Harry Potter and the Year of Surprises by erinpotter

Wednesday

Not mine

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The next morning Harry woke to find that he felt quite happy. He rolled over and fell out of the bed, but still he felt rather happy. Then he remembered. He was excited about his NEWT. Not that he was looking forward to the whole thing. Just to one part of it. He got up and checked the time. Half seven. The perfect time to get up. It gave him half an hour in the shower and fifteen minutes to get ready before they left to go to breakfast. Harry was quite nervous about seeing Ginny that day. She hadn’t spoken to him since he nodded to Draco yesterday, but Hermione had gone to talk to her so he hoped she’d be okay today.

Out of the shower and dressed, it was a quarter past eight. He made his way to the common room to meet his friends. As soon as his foot was off the last step, Ginny came running over to him. 

‘Harry I'm so sorry about yesterday! Making friends with Malfoy is a great idea! You know unity and all that! Just be careful, he could be dangerous! Okay? You know who his dad is!’

‘Wow! Ginny, I know all that! I'm fine, okay? If he turns out to be rotten, I'll deal with okay!’

‘Okay, then! Come on. I'm starving!’

Harry was amazed at how quickly Ginny could change her mood.

‘Hey, Harry. Where did you go last night? I sat up for about an hour but you didn’t come back.’ Ron said.

‘Yeah, I went to see McGonagall and then on the way back I bumped into someone and they fell and broke their ankle. I had to carry them up to the hospital wing and sit with them for half an hour.’

‘Merlin, you must have been running, to break someone’s ankle.’ Hermione said. ‘Who was it?’

Harry hesitated. ‘Draco.’

There was an awkward silence and Harry felt the need to break it. ‘I’d have carried them, whoever it was! It was just a coincidence that it was Draco.’

‘Yeah,’ Ginny said. ‘How’s his ankle?’

‘Fine, Madam Pomfrey fixes bones everyday. He just had to wait for half an hour. Madam Pomfrey wanted me to sit with him because she had to go and see to some vomiting guy from Hufflepuff.’

The fact that Harry had an excuse for waiting with Malfoy made things slightly better. 

After breakfast, the seventh years waited outside again. Hermione was quizzing Ginny on ‘the importance of being able to transfigure furniture’. Harry didn’t think it was at all important, but he had got Hermione's opinion on the subject and was going to write about it.

The doors opened and everyone filed in and took their seats. Harry thanked Merlin that it was a cloudy day and that there would be no sun to glint on Parvati’s hair. He glanced at Ginny, smiled at her, Ron, nodded at him, Hermione, mouthed ‘good luck’ and Draco, he nodded.

Harry made his way through the test paper, some parts were hard, and some were okay. When he finally put his quill down and leaned back in his chair, he saw Ron do the same. He looked at Hermione who was, as always, scratching away at her page. Ginny was also writing, although she looked considerably calmer. Hermione seemed to have the look of a deranged lunatic.

Parvati moved her head slightly and a ripple moved through her hair. Harry found it mesmerising. Twenty minutes later, the examiner collected all the parchments and let them go. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny made their way to the tree where Hermione and Ginny got their books out and Harry and Ron lay back to relax. Harry watched the clouds go by as Hermione and Ginny discussed ‘theories on why transfiguration is a subject’ and Ron wondered aloud when the twins were opening their Hogsmeade shop.