The Wizarding world of Harry Potter is full of magical objects that sprang from the imagination of J.K. Rowling. For instance, in “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” audiences are treated to seeing Newt Scamander’s ingenious suitcase, which contains an impossibly large amount of storage space. Rowling’s inventory of magical devices could easily fill the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Some of these magical objects are mere convenience items, like flying brooms and Remembralls. Other magical artifacts are much more powerful and could be used as weapons.
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This list encompasses 15 of the most powerful objects in the Harry Potter books. Most of the objects on this list help a wizard master the most mysterious forces that exist, like luck, death, and time. Some of them even have roots in the real world.
Prophecy Orbs
In the depths of the Ministry of Magic lies the cavernous Hall of Prophecy, which contains shelf up on shelf of softly glowing orbs. The glass orbs themselves are fascinating, but not magically strong at all. It’s the prophecies inside the glass spheres that are so powerful. A prophecy is powerful because it gives one a glimpse into the future, describing an important event that is to come. Hearing a prophecy would allow one to make better decisions, plan one’s life more successfully. If the prophecy tells of a tragedy, one could try to avoid that sad occurrence by guessing, day to day, how to avoid it.
However, a prophecy’s power can work against a wizard. Lord Voldemort heard only the first half of Sybill Trelawney’s prophecy, via Severus Snape, about a boy who would be his undoing. With only part of the information he needed, he made the decision to go after Harry Potter instead of Neville Longbottom. The irony is that, by acting on the prophecy that he thought would help him, Voldemort set in motion his own downfall.
Felix Felicis
Everyone wants to be lucky. For hundreds of years, people have tried to ensure their own good luck through superstitions and touchstones, like rubbing a rabbit’s foot or eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day. Imagine being able to guarantee good luck just by drinking a bit of potion. Felix Felicis is liquid luck in a bottle. This potion guarantees that all the drinker’s “endeavors tend to succeed,” at least until the potion wears off. Want to win the big game? Drink some Felix Felicis before the match. Looking to get married? Drink a little before the first date. How about an approaching deadly duel? Drink a lot of Felix Felicis and you’re sure to vanquish your enemy.
Like any other powerful magic, however, Felix Felicis has a downside. Professor Slughorn cautions his class that the potion is meant to be used on an ordinary day. He also warns his students that drinking too much Felix Felicis is highly toxic, causing the drinker to be giddy, reckless and dangerously overconfident.
Vanishing Cabinets
While Muggles have yet to invent transporters, wizards have more than one way to travel almost instantly from point to point. Wizards can use the Apparate spell, use Floo powder, grab Portkeys and even fly on brooms. But what’s a wizard to do when all the usual methods of travel are banned? Use a Vanishing Cabinet, of course! A Vanishing Cabinet is actually two cabinets, which are placed at the beginning and end of a route. A traveler enters the first cabinet in one spot, then exits the second cabinet in a different spot.
What makes the Vanishing Cabinet so powerful is that it is exempt from any and all magical boundaries or defensive spells that might be cast on a location. When Hogwarts was enchanted with many defensive and protection spells in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the Death Eaters couldn’t Apparate or travel by Floo powder to Hogwarts, but they were able to get into the castle, thanks to Draco Malfoy and his repair efforts on the Vanishing Cabinet.
Portkeys
As mentioned above, Portkeys are a means of transportation in the wizarding community. Although Portkeys aren’t used as often as Apparating or flying on brooms, they are handy, because any wizard with a wand can turn an ordinary object into a Portkey. Plus, Portkeys can be used immediately or scheduled for a specific date and time, much like a train.
Portkeys are very powerful, because, unlike other methods of transportation in the wizarding world, they are able to transport whole groups of wizards at one time. For instance, the “manky old boot” Portkey in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” transported nine wizards from Stoatshead Hill to the deserted moor where the Quidditch World Cup was being held. Another reason Portkeys are so powerful is that they allow wizards to travel nearly undetected. When the Ministry of Magic was watching the Floo Network, Dumbledore was able to send Harry and the Weasley children to 12 Grimmauld Place without Dolores Umbridge finding out.
The Goblet Of Fire
The Goblet of Fire is one of the most powerful and mysterious objects in the Wizarding world. The goblet’s rough, wooden appearance belies the strength of the magic it holds, although the blue-white flames that fill its bowl hint at its power. The Goblet of Fire is one of only a few items on this list that has some kind of artificial intelligence or intuitive power. The goblet is able to sort students into their respective schools, based on the information on the slips of paper they feed it. Then the Goblet of Fire uses some unknown process to judge all the entrants to the Triwizard Tournament and spit out three qualified players, one for each school, at a pre-designated time.
