Does the Harry Potter series encourage under age drinking?
I don’t think so. I mean the kids do drink butterbeer, elf-made wine and occasionally a fire whiskey or something else, but you never see the kids INEBRIATED. You also never see important, serious adult characters like the Weasleys, Dumbledore, Sirius or Lupin hammered. You do see Hagrid and Slughorn drunk in HBP, but the children do exhibit some intelligence and control when it comes to magical representations of alcohol even though the stuff seems to flow freely. I believe some may also try equating potion intake to substance abuse. But then, I think it should be noted, that the children never take the potions recreationally. A person like Slughorn may take something like “essence of glee” for kicks, but it goes against the higher morals of the characters to use a potion for fun. So no. I don’t think the Harry Potter characters encourage recreational under age drinking . . . or even drinking as a means of coping with the hard things in life. The bottom line is that, yes, alcohol (and
