mailroomy (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mailroomy) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} snape100,@ 2009-10-30 09:59:00 |
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a few drops for understanding
Title: a few drops for understanding
Challenge: #305: Five Senses: Taste
Word Count: 5 x 100
Rating: PG
Pairing: None.
Summary: there’s a potion for everything
---
When Flying Rope Snake finally arrived at Hogwarts, it was received first with a kind of relief, then incredulity. It didn’t have a letter with it, neither did it speak in human language. It kept hissing and looked as pointedly as only an animated rope could.
“He certainly didn’t make rescuing him any easier,” Poppy Pomfrey eyed the rope from a safe distance, having already been lashed around her ankles once. “If only there’s a Parseltongue dictionary handy.”
The rope continued to nip and lash at the baffled wizards and witches It aimed at Remus Lupin, in particular.
---
Remus had headed to Hogwarts like a wolf with its tail on fire. The day Severus failed to return, an owl had delivered a note. We have your son, it had said. Remus, still bouncing Teddy on his lap had been ready to write it off as a joke. It took a while before everything sunk in.
Tea cup slipped from his hand and fell with a spectacular crash on the floor.
Andromeda was beside him just in time to take Teddy in her arms as he raced to the loo and heaved all this breakfast, lunch, and high tea.
---
Remus cautiously reached out and took the rope snake into his arms. “Clues, please leave clues,” he hoped. Severus would surely leave a clue, benign and unassuming so as not to tip the bad people off. (not that a Flying Rope Snake is benign or unassuming).
He looked at it, and it seemed to look back at him. A flutter of wings, as if to say, Look here you stupid wizard. Oh for the sake of all good and hissy.
Remus, wise to the ways of Severus, looked at the fluttery wings to find the solution to this Parseltongue problem.
---
Look Potter’s Way or Fyver Cross, was scrawled across those wings.
Potter was unreachable, having gone to parts unknown with his friends to restore their teen spirit.
“Fyver Cross?” Minerva asked.
“Fyver Cross?” Poppy added.
“Fyver Cross,” Remus repeated. It did sound rather familiar.
“So Severus,” he had asked as they sat back against the tree, remnants of lunch spread between them.
“What?”
Remus showed him the crossword puzzle “What, when brewed properly, allowed the drinker to understand Parseltongue? Seven letters, starts with SALA. Not Salazar, I’ve tried.”
“You can’t brew Salazar, silly. It’s blasphemy.” Severus shifted. “Let me see.”
---
They ran pell-mell to Severus’s workroom.
It’s rather difficult to brew, Severus had explained that day, abandoning all hope for a nap, as the ingredients are hard to find.
Past the row of cauldrons, to the potions cabinet.
Salacca, the main ingredient, also called Snake fruit. Then essence of pearl onions, various flowers, styrax, mermaid tears. A terracotta cauldron. Brewed, incanted…
“Do you have it?” No point in asking if Severus could make it.
A huff. “What kind of question is that?”
The astringent taste of the Salacca.
The cloyingly sweet perfume of flowers.
The Rope audibly insulting dim-witted wizards.
---
(previous parts here)
[Possibly] useless note:
The inspiration for the Salacca potion comes from "The Translation Konyaku" from the famed Doraemon cartoon series. But if the Konyaku was a universal translator, this one, since it is from the Snake Fruit can only provide an approximate understanding of Parseltongue.
As the Salacca comes from the Indomalaya region, I thought to make the accompanying ingredients come from there also. The kembang tujuh rupa (literally seven types of flowers, consisting of the kembang telon, the tri-flower, triumvirate: Roses, Jasmine, and Cananga, as well as four others including Michelia buds). What muggles called “Air mata duyung” (or ‘mermaid tears’) are actually extracted from the sea cow, Dugong, but of course in the wizarding world it would be real mermaid tears, wouldn’t it. Styrax, or menyan, is the ever-present incense.
