Mugglenet.com's Harry Potter Should Have Died - Emerson Spartz [32]
Felix Felicis is something like self-confidence in a bottle or a psychological booster shot. Even the very thought of it is powerful, as Harry proves when he pretends to put a drop in Ron’s pumpkin juice in HBP, turning his best friend into Mr. Super Quidditch so he can play a perfect game. Professor Slughorn also tells the class that taking Felix gave him two perfect days in his life. It’s possible that having the potion around helps Harry realize he is in love with Ginny in HBP. Who knows? Without Felix Felicis, Harry and Ginny might not have had such a happy ending.
Harry is able to generously share the Felix potion with other members of Dumbledore’s Army in HBP and that saves their lives in the fight with the Death Eaters. People who might have otherwise died are able to survive and help Harry in the future. That includes Snape and Draco, who never take the potion but whose escapes from the Order are lucky for everyone involved because they turn out to be less evil than Harry previously believed. Any potion that can save that many lives is the most useful potion of all.
Polyjuice Potion
One of the most useful weapons the Order of the Phoenix has against the Death Eaters in DH is made in a cauldron: Polyjuice Potion, which is used to make a person look like someone else, so it’s useful for disguise. Felix Felicis may be sparkly and lucky, but it’s also rare and takes months to make. Too much of it can make someone reckless and ill, as Slughorn warns the kids in HBP. But even a child can make and use Polyjuice Potion, as Hermione proves in CoS, when she cooks up a batch in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. The uses are endless, from childhood pranks to spying during wartime, and come in handy for the Trio in DH several times. All you need is a hair from someone’s head, and you can distill the essence of a person and assume another identity [CoS, p. 159]. Of course, some versions, like those made by Crabbe or Bellatrix, taste icky or oniony. And you don’t want any cat hairs in your Polyjuice or you might end up with a tail and whiskers, as Hermione accidentally does in CoS. But Polyjuice is extremely versatile, helping people to disguise themselves by changing their gender, size, and age. Since most wizards don’t have Metamorphmagus abilities like Nymphadora Tonks, Polyjuice is the next best thing.
Sure, we see abuses of the potion, as when Barty Crouch, Jr. steals the identity of Mad-Eye Moody in GoF, or when Crabbe changes into a little girl so he can spy for Draco in HBP. Polyjuice is also somewhat limited because the effects only last about an hour, and you have to keep drinking it continuously for the disguise to last. But the usefulness overcomes any drawbacks. Harry and the Trio successfully take on other identities to get into the Ministry in DH to take back Slytherin’s locket from Umbridge, and with Hermione disguised as Bellatrix Lestrange, they manage to get into the vault at Gringotts to find Helga Hufflepuff ’s cup. In the last case, they also rescue a tortured dragon that has been chained by the goblins and fly him out the front door.
The best use of the Polyjuice Potion in DH is the scheme of the seven Potters, when seven of Harry’s friends take Polyjuice Potion to look just like him in order to be decoys as they fly Harry to safety. It’s interesting that Harry’s own personal form of Polyjuice is a bright golden color, which is the same color as Felix Felicis. Perhaps the message is that Harry was born with a lucky essence anyway, so Felix Felicis doesn’t really matter. In DH, all the seven Potters survive, even if their escorts do not, and they are protected by