III. Vishuddha
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.
– Robert Green Ingersoll
oooOooo
From Hermione Granger's perfume notebooks:
Magical perfume making is nothing less and nothing more than a special branch of Alchemy.
Alchemy as in Nicolas Flamel, as in turning stone into gold, creating a Philosopher's Stone, producing the Elixir of Life, and reaching immortality.
However, for most alchemists that does not mean actually producing a Philosopher's Stone and the Aqua Vitae. For most of us the aim is a transmutation of our magic and our self, to reach a higher level of understanding of the world and ourselves, or to purify ourselves and our magic.
Just as there are potions masters and Potions Masters, there are perfume makers and Perfume Masters.
(Let's hear it for capitalisation of Important Titles.)
Perfume Masters, like Potions Masters, are alchemists – alchemists with a specialisation.
They have both, in some manner, undergone the three (or four, depending on which lodge of the guild they belong to) stages of alchemical transmutation of their magic:
– nigredo – the blackening or putrefaction; to allow knowingly the corruption and dissolution of self; cheerful Muggle psychologist Carl Jung believed that a moment of ultimate despair is necessary to fully develop as a person
– albedo – the whitening or purification; to allow all impurities of magic or self to burn away; to submit to the waters of life, allowing them to wash away all corruptions
– citrinitas – the yellowing or spiritualisation; enlightenment is achieved – the quantum leap of magical power kicks in; one's magic is no longer influenced by 'outside' factors (like health, weather, menstrual cycle …) but only the soul they are tied to; and
– rubedo – the reddening or the mystical union of the human element with the divine, the magical marriage of male and female, the fusion of spirit and matter, the unification of the limited with the unlimited.
When Severus Snape, Potions master, taught and wrought at Hogwarts during the war, he had already successfully undergone the first stage of alchemical transmutation. Partly by choice, partly by destiny or cruel coincidence. Whether he displayed the colours associated with his stage of initiation to mock the process or to show his true colours remains unclear.
Through his darkest deed, the deed that pained him beyond all others – by killing Albus Dumbledore – Snape reached the next stage of enlightenment, the albedo … nicely ironic, that. Of course at the time it was impossible for him to display the colours of his new status as an adept.
The final stage of transformation – citrinitas and rubedo – occurred after Voldemort tried to kill him with Nagini's bite.
I provided the female element, and Harry the male.
The idea that the male/female powers at work during that final stage are the ones of the adept and his lover – cue Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel – is (as far as I can tell, at least) nothing more than a sentimental fairy tale. It could be just as well the male and female aspects of the adept himself. Or, as in Snape's case, a woman and a man magically and mystically connected with him.
I did my part by wrapping my scarf just tightly enough around his neck and throwing that self-made stasis spell over him.
Harry made it back to the Shrieking Shack after the Final Battle just in time to get Snape to St Mungo's. As luck, fate, or the gods would have it, Harry's blood and magic are compatible with Snape's, so he could have a transfusion of Harry's magically augmented blood to replace what was poisoned or simply burned up by Nagini's venom.
And Snape's soul cruising in limbo during his coma … that took care of his spiritualisation. Literally.
When he woke up, he wasn't the Snape we knew anymore.
He was a Perfume Master.
The big difference between perfume makers and Perfume Masters is power, and control of that power.
A maker of magical perfume will use magic on the raw ingredients of perfume or during any part of the production process. They need some good, solid, non-magical objects to work on. And what they do is fairly down-to-earth. They manipulate characteristics that are already present in nature.
A Perfume Master, however, is a very different kind of wizard.
He enchants the very scents of perfumes.
Molecules.
Atoms.
Basically, he uses magic on thin air.
oooOooo
2 January 2009
'I can't believe I said that,' I exclaim once more.
'"Especially to Severus of all people",' Draco provides the refrain of my litany. 'Now hold still. You're beautiful today, all flustered and flushed, with that silly hair of yours frizzing all over the place.' He concentrates on the thick sheet of artist's paper resting against a wooden board on his easel, where a pencil, an eraser, and a quill with ink are engaged in a complex dance.
