star-crossed

Through The Trapdoor

In the years to come, Harry would never quite remember how he had managed to get through his exams when he half expected Voldemort to come bursting through the door at any moment. Yet the days crept by and there could be no doubt that Fluffy was still alive and well behind the locked door.

It was swelteringly hot, especially in the large classroom where they did their written papers. They had been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell. Fred and George Weasley had assured all the Gryffindor firsties (much to Percy's consternation) that they'd tried every trick in the book and these quills were the real deal.

They had practical exams as well. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tap-dance across a desk. Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuff-box – points were given for how pretty the snuff-box was, but taken away if it had whiskers. Snape made them all nervous, breathing down their necks while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness Potion. Professor Tonks had a replica of a human torso that showed the insides, and he had them come in one by one and identify parts of the body and explain how their core affected it.

Harry did the best he could, trying to ignore the stabbing pains in his forehead which had been bothering him ever since his trip into the Forest. When asked, Elowen admitted that her scar still ached a bit, but not nearly as bad as his was, and she wasn't saying anything because Draco tended to hover whenever one of the group was hurt. Neville thought Harry had a bad case of exam nerves because Harry couldn't sleep, but the truth was that Harry kept being woken by his old nightmare, except that it was now worse than ever because there was a hooded figure dripping blood in it. More than once since the Forest, he'd kept Elowen downstairs in the common room and fallen asleep against her. She hadn't seen what he had that night and wasn't having nightmares, though, and Harry felt a bit guilty keeping her from her bed, no matter how much she said she'd rather stay with him.

Maybe it was because they hadn't seen what Harry had seen in the Forest, or because they didn't have scars burning on their foreheads, but Ron, Neville and Draco didn't seem as worried about the Stone as Harry (even Hermione, who had seen what Harry had, seemed to brush it aside, though this was more expected given that she'd thrown herself into studying). The idea of Voldemort certainly scared them, but he didn't keep visiting them in dreams, and they were so busy with their (Hermione-approved) revision they didn't have much time to fret about what Snape or anyone else might be up to.

Their very last exam was History of Magic. One hour of answering questions about batty old wizards who'd invented self-stirring cauldrons and they'd be free, free for a whole wonderful week until their exam results came out. When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment, Harry couldn't help cheering with the rest.

"That was far easier than I thought it would be," said Hermione, as they joined the crowds flocking out into the sunny grounds. "I needn't have learnt about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct or the uprising of Elfric the Eager."

"I don't think those are even in the first-year curriculum," Draco sighed. "Really, you should join the study group next year. The older Slytherins have made a self-study guide for History that we've been using."

"I know they weren't in the curriculum but what if they were on the test?" Hermione said. "You truly never know. What did you say for the question about the goblin uprising of 1489?"

They all groaned. Hermione always liked to go through their exam papers afterwards, but Ron said this made him feel ill, so they dropped their bags in the Den and wandered down to the lake to flop under a tree. The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan were tickling the tentacles of a giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows.