Magical Transportation
written by Hermione Potter
This book will cover the very intricate and unique ways that muggles and magical people use to get from point A to point B! This book will cover things like the Knight Bus, Hogwarts Express, Brooms, Portkeys and much more! I hope that you will find this book to be a brilliant asset for you!
Last Updated
05/31/21
Chapters
9
Reads
2,270
Portkeys
Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Portkeys
So what is a portkey? The word portkey comes from the French word “porter,” which means “to carry;” and the English word “key,” which, in this particular instance, means “secret” or “trick”. But what exactly is a portkey? The simplest definition of a portkey is an item that has been charmed and will take whoever touches it to a predetermined location. Basically, whoever touches the portkey will be transported to another location.
Portkeys were originally used to get students to Hogwarts. There used to be no Hogwarts Express and instead, students would travel to pre-determined locations to a portkey that would transport them to Hogwarts. There were many problems with this. People kept running late and kept missing their portkeys. There were also people who arrived on time but they could not find their portkeys because they were random objects. Then they missed their portkey and had to find another way to get to Hogwarts. The Ministry spent more time transporting those who had missed their portkeys than it did while setting up the original portkeys.
Another reason that the Ministry wanted to stop using portkeys was because the students started to get sick. If you use portkeys too much, you can get what they call “Portkey-sick.” Portkey sickness is not a fun thing to get. The symptoms of Portkey-sickness are hysterics and nausea. About ⅓ of the students who used portkeys to get to Hogwarts, ended up in the Hospital Wing and missed their first week of class. Because of this, the Ministry searched for another way to get students to Hogwarts. This is when the Hogwarts Express was invented. There were still some people who ran late and missed the train, but it was much easier to get those few stragglers to the school and a lot more people arrived to Hogwarts in good health.
Types of Portkeys
There are actually two different types of portkeys. There is a touch-activated portkey and a time-activated portkey. A touch-activated portkey will take the user or users to a pre-determined location the moment they touch it. Once a user touches the portkey again, they will be transported back to the starting location.
During the 1994 Triwizard Tournament, the Cup in the Final task was a touch-activated portkey. The moment Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory touched the Cup, they were transported to the Little Hangleton Graveyard. Once there, Diggory was murdered and Potter had to fight Lord Voldemort. Most of these touch-activated portkeys are illegal. They were made without the consent of the Ministry. Obviously the Triwizard Cup is a perfect example of this. It was not supposed to be a portkey but Barty Crouch Jr. made it one illegally. When Harry touched the Cup again, he was transported back to Hogwarts.
A time-activated portkey is the most common type of portkey. These portkeys will transport the users to their destinations at a specific time. They are popularly used during Quidditch World Cups to get wizards to the World Cup without filling up muggle transportation. It is important to know that, when a time-activated portkey is being used, that a muggle will not accidentally pick it up. There have been instances where the Ministry was called in to perform memory charms on muggles because they accidentally picked up a portkey. There was one incident where two muggle dog walkers were transported through a portkey. Their dogs went toward the portkey and tried to put it in their mouth. The two dog-walkers were transported to a Celestina Warbeck concert. The ministry was called in and they erased their memories, but at some deep level, the memory of the concert stuck with them because one of the muggles released a song that sounded amazingly similar to a Warbeck song. It is for this reason that most time-activated portkeys are items that muggles will not want to pick up. These items are generally broken or rugged items like empty cans, rugged boots and newspapers.
Department of Magical Transportation
There is an office in the Department of Magical Transportation specifically for portkeys. Fittingly, it is called the Portkey Office. It is their job to regulate the use of portkeys. It is illegal to make a portkey unless you have authorization from the Portkey Office. You can imagine how busy the Portkey office gets during times when there are special events happening like a Quidditch World Cup. It is important to note, that if you are making a portkey to go into a different country, you must get permission from that country’s government before you make the portkey.
