The Last Premier - Party like a Potions Master!

HARRY POTTER PREMIER PARTY JULY 14th:
Candy, Potions, Prizes, Wizard drinks, Plastic snakes and plenty of fun!

A display on the potion table – cauldron and numerous witchy ingredients (snakeskins, aconite, brimstone, wormwood, ghost weed, velvet leaf, belladonna, bistort, and a couple of potions). Only the batwings are not real – anyone who would kill bats merely for a display deserves to be cut up and used in a potion!

Let's face it – not all of us have the Galleons (nor the inclination!) to travel from the Pacific Northwest to scorching, muggy Florida to attend an official Harry Potter Convention. So, we here in Portlandmeade did what we could to send the Great Franchise off in style. At the apothecary I call home, we were invited by a small candy company, Chalk-Let (cute) – which is run out of a mini-schoolbus: Knight Bus, move over for these girls! – to have a table there, at which we could sell goods and do live potions demos.

Ewww!!! Name your ingredient – gooey gel, spiders, rats, several species of snakes – Dollar Scholar hosts a freaky table

What could be better, I ask, than being a real live Potions Master and apprentice, getting to help kids make real potions, all while sipping delicious, homemade butterbeer and pumpkin juice and swapping ridiculous anecdotes on a balmy afternoon? Few things, I daresay. . .



Our potion-making table – for a mere five Galleons (oops, dollars!) kid and adult alike can "brew", bottle and take home a potion. Antiquated pewter scoops, my massive potion case, old parchments, a quill, and a jar of Unguens Levitamens complete this scene.



Detail of the parchments, et cetera. Three of them – Libido Dulcis Fervidus, Velvet Blanket Brew, and Venice Treacle, are recipes for real potions; the fourth is a joke parchment, featuring a student's hideously illegible scribble and the scathing red-inked reply of an irate Professor Snape.

Butterbeer Recipe:
Cream soda, then spray or slather some butterscotch-flavor whip cream on top. Mmm, decadent!



A young member of my own House, dressed in her finest, coolly watches her friend's attempt at making a potion. She sips some of that yummy pumpkin juice, and has already made her potion, with the assertion: "I don't care what the herbs do, I just want something cool to put on my shelf!" Slytherin vanity. . . Hufflepuff honesty!

Pumpkin Juice Ingredients:
Apple cider
Pumpkin puree
Ginger
Cinnamon
Cloves
(sorry, didn't get the fractions. A bloke like Sev, and his apprentice, can figure it out – tough luck if you can't!)



My real-life Master, Carmella, instructs a young hopeful on the magic properties of each ingredient – Rose, Lavender, Jasmine flowers, Cinnamon, Mugwort, Mandrake, Frankincense – while Mom watches. We taught our charges how to make three types of potion – for love, vivid dreams, and protection. Pop Quiz: Which combinations do you guess are good for each brew?


The Woman who was Snape uses freaky Legili-powers to divine the reading of a Love-o-meter, an uber-cool, geeky science glass piece sold by the nearby Dollar Scholar fun shop. Around my neck are the very expensive Emerald Phial and a very cheap candy-powder plastic bottle, now filled with a healthy bee pollen snack. I found it's not practical to fully channel Snape (like I do in pictures), even in a Harry Potter setting, beyond making teases like, "And I'm not even grading them!" Why? Let's face it, folks. These are kids, and Snape is – no question – not a fun guy to be around.

Potterheads check out some local merchandise. Pah! Golden-Trio emulators! nice scarf



The interior of Chalk-Let Candy Company's candy bus! Second only to Honeydukes, with enough variety of goodies to satisfy even Dumbledore's tastes, the Bus features bulk lemon drops, runts, mints, wax sugar-drink bottles, gumdrops, crunchy clusters, lollipops, jelly beans (yes, they have boxes of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and I ran into one hell of an icky taste twice!), and Snape shudders to think what else. If you're ever in Portland, give 'em a visit – any candy-filled school bus with a chalkboard inside reading, "You are special" is a great place.


Afterward, at 9:00 pm, we all packed up like maniacs, I stuck 40-odd lbs. on my back and raced home on the wheeled broomstick to prepare for the Last Premier – as (what else) all-inhibitions-barred Snape!

Ladies and gentlemen, make way for The Saint – or else.

Closed for the Summer

The Guardian at the Gate

The doors of Hogwarts are closed for the summer, but muted activity continues within its walls: Mice stir in the corners, ghosts prowl the corridors, and a Potions Master makes frequent trips to the dungeon's ample laboratory. The brewing goes on.

Instead of "lumos", a tiny bottle on a chain full of a light-up potion serves to provide enough glow for a Snape to prowl by.

