Hello All! Welcome to this week's chapter! I hope you enjoy!
Potions Master Pygmalion
Chapter Four
A beautiful young woman walked through a sunlit meadow in his dreams, laughing into the wind blowing off the turquoise sea. Her white sundress clung to every curve of her hourglass frame. Her chestnut hair, shot through with golden sun streaks, bounced gently against her shoulders as she ran. It tried to cling to her shoulders in vain. Her hair looked so soft as Severus reached out to touch it, though she was too far away for him to reach it.
She turned, still laughing, looking for him over her shoulder. Her skin was the glowing blushed white complexion so many women tried for but couldn't achieve. He could see the rose blush on her cheek – a true English beauty, then – the faded freckles across the bridge of her nose…
Severus sat up, his arm still outstretched to touch a woman who wasn't there. She probably didn't even exist. Even if she did exist, she would probably have nothing to do with him. She might laugh at him, but that hardly counted.
Severus knew he wasn't handsome – his nose was too large for good looks, and his teeth were crooked (like an Englishman who hadn't been through the torture of orthodonture). His hair was almost always greasy from hanging over steaming cauldrons all day, and his hair was so baby fine that hair ties weren't a practical solution. As an apprentice, he had finally just cast a charm on his hair and his cauldrons to keep the hair from falling into a brew and contaminating it, then given the task up as a bad job.
He also knew he wasn't attractive in any way a woman would look for. He was acerbic and sarcastic. He didn't tolerate short comings in anyone, particularly those closest to him. People around him could either make themselves useful or leave, and Severus didn't mind telling them so.
Regardless, his dream could be nothing else – nothing but a fanciful vision created by too much crouching and digging through musty centuries-old parchments. It was a distraction, like all women. Severus put it out of his mind and got back to work.
He reached a hand up to rub his tired eyes – it was four in the morning already? – and peeled the parchment stuck there from his cheek.
Severus scowled at the introduction before him – this was the sixth? Seventh? time, now – frowning with each sentence. He tried to imagine what Tom or Arsenius would say with each sentence as they read the paper. He imagined it would be something along these lines:
From the beginning of the world, man has always sought his roots –
Arsenius: Meaning you're too lazy to look up a reference?
… – from the Egyptian birth of Ra from chaos, to the Judeo-Christian Adam and Eve, and on to Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, every culture and age has had its own conception of the beginning.
Tom: So what? Every culture wants to know where they came from. Tell me why it's important.
The Greeks imagined gods who could create actual beings, as displayed in two stories. In the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, most famously told by Ovid, a statue created by man is given life by the goddess Aphrodite. Hesiod recorded in his Theogeny the tale of Pandora, the woman wrought from precious metals and given life and attributes by all the gods together. It is in this second tale that the author's interest chiefly lies.
Arsenius: You have good knowledge of mythology. In what way, precisely, does looking back to the creation of Pandora push the Potions Guild into a new future?
The author feels that if such a dummy as Pandora could be reproduced by magical means, chiefly through the application of alchemy and potioneering, it could be applied to many uses. In particular, the dummy could be used in the study of exotic diseases and their cures.
Tom: Go on…
Potential cures could be more accurately and thoroughly tested at less cost to potions makers and medical institutions. Certainly, such tests could be performed at less risk to human volunteers.
Tom and Arsenius together: Now you have our attention. How do you propose to create this oh-so-useful "dummy"?
Of course, Severus was still working out the answer to that question.
He pulled forward his notes on Egyptian mummification. One writer in particular was rather useful. Other recent wizarding sources cited this muggle, Dr. Cockburn. The wizarding section of the British Museum's Egyptology Collection had invited him to speak as a mummification expert at their Death and Disease in Ancient Egypt symposium in early 1973.
Severus wished McGonagall had posted news about that on her classroom bulletin… Then again, she very well might have done so. His second year self hadn't been all that interested in ancient Egypt and mummies. Those subjects had had no practical application to his studies then.