Portkeys are simple enough to create. All you need to do is gather an item, point your wand at that item and say “Portus” with the intent of turning it into a portkey. You must also concentrate on your desired location. If making a time-activated portkey, you must also focus on the time when you want it to transport the users. If done properly, the portkey will get a white glow around it. Once the glow disappears, you have successfully created a portkey. If you have done a touch-activated portkey, it is important that you let go of your item before the glow disappears. If you do not, the portkey will immediately transport you to the location the second the glow disappears. If you do not concentrate enough on your desired location, it will not turn into a portkey. There is no backfire, so it is not a terribly dangerous spell to cast. If you were trying to make a time-activated portkey but you did not focus enough on the desired time, it will become a touch-activated portkey instead of a time-activated one. That is why it is important to make sure you have to proper focus and concentration.
As stated earlier, portkeys are illegal. There is a minimum fine of 50 galleons for each illegal portkey you have in your possession. If you can not afford the fine, you will be put in Azkaban for 6 months for each illegal portkey. This means that if you are caught with 4 illegal portkeys, you will receive a fine of 200 galleons and if you cannot pay the fine, you will be sent to Azkaban for 2 years.
Who Uses Portkeys?
There are a lot of people who still use portkeys. If you are using portkeys every once in awhile, you should not have to worry about getting Portkey-sickness.
So who uses portkeys when there are so many other ways to get around? For one, people who are traveling in the daylight. (Generally during the daylight, you should not be traveling on brooms or magical creatures since any muggle could look up in the sky and get quite the shock at seeing you flying through the sky.) If these people cannot or do not want to apparate and there destination is not connected to the Floo Network, then portkeys can be the solution. As long as you get permission from the Portkey Office, you can use a portkey to get anywhere. Generally, as long as you ask the Portkey Office, they will allow you to make a portkey.
Portkeys are good for families who all want to arrive at their location at the same time. With Floo Powder, only one person can travel at a time. With portkeys, you can travel with as many people that can fit their finger on the object.
Pros & Cons
One major con of using portkeys is portkey-sickness. However, as long as you do not use them too often, there are not a lot of cons with portkeys. It is definitely not a comfortable experience while traveling, but there are not a lot of magically quick transport options that are comfortable. Even a broom can be uncomfortable if you are flying on one for too long.
Portkeys vs. Apparition
Portkeys are going to be the closest thing to apparition that you can use before you are old enough to apparate. Apparition is still the quickest form of magical transport, but portkeys are a quick second. The benefit of portkeys over apparition is that more people can travel at the same time. You might get an extra one or two people by using Side-Along Apparition; but portkeys can transport large groups. The most people that have been able to travel with one portkey has been 32 people. It would take an extremely powerful wizard to transport 31 other people with Side-Along Apparition.
Both portkeys and apparition require some form of Ministry approval. To travel by apparition, you must obtain a license from the Ministry. To travel by portkey, you must receive permission from the Portkey Office.
The one downside of portkeys is that you must have an object that acts as the transporting mechanism. With apparition, all you need is your wand. With portkeys, you must have an object that you charm into a portkey.
Portkeys vs. Floo Network
Portkeys are better in some ways than the Floo Network but they are also worse than the Floo Network. They can be better because you can travel with your whole family instead of one at a time. This can be a comfort for younger children who do not like to be separated from their parents. Another benefit is that not every place you need to get to is connected to the Floo Network. You can use a portkey to get to those locations.
The major downside to portkeys vs. Floo Network is the fact that you must have permission from the Ministry. Even though, you will most likely be approved, you still need to get permission. As long as there is a connected fireplace at your desired location, you are free to travel through the Floo Network at any time. You do not need Ministry approval each time you travel through the Floo Network.
Using a portkey
All you need to know about traveling with portkeys is that you only need some part of your body to be touching. Once the portkey activates, you will feel like something is pulling at your navel and pulling your forward. Your feet will leave the ground and you will feel your body traveling at quick speeds with high winds and colors moving so fast that you will not be able to make out any objects. You may try to let go of the portkey because you are uncomfortable. Just know, that no matter how hard you try, whatever part of your body is touching the portkey, will be stuck to the object. No matter how hard you try to pull it off, it will not budge and stay magnetically attached to the portkey until you have arrived at your location. If you need to, take a moment and take some deep breaths after you have been transported to your location.
