O.W.L.s
Ron's euphoria at helping Gryffindor scrape the Quidditch cup
was such that he couldn't settle to anything next day. All he wanted to do was
talk over the match, so Harry and Hermione found it very difficult to find an
opening in which to mention Grawp. Not that either of them tried very hard;
neither was keen to be the one to bring Ron back to reality in quite such a
brutal fashion. As it was another fine, warm day, they persuaded him to join
them in revising under the beech tree at the edge of the lake, where they had
less chance of being overheard than in the common room. Ron was not particularly
keen on this idea at first—he was thoroughly enjoying being patted on the back
by every Gryffindor who walked past his chair, not to mention the occasional
outbursts of “Weasley is our King”—but after a while he agreed that some fresh
air might do him good.
They spread their books out in the shade of the beech
tree and sat down while Ron talked them through his first save of the match for
what felt like the dozenth time.
“Well, I mean, I'd already let in that one
of Davies's, so I wasn't feeling all that confident, but I dunno, when Bradley
came towards me, just out of nowhere, I thought—you can do this! And I had about
a second to decide which way to fly, you know, because he looked like he was
aiming for the right goalhoop—my right, obviously, his left—but I had a funny
feeling that he was feinting, and so I took the chance and flew left—his right,
I mean—and—well—you saw what happened,” he concluded modestly, sweeping his hair
back quite unnecessarily so that it looked interestingly windswept and glancing
around to see whether the people nearest to them—a bunch of gossiping third-year
Hufflepuffs—had heard him. “And then, when Chambers came at me about five
minutes later—What?” Ron asked, having stopped mid-sentence at the look on
Harry's face. “Why are you grinning?”
“I'm not,” said Harry quickly, and
looked down at his Transfiguration notes, attempting to straighten his face. The
truth was that Ron had just reminded Harry forcibly of another Gryffindor
Quidditch player who had once sat rumpling his hair under this very tree. “I'm
just glad we won, that's all.”
“Yeah,” said Ron slowly, savouring the words,
“we won. Did you see the look on Chang’s face when Ginny got the Snitch right
out from under her nose?”
“I suppose she cried, did she?” said Harry
bitterly.
“Well, yeah—more out of temper than anything, though...” Ron
frowned slightly. “But you saw her chuck her broom away when she got back to the
ground, didn't you?”
“Er—” said Harry.
“Well, actually...no, Ron,” said
Hermione with a heavy sigh, putting down her book and looking at him
apologetically. “As a matter of fact, the only bit of the match Harry and I saw
was Davies's first goal.”
Ron's carefully ruffled hair seemed to wilt with
disappointment. “You didn't watch?” he said faintly, looking from one to the
other. “You didn't see me make any of those saves?”
“Well—no,” said Hermione,
stretching out a placatory hand towards him. “But Ron, we didn't want to
leave—we had to!”
“Yeah?” said Ron, whose face was growing rather red. “How
come?”
“It was Hagrid,” said Harry. “He decided to tell us why he's been
covered in injuries ever since he got back from the giants. He wanted us to go
into the Forest with him, we had no choice, you know how he gets.
Anyway...”
The story was told in five minutes, by the end of which Ron's
indignation had been replaced by a look of total incredulity.
“He brought one
back and hid it in the Forest?”
“Yep,” said Harry grimly.
“No,” said Ron,
as though by saying this he could make it untrue. “No, he can't have.”
“Well,
he has,” said Hermione firmly. “Grawp's about sixteen feet tall, enjoys ripping
up twenty-foot pine trees, and knows me,” she snorted, “as Hermy.”
Ron gave a
nervous laugh.
“And Hagrid wants us to...?”
“Teach him English, yeah,”
said Harry.
“He's lost his mind,” said Ron in an almost awed voice.
“Yes,”
said Hermione irritably, turning a page of Intermediate Transfiguration and
glaring at a series of diagrams showing an owl turning into a pair of opera
glasses. “Yes, I'm starting to think he has. But, unfortunately, he made Harry
and me promise.”
“Well, you're just going to have to break your promise,
that's all,” said Ron firmly. “I mean, come on...we've got exams and we're about
that far—” he held up his hand to show thumb and forefinger almost touching
“—from being chucked out as it is. And anyway...remember Norbert? Remember
Aragog? Have we ever come off better for mixing with any of Hagrid's monster
mates?”
“I know, it's just that—we promised,” said Hermione in a small
voice.
Ron smoothed his hair flat again, looking preoccupied.
“Well,” he
sighed, “Hagrid hasn't been sacked yet, has he? He's hung on this long, maybe
he'll hang on till the end of term and we won't have to go near Grawp at
all.”
***
The castle grounds were gleaming in the sunlight as though
freshly painted; the cloudless sky smiled at itself in the smoothly sparkling
lake; the satin green lawns rippled occasionally in a gentle breeze. June had
arrived, but to the fifth-years this meant only one thing: their OWLs were upon
them at last.