His left forearm began to burn. Severus toppled out of his chair, cursing. Tom was calling him. Did it always have to be so bloody painful? Why couldn't an owl perform the service just as well? Some owls were easily as vicious as the pain Tom had just delivered. On that note, why not a Patronus? The Patronus might even give Severus an idea of Tom's mood.
Perhaps that was precisely why Tom didn't use a Patronus. It wouldn't do to give his followers a forewarning if Tom was well and truly pissed. And Tom, sadist that he was, could enjoy the sight of his "friends" in pain, if he was in a good mood.
Severus picked himself up off the floor, sighing. He'd better go see what Tom wanted this early in the morning.
He stuffed his paper introduction and notes into his pocket before he swept out of Arsenius' back laboratory door. He smirked proudly inside at the grace of the motion. It had taken him until last November to figure the gesture out entirely, seeming to stalk like a panther instead of looking like he was tripping over his gangly limbs…
Mind back on track. Tom needed him for something. And while he was about it, now was the perfect time to show Tom his project notes. Perhaps Tom had some sources that Severus would be unable to access on his own…
Severus Apparated to Tom's manor house in northern England. He landed softly and knelt immediately on the plush, emerald Abyssinian runner. He could see the whorls and knots in the dark walnut flooring to either side of the carpet, and hear wood snapping and popping in the great hearth before the plush armchairs he knew sat about five feet in front of his current kneeling place.
"Ah, Severus. You came quite promptly." The light tenor voice above him was almost musical in the nuance of its amusement and derision.
"Yes, my lord."
"Good. You may rise, and we shall drop the formalities for this evening – or this morning, as the case may be."
"Yes, Tom."
Severus looked up to see a tall man in a plush charcoal dressing gown, worn open over a white button-down shirt and black pants. A glass of brandy was held elegantly in one long-fingered hand. The other man's face seemed perfectly formed, like any of DaVinci's or Raphael's portraits. The wavy brown hair and dark amused eyes seemed designed purely to set any onlooker at ease. Severus knew better than to trust the illusion completely.
"I wished to speak of your project and your interview. Pour yourself a drink and come join me by the fire."
Severus nodded and did as he was bid. The crystal decanters were especially fine, with a monogrammed "R" engraved on each bottle, with a cutter ship sailing the waters behind the letter. Tom had once said that the depiction told of his father's family connections to the East India Company long ago.
"Was there anything in particular you wished to hear?" Severus asked as he poured himself a glass of elf-made merlot.
"How did your interview go?"
"I'm approved to take the mastery examinations," Severus replied cautiously. This was not what Tom was interested in hearing, and Severus knew it well.
"That is good. Did you reveal your project to them, or shall we all remain in suspense indefinitely?"
Ah, there was the trace of censure Severus had expected.
"I did not reveal my project to the Examination Panel, Tom. I opted instead to accept a challenge from one of the masters on the Panel."
"So I had heard. I assume you succeeded in the challenge, or I would not be currently enjoying your company."
"Yes, I did succeed." He paused. Tom would want details of the challenge and the results. "Master Dagworth-Granger challenged me to recreate his Wolfsbane Potion using a starting base, as it is too late in the month to begin from scratch. He also supplied what ingredients and materials were necessary, according to his original research."
"So you successfully brewed an unreleased recipe composed by a master… That is interesting. Do you remember the recipe?"
"Not entirely. And I couldn't know the entire recipe, anyway, beginning from a base," Severus lied. He could guess perfectly well how Dagworth-Granger had created the base. He had probably wasted as many ingredients in the base (for a less effective cure) as he had elsewhere in the potion, as Severus had noted while brewing. He also remembered perfectly the part of the potion he had brewed, but he was wary of telling Tom just yet. Since he had been performing on the spot, and improvising in places, he could hardly be held accountable for not remembering all the details.
"A pity. I would be very interested to take apart that brew and see if you and I together could improve it." Tom watched for Severus' reaction out of the corner of his eye.
