Indestructible - Part IV
Part IV - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Our first - and only overt - glimpse of an alchemist in canon came in the person of Nicholas Flamel, who flickered before our eyes together with his wife Perenelle in the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. They gave Albus the stone that was meant as bait to entrap Voldemort and his slave Quirrell, that Harry in trying to preserve from him nearly unwittingly gave to him, and that Albus says he's destroyed with the Flamels’ consent.
This Stone we saw openly: hard, crystalline, blood-red. Its fruits - gold, the elixir of life, the cure-all panacea - we did not directly see and had to infer, though one of them - the promise of life - was desperately desired and sought at any cost by Voldemort. That is, by the hollow husk of the boy Tom Riddle, nurtured in error and inflicted on everyone by Albus Dumbledore.
During that quest, in his childlike attempts to understand and solve the mystery and save people, the boy Harry Potter saw, in the forest at night, Voldemort, through his slave, keeping himself alive - in a terrible half-life - by feeding on the silver blood of a murdered unicorn. This was our first image of what Voldemort was capable of and willing to do in pursuing his particular brand of evil.
Keep this image in mind.
And remember that alchemy is traditionally both a physical and a spiritual discipline at once, the two bound together. Indeed, some traditions hold that the physical is but a way to hide, code, and preserve the spiritual tradition, and that inward personal spiritual transformation - not outward material creation - was the central thing. The ultimate focus of all efforts.
And that the Stone we see was here accessed through a magic Mirror. One that - as terri eloquently demonstrates in her essay “Dark Devices” - distorts truths and traps and perverts those who gaze into it, while and by promising them their heart’s desires. One that Albus deliberately and secretly placed before Harry, for purposes of his own.
Because Flamel isn’t the only alchemist and his Stone isn’t the only Stone that we see in this story.
If we do what Harry - influenced overmuch by Albus - increasingly failed to do and keep our eyes open, willing to learn and see anew.
In order to truly understand Severus Snape and what he’s doing in these books, you need to learn to see anew. Again and again.
That is, in fact, one of the profound lessons he teaches. Because it is one that he had first to learn. And that he tried to teach Harry, but which Albus continually prevented him from completely passing on to him.
Albus, recall, was said to be a student of Nicholas Flamel. A would-be master of blood magic who misunderstood the nature of the fundamental protection that Lily’s loving self-sacrifice gave to her boy, and misused it in order to render the boy his willing tool, his weapon of death, ready to die unquestioning, aimed at his enemy and reflection, Voldemort.
As he tried to twist and misuse Severus Snape.
Albus Dumbledore was a failed alchemist. Severus Snape, however, to his own salvation, was (is) ultimately, I believe, a successful one.
I don’t think Nicholas and Perenelle would be too surprised at this, or at the nature of Severus and the journey he took. Knowing what they knew about Albus, and I suspect having, at least once, met his young would-be protégé Severus.
According to legend there is but one phoenix in the world at a time. In order for a new one to appear, the old must die, reduced to ash. This doesn’t seem outwardly to be the case in the Potterverse, where we hear of phoenixes in the plural, and their feathers are used for many wands. But in the Potterverse, as I’ve found, everything is a bit topsy-turvy, and you have to look more closely at the inward shape of things in order to understand.
Why did Albus take the Stone at the end to have it destroyed?
What if, in the Potterverse, there can be only one Philosopher’s Stone at a time? What if the process of the creation of a new one required the destruction of the old?
Who did Albus choose to give the Stone to to destroy? Did he do it himself?
Or perhaps we should ask, who did the Flamels maybe ask to destroy the Stone for them?
Over Albus’ probable objections, likely.
Well.
Who do we know at Hogwarts who is a master of the traditional method of alchemy, brewing? And, incidentally, Dark Arts?
Yes, I do think alchemy is a dark art. Ancient, deepest magic of creation and destruction, of transmutation? Perilous but powerful? Affecting the very soul of the alchemist? Offering true renewal?
Oh yes, it’s dark magic, all right. And I suspect that the creation of a Philosopher’s Stone is at times an outwardly ugly, and inwardly difficult or even terrifying, process.
