Magic Laws

[Stephanie Roark Keener]

No: HPFGUIDX 17543

On the muggles/squibs making potions thing:
I think that they probably could, IF they could find the 
ingredients.  But, a lot of potions require magical herbs, bits of 
Fantastic Beasts in addition to ground up spiders, etc.  Because non-
magical people just can't "see" the right way, they would never be 
able to locate the all the gillyweed or unicorn horn powder and other 
things for which the recipe might call.  You could proabably go out 
and thrust the directions for a Sleeping Drought (god, if I could 
only get some for my toddler... ;) )into the hands of about a 
thousand Muggles, and they, upon seeing Boomslang Skin on the 
ingredients list, would just toss it anyway. 

Here's another question(s) though:  Have we ever seen a potion that 
also needs an incantation said over it?  (Doesn't that happen in 
Wicca sometimes?)  Would that fall into Spell or Potion? 

Stephanie


--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Andrea <ra_1013 at y...> wrote:
> --- Amanda Lewanski <editor at t...> wrote:
> > So for Potions, yes, I think you must have a talent
> > for it, and given
> > the nature of the beast, it must be a magical
> > talent. Harry and Ron can
> > "cook." Hermione's a good cook. Snape's a chef.
> 
> A truly excellent analogy, Amanda.  I have discovered
> the great divide between cooking and being a chef
> since starting to live on my own, and my greatest
> desire is to one day reach the level of a decent cook.
>  Chef is *totally* out of my range. <g>  This could be
> why even Hermione isn't considered a "worthy pupil"
> (as was discussed in another thread) by Snape.  She
> may have a bit of talent in pulling things together,
> but she's not a chef yet.
> 
> > Well, this is going to sound loopy. [I'm certain you
> > all thought I was a
> > paragon of sanity and stability up to this point.] I
> > think part of what
> > makes a spell difficult is the degree to which it
> > imposes your will on
> > the world.
> 
> Makes perfect sense.  Moody says, after all, that the
> killing curse requires "a fair bit of magic behind
> it", just knowing the spell itself wasn't enough.  I
> read that as it required quite a bit of willpower to
> execute.  This would also be why the Imperius curse
> can be thrown off, if your will is stronger than the
> one casting the spell.
> 
> > As for what makes a Charm, my hazy idea has been
> > blown by Wingardium
> > Leviosa (unless, although Flitwick the Charms
> > teacher taught the class,
> > it was an "intro to magic" class). But here goes.
> > Charms seem to fall
> > into the category of spells worked on others. 
> 
> I was thinking more than "charms" was mostly spells
> worked on objects rather than people. (The only
> exception I've noted would be cheering charms.) 
> Wingardium Leviosa, Summoning, Banishing, Flitwick
> training the doors to recognize Sirius, etc.  But I
> think the best explanation so far is that "charms"
> refers to general spells.  (ie, "English" class
> doesn't just teach the English language - it teaches
> grammar, literature, writing, etc.)
> 
> > However, most of the wandless magic we've seen has
> > to do with the person
> > casting it. Animagus spells and apparation are cast
> > on oneself. Most of
> > the things Harry did were to himself--growing his
> > hair back, putting
> > himself on the roof, etc. And the things he did to
> > others were in
> > self-defense.
> 
> Turning the teacher's hair blue?  I'm not sure what
> his "self-defense" for that one was! <g>  Shrinking
> the sweater wasn't *quite* doing a spell on himself,
> but it was close, I guess.  An interesting theory,
> though.  
> I've always thought that the requirement for doing
> wandless magic was having some kind of strong emotion
> behind it, sort of like the emotion doing the
> amplification factor of the wand, but without the
> added focus a wand would give.  He flew onto the roof
> when he was afraid of Dudley's gang, he shrunk the
> sweater and grew back his hair when he was embarrassed
> and afraid of getting teased at school, he made the
> glass on the boa's cage vanish when Piers called the
> Dursleys attention to the "weird" thing he was doing
> with the snake (which would lead to punishment).  
> 
> 
> 
> Andrea
> 
> =====
> "Reality is for people who lack imagination."
> 
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