My DIY Harry Potter Potions Collection

I remember the first time I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. My family was making our weekly grocery trip to Walmart. Sometimes my mom would let us pick a new movie and we decided on Harry Potter that night. I fell in love immediately. The centaur in the Forbidden Forrest (Firenze I believe?) was hella scary to me, but the magic of Hogwarts and its odd characters drew me in and made me a lifelong fan.

• 

I’ve always been into television shows and movies that involved magic. My favorite sitcom and cartoon growing up were Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I got into reading and watching Harry Potter somewhere around fifth grade. This was during all of the promotions for The Prisoner of Azkaban.

I’ve made a lot of friends and bonded with a lot of teachers through my enjoyment of Harry Potter. I now have a podcast titled, Two Butterbeers, where I meet up with my friend each week and we discuss the books and revisit our school days and what it was like reading Harry Potter in the south in a predominately black, predominately Christian public school. Check it out!

• 

I’ve also taken to decorating my house with bits of magic here and there. I’ve always wanted a bookshelf dedicated entirely to Harry Potter and other childhood books. It’s not quite the way I want it, but it’s getting there. I decided to make decorative potions the other day and it was a relaxing escape. ( I got to pretend that I was in one of Professor Snape’s lessons for a moment.) Let me show you what I made.

Vampire Blood

No clue what this is used for. Is there even such a thing? Wouldn’t this just be the victim’s blood?

• 

• 

Mandrake Restorative Draught

This is good for treating Petrification or anyone who has been transfigured or cursed. Preparing the solution is easy. You just boil for 3 minutes at 212 Fahrenheit. It’s just waiting for the Mandrakes to mature that is hard.

• 

• 

When something foul was stalking the corridors of Hogwarts, Petrifying the pupils and cats, the race was on to cultivate fully grown Mandrake plants. Herbology teacher Professor Sprout had a few techniques for encouraging swift Mandrake growth (including dressing them in socks and scarves when the soil was cold). When Harry, Ron and Hermione first encountered young Mandrake plants, they resembled screaming babies, so it’s no surprise that in order to reach full maturity for the remedy to treat Petrification, they have to go through puberty first.

Source: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Mandrake_Restorative_Draught

Wolfsbane

This solution is good for calming a werewolf. Is this what Snape brewed for Lupin in Prisoner of Azkaban?

• 

• 

Polyjuice Potion

This potion gives the drinker the appearance of another person. This would have come in handy for many parent teacher conferences.

• 

• 

Squid/Octopus Ink

I’m not sure what this is used for, but it looks pretty.

• 

• 

And another one! (*read in my DJ Khaled voice)

• 

• 

Skele-gro

Good for regrowing bones.

• 

• 

When Gilderoy Lockhart’s magic failed to mend Harry’s injury after a Quidditch incident and instead removed ALL the bones from his arm, Madam Pomfrey thankfully had Skele-Gro: an actual medicine that could grow back bones. Bones! Take that, cough syrup. Although we have heard it is quite painful.

Source: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Skele-Gro

Did you know a Potter created skelegrow?!

Linfred of Stinchcombe, an ancestor of the Potter family, is known for having created many medicinal potions, one of which would be used as the basis for Skele-Gro

Source: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Skele-Gro

This product is only sold at Reubens Winkius and Company Inc., so try not to break any bones if you don’t live near this place. (Or just keep it in stock.)

I’m nowhere near finished with creating these potions, but this is a great start. Head over to my Youtube Channel if you want to know how I made the potions. I also played around with ASMR a bit and created a video.

Tell me your favorite potion in the comments and head over to my channel for a few tips and tricks that I discovered during my last visit to The Wizarding World, including how to get chosen at Ollivander’s Wand Shop.

– Karyn