Harry Potter and the Mysterious Legacy

Norwegian Trouble: Norbert - The Norwegian Ridgeback

Now, Quirrell, however, must have been braver than they'd thought. In the weeks that followed he did seem tobe getting paler and thinner, but it didn't look as though he'd cracked yet. 

Every time they passed the third-floor corridor, Harry, Ron and Hermione would press their ears to the door to check that Fluffy was still growling inside. Snape was sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which surely meant that the Stone was still safe. 'Well, it's not as if he's calm and jolly always', was Harry's comment when Ron noticed Snape's mood. Whenever Harry passed Quirrell these days, he gave him an encouraging sort of smile, and Ron had started telling people off for laughing at Quirrell's stutter. Hermione, however, had more on her mind than the Philosopher's Stone. She had started drawing up revision timetables and colour-coding all her notes. Harry and Ron wouldn't have minded, but she kept nagging them to do the same. Well, Harry was studying more than Ron, but Hermione didn't think it was enough. 

They were sitting in the Common Room, when - 'Hedwig!'

Hedwig had a letter.

'What have you got, girl?'

Oh no...

Mum.

She's gotta scold me.

'Why do you think that, sir?'

'Well, I'm always doing something...'

'See, your mum understands how important it is'...

'Hermione, the exams are ages away.' 

'Ten weeks,' Hermione snapped. 'That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel.' 

'But we're not six hundred years old,' Ron reminded her. 'Anyway, what are you revising for, you already know it all.' 

'What am I revising for? Are you mad? You realise we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's got into me...' 

Unfortunately, the teachers seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Hermione. They piled so much homework on them that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones. Plus, Harry was finding it difficult to play a prank with the Marauders in this serious environment. But they had to lighten the mood up a little bit, right? But it was hard to relax or think with Hermione next to you reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood or practising wand movements. Moaning and yawning, Harry and Ron spent most of their free time in the library with her, trying to get through all their extra work. 'I'll never remember this,' Ron burst out one afternoon, throwing down his quill and looking longingly out of the library window. It was the first really fine day they'd had in months. The sky was a clear, forget-me-not blue and there was a feeling in the air of summer coming. Harry, who was looking up 'Dittany' in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, didn't look up until he heard Ron say, 'Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?' Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back. He looked very out of place in his moleskin overcoat.