Their teachers were no longer setting them homework; lessons
were devoted to revising those topics the teachers thought most likely to come
up in the exams. The purposeful, feverish atmosphere drove nearly everything but
the OWLs from Harry's mind, though he did wonder occasionally during Potions
lessons whether Lupin had ever told Snape that he must continue giving Harry
Occlumency tuition. If he had, then Snape had ignored Lupin as thoroughly as he
was now ignoring Harry. This suited Harry very well; he was quite busy and tense
enough without extra classes with Snape, and to his relief Hermione was much too
preoccupied these days to badger him about Occlumency; she was spending a lot of
time muttering to herself, and had not laid out any elf clothes for days.
She
was not the only person acting oddly as the OWLs drew steadily nearer. Ernie
Macmillan had developed an irritating habit of interrogating people about their
revision practices.
“How many hours d'you think you're doing a day?” he
demanded of Harry and Ron as they queued outside Herbology a manic gleam in his
eyes.
“I dunno,” said Ron. “A few.”
“More or less than eight?”
“Less,
I's'pose,” said Ron, looking slightly alarmed.
“I'm doing eight,” said Ernie,
puffing out his chest. “Eight or nine. I'm getting an hour in before breakfast
every day. Eight's my average. I can do ten on a good weekend day. I did nine
and a half on Monday. Not so good on Tuesday—only seven and a quarter. Then on
Wednesday—”
Harry was deeply thankful that Professor Sprout ushered them into
greenhouse three at that point, forcing Ernie to abandon his
recital.
Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy had found a different way to induce
panic.
“Of course, it's not what you know,” he was heard to tell Crabbe and
Goyle loudly outside Potions a few days before the exams were to start, “it's
who you know. Now, Father's been friendly with the head of the Wizarding
Examinations Authority for years—old Griselda Marchbanks—we've had her round for
dinner and everything...”
“Do you think that's true?” Hermione whispered in
alarm to Harry and Ron.
“Nothing we can do about it if it is,” said Ron
gloomily.
“I don't think it's true,” said Neville quietly from behind them.
“Because Griselda Marchbanks is a friend of my gran's, and she's never mentioned
the Malfoys.”
“What's she like, Neville?” asked Hermione at once. “Is she
strict?”
“Bit like Gran, really,” said Neville in a subdued
voice.
“Knowing her won't hurt your chances, though, will it?” Ron told him
encouragingly.
“Oh, I don't think it will make any difference,” said Neville,
still more miserably. “Grans always telling Professor Marchbanks I'm not as good
as my dad...well...you saw what she's like at St Mungo's” Neville looked fixedly
at the floor. Harry, Ron and Hermione glanced at each other, but didn't know
what to say. It was the first time Neville had acknowledged that they had met at
the wizarding hospital.
Meanwhile, a flourishing black-market trade in aids
to concentration, mental agility and wakefulness had sprung up among the fifth-
and seventh-years. Harry and Ron were much tempted by the bottle of Baruffio's
Brain Elixir offered to them by Ravenclaw sixth-year Eddie Carmichael, who swore
it was solely responsible for the nine “Outstanding” OWLs he had gained the
previous summer and was offering a whole pint for a mere twelve Galleons. Ron
assured Harry he would reimburse him for his half the moment he left Hogwarts
and got a job, but before they could close the deal, Hermione had confiscated
the bottle from Carmichael and poured the contents down a toilet.
“Hermione,
we wanted to buy that!” shouted Ron.
“Don't be stupid,” she snarled. “You
might as well take Harold Dingle's powdered dragon claw and have done with
it.”
“Dingle's got powdered dragon claw?” said Ron eagerly.
“Not any
more,” said Hermione. “I confiscated that, too. None of these things actually
work, you know.”
“Dragon claw does work!” said Ron. “It's supposed to be
incredible, really gives your brain a boost, you come over all cunning for a few
hours—Hermione, let me have a pinch, go on, it can't hurt—”
“This stuff can,”
said Hermione grimly. “I've had a look at it, and it's actually dried Doxy
droppings.”
This information took the edge off Harry and Rons desire for
brain stimulants.
They received their examination timetables and details of
the procedure for OWLs during their next Transfiguration lesson.
“As you can
see,” Professor McGonagall told the class as they copied down the dates and
times of their exams from the blackboard, “your OWLs are spread over two
successive weeks. You will sit the theory papers in the mornings and the
practice in the afternoons. Your practical Astronomy examination will, of
course, take place at night.
“Now, I must warn you that the most stringent
anti-cheating charms have been applied to your examination papers. Auto-Answer
Quills are banned from the examination hall, as are Remembralls, Detachable
Cribbing Cuffs and Self-Correcting Ink. Every year, I am afraid to say, seems to
harbour at least one student who thinks that he or she can get around the
Wizarding Examinations Authority's rules. I can only hope that it is nobody in
Gryffindor. Our new—Headmistress —” Professor McGonagall pronounced the word
with the same look on her face that Aunt Petunia had whenever she was
contemplating a particularly stubborn bit of dirt “—has asked the Heads of House
to tell their students that cheating will be punished most severely—because, of
course, your examination results will reflect upon the Headmistress's new regime
at the school—”
Professor McGonagall gave a tiny sigh; Harry saw the nostrils
of her sharp nose flare.
“—however, that is no reason not to do your very
best. You have your own futures to think about.”
“Please, Professor,” said
Hermione, her hand in the air, “when will we find out our results?”