The Goblet of Fire, like most things in the magical world, isn’t infallible. Using incredibly powerful Dark Magic, Barty Crouch was able to trick the Goblet of Fire into selecting four wizards instead of three, including Harry Potter.
Mad-Eye Moody’s Magical Eye
Mad-Eye Moody was a gifted and tough Auror, who most likely lost one of his eyes dueling with Death Eaters the first time Lord Voldemort rose to power. He replaced his real eye with a powerful magical eye of unknown origin. This eye was powerful for more than one reason. First, the magical eye was able to integrate itself into Moody’s organic body, whereas Muggle doctors still struggle to help transplant patients, whose bodies sometimes reject their donor organs. Not only was Moody’s magical eye able to move inside his head, it could also somehow transmit what it saw to Moody.
Second, Moody’s magical eye was able to see more than just the physical world. It could spin backwards inside Moody’s head to look right through his skull at what was behind him. It could also detect or see through spells. For instance, when Barty Crouch was masquerading as Mad-Eye Moody, magical eye and all, he was able to see through Harry’s Invisibility Cloak.
The Sword Of Gryffindor
The sword of Godric Gryffindor is a treasured artifact in the wizarding world because it belonged to one of the founders of Hogwarts, and because it’s beautiful, with goblin-made silver and inset with rubies. The sword of Gryffindor isn’t just pretty; it’s also very powerful for two reasons. First, by some unknown process only magic can explain, the sword only presents itself to a true Gryffindor, someone who shows daring, nerve and chivalry. That is why the sword appears to Harry in the Sorting Hat in the Chamber of Secrets, and why it appears to Harry in the frozen lake in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”
The second reason the sword is so powerful is because of its ability to absorb more strength than just its silver blade can provide. As Hermione points out, the reason the sword is able to destroy Horcruxes, is because “goblin-made blades imbibe only that which strengthen them,” like the basilisk venom that destroyed Tom Riddle’s diary. Therefore, the sword gets more powerful every time the blade comes in contact with anything stronger than itself.
The Sorcerer’s Stone
The Sorcerer’s Stone, or Philosopher’s Stone, was legendary long before J.K. Rowling used it in her first Harry Potter book. Nicolas Flamel was a real-life alchemist who sought to make his own Philosopher’s Stone. Of course, in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the fictional Nicolas Flamel, who lived to be 665, was successful.
The Sorcerer’s Stone had two very powerful properties. One of the stone’s most popular uses was its ability to turn any metal into gold. Someone who possessed the stone, therefore, could create untold riches for themselves. The other, and more powerful, property was the Sorcerer’s Stone ability to make the Elixir of Life, a potion which grants the drinker immortal life. Thanks to these two powers, whoever had the Sorcerer’s Stone would also be powerful, because whoever owned it would be incredibly wealthy for all eternity, or at least as long as they kept drinking the Elixir of Life.
The Pensieve
The Pensieve is a unique object in the wizarding world. While it doesn’t give a wizard any powers or strength, it is powerful because it lets wizards re-live a scene from the past, with unbiased clarity. The Pensieve is able to take a thin, gossamer thread of a memory from a wizard’s head and completely reconstruct it, including the setting, the people who were there, and what everyone said.
Imagine being able to go back in time and watch a scene from history. The signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Romans invading Britain, or even the construction of the Egyptian pyramids would all be available for viewing, as long as a memory of the event was captured by a wizard who was there. The crime rate would fall and trials would be expedited because the memories taken from witnesses could be used to finger the perpetrator. Perhaps the best use of the Pensieve would be to settle family squabbles that happen around the dinner table about who said what and when.
The Marauder’s Map
As Francis Bacon once said, “Knowledge is power,” and the Marauder’s Map gives a wizard a lot of it. The Marauder’s Map is a detailed illustration of Hogwarts that shows not only the school’s various corridors, staircases, rooms and secret passages, but also the location of every single person on the property. That is a powerful bit of magic. Knowing the location of every single person at Hogwarts is incredibly helpful because it allows a wizard to time entrances and exits so as to avoid detection. Or, as in the case of Peter Pettigrew, the map can help catch someone who is trying to hide.
The Marauder’s Map is also powerful because of who is allowed to view it. A wizard must say the proper incantation to reveal the map, as well as to turn it back into a plain piece of parchment. Most ingeniously, the map is also enchanted to keep its contents secret from Severus Snape, who is allowed to only see insults to his person, courtesy of Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs.
