Disclaimer: I don't own the name Harry Potter or the characters. Need I say more?
Harry Potter and the Potion of Devil's Tears
Harry slowly trudged across the sloping lawn towards Hagrid's hut. He felt he needed some time with his oldest friend.
As he slowly made his way across the grounds, he thought about his spat with Malfoy in the Great Hall. Why had Snape stuck up for him, and even more interesting, why was he down on Malfoy? He didn't know much about how Snape felt about Draco, but thought that he generally held Slytherins above the other students. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Snape had helped contribute to the capture of Lucius Malfoy, by alerting Dumbledore and the Order to Harry's predicament and sending them to the Department of Mysteries…was it because of a hatred of Draco Malfoy's father?
Still pondering Snape's puzzling actions, Harry climbed the short steps to the door of Hagrid's hut, and knocked three times.
The door was flung open, and the enormous form of Hagrid beamed down at him.
"Harry! How are yeh? Just get back from breakfast, eh? C'mon in. Jus' made a pot o' tea!" Hagrid turned and clumped into his cabin, and Harry trailed along behind him.
Hagrid put the jar-sized teacups on the table, and carefully removed the teapot from the fire.
"Heard that yeh made a splash in Potions yesterday, Harry," Hagrid said as he sat down and made the hut lurch.
"Yeah," Harry croaked, then sipped the tea. It felt oddly comforting, being in Hagrid's company alone.
"Did Madam Pomfrey fix yer arm, then? Heard that yeh messed it up bad."
Harry sighed as he removed the cloak from his shoulders. Hagrid choked on his tea that he had been sipping.
"Wha' the…Harry! Yer arm…it's…"
"Gone?" Harry supplied.
"Well, yeah, but I figured yeh'd get it fixed or summat…"
"It is fixed. This was the only way to save my life, according to Madam Pomfrey."
Hagrid looked slightly shaken, then gulped the remainder of his tea.
"Well, if Madam Pomfrey says tha's the only way it'd be made righ', then tha's that."
Harry stared up at Hagrid with bleary eyes. "You really think that?"
Hagrid placed an enormous hand on Harry's left shoulder. "Madam Pomfrey's the best tha' there is, Harry. If she said tha's the only way to save yer life, she wasn' lyin'. She's got no reason ter lie ter yeh, Harry. And she'd never do anythin' withou' Dumbledore's say-so."
Harry was jolted by Hagrid's statement. "How'd you know that?"
"How'd I know what?" Hagrid asked.
"That she'd asked Dumbledore to…do this," Harry said, gesturing at his arm.
Hagrid sighed. "Because tha's the way it is, Harry. She'd not be doin' it without approval, what with yer godfather gone and all…"
Harry bowed his head. "Yeah, I suppose."
Hagrid gripped Harry's shoulder tighter, making Harry sure that he would break it. "I'm not accusin' yeh of anythin', Harry. Sirius' death wasn' yer fault. Yeh've got to move on, as hard at that seems…" Hagrid sniffled, and Harry remembered everything that Hagrid had ever lost, and that he had sacrificed, and Hagrid's selflessness through it all.
"Thanks, Hagrid," Harry said, pulling him into a fierce hug. Hagrid snuffled a little, saying, "Yeh'll do all righ', Harry. Yeh'll do all righ'."
Harry returned to the Potions dungeon a little before lunch, and knocked on the door to Snape's office.
"Enter," came the reply to the knock. Harry pushed open the door and walked in, closing the door with his foot.
Snape was bent over the cauldron sitting on the bench on the far wall of his office.
"Come in, Mr. Potter. Don't lurk in the doorway," Snape said in a slightly condescending tone.
Harry walked over, and looked into the cauldron. The potion was a dull green.
"Professor, what about the adding the last ingredient? It'll explode, and it'll melt the cauldron," Harry said, shying away from the potion.
Snape's lip curled in a superior manner. "It exploded because you added too much spleenwort."
Harry was confused. "I don't understand…how could you possibly know that without having tried it once before?"
