Chocolate Cauldron

• Type: Sweets; Confectionery
• Owners: Mass-produced and sold to the general wizarding public. Notable possessors include Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Romilda Vane.
• Maker: The specific maker is unknown, but they are a staple product sold at Honeydukes sweetshop in Hogsmeade.

A Chocolate Cauldron is a popular wizarding sweet shaped like a miniature cauldron. They are sold in boxes and are known to contain a filling. The exact nature of the standard filling is not specified in the novels, though it is established that the filling can be easily tampered with or replaced. In one notable instance, a batch was filled with a powerful Love Potion. According to supplementary materials, the standard filling for Chocolate Cauldrons is Firewhisky (Pottermore).

As a form of confectionery, the primary purpose of a Chocolate Cauldron is to be eaten. They do not possess inherent magical properties on their own. However, their design, which includes a hollow, fillable center, makes them a convenient and unsuspecting vessel for potions. The most significant use of this feature occurs in 1997, when Romilda Vane gifts a box of Chocolate Cauldrons to Harry Potter after emptying them of their original filling and replacing it with a potent Love Potion. Professor Slughorn, upon examining one, immediately recognizes the nature of the enchantment within the filling.

Chocolate Cauldrons are a common sweet in the wizarding world, available for purchase at least since Harry Potter's first journey to Hogwarts in 1991. They are sold from the food trolley on the Hogwarts Express and are a standard item at Honeydukes in Hogsmeade. Their widespread availability makes them a familiar treat for students and adult wizards alike.

Chocolate Cauldrons first appear as one of the many magical sweets Harry Potter buys on the Hogwarts Express, helping to establish the wonder and novelty of the wizarding world. The object plays a crucial and dramatic role in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Before the Christmas holidays, Romilda Vane gives Harry a box of Chocolate Cauldrons containing a Love Potion, hoping to trick him into taking her to Professor Slughorn's party. Harry, suspicious of the gift, leaves it in his trunk. On his seventeenth birthday, Ron Weasley mistakes the box for a birthday present and consumes several of the chocolates. He immediately becomes powerfully infatuated with Romilda, forcing Harry to take him to Professor Slughorn for an antidote. This event directly leads to a near-fatal incident. After Slughorn cures Ron, he offers him a glass of oaked-matured mead in celebration, which turns out to have been poisoned in an attempt on Albus Dumbledore's life. Harry is forced to save Ron's life by using a Bezoar from Slughorn's own stores. The entire sequence, initiated by the spiked Chocolate Cauldrons, ultimately helps Harry get closer to Slughorn, which is vital for his mission to retrieve the professor's true memory about Tom Riddle and the Horcruxes.

• On the Pottermore (now Wizarding World) website, it is confirmed that Chocolate Cauldrons are filled with Firewhisky.
• In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the chocolates Ron eats are not identified as Chocolate Cauldrons, but are simply a generic heart-shaped box of chocolates.
• Chocolate Cauldrons appear as collectible or interactive items in several Harry Potter video games, including the LEGO Harry Potter series (video game).