What Voldemort Left Behind

Chapter 27 - History of Magic

AUTHORS NOTE: had a really long car ride today so i managed to write a whole chapter, meant it to be kind of a comedy chapter but somehow it morphed into sad after the first paragraph, oops 😂 finally finished off the Hogwarts year so it'll be summer soon in the story and lots of things planned for their summer. (Editors note: I remember writing this chapter so clearly wow, it really doesn't feel that i wrote it around the time of the last chapter)

The summer holidays were fast approaching and James could not wait to get home. It wasn't that he didn't like Hogwarts, but it had been a long hard year for his family and the summer was set to be two great months of Quidditch matches. He was eager to escape the stares that he got all the time at Hogwarts from both pupils and teachers, the kids always looking at him in awe and the adults with pity and sadness in their eyes. He would miss his friends at Hogwarts but luckily his best friend was his sister so they would be together over the holiday. He felt slightly sorry for his brother, Al's best friend was Scorpius Malfoy who he would definitely not have at home. Luckily Albus and Rose had always been good friends and the cousins were always around them. Albus would probably also stay at the Malfoys' for a week like last year. James began to pack, which always took a long time because he tended to misplace his stuff but finally he tracked his missing Potions textbook down from behind the fireplace in the common room when Lily came over to him.

"Here." She handed him a large History of Magic book that James didn't recognize apart from "James Potter" scrawled on the first page. "Is your exam not tomorrow? I heard loads of the sixth years complaining about it yesterday, that was the exam you didn't do last year cause Binns left, right?"

James had forgotten about that. Well, he'd been to the classes but he sort of forgot what they were for, why he was doing the subject.

"WHAT? Quick... what do I do? I don't know anything about History of Magic!"

"Calm down you moron, that exam tomorrow is on the first and second Wizarding Wars, it's the other one about Goblin Rebellions that you need to worry about."

"How do you know so much and I don't? Can you just like... I don't know, Polyjuice it?"

"James, you've got three days, I would do Polyjuice but the exam papers can tell. Luckily we have all weekend to teach you the Ancient Goblin Rebellions, where are your notes?" She sighed as he stared at her. "Okay fine, I'll persuade someone to give you theirs, who's the smartest in your class? That's a good starting point."

-

The next day James headed into the Great Hall, almost late because he lost his tie that he'd already packed with a week to go, he'd forgotten his year had to do a late OWL. He supposed he would've needed the tie anyway to go to class...

He glanced around, most sixth years looked worried, nearly all of them were last minute studying, but James knew he would easily ace this exam, after all, his family had lived it and told the stories his whole life. Huge individual desks sat in rows and the examiner watched closely. It was apparently an old Hogwarts teacher, his name was Professor Flitwick, James thought. Flitwick handed out the exam and told them to begin.

Question One: Describe an event that occurred in 1981 that led to the fall of Voldemort. (4 Marks)

James felt slightly uncomfortable, he didn't like writing about these things in exams, it didn't feel right. It felt awkward writing about the first James and Lily Potter, who would have been his grandparents if it wasn't for that day. The exam made it sound like a good thing, like they were happy it led to the fall of Voldemort at such an awful cost. The death of his grandparents and the day his dad was made into a Horcrux, something that still affected him today, it was certainly a bad thing and he almost wished Voldemort had never been defeated so that he would have his grandparents, which he thought may be selfish, but so was being happy at their deaths just because it meant others were safe. He continued the paper after finishing his answer that was  surely worth full marks despite the wording which may not be exactly what the paper wanted.