Pottermore Christmas: Rowling Shares Insight on Potions and Professor Snape

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In Pottermore's third Christmas surprise, J.K. Rowling gives users some interesting ingredients and shares insight as to why she chose Professor Snape to teach Potions.

"Exciting things are always brewing in Potions lessons and today is no exception.

Peek into one of Harry's sixth-year Potions classes to find out how cauldrons almost had a hallowed function in the Harry Potter stories, and why J.K. Rowling chose Potions as Professor Snape's Hogwarts subject," said Pottermore's official website. "Hint: remember to give the moustachioed teacher his full title when answering today's riddle."

Today's riddle reads: "His potions lessons are filled with interesting things with students keen to see what each day brings. With his large moustache and rotund shape, who teaches this class after Professor Snape?"

The answer: Professor Slughorn (a.k.a. Voldemort's BFF back when he was in school).

Once you answer the riddle you are taken into a potions classroom where Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Draco can be seen working diligently on a lesson.

Just like yesterday in Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, users can click around with their mouse and collect different items including a Bezoar Stone and an Infusion of Wormwood. No spiked egg nog?

Pottermore also presents two new writings from J.K. Rowling, one being about cauldrons, the other about potions.

In her piece, "Cauldrons," Rowling gives a little background on the item, and also shares that in the Harry Potter books, cauldrons are "a mundane tool." She also said that she was considering making Helga Hufflepuff's Horcrux a cauldron, "but there was something slightly comical and incongruous about having such a large and heavy Horcrux; I wanted the objects Harry had to find to be smaller and more portable."

Imagine that thing multiplying in Bellatrix Lestranges vault. Ouch.

In her second piece, "Potions," Rowling tells readers that she chose Professor Snape to teach potions because she hated chemistry in school. Makes sense to make Harry's arch-enemy teach her least favorite subject. Right?

"This makes it all the stranger that I found Snape's introduction to his subject quite compelling ['I can teach you to bottle fame, brew glory, and even stopper death'], apparently part of me found Potions quite as interesting as Snape did; and indeed I always enjoyed creating potions in the books, and researching ingredients for them."

Eh. today's presents weren't as interesting as I had hoped. But, make sure to come back tomorrow for a full report on Pottermore's Fourth Christmas surprise.