“An owl
will be sent to you some time in July” said Professor
McGonagall.
“Excellent,” said Dean Thomas in an audible whisper, “so we don't
have to worry about it till the holidays.”
Harry imagined sitting in his
bedroom in Privet Drive in six weeks’ time, waiting for his OWL results. Well,
he thought dully, at least he would be sure of one bit of post that
summer.
Their first examination, Theory of Charms, was scheduled for Monday
morning. Harry agreed to test Hermione after lunch on Sunday, but regretted it
almost at once; she was very agitated and kept snatching the book back from him
to check that she had got the answer completely right, finally hitting him hard
on the nose with the sharp edge of Achievements in Charming.
“Why don't you
just do it yourself?” he said firmly, handing the book back to her, his eyes
watering.
Meanwhile, Ron was reading two years’ worth of Charms notes with
his fingers in his ears, his lips moving soundlessly; Seamus Finnigan was lying
flat on his back on the floor, reciting the definition of a Substantive Charm
while Dean checked it against The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5; and Parvati
and Lavender, who were practising basic Locomotion Charms, were making their
pencil-cases race each other around the edge of the table.
Dinner was a
subdued affair that night. Harry and Ron did not talk much, but ate with gusto,
having studied hard all day. Hermione, on the other hand, kept putting down her
knife and fork and diving under the table for her bag, from which she would
seize a book to check some fact or figure. Ron was just telling her that she
ought to eat a decent meal or she would not sleep that night, when her fork slid
from her limp fingers and landed with a loud tinkle on her plate.
“Oh, my
goodness,” she said faintly, staring into the Entrance Hall. “Is that them? Is
that the examiners?”
Harry and Ron whipped around on their bench. Through the
doors to the Great Hall they could see Umbridge standing with a small group of
ancient-looking witches and wizards. Umbridge, Harry was pleased to see, looked
rather nervous.
“Shall we go and have a closer look?” said Ron.
Harry and
Hermione nodded and they hastened towards the double doors into the Entrance
Hall, slowing down as they stepped over the threshold to walk sedately past the
examiners. Harry thought Professor Marchbanks must be the tiny, stooped witch
with a face so lined it looked as though it had been draped in cobwebs; Umbridge
was speaking to her deferentially. Professor Marchbanks seemed to be a little
deaf; she was answering Professor Umbridge very loudly considering they were
only a foot apart.
“Journey was fine, journey was fine, we've made it plenty
of times before!” she said impatiently. “Now, I haven't heard from Dumbledore
lately!” she added, peering around the Hall as though hopeful he might suddenly
emerge from a broom cupboard. “No idea where he is, I suppose?”
“None at
all,” said Umbridge, shooting a malevolent look at Harry, Ron and Hermione, who
were now dawdling around the foot of the stairs as Ron pretended to do up his
shoelace. “But I daresay the Ministry of Magic will track him down soon
enough.”
“I doubt it,” shouted tiny Professor Marchbanks, “not if Dumbledore
doesn't want to be found! I should know...examined him personally in
Transfiguration and Charms when he did NEWTs...did things with a wand I'd never
seen before.”
“Yes...well...” said Professor Umbridge as Harry, Ron and
Hermione dragged their feet up the marble staircase as slowly as they dared,
“let me show you to the staff room. I daresay you'd like a cup of tea after your
journey.”
It was an uncomfortable sort of an evening. Everyone was trying to
do some last-minute revising but nobody seemed to be getting very far. Harry
went to bed early but then lay awake for what felt like hours. He remembered his
careers consultation and McGonagall's furious declaration that she would help
him become an Auror if it was the last thing she did. He wished he had expressed
a more achievable ambition now that exam time was here. He knew he was not the
only one lying awake, but none of the others in the dormitory spoke and finally,
one by one, they fell asleep.
None of the fifth-years talked very much at
breakfast next day, either: Parvati was practising incantations under her breath
while the salt cellar in front of her twitched; Hermione was rereading
Achievements in Charming so fast that her eyes appeared blurred; and Neville
kept dropping his knife and fork and knocking over the marmalade.
Once
breakfast was over, the fifth- and seventh-years milled around in the Entrance
Hall while the other students went off to lessons; then, at half past nine, they
were called forwards class by class to re-enter the Great Hall, which had been
rearranged exactly as Harry had seen it in the Pensieve when his father, Sirius
and Snape had been taking their OWLs; the four house tables had been removed and
replaced instead with many tables for one, all facing the staff-table end of the
Hall where Professor McGonagall stood facing them. When they were all seated and
quiet, she said, “You may begin,” and turned over an enormous hour-glass on the
desk beside her, on which there were also spare quills, ink bottles and rolls of
parchment.
Harry turned over his paper, his heart thumping hard—three rows to
his right and four seats ahead Hermione was already scribbling—and lowered his
eyes to the first question: a) Give the incantation and b) describe the wand
movement required to make objects fly.
Harry had a fleeting memory of a club
soaring high into the air and landing loudly on the thick skull of a
troll...smiling slightly, he bent over the paper and began to
write.
