• Character Sacharissa Tugwood was an inventor of Beautifying Potions and the discoverer of the pimple-curing properties of bubotuber pus (FW). https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 —… Read More
• Potion ingredients Salamander blood is used in Strengthening Solution. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe: RSS… Read More
• Character Wizard of the 16th century who had been persecuted by a village, so for revenge he poured Shrinking Solution down their well and spent the day chasing tiny villagers while wearing hobnail boots (BoP) https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast:… Read More
• Character Theseus Scamander was the older brother of Newt Scamander, a well-known hero of World War One, and an Auror for the Ministry of Magic in the 1920s. When Newt Scamander appeared before MACUSA in 1926 after creatures escaped from his case, the British Envoy recognized his last name, as did… Read More
• Potion ingredients Crushed, these are used in Wit-Sharpening Potion. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe: RSS… Read More
• Spells Used to identify the ingredients of the target potion or the enchantments on a target object. May also be used to untransfigure those who seek to hide their true identities.   https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in… Read More
• Common items • Hogwarts academics Students typically carry bags filled with books, parchment, quills, homework,  wands, potions ingredients and ink. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Potions Effect unknown, but mentioned in materials for a Kwikspell Course marketed to Squibs. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Plants • Potion ingredients A potion ingredient used to make Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts. The plant is supposed to inflame the brain, and therefore useful to producing hot-headedness and recklessness (OP18). https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window |… Read More
• Caves and vaults Inaccessible except by magic, this cave complex on the coast was visited by young Tom Riddle while he was on an outing to the coast with children from the orphanage (circa 1930). While there he terrorized two of his classmates, Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop (HBP13). Many years later,… Read More
• Character Gaspard Shingleton was the celebrated inventor of the Self-Stirring Cauldron (FW). https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Potion ingredients Spines from a magical fish. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe: RSS… Read More
• Potions Effect: Makes things shrink in size, apparently reversing the aging process as well.  Harry had to write a particularly nasty essay on Shrinking Potions as one of his holiday assignments for Potions the summer before his third year (PA1). Administered to Trevor in Potions, the toad didn’t just become… Read More
• Potions Skele-gro is a medical potion which regrows bones. The effect takes about eight hours and can be quite painful. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 —… Read More
• Games, toys, and jokes A range of sweets to make the eater ill; each different category looks like a different type of sweet and causes a different kind of illness. Each sweet is colour-coded so that one end causes the illness and the other makes the effect lift (OP6). https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3… Read More
• Potions Used to style hair. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe: RSS… Read More
• Wizarding culture Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion is a concoction which helps manage and style hair (GF24). The motto is “two drops tames even the most bothersome barnet.” Sleakeazy’s was invented by Fleamont Potter in the mid-1900s and the company he built to manufacture and market the potion was very successful (Pm). Read More
• Businesses The Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion Company was founded by Fleamont Potter, grandfather of Harry Potter and the inventor of Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion, which “quadrupled the family gold.” When he retired he sold the company for a “vast profit” which added to the family fortune in the family vault at… Read More
• Potions Sleeping draughts, or sleeping potions, cause the drinker to fall into a deep sleep. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Magical effects Lockhart wrote about slow-acting venoms in his book Gadding with Ghouls (CS10) https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Character Horace Slughorn is a teacher at Hogwarts. He served as Potions Master until 1981, then again from 1996. He was also Head of Slytherin house for the school year 1997-1998. At the beginning of Harry’s 6th year at Hogwarts, Dumbledore and Harry convince a genial wizard named Horace Slughorn to come… Read More
• Hogwarts castle and grounds • Rooms, chambers, and floors Horace Slughorn takes up the Potions job in Harry’s sixth year. His office is described as being a very nice office, much larger than the usual teacher’s study (HBP15). He holds an exclusive and very posh Christmas party there in December 1995 (HBP15). https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3… Read More
• Podcast Episode
Posted by in Harry Potter Lexicon Minute
Love is obviously a powerful theme of the Harry Potter novels, but today I’d just like to talk about the powerful love potion amortentia, and how it induces the smell of what most attracts us. We first encounter amortentia in Slughorn’s classroom during his first potions lesson,… Read More
