mavis weasley || harry potter [1]

FIFTEEN || The Man in the Dark Cloak

After Mavis's late-night, she didn't sneak out anymore. Exams were coming here and she couldn't stop thinking of Voldemort bursting through the exam doors and killing Harry on the spot. Yet days crept by, and there could be no doubt that Fluffy was still alive and well behind the locked door. 

It was sweltering hot, especially in the large classroom where they did their written papers. They had been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell. Not that Mavis was planning on cheating. 

They had practical exams as well. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tap-dance across the desk. Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox -- points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was but taken away if it had whiskers. Snape made them all nervous, breathing down their necks while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion.

Mavis did better than she expected with all her exams, considering she hadn't been sleeping well the past nights. She kept having nightmares of Harry dying. Some of them involved Voldempor and some of them didn't. Not all of her dreaming were particularly about Harry though. The first dream she had of someone else was her parents. They died in a house fire. Next, she dreamt of Hermione, who drowned at the bottom of Black Lake. Her most recent nightmare was about Ron, this one scared her the most. In her dream, Mavis had messed up a potion that she was working on for Ron, which led to her potioning her own brother.

All of them were worried about Voldemort, but only Harry seemed particularly stuck on the Stone. Hermione said she was so busy studying that she barely was even dreaming, and if she was it was about the exams. She didn't have much time to fret about what Snape or anyone else might be up to. 

Their very last exam was History of Magic. One hour of answering questions about batty old wizards who'd invented self-stirring cauldrons and they'd be free, free for a whole wonderful week until their exam results came out. When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment, Mavis couldn't help but feel relieved. 

"So glad that's over with," Harry said to Mavis.

"Me too, if I study like this next year, I will lose my marbles," said Mavis, clearing her desk.

"That was far easier than I thought it would be," said Hermione as the walked with the flocking crowds out onto the sunny grounds. "I needn't have learned about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct or the uprising of Elfroc the Eager."

"Hermione, there's a lot of stuff you had us study that we didn't need," said Mavis.

"Always good to be thorough, Mavis,"

"I suppose,"

Hermione always liked to go through their exam papers afterward, but Ron said this made him feel ill, so they wandered down to the lake and flopped under a tree. Mavis' older twin brothers and Lee Jordan were tickling the tentacles of a giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows.

"No more studying," Ron sighed happily, stretching out on the grass, his legs over Mavis' lap. "You could look more cheerful, Harry, we've got a week before we find out how badly we've done, there's no need to worry yet."

Harry rubbed his forehead.

"I wish I knew what this means!" he burst out angrily. "My scar keeps hurting -- it's happened before, but never as often as this."

"Go to Madame Pomfrey," Hermione suggested.

"I'm not ill," said Harry. "I think it's a warning. . . it means danger's coming. . . "

Mavis moved Ron's legs off her lap and moved over closer to Harry. "Like Voldemort danger?" questioned Mavis. 

However, Ron couldn't get worked up, it was too hot.