PTNS-601 Lessons

As soon as you enter through the dungeon’s doors, you wonder whether you currently are in a parallel reality; although the back of the room seems normal enough, a wide array of Muggle and magical military artifacts line the professor’s desk and the wall by the blackboard. As the rest of the students take their seats, you hear Professor Draekon’s voice resounding from the front of the class. “I’m not one to talk much about my past, but today’s class lives right in between the story of my life and the path taken by my father. War and peace, heroism and villainy… they are naught but two sides of the same coin, and it’s easy to get lost in the fury of the battlefield and unleash one’s inner monsters. Look deep into the abyss and it looks back into you, or so they say - a statement that I’ve found to be true with experience”, the man states before beginning the class.

Introduction

Memories of the past aside, let us delve into the actual agenda for today. This class will focus on the concept of voluntary reflexes - or the speed that it takes for a person to process external stimuli and react to them - alongside a historical panorama of how both Muggles and magical people have attempted to hone their reaction times in order to react to threats. If you are considering a dangerous career, such as Auror or Curse-Breaker, this class will serve you well in the future.

In addition to that, today we will also address certain tools and calculations for how to rectify improper brews. So far, I have either given you direct instructions on how to fix an incorrect preparation or, in a worst-case scenario, told you to start anew. However, as N.E.W.T. students, you are now knowledgeable enough to attempt a series of direct fixes, provided your mistake is not egregious enough - which is why we will cover those techniques today, as well as basic tests on whether a given mistaken brew can be safely salvaged or not.

Voluntary and Involuntary Reflexes

If you are sitting in this class, this means that you have paid enough attention to the course so far - as such, I will assume that you likely remember our discussions on the peripheral nervous system (PNS) last year. At that time, I mentioned that the PNS was responsible as a messenger for autonomous responses called “reflexes” - involuntary movements that were meant to protect us from harm, such as a burn or the prick of a thorn.

As is the case with most words, the term reflex is also polysemic - and as such, its meaning may vary depending on context. Although it’s true that the word reflex medically entails an involuntary movement provoked by a neural stimulus, most people also use this term to refer to the quick voluntary reactions we have in the nick of time. For example, being able to quickly dodge a punch or reducing the speed of your broomstick if a Jobberknoll flies in your path are commonly seen as actions that indicate good reflexes by many.

In order to differentiate both terms, I will use the phrase voluntary reflexes from now onwards in order to refer to the latter. However, do note that some texts may suppress the term voluntary, meaning that you should use context in order to determine whether a passage is referring to voluntary or involuntary reflexes.

Voluntary reflexes, much like any other attribute, vary from person to person: in case you’re willing to test your mettle against other individuals, you can check how quick you can react by using this simple test. If your reaction time score is lower than 250 ms, this means you’re faster than the average human - as that is the typical benchmark for reacting to visual stimuli. On the other hand, individuals are much quicker to react to audio (approximately 170 ms) and touch stimuli (approximately 150 ms).

Why is that the case? Simply stated, voluntary reflexes are crucial to our survival, meaning that it has become part of our inherent evolution. In the past, the rustling of grass or the roar of a predator could only herald one simple thing - danger. There was no time to process information through a rational pathway, lest one would be killed; thus, those who could quickly react at an instinctive level passed their genes onward, while those who were slower to respond generally became easier prey.

In the modern era, voluntary reflexes may not play such a crucial role in survival (with the exception of certain careers), but they still remain an important part of daily life. Although modern charms and potions may address a bruise from a Bludger or a burn from a cauldron splash, it’s better to avoid being hurt altogether. This, subsequently, leads us to our next topic: how one can improve their own reaction times.

Reflex Training Methods

Working on one’s voluntary reflexes is no different than doing brain training or working out to build muscle: it is a process that requires exposure to constant stimuli so our body can increase both our processing speed and body coordination. As stated before, both Muggles and magical people alike have developed ways in order to increase their capabilities in this field.