After Hogwarts, after the war, Draco decided he'd had enough of serious business for a lifetime and proceeded to become what he calls 'a Bohemian', which means nothing less and nothing more than that he spends his days painting, hanging out in galleries and art museums, and his nights sipping Absinthe and smoking hookahs, twined around beautiful wizards and witches, dress optional.
The most useful activity he engages in is painting labels, brochures, cards, and posters for Severus' perfumery … and not for his father's big-bang cosmetics companies. That's how we've become friends, strange as that may seem.
Just friends at first. Until, one drunken night, it seemed like a good idea to go to bed together. I'm not in love with him, of course. At the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I've had my share of affairs – boyfriends, lovers, partners – but I've never been in love. Looking back, I don't think I was even in love with Ron Weasley. Way back then, I guess I was in love with the idea of love, of falling in love, of being in love, of kissing and having sex, of marrying my Hogwarts sweetheart, of dancing at a beautiful wedding like Bill's, and of getting a precious baby daughter like Victoire. That is not love. It's not even infatuation. It's … narcissistic self-indulgence. If you're lucky, you grow out of it.
What I have with Draco is much healthier. When we have time, we meet up; I talk, he paints, we get drunk; now and again we go out together, to opening nights at galleries or to see the newest W.A.D.A. production in the Wizarding West End, and sometimes we spend the night together. Luna has been hanging around with American witches too much: she calls him my 'fuck buddy'. Personally, I prefer the term 'friend with benefits'. Surprisingly, Harry is okay with our relationship … or maybe rather unsurprisingly. We're just not close enough anymore. At least Ron has expressed his disgust for my choice in friends adequately – by not speaking a word with me since he heard about it.
'I should have said "emotion",' I go on, probably for the hundredth time. 'Or something like that. I mean, that's what I'm really looking for, right? The connection between magic and emotion. Just look at that project with St Mungo's or the scent photography you and I have been working on … "Love"! That just sounds so – so – corny. Cheesy. Melodramatic. Over the top! And as if …' I wince. 'As if I am – as if it's uh… about … him. You know like –' I throw up my hands in exasperation.
'And you're not?' Draco quirks an elegant golden eyebrow.
'Of course not!' I jump up and start pacing.
Not enough that I'm in danger of losing my – my –
I stop walking and stand in front of the glass doors of Draco's studio. He lives in a huge attic flat in London. The front is all glass, opening to a roof terrace surrounded by brick walls. He has a little formal knot garden out there, herbs and perfume flowers, surrounded by tiny hedges of box tree. Some of the box trees are Charmed into odd shapes, depending on his mood. At the moment, cats and mice are chasing each other around his garden.
In danger of losing what?
My job?
Or my calling?
Suddenly I am close to tears again and sniffle noisily. Severus is right; if I don't know that, I don't deserve to be his journeywoman.
Aspiring to mastery means embracing the mystical and mythical aspects of magic. Striving for mastery in alchemy means a life-long search for wisdom and transformation.
Spiritual transformation, that is, not Animagus transformation. (Or I would never have considered the whole thing; I'm hopelessly stuck in my human form, as are most witches and wizards I know. The ability to become an Animagus is really very rare. Not even Harry can do it, in spite of his Dad being one of the youngest Animagi in wizarding history. Of all the people I went to school with, only two have managed to become Animagi: Luna is a white cockatoo, and Draco a white ferret. The others don't have the mental, magical, and spiritual flexibility necessary. And Draco got lucky; if Moody hadn't Transfigured him into a ferret that time, he wouldn't have accomplished the transformation either.)
'Didn't I ask you to hold still?' Draco complains but turns his easel around. Frowning slightly, he tilts his head. 'Actually, that's even better. NOW hold still. And don't you dare start crying, you know what that does to your face.'
I ignore him but stay where I am, staring across his garden at the roofs of London and the muddy winter sky pressing down on us.
