Magical Ingredients

Magical ingredients, are ingredients already imbued with magical properties in their natural state. Muggles are quite often intolerant to these ingredients, and magical potions should never be administered to Muggles. often these ingredients come from creatures but there are also a lot of magical plants. For example a mandrake, one of the Kingdom Plantae (a biological differentiation from fungi, animals, single celled organisms, and other non-plant forms of life). A mandrake is useful for strong antidotes to poison.

Magical ingredients often take effect faster than mundane medicine. That’s because the magical ingredients temporarily speed up your metabolism. Metabolism refers to the processes that the body utilizes to release energy that is used to sustain life and grow, often from consumed food, as well as eliminate remaining waste products from the body. Magical ingredients often provides a catalyst and speeds up this rate of metabolic consumption until the magical ingredient has been absorbed into the bloodstream. Though magical potions work way faster, this is not always good. Some things need to be absorbed gradually, otherwise the effects and side effects would be much more drastic.

Mundane ingredients

Mundane ingredients provide a biologically gentler alternative for those who care to avoid the harsh impact that magical ingredients so often cause. For example there are lots of potions that can cure a stomachache in minutes, but taking them for a longer period could have permanent effects on the stomach. A mundane alternative for this would be ginger.

Mundane ingredients are often added to potions even when they are not in the initial ingredients list. However, mundane ingredients can also often be added to counter slightly unpleasant side effects in potions.

While mundane ingredients often interact well with other magical and mundane ingredients, adding the wrong magical ingredient to a potion can have fatal effects.

Transitional Ingredients

These are ingredients such as dragonfly thoraxes, which on their own have no magical qualities. However, when used in conjunction with magical ingredients as well as the magic of a witch or wizard, they will display magical properties themselves. The thoraxes, are used in potions for energy and endurance - for example, the Girding Potion. Some theories suggest that transitional ingredients mark the signs of an early development of magic in species that were once not magical, but are slowly developing a magical ability of some sort. Others suggest that this hibernating form of magic is simply another expression of magical gift or talent. Perhaps dragonflies do not have sufficient power to do grand spells or feats of destruction - but they still have a spark of magic deep inside, different from the energy we are used to. There is another more romantic inclination that some have. The thought is that these small creatures with untapped magical talent were once very powerful elementals on Earth. Eventually magic became a vestigial organ, or a part of the creature that once held use, but slowly fell into idleness.