Even Harry, after all, was shocked and worried by Fawkes’ resurrection when he saw it, and startled at how ugly the new chick was before he gained his full, outward beauty again. We shouldn’t be too surprised when he fails - struggling in the midst of his own increasing difficulties as he is - to recognize the other resurrection that was happening near him during his schooling.
Nicholas Flamel was an old man at the time Harry was introduced to his name and reputation, and had had many, many years to learn how to fully inhabit his purified self. I doubt very much that he was always so easily kind and wise.
I imagine that successful alchemists often, indeed, start in very difficult and trying circumstances, and are the ones who learn to open themselves and transcend them.
One other thing.
Alchemy usually produces outward as well as inward gifts, by tradition, whether symbolic or material. Gold, life, healing. Things that can be shared with - given to - others.
I suspect this is a key aspect of the art.
And I do believe that, in the innermost indestructible core of his heart, Severus’ natural inclination was and is ever and always to give. However he best knew how, whatever he had that could be given, to anyone open to receiving it.
Look at his chosen specialty area, after all: potions. The only branch of magic, as terri pointed out, in which the natural result is a container of distilled magic that could be saved and transferred to another (or to one’s later self): a gift.
Severus Snape was and is an immensely gifted wizard. And also an immensely giving one.
Thus it is in his heart that, in Deathly Hallows, we finally glimpse the second, brand-new, Philosopher's Stone of the series. If we know to look for it.
Oh, and did I mention he has all the trappings of a young phoenix, too?
Look at that beak of his. And he does know how to fly.
It's just getting off the ground to begin with that is so difficult. Isn't it, Severus?
You do fall a few times, trying, at first. It's just to be expected. Though sometimes it does hurt.
You're trying to overcome the law of gravity, after all. Turn things topsy-turvy. To throw yourself forward until you learn the art of, as they say, missing the ground. To fall gently, and catch yourself before you hit the ground, and turn upward again.
How?
Blink, and you'll miss it.
(Much of the thinking in this is stolen shamelessly from jodel, swythyv, and terri. Merci. I am grateful, I learn from the masters.)
Our first - and only overt - glimpse of an alchemist in canon came in the person of Nicholas Flamel, who flickered before our eyes together with his wife Perenelle in the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. They gave Albus the stone that was meant as bait to entrap Voldemort and his slave Quirrell, that Harry in trying to preserve from him nearly unwittingly gave to him, and that Albus says he's destroyed with the Flamels’ consent.
This Stone we saw openly: hard, crystalline, blood-red. Its fruits - gold, the elixir of life, the cure-all panacea - we did not directly see and had to infer, though one of them - the promise of life - was desperately desired and sought at any cost by Voldemort. That is, by the hollow husk of the boy Tom Riddle, nurtured in error and inflicted on everyone by Albus Dumbledore.
During that quest, in his childlike attempts to understand and solve the mystery and save people, the boy Harry Potter saw, in the forest at night, Voldemort, through his slave, keeping himself alive - in a terrible half-life - by feeding on the silver blood of a murdered unicorn. This was our first image of what Voldemort was capable of and willing to do in pursuing his particular brand of evil.
Keep this image in mind.
And remember that alchemy is traditionally both a physical and a spiritual discipline at once, the two bound together. Indeed, some traditions hold that the physical is but a way to hide, code, and preserve the spiritual tradition, and that inward personal spiritual transformation - not outward material creation - was the central thing. The ultimate focus of all efforts.
And that the Stone we see was here accessed through a magic Mirror. One that - as terri eloquently demonstrates in her essay “Dark Devices” - distorts truths and traps and perverts those who gaze into it, while and by promising them their heart’s desires. One that Albus deliberately and secretly placed before Harry, for purposes of his own.
Because Flamel isn’t the only alchemist and his Stone isn’t the only Stone that we see in this story.
If we do what Harry - influenced overmuch by Albus - increasingly failed to do and keep our eyes open, willing to learn and see anew.
In order to truly understand Severus Snape and what he’s doing in these books, you need to learn to see anew. Again and again.
