Pottermore Publishing > Quotes

“Fluffy is a call-back to Cerberus, the Classical three-headed mythological beast and guard dog to the gates of hell, which Hercules had to capture as one of his twelve labours. The depiction of Cerberus and Hercules by Aegidius Sadeler II, engraver in the court of Rudolf II in Prague (made some time between 1586 and 1629), made the gates of hell look like a flaming brick prison. What’s interesting about the image of Hercules dragging the dark, muscular, fanged beast in his left hand and the way it is composed is the angle. You’re compelled to follow the action from right to left, as opposed to the conventional Western habit of reading left to right. This inversion could be because we are in the underworld, where logic, physics and, indeed, art are turned on their head. What also links Cerberus to Fluffy and the Philosopher’s Stone is that in capturing Cerberus and taking him to King Eurystheus (who was so terrified he immediately jumped into a large jar to escape), Hercules gained immortality by completing his penance. And just like Harry in his epic struggle to find the Philosopher’s Stone, Hercules did so less through physical effort than through courage and strength of mind.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“Alchemy throughout history was about the transformation of base metals into gold and the promise of eternal life, but really it is about the journey of making something of your life and becoming who you are supposed to be.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“Several boys about Harry’s age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. ‘Look,’ Harry heard one of them say, ‘the new Nimbus Two Thousand – fastest ever –’ Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“that the bishop died before it was completed.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“The colours of the stones have connections with the names of key characters in the Harry Potter series. The red stone has a connection to Rubeus Hagrid, whose name in Latin means ‘red’; likewise the white stone to Albus Dumbledore, whose first name means ‘white’, and the black stone to Sirius Black (for obvious reasons). Arguably, the three father figures of Harry Potter are bound together in the colours of the Philosopher’s Stone.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“Historically, an apothecary served as a sort of chemist or pharmacist, and texts recording symptoms and prescriptions have been found originating in the ancient societies of China, Babylon and Egypt.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“In the 17th century and beyond, women were often disenfranchised and vulnerable within wider society, along with the disabled and mentally ill. They were easy targets and that’s what we’ve seen in the iconography of witchcraft ever since: the witch with a walking stick is really a vulnerable old woman.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“Spells like these weren’t supplications or prayers, but commands to demonic entities. To get a demon to obey you, you needed two things: the demon’s full and exact name, and a physical way to make sure it did as it was told. So, in this case, the magical papyrus recipe book gave you the demon’s name and the correct incantation, while the iron ring was the target of the magic that established a physical bond. It was intended that the ring be hidden in the ground in order to prevent something from happening. By inscribing and burying the ring, the owner could specify, for example, that they did not want a rival to be lucky in love.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“Accusations of witchcraft were a way for societies to control what they viewed as ‘disruptive’ female behaviour. What often started as an opportunistic way of getting a woman out of the way became a cultural contagion with little or no rational explanation”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“He was trying to do this by boiling urine of all things. Gold wasn’t the result, but the element he did discover was phosphorous”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“a serpent and crowned dragon eating each other’s tails. This is a common alchemical symbol called an Ourobouros, symbolising the cycle of birth and death, and the unification of prima materia (‘primary matter’) with spiritus universalis (‘universal spirit’).”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“In every culture, in every age, in every place and, probably, in every heart, there is magic.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“people’s”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“Known today for its use by stage magicians when they perform illusions, ‘Abracadabra’ is probably familiar to us all. But it has more sinister connotations as well. Londoners used to paint it on their doors to ward off the plague in the 17th century. The infamous 20th-century English occultist Aleister Crowley believed it to be a word that held great power.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“She made her living by divining the future and acquired a reputation for her extraordinary visions. She became known as Mother Shipton, the Yorkshire Prophetess.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Divination and Astronomy

“– books themselves exert their own magical influence by the way they are interpreted and shared, and how they transform our knowledge of our surroundings, real and imagined.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“Hamburg, 1669, and he was attempting to discover gold. He was trying to do this by boiling urine of all things. Gold wasn’t the result, but the element he did discover was phosphorous.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“Argus’ was a giant of classical mythology who had a hundred eyes. He was known as the ‘all-seeing one’,”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“18th-century toothpaste and today as a varnish for violins.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“The witches are depicted as old and hunched, carrying a stick alongside their familiars: birds, goats, a many-legged sort of fish-cat and the devil himself.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“his philosophy that the function of a newspaper ‘is not to instruct but to startle’.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Care of Magical Creatures

“To become invisible, to make someone fall in love with you, to transform into another creature – these are all things that people have believed in, yearned for or feared throughout history. There’s nothing more magical than a magic charm.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“We’ve seen how charms could be used for transfiguring into other creatures and transporting yourself into new magical places, but there were also charms that could be used for more malign purposes, such as getting the upper hand over your enemies. There was a charm from the Egyptian city of Thebes, dating from the 4th century AD, which let you do just that. In the papyrus document later found that described it, there were seven pages of incantations, which included charms to discover thieves and to reveal the secret thoughts of men. The spells and charms were written in Ancient Greek and one page showed you how to transform a ring into a charm.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“Helleborus niger”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“what is the creature that walks first on four legs, then on two legs and lastly on three? The answer is man – you start off crawling as a baby, then you walk, then you walk with a stick.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love...”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts

“provider of chocolate in a crisis…”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts