5 Magical things from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter that would make life so much better
Potterheads, rejoice! To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the premiere of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (it’s really been that many years), the cast of the Harry Potter films will be returning to the halls of Hogwarts this coming New Year’s Day on HBO Max and HBO Go! The anniversary special will bring fans on a magical journey with all-new interviews and conversations, giving us a chance to revisit the extraordinary Wizarding World once again.
All Potterheads would have dreamt of casting spells, making potions, and getting our hands on magical items that would undoubtedly make life easy-breezy. Unfortunately, we Muggles live in a world without the help of magic, and the closest we’ll ever get to experiencing life as a witch or wizard would be visiting The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. Still, it’s fun to imagine what living in a world with magic would be like.
Here are five magical things from The Wizarding World that we think would make everyday life so much better:
1) Felix Felicis (Liquid Luck)
Who wouldn’t want a vial of liquid luck they could drink to ensure success in their endeavours. Have an interview for your dream job or an important test at school? Fret not; with Felix Felicis, all your most important goals are guaranteed. However, like most real-life performance drugs, Felix Felicis has its caveats, namely its lengthy and demanding brewing process and its toxicity when consumed in large amounts.
Liquid luck is banned from Quidditch matches, so it’s safe to assume that it would similarly be prohibited from many real-life situations even beyond sports. The parallel between Felix Felicis and real-life performance drugs deepens with one other crucial side-effect: long-term users who become reliant on the potion lose their judgment and become increasingly reckless, much like how real performance enhancers can cause drug dependence as well as physical and sometimes mental inhibitions.
If it were real, Felix Felicis would likely be tough to legally obtain and consume, but we all have situations in which we could do with a little extra good luck, no?
2) Pensieve
Let’s admit it, humans are extremely forgetful creatures, often to our own chagrin. As such, a vessel that can accurately contain memories for our—and others’—future reference would be a ground-breaking tool to have at our disposal. Ever been in an argument with someone where you could’ve used a memory bank to prove that what you said happened, really did happen? If pensieves were real, we’d never have to deal with gaslighting ever again!
Ever experienced or witnessed an incident of the Mandela effect? A pensieve could very well solve all problems caused by distorted memories. There are so many situations where a pensieve could be used: for evidence gathering, as a visual log for important events and occurrences, or even as a personal scrapbook of our favourite memories. With the use of a pensieve, cataloguing our lives would become much more efficient than current-day technology allows.
3) Apparition
How many times have you wished teleportation was a real superpower human beings could have? The ability to apparate like the characters from the Wizarding World would cut down travel time (not to mention travel fares) significantly. Imagine being able to instantly transport yourself to anywhere you want. There would be no more suffering through traffic jams, driving long distances, or frustrating searches for a free parking space.
Forget long-distance relationships and homesickness; you’d be able to visit your sweetheart or family and friends, no matter how far away they may be. Additionally, using apparition as our primary mode of transportation would mean that carbon levels would be lowered significantly due to us no longer needing vehicles that are fueled by petroleum. This makes apparition not only a mode of transportation that overcomes the limitations of non-magical travelling, but also one that is much kinder to the environment.
4) The Accio Charm
What if we were able to retrieve any object we desire without having to get up from our seat and manually pick it up? The Accio (aka Summoning) charm is a spell that makes the desired object fly into the hands of a person casting the spell. Super convenient, this would be perfect for those moments where you’ve gotten comfy on the couch but then realise that you need something that’s not within arm’s reach. The Accio charm could also work in tandem with the pensieve to make sure no one ever searches fruitlessly for their belongings again. Anything that isn’t logged into the pensieve can be easily retrieved with a simple ‘Accio!’. Misplaced your keys or your wallet? Running late and later by the minute because you can’t find your phone anywhere? All you would need to do is use the Accio spell and voila—problem solved!
5) Time Turners
If Time Turners were real, they would take multitasking to a whole new level. You could do exactly what Hermione does in the books and films and use a Time Turner to pack more work into your daily schedule, be it in the form of more classes or a second job. Most of us have incidents in our past that we either wish happened differently or didn’t happen at all. With the existence of Time Turners, we’d be able to undo serious mistakes and essentially change our fate. We’d no longer have to worry about words we said that we wish we could take back, workplace blunders, or even that one embarrassing moment that happened years ago but we can’t stop remembering and cringing at (admit it, we all have one or two of those instances). On a much larger scale, authorities could use these devices to solve crimes or even prevent them from happening entirely, creating a much safer world for us to live in.
Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts premieres on HBO Go on 1 January 2022. Besides Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, it’ll also feature the actors of many well-known characters from Ralph Fiennes’ He Who Must Not Be Named to Gary Oldman’s Sirius Black.
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