The Subtle Science and Exact Art

The Subtle Science and Exact Art

You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making ...

My old master practiced another subtle science and exact art, that of temptation. The students sitting before me do not know it, for they are only eleven, but it is this art which gives my opening-of-term speech its power to silence a class without effort. I watch their faces closely, for I wish to know how each may be tempted.

As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes ...

To Rodolphus Lestrange he offered beauty.

... the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins ...

And to Bellatrix he offered power, not the blunt power of violence but the subtle one of seduction.

... bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses ...

To Medea Nott he offered the sweet intoxication of madness.

Her young brother sits before me now, but he will not be tempted by madness. He is cowed, fearful, perhaps a bit subnormal mentally, but sane. He may, of course, be tempted by the promise of release from fear, as his father was. It was a bitter jest, though Jephthah Nott was too slow to catch the irony. The fool never knew a day without fear again.

I can teach you how to bottle fame ...

To Lucius Malfoy he offered fame.

His son sits up and takes notice. I shall watch that boy very closely indeed.

... brew glory ...

To the brothers Black he offered glory.

They were Gryffindors. I scan the right-hand side of the room. Yes, the Potter boy fixes his gaze on me. I thought he might.

Otherwise, my master was not very successful with Gryffindors. He did not understand them and he chose the wrong temptations. The elder Potter would have gone the way of the Blacks if the Dark Lord had not tried so hard to persuade him he was serving a just and decent cause. That appeal would have been better reserved for Lupin, who returned his blackmail letters unopened. Pettigrew, in turn, would have yielded to blackmail if my master had not wasted a year trying to convince him he wanted to be Somebody instead of nobody.

For ten years they have been called heroes. I call them men who were never offered the right price.

The younger generation is no different. Miss Granger, I suspect, believes in causes - and you, Mr. Longbottom, you have a secret you do not want to reveal - and ... Another Weasley? Yes, I think that one yearns to be Somebody.

... even stopper death ...

To Walden Macnair he offered an opportunity to whet his insatiable appetite for death. And with the other hand, and fingers crossed behind his back, he offered to Evan Rosier and Simon Wilkes the dream of destroying it.

... if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.

Most of them are. Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson, Greengrass ... I remember their fathers. He had no need to tempt them. They followed where others led.

To me he offered knowledge.

One student has taken in the whole of this speech with wide eyes and quickened breath. No, not the Granger girl, although she seems bent on showing she isn't a dunderhead. She cares, like all students educated in Muggle primary schools, only for the appearance of knowledge. The other one cares for mastery. He is an outsider, the illegitimate son of an old Canadian wizarding family, packed off to a distant rain-soaked country where he cannot bring shame upon his father. If he does not know it already, he will learn that intellect is the great equalizer. This alone is the force that allows one to penetrate inner circles, erase the stains of birth and upbringing, and traverse seas without rising from one's chair.

I see a great deal of myself in Blaise Zabini.