Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Magic/Gillyweed
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Magic | |
| Gillyweed | |
|---|---|
| Type | Plant |
| Features | Allows the person who eats it to breathe underwater |
| First Appearance | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire |
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Gillyweed is a magical plant. Gills appear on the neck of the person who eats it, enabling him or her to breathe underwater for a limited amount of time. It is described as looking like "slimy grayish green rat tails."
[edit] Extended Description
When Harry Potter is having difficulty figuring out a way to complete the second task of the Triwizard Tournament (which requires him to rescue Ron from the bottom of a lake), Dobby steals some Gillyweed from Professor Snape's store cupboard and gives it to Harry to use.
We later learn that Professor Moody had given a book on Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean to Neville, with the expectation that Harry would ask Neville for help in the Challenge. Harry never consulted Neville, however; so Moody deliberately mentioned Gillyweed in Dobby's hearing.
[edit] Analysis
More than breathing underwater, this plant forces partial adaptation to an underwater existence, providing Harry with gills and extending his feet and hands into flippers.
Note: In the film version of this series, it is in fact Neville who provides Gillyweed to Harry; this is managed by having Neville summon Ron and Hermione to Professor McGonagall's office, instead of having Fred and George do it. This is likely a cost-cutting decision by the filmmakers; by eliminating Dobby from this one scene, they remove any need to have house-elves in the film.
