In Perpetuum

Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Compote futurum

“Evanseco... makes something vanish; expelliarmus... to disarm opponents; aguamenti... produces water.”

Hermione was speaking under her breath at such a speed that, to those around her, it sounded like one long hissing noise.

“Mione, you use those spells daily, at a non-verbal level. Why in the name of Merlin do you have a burning need to study them?” sighed Sirius.

“Just in case they are in the exam,” replied Hermione with a haughty look.

At this point, the doors to the Great Hall opened, and Hermione let out a nervous squeak, at which Sirius rolled his eyes. He made no comment towards the others, who were in a similar position and state of mind to Hermione, at the prospect of having to complete their NEWT Charms exam.

Sirius stepped behind Hermione and put his hands on her shoulders, gently pushing her forwards into the examination room.

“Good luck,” he whispered before he found his way over to his own seat.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

As it turned out, Hermione had very little to worry about. The exam was nowhere near as difficult as what she had feared, but she had no issues when it came to reliving their torture.

“I only wrote a page about Wingardium Leviosa. We learned about that all the way back in First Year, but I can’t help but feel that they expected us to know a bit more about it by now and-“

She was cut off by James who was rubbing his head as thought the exam had caused him physical pain.

“Hermione, my darling sister, we had to live through that exam once. I don’t want to have to do it again, please!”

James’ plea to her reminded her of the things that Ron and Harry used to say after their exams. It made her sad that they were not here to experience this, but at the same time, it made her more determined to succeed in her task.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

All of the hours of revising, tears, flagons of calming draughts, potions to make you more intelligent and broken quills, was summed up into one last exam: Defence Against the Dark Arts Practical.

Hermione was assigned to Professor Tofty for this exam. She successfully managed to deflect several curses and jinxes, amongst other things. The final part of the examination was to produce a patronus.

Once she had received the nod from Professor Tofty, she aimed her wand at the far end of the Great Hall, towards the platform where the teachers table usually sat. She flooded her mind with a myriad of images, both happy memories of the past, and the promise of a future free of pain and suffering.

“Expecto Patronum!”

Misty silver shot out of the end of her wand, forming a corporeal patronus that was not quite what she expected. This was not her otter. This creature was large and hairy. It bounded across the room on four, rather big, paws.

“Padfoot,” she whispered to herself, while Professor Tofty smiled and made notes on his clipboard.

“Thank You Miss Potter. Your examination is complete. You may leave the Great Hall now.”

Hermione only had to wait a little while before all the examinations were complete and it was time for dinner. Each of the Marauder’s wore smug smiles on their faces, certain that they had all passed their Defence Against the Dark Arts NEWT examination with an ‘Outstanding’.

Sirius was in the middle of pouring his own serving of Shepherd’s Pie when his owl, Tully, made a swift landing in front of him. He detached the letter that was tied to the bird’s leg, opening it quickly and scanning his eyes across the parchment.

His mouth dropped open in shock.

“Anything interesting?” asked Hermione as she poured some of her own dinner.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Lily. She had just arrived, and she promptly plonked herself down next to Hermione with James (who had arrived with her, hair more messed up than usual) on her other side.

“I knew the bloke liked me, but I didn’t think he was this fond,” said Sirius, still not providing an adequate answer to benefit his friends with.

Hermione snatched the parchment from his hands as James made some joke, or rather, about Third Year boys flocking to Sirius due to the lack of girls in their year.

Hermione ignored this, cleared her throat and read out the contents of the letter.

To my Nephew Sirius,

I am not dead yet, and I intend to stay around for awhile yet, but I feel that it is time I sort out a few personal matters regarding my Will.

It is probably very morbid of me to be doing this at the present, and your mother will probably Avada me for doing this for you, but to you, I bequeath a trust fund that I invoked a number of years ago.

I hope that you find this particularly useful, especially in light of the fact that you have almost finished your education at Hogwarts.

Best of luck,

Uncle Alphard

“Wow” was all that Lily was able to utter when Hermione got to the end, “that’s generous.”

Sirius gulped and nodded before an enormous grin broke out on his face.

“I’ll be able to get the bike that I’ve always wanted. I’ll be able to get somewhere to live too. What d’you reckon a flat in Diagon Alley would go for?”

To the amusement of everyone else, Sirius began chatting animatedly about what he was going to do with his ‘inheritance’.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

It was their last journey on the Hogwarts Express. Hermione and the Marauders had finally finished seven long years of schooling.

A big group of them, both male and female, had squished themselves into one compartment on the train. There was James with Lily on his lap, followed by Remus, Estrella, Alice and Frank. On the other side there was Sirius with Hermione on his lap, Heloise and Xeno Lovegood. Heloise had started dating him fairly recently, but they were completely inseparable, each of them complementing the other ones’ aura of ditzy-ness and peculiarity.

The group spent their time reflecting on the past, and the fun times they had at school with each other. This gradually moved on to what they expected from the future given the present climate in the Wizarding community.

Despite the grim prospects outside, out in the real world, Hermione felt oddly calm about everything. In terms of their personal lives, everything was falling into place.

Hermione, more than anything hoped that life would stay like this forever. That they could get the defeat of Voldemort over and done with as quickly as possible, with as little pain as possible so that they could get on with being together.

It was so that Hermione could get to see Ron and Harry, and so that she could see Neville and Luna. Maybe Harry and Neville might have siblings.

Maybe Hermione could have children too, and satisfy herself with the knowledge that they could be friends with Harry and Ron. She would, after all, be Harry’s aunt in the present timeline.

It was a strange prospect, but oddly it was one that she did not abhor.