8-8-8
After classes on Friday, Harry met Draco in their classroom and grinned at the sight of the cauldron set up in the corner. Somehow their pranking seemed more official now that they had a cauldron specifically for making the appropriate potions.
"Ready?" Draco asked him. "I've put all the ingredients on that desk in the corner. We really need to find some furniture to put in here."
"But not before we find a way to ward it." Harry reminded him. "We don't want to go to all that effort and then have people come in and ruin it."
Draco frowned. "Warding is really advanced. We won't start learning about it until sixth year, and then only in theory and only if we take Ancient Runes."
"Well, not ward it then." Harry agreed. "Some kind of spell. Like a notice-me-not spell on the door."
"I thought you were going to find a parselmagic spell?" Draco asked.
"There's nothing that would work in either of the books I have." Harry sighed. "And I don't know where I would find any more books. I need Sirius' permission to look in the Potter or Black libraries and I haven't even told him I'm a parselmouth yet. I'm worried that he'll freak out."
"Understandable." Draco nodded.
Harry moved to stand next to the table holding the ingredients and picked up one of the jars. "These are bowtruckle legs, right?"
"Yes." Draco nodded.
"Did you buy them? Or just take some of the ones we've been practising severing charms on in Herbology?" Harry asked curiously.
"I bought them." Draco answered haughtily. "Who knows where the ones in Herbology have been."
Harry laughed. "Good point. How about you set up the cauldron and I'll start slicing the dried frogs."
It took them a couple of hours to get the potion to a stage where they could leave it for the night and they barely made it to the Great Hall in time for dinner. But it was completely worth it and Harry spent the rest of the evening trying to hide his excited smirk at the prospect of making Lockhart's teeth fall out.
Despite taking three days to make, the potion wasn't all that full on and mostly needed to be left simmering away for hours. They checked it a few times on Saturday, making sure to add the crushed Runespoor skin at two in the afternoon and stir it every ten minutes for the two hours after that. Sunday required them to add the crushed peppermint leaves at ten, the diced groot root at two, and then the ground valerian twigs at six, after which the recipe instructed them to leave it to simmer for twenty three hours.
By the time classes were over on Monday, Harry was itching to go check the potion. He almost groaned when Terry challenged him to a game of chess, but grudgingly agreed. He didn't want this friends to start suspecting all his disappearances.
Luckily, Harry, while having improved significantly, still wasn't a great challenge to Terry; the game was over within forty minutes, giving Harry ten minutes to get to the classroom before the potion was finished. Draco was already there when he arrived and he was frowning down at the potion.
When Harry got closer he understood why. The potion was supposed to be a light purple colour, instead it was a dark grey.
Harry frowned in disappointment. "What did we do wrong?"
"We don't know that we did anything wrong yet." Draco pointed out. "The potion still needs to simmer for another five minutes."
They watched the time silently until it was five o'clock exactly and then looked back at the still grey potion.
Harry picked up their potion stirrer and tested the consistency of the potion. "It's runny like it's supposed to be. So it's just the colour that's off. What would make that happen?"
"I don't know." Draco's shoulders slumped. "And we can't ask Uncle Severus."
"No, definitely not." Harry agreed. "We'll just have to figure it out ourselves."
"Not tonight." Draco told him. "I need a break."
"Yeah," Harry grimaced. "Me too. I'm so frustrated that I'm tempted to throw the bloody potion against the wall."
"Except then we'd have to clean it up." Draco pointed out. "And that wouldn't be fun."
"Should we leave the potion like this? Or get rid of it?"
"Leave it." Draco answered. "We might want to experiment with it tomorrow when we're trying to figure out what went wrong."
Harry sighed. "Alright. Do you want to play a game?"
"Chess?" Draco asked, gesturing towards the chessboard that they had left in the room a few weeks previously.
Harry grimaced. "Alright. Terry just got done beating me. I suppose you should get a go too."
"Well, you won't beat us with that attitude." Draco reproved.
"I doubt I'll manage to beat you when we're one hundred." Harry groaned. "I'm rubbish."
"True." Draco smirked. "But you're not as bad as you were last year."
