So you’ve opened your Gringotts account, bought your robes, books and other supplies, and now you’re ready to learn how to brew potions. Witches, if you’re dying to figure out how to brew some Veritaserum to discover how your boyfriend really feels about those dress robes, you’ll have to wait. Young wizards, if you can’t wait to brew a love potion or two, just remember: it did not turn out well for Merope Gaunt. In order to become a true master of potions, you’ll need patience, practice, and a high-speed internet connection. By the end of these helpful guidelines, you’ll be able to “bewitch the mind, ensnare the senses and even put a stopper on death.”
- Do not brew a potion for House points until you are ready. Inside the potion book, Mr. Arsenius Jigger is kind enough to warn that potions that are not brewed correctly will result in a loss of House points. What you need to do at least a few times is practice making the Cure for Boils. The ingredients are easy to handle and do not cost much. Do your House a favor and don’t mess up. Potions take anywhere from thirty to fifty minutes to brew, so be patient.
- Your school supply list will include a Pewter Caulron, Size 2 (pictured above). This will be fine to practice with, but when it comes to brewing OWL-worthy potions, you’ll want something with a little more heft. You don’t have to buy for six ginger-haired children, so there’s no reason to be tight with your galleons. Go ahead and purchase the Copper Cauldron, Size 2 for 25 galleons. This will increase the speed at which your potions brew, saving you time.
- Be careful with your ingredients. Don’t be too quick to move the bottles and containers around before you know how they react to your mouse. Certain bottles drip out as slow as bogies out of your nose, others fall out of their bottles like oil. The creators made the site as realistic as fictional potion making can be, so you can easily add too much Bezoar. If you happen to have added too much of an ingredient before you lose points, click on the Potions tab and you should be able to start over.
- Once you’re ready to tackle brewing a potion to garner your House more points and prestige, start with the Cure for Boils. You’ve practiced this at least once playing through the first book and if you’ve listened to guideline number one, you’ve given yourself a little more practice. The next potion that even a mountain troll could brew is the Herbicide, which you can use to torture Neville’s plant. The hardest potions to brew are the Sleeping Draught and the Awakening Potion.
Prepare yourself: Dueling your friends, foes and the occasional acromantula
Before you try to kill a Death Eater and end up getting killed yourself, there are some things you should know about casting spells and dueling. If you’ve played through the first book, you should have picked up three spell books:
Curses and Counter-Curses by Vindictus Viridian,
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble and
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk.
In Pottermore, you may duel anyone you see fit. Add your friends to duel those you are familiar with. If you do not have many friends, you can randomly duel people from other Houses by clicking on their House seal. Chances are, the more random people you duel, the more requests you’ll receive to duel. You do not lose any House points for losing a duel and you receive five house points for every win.
First things first: Practice, practice, practice. And you don’t need to just practice casting the spells, but you can practice dueling against people in your own House. You win nothing, but you also don’t allow other Houses to gain points while you are still learning how to properly cast the Tickling Hex.
Second: No matter how well you cast a spell, it may not win you any duels. Spells to avoid in duels are the Pimple Jix, the Tongue-Tying Spell, and Ginny Weasley’s favorite, the Curse of Bogies. Recommended spells to win every duel include: the Full Body Bind, Jelly-Legs Curse and the Fire-Making Spell.
Third: Duel well and duel often. It’s the fastest way to earn your House much-needed points on their journey to win the House Cup. Ignore the users with hundreds of thousands of points. They started way back when and spend hours a day with their wand in hand.
Finally: Find me. Add me. Duel me. I’ll win. 1,011 House points and counting.
