Harry Potter question

[brak666]

So I'm watching Harry Potter and wondering about potions. Are they really magic? I mean, from everything I've read in the books they just seem like an obscure branch of Chemistry. They don't seem to require any particular use of magic on the part of the person preparing them. If a muggle had a book and the right ingredients is there anything to stop them from brewing up a potion?

Comments

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

That's a good question.

Given the precise nature of potion making - timing, temperature, direction of stir, size of ingredient and the fact that some charms and spells require gestures - I'm going to assume that there is a magical skill component. But that's also because I'm using Neville's disasters in Potions class as proof he's actually very powerful - Crabbe and Goyle's potions just don't *work*.

However, once made, I don't think one needs to have magic to use them. Examples are that Filch uses Mrs. Skours, which seems to be a cleaning potion and Dudley, who is affected by Ton-Tongue Toffee. If they required magic, they wouldn't work on Muggles or for Squibs. So it's like storing magic in a bottle that anyone can use.

They require both skill and magic, though, to make.

*nods*

[barbana.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering the same thing, like they never say any spells that we know of in the books.

chemistry is muggle magic :)

[sorka42.livejournal.com]

Like pastery baking, potion making seems to be a form of chemistry. The difference being that the average muggle doesn't have the components avialible to them that a wizard does. And from what it seem like in the books, the wizarding world makes damn sure that those things, like pheonix feathers, wizard mandrake, and anything else that appears animate never falls into muggle hands.

I don't see any reason why a muggle *couldn't* make a potion if they had the right stuff.

[smaragdgrun.livejournal.com]

This is actually something I've been thinking about putting in a story -- Snape gives a lesson on potion making.

"And why, Mr. Potter, can you not merely conjure a potion into existence? Or transfigure one potion into another?"

"Ummm..."

"As I thought." Snape wheeled on him. "Because it is the process that is magic."

Okay, no great prose there, but I think that's why potions cannot be made by muggles -- if the could, they could be conjured.