8-8-8
They were both feeling much more enthusiastic the next day and by the end of their lunch period had managed to figure out at least one mistake they had made (they had forgotten to adjust the temperature when they added the crushed peppermint), but had decided to go through the rest of the recipe as well to make sure that they hadn't missed anything else.
They finished looking through the recipe at the lunch the next day and then there was nothing more they could do until Friday.
It was frustrating to have to wait, particularly since this was the second time, so Harry decided to ask Neville if he wanted to start learning wandless magic to distract Harry from the wait.
Neville stared at Harry. "Are you serious?"
"Of course." Harry told him. "We talked about this in the carriage, remember?"
"Yeah, well, I didn't think you were serious." Neville told him. "I could barely cast a spell last year."
"Because you were working with a wand that didn't work for you." Harry reminded him. "You said that Ollivander said you'd probably be able to do wandless magic."
"Yeah, someday!" Neville argued. "Not this year. We're only second years."
"Well, I'm going to start teaching myself tomorrow evening." Harry told him. "And you're welcome to join me."
"Where?"
"Um," Harry frowned, he hadn't actually thought about that. "How about outside? It's still pretty warm. I'll meet you under the big tree near the lake after our last class tomorrow."
"Alright." Neville looked nervously. "If you're sure."
"Of course I am." Harry told him, pulling a book out of his bag. "You should probably try to read the first chapter of this. It's about the basic theory."
Neville accepted the book and opened it. "I don't think I know what half of these words mean."
"Neither did I." Harry told him. "I read it with a dictionary to help me. Do you have one? I can lend you mine if you like?"
"Gran gave me one." Neville answered.
"Oh, cool." Harry nodded as Professor Flitwick called for their attention.
8-8-8
Neville was already under the tree when Harry arrived the next day and he bowed to Harry in greeting.
"Merry meet."
"Merry meet." Harry nodded. "Did you manage to get through that chapter?"
"Yeah." Neville nodded. "I'm not sure I understood it all though. I have never read something so complicated."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." Harry grinned. "I read it last year and it was intense."
"Some of the other guys thought I was ridiculous for reading it." Neville admitted. "For a moment I thought that Ron was going to nick it or something."
Harry grimaced. "Are they still giving you trouble?"
Neville shrugged awkwardly. "They're not that bad. They're just really different to me. They like Quidditch, I like plants."
"I like Quidditch." Harry pointed out. "And we get along fine."
Neville just shrugged again.
"Alright." Harry sat down cross legged where he was standing and gestured for Neville to do the same. "So, you know how you said you meditated with a bonsai tree? Can you only meditate like that?"
"No," Neville shook his head as he sat, with his legs stretched out in front of him. "Gran made me learn the normal way first. Meditating with my bonsai tree just works better for me."
"Good." Harry nodded in relief. "Because we have to start by meditating and then cast a spell."
"While you're meditating?" Neville asked in surprise.
"Sort of." Harry shrugged. "The book wasn't entirely clear. Basically, when we do wandless magic we're asking our magic to do what we want – which means that we need to communicate with it, like we do when we meditate. But, obviously, we want to eventually get to a place where we can communicate with our magic without actually meditating."
Neville's eyes widened. "That sounds really hard."
"Well, yes." Harry admitted. "Everyone would do it if it was easy. And you can only learn to do it if you have strong magic and so don't need your wand to amplify it, and if you have great control over your magic."
"And you think I can do it?" Neville asked in disbelief.
"Well, Ollivander does." Harry reminded him again. "We already know that you've got enough power, especially since you managed to force your dad's wand to work for you,"
"Barely." Neville muttered.
Harry ignored him. "And you had enough control to make your magic work when it didn't want to, so you've got control as well. You're probably going to be ahead of me. I've never had to use a wand that doesn't work for me."
"Yeah, but you glowed!" Neville exclaimed. "I've never glowed when I'm meditating."
Harry grimaced when he remembered all the drama about him glowing the year before. "Yeah, well, maybe we'll be even then."
Neville looked unconvinced.
"So, meditating." Harry said after a few seconds. "Shall we give it a go?"