That is, in fact, one of the profound lessons he teaches. Because it is one that he had first to learn. And that he tried to teach Harry, but which Albus continually prevented him from completely passing on to him.
Albus, recall, was said to be a student of Nicholas Flamel. A would-be master of blood magic who misunderstood the nature of the fundamental protection that Lily’s loving self-sacrifice gave to her boy, and misused it in order to render the boy his willing tool, his weapon of death, ready to die unquestioning, aimed at his enemy and reflection, Voldemort.
As he tried to twist and misuse Severus Snape.
Albus Dumbledore was a failed alchemist. Severus Snape, however, to his own salvation, was (is) ultimately, I believe, a successful one.
I don’t think Nicholas and Perenelle would be too surprised at this, or at the nature of Severus and the journey he took. Knowing what they knew about Albus, and I suspect having, at least once, met his young would-be protégé Severus.
According to legend there is but one phoenix in the world at a time. In order for a new one to appear, the old must die, reduced to ash. This doesn’t seem outwardly to be the case in the Potterverse, where we hear of phoenixes in the plural, and their feathers are used for many wands. But in the Potterverse, as I’ve found, everything is a bit topsy-turvy, and you have to look more closely at the inward shape of things in order to understand.
Why did Albus take the Stone at the end to have it destroyed?
What if, in the Potterverse, there can be only one Philosopher’s Stone at a time? What if the process of the creation of a new one required the destruction of the old?
Who did Albus choose to give the Stone to to destroy? Did he do it himself?
Or perhaps we should ask, who did the Flamels maybe ask to destroy the Stone for them?
Over Albus’ probable objections, likely.
Well.
Who do we know at Hogwarts who is a master of the traditional method of alchemy, brewing? And, incidentally, Dark Arts?
Yes, I do think alchemy is a dark art. Ancient, deepest magic of creation and destruction, of transmutation? Perilous but powerful? Affecting the very soul of the alchemist? Offering true renewal?
Oh yes, it’s dark magic, all right. And I suspect that the creation of a Philosopher’s Stone is at times an outwardly ugly, and inwardly difficult or even terrifying, process.
Even Harry, after all, was shocked and worried by Fawkes’ resurrection when he saw it, and startled at how ugly the new chick was before he gained his full, outward beauty again. We shouldn’t be too surprised when he fails - struggling in the midst of his own increasing difficulties as he is - to recognize the other resurrection that was happening near him during his schooling.
Nicholas Flamel was an old man at the time Harry was introduced to his name and reputation, and had had many, many years to learn how to fully inhabit his purified self. I doubt very much that he was always so easily kind and wise.
I imagine that successful alchemists often, indeed, start in very difficult and trying circumstances, and are the ones who learn to open themselves and transcend them.
One other thing.
Alchemy usually produces outward as well as inward gifts, by tradition, whether symbolic or material. Gold, life, healing. Things that can be shared with - given to - others.
I suspect this is a key aspect of the art.
And I do believe that, in the innermost indestructible core of his heart, Severus’ natural inclination was and is ever and always to give. However he best knew how, whatever he had that could be given, to anyone open to receiving it.
Look at his chosen specialty area, after all: potions. The only branch of magic, as terri pointed out, in which the natural result is a container of distilled magic that could be saved and transferred to another (or to one’s later self): a gift.
Severus Snape was and is an immensely gifted wizard. And also an immensely giving one.
Thus it is in his heart that, in Deathly Hallows, we finally glimpse the second, brand-new, Philosopher's Stone of the series. If we know to look for it.
Oh, and did I mention he has all the trappings of a young phoenix, too?
Look at that beak of his. And he does know how to fly.
It's just getting off the ground to begin with that is so difficult. Isn't it, Severus?
You do fall a few times, trying, at first. It's just to be expected. Though sometimes it does hurt.
You're trying to overcome the law of gravity, after all. Turn things topsy-turvy. To throw yourself forward until you learn the art of, as they say, missing the ground. To fall gently, and catch yourself before you hit the ground, and turn upward again.
How?
Blink, and you'll miss it.
(Much of the thinking in this is stolen shamelessly from jodel, swythyv, and terri. Merci. I am grateful, I learn from the masters.)