The Potions Master

[Barry Arrowsmith]

Scrabbling around, looking for unconsidered trifles, grasping at 
straws, searching for pointers to the next two books. It's a hard life 
as a fan.

Apart from the beginning the end and perhaps the Mirror, when it comes 
to analysis PS/SS generally gets pushed towards the back these days and 
Chap. 8 rarely gets a mention except to demonstrate how truly horrible 
Sevvy is to Harry. (Though canon doesn't give this view unqualified 
support - after Snape has docked Harry a second point and Harry is 
about to argue, Ron gives him a nudge and tells him "Don't push it..... 
I've heard Snape can turn very nasty."  Not much worse than average, 
then?) However, I'm not so sure that that's its only function; there's 
a possibility that the passage on the potions class is absolutely 
heaving with significance.

".... even stopper death..."
Thus spake Snape in PS/SS.

I seem to recall a post or two on this from way back and the general 
consensus was that ole Sevvy could bottle death, i.e. poisons, which 
wasn't my interpretation at all - though I never got round to saying 
so, being heavily involved in two or three other threads at the time.

Can't speak for those on the other side of the water but in the UK the 
generally accepted usage of stopper (as a verb) is to block, prevent, 
curtail, seal off, obstruct, stop; much the same meaning as the phrase 
"put a cork in it" when you want somebody to shut up. Which would mean 
that Snape can prevent death.

How interesting. Does Voldy  know this?

Of course he may just be getting poetic about the use of potions for 
their curative properties - so might Fleming have claimed that 
penicillin could stopper death if used correctly.
And if he's not?
There's at least two routes to immortality;  the Stone is one and Voldy 
was certain that another way existed, anyway he'd been searching for it 
for years. Maybe Snape knows a way too.  It'd certainly fit with DD's 
inclinations - anyone who knows too much (Sybil for example) gets a job 
at Hogwarts where he can keep an eye on them. It would resurrect 
another old theory - Snape isn't a spy, he's brewmaster, real or 
pretend, to Voldy and the DEs.

Then there is what some consider a foreshadowing - the triple of 
monkshood, wolfsbane and aconite (remember the Bellman - "what I tell 
you three times is true") and the specific against poisons - a bezoar. 
Mind you, I don't think it'll be Harry that's poisoned, not with 
wolfsbane in there. And just to make sure Harry remembers he gets his 
first punishment for not knowing this.

If you look this introductory homily is mostly about death - how it can 
be obtained, how to prevent it, how to give the appearance of it. You 
can't say you haven't been warned.

That 'Draught of Living Death' stuff. Sounds intriguing and open to all 
sorts of interpretations and associations. Why would anyone need to 
sleep that deeply? Um. Romeo and Juliet? And the constituents - 
wormwood: bitter;  a vermifuge and moth repellent - hardly applicable, 
but absinthe, there's a fun beverage with wormwood as an ingredient - 
and too much drives you bonkers, you have hallucinations and fits - 
which is why it was made illegal.

Mix it up with asphodel - which according to the herbals is good for 
menstrual troubles, not something that should worry Harry, but oh yes - 
the mythological links - where it grew was the domain of Hades, ruler 
of the dead and it is according to Homer "an ugly weed with a pretty 
name, a grey and ghostly plant suited to an Underworld inhabited by 
bloodless wraiths."  Dementors, anyone? Or should we be thinking of the 
Veil?

Bitter as mind-bending wormwood, bitter as death and a plant from the 
realm of the dead. It may be the result of an over-active imagination 
(or those pickled onions at lunch) - but if Sirius hasn't got his 
mirror and if he's not a ghost, what're the odds that he could be 
contacted by entering a death-like sleep? Or why should it be Sirius? 
Why not James and Lily? Crazy? Possible - the months before a new book 
tends to be when the most outrageous ideas get thrown up. And 
afterwards they get thrown out. Fun idea though.

But what to make of ".. brew fame and bottle glory...." that's one hell 
of a claim - and how could it be accomplished and under what 
circumstances?

Answers on a postcard please.

Kneasy