Let us start with Muggle methods, which have been arguably the most effective of the two so far. The most typical, yet effective, way to enhance one’s reaction times is repeated practice of the same activity over and over again; this is the reason why elite groups - ranging from top athletes to the MARSOC in the Marine Corps - focus extensively on repeated drills. Each repetition optimizes the way our brain interacts with the rest of the body, leading to more instinctive and accurate reactions.

Brain training, likewise, is another component in improving reaction times. Many Muggles use technology, be it based on computer games or cell phone applications, as a way to improve their reaction times without requiring too much of a commitment. Although brain games have been proven to be effective, they do require protracted effort over time in order to provide good results - meaning that you can’t expect to see immediate effects as soon as you complete your first training session.

Taking care of one’s body is perhaps the easiest way to provide a boost in reaction times, although such benefit is temporary. Factors such as nutrition, adequate sleep and mood are directly correlated to processing speeds, meaning that eating healthily and resting properly before your intended activity can have a positive impact on how well you perform.

History of Reflex Potions

As for magical methods, it is unfortunate to say that we have not been as successful in our endeavors. Although we do have a potion capable of temporarily increasing one’s reaction times - which is, incidentally, the brew we will cover in today’s lesson - no potions with a permanent effect have been developed as of yet. Actually, it is better said that no potions with permanent positive effects have been developed, for the sake of accuracy.

Our first attempts to create concoctions that improved one’s reaction times date back to the 19th century, with one of the greatest driving forces behind them being the American Civil War. Although Rappaport’s Law was in full effect at the time, a few wizards secretly enlisted in the military in order to try and make a change from the frontlines. It was with the intent to protect these magical practitioners that Adam Preston, a famous potioneer from Maine, started to work on a new brew in 1865. This experimental potion was designed to give the wizard agents a subtle edge by allowing them to react more quickly to enemies, thus decreasing the number of casualties without breaching the International Statute of Secrecy or Rappaport’s Law.

The American Civil War, however, was over before Preston was able to conclude his research. In fact, it would take him nearly 13 years in order to develop a brew that seemed to work; it is theorized that this was the case because brain imaging techniques and other forms of psychological evaluation were not as rampant at the time, making the entire process based on a series of trials and errors. Still, Preston’s magnum opus finally saw the light of day: even though the potion could not be used for battle purposes anymore, the potioneer still believed that the brew could improve the lives of Aurors and other individuals associated with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Several individuals associated with MACUSA volunteered to test the potion, as it presented very promising results when applied to Knarls and Nifflers. As you may expect, research standards were much more lax at the time, meaning there could be disastrous consequences if the potion did not work as expected - which is exactly what happened.

In plain terms, the potion worked well, perhaps overwhelmingly well: those who imbibed the brew reacted nearly instantaneously to stimuli, but did so without being able to control their reactions. When ordered to jump, these Aurors would immediately leap even if they had no intention to do so; the same held true of any other command that they were given. Ultimately, these wizards and witches faced compulsory retirement, as they were unable to perform their duties adequately, and had their wands confiscated, as there was severe risk of them unwittingly casting spells when hearing any incantation in their vicinity.

Many petitioned for the affected people to be permanently admitted to a healer institution; however, owing to the lack of a centralized organization in the US (as opposed to St. Mungos in the United Kingdom) and the fact that those individuals could mostly lead a normal life, a different decision was reached. These Aurors were Obliviated and reintegrated into Muggle society, while the Department of No-Maj Misinformation declared that some individuals were afflicted by a new and unexplainable disease that made them react strongly to stimuli. With time, Muggles started to call this condition the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Disorder. Most of these Aurors were able to live relatively good lives in the Muggle world in spite of their condition; however, it’s assumed that one of the components in the experimental brew affected the expression of some genetic traits in the drinkers, meaning that their children, likewise, are at risk of having the same condition.

The wizarding world was equally fascinated and horrified by Adam Preston’s experiments, with many believing that his idea had merit, but that he tried to fly too close to the sun and disrespected basic safety protocols in the pursuit of his goals. One of the main critics of Preston, a Turkish potioneer named Hatice Aydin, defended that the main issue with the potion prototype was the attempt to create permanent neural changes, as no other potion at the time was able to safely produce that type of result.