***
“Well, it wasn't too bad, was it?” asked Hermione anxiously in
the Entrance Hall two hours later, still clutching the exam paper. “I'm not sure
I did myself justice on Cheering Charms, I just ran out of time. Did you put in
the counter-charm for hiccoughs? I wasn't, sure whether I ought to, it felt like
too much—and on question twenty-three—”
“Hermione,” said Ron sternly, “we've
been through this before...we're not going through every exam afterwards, it's
bad enough doing them once.”
The fifth-years ate lunch with the rest of the
school (the four house tables had reappeared for the lunch hour), then they
trooped off into the small chamber beside the Great Hall, where they were to
wait until called for their practical examination. As small groups of students
were called forwards in alphabetical order, those left behind muttered
incantations and practised wand movements, occasionally poking each other in the
back or eye by mistake.
Hermione's name was called. Trembling, she left the
chamber with Anthony Goldstein, Gregory Goyle and Daphne Greengrass. Students
who had already been tested did not return afterwards, so Harry and Ron had no
idea how Hermione had done.
“She'll be fine, remember she got a hundred and
twelve per cent on one of our Charms tests?” said Ron.
Ten minutes later,
Professor Flitwick called, “Parkinson, Pansy—Patil, Padma—Patil, Parvati—Potter,
Harry.”
“Good luck,” said Ron quietly. Harry walked into the Great Hall,
clutching his wand so tightly his hand shook.
“Professor Tofty is free,
Potter,” squeaked Professor Flitwick, who was standing just inside the door. He
pointed Harry towards what looked like the very oldest and baldest examiner who
was sitting behind a small table in a far corner, a short distance from
Professor Marchbanks, who was halfway through testing Draco Malfoy.
“Potter,
is it?” said Professor Tofty, consulting his notes and peering over his
pince-nez at Harry as he approached. “The famous Potter?”
Out of the corner
of his eye, Harry distinctly saw Malfoy throw a scathing look over at him; the
wine-glass Malfoy had been levitating fell to the floor and smashed. Harry could
not suppress a grin; Professor Tofty smiled back at him
encouragingly.
“That's it,” he said in his quavery old voice, “no need to be
nervous. Now, if I could ask you to take this egg cup and make it do some
cartwheels for me.”
On the whole, Harry thought it went rather well. His
Levitation Charm was certainly much better than Malfoy's had been, though he
wished he had not mixed up the incantations for Colour Change and Growth Charms,
so that the rat he was supposed to be turning orange swelled shockingly and was
the size of a badger before Harry could rectify his mistake. He was glad
Hermione had not been in the Hall at the time and neglected to mention it to her
afterwards. He could tell Ron, though; Ron had caused a dinner plate to mutate
into a large mushroom and had no idea how it had happened.
There was no time
to relax that night; they went straight to the common room after dinner and
submerged themselves in revision for Transfiguration next day; Harry went to bed
with his head buzzing with complex spell models and theories.
He forgot the
definition of a Switching Spell during his written paper next morning but
thought his practical could have been a lot worse. At least he managed to Vanish
the whole of his iguana, whereas poor Hannah Abbott lost her head completely at
the next table and somehow managed to multiply her ferret into a flock of
flamingos, causing the examination to be halted for ten minutes while the birds
were captured and carried out of the Hall.
They had their Herbology exam on
Wednesday (other than a small bite from a Fanged Geranium, Harry ielt he had
done reasonably well); and then, on Thursday, Defence Against the Dark. Arts.
Here, for the first time, Harry felt sure he had passed. He had no problem with
any of the written questions and took particular pleasure, during the practical
examination, in performing all the counter-jinxes and defensive spells right in
front of Umbridge, who was watching coolly from near the doors into the Entrance
Hall.
“Oh, bravo!” cried Professor Tofty, who was examining Harry again, when
Harry demonstrated a perfect Boggart banishing spell. “Very good indeed! Well, I
think that's all, Potter...unless...”
He leaned forwards a little.
“I
heard, from my dear friend Tiberius Ogden, that you can produce a Patronus? For
a bonus point...?”
Harry raised his wand, looked directly at Umbridge and
imagined her being sacked.
“Expecto patronum!”
His silver stag erupted
from the end of his wand and cantered the length of the Hall. All of the
examiners looked around to watch its progress and when it dissolved into silver
mist Professor Tofty clapped his veined and knotted hands
enthusiastically.
“Excellent!” he said. “Very well, Potter, you may
go!”
As Harry passed Umbridge beside the door, their eyes met. There was a
nasty smile playing around her wide, slack mouth, but he did not care. Unless he
was very much mistaken (and he was not planning on telling anybody, in case he
was), he had just achieved an “Outstanding” OWL.
On Friday, Harry and Ron had
a day off while Hermione sat her Ancient Runes exam, and as they had the whole
weekend in front of them they permitted themselves a break from revision. They
stretched and yawned beside the open window, through which warm summer air was
wafting as they played wizard chess. Harry could see Hagnd in the distance,
teaching a class on the edge of the Forest. He was trying to guess what
creatures they were examining—he thought it must be unicorns, because the boys
seemed to be standing back a little—when the portrait hole opened and Hermione
clambered in, looking thoroughly bad-tempered.
“How were the Runes?” said
Ron, yawning and stretching.