The map’s only flaw is that it doesn’t display anyone who’s inside the Room of Requirement.
The Cloak of Invisibility
The Cloak of Invisibility is one of the Deathly Hallows, which makes it an incredibly powerful object in the wizarding world. Given to one of the Peverell brothers by Death himself, the Cloak of Invisibility renders the wearer completely invisible, as if he weren’t there at all. While other cloaks could be given a Disillusionment Charm or a Bedazzling Hex, those regular cloaks would simply trick onlookers into thinking someone wasn’t there. And eventually, the charm or hex would wear off. Harry’s Invisibility Cloak, however, vanishes him completely, and its amazing power never wanes.
In addition to its power of invisibility, the cloak also repels or resists other spells and curses. True, it doesn’t hide a wizard from the Marauder’s Map or Mad-Eye Moody’s magical eye, but when the Death Eaters are searching for Harry in Hogsmeade, the cloak does not respond to their Summoning Charm. One of them yells “Accio Cloak!” when the alarm sounds, but Harry’s Invisibility Cloak makes no attempt to escape.
The Resurrection Stone
The Resurrection Stone is one of several items on this list that gives its owner some power over death. The Resurrection Stone, however, doesn’t extend the life of its owner, but brings back to life a loved one who has died. Death is humanity’s great unknown, a place from where no one returns and no one can follow. So, to be able to see and speak to a lost loved one is an enormous power.
Even Albus Dumbledore, perhaps the greatest wizard who ever lived, was drawn to the power of the Resurrection Stone. Although he never told Harry the full story, it’s assumed that he tried to use the Resurrection Stone to perhaps speak to his sister, which resulted in his hand being cursed by the Horcrux contained within.
The Resurrection Stone’s power does have limits. No one can truly come back from the dead, so a resurrected friend, lover or family member would only be a shadow of themselves. The dead person would be forever separated from reality, as if by a veil, and would suffer.
Horcruxes
Horcruxes are the ultimate in Dark Magic and the most powerful objects that have dominion over death. Powerful Dark Magic is at work when an object contains a piece of a wizard’s very soul, and by keeping the piece of the soul intact, gives the wizard eternal life. Not much is more powerful than immortality.
The purpose of a Horcrux is powerful, but the Horcrux itself is also fierce. Each of Voldemort’s Horcruxes has its own defense mechanisms that come to life when the Horcrux is under attack. Tom Riddle’s diary projected an almost-whole wizard to help protect it, while the locket tormented Ron Weasley with his worst fears. Just wearing a Horcrux drains the wearer of hope and happiness. The Horcrux is such a powerful object, that only the strongest magical entities can destroy it. Basilisk venom, on its own or imbued in the sword of Gryffindor, as well as Fiendfyre, a cursed fire, are the only magical elements powerful enough to destroy a Horcrux.
The Elder Wand
The Elder Wand is the third and last of the Deathly Hallows on this list. The Elder Wand is said to be the most powerful wand in the wizarding world. It was fashioned from an elder tree by Death himself. The Elder Wand, a.k.a. the “Wand or Destiny” and “the Deathstick,” gives the owner limitless power over his enemy. A wizard who owned the Elder Wand could never be defeated in a duel. Imagine owning a weapon that would make one omnipotent.
However, the Elder Wand is so powerful, that to be its rightful owner, a wizard must prove himself worthy. Like the Goblet of Fire, the Elder Wand is almost sentient, judging a wizard’s strength and talent before allowing him to master it. Generally, a wizard has to best the current owner of the Elder Wand in some way in order to truly possess it, which is why, in the end, the Elder Wand found its master in Harry, not Lord Voldemort.
The Time Turner
Other than death, time is the only other thing in existence that man has no control over. Time ticks away in a linear fashion, never deviating from its path. The Time Turner, however, is a small device that can let a wizard go back to any moment in time, over and over, if need be. A wizard could use a Time Turner, like Hermione does, to be in several places at once. Also, a Time Turner could be used to correct a past mistake, in something as unimportant as a game, or as important as the rise of the most powerful Dark Wizard to ever live.
Being able to change the course of events by traveling back to a point in time is fraught with danger, as one can imagine. Changing one small circumstance in the past could have a rippling effect throughout the future, which is why Hermione wisely returned her Time Turner to the Ministry of Magic.
What do you think is the most powerful object in the Harry Potter universe? Let us know in the comments!
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