I do love this picture! It definitely reveals the "inner warlock" within the witch, the masculine side of me, which quite often manifests as this do-not-mess-with, Snapeshifted form. Fun to walk the streets and freak Muggles out.

Harry & the Potters! - Jun 21 (Solstice)

Founder of Harry & the Potters with the-Woman-who-was-Snape – rep the colors and rock on!!!

All right, confession time – I'd never been to a wizard rock concert until this June 21st, when I heard that Harry & the Potters, the first wizard rock band formed back in 2002, were coming to town!


Harry & the Potters ride the lightning!

The first I knew of it was I saw a few forelorn, loose pages of a local newspaper in the gutter on the way home. Except, one half of the page was headlined: "The Weekly Prophet". If you're like me, that last word is a neon signal, so I snatched the paper up and carted it home.




Potterheads of all ages get wild regardless of each others' eardrums.

Turned out there was a paper misprint. I rode miles north, only to find the free library concert was the previous day! However, I decided to skip the annual Solstice ritual and go to the one downtown, which I Slytherined my way into and was quite glad I did, because I met one of my friends and had much fun.












Wacky Potterhead merchandise

There were colors from all houses, but of course it was great fun to show off my incomparably Slytherin, handmade duds (not to mention the Emerald Phial necklace and snake-everything). I chatted a bit with a high school boy who was humoring his younger female cousin with "this wizard rock stuff" – he had a Slytherin tie on, and we mutually shouted, "Way to rep the colors!!"




I'm monitoring Galleons carefully lately, but I did buy a pin for a buck. Simple and direct in its message, it proclaims Potter enthusiasm and love of the magical, in the iconic words of young Severus Snape himself:

"It's real for us."

Interlude in the Park

When all I had to worry about were essays
When no one bothered me in my office
When the Dark Mark lay dormant
When the greatest pains were potion burns
Before the youngest Potter came to Hogwarts

When all I had to worry about were essays
it was a walk in the park





After tedious hours of interaction, after Slytherining my way around the horribly inefficient system that Muggles term "voice mail" in order to speak with a real person, I once again have Internet in my office again, and can post back-pictures of my agonies these past few months. Not that anyone finds them exciting.

Spring in Washington Park, and a stray Snape out for a stroll. A fragrant young tree courts an old hooked nose.

I couldn't help but notice the crows making an unusual racket, probably roused somehow by this vastly larger version of their own black-sheathed forms!

Undercover

Busy Severus!

Far too busy to do much except grade essays – no Easter holidays for burnt-out Potions masters! A bit of brewing here and there.

Also, I haven't oft written lately because I currently have limited access to this delightful Muggle invention of the internet. Some truly awful pictures have leaked into the Daily Prophet underground which I am trying to track down before they hit the web – apparently, some wizards have nothing better to do than look at pictures of me in conjunction with such hideous occasions as Valentine's Day and Easter... Merlin spare my ego and reputation...

The park is lovely this time of year. Trees are coming into bloom, plants growing for potion ingredients. Yet it is still wet enough, and there are still enough shadows, and still a distinct lack of tourists and children, to cater to my refined tastes... Not to mention the odd mis-occurrence to keep my spying skills sharp...










Meantime, I've been suffering through student woes, crashing a Gryffindor cram-fest AND a vampires' masquerade ball on back-to-back nights (leading to sporadic correspondence with the leader of Greece's vampiric sorcerer community; apparently they're having problems with a Voldemort-like chap over there as well – more on that later), and keeping pace with Albus' stepped-up efforts – where will it all end?!?!

The essays are beginning to look pretty good...

How to Hide your potions from Gryffindors

I actually caught that little beast Wormtail trying to tamper with my potions samples once when I was looking the other direction (Slytherin tip: never look the other direction for any longer than you have to)! I've also caught him looking over my shoulder, trying to figure out how I was modifying my brews. Those prats never quit.

Fortunately, I managed to transfigure an old, discarded tome into a portable kit – both for basic brewing needs, and (most importantly) to store finished samples. Now let's see them try to filch my phials out of my bag – they're out of sight, disguised by a harmless-looking book!

This is, in fact, my own handmade, functional Potions kit. (However, it took a lot longer to make than using mere transfiguration!) Wooden, leather-bound, reinforced, it can withstand plenty of active use. It opens to reveal not one, but two layers of small compartments full of tiny phials. I am now offering several for sale via eBay, but this original is the best – and to carry it is, I'm sorry, such a pimpin' status symbol for serious Snape-o-philes like me. Not to mention great for taking on the road... from Nausea Drops to Instant Bliss, Libido Fervidus to Mortis Rapidum, it's a medical and magical kit in a book.