Snape seemed rather pleased that Harry didn't have any idea what he was talking about. "Listen closely, Potter, I don't want to have to repeat myself. This is a seventh-year Potions topic known as reactants. There are some absolutes within Potions; that is, there are some ingredients that you can be assured will always cause a reaction within a potion when they are mixed, regardless of what other ingredients you may have added. No one ingredient is a reactant; rather, two ingredients together form a reactant. Whenever they are combined, regardless of what was added before or between them, there will be a reaction. In the case of your potion, the reactant was ground pearl of a siren and extract of spleenwort. Do you understand?"
Harry was still confused. "Sir, I understand the bit about reactants, but that still doesn't explain how you know that I added too much spleenwort."
Snape gave a "hmph!" of disdain. "If you had paid any attention in class, you would know that amounts matter in Potions. In the case of siren's pearl and spleenwort, there is a proportional mix between them, much like the combination of Muggle sodium and water. A small amount of sodium introduced into water will cause only a mild reaction. However, use the same amount of water and triple the amount of sodium, and the reaction will have been multiplied exponentially."
Harry was beginning to get the concept that Snape was trying to explain to him. "So how much spleenwort would have been needed to cause the reaction?"
Snape's expression became that of twisted irony. "A grain."
Harry was again confused. "But the explosion would have covered the Potions dungeon if the reaction were multiplied like you said. Why was it so small?"
Snape looked irritated at Harry's inability to realize the obvious. "Because the two ingredients fully reacted with each other before the rest of the spleenwort was absorbed. The excess was dissolved by the resulting potion."
Harry paused, working through what Snape had said. He was actually making sense of what Snape was telling him, which Harry supposed was mostly due to the fact that he had never paid attention before.
Snape looked satisfied that Harry had no other questions. "Getting back to your earlier question, Potter, the potion will not melt the cauldron. I have cast an Impervious Charm on the cauldron. The potion is not actually touching the cauldron, just very close to it. Close enough to conduct heat, at any rate."
Snape turned back to the cauldron, and picked up a small vial of spleenwort. He popped the cork out, and poured a tiny amount onto a bit of parchment. Using his wand, he separated a single grain from the deposit, and dropped it into the cauldron.
The potion instantly roiled and bubbled within the cauldron, and thickening slightly. Snape pulled back from the workbench, waiting for the reaction to stop. He checked the stopwatch, carefully measuring the time. Harry could see him mouthing, three, two one…
The bubbling abruptly stopped, the room going quiet. Snape extinguished the flames beneath the cauldron, and both Snape and Harry cautiously inched forward to peer into the cauldron.
The potion inside was a bright cyan.
Snape carefully poured the spleenwort back into it's vial, and replaced the cork. He then took the parchment in his hand and placed it on the table next to the cauldron. He levitated it with his wand, turning it in mid-air so a corner was downward. He dipped the corner into the potion, then brought it back out. The parchment was quickly eroding, and in a matter of seconds, the rest of the parchment had dissolved into nothing.
"Devil's Tears Potion," Harry said with a bitter edge to his voice, looking at the stump of his left arm.
Snape looked at Harry with an unreadable expression, and pointing his wand at the cauldron, vanished the potion with a wave of his wand.
"I shall submit the form to the Ministry of Magic as soon as…"
"Wait," Harry interrupted. "Do you still have it?"
Snape pointed wordlessly to his desk. The form was exactly where Harry had left it.
Harry strode over and picked up the quill. Next to 'Harry Potter' on the inventor's line, he wrote, 'Severus Snape.'
"There. Now it's ready," Harry said, handing it to Snape, who glanced at it, then looked up at Harry.
"Why?" he asked, clearly suspicious of Harry's motives.
"You deserve to take credit as much as I do, as you retrieved how to make it, and you researched it, and you understood it enough to even fix it," Harry said, wondering how Snape would react.
Snape looked back down at the form, then wordlessly folded the parchment. A Ministry of Magic wax seal appeared where Snape folded it, and Snape handed it to Harry.
"Take this to the Owlery," was all that Snape said.
"Yes, sir," Harry said, amazed at how easily he and Snape had gone from mortal enemies to speaking terms in a matter of two days.
"What about the extra precautions to take?" Harry asked.
"I added them on. They will know to use the Impervious charm before concocting it," Snape said.
Harry nodded as he tucked the parchment into his robes, and tugging the cloak about his shoulders again, he left the office.