“I mis-translated ehwaz,” said Hermione
furiously. “It means partnership, not defence; I mixed it up with
eihwaz.”
“Ah well,” said Ron lazily, “that's only one mistake, isn't it,
you'll still get—”
“Oh, shut up!” said Hermione angrily. “It could be the one
mistake that makes the difference between a pass and a fail. And what's more,
someone's put another Niffler in Umbridge's office. I don't know how they got it
through that new door, but I just walked past there and Umbridge is shrieking
her head off—by the sound of it, it tried to take a chunk out of her
leg—”
“Good,” said Harry and Ron together.
“It is not good!” said Hermione
hotly. “She thinks it's Hagrid doing it, remember? And we do not want Hagrid
chucked out!”
“He's teaching at the moment; she can't blame him,” said Harry,
gesturing out of the window.
“Oh, you're so naive sometimes, Harry. You
really think Umbridge will wait for proof?” said Hermione, who seemed determined
to be in a towering temper, and she swept off towards the girls” dormitories,
banging the door behind her.
“Such a lovely, sweet-tempered girl,” said Ron,
very quietly, prodding his queen forward to beat up one of Harry's
knights.
Hermione's bad mood persisted for most of the weekend, though Harry
and Ron found it quite easy to ignore as they spent most of Saturday and Sunday
revising for Potions on Monday, the exam which Harry had been looking forward to
least—and which he was sure would be the downfall of his ambitions to become an
Auror. Sure enough, he found the written paper difficult, though he thought he
might have got full marks on the question about Polyjuice Potion; he could
describe its effects accurately, having taken it illegally in his second
year.
The afternoon practical was not as dreadful as he had expected it to
be. With Snape absent from the proceedings, he found that he was much more
relaxed than he usually was while making potions. Neville, who was sitting very
near Harry, also looked happier than Harry had ever seen him during a Potions
class. When Professor Marchbanks said, “Step away from your cauldrons, please,
the examination is over,” Harry corked his sample flask feeling that he might
not have achieved a good grade but he had, with luck, avoided a fail.
“Only
four exams left,” said Parvati Patil wearily as they headed back to Gryffindor
common room.
“Only!” said Hermione snappishly. “I've got Arithmancy and it's
probably the toughest subject there is!”
Nobody was foolish enough to snap
back, so she was unable to vent her spleen on any of them and was reduced to
telling off some first-years for giggling too loudly in the common
room.
Harry was determined to perform well in Tuesdays Care of Magical
Creatures exam so as not to let Hagnd down. The practical examination took place
in the afternoon on the lawn on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where students
were required to correctly identify the Knarl hidden among a dozen hedgehogs
(the trick was to offer them all milk in turn: Knarls, highly suspicious
creatures whose quills had many magical properties, generally went berserk at
what they saw as an attempt to poison them); then demonstrate correct handling
of a Bowtruckle; feed and clean out a Fire Crab without sustaining serious
burns; and choose, from a wide selection of food, the diet they would give a
sick unicorn.
Harry could see Hagrid watching anxiously out of his cabin
window. When Harry's examiner, a plump little witch this time, smiled at him and
told him he could leave, Harry gave Hagrid a fleeting thumbs-up before heading
back to the castle.
The Astronomy theory paper on Wednesday morning went well
enough. Harry was not convinced he had got the names of all Jupiter's moons
right, but was at least confident that none of them was inhabited by mice. They
had to wait until evening for their practical Astronomy; the afternoon was
devoted instead to Divination.
Even by Harry's low standards in Divination,
the exam went very badly. He might as well have tried to see moving pictures on
the desktop as in the stubbornly blank crystal ball; he lost his head completely
during tea-leaf reading, saying it looked to him as though Professor Marchbanks
would shortly be meeting a round, dark, soggy stranger, and rounded off the
whole fiasco by mixing up the life and head lines on her palm and informing her
that she ought to have died the previous Tuesday.
“Well, we were always going
to fail that one,” said Ron gloomily as they ascended the marble staircase. He
had just made Harry feel rather better by telling him how he had told the
examiner in detail about the ugly man with a wart on his nose in his crystal
ball, only to look up and realise he had been describing his examiner's
reflection.
“We shouldn't have taken the stupid subject in the first place,”
said Harry.
“Still, at least we can give it up now.”
“Yeah,” said Harry.
“No more pretending we care what happens when Jupiter and Uranus get too
friendly.”
“And from now on, I don't care if my tea-leaves spell die, Ron,
die—I'm just chucking them in the bin where they belong.”
Harry laughed just
as Hermione came running up behind them. He stopped laughing at once, in case it
annoyed her.
“Well, I think I've done all right in Arithmancy” she said, and
Harry and Ron both sighed with relief. “Just time for a quick look over our
star-charts before dinner, then...”
When they reached the top of the
Astronomy Tower at eleven o'clock, they found a perfect night for stargazing,
cloudless and still. The grounds were bathed in silvery moonlight and there was
a slight chill in the air. Each of them set up his or her telescope and, when
Professor Marchbanks gave the word, proceeded to fill in the blank star-chart
they had been given.
