The Master in the Lab

Exquisite toxins that caress the mind
Ingredients rare from across the sea
Concocted and measured with precision fine
Oh, when left to be, what a pleasure
to be ME
 -- me, I forget when, back in 2011 or something

Potion-making as practiced by Severus Snape is a very exact art, more like chemistry than real-life potistry as practiced by a lot of living witches. Medicinal herbalism comes closer to this level of precision: If you're working with Foxglove, for instance, even a slightly higher dose than ideal can stop a person's heart. Another example where exact recipes do count is in brewing of a more common sort -- beer, which is certainly an ancient art but one that may or may not be magickal (in its earliest days it was, as evidenced by a Sumerian goddess of beer, Ninkasi, but you won't find it today in the beer factory where I've worked).

There is a romance about this precision, a lure to the idea that one has to possess a certain amount of mastery to brew correctly, that more skill is required beyond simply chucking herbs in a pot. When I began making potions again in earnest in 2009, one of the first things I threw myself into was learning to formulate, to craft a recipe down to the exact percentage of each ingredient.

Weighing things in a scale, and feeling the extra pressure of a demand that each ingredient be properly measured, prepared and integrated, adds spice to the craft: a kind of heightened drama and intensity, whether it be to achieve a flawless brew and the satisfaction that comes with, or to have the whole damn thing blow up in your face.

It's no surprise, then, that fans have captured the subtle splendor of this kind of skill in pieces of their Snape-centric art. He is every master I'd both admire and like to be when it comes to the realm of cauldron, phial and brew.

It's also amusing to note -- and I sometimes forget -- that it was a potion scene in which I first encountered the Potterverse. It wasn't the first book, either, but the second. The year? 1997. A sixteen-year-old, I picked it up idly on my lunch break at work. Opened it at random. "Snape prowled through the fumes, making waspish remarks about the Gryffindors' work while the Slytherins sniggered appretiatively. . . ."

I recall thinking, What the fuck is a Gryffindor or a Slytherin, and equally what the fuck are these guys up to? But it sounded gross and exciting, they seemed to be in school (as was I), and that Snape fellow was definitely a menace (albeit one who clearly had to put up with a lot of crap).

Later, while picking classes as a science major in college, I was never one to balk when I saw that extra little phrase in the course catalogue, "with lab", beyond the challenge of fitting it all into my schedule. I had fun in labs: "No, that's actually perfect," my teacher told me, when I inquired if my phenolpthalein titration had reached the proper endpoint (the faintest of pinks); "And that's way too far!" he told the guy next to me, who boasted a solution of flaming magenta color.

No, my only complaint was that we never got to spend enough time in the lab just dicking around to really get a feel and taste for what we were doing. Move 'em in, move 'em out. Sounds like Harry and his peers had the same problem . . . the only difference being, they wanted out! Merlin forbid they have to spend any more time in Snape's presence than necessary.

Little did I know that a decade later, I'd not only fall tail-over-cowl for that sneering, greasy-haired bastard, but he'd turn me into his potions apprentice for life.

What exactly hit me?