• Character Witch who writes in to Tilden Toots’ herbology radio show “Toots’ Shoots ‘n’ Roots” to ask about a sick Flitterbloom plant (JKR). https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download… Read More
• Potion ingredients https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe: RSS… Read More
• Character Eileen Prince Snape was Severus Snape’s mother, a witch who appeared to be unhappily married to a Muggle (HBP13). A picture of Eileen as a fifteen-year old is described as skinny and “simultaneously cross and sullen, with heavy brows and a long, pallid face” (HBP25). She was the… Read More
• Podcast Episode
Posted by in Canon discussion / Essays
Presented at Lumos 2006 Las Vegas, Nevada 29 July 2006[*] How wonderful it is that the second chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is titled “Spinner’s End.” Wonderful, because, if read ironically, it refers not only to a place, but to Severus Snape’s fate, a rubric revealing that the… Read More
• Houses and addresses This brick row house is almost certainly where Severus Snape grew up, and then lived alone for most of his adult life. Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange sought him out here in 1996, when he made an Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa that he would kill Dumbledore if Draco failed to… Read More
• Hogwarts castle and grounds • Rooms, chambers, and floors If one follows the narrow stone staircase leading from the Entrance Hall to the dungeons, the entrance to Snape’s office is halfway down the cold passageway leading from the foot of that staircase (CS5). Snape’s office is adjacent to the Potions classroom, or at least close enough that Hermione… Read More
• Character Severus Snape was Potions Master, Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and Head of Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; he succeeded Albus Dumbledore as Headmaster. He was personally killed by Lord Voldemort and his snake, Nagini. Snape… Read More
• Plants • Potion ingredients Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica) is a member of the yarrow family. The white flowers bloom in the summer. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)… Read More
• Potions The following potions are known as solutions. Scintillation Solution Shrinking Solution Strengthening Solution Swelling Solution https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Character Leticia Somnolens was a Hag who used the Draught of Living Death to put a princess to sleep (FW). https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 —… Read More
• Plants • Potion ingredients The sopophorous is a magical plant which grows in gloomy marshlands. The roots and the beans are used in potion-making. The white bean produces a silver juice which has magical properties. If drunk straight, the juice will cause a person to lose their memory. The juice is an ingredient in… Read More
• Quote “Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry,” said Fred earnestly.  “Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever.” https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window |… Read More
• Potion ingredients The eyes are used in Swelling Solution (see). https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Podcast Episode
Posted by in Essays
Note: This piece is not about the class Charms, and I’ve left aside the vexing question of the difference between Charms and Transfiguration (e.g., why are winged keys a Charm and giant moving chess pieces are a Transfiguration?). Rather, I’m looking at Charms in the general sense, as a synonym for spells, that is,… Read More
• Plants • Potion ingredients Squill is a mundane flower whose a bulb is used as a potion ingredient. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Character Erica Stainwright was a popular witch who sold fake cleaning potions to unsuspecting householders in the 1950s (JKR, WoM). https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration:… Read More
• Potion ingredients https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe: RSS… Read More
• Towns A small village in Gloucestershire, England. The Potter family originated here. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Plants When poked with a sharp instrument, the Mimbulus mimbletonia plant shoots out thick green sap from every pulsating boil. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 —… Read More
• Magical objects A cauldron that stirs itself. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe: RSS… Read More
• Potions Unknown, but presumably increases the user’s physical or magical strength. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Event Harry and the others in his Year sit their Ordinary Wizarding Level (O.W.L.) examinations. The first day is Charms, with a written exam in the morning and a practical exam in the afternoon. O.W.L.s occurs over the span of two weeks. Here’s the full schedule. First week of O.W.L.s: Monday… Read More
• Thing A cupboard in the Potions classroom filled with ingredients for use in class. https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe:… Read More
• Potions Causes something to get bigger https://media.blubrry.com/hplex/media.hp-lexicon.org/podcasts/archive/hplm-201901-book-two-thoughts.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:52 — 5.4MB)Subscribe: RSS… Read More