Professors Marchbanks and Tofty strolled among them,
watching as they entered the precise positions of the stars and planets they
were observing. All was quiet except for the rustle of parchment, the occasional
creak of a telescope as it was adjusted on its stand, and the scribbling of many
quills. Half an hour passed, then an hour; the little squares of reflected gold
light flickering on the ground below started to vanish as lights in the castle
windows were extinguished.
As Harry completed the constellation Orion on his
chart, however, the front doors of the castle opened directly below the parapet
where he was standing, so that light spilled down the stone steps a little way
across the lawn. Harry glanced down as he made a slight adjustment to the
position of his telescope and saw five or six elongated shadows moving over the
brightly lit grass before the doors swung shut and the lawn became a sea of
darkness once more.
Harry put his eye back to his telescope and refocused it,
now examining Venus. He looked down at his chart to enter the planet there, but
something distracted him; pausing with his quill suspended over the parchment,
he squinted down into the shadowy grounds and saw half a dozen figures walking
over the lawn. If they had not been moving, and the moonlight had not been
gilding the tops of their heads, they would have been indistinguishable from the
dark ground on which they walked. Even at this distance, Harry had a funny
feeling he recognised the walk of the squattest of them, who seemed to be
leading the group.
He could not think why Umbridge would be taking a stroll
outside after midnight, much less accompanied by five others. Then somebody
coughed behind him, and he remembered that he was halfway through an exam. He
had quite forgotten Venus's position. Jamming his eye to his telescope, he found
it again and was once more about to enter it on his chart when, alert for any
odd sound, he heard a distant knock which echoed through the deserted grounds,
followed immediately by the muffled barking of a large dog.
He looked up, his
heart hammering. There were lights on in Hagrid's windows and the people he had
observed crossing the lawn were now silhouetted against them. The door opened
and he distinctly saw six sharply defined figures walk over the threshold. The
door closed again and there was silence.
Harry felt very uneasy. He glanced
around to see whether Ron or Hermione had noticed what he had, but Professor
Marchbanks came walking behind him at that moment and, not wanting to look as
though he was sneaking looks at anyone else's work, Harry hastily bent over his
star-chart and pretended to be adding notes to it while really peering over the
top of the parapet towards Hagrid's cabin. Figures were now moving across the
cabin windows, temporarily blocking the light.
He could feel Professor
Marchbanks's eyes on the back of his neck and pressed his eye again to his
telescope, staring up at the moon though he had marked its position an hour ago,
but as Professor Marchbanks moved on he heard a roar from the distant cabin that
echoed through the darkness right to the top of the Astronomy Tower. Several of
the people around Harry ducked out from behind their telescopes and peered
instead in the direction of Hagrid's cabin.
Professor Tofty gave another dry
little cough.
“Try and concentrate, now, boys and girls,” he said
softly.
Most people returned to their telescopes. Harry looked to his left.
Hermione was gazing transfixed at Hagrid's cabin.
“Ahem—twenty minutes to
go,” said Professor Tofty.
Hermione jumped and returned at once to her
star-chart; Harry looked down at his own and noticed that he had mis-labelled
Venus as Mars. He bent to correct it.
There was a loud BANG from the grounds.
Several people cried “Ouch!” when they poked themselves in the face with the
ends of their telescopes as they hastened to see what was going on
below.
Hagrid's door had burst open and by the light flooding out of the
cabin they saw him quite clearly a massive figure roaring and brandishing his
fists, surrounded by six people, all of whom, judging by the tiny threads of red
light they were casting in his direction, seemed to be attempting to Stun
him.
“No!” cried Hermione.
“My dear!” said Professor Tofty in a
scandalised voice. “This is an examination!”
But nobody was paying the
slightest attention to their star-charts any more. Jets of red light were still
flying about beside Hagrid's cabin, yet somehow they seemed to be bouncing off
him; he was still upright and still, as far as Harry could see, fighting. Cries
and yells echoed across the grounds; a man yelled, “Be reasonable,
Hagrid!”
Hagrid roared, “Reasonable be damned, yeh won’ take me like this,
Dawlish!”
Harry could see the tiny outline of Fang, attempting to defend
Hagrid, leaping repeatedly at the wizards surrounding him until a Stunning Spell
caught him and he fell to the ground. Hagrid gave a howl of fury, lifted the
culprit bodily from the ground and threw him; the man flew what looked like ten
feet and did not get up again. Hermione gasped, both hands over her mouth; Harry
looked round at Ron and saw that he, too, was looking scared. None of them had
ever seen Hagrid in a real temper before.
“Look!” squealed Parvati, who was
leaning over the parapet and pointing to the foot of the castle where the front
doors had opened again; more light was spilling out on to the dark lawn and a
single long black shadow was now rippling across the lawn.
“Now, really!”
said Professor Tofty anxiously. “Only sixteen minutes left, you know!”
But
nobody paid him the slightest attention: they were watching the person now
sprinting towards the battle beside Hagrid's cabin.
“How dare you!” the
figure shouted as she ran. “How dare you!”
“It's McGonagall!” whispered
Hermione.
