87 votes
Accepted

Why does everyone in Harry Potter make a giant cauldron of potion?

It's quite possible that some recipes don't divide well. Have you ever tried to halve a recipe that calls for 1 egg? It can be done, but it's a bit annoying and cannot be done without physically ...
45 votes

Why does everyone in Harry Potter make a giant cauldron of potion?

Hogwarts shopping list in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (chapter 5) states that students are required to have "1 Cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)". I'm unaware of different ...
  • 591
37 votes

Why does Harry think that Dumbledore has never been in the Room of Requirement?

I think we should parse "that particular place" as the version of the Room which is full of random illicit stuff. The Room is presented as being able to show different versions of itself, ...
  • 3,042
23 votes

Why does everyone in Harry Potter make a giant cauldron of potion?

As alluded to in comments, I suspect that the reduced error from scale may also play into it. Some of the ingredients added to the potions are fairly small amounts, and we see in the books that small ...
  • 207k
21 votes

What color are Ron's eyes?

It was stated in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (when they were destroying the Horcrux locket) that Ron's eyes are blue. Harry thought he saw a glimpse of scarlet in Ron's eyes, but when the ...
12 votes

Why does everyone in Harry Potter make a giant cauldron of potion?

In some few cases the potion will be the result of reducing through boiling for a long time. This is somewhat like maple syrup. You boil it for a long time to concentrate the non-water ingredients, as ...
  • 365
11 votes

Why does Harry think that Dumbledore has never been in the Room of Requirement?

You make two wrong assumption here. First one is that Harry is not explaining his thoughts but Riddle's. It's Riddle that would be absolutely certain that Dumbledore would never found the Room of ...
  • 1,813
10 votes

Why does everyone in Harry Potter make a giant cauldron of potion?

Magic in Harry Potter is quite often rather symbolic in how it works. I think that, when it comes to potions, this means that the size of the batch matters; like, if you're adding 7 pinches of dried ...
5 votes

Could Voldemort have remorsed his soul back together in Deathly Hallows?

Voldemort would've been able to repair his soul. Assuming he's capable of feeling remorse. Or willing to. When Hermione discusses Horcruxes with Harry and Ron, she mentions there's a way to repair ...
  • 3,452
3 votes

Why does everyone in Harry Potter make a giant cauldron of potion?

As rightly pointed out by others, Rowling seems to have invoked a pre-existing trope, and all we can do is look for post hoc rationalisations. One additional possibility that comes to mind is that ...
1 vote

Could Voldemort have remorsed his soul back together in Deathly Hallows?

I do not believe that you particular circumstance was ever mentioned. It seems logical in the framework of the HP universe, that once a horcrux is destroyed the portion of the soul might be gone too ...

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible