An American at Hogwarts: Book Two

Chapter Fifty-Five

A/N: Next update's coming in two days 😄 Also, I'm pretty busy right now, so if I'm less active on Wattpad in between postings, that's why. I love you guys and I love interacting with all of you, but I just have way less time right now. Hopefully I'll be back to normal posting tags and messages on message boards soon, but for now I'm pretty much only checking this app on my update days ❤️❤️❤️

****************

After lunch with my friends, I declined hanging out in the Astronomy Tower and doing homework like we usually did on weekends in favor of suiting up in my Iron Man armor and scanning the woods. As nice as it would've been to relax with my friends on a Saturday afternoon, this was more important for now.

Besides, it felt good to be back in the armor, acting like my family did all the time for their normal jobs. It had been way too long since I got to use this thing.

Ana and I scanned damn near every inch of the forest within a half mile of the place Viktor told me he'd been attacked. We found nothing.

True to form, I did my best to put the mystery on the back burner as I stepped out of the suit and went back to being an ordinary wizard by all appearances. I thought finding nothing unusual would make it easier to ignore, but it didn't. If anything, I was more curious. How did an entire person, who was in pretty bad shape, just disappear without a trace? It didn't add up.

Still, with the final task only three weeks away, I really did have plenty of other things to focus on. I couldn't afford to be distracted as Cedric and I did our best to prepare, practicing sparring and dueling with our friends as often as possible. I'd decided a while ago my non-wizard powers would be cheating, although after Christmas break, I couldn't realistically get rid of my Mystic Arts shield reflex. Honestly though, I was kind of glad. Who knew what kind of things would pop out of the shrubs at us in the maze? I'd mocked Strange when he'd first brought it up, but those shields really might just save my life at this point.

The last big milestone for me before the final task came in the form of our Apparition test. All the people over the age of seventeen woke up bright and early on the Saturday morning after our last Apparition class and headed down into Hogsmeade as one big blob for the exam. My group of friends was pretty relaxed, since we'd all done well in the class. Cedric and I were holding hands, swinging our arms together as we strolled across the lawn. Adrian and Jackson were holding hands too, although they weren't being as dopey as me and Cedric. Mostly, we were all just happy to be so close to getting one more thing off our schedules.

We got into Hogsmeade and met up with Twycross, who looked a little stressed as we all showed up. It probably wasn't fun for him to have us all take our tests on the same day; like having a bunch of kids all take their driver's tests at once.

Twycross and a few other instructors were administering all the tests, so we lined up and they called us one by one to take our exams. I felt a small surge of nerves when they finally called my name, but reassuring looks from my friends helped me get it under control. I could do this, and then I would be done.

I got Twycross as my administrator, and luckily everything went off without a hitch. I passed my test with flying colors, Apparating without splinching myself, and when I walked back out into the streets of Hogsmeade I was officially licensed to Apparate.

I was going to have a lot of fun doing this around the Tower when I got back to New York.

I didn't have to wait long before my friends came out of their tests, thankfully all wearing triumphant smiles. We'd all managed to pass, and now we were free to do whatever we wanted in the lead-up to the final task. And now we could do it while Apparating.