“Leave him alone! Alone, I say!” said Professor McGonagall's voice
through the darkness. “On what grounds are you attacking him? He has done
nothing, nothing to warrant such—”
Hermione, Parvati and Lavender all
screamed. The figures around the cabin had shot no fewer than four Stunners at
Professor McGonagall. Halfway between cabin and castle the red beams collided
with her; for a moment she looked luminous and glowed an eerie red, then she
lifted right off her feet, landed hard on her back, and moved no
more.
“Galloping gargoyles!” shouted Professor Tofty, who also seemed to have
forgotten the exam completely. “Not so much as a warning! Outrageous
behaviour!”
“COWARDS!” bellowed Hagrid; his voice carried clearly to the top
of the tower, and several lights flickered back on inside the castle. “RUDDY
COWARDS! HAVE SOME O’ THAT—AN’ THAT—”
“Oh my —” gasped Hermione.
Hagrid
took two massive swipes at his closest attackers; judging by their immediate
collapse, they had been knocked cold. Harry saw Hagrid double over, and thought
he had finally been overcome by a spell. But, on the contrary, next moment
Hagrid was standing again with what appeared to be a sack on his back—
then
Harry realised that Fang's limp body was draped around his shoulders.
“Get
him, get him!” screamed Umbridge, but her remaining helper seemed highly
reluctant to go within reach of Hagrid's fists; indeed, he was backing away so
fast he tripped over one of his unconscious colleagues and fell over. Hagrid had
turned and begun to run with Fang still hung around his neck. Umbridge sent one
last Stunning Spell after him but it missed; and Hagrid, running full-pelt
towards the distant gates, disappeared into the darkness.
There was a long
minutes quivering silence as everybody gazed open-mouthed into the grounds. Then
Professor Tofty's voice said feebly, “Um...five minutes to go,
everybody.”
Though he had only filled in two-thirds of his chart, Harry was
desperate for the exam to end. When it came at last he, Ron and Hermione forced
their telescopes haphazardly back into their holders and dashed back down the
spiral staircase. None of the students were going to bed; they were all talking
loudly and excitedly at the foot of the stairs about what they had
witnessed.
“That evil woman!” gasped Hermione, who seemed to be having
difficulty talking due to rage. “Trying to sneak up on Hagrid in the dead of
night!”
“She clearly wanted to avoid another scene like Trelawney's,” said
Ernie Macmillan sagely, squeezing over to join them.
“Hagrid did well, didn't
he?” said Ron, who looked more alarmed than impressed. “How come all the spells
bounced off him?”
“It'll be his giant blood,” said Hermione shakily. “Its
very hard to Stun a giant, they're like trolls, really tough...but poor
Professor McGonagall...four Stunners straight in the chest and she's not exactly
young, is she?”
“Dreadful, dreadful,” said Ernie, shaking his head pompously.
“Well, I'm off to bed. Night, all.”
People around them were drifting away,
still talking excitedly about what they had just seen.
“At least they didn't
get to take Hagrid off to Azkaban,” said Ron. “I spect he's gone to join
Dumbledore, hasn't he?”
“I suppose so,” said Hermione, who looked tearful.
“Oh, this is awful, I really thought Dumbledore would be back before long, but
now we've lost Hagrid too.”
They traipsed back to the Gryffindor common room
to find it full. The commotion out in the grounds had woken several people, who
had hastened to rouse their friends. Seamus and Dean, who had arrived ahead of
Harry, Ron and Hermione, were now telling everyone what they had seen and heard
from the top of the Astronomy Tower.
“But why sack Hagrid now?” asked
Angelina Johnson, shaking her head. “It's not like Trelawney; he's been teaching
much better than usual this year!”
“Umbridge hates part-humans,” said
Hermione bitterly, flopping down into an armchair. “She was always going to try
and get Hagrid out.”
“And she thought Hagrid was putting Nifflers in her
office,” piped up Katie Bell.
“Oh, blimey,” said Lee Jordan, covering his
mouth. “It's me who's been putting the Nifflers in her office. Fred and George
left me a couple; I've been levitating them in through her window.”
“She'd
have sacked him anyway” said Dean. “He was too close to Dumbledore.”
“That's
true,” said Harry, sinking into an armchair beside Hermione's.
“I just hope
Professor McGonagall's all right,” said Lavender tearfully.
“They carried her
back up to the castle, we watched through the dormitory window,” said Colin
Creevey “She didn't look very well.”
“Madam Pomfrey will sort her out,” said
Alicia Spinnet firmly. “She's never failed yet.”
It was nearly four in the
morning before the common room cleared. Harry felt wide awake; the image of
Hagrid sprinting away into the dark was haunting him; he was so angry with
Umbridge he could not think of a punishment bad enough for her, though Ron's
suggestion of having her fed to a box of starving Blast-Ended Skrewts had its
merits. He fell asleep contemplating hideous revenges and arose from bed three
hours later feeling distinctly unrested.
Their final exam, History of Magic,
was not to take place until that afternoon. Harry would very much have liked to
go back to bed after breakfast, but he had been counting on the morning for a
spot of last-minute revision, so instead he sat with his head in his hands by
the common-room window, trying hard not to doze off as he read through some of
the three-and-a-half-feet-high stack of notes that Hermione had lent him.
