A/N: I'd like to make a personal note to Harry Skywalker, who left me a review saying that he was a little offended by the comment that i made regarding the oft terrible weather in Scotland. I'd like to advise you to check out my Bio page to see where i live. I think you'll find that i know all about what Scotland is famous for. What would we do without John Logie Baird, eh?
Once they arrived back at school after the Easter Holidays, April quickly became May, and May hastily became a blur. One minute it was the first, the next it was Friday the twenty-ninth and they were having their last day of classes before the exams began. Each teacher was taking the opportunity to reassure their students that they would be fine and that no one would fail, although some did a better job of this than others. Snape’s parting words to his seventh year Potions class were, “I shall be most grateful that I never have to lay eyes on most of you ever again. You have been mediocre at best and these examinations will no doubt prove you all to be incompetent in the science of Potion making. For those of you who do pass, do not congratulate yourselves too much, there is always room for improvement. Goodbye.” With that he stormed out of his dungeon without another word.
“Do you get the impression that he doesn’t like us?” Ron asked sarcastically.
“No I get the impression that not only does he not like us, but he’s in a fouler mood than usual,” Harry responded.
“You don’t really think we’re all going to fail, do you?” Hermione begged urgently as she snatched the front of Ron’s robes.
“Hermione, if you get anything less than an E on this exam I’ll eat my cauldron,” Ron said seriously as he prised his girlfriends fingers from the place where she was gouging holes in the material with her fingernails.
“But Professor Snape said that we’re mediocre and that isn’t good enough to pass!” Hermione panicked, she was beginning to pant in anxiety.
“He only said that to put us off, you know what he’s like. Besides, it’s not him that marks the exams anyway, and I find it very hard to believe that anyone is going to find your potion work mediocre, Hermione, how many times do we have to say this? YOU’RE THE BEST IN OUR YEAR,” Ron said slowly with emphatic hand gestures.
“Listen to Ron, Hermione, for once he actually knows what he’s talking about,” Harry grinned.
“Shut it you!” Ron growled with half a laugh.
“Merlin, look at the time! We’re going to be late for Transfiguration!” Hermione squealed and tore from the dungeon. Hurricane Hermione sped her way through the crowded corridors to find that she was much mistaken, they weren’t late for Transfiguration at all; they were just in time. Professor McGonagall’s words weren’t that much more comforting than Snape’s had been.
“While I believe that each of you is more than capable of passing these exams that does not mean that you can sit back and relax. If you want to pass with acceptable grades then you must ensure that you put as much work into the revision, that you are all doubtlessly going to do over the weekend, as you have to your tasks over the course of this year. I know you are all disheartened because none of you have been able to make the full transition into your Animagi form but I would ask you to not let this cloud your view of the other things you have learned this year. There is no reason why anyone should fail this class, but if you have not put in the effort required then it will show in your answers and will subsequently gain you a lower mark. I would like to warn you all that we are entitled to hold students back a year, and if anyone does do so abysmally in their exams, we will be seeing you again next year. I hope that isn’t the case with this year group, it’s been nearly seventeen years since I’ve had to hold back a student, I would like to make it eighteen but you just never know. Now today we will be doing some general revision…” McGonagall then launched in to a long discourse about what areas she thought they needed to work on and they set about practicing.
Harry, Ron and Hermione were thankful when they reached the final lesson of the day; Defence Against the Dark Arts was always guaranteed to put a smile on your face. “Well, hello there, my dearly beloved seventh years. How are my favourite class?” she asked exuberantly. A rumble of tired, ‘Fine, Miss,’ rolled around the room. “You poor things, they’ve not been over working you today, have they?” she laughed. Everyone just groaned. “Well, you’ll be pleased to know that I have nothing to teach you!” she announced.
“WHAT?” screamed Hermione. The bushy-haired girl had nearly fainted with shock. “It’s the last lesson before the exams, you have to teach us!”
“Hermione, if you haven’t learned it all already then it doesn’t matter what I say right now, because you’re not going to learn it in time for the exam,” Ellie spoke kindly and calmly to the girl in front of her.
“But I don’t think I’ve learned it all!” Hermione appeared to be having yet another panic attack.