Aydin worked on a version that eliminated or reduced the amount of certain ingredients in an attempt to rework Preston’s original brew into something usable. At last, she was able to develop the concoction currently known as the Lithe-Light Potion, which is still used by many members of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Although some still see value in developing a brew that permanently increases one’s reaction speeds, many other modern concerns have become more pressing, meaning that not much attention is devoted to that research nowadays.

Brew Rectification Tests and Techniques

As stated before, most potioneering instructions given to you so far indicated how you could salvage a potion in specific cases, with all other mistakes necessitating you to restart your work anew. However, the truth is that most of the errors you’ve made so far could potentially have been rectified in one way or another, meaning that you wouldn’t need to follow every single step from scratch. Before we study how to fix an improper brew, however, we must first learn what criteria determine what brews that can be fixed.

In order to do so, we shall split potioneering mistakes into four different categories - namely, errors may involve improper ingredient quantities, incorrect ingredient ordering, protracted heat application or excessive stirring. All of these issues can usually be fixed in one way or another, except for the following corner cases:

(1) Improper Ingredient Quantity: You cannot fix a brew if you’ve added more than double the expected amount of a primary or secondary ingredient for a given step. This is true even if the potion uses more of that ingredient afterwards - for example, if a potion uses 50 mL of Colwort extract (with 15 mL being added in Part 2, Step 3), adding the entire 50 mL in Part 2, Step 3 will ruin the potion.

(2) Incorrect Ingredient Ordering: You cannot fix a brew that displays poisonous or corrosive properties as soon as the improper ingredient is added. If a potion melts through your cauldron or produces noxious gas, you have to vanish it as soon as possible.

(3) Protracted Heat Application: You cannot fix a brew that has exceeded the time of exposure to heat by (1) 10% of that part’s total heating time or (2) 100% of that step’s total heating time. For example, if Part 3 of a potion takes 60 minutes to brew (with 20 minutes spent on Part 3, Step 7), you cannot rectify your potion if you expose it to heat for more than 26 minutes on the aforementioned step; conversely, even if Part 3 takes a full day to brew, you cannot rectify your potion if you expose the potion to heat for more than 40 minutes during Part 3, Step 7.

(4) Excessive Stirring: You cannot fix a brew that has been stirred three or more extra times if the step required four or fewer stirs, nor a brew that has been stirred two or more extra times for steps that require five or more stirs.

Having said that, let us actually cover how to fix the issues stated above, starting with the addition of improper ingredient quantities. Arguably, the easiest mistake to fix is the addition of insufficient amounts, as most of the time you simply have to add as much ingredient as is required to make up for the deficit. For instance, if you quickly realize that you added 15 mg of bicorn horn powder to your potion instead of the required 20 mg, you may supplement the potion with the remaining 5 mg directly. However, exceptionally so, you may need to use the following formula to calculate the required mass of reagent if other ingredients have been added to the brew in the meantime.

In the formula above, A stands for the amount of ingredient you must add, I stands for the quantity of ingredient missing and n stands for the number of different ingredients you have added to the potion after you noticed the insufficiency.

Let’s use a practical example. Assume that you were meant to add 60 mL of dragon blood to a potion, but you added only 40 mL instead. Before you noticed your mistake, you had added 3 slices of mandrake root and 21 g of Erumpent skin. How much dragon blood must you add to the potion to fix it now?

Our insufficiency is 60 mL - 40 mL = 20 mL, which must then be multiplied by (1.1)2, given that two ingredient types have been added so far. This means that A is equal to 20 * 1.21, meaning that 24.2 mL of dragon blood must be added to fix the potion.

On the other hand, if you have added too much of an ingredient, you’ll need to be good with your spellcasting instead. The interplay between different components in a partial brew is far too complex to be fixed by adding more of the other ingredients, but fortunately there is a spell that both reduces the mass of the reagent as well as the compounds involved in its cascading reactions.

