Better Living (Magic) through Chemistry (Potions)

I learned from Wikipedia that the phrase “Better Living Through Chemistry” was often used on products to avoid trademark infringement of the du Pont slogan for almost fifty years: “Better Things for Better Living… through Chemistry”. Interestingly when I did a Google search for the phrase, a 2014 movie of the same title came up on the first ten entries. I haven’t seen the movie so I have no comment on this. Instead I am going to put forward a theory that learning aspects of Muggle chemistry could make one a better spellcaster.

Formulating my theory began with a question: Why should students at Hogwarts, or any other school of magic, bother studying Potions in the first place? If you can cast a magical spell to do almost anything you can imagine, why not just cast the spell? Why do you need to bother making any Potions? All you have to do is figure out the right incantation, wave your wand appropriately where needed, and have the mental focus and willpower to successfully cast a spell. If you can Transfigure virtually anything (including oneself as Slughorn does when he turns himself into a chair), or Conjure up something-from-apparently-nothing (such as orchids or a flock of birds as Ollivander does in the “weighing of the wands” at the Triwizard tournament), you should be able to make any changes that a potion could make. Are there limitations?

To explore this idea, let’s think about what Potions are mainly used for. Healing or curing seem to be the most common uses. Certainly you could brew a poisonous or harmful potion. The Wolfsbane potion that Lupin takes monthly apparently is the only thing that really helps his “condition”. There are love potions, euphoria-inducing potions, lucky potions, and potions that can change one’s appearance. Snape claims that he can teach you how to “bewitch the mind, ensnare the senses, bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death”. The Polyjuice Potion shows up prominently in many of the books. Why doesn’t someone Transfigure themselves to appear as someone else? Why bother with a Potion that you have to take every hour? A very capable magic user can cast a spell of invisibility so strong that an invisibility cloak would not be needed. One can certainly change one’s appearance or disappearance through a spell.

Maybe the effectiveness of a spell has to do with how much you understand what it is you are doing. Maybe Transfiguration or Conjuring is limited by the ability of the spellcaster to understand the underlying principles of the object being conjured or transfigured (both from and into). Perhaps “inanimate objects” such as teacups, stones, and bones are relatively simple objects. A ferret, small birds, or orchids, may be a bit more complicated since these are “animate” or living things. There are healing spells, which may fix some of the exterior wounds, but one still needs a potion for internal damage. Maybe the reason why Polyjuice is still the masquerade-of-choice is because casting a spell on yourself to appear as another is very complicated if you need to get all the details exactly right. Perhaps the reason you need a Potion is because it can interact chemically with the biomolecular chemistry of the body more effectively than any spell can.

But if the key to more advanced and powerful spellcasting is understanding the complexity of the spell being cast, it seems that learning chemistry (and biochemistry in particular) could lead to some very powerful spells. Imagine casting a spell that acts on the detailed molecular level with long lasting effects rather than just changing the exterior macroscopic level “look” of an object or a person. Perhaps things that are transfigured or conjured look right on the “outside” but may not have much on the “inside” and therefore a trained magical eye can tell the difference. Polyjuice though seems quite undetectable – perhaps because it interacts (albeit reversibly) at the molecular level.

Why was Snape such a capable spellcaster? Perhaps it’s because he was particularly good at Potions. (I’m sure Dumbledore was too!) When Malfoy is struck by Sectumsempra, Snape is at least able to reverse much (but perhaps not all) of the damage, and he aids Dumbledore after the incident of the cursed ring.

So to the wizard or witch reading this, I recommend learning chemistry. In great detail! Because when you understand changes at the molecular level, you will be able to devise and cast spells of great power. And while this blog is called “Potions for Muggles” (which incidentally could be the title of one of my current chemistry classes), perhaps I could teach a class called “Chemistry for Spellcasters”. If only I actually knew how magic worked, I could teach at Hogwarts!