Not enough that I'm in danger of losing my – chosen profession, I also made a fool of myself before the one man I –
'Maybe I should just give up on the whole thing,' I mutter crossly, 'and admit that I'm just not cut out for transformation, transcendence, and a life-long passion for mystical truths.'
'… says the woman who has already spent twelve years trying to solve one of the great magical mysteries of all time.'
I turn around, frowning, possibly even scowling at him. 'Is it? Or is it a silly – by now rather sick! – schoolgirl's obsession?'
Slumping down in the pink and gold wingback chair Draco has positioned just so to catch the rosy glow of dawn, I hide my face in my palms. 'Sometimes I wonder if it was just my imagination. That it wasn't even Amortentia but some other draught, that I've built my life on an illusion.'
'You? Mistake some kind of bogus brew for Amortentia? In sixth year? Not to mention that I was there, too, and not exactly a failure in Potions, either … or the fact that our dear Slughorn wanted to impress wonderboy Harry Bloody Potter. Only the best was good enough for that.' Draco rolls his eyes and with a wave of his wand sends his painting tools back to his worktable. 'Oh, come here already, Granger, you silly hen.'
With a moan I get up and join Draco on his chaise longue, allowing him to pull me into his arms until I lie spooned in his embrace. He just holds me close, sensing instinctively that I'm not in the mood for sex.
After a while, my breathing eases, and my eyes stop burning. My head still hurts, but panic and hysteria recede. I relax.
'What did you smell?' I mumble.
'Hmm…' Draco inhales pensively. 'Let's see. A head note of London smog. The good kind, getting high on exhausts on your way to a theatre. A heart note of butterflies.' The essence distilled from the powder off the wings of magical butterflies is a beautiful ingredient for magical perfumes, golden and sweet and flighty. Draco twirls one of my curls around an ink stained finger. 'And turpentine. I don't think what I smelled then was a person. It was the kind of life that I'd love. And I do.'
'You still haven't told him, have you?' Draco murmurs into my hair.
'Merlin, no! He'd throw me out on my arse before I can say "Amortentia"!' I shudder as nausea twists my stomach all over again. The situation is bad enough as it is; I can't bring myself to imagine what it would be like to end up the object of Severus' unbridled ridicule.
'Why would you think that?' Draco asks gently, stroking my shoulder in soothing circles. 'Severus is not exactly unfamiliar with the trials and tribulations of the human heart. And he hasn't asked you to pack up and leave yet, in spite of yesterday's altercation.'
'But he was at least infatuated with a real person! I'm obsessed with – with – a phantom, a chimaera – I don't even know with what,' I complain miserably. I shake my head, tickling Draco's nose with my curls and making him sneeze. 'Which brings us full circle. Even if the journey is the reward, as long as I can't define what I'm looking for in my mastery, I'm stuck in place. I can't even begin that bloody mythical journey. I've been at it for a year now, and I'm not a single step further! And when I asked him about Amortentia, he told me I already know everything I'm supposed to, what with Slughorn's love fest in sixth year …'
Draco sighs and tightens his hold on me. 'My stubborn little hen. Has it ever occurred to you that the idea of having a Master as a journeywoman is that you don't have to take every step all on your own? That you have a spiritual guide at your side? Hmm? How is Severus supposed to guide you if he doesn't know where you're coming from?'
I know Draco is only trying to cheer me up. And theoretically, his advice has merit. But practically Severus' words sound rather irrevocable – as if I'm journeying on borrowed time already. At least we'll still be travelling to the May Fair together. A Great Horned Owl (the preferred messenger bird of the alchemists' guild) arrived with the confirmation of our registration three days ago. I was so thrilled!
… and now I wonder if the end of the May Fair will also herald the end of my time as a journeywoman with Master Severus Snape.
oooOooo
Author's Notes: Comments and questions are always welcome (IF you provide a means for me to reply to you, that is). I love to hear about your reactions to the chapter: What made you smile? What made you frown? What's the most memorable line? And if you have nothing to say about my story, maybe leave a comment for another author elsewhere? Comments are the only remuneration fanfic writers receive, and all of us cherish them. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy my story.