Harry Potter 05 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

would be able to give up Potions after fifth year.
    ‘But we have another year to go before that happy moment of farewell,’ said Snape softly, ‘so, whether or not you are intending to attempt N.E.W.T., I advise all of you to concentrate your efforts upon maintaining the high pass level I have come to expect from my O.W.L. students.
    ‘Today we will be mixing a potion that often comes up at Ordinary Wizarding Level: the Draught of Peace, a potion to calm anxiety and soothe agitation. Be warned: if you are too heavy-handed with the ingredients you will put the drinker into a heavy and sometimes irreversible sleep, so you will need to pay close attention to what you are doing.’ On Harry’s left, Hermione sat up a little straighter, her expression one of utmost attention. ‘The ingredients and method –’ Snape flicked his wand ‘– are on the blackboard –’ (they appeared there) ‘– you will find everything you need –’ he flicked his wand again ‘– in the store cupboard –’ (the door of the said cupboard sprang open) ‘– you have an hour and a half … start.’
    Just as Harry, Ron and Hermione had predicted, Snape could hardly have set them a more difficult, fiddly potion. The ingredients had to be added to the cauldron in precisely the right order and quantities; the mixture had to be stirred exactly the right number of times, firstly in clockwise, then in anti-clockwise directions; the heat of the flames on which it was simmering had to be lowered to exactly the right level for a specific number of minutes before the final ingredient was added.
    ‘A light silver vapour should now be rising from your potion,’ called Snape, with ten minutes left to go.
    Harry, who was sweating profusely, looked desperately around the dungeon. His own cauldron was issuing copious amounts of dark grey steam; Ron’s was spitting green sparks. Seamus was feverishly prodding the flames at the base of his cauldron with the tip of his wand, as they seemed to be going out. The surface of Hermione’s potion, however, was a shimmering mist of silver vapour, and as Snape swept by he looked down his hooked nose at it without comment, which meant he could find nothing to criticise. At Harry’s cauldron, however, Snape stopped, and looked down at it with a horrible smirk on his face.
    ‘Potter, what is this supposed to be?’
    The Slytherins at the front of the class all looked up eagerly; they loved hearing Snape taunt Harry.
    ‘The Draught of Peace,’ said Harry tensely.
    ‘Tell me, Potter,’ said Snape softly, ‘can you read?’
    Draco Malfoy laughed.
    ‘Yes, I can,’ said Harry, his fingers clenched tightly around his wand.
    ‘Read the third line of the instructions for me, Potter.’
    Harry squinted at the blackboard; it was not easy to make out the instructions through the haze of multi-coloured steam now filling the dungeon.
    ‘“Add powdered moonstone, stir three times counter-clockwise, allow to simmer for seven minutes then add two drops of syrup of hellebore.”’
    His heart sank. He had not added syrup of hellebore, but had proceeded straight to the fourth line of the instructions after allowing his potion to simmer for seven minutes.
    ‘Did you do everything on the third line, Potter?’
    ‘No,’ said Harry very quietly.
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘No,’ said Harry, more loudly. ‘I forgot the hellebore.’
    ‘I know you did, Potter, which means that this mess is utterly worthless. Evanesco .’
    The contents of Harry’s potion vanished; he was left standing foolishly beside an empty cauldron.
    ‘Those of you who have managed to read the instructions, fill one flagon with a sample of your potion, label it clearly with your name and bring it up to my desk for testing,’ said Snape. ‘Homework: twelve inches of parchment on the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion-making, to be handed in on Thursday.’
    While everyone around him filled their flagons, Harry cleared away his things, seething. His potion had been no worse than Ron’s, which was now giving off a foul odour of bad eggs; or Neville’s, which had achieved the consistency of just-mixed cement and which Neville was now having to gouge out of his cauldron; yet it was he, Harry, who would be receiving zero marks for the day’s work. He stuffed his wand back into his bag and slumped down on to his seat, watching everyone else march up to Snape’s desk with filled and corked flagons. When at long last the