On Snape and scones

I love hanging around with people who know and enjoy Harry Potter to the same extent that I do.

For the past couple of days, I have had the honour of spending some time with Emily and Clare, two young women who have shared my passion for J.K. Rowling's creations for many years.

I think we drove the other people in the house crazy but it was still a lot of fun. Especially when, during a conversation about how to make the perfect scone (because their mother makes the world's best scones), Clare and I both jumped to a HP reference at the exact same time.

You see, people were complaining that, while Mom makes the best scones in the world, anyone else who tries to follow her recipe is doomed to fail. Why? Because Mom has made some changes to that recipe for better results but, unfortunately, has failed entirely to add her recommended changes to the written recipe itself.

They're recorded only in her head.

Have you figured out the reference we both made? Of course: at the exact same time, Clare and I said: "The Half-Blood Prince". Harry was so successful in his sixth year potions course because the Half-Blood Prince had been kind enough to scrawl his improvements to the potion recipes right there in the book that Harry inherited from him. So Harry could follow his amendments to the recipes and be successful.

There's a lesson there for us all: if you find a way to improve a recipe, then please write your improvements on the recipe itself so that we can all enjoy the improved results. If Severus Snape can do it, so can you!