𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎𝐔𝐒 || Harry J. Potter [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter 11 ✎

"They've lost their marbles..."
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Third Person POV

Quirrell, however, must have been braver than they'd thought. In the weeks that followed he did seem to be getting paler and thinner, but it didn't look as though he'd cracked yet.

Every time they passed the third-floor corridor, Harry, Ron, Jilly, and Hermione would press their ears to the door to check that Fluffy was still growling inside.

Snape was sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which surely meant that the Stone was still safe. Whenever Harry and Jilly passed Quirrell these days they gave him an encouraging sort of smile, and Ron had started telling people off for laughing at Quirrell's stutter.

Hermione, however, had more on her mind than the Philosophers Stone. She had started drawing up study schedules and colour-coding all her notes. Harry and Ron wouldn't have minded, but she kept nagging them to do the same. She had done Jilly's without asking.

"Hermione, the exams are ages away."

"Whyd you even do mine-"

"Ten weeks," Hermione snapped. "And I did it because I felt like it. Ron, that's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel."

"But we're not six hundred years old," Ron reminded her. "Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it all."

"What am I studying for? Are you crazy? Do you realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me...."

"Hermione, you're smart, you'll do fine," Jilly tried to calm her crazy demeanour.

Unfortunately, the teachers seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Hermione. They piled so much homework on them, that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones.

It was hard to relax with Hermione next to you reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood or practicing wand movements.

Grumbling and yawning, Harry, Ron and Jilly spent most of their free time in the library with her, trying to get through all their extra work.

"I'll never remember this," Ron burst  out one afternoon, throwing down his quill and looking longingly out of the library window. It was the first really fine day they'd had in months. The sky was a clear, forget-me-not blue, and there was a feeling in the air of summer coming.

"I knowwww..." Jilly dramatically stretched the words, lying her head down on Rons lap.

Harry, who was looking up Dittany in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, didn't look up until he heard Jilly say, "Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?"

He saw Jilly rise from Rons lap, and felt a tiny bubbly feeling in the pit of his stomach, but it was gone as soon as it came.

Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back. He looked very out of place in his moleskin overcoat.

"Jus' lookin'," he blurted in a shifty voice that, got their interest at once. "An' what're you lot up ter?" He asked them, "yer not still lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?"

"Oh, we found out who he is ages ago," bragged Ron impressively. "And we know what that dog's guarding, it's the Philosophers St-"

"Shhhh!" Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?"