𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎𝐔𝐒 || Harry J. Potter [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter 16 ✎

"I TOLD YOU SO!!!"
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Third Person POV

Harry and Jilly's euphoria at finally winning the Quidditch Cup lasted at least a week.

Even the weather seemed to be celebrating; as June approached, the days became cloudless and sultry, and all anybody felt like doing was strolling onto the grounds and flopping down on the grass.

But they couldn't.

Exams were nearly upon them, and instead of lazing around outside, the students were forced to remain inside the castle, trying to bully their brains into concentrating while enticing wafts of summer air drifted in through the windows.

Even Fred and George Weasley had been spotted working; they were about to take their O.W.L.'s.

Percy was getting ready to take his N.E.W.T.'s, the highest qualification Hogwarts offered. As Percy hoped to enter the Ministry of Magic, he needed top grades.

He was becoming increasingly edgy and gave very severe punishments to anybody who disturbed the quiet of the common room in the evenings. The only person who seemed more anxious than Percy was Hermione.

Harry and Ron had given up asking her how she was managing to attend several classes at once. Jilly knew already, so she took no extra time bothering her with the boys; she knew how anxious Hermione was with exams and all her classes as well.

But Harry and Ron couldn't restrain themselves when they saw the exam schedule she had drawn up for herself.

The first column read,

Monday

9 o'clock, Arithmancy

9 o'clock, Transfiguration

Lunch

1 o'clock, Charms

1 o'clock, Ancient Runes

"Hermione?" Ron said cautiously, because she was liable to explode when interrupted these days. "Uh- are you sure you've copied down these times right?"

"What?" Hermione snapped, picking up the exam schedule and examining it. "Yes, of course I have."

"Is there any point asking how you're going to sit for two exams at once?" Harry grumbled.

"No," Hermione shortly rolled her eyes. "Have either of you seen my copy of Numerology and Gramatica?"

"Oh, yeah, I borrowed it for a bit of bedtime reading," said Ron, but very quietly. Hermione started shifting heaps of parchment. Harry, Jilly Ron, and Hermione had plenty of opportunities to speak to Hagrid.

"Beaky's gettin' a bit depressed," Hagrid told them, bending low on the pretense of checking that Harry's flobberworm was still alive. "Bin cooped up too long. But still...we'll know the day after tomorrow- one way or the other-"

Jilly was torn between telling Buckbeak about what was about to happen- no, could happen- and not telling. She had decided not to think about it, for the time being, displaying exams as an excuse.

They had Potions that afternoon, which was an unqualified disaster. Try as Harry might, he couldn't get his Confusing Concoction to thicken, and Snape, standing watch with an air of vindictive pleasure, scribbled something that looked suspiciously like a zero onto his notes before moving away.

Then came Astronomy at midnight, upon the tallest tower; History of Magic on Wednesday morning, in which Jilly and Harry scribbled everything Florean Fortescue had ever told them about medieval witch-hunts while wishing they could have had one of Fortescue's choco-nut sundaes with them in the stifling classroom.