neotoma.livejournal.com ([identity profile] neotoma.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] pauraque_bk 2004-05-10 07:23 am (UTC)

Potions are definitely magical, and not just because of the ingridients. If you combine asphodel and wormwood, you get a highly toxic sludge, so unless Draught of the Living Death is actually Draught of the Poisoned Coma, there is some magic from the brewer transmuting the ingredients into an effective compound.

Frankly, my thinking is that Potions is Applied Alchemy, just as pharmaceuticals is applied chemistry. The wand isn't used because it's a quick-release tool for magic. Potions work by layering power through ritual (cutting, stirring, heating) and time. Snape's "foolish wand-waving" is a teacher squelching the impulse of 11 year olds to play with their newly gained Charms and Transfiguration knowledge in a laboratory filled with toxic compounds -- horseplay in a lab being a cardinal safety no-no.

As to Peter's bringing back Voldemort, that's definite magic -- powerful ritual magic -- and rings of the Cauldron of Life from the Malbigion.

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