The
fifth-years entered the Great Hall at two o'clock and took their places in front
of their face-down examination papers. Harry felt exhausted. He just wanted this
to be over, so that he could go and sleep; then tomorrow, he and Ron were going
to go down to the Quidditch pitch—he was going to have a fly on Rons broom—and
savour their freedom from revision.
“Turn over your papers,” said Professor
Marchbanks from the front of the Hall, flicking over the giant hour-glass. “You
may begin.”
Harry stared fixedly at the first question. It was several
seconds before it occurred to him that he had not taken in a word of it; there
was a wasp buzzing distractingly against one of the high windows. Slowly,
tortuously, he at last began to write an answer.
He was finding it very
difficult to remember names and kept confusing dates. He simply skipped question
four (In your opinion, did wand legislation contribute to, or lead to better
control of, goblin riots of the eighteenth century?), thinking that he would go
back to it if he had time at the end. He had a stab at question five (How was
the Statute of Secrecy breached in 1749 and what measures were introduced to
prevent a recurrence?) but had a nagging suspicion that he had missed several
important points; he had a feeling vampires had come into the story
somewhere.
He looked ahead for a question he could definitely answer and his
eyes alighted upon number ten: Describe the circumstances that led to the
formation of the International Confederation of Wizards and explain why the
warlocks of Liechtenstein refused to join.
I know this, Harry thought, though
his brain felt torpid and slack. He could visualise a heading, in Hermione's
handwriting: The formation of the International Confederation of Wizards ...he
had read those notes only this morning.
He began to write, looking up now and
again to check the large hour-glass on the desk beside Professor Marchbanks. He
was sitting right behind Parvati Patil, whose long dark hair fell below the back
of her chair. Once or twice he found himself staring at the tiny golden lights
that glistened in it when she moved her head slightly, and had to give his own
head a little shake to clear it.
...the first Supreme Mugwump of the
International Confederation of Wizards was Pierre Bonaccord, but his appointment
was contested by the wizarding community of Liechtenstein, because—
All
around Harry quills were scratching on parchment like scurrying, burrowing rats.
The sun was very hot on the back of his head. What was it that Bonaccord had
done to offend the wizards of Liechtenstein? Harry had a feeling it had
something to do with trolls...he gazed blankly at the back of Parvati's head
again. If he could only perform Legilimency and open a window in the back of her
head and see what it was about trolls that had caused the breach between Pierre
Bonaccord and Liechtenstein...
Harry closed his eyes and buried his face in
his hands, so that the glowing red of his eyelids grew dark and cool. Bonaccord
had wanted to stop troll-hunting and give the trolls rights...but Liechtenstein
was having problems with a tribe of particularly vicious mountain trolls...that
was it.
He opened his eyes; they stung and watered at the sight of the
blazing white parchment. Slowly, he wrote two lines about the trolls, then read
through what he had done so far. It did not seem very informative or detailed,
yet he was sure Hermione's notes on the Confederation had gone on for pages and
pages.
He closed his eyes again, trying to see them, trying to remember...the
Confederation had met for the first time in France, yes, he had written that
already...
Goblins had tried to attend and been ousted...he had written that,
too...
And nobody from Liechtenstein had wanted to come...
Think, he told
himself, his face in his hands, while all around him quills scratched out
never-ending answers and the sand trickled through the hour-glass at the
front...
He was walking along the cool, dark corridor to the Department of
Mysteries again, walking with a firm and purposeful tread, breaking occasionally
into a run, determined to reach his destination at last...the black door swung
open for him as usual, and here he was in the circular room with its many
doors...
Straight across the stone floor and through the second
door...patches of dancing light on the walls and floor and that odd mechanical
clicking, but no time to explore, he must hurry...
He jogged the last few
feet to the third door, which swung open just like the others...
Once again
he was in the cathedral-sized room full of shelves and glass spheres...his heart
was beating very fast now...he was going to get there this time...when he
reached number ninety-seven he turned left and hurried along the aisle between
two rows...
But there was a shape on the floor at the very end, a black shape
moving on the floor like a wounded animal...Harry's stomach contracted with
fear...with excitement...
A voice issued from his own mouth, a high, cold
voice empty of any human kindness...
Take it for me...lift it down, now...I
cannot touch it...but you can
The black shape on the floor shifted a little.
Harry saw a long-fingered white hand clutching a wand rise at the end of his own
arm...heard the high, cold voice say “Crucio!”
The man on the floor let out a
scream of pain, attempted to stand but fell back, writhing. Harry was laughing.
He raised his wand, the curse lifted and the figure groaned and became
motionless.
“Lord Voldemort is waiting”
Very slowly, his arms trembling,
the man on the ground raised his shoulders a few inches and lifted his head. His
face was bloodstained and gaunt, twisted in pain yet rigid with
defiance...
“You'll have to kill me,” whispered Sirius.
“Undoubtedly I
shall in the end,” said the cold voice. “But you will fetch it for me first,
Black...you think you have felt pain thus far? Think again...we have hours ahead
of us and nobody to hear you scream...”
But somebody screamed as Voldemort
lowered his wand again; somebody yelled and fell sideways off a hot desk on to
the cold stone floor; Harry awoke as he hit the ground, still yelling, his scar
on fire, as the Great Hall erupted all around him.
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