"He's likely to have had both gout and diabetes," he notes unsympathetically, "and possibly syphilis. Contemporary explanations for his behavior centered around his belief that his second wife was a witch. Ironical, therefore, that there should have been so many burnings unrelated to thaumophobia while the Tudors held the throne."
"Indeed not. He was raised in a Muggle orphanage, his father having apparently felt no responsibility for the unborn child once his mother ceased dosing him with amortentia."
"Chocolate stimulates some of the same emotional processes," he agrees, "but in no wise so strongly. There are potions that can create such an obsessive lust as you describe, and those that precisely mimic a strong and abiding love, such that even those who have loved well before can't tell the difference while under the influence. That is their danger: the sheer range of their potential."
Severus's hand stops what it's doing as he stares in mild, cringing horror for so long that the little cauldron starts to spit and boil over. Jerked back to himself, he mutters, "Blast," and hastily moves to implement rescue procedures. "Well," he says, hoping to prevent the appearance of kicked-puppy-face, "they did capture the trend of taste in the stillroom, and the connection between runes and palmistry which is so often overlooked. I certainly haven't heard that song in a while." He struggles to keep his voice neutral and the and it hasn't been nearly long enough out of it.