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Chapter - 49 : The Following Weeks

"So we were right! It is the Philosopher's Stone, and Snape is trying to force Quirrell to help him get it. He asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy - and he said something about Quirrell's 'hocus-pocus' - I reckon there are other things guarding the stone apart from Fluffy, loads of enchantments, probably, and Quirrell would have done some anti-Dark Arts spell which Snape needs to break through -"

"So you mean the Stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?" said Hermione in alarm.

"It'll be gone by next Tuesday," said Ron.

~

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

Every time they'd pass the third floor corridor, the four 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.

Harry and Ron had started becoming a little more encouraging and defensive of Professor Quirrell but Ava still felt something fishy about him.

She had decided to talk to Professor Dumbledore about this but unfortunately he was going to pause their classes for a few weeks but he still asked her to keep practising to defend herself and others. She also practiced much harder now to attack Professor Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape.

But Hermione had more on her mind than the Stone. Ava agreed with her, and together they started drawing up revision timetables and colour-coding their notes. Ava wouldn't have bothered to but, Hermione kept nagging Ron and Harry to do the same.

"Come on! The exams are ages away!" Ron said one day.

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

"But we're not six hundred years old!" Ron reminded her. "Anyway, what are you two revising for? You already know it all by heart!"

"What are we revising for?! Are you mad? You realise that we need to pass these exams to get into second year? They're very important! We should've started revising a month ago. I don't know what got into me..."

The teachers were thinking on the same lines as Hermione. They piled so much homework on them that Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as Christmas in Harry and Ron's opinion.

But Ava enjoyed this immensely. She loved being able to do all of this with Leah around.
But she was back at Hogwarts before she could blink.

Moaning or yawning, Ron and Harry, spent most of their free time in the library with Hermione, trying to get through all their extra work. Ava joined whenever she could and Harry and Ron were glad when she did for Hermione would stop fussing over them and the two girls would keep testing each other on the twelve uses of dragon blood or wand movements or something like that.

Ava enjoyed the pressure though it made her Gryffindor friends snappy and moan-y.

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Hey! I hope you're having an amazing day! Happy Diwali to you!

Be safe this Diwali and take care of your friends and family and pleaseeeeee don't burst crackers!

That's all for today! Lots of love!

Bye!

Always,
Ana