"Both at the same time?" Neville asked. "Or should we take turns so nobody creeps up on us or anything."
"Good point." Harry nodded. "Alright, you go first."
"No way." Neville shook his head quickly. "You first."
Harry nodded. "Alright, I'm going to try and levitate a twig."
He picked up a nearby twig and placed it directly in front of him, before closing his eyes and beginning his breathing, in, out, in, out, in, out.
It was strange to be meditating without working on his Occlumency, but he soon felt himself sink into his usual meditative state and then found his magic and focused on it. He wasn't sure what to do after that. The book hadn't been particularly clear. Did he try and levitate the twig with his eyes shut? Or open his eyes and risk jolting himself out of his meditating?
He tried to picture the twig in front of him and then imagined it floating. There was no reaction from Neville, so he presumed it hadn't worked. He focussed on his magic again and then tried to concentrate on it and making the twig float – still no reaction from Neville.
Next Harry tried to focus on the lessons Snape had given him the year before on how to make his magic submit. Maybe that was what he needed to do, force his magic to do it, rather than just hope it levitated the twig because he was thinking about it happening.
In a way it wasn't a new concept to him, he still had to make his magic submit every time he meditated, but that was preventing his magic do something instead of making his magic do something.
Harry concentrated on his magic again, though this time he focused on forcing his magic to obey. It was hard, and he found it hard to concentrate on the task, but eventually he heard an excited cry from Neville.
"Harry, you did it!"
Neville's cry jolted Harry out of his meditative state, but he didn't mind. He had done it!
Harry opened his eyes and grinned at his friend who was sitting with his back against the tree. "How long did it take me?"
"Forty five minutes." Neville told him. "It looked like hard work, you kept frowning."
"It was hard." Harry told him. "Your turn."
"Alright." Neville grimaced, but folded his hands on his lap and closed his eyes.
Harry watched Neville attentively for a few minutes, but then pulled some parchment and a quill out of his bag and started writing a list of the things he had learnt. Once he had done that, he wrote a second list of the things that Snape had taught him the year before – it would be helpful for Neville.
An hour after Neville had closed his eyes, he opened them with a sigh. "I can't do it."
"Yet." Harry added quickly. "You can't do it yet. I wrote you a list of things that worked for me, as well as a list of things that Professor Snape taught me last year."
"Professor Snape taught you about this stuff?" Neville asked in horror. "Why?"
"Because I glowed." Harry sighed. "He taught me not to glow." He handed Neville the two lists. "Do you want to do this again next week?"
"Really?" Neville looked surprise. "But I sucked."
"Neville, it's wandless magic." Harry told him. "Most adult wizards can't do it. You just need to practise."
"You managed it." Neville grumbled.
"Yeah." Harry gave his friend an apologetic look. "But I had all the knowledge from the lessons with Professor Snape, as well as practise making my magic do what I want."
Neville considered that for a while, before nodding slowly. "Alright. Next Thursday?"
"Sounds good." Harry agreed.
"Can I keep the book until then?" Neville asked. "I'll try and read some more this weekend."
"Of course." Harry nodded. "Keep it as long as you need."
8-8-8
The next day was Friday, so after classes Harry and Draco met in the classroom to start the potion again. Harry really hoped they got it right this time, he wasn't sure that he would be willing to try the potion a third time and they definitely didn't have enough ingredients for it.
It was easier to make the potion the second time and, by the time Monday came around again, Harry was alternating between being sure that the potion would work and trying not to get his hopes up.
They had potions class during their last period on Monday and Professor Snape spent the entire class time lecturing them on the theory behind antidote potions. It was unusual for Snape to actually take the time to teach them the theory, rather than expecting them to have read the textbook, and Harry was glad that he had. A lot of Snape's lecture wasn't in the textbook and was really fascinating. Harry had never really considered what processes potion masters went through to invent new antidotes. Some of it was a bit complicated though, especially when Snape started talking about Golpalott's Third Law – though Snape did admit that they wouldn't really need to know that unless they took NEWT level potions.