Here and here for more information of the mystical part of their everyday lives.
Title: a few drops for understanding
Challenge: #305: Five Senses: Taste
Word Count: 5 x 100
Rating: PG
Pairing: None.
Summary: there’s a potion for everything
---
When Flying Rope Snake finally arrived at Hogwarts, it was received first with a kind of relief, then incredulity. It didn’t have a letter with it, neither did it speak in human language. It kept hissing and looked as pointedly as only an animated rope could.
“He certainly didn’t make rescuing him any easier,” Poppy Pomfrey eyed the rope from a safe distance, having already been lashed around her ankles once. “If only there’s a Parseltongue dictionary handy.”
The rope continued to nip and lash at the baffled wizards and witches It aimed at Remus Lupin, in particular.
---
Remus had headed to Hogwarts like a wolf with its tail on fire. The day Severus failed to return, an owl had delivered a note. We have your son, it had said. Remus, still bouncing Teddy on his lap had been ready to write it off as a joke. It took a while before everything sunk in.
Tea cup slipped from his hand and fell with a spectacular crash on the floor.
Andromeda was beside him just in time to take Teddy in her arms as he raced to the loo and heaved all this breakfast, lunch, and high tea.
---
Remus cautiously reached out and took the rope snake into his arms. “Clues, please leave clues,” he hoped. Severus would surely leave a clue, benign and unassuming so as not to tip the bad people off. (not that a Flying Rope Snake is benign or unassuming).
He looked at it, and it seemed to look back at him. A flutter of wings, as if to say, Look here you stupid wizard. Oh for the sake of all good and hissy.
Remus, wise to the ways of Severus, looked at the fluttery wings to find the solution to this Parseltongue problem.
---
Look Potter’s Way or Fyver Cross, was scrawled across those wings.
Potter was unreachable, having gone to parts unknown with his friends to restore their teen spirit.
“Fyver Cross?” Minerva asked.
“Fyver Cross?” Poppy added.
“Fyver Cross,” Remus repeated. It did sound rather familiar.
“So Severus,” he had asked as they sat back against the tree, remnants of lunch spread between them.
“What?”
Remus showed him the crossword puzzle “What, when brewed properly, allowed the drinker to understand Parseltongue? Seven letters, starts with SALA. Not Salazar, I’ve tried.”
“You can’t brew Salazar, silly. It’s blasphemy.” Severus shifted. “Let me see.”
---
They ran pell-mell to Severus’s workroom.
It’s rather difficult to brew, Severus had explained that day, abandoning all hope for a nap, as the ingredients are hard to find.
Past the row of cauldrons, to the potions cabinet.
Salacca, the main ingredient, also called Snake fruit. Then essence of pearl onions, various flowers, styrax, mermaid tears. A terracotta cauldron. Brewed, incanted…
“Do you have it?” No point in asking if Severus could make it.
A huff. “What kind of question is that?”
The astringent taste of the Salacca.
The cloyingly sweet perfume of flowers.
The Rope audibly insulting dim-witted wizards.
---
(previous parts here)
[Possibly] useless note:
The inspiration for the Salacca potion comes from "The Translation Konyaku" from the famed Doraemon cartoon series. But if the Konyaku was a universal translator, this one, since it is from the Snake Fruit can only provide an approximate understanding of Parseltongue.
As the Salacca comes from the Indomalaya region, I thought to make the accompanying ingredients come from there also. The kembang tujuh rupa (literally seven types of flowers, consisting of the kembang telon, the tri-flower, triumvirate: Roses, Jasmine, and Cananga, as well as four others including Michelia buds). What muggles called “Air mata duyung” (or ‘mermaid tears’) are actually extracted from the sea cow, Dugong, but of course in the wizarding world it would be real mermaid tears, wouldn’t it. Styrax, or menyan, is the ever-present incense.
Here and here for more information of the mystical part of their everyday lives.