24].
Sleekeazy's Hair Potion
This is used to calm down problem hair so it can be styled. Hermione used liberal amounts of it when she went to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum, with fantastic results. She said it was far too much trouble to do every day, however, so she chose to leave her hair in its usual bushy state the rest of the time [GOF24].
Sleeping Draught/Potion
Causes the drinker to fall asleep. A standard Sleeping Draught differs from the Draught of Living Death, which is a much more powerful version.
Hermione spiked two plump chocolate cakes with Sleeping Draught when Harry and Ron needed to get hair from Crabbe and Goyle for their Polyjuice Potion. Harry and Ron left the cakes on a banister, and sure enough, Crabbe and Goyle stuffed them into their mouths without a second thought. Seconds later they keeled over backwards, unconscious. The swift and strong effect of just this ordinary Sleeping Draught is enough to raise questions about how strong a Draught of Living Death really is - presumably, it is extremely strong [COS12].
Another example of how potent even the standard Sleeping Draught can be comes from the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament. When Hagrid, Olympe and Harry snuck off to get a preview of the Dragons, Charlie Weasley informed them that a Sleeping Draught was used to knock them unconscious for the trip over to Scotland, but now they were awake they were snapping, snarling and being generally extremely vicious [GOF19].
Strengthening Solution
Ingredients: Pomegranate juice, Salamander blood
Effect unknown, but presumably this potion makes the drinker stronger. It could, however, be designed for inanimate objects if the potion was intended to be applied to them. Harry made this potion (very badly) in a 5th year class whilst Snape was being assessed by Umbridge. Umbridge disapproved of teaching this particular potion to the students, and Snape took very little notice of her He did, however, make Harry write an essay on where his potion went wrong, as it had ended up a congealed mess that smelt of burnt rubber [OOTP17].
Strengthening Solution has to be made over a number of days. The class began theirs before the weekend, leaving their mixture to mature before finishing it off in the following lesson [OOTP17].
Swelling Solution
This potion causes whatever it touches to swell up in size. It is on the 2nd year syllabus at Hogwarts.
Harry's class were making this in the Potions lesson when Harry created a diversion so that Hermione could sneak out and steal some ingredients they needed for their Polyjuice Potion from Snape's personal stores. Harry did this by throwing a Filibuster firework into Goyle's cauldron, which then exploded, showering the class with Swelling Solution. Wherever someone got hit, the body part in question swelled up to enormous size and had to be treated with Deflating Draught. Snape was very angry indeed, and Harry was convinced he knew it was him [COS11].