“Hermione,” Ellie’s tone was now firm. “You are the brightest witch in this classroom and in this school, you have consistently performed exceptionally well on the written tasks and the in class practicals, you have nothing to worry about. You could pass this exam with both your hands tied behind your back.”
“That’s impossible!” Hermione replied.
“Indeed it is not! You’re so clever that you’d probably find a way to get yourself out of the ties,” Ellie smiled. They rest of the class laughed, including Harry, Ron and Neville who now had an image of Hermione hopping around the Great Hall with her arms and legs tied together and her quill in her mouth. “I would be extremely surprised if any one of you manages to fail, you’ve all worked extremely hard and you know your stuff. You’ll all be fine, I know it.”
“Another one of your feelings is it?” Harry piped up.
“They haven’t lead me wrong yet, Harry,” she scolded. “I’m afraid that I do have to keep you in class until our time is up but feel free to do whatever you like. Whether that’s chat, play hangman or even just get some sleep. By the way, Hannah, it looks like you could use some shut eye, there’s a nice comfy book over there that you could use as a pillow,” she told Hannah Abbott helpfully. “So, do what you like!” It was undoubtedly the best lesson that they’d ever had.
The examiners arrived just before dinner on the thirty-first as they did every year; Madam Marchbanks was as stooping as ever and looked like she had acquired more cobwebs since Harry had last seen her. Everything was kept fairly simple for Ron and Harry, they had five exams and five days, so they had their written papers in the morning and their practicals in the afternoon, Hermione’s timetable was slightly more complicated, on Tuesday and Thursday she was sitting her other two exams in the middle of the ones she was sitting with Ron and Harry. The first exam they had to face was Transfiguration. Harry smiled widely when the first question was a rather simple, ‘Explain the method, through which, a human being may transform his or herself into an animal.’
On the way out of the two-hour assessment Hermione began her usual dissection. By the time they were back in the tower Ron and Harry had practically been forced to recite all their answers back to her word for word. She was, of course, convinced that there was something she hadn’t mentioned and that she had failed miserably. After a spot of light lunch they all gathered in the small chamber off the hall to wait for their turn to be tested practically. Harry’s examiner this time was a rather short and springy looking witch, who seemed to be delighted that she had been asked to examine them all. There was a Raven sitting on a perch in front of her, she smiled at Harry excitedly and said “Turn this into a racoon please, Mr. Potter.” Several transfigurations later, and Harry was fairly certain that he had passed, even though he had set fire to a log he was trying to turn into a table.
The next morning it was time for the Potions test, Harry sat at his desk with his quill poised above the parchment question paper, the first couple of questions were tough ones but he nearly jumped out of his seat with delight when he got to the third one. ‘What are the effects of a Wolfsbane Potion?’ with an image of a peaceful, sleeping Remus swimming around his head Harry started scribbling everything he knew about the potion on to the paper. When they got outside Harry and Ron breathed a sigh of relief.
“That wasn’t too bad,” Ron said as he inhaled the fresh summer air deeply.
“Not too bad? I didn’t have nearly enough time for everything that I wanted to say!” Hermione complained.
“That’s because you write too much,” Ron whispered under his breath, luckily Hermione didn’t hear him.
“I’ve got to go and get ready for my Ancient Runes paper; I’ll see you this afternoon.” She gave Ron a rushed kiss on the cheek and hurried away back in to the building.
“She’s nuts!” Harry exclaimed.
“That’s why I love her.” Ron smiled at the retreating figure of his girlfriend.
“A little bit of advice for you, mate, don’t mention that when you get around to proposing,” Harry laughed.
During the Potions practical the seventh years were asked to make the love potion Amortentia and also Felix Felicis. Harry wasn’t sure that either of them were anywhere near perfect but it was the best that he could do, Snape had picked just about the two most difficult potions possible. The next morning it was time for Charms. The written exam asked for the effects of the Bubble Head and Disillusionment Charms, Harry had smiled to himself and remembered a time two years ago when Mad-Eye had rapped him on the head with his wand and it felt like he’d smashed an egg on Harry’s head. In the practical students were asked to conjure birds and also to demonstrate the Bubble Head Charm.