{{{Clue for the next chapter}}}
-Its not just objects that can transport us around, animals can too!-
Portkeys
So what is a portkey? The word portkey comes from the French word “porter,” which means “to carry;” and the English word “key,” which, in this particular instance, means “secret” or “trick”. But what exactly is a portkey? The simplest definition of a portkey is an item that has been charmed and will take whoever touches it to a predetermined location. Basically, whoever touches the portkey will be transported to another location.
Portkeys were originally used to get students to Hogwarts. There used to be no Hogwarts Express and instead, students would travel to pre-determined locations to a portkey that would transport them to Hogwarts. There were many problems with this. People kept running late and kept missing their portkeys. There were also people who arrived on time but they could not find their portkeys because they were random objects. Then they missed their portkey and had to find another way to get to Hogwarts. The Ministry spent more time transporting those who had missed their portkeys than it did while setting up the original portkeys.
Another reason that the Ministry wanted to stop using portkeys was because the students started to get sick. If you use portkeys too much, you can get what they call “Portkey-sick.” Portkey sickness is not a fun thing to get. The symptoms of Portkey-sickness are hysterics and nausea. About ⅓ of the students who used portkeys to get to Hogwarts, ended up in the Hospital Wing and missed their first week of class. Because of this, the Ministry searched for another way to get students to Hogwarts. This is when the Hogwarts Express was invented. There were still some people who ran late and missed the train, but it was much easier to get those few stragglers to the school and a lot more people arrived to Hogwarts in good health.
Types of Portkeys
There are actually two different types of portkeys. There is a touch-activated portkey and a time-activated portkey. A touch-activated portkey will take the user or users to a pre-determined location the moment they touch it. Once a user touches the portkey again, they will be transported back to the starting location.
During the 1994 Triwizard Tournament, the Cup in the Final task was a touch-activated portkey. The moment Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory touched the Cup, they were transported to the Little Hangleton Graveyard. Once there, Diggory was murdered and Potter had to fight Lord Voldemort. Most of these touch-activated portkeys are illegal. They were made without the consent of the Ministry. Obviously the Triwizard Cup is a perfect example of this. It was not supposed to be a portkey but Barty Crouch Jr. made it one illegally. When Harry touched the Cup again, he was transported back to Hogwarts.
A time-activated portkey is the most common type of portkey. These portkeys will transport the users to their destinations at a specific time. They are popularly used during Quidditch World Cups to get wizards to the World Cup without filling up muggle transportation. It is important to know that, when a time-activated portkey is being used, that a muggle will not accidentally pick it up. There have been instances where the Ministry was called in to perform memory charms on muggles because they accidentally picked up a portkey. There was one incident where two muggle dog walkers were transported through a portkey. Their dogs went toward the portkey and tried to put it in their mouth. The two dog-walkers were transported to a Celestina Warbeck concert. The ministry was called in and they erased their memories, but at some deep level, the memory of the concert stuck with them because one of the muggles released a song that sounded amazingly similar to a Warbeck song. It is for this reason that most time-activated portkeys are items that muggles will not want to pick up. These items are generally broken or rugged items like empty cans, rugged boots and newspapers.
Department of Magical Transportation
There is an office in the Department of Magical Transportation specifically for portkeys. Fittingly, it is called the Portkey Office. It is their job to regulate the use of portkeys. It is illegal to make a portkey unless you have authorization from the Portkey Office. You can imagine how busy the Portkey office gets during times when there are special events happening like a Quidditch World Cup. It is important to note, that if you are making a portkey to go into a different country, you must get permission from that country’s government before you make the portkey.
