Like arithmancy, I don't think canon alchemy is supposed to be any different from historical alchemy, except in the fact that in the HP world it works.

JKR saying in interviews that she did a lot of research on alchemy would seem to support this.

 

Sesc, you may be right about the murlap and dittany. In my head I suppose I thought of them as just singular ingredients that had some magical power without needing to be brewed. Magical version of aloe or something like that. Obviously the books left a lot of grey area in these topics so different interpretations are expected, but my feeling is that the brewing process is crucial for something to become more than just a sum of its ingredients and considered a potion.

 

Harry ate straight Gillyweed to become aquatically adapted for an hour - some substances are inherently magical.

Hermione gave Harry a bowl of pickled Murtlap tentacles to ease the pain of Umbridge's quill- pickling isn't brewing, though it does require multiple ingredients

Essence of Dittany is a powerful healing agent as mere drops can seal wounds- if it's an essence, it at least had to be extracted and concentrated.

After the first task, Cedric was seen with his face and arm (I think) covered in mud-like burn-healing paste. Clearly the concoction is not consumed.

Dr. Ubbly's Oblivious Unction was used on Ron's wounds from the brains in the Department of Mysteries, purportedly because they'd keep remembering to reopen if the salve wasn't applied. As a commercial product, I'd assume there's some specialized potions work involved.

Hermione was given 15 different potions and salves to aid in the healing of whatever curse scar Dolohov used on her. Sometimes you need to combine effects just to heal the effect of one spell.

 

Intuitivly i wanted to answer that in the first book Snape sets them to make a boil cure salve, but i checked and it is a boil cure potion. I can't think of example of poitions being non-digestive at all in canon.

edit : apparently wordhammer DID remember a lot more than i did

 

Do we know how Sirius knew that Harry lived with the Dursleys when he came to look for him in PoA? Did Hagrid tell him when he took baby Harry from Sirius? Was it so wide-known that Sirius could have discovered this knowledge without asking someone directly after his escape from Azkaban? What about the address? Must he have known beforehand (maybe from visits with Lily or whatever) or could he have found out about this somewhere while remaining undetected?

 

From what I remember Hagrid mentions telling Sirius that he was on Dumbledore's orders to take Harry to the Dursleys. Even if that wasn't the case, if Sirius remembers that Lily had a sister - and given how close he was to the Potters you'd presume he would - it's not going to be particularly difficult to figure out where his godson might be.

Judging from Harry's trial in the fifth book, his address is a matter of public knowledge - which is why Umbridge knew where to sent the Dementors - so it's entirely possible he picked up the address in a Daily Prophet article or some such thing. I doubt he had ever visited beforehand. Who knows, maybe he just had an unspecified means of tracking Harry - he was a dog animagus, after all.

 

By the time Hagrid arrives at Privet Drive with Harry on the motorcycle Sirius Black lent him nearly a day has passed since Voldemort attacked the Potter's. I don't think it's ever said who first found Harry or where he was between those two events. It also isn't said when Hagrid borrowed the motorcycle, it could have been after the attack or days before it. Whatever way it happened though Dumbledore hadn't seen it until Hagrid came to Privet Drive with Harry. So there's nothing in this part of the story to indicate conclusively that Sirius ever heard Harry was to be taken to the Dursley's before he went after Pettigrew.

 

Hagrid mentions having met Sirius at Godric's Hollow and being given the bike in the first chapter of the Philosopher's Stone, and again in Chapter Ten of the Prisoner of Azkaban:

(using some online version so forgive any misspellings or any other annoyances)

So we know that Hagrid got there first, that he told Sirius that Harry was to go to the Dursleys, and then Sirius lent him the motorbike.

The 'missing 24 hours' (i.e. the time between the attack on the Potters and Harry being left at Privet Drive) has always been one of those unanswered questions as far back as I can remember. Was that ever solved/cleared up?

 

Forgot the part from Prisoner of Azkaban. Good catch.

 

Is essence of dittany a potion, or a natural substance made from just the plant itself?

 

The second one, otherwise it would be dittany

 

It probably has been answered in one of the earlier versions of this thread, but how come Sirius never got a trial? I mean, Bellatrix and Barty Jr. did, but he didn't.

 

Most likely reason? Because Plot.

In-universe reason: Bagnold and/or Crouch were probably convinced beyond proof that a trial was unnecessary as Sirius was found laughing in a street full of dead muggles.

 

I always thought an interesting twist on the "why didn't Sirius get a trial" question would be if Bagnold feared what might come out during it - not that Sirius was innocent, but something else.

What if Bagnold read the landscape, saw how the nation was uniting around the Boy-Who-Lived narrative, with the heroic sacrifice of his parents, and had a sneaking suspicion that any story that came out during a Sirius Black trial involving why James's best friend turned Dark would inevitably uncover some skeletons in the closet, like a Lily/Sirius affair?

 

Please no, there's enough shitty fanfiction written on the subject as is.

 

Huh, I'll take your word for it. I don't think I've ever come across a story that had Lily and Sirius together in any way, let alone an affair.

And I'm not saying that's what happened; it's just a hypothetical. I basically buy the canon premise that the circumstances under which they found Sirius made it believable for them to just haul him off to Azkaban.

 

Bellatrix probably got a trial only because Barty Jr did - they did share the same crime after all. Sirius said that a trial was the farthest Barty Sr would go for his own son, implying that a trial wasn't really the norm for DEs who were caught red handed. Also, the Blacks were rich so there probably was a fear that Sirius would bribe and bullshit his way out of Azkaban if there were to be a trial. Safer to just throw them to the dementors and forget about him.

 

I read one, it sucked balls, although it would make sense in a sorta-levirate-y kind of way (since James and Sirius regarded each other apparently brothers in everything except their DNA).