He'd just have to manage by himself, though. Starting with watching his classmates closely as he brewed, since he didn't really know which two charms were the critical ones. If he asked anyone, Snape was sure to overhear and know he hadn't studied enough.
Yeah, better to bluff it out...
Things went all right at first. He pulped his wild carrot roots to a fine mash--though weren't carrots supposed to be good for your eyes? Harry almost giggled, which was warning in itself. He was too exhausted to be brewing, and definitely shouldn't be working by himself, but he didn't have any choice. He wasn't about to go tell his father what a poor student he'd been this week.
So Harry soldiered on.
He prepared several more ingredients, only adding them when he noticed Hermione doing so as she hovered over her own cauldron. She tossed in the anise seeds and stirred three times clockwise, then carefully lifted her stirring stick from the bubbling brew and let every last drop of honey-coloured potion drip back down into her cauldron. But she didn't move to the next step, which would be extinguishing her fire. Instead, she raised her hand.
Harry checked the instructions. Waste not want not, which was Snape's bizarre way of saying to keep your potion completely in your cauldron, was followed by the first charm.
Which meant he only had to figure out which one remaining was the other critical one.
"A bit thin," said Snape as he tapped the cauldron with a fingernail and watched the liquid within react. How he could tell anything when the potion was at a full boil was beyond Harry. Perhaps it had to do with smell as well; he certainly seemed to be inhaling a lot, his large nose engulfed in fumes as he evaluated Hermione's work. "One more anise seed, Miss Granger."
After Hermione dropped it in, Snape tapped the cauldron once more. "Adequate. You may proceed." He turned away, his dark gaze checking on his other students' progress.
Harry thought his potion was perhaps a bit thin as well, so he dropped in an extra anise seed before raising his hand.
Snape nodded that he'd seen him, but first saw to Parvati, who'd had her hand up longer. Then he walked over, the motion so smooth he seemed almost to glide, and gave Harry's cauldron a single, strong tap. "Just a shade too much anise," he commented.
Harry's brain froze. Not that he'd expected his potion to be perfect, of course --when was it ever?-- but because he couldn't remember how to counter too much anise. He wanted to hit his head on the desk. Why, oh why had he thought it would be such a good idea to toss in that sodding extra seed?
"Neutralise the excess, Mr. Potter," Snape calmly recommended, turning his face toward Harry's, his dark eyes intense.
"Yes, sir." Occluding just in case his father might be able to see more than Harry wanted, Harry reached his hand toward the shreds of ginger he hadn't used. Snape nodded and moved on.
Whew. Close call.
Harry gently lowered a shred of ginger and floated it on the surface of his potion, letting the boiling action mix it into the brew. He tapped the side of the cauldron himself and thought it looked all right. Putting out his fire as directed, he glanced up at the board.
Apply the appropriate freezing charm, it read, and maintain your potion in a semi-frozen state until the edges turn grey.
Freezing charm.
Yeah, he'd read--at about 5 a.m.--that one would be required. The other three charms he had to do were more familiar. And really, a standard freezing charm wouldn't tax him too much, but this was one specially designed to turn viscous liquids into sort of a slush. He'd meant to practice it beforehand so he got the Parseltongue version down, but Sals had been asleep and he'd been dead tired and he'd still had most of the chapter to read.
He'd meant to go back to it, he really had.
Well, nothing for it now.
Harry turned his back on his father and slid and hand into his pocket, letting Sals wrap around his fingers so he could pull her out. Snape would probably hear the Parseltongue but then again, he would just think Harry was performing the required charm, not trying to figure out how the heck to make it work.
"Sals," he whispered, bringing her up close to his face and talking as low as he could, "I want ice..." Damn, he'd just tried to say slush and it had come out as ice. Okay, try again. "I want to make my stick make some soft ice. Like, almost frozen but not quite. Do you have any ideas?"
Sals' little tongue lapped out against Harry's cheek. "Like sleet?"
"Yeah, sleet," Harry said. "That's about right. Thanks, Sals."
Harry pointed his wand at his cauldron but held it so that a standard freezing charm wouldn't flow through it. Then, fingers in position, he steadied his gaze on his ring and said, "Be sleet."
Nothing. When he put his hand on the side of the cauldron it hadn't even cooled. Well, he was used to trial and error for new spells, by then. "Become sleet." No. Maybe he should charm the cauldron instead of the potion itself; that sometimes worked. "Make what you are holding into sleety sleet."
That was what he got for trying to say slushy sleet.
He felt a zinging sensation shoot through his wand instead of his fingers, and realised that he hadn't changed the angle when he'd switched to talking to his cauldron. Uh-oh... wanded magic.
It seemed to be all right, though. No sparks flew from the end of his wand; nothing catastrophic. Nothing unexpected, even. His potion started to change, that was all. Like it was supposed to. The contents of his cauldron took on a bluish sheen that got darker and darker, shifting towards black. Harry kept a close eye on his potion, waiting for the edges to turn grey.
And then...
Oh, no...
The potion stayed mushy, Harry could see that, but it must have gotten way too cold even if it didn't harden into ice. Must have, because nobody else's cauldron was silently cracking through, the contents somehow muffling any noise.
Slushy sleet, just like he'd asked for, spilled out onto his workbench. That in itself might not have been so bad, but his workbench was still covered with things he'd chopped and diced and mashed. Tired as he was, Harry knew that was an accident waiting to happen. He pointed his wand at the mess, more careful this time to keep his magic wandless, and hurriedly hissed his version of an Evanesco.
But his potion didn't vanish, it just kept oozing towards his shredded ginger.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, then.
Harry reached out his hands to sweep his ingredients out of the path of the potion.
Sals, dangling from his wrist by then, hissed as she came near the freezing slush.
Reacting instinctively, Harry yanked that arm back to his chest while his other hand shoved ginger and carrot and anise, among other things, onto the floor.
Snape shouted something, then. Harry registered the sound, but not the words, past his panic. Because any second now the potion was going to ooze right off the desk and onto the floor, and then there might be an explosion or worse--
A spell zinged past his ear, so close it seemed to burn him, at the same times some words did come clear. "Evanesco!"
Snape, trying to contain the damage before it was too late. But his spell failed, as Harry knew it would. It took a Parselmouth to affect Harry's wanded Parseltongue magic. Snape knew that, but he didn't know Harry had used his wand... really used it. "Helare!" Snape incanted, hoping no doubt to freeze the oozing potion solid to keep it from spreading.
"Sir," Harry began, but Snape spoke right over him.