Speculation on Liquid Luck

[terri_testing]

This idea came up in an exchange with, if I recall, madderbrad, but for those who missed it there, here’s my theory on Felix Felicis.

Horace told his class it was “Desperately tricky to make, and disastrous to get wrong.” (HBP 9

Comments

[terri_testing]

Love caeria!

Covenants and potions and negative rebound.... I'm not sure that canon establishes a rebound. Harry fFELT unlucky when his dose started to wear off, but it's not clear he really was--I mean his annoying run-ins with Peeves and the Fat Lady served to get him to DD's office that night. Doesn't seem wildly unlucky to me. Sluggy said it was very dangerous in excess (either one-time overdose or over-protracted use), but not otherwise.

And the thing about potions is... a lot of magic is, I do A, it has effect .B. Almost all of the magic Harry learns is like that. There's an Emma Bull quote I used as epigraph for "Red Maned Lion" that's really apropos:

“Hoodoo is all the energy and attention you bring to what you do. Everything you do. The work of your hands, done with all your attention, becomes a container full of energy that you can transfer to someone else. Baking bread is a hoodoo work. So’s putting in a garden. Or fixing an amplifier, or teaching someone else to. If you do it right, with your whole head, and an awareness of where it came from, and where it’s going when it leaves you. The process it’s part of. And you have to be concentrating on energy, not money….

Potions is the only class we see Harry take where the result is "a container full of energy [magic] that you can transfer to someone else." That's its natural result. That's its purpose. If you need an immediate cheer-me-up, you don't start the hour-long process of brewing Euphoria Elixir; you cast a Cheering Charm on yourself. You brew the Euphoria Elixir if you think you might have need of it later. Or want to be able to give it/sell it to someone else.

Which makes if fascinating that Potions is Professor Snape's field. The branch of magic where the result is naturally that MY effort produces YOUR desired effect.

Now, we know that this does happen in other branches of magic--someone is making brooms, containers of energy for pthers to ride. Mr. Ollivander is making wands. Hermione charms those coins, and the DA can use them. But Harry doesn't learn any of that, and the only class where it's intrinsic is potions.

So, on to rebound. And DE's using/brewing Liquid Luck. I think that the risk is assumed by the brewer, and that generally, anyone can use it. That's the nature of a Potion. To be a gift.

[mary_j_59]

That's the nature of a Potion. To be a gift.

Interesting implications there, aren't there?!

[oryx_leucoryx]

That's the nature of a Potion. To be a gift.

What happens when a brewer sells a potion for profit? Does this interfere with the effectiveness?