If a Snape sees his shadow... Feb. 2nd

What they used to call Imbolc (those of us who know the Old Ways still do), people now call Groundhog Day. Ridiculous. So if I, Severus, rather than a groundhog, see my shadow on Feb. 2nd, will there be six more weeks of winter? In the world of Snape, it is always winter. And I... I am the shadow.

Salazar Slytherin walked here.

Upward of a thousand years ago, the home of one of Hogwarts' founders stood here, in the middle of this quiet fen – an idyllic location for a wizard who enjoyed his solitude and the company of Nature's secrets. I stand amidst this peaceful, stark landscape, and there is the perfect balance of sound: enough silence to hear the serpents that once spoke to their Master (though not to hear their language), mixed with occasional birdsong.



Artists would describe it as having "a limited palette". Others would find it outright bleak, even creepy. Plenty of today's dunder-headed youth would call it "dull as sh*t", mainly if they had no cannabis or Firewhisky to share away from adult eyes.

Slytherin Fen is not everyone's idea of a nice place. In winter, especially, the land is asleep, and the colors of the landscape are subdued. Along the banks, suckholes and grass-covered wash-tunnels wait to trap the unwary legs of folks less observant than a keen-eyed Potions Master. But I find it a place of deep serenity, of most precious, welcome peace.

I blend in with the scenery, like merely another broken snag, a black stump, a shadow amid the many shadows of this place, laden as it is already with tree trunks and logs. And when I stand still, not only my body but my spirit merges with the stoic, quiet spirit of the Fen.



Here I can stretch myself upon the bank in the sun, with no students to bother me, no Albus to Floo me with the overly friendly news of a staff meeting, and most of all, no Boy-Who-Lived to vex me. In that rare window of blessed isolation, only the Dark Mark remains as that which can yank me ruthlessly back to my caged life, and it is tied to that part of my brain that is ever, without fail, on alert and dreads the need to take action. But the rest of me, for the most part, is at last able to take its ease.


Even in winter, the Fen yields its secrets to those who seek. Rare potions ingredients lurk beneath the bowing grass, cling to logs, hang on trees, and are usually within reach of a Summoning spell or long fingers: lichens, feathers, wild herbs, frogs, toads, snakes, swamp leeches, mud nippers... The sundry bits find a place in any of several hidden pockets within the folds of black.

This place may appear dead to some, but it is pulsing with life. Even in a moment of silence, the air hums with its presence. At other times, tiny creatures flit past me on their various missions, and the grass rustles briefly. Across a broad waterway, a committee of Red Wing Blackbirds converse brightly – almost too brightly for my tastes – and announce their insistent, metric measurements:

"One-millili-i-i-i-iter!"
"Thirty-one-li-i-i-i-iters!!"

At last, the sun begins to set over Slytherin Fen, tinting the sky with a delicious brew of lemon and peach and melon and cream, soft blue and grey, and finally a rich range of pinks. I take my leave, refreshed – if only somewhat – in body and soul, content... and glad, once again, that I have come.

If today there shall be six more weeks of winter because a Snape saw his shadow in the Fen, then so be it. This day has been worth it.


Happy Imbolc!
Imbolc (or Oimelc, later Candlemas) is one of the original Witches' sabbats in Europe and, especially, the Celtic lands. Its patron Goddess is Brighid, or Bride, later called St. Brigid by some. It is a holiday for celebrating the first returning of the Sun, the new life of spring, as embodied by the light of candles, and the symbology of Brigid as the bringer of flame. At this time of year, the land in the British Isles, especially farther north, is still pretty dead. In ancient times, stored food was running real low by now, and your family would be feeling the strain. Spring was greatly welcomed and anticipated. In the Pacific Northwest, the first, merest stirrings of life can be seen right now – trees with sticky, resinous buds, early blades of grass, velvety pussy willows, and those sweet cherry blossoms.

So what is a "fen"?!?! It's a wetland, a swamp, fed by running streams more than rain (a bog is fed mainly by rain). In the Harry Potter series, sneaky, snake-loving Salazar Slytherin is stated (via the Hat!) as having lived in a fen. In these pictures, "Slytherin Fen" is actually Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, which does rise and fall a bit with the rain, but also has live, slow streams running through it. This summer I had a truly magical experience there, in which a small snake came up to my feet and curled about them briefly before making her way off into the grasses again. And aside from the well-used jogging trail populated by cell-phone wielding dunderheads, yes, it is a place of serenity (all the more reason to nip off to one side, out of sight, and poke around for potions ingredients). Hundreds of birds, muskrats, and plenty of other critters call this home. I try to venture out to this spot on a regular basis... however, I respect its status as a refuge and, in fact, do not kill or take away any critters for potions. I get 'em elsewhere instead.