Portkeys are simple enough to create. All you need to do is gather an item, point your wand at that item and say “Portus” with the intent of turning it into a portkey. You must also concentrate on your desired location. If making a time-activated portkey, you must also focus on the time when you want it to transport the users. If done properly, the portkey will get a white glow around it. Once the glow disappears, you have successfully created a portkey. If you have done a touch-activated portkey, it is important that you let go of your item before the glow disappears. If you do not, the portkey will immediately transport you to the location the second the glow disappears. If you do not concentrate enough on your desired location, it will not turn into a portkey. There is no backfire, so it is not a terribly dangerous spell to cast. If you were trying to make a time-activated portkey but you did not focus enough on the desired time, it will become a touch-activated portkey instead of a time-activated one. That is why it is important to make sure you have to proper focus and concentration.
As stated earlier, portkeys are illegal. There is a minimum fine of 50 galleons for each illegal portkey you have in your possession. If you can not afford the fine, you will be put in Azkaban for 6 months for each illegal portkey. This means that if you are caught with 4 illegal portkeys, you will receive a fine of 200 galleons and if you cannot pay the fine, you will be sent to Azkaban for 2 years.
Who Uses Portkeys?
There are a lot of people who still use portkeys. If you are using portkeys every once in awhile, you should not have to worry about getting Portkey-sickness.
So who uses portkeys when there are so many other ways to get around? For one, people who are traveling in the daylight. (Generally during the daylight, you should not be traveling on brooms or magical creatures since any muggle could look up in the sky and get quite the shock at seeing you flying through the sky.) If these people cannot or do not want to apparate and there destination is not connected to the Floo Network, then portkeys can be the solution. As long as you get permission from the Portkey Office, you can use a portkey to get anywhere. Generally, as long as you ask the Portkey Office, they will allow you to make a portkey.
Portkeys are good for families who all want to arrive at their location at the same time. With Floo Powder, only one person can travel at a time. With portkeys, you can travel with as many people that can fit their finger on the object.
Pros & Cons
One major con of using portkeys is portkey-sickness. However, as long as you do not use them too often, there are not a lot of cons with portkeys. It is definitely not a comfortable experience while traveling, but there are not a lot of magically quick transport options that are comfortable. Even a broom can be uncomfortable if you are flying on one for too long.
Portkeys vs. Apparition
Portkeys are going to be the closest thing to apparition that you can use before you are old enough to apparate. Apparition is still the quickest form of magical transport, but portkeys are a quick second. The benefit of portkeys over apparition is that more people can travel at the same time. You might get an extra one or two people by using Side-Along Apparition; but portkeys can transport large groups. The most people that have been able to travel with one portkey has been 32 people. It would take an extremely powerful wizard to transport 31 other people with Side-Along Apparition.
Both portkeys and apparition require some form of Ministry approval. To travel by apparition, you must obtain a license from the Ministry. To travel by portkey, you must receive permission from the Portkey Office.
The one downside of portkeys is that you must have an object that acts as the transporting mechanism. With apparition, all you need is your wand. With portkeys, you must have an object that you charm into a portkey.
Portkeys vs. Floo Network
Portkeys are better in some ways than the Floo Network but they are also worse than the Floo Network. They can be better because you can travel with your whole family instead of one at a time. This can be a comfort for younger children who do not like to be separated from their parents. Another benefit is that not every place you need to get to is connected to the Floo Network. You can use a portkey to get to those locations.
The major downside to portkeys vs. Floo Network is the fact that you must have permission from the Ministry. Even though, you will most likely be approved, you still need to get permission. As long as there is a connected fireplace at your desired location, you are free to travel through the Floo Network at any time. You do not need Ministry approval each time you travel through the Floo Network.
Using a portkey
All you need to know about traveling with portkeys is that you only need some part of your body to be touching. Once the portkey activates, you will feel like something is pulling at your navel and pulling your forward. Your feet will leave the ground and you will feel your body traveling at quick speeds with high winds and colors moving so fast that you will not be able to make out any objects. You may try to let go of the portkey because you are uncomfortable. Just know, that no matter how hard you try, whatever part of your body is touching the portkey, will be stuck to the object. No matter how hard you try to pull it off, it will not budge and stay magnetically attached to the portkey until you have arrived at your location. If you need to, take a moment and take some deep breaths after you have been transported to your location.
{{{Clue for the next chapter}}}
-Its not just objects that can transport us around, animals can too!-
