The Complete Idiot's Guide to the World of Harry Potter (35 page)

Skele-Gro, a potion of unknown ingredients given to wizards who need to regrow one or more bones, is an apt wordplay on a Muggle product called HairGro, which, like its wizarding counterpart, encourages a part of the human body to grow at unusual rates. HairGro has the advantage of being a topical product that is applied to the scalp; Skele-Gro is a horrible steaming potion that burns as it goes down and causes the painful regrowing of bones to commence. It is used not to make wizards taller but to regrow limbs that have been severed or otherwise cursed to no longer have working bones in them.

Scientists at UCLA have isolated a natural molecule that encourages bone growth, but it won’t be available as a Muggle potion (er, drug) for another decade.

This potion (ingredients unknown) makes your hair straight and shiny; that is,
sleek.
It is not necessarily
easy
to use, however, as at least one wizard eschews it in favor of a natural, frizzy look. Still, Sleekeazy’s is the Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine of the wizarding world. Note the similarity to the 1920s and 1930s slang “speakeasy,” which referred to a place where alcohol could be consumed illegally during Prohibition.

Every culture has its truth serum; intelligence agencies and psychiatrists in the Muggle world have been using Sodium Pentothal, a sedative that causes deep relaxation and loss of inhibition, for decades, so it’s no wonder the wizarding world has its own version.

From the Latin
veritas,
meaning truth, and the English
serum,
meaning fluid, this truth-telling potion is so potent that only a few drops lead to spilling your guts. The mere threat of Veritaserum keeps students at Hogwarts in line (see Chapter 8 for more on the wizarding school).

With scarab beetles as the main ingredient (see the “Insects and Other Creatures” section for more information), this potion doesn’t necessarily make you smarter, but it does enhance the intelligence you already have.

Why the scarab beetle? This tiny creature was worshipped by the Egyptians as a symbol of immortality. Unlike the concept of intelligence today, Egyptians believed intelligence took up residence in the heart, not the brain, so after death, Egyptians would remove the deceased’s heart, replace it with a scarab beetle carved from stone, place the heart separately in the tomb, and thus ensure that the deceased went into the afterlife with his or her intelligence preserved. No self-respecting Wit-Sharpening Potion would ignore this legacy of intelligence-preservation.

Ginger root is another ingredient of this potion; in the Muggle world, ginger is a major ingredient of teas that are supposed to improve intelligence.

Wolfsbane Potion may be the most valuable potion available to wizards: it allows a werewolf to lead a normal life by keeping him or her from transfiguring fully into a werewolf at each full moon—the body still transforms, but the mind doesn’t. The potion’s main ingredient is aconite (also called monkshood and wolfsbane), a member of the buttercup family that has long been used in small quantities for medicinal purposes—see Chapter 10.

Rowling reveals that this potion was invented by “Damocles Belby.” (Belby is a town in East Yorkshire, England.) An earlier Damocles was a Greek royal attendant who upset the ruler at that time, Dionysius, and was repaid by having a sword suspended over his head, held there by a single hair. Thus the term “the sword of Damocles” refers to an impending tragedy, which is exactly how wizards must feel about werewolves. With just one nip, a wizard’s entire life is changed: there is no cure, and even though the illness can be kept under control, wizards are so afraid of werewolves that they do everything in their power to push them out of polite society.

Charms, hexes, jinxes, spells, and curses—along with potions (see Chapter 11)—are a wizard’s bread and butter. If you can’t toss off a simple tickling charm to torture your little brother, what’s the fun in being a wizard? And if you can’t protect yourself in a duel, you may as well be a plain-old Muggle.

The various charms, hexes, jinxes, spells, and curses used in the wizarding world are defined in this chapter.

One of the first questions wizard fans ask is, “What’s the difference between a charm, jinx, hex, spell, and curse?” The answer: not much. They’re nearly all synonymous.

The word
charm
is from the Latin
carmen,
meaning song, verse, or prophecy; thus, a charm is a chant, word, or phrase that has magical power. In the world of Harry Potter, charms tend to be rather benign, helping wizards move objects, clean up rooms, improve their physical appearance, and confuse people, rather than physically harm them. Some charms, however, are quite powerful, as you discover in the “Easing In: A Handbook of Charms” section later in this chapter. The Disarming Charm (
Expelliarmus!
) and the Memory Charm (
Obliviate!
) are two good examples.

Note that Rowling overlaps the term
charm
with
spell
or
curse
only twice: A Banishing Spell is also called a Banishing Charm, and an Engorgement Curse is also called an Engorgement Charm.

A
hex
is a spell that’s meant by the hexer to produce something bad in the hexee. Rowling names only four (Bat-Bogey, Hurling, Stinging, and Twitchy Ears), and all do, indeed, produce ill effects.
Hex
is derived from the German
hexe,
meaning hag or witch. Interestingly, the dictionary lists “hex” and “jinx” as synonyms.

A
jinx
is another word for a hex—a spell that produces an ill effect. A jinx is never benign and is used for two reasons:

Rowling points out that the word “counterjinx” is a misnomer: because jinxes, by definition, are often used to counter other spells, “counterjinx” and “jinx” are synonymous. Jinxes and curses are even similar enough to share terminology: the Impediment Jinx is also referred to as the Impediment Curse in the novels, making it a serious spell indeed.

Spell
is the default term that encompasses all charms, hexes, jinxes, and curses. From the Old English
spel,
meaning story or account, a spell has come to mean any word or phrase with magical power. Note, in fact, the way we use both
charm
and
spell
in everyday usage—for example, a
charming
man can cast a
spell
on a woman. Both have the sense of magical power, irresistibility, or enchantment. Spells can be benign (like most charms) or severe (like hexes, jinxes, and curses). Only once does Rowling officially call a spell something else, however: the Banishing Spell is also referred to as a Banishing Charm.

In Harry Potter’s world, a
curse
is a high-level spell that usually produces great discomfort in the victim. By definition, a curse is used to call evil down on another (it’s from the Old English
curs,
meaning prayer or malediction), so it makes sense that a curse isn’t used to stir a pot of mashed potatoes or clean your dishes, the way a charm might be. Good wizards do occasionally utilize curses, but almost exclusively in self-defense. Evil wizards, on the other hand, might use a dozen curses before breakfast. See the “Mastering the Minor Curses” section for details on specific curses.

Three curses are considered Unforgivable, although some of the so-called minor curses can produce results nearly as bad as the Unforgivables. See the “Steering Clear of the Three Unforgivable Curses” section later in this chapter.