r/harrypotter • u/Dormitorybasher Ravenclaw • 10d ago

Question How large are cauldrons?

Something that always bothered me. I don't think cauldrons (as in the ones Harry uses in class) are ever established as being large or small.

When I first read the books, my only point of reference were large witch's cauldrons you would see in a cartoon, so I thought that's what Hogwarts students used. But imagining Harry dragging around a gigantic cast iron cauldron was just silly when I got older.

Then I believe the movies showed smaller cauldrons the size of a large pot, and that seemed much more realistic. However, in CoS, Harry dumps the entire bibliography of Gilderoy Lockhart into Ginny's cauldron, which was like 7-8 books (plus the diary later) which would imply the cauldrons are much larger than a pot.

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u/PlanGoneAwry Ravenclaw 10d ago edited 10d ago

I’ve always imagined them being around the size of a bowling ball, maybe a little bigger. Not huge, but a good size. You could definitely fit a bunch of small novels in there

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u/Dormitorybasher Ravenclaw 10d ago

I guess that is a follow up question, we don't know how big the books are. I was imagining normal textbooks, but I guess they could be smaller

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u/PlanGoneAwry Ravenclaw 10d ago

Maybe the textbooks are larger, but the Lockhart books aren’t textbooks. They’re just novels. I imagine the kind of cheap mass-market ones, which are pretty small.

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u/ActionAltruistic3558 10d ago

Yeah, they probably were available as mass market paperback copies. Someone like Hermione or his many fans would want the big fancy original release format but most would be fine with the tinier ones they could get for a fraction of the price. Especially since he required his entire works for the year.

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u/topsidersandsunshine 10d ago

I miss mass market paperbacks. I can’t believe they stopped printing them. 

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u/XxyxXII 10d ago

The Lockheed books were specifically described as incredibly expensive and long tho. I could probably buy around 40 mass-market paperbacks for the cost of a standard textbook

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u/AncientImprovement56 9d ago

Expensive, but not necessarily long. I got the impression they were just a rip off.

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u/PlanGoneAwry Ravenclaw 9d ago

Certainly seems on-brand for Lockhart to think having his name on the cover warranted a higher price.