Things that should have been in Harry Potter

Unfortunately, I recently found my self feeding the all consuming power that is the Harry Potter franchise, by going to watch the latest Harry potter film: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

As I watched, there was one point that nagged me, other than the bad acting, the fact the Daniel Radcliffe is so old for the part that he's seriously thinking about his pension, and the fact that most of the characters completely forget that they have the ability to use magic most of the time, and that was their reluctance to use magic for anything useful or cool.

If magic was a part of my world, it would be a different story, and to illustrate this, here are 12 ideas that I believe should be in the Harry Potter universe:

1) Magic Mobile Phones

It strikes me that phones, or even a magical equivalent would be incredibly useful in the Harry Potter universe. There is a scene when Harry sticks his face in a fire to talk to someone, when a simple text would have sufficed.

This would eliminate the, in my opinion, frankly cruel practise of making owls fly the length and breadth of the country in order to deliver your Christmas cards.

That said, owls are pretty pimpin.

2) Magic Drugs

With the sort of chemical activity that we're told occurs regularly at Hogwarts, why isn't there a thriving drug culture?

 Not only does it appear to be relatively easy to steal magical ingredients, but you'd assume that with potions to do most things, there would be some wizards who'd dream up incredible highs, which would not only be better than normal drugs, but hopefully not kill you so much either.

3) Promiscuity

When you have a bunch of teenagers, whose hormones are presumably reverberating around them like so many fireworks in a small shed, locked in together in a large building, I find it hard to believe that a quick snog under some mistletoe in a magic room is all that happens.

It strikes me that Hogwarts should probably invest in a substantial sexual health clinic, as I shudder to think what magic STDs are like.

 4) Drunk magic

Presuming that there is alcohol available in the magic community, it seems the next obvious thing that wizards should be getting drunk and doing stupid things magically.

Surely wizards would be waking up to find that they have no money, no memory, the penis you drew on your friend has become a real penis, and that your car now has feet.

5) Cheap methods of broom-less flight:

1.     Wear shoes

2.     Use levitation spell on shoes

3.     FLY!!

6) The Internet!

Surely having a massive source of information like the internet would appeal to the magical community, and make life easier for everyone.

Hermione seems to spend an inordinate amount of time in the library, where as everyone else would simply Google it.

Want to know what a horcrux is? - Wikileaks

Want to find out a certain spell? - Magipedia ©

Surely the marauder's map would be handy as an iphone app?

Surely blogs could replace pensieves?

7) Silenced Wand

As pictured above, the wand is fitted with a suppressor to remove that pesky whoosh sound whenever you attempt to so much as magically wipe your own nose, and also reduces the massive light flash.

This enables stealth take-downs and eliminates the need to leap blindly into rooms full of bad people, and let luck do the rest.

I picture a black-ops style operation in which highly trained wizard teams can stealthily take out targets, without long, special effects heavy fights, which seem to consist of playing tennis using fire.

8) Firearms

I've been saying this for a long time, but surely guns would be highly effective against even really good wizards.

I find it hard to believe that say, Dumbledore could successfully block a supersonic .50 cal round. In fact I'd say he'd have no idea what hit him.

While the problem that magic is arguably more powerful than guns does hold water, as presumably spells are bulletproof, then a simple solution still suggests itself:

Magic Guns – you can’t argue with that

9) The Hand-bag house

In the latest instalment of the book, Hermione goes all Mary Poppins, and reveals that her handbag can house a small library as well as loads of other useful stuff.

Other than the obvious problems of it weighing a ton, and the fact that the bag's opening is too small to fit a lot of things through, it strikes me as the obvious thing to simply get inside it.

Presumably you could create your wizard crib in there and do the whole “we’re in hiding” thing, in the lost property of a starbucks somewhere.

10) Anyone at all who knows even basic Latin

Surely there must have been someone somewhere in the harry potter world who thought to themselves “wait a minute, the spell for fire, is suspiciously similar to the Latin word for fire”. What I am forced to conclude from this, is that the Romans were all wizards, and this has been hushed up, and is now some sort of joke at the expense of non-wizards. They must hang around the Colosseum smirking and saying to themselves “these guys think that they built this with their hands!! – gullible fools”

This also goes a little way to explaining why they wear robes and speak Latin in the Catholic Church.

11) X-ray specs

These would definitely have been invented, probably by Fred and George, as a way to let people see through Hermione’s robes.

It could be done.

And it so would have been.

12) A sense of duty to actually help the world?

There are a number of things like pollution, poverty and AIDS, which I get the feeling that a magic wand could probably go a long way towards helping with.

Now, I don’t mean to sound like a goddamn hippy here, but if a hungry Ethiopian saw a wizard pulling roast chicken out of the air, he’d start trying to eat his own limbs.
Are wizards completely ignorant, or are they just selfish dicks?