Reagent Decrease Charm

Incantation: Chemica Minuo (KEH-mee-kah MEE-nu-oh)
Wand Movement: A point at the surface of the cauldron followed by a sharp downwards slash
Willpower: Low to high, depending on the amount of reagent to be decreased
Concentration: High, on the reagent to be reduced and (if known) the molecules formed after reaction

If you happen to add your ingredients in the incorrect order, then you need to keep that substance in a suspended state until it is meant to be added to the cauldron. This is also achieved through the casting of a spell (the Ingredient Suspension Charm) that creates a protective buffer around the ingredient; however, as you may have expected, this charm is dynamic and must be sustained for as long as it takes to reach the required step. This means that you’ll need to have solid concurrent combination spellcasting skills - as you will likely need to cast the Stirring Charm or other spells required for brewing while keeping the concentration for the Ingredient Suspension Charm active - as well as a good attention span in case you happen to have added the ingredient before a long heating section. Many times, casters decide to forgo the use of the Ingredient Suspension Charm altogether and start anew, particularly when there’s a high risk of losing concentration and/or magical exhaustion from prolonged spell use.

Ingredient Suspension Charm

Incantation: Materia Stasis (mah-TEH-ree-ah STAH-ziss)
Wand Movement: A sweep of the wand over the surface of the cauldron from right to left
Willpower: Low
Concentration: High, on the ingredient remaining untouched inside the brew

If you happen to keep your potion on the fire for too long, there is also a way to undo the reactions created during that time with the Reverse Flame Charm. Some of you may remember the Flame-Freezing Charm covered in your fourth year of Charms education; as you may notice by its incantation, this spell is an experimental offshoot of that precursor charm. In simple terms, the spell works by using your magical energy as a way to revert the entropic changes generated by the fire, undoing exactly the work that would have been made by a flame of equal heat. Essentially, this means you must expose the potion to the altered flame for the same duration as the excessive heat application; interrupt the spell with an Effect-Canceling Charm afterwards.

This shouldn’t necessitate a warning, but I shall err on the side of caution either way: differently from the Flame-Freezing Charm, the fire produced by the Reverse Flame Charm can cause grievous harm to human beings, including a very quick onset of frostbite. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to touch the flame in order to gauge its temperature.

Reverse Flame Charm

Incantation: Calor Reverto (CAH-lorr ruh-VER-toh)
Wand Movement: A curve upward and to the right followed by a quick swipe to the left, ending with a point at the target flame
Willpower: Medium
Concentration: Medium, on how cold the flame is meant to be

Last but not least, let us cover what should be done in case you stir your potion a few times more than necessary. If you’ll take a look at the brewing implements I have prepared for you today, you’ll notice a thin and long dragon glass cylinder: this tool is called a Stir-Shift Stick. In order to use it, simply dip it inside your potion and cast the Stirring Charm through it, then stir the potion in the direction opposite to your excessive motion.

At first sight, this seems simple enough to use - and, as such, you may be asking yourselves why you’re not given access to this tool from the outset. The reason for that is twofold: first and foremost, owing to differences in magical conductivity and the lack of a core, casting the Stirring Charm through this implement would be impossible for someone that does not have extensive magical experience. Furthermore, both your number of stirs and your motion pace must exactly match the excessive movements added to the potion. Failing to do that will cause the potion to splash violently, which is extremely dangerous when your hand is hovering over the cauldron while holding the Stir-Shift Stick - even if you’re wearing dragonhide gloves as dictated by protocol.

The tools above are the most relevant ones for fixing a potion throughout your career, if you decide to stick with potioneering in the long run. There are yet other tools that you might find to be of use; nevertheless, they tend to see much more limited application owing to the specificity of their use. If you have finished taking your notes, open your textbook to page 36 and begin brewing the Lithe-Light Potion. I will go around the room to gauge your progress.

Closing

Although we have covered many rectification tools in today’s class, you should do your best not to rely on them too much. Studies indicate that potions are most effective when no fixes are made throughout the brewing process, meaning that you won’t have much leeway in patching your own mistakes if you plan to become a top-notch commercial or industrial potioneer.

Dismissed.

Original lesson written by Professor Vaylen Draekon
Image credits here, here and here
Hatice Aydin image generated through the use of AI