Mixing It Together (filk)

[coriolan_cmc2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 32464

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Let's start it off with a new filk.

Mixing It Together (from PS/SS, Chap. 8)

(To the tune of Putting It Together, from Sondheim's Sunday in the 
Park With George)

Dedicated to Lisa Inman

(THE SCENE: Potions Class. SNAPE is conducting his first class with 
the new Gryffindor students)

SNAPE (spoken) I don't expect you will really understand the beauty 
of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the 
delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching 
the mind, ensnaring the senses...I can teach you how to bottle fame, 
brew glory, even stopper death -- if you aren't as big a bunch of 
dunderheads as I usually have to teach.

(music)
Bit by bit, mixing it together 
Snip by snip, only way to make a potion work
Every shimmer makes a bit of thunder
Ev'ry simmering fume adds its murk
Waving just a wand here can't work wonders
Amateurs when here can only blunder
Mixing it together, that's what counts

Ounce by ounce, stirring it together
Parts surmount, adding up to make a potent brew
First of all, you need this education
I want you working briskly from the start
If you'll overcome your limitations
And your dunderheaded inclinations
And if you have made your resolution
That you'll master alchemy's solutions


The posh of potion art is mixing it together
Quill by quill

Leech by leech, making the dissection
Bile by bile, chopping every scarab as it comes
Learning how to be a great magician
Cutting up the roots until you're numb
Finding that you're part of a tradition
Which insists on hard work and cognition
.

Potions aren't easy!
If your fire won't burn, 
If your cauldron won't bubble
Then you've got to act fast, 
Or you're in double trouble

If you want to learn to be effective, 
Glory, fame and death view in perspective
Then you must prepare your distillation
Carefully as any incantation
You will quickly know through intuition
When you've made the right juxtaposition

Slug by slug, filling up the kettle
Bug by bug, stewing each lacewing 21 days
Here there is no room to be subjective
For there could be real hell to pay.
What if your wolfsbane should prove defective
And if you've not learned of the corrective
You will wind up in a bad condition
In an urgent need of a physician

Potions aren't easy!
I sometimes students poison
(This is no mere anecdote)
And you won't feel coy, son,
If you should lack for an antidote

If you understand these definitions
Then this topic you can make your own
So if you'll excel in erudition
And you have a stalwart dispositon
Ready to face any apparition
And you're not the least bit apprehensive
Even if you find me quite offen --
Even if you find *this* quite offensive

SNAPE addresses Harry directly

And thee, boy
Our new celebrity, boy
Can you tell me of wormwood, boy?
Or maybe of monkshood, boy?
Will you be any good, boy?

Snape returns to the class as a whole

Bit by bit
Mixing it together
Egg by egg 
Blending an elixir night and day
All it takes is time and perseverance
With a lot of pluck along the way
I will strictly punish incoherence
And I will brook with no interference
So when I express exasperation
I expect redoubled application 
Think of every class as an audition
Students can best learn through repetition
Tackle now this matter with ambition
With a high degree of motivation
If you follow all my admonitions
You will minimize my irritation
Though it's my innate predisposition
To desire your humiliation

The panache of potion art
Is mixing it together
Bit by bit -
Drop by drop -
Fang by fang -
Spleen by spleen -

CHORUS OF GRYFFINDOR STUDENTS 
And that 
Is what Snape takes to heart!

   - CMC

HARRY POTTER FILKS 
http://home.att.net/~coriolan/hpfilks.htm