After the bell had rung, Harry put the rolls of parchment that contained his notes in his bag, along with his quill and ink bottle, and followed the other Ravenclaws out of the classroom.
"So much information." Michael groaned as he shook out his right hand. "My hand hurts."
"Did anyone understand that bit about that guy's third law?" Anthony asked.
"Not even slightly." Padma sighed. "It sounded like gobbledygook to me."
"Did you get it, Harry?" Terry asked curiously. "And can I copy your notes sometime? I think you took three times as many as I did."
"Sort of." Harry grimaced. "I got a bit lost halfway through though. I think I'll add it to my list of things to look up."
Anthony sneered at him. "You mean there's something you don't know?"
Harry ignored him. "Terry, can you take my bag up to the dorms? I'm meeting Draco."
"Didn't you meet with him at lunch?" Terry asked as he accepted Harry's bag.
"We're working on our Potions' assignment." Harry answered. "It's due at the end of the week."
"Oh, right." Terry nodded. "Snape paired the two of you up – better you than me. I'm just glad that I got Nott. He's pretty decent, for a Slytherin."
"Not that I've actually seen you two do any work together." Harry pointed out.
Terry grinned. "We agreed to split the assignment up and work separately. It works for us."
Harry looked down at his watch. "I've got to go. I'll see you all at dinner."
It only took him a few minutes to get to his and Draco's classroom and he even managed to beat Draco there.
Harry made his way towards the potion and grinned when saw that it was the light purple colour that it was supposed to be.
"Did it work?" Draco asked as he came into the room.
"Yes!" Harry beamed at him. "Look it's light purple."
"We need to take it off the fire in one minute." Draco said as he came to stand beside Harry.
They both stared at the potion as the seconds counted down and then, with great excitement, lifted the cauldron off the fire and onto the floor.
"We did it!" Harry exclaimed excitedly.
"Smashing!" Draco beamed. "Do you think your elf could get it into Lockhart's drink tonight?"
Harry rubbed his hands together excitedly. "Good idea. I should go ask Stompy."
"Can't you just call him?" Draco asked haughtily.
"Maybe." Harry answered unsurely. "Um, Stompy? Can you hear me?"
Draco rolled his eyes and sighed loudly, but a few seconds later Stompy appeared in front of them with a pop.
"Master Harry Potter be calling Stompy?" The house elf asked questioningly.
"Yes," Harry agreed. "Thanks for answering."
"Stompy is being happy to serve Master Harry Potter, sir." Stompy beamed at him.
"You know that thing we talked about a few weeks ago?" Harry asked him. "With the potion?"
Stompy gave Draco a sideways glance before nodding. "Yes, Stompy is remembering."
"Could you do it tonight please?" Harry grinned. "We've made the potion. See?"
Stompy peered over the sides of the cauldron at the purple potion. "Yes, Stompy can be putting potion in Professor Lockyhart's drink tonight. How much is Stompy needing to use?"
"Just one spoonful." Harry answered. "Do you need to us to give it to you in a vial?"
Stompy shook his head. "No, Stompy is doing it." He clicked his fingers and an empty potion vial appeared in his hand, another click of his fingers and he was holding a potion pourer in his other hand.
Harry watched the process in awe. It was like watching the goblins do magic. He couldn't wait to get better at wandless magic.
Once Stompy was gone, vial of potion in hand, Draco turned to Harry with an excited grin. "This is going to be smashing!"
"Definitely!" Harry agreed. "What are we going to do with the rest of the potion though?"
"How long did the book said it could be stored?" Draco asked.
"Nine months." Harry answered. "Do you want to keep it?"
"At least some of it." Draco nodded. "We might want to use it again."
"Where will we get the potion vials though?" Harry asked. "There must be twenty vials worth in there."
Draco frowned in thought. "Maybe we could borrow some off Uncle Severus?"
"Don't you think he might get a bit suspicious?" Harry asked.
"Or we could buy some by owl." Draco suggested. "We can cover the cauldron for a few days until they arrive."
"Good idea." Harry grinned as he turned back to the potion. "Oh, this is going to be brilliant!"
"Definitely!"
