parchment
See equipment and supplies.

penknife
For Christmas in 1994 [Y14], Sirius gave Harry a handy penknife with attachments to unlock any lock and undo any knot (GF23).

• Harry regretted not having brought the penknife along during the second task, when he had left it locked in his trunk in Gryffindor Tower (GF26).

• Harry used his penknife to break into Umbridge's office to use her fire to talk to Sirius after seeing Snape's worst memory (OP29).

• Harry used his penknife to break into Umbridge's office to use her fire to talk to Sirius after having a vision during his final O.W.L. exam of Sirius being tortured in the Department of Mysteries. Unfortunately, Kreacher answered the fire call instead on that occasion (OP32).

• Harry used his penknife to try to open a door in the Department of Mysteries, but the blade melted away when inserted into the crack between the lock and the doorframe (OP34).

Pennifold Quaffle
See QUAFFLE, PENNIFOLD.

Pensieve
A shallow stone basin with odd runes and symbols carved around the edge. When in use, a silvery light shines from its contents, which are bright, whitish silver, and cloud-like, moving ceaselessly. Harry thought the stuff in the basin looked like "light made liquid - or like wind made solid" (GF30).
The name "Pensieve" is a play on words. In the first place, "Pensieve" is a homonym for the English word pensive. In the second place, the word "Pensieve" is formed from the Latin pens + English sieve.

• Dumbledore keeps his Pensieve in a black cabinet in his office. When he has too many thoughts and memories crowded into his head, he siphons the excess thoughts into the basin using his wand. He says that "(i)t becomes easier to spot patterns and links" in the memories when they're collected in the Pensieve (GF30).

• Harry touched the material in Dumbledore's Pensieve when he first saw it, and was taken back incorporeally into some of Dumbledore's memories (GF30).

• Snape borrowed Dumbledore's Pensieve early in 1996 [Y16] to prepare his mind for Occlumency lessons with Harry. Snape wanted to remove some of his more embarrassing memories so that Harry would have no chance of seeing them. Unfortunately, Snape left the Pensieve on his desk, and when Snape was out of the room Harry visited one of those memories (OP28).

• Q: Do the memories stored in a Pensieve reflect reality or the views of the person they belong to?
  A: It's reality. It's important that I have got that across, because Slughorn gave Dumbledore this pathetic cut-and-paste memory. He didn't want to give the real thing, and he very obviously patched it up and cobbled it together. So, what you remember is accurate in the Pensieve.
  (TLC)

• Q: So there are things in there that you haven't noticed personally, but you can go and see yourself?
  A: Yes, and that's the magic of the Pensieve, that's what brings it alive.
  
  Q: I want one of those!
  A: Yeah. Otherwise it really would just be like a diary, wouldn't it? Confined to what you remember. But the Pensieve recreates a moment for you, so you could go into your own memory and relive things that you didn't notice at the time. It's somewhere in your head, which I'm sure it is, in all of our brains. I'm sure if you could access it, things that you don't know you remember are all in there somewhere.
  (TLC)

Philosopher's Stone / Sorcerer's Stone (PS/SS)
The most fabulous magic item of them all, the goal of alchemists and wizards for centuries. There was only one such stone known to be in existence, one created by Nicolas Flamel. The Philosopher's Stone gives unlimited gold and immortality. Rather a nice payoff, but perhaps it isn't as perfect as it seems, as Dumbledore says: "Humans tend to choose the things that are worst for them." The Stone became the object of Voldemort's desire in his quest for immortality, and it was only through the intervention of Harry and his friends that Voldemort didn't obtain it from its hiding place in Hogwarts.

• essay by Brian Dorband about Flamel and the Stone

pictures with moving subjects

• See POSTERS.

• Chocolate Frog cards - trading cards that come with Chocolate Frogs (PS6.)

• photo album with wizard pictures of Harry's parents (PS17, PA11)

• photograph from the Daily Prophet showing the Weasley family in Egypt, all waving (PA1)

• The paintings at Hogwarts, number twelve, Grimmauld Place, the Ministry of Magic, and St. Mungo's

• pictures in the book Flying With The Cannons (GF2)

• picture taken by Colin Creevey that shows Lockhart trying to pull a reluctant Harry into the frame. When this fails, Lockhart collapses against the white frame of the picture in exhaustion (CS7)

• In the Head's office are the portraits of the previous Heads. These portraits are honor-bound to advise and serve the current Head. Some of the portraits are of Dilys Derwent, Everard, a gimlet-eyed witch with a stout birch-rod-like wand, a corpulent red-faced wizard, Phineas Nigellus, and Armando Dippet. When called upon, they can visit their portraits in other wizarding institutions and locations and deliver messages, act as lookouts, and so on (OP22).

• PS/f - CONJURING SPELLS for portraits added for the films.

Pocket Sneakoscope
See SNEAKOSCOPE.

Portkey
A Portkey is an enchanted object, often a piece of supposedly worthless junk, which when touched will transport a person to a preprogrammed location. An object can be transformed into a Portkey by the Portus spell, but the caster must be authorized to do so. The Portkey Office is part of the Department of Magical Transportation at the Ministry of Magic (GF6, GF10, GF32, GF34, OP7, OP36).

posters
See PICTURES WITH MOVING SUBJECTS.

• posters of Chudley Cannons with moving players (CS3)

• The Bulgarian fans' tents at the Quidditch World Cup were covered with posters of Viktor Krum, but all the image did was to blink and scowl (GF7).

• Ministry of Magic wanted posters (HBP6)

• Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes' parodies of Ministry of Magic posters (HBP6); compare FLASHING PAINT CHARM

press, printing
A printing press that runs on magic instead of electricity; it is made of wood, looks "like the bizarre offspring of a workbench and a set of old shelves", and is covered in turning cogs and wheels.

• While running, it makes a loud racket; when finished with a print run, it makes one loud bang, then produces the printed material (DH20).

Probe, Probity
A long, thin, flexible golden rod used like a Muggle security wand, which detects spells of concealment and hidden magical objects (OP7, DH26).
"Probity" is another word for honesty, integrity.

• The Ministry of Magic uses one on visitors (OP7).

• Gringotts uses one on customers at times when they've tightened security (HBP6, DH26).

punching telescope
See TELESCOPE, PUNCHING.

Put-Outer

See DELUMINATOR.