Severus knew that any working "together" with Tom would mean that he would do all the work while Tom received all the credit. Tom was a Slytherin, after all. Do as little as you possibly can for as much profit as possible. Severus understood perfectly and wasn't offended at the suggestion.
"Perhaps one day we shall, Tom."
"And you didn't reveal your project to the Panel. Why such secrecy, Severus?"
"I was afraid to shock them to terribly, Tom. Some are quite elderly, and one good heart attack might spell their end."
"I thought you wanted to turn the Guild upon its ear?" Tom chuckled.
"I would prefer all the living masters still be living when I am a master in the position to do just such a thing."
Tom laughed outright at this.
"But if you are interested, I have brought some of my paper and current research with me tonight to show you. I would be open to any suggestions you might have." Severus inclined his head toward to Tom. "I show you this under the assumption you won't show the Panel, of course. They shall have to hang on tenterhooks until the project is completed."
An almost lustful gleam shone in the perfect dark eyes of the man sitting across from Severus. "Show me."
Severus drew the papers from his coat pocket and handed them over. Tom almost ripped them from the younger man's hand in his eagerness. He turned his back to Severus and paced in front of the fire as he read.
Silence, apart from the crackling fire, drew on for many long minutes before Tom looked up from the sheaf of parchments in his hands.
"An interesting project to be sure. You have a lot of work ahead of you, Severus."
"Yes, sir."
"Has Master Jigger seen this yet?"
"I planned to show him this morning."
"This is good work. He will be pleased. But why the notes on Egyptian mummification?"
"When I started that line of research, I had thought that mummification would be the opposite of what I am attempting. The Egyptians took apart the body where I am trying to put it together. At first, the description Herodotus gave in the second volume of his Histories seemed to be just what I was looking for."
Tom glanced warily at the younger man. "And now?"
"It seems to me that the Egyptians used too much natron and other salts to be of any help to me. Their packaging of the organs doesn't help much either. And, to be honest, I believe the brain is too delicate a piece of machinery to be poured up someone's nose, even just a Pandora dummy."
"Mm. I see your dilemma. But you seem to have drawn some inspiration from your Egyptian sources despite not following their footsteps."
"I have. More from their making of shapti than from mummification. My sources say that shapti were created from a charmed mixture of wax and clay. That got me thinking about the skin, when I get around to creating it. I believe that the skin will be the last step. But I could use some mixture of wax and clay, perhaps with some other ingredients, to make a passable human skin. I will think on it more when I have finished everything else."
"So you drew inspiration from Pygmalion after all, Severus? I thought you preferred Pandora to Galatea. It seems to me that you're creating a new Galatea instead of Pandora. Think on it."
"Yes, sir."
"Feel free to use my library for whatever research you need, Severus. I will be interested to hear any updates on this work. If you succeed, you shall certainly be favored beyond any other friends of mine." Tom handed back the parchments covered in Severus' spiky handwriting.
Severus bowed, turning over thoughts of his victory when this project was completed.
"Go home and rest. Show your introduction and notes to Master Jigger as soon as possible."
"Yes, my lord." Severus Apparated away.
He was asleep the moment his head hit his pillow. The beautiful woman's laughing in the meadow of his dream brought an unknowing smile to his weary face.
Sources:
Cockburn, A. et al. "A classic mummy: PUM II." Mummies, Death and Ancient Culture. Ed. Eve Cockburn, Theodore A. Reyman Aidan Cockburn. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 69-71. Book.
—. "Autopsy of an Eygptian Mummy." Science 187.4182 (1975): 1155-60. Magazine.
Elias, Jonathan. Egyptian Mummification: Recent Finidings Based on CT Scan Data from Egyptian Mummies. 2005. Website. 3 October 2013.
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1942. Book.
Thank you all so much for reading! It means so much to me!
I'm sorry this chapter was posted so late. It was much harder to write than the others. I hope you enjoyed it nontheless. I would love to hear what you all think!
