Jar

A jar is a common cylindrical container, typically made of glass or pottery, used for storage in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds. While often used for mundane purposes such as storing food, wizards and witches frequently employ jars to contain magical substances, ingredients, memories, and even living creatures. Several specific jars play significant, and sometimes crucial, roles throughout the series.

Jars appear in various contexts, serving functions from the ordinary to the magically complex.

• Containment of Living Beings:

` * Perhaps the most famous use of a jar for imprisonment, Hermione Granger trapped Rita Skeeter in her unregistered Animagus (beetle) form inside an Unbreakable, magically-sealed jar. She did this to stop Skeeter from publishing malicious stories about Harry Potter and his friends. Hermione kept Skeeter in the jar on the train ride home from Hogwarts at the end of their fourth year and only released her in London, on the condition that she stop writing her libelous articles for a full year. (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

• Storage of Memories:

` * Witches and wizards can extract their own memories and store them in glass containers for later viewing in a Pensieve.

  `    * **Albus Dumbledore:** The [[Headmaster]]'s office contained a cabinet filled with crystal phials and jars, each holding a memory he had collected from himself or others. These were essential for teaching [[Harry Potter]] about [[Lord Voldemort]]'s past. (//Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince//)
  `    * **Horace Slughorn:** [[Professor Slughorn]] kept a tampered memory of his conversation with [[Tom Riddle]] about [[Horcruxes]] in a small glass jar. The memory appeared as a thick, pearly-white substance, but when Slughorn modified it, the jar became filled with a dense white [[fog]]. Harry later retrieved the true memory from him. (//Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince//)
* **Potions Ingredients:**
  `    * Jars are ubiquitous in [[Potions]] classrooms and storerooms, used to preserve and organize the vast array of ingredients needed for brewing.
  `    * **Severus Snape's Office:** [[Professor Snape]]'s office and private stores at [[Hogwarts]] were lined with shelves of large [[glass]] jars containing slimy, pickled, or powdered ingredients, including things like pickled animals, eyeballs, and various [[herb]]s. (//Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets//)
  `    * **Borgin and Burkes:** This [[Dark Arts]] shop in [[Knockturn Alley]] had shelves containing sinister items in jars, including what appeared to be human eyeballs. (//Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets//)
* **Portable Magical Effects:**
  `    * [[Hermione Granger]] was particularly adept at using jars for practical magic. In her first year, she conjured a portable, waterproof blue fire which she carried in a jam jar. She used it to provide light and warmth, and most notably, set [[Snape]]'s robes on fire during a [[Quidditch]] match as a distraction, believing he was jinxing Harry's [[broomstick]]. (//Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone//)
* **Food and Confections:**
  `    * Jars are also commonly used for storing magical and non-magical foods.
  `    * **Honeydukes:** The famous sweetshop in [[Hogsmeade]] displays many of its confections, such as [[Cockroach Clusters]] and [[Acid Pops]], in large [[glass]] jars. (//Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban//)
  `    * **The Burrow:** The [[Weasley]] family kitchen is often depicted with jars of homemade preserves and other food items. (//Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets//)
  `    * **Crystallized Pineapple:** [[Professor Slughorn]] kept a jar of crystallized pineapple, a favorite treat of [[Albus Dumbledore]], which he used as a password to his office quarters. (//Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince//)

The film adaptations of the Harry Potter series feature extensive set dressing that includes thousands of custom-made jars. The sets for Snape's Potions classroom and Dumbledore's Office are particularly notable for their rows upon rows of jars containing various mysterious liquids, powders, and specimens, greatly enhancing the magical atmosphere of the Wizarding world. (film)