The Defence Against the Dark Arts exam on Thursday was a walk in the park; Harry could tell that the exam had been written with him, Ron and Hermione in mind. They were asked to ‘Explain, in detail, the method of the Patronus Charm and further describe the effects.’ After that there was a question all about werewolves, another about banshees and the final question had been about the Fidelius Charm. When the practical came it was fairly easy, he was asked to conjure a Patronus, something he’d been able to do for years, and then a succession of shields and his final task was to perform some simple attacks. Overall, the day had gone extremely well and Harry was very confident that he might just have got himself an E, if not and O.
The final exam was Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures one, he had set a reasonably difficult paper that asked for descriptions of Dugbogs and the best way to feed and care for Unicorns. The practical called for them to extract a vial of bile from an Armadillo, a task that was quite difficult considering how much they liked to scarper away and the fact that they hated being milked for the bile. It was a relieved Harry and Ron who returned to the tower that night.
“Well, Harry, Neville, congratulations, we made it,” Ron held out his hand for Harry and Neville to shake. They both took it sportingly and shook it vigorously.
“I can’t believe that was it, I mean they kept telling us that these were the most difficult exams we’d ever sit but it all felt all right, didn’t it?” Neville asked.
“I think they were just making it up to make sure that we worked hard,” Ron said.
“Probably, they’re sneaky like that,” Harry smiled as Ginny came jumping in to the common room with some of her sixth year cohorts.
“How was it?” she asked.
“Altogether? Not too bad at all really,” Harry answered.
“Good, now that it’s all over do you think you might be up to spending sometime with your girlfriend instead of a book?” she gave him a playful scolding look.
“I’m sure I can manage that,” he winked at her.
“Well, if you two are going to be all over each other then I’m going to find Hermione,” Ron looked at the pair of them disgustedly.
“Try the library,” Ginny suggested.
“The library? But we’ve just finished the exams, why does she need to go to the library? That girl, I swear…” Ron bristled on his way out of the common room.
“What are you doing in here, Hermione?” Ron whispered as he plonked himself next to her at a table in the library.
“I just had a bit of a headache and I know how noisy the common room is going to be right now,” she answered as her fingers massaged her temples.
“It is a bit boisterous in there. I bet I’ve got something that can make your headache go away,” he mumbled in her ear.
“Really and what would that be?” she asked with a weak smile.
“Come over here and I’ll show you,” he teased. He gently pulled her away from the table and up one of the rows of bookshelves that was a good bit away from Madam Pince’s desk. The second that they were hidden by the tall bookcases he planted a strong, loving kiss on her lips. “How does your headache feel now?”
“A little bit better but there’s still a long way to go.” She reached a hand up to his neck to tempt him in to another kiss; he happily obliged.
“How about now?”
“Still not gone,” she smiled.
“I’ll have to try harder then won’t I?” he smirked and urged her further along the row and back up against the wall at the end. When he pulled away he asked her one final time. “Is it gone yet?”
“Surprisingly, yes.”
“Good, there’s something that I want to tell you,” the jitters worked their way up from his belly into his throat.
“What it is?” Hermione wondered if this was it. Ginny had warned her during Easter that Ron had been asking what the younger girl would only refer to as ‘special questions,’ she had her suspicions as to exactly what those questions were about and she thought she was about to find out for definite. She nearly screamed in delight when Ron kneeled down in front of her.
“Hermione, I want you to know that you mean the world to me. I think about you all the time and I can’t think of anyone else that I would rather spend the rest of my life with. In the months we were arguing I was lost without you, I was looking for you in those other girls but I realized that you weren’t there. You’re the only one of you that there is and I never wanted to lose you again. I know that you promised me that I wouldn’t but a promise isn’t enough, I want more. I love you, Hermione, and I want to know if you’ll marry me?” He looked up at her expectantly with eyes that were so full of adoration that Hermione knew there was only one thing that she could say.
“Of course I’ll marry you!” she squeaked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a simple little black box, he opened it to reveal a simple ring, with a sapphire stone set on to it, nestled in the middle of a red velvet cushion. It wasn’t extravagant and costly but it was understated in a very beautiful way. He slipped it on to her finger and she gazed at it for a moment, she was a future Mrs. Weasley.
A/N: Two happy chapters in a row, I really do spoil you, you know. The next chapter is the hauntingly titled….Attempt On Hogwarts. See you there!