The week before the exams began was a nightmare. Not only was the weather fantastically warm, but there was almost no homework and we had to keep ourselves focused on revision in lessons. How did they expect us to sit and learn when the sun came out for the first and likely last time this year?

Potions, of course was the easiest, with the windowless classrooms and natural chill of the dungeons.
Unfortunately for some, professor Snape decided that the ability levels of our year were disgraceful and thus he continued teaching instead of letting us revise in the lessons.

To me it was a good thing, seeing that I could not do any more revision and tended to sleep in other lessons or practise transfiguring stationery into duck and hedgehog figurines.

Our exams were scheduled alphabetically, starting with astronomy on Monday night and ending with transfiguration the next Thursday.

For such a grand occasion, I had a tightly scheduled plan of various pranks, after all, the school wouldn't throw me out while I'm doing exams. So starting with Monday, the reign of the Snugly Duckling began.

First was the Hufflepuff house. 8am sharp - sneak into the common room and change exam times for an hour early. I wasn't as mean as to make them late. The paper had the signature duckling and my pseudonym in curly, rainbow script. Then came the first and second year Ravenclaws. I charmed their cutlery and goblets to dye their mouths bright blue for a whole day. There were muggle bath ducks on their table. Other, smaller pranks followed on any member of the two houses.

In less than a week everyone was boggled. Who was this prankster? Was it just the Gryffindor twins or a new one?

I was glad the twins were there to take the blame. When swarmed with angry Hufflepuffs and chased by Ravenclaws, they just shrugged and smiled wickedly, refusing to answer the questions. It seemed that no one connected Nina Edwards with the Snugly Duckling.
And I liked it that way. It was fine they praised someone else for my creativity. It was great nobody remembered I love jokes like that. It was good my love for ducks went unseen.

It was great.

Ok, I lied. I felt pathetic.

And I blame everyone for making me fail herbology, because I was so down. Not that I had much of a chance to begin with.

All the others went rather swimmingly, I even had time to illustrate my essay about goblin rebellions. Potions was hard, but Hermione's potion ended up similar to mine and she spent the most time revising it, so I felt reassured.

I hoped the teachers would mark our exams very fast to ease the itching at the back of my head. When I confided in Daphne that the feeling intensified whenever I was near professor Quirrel, she told me I probably failed DADA and that I should take divination in two years.

Needless to say I was panicking and became bipolar about the results: I really wanted to see if I did well, but didn't want to see if it was bad.

After the weekend following our last exam my confidence returned and I continued with pranks. I turned on my house to lessen the suspicion that it was indeed a Slytherin orchestrating such schemes. However, to avoid vengeance of my family, the prank itself was mild.

All it included was a sneaky mix up of post by bribing the owls. Thus all the letters were delivered to incorrect recipients.

Each owl had a tag with a duckling, so that it was easy to guess the party responsible. From Tuesday morning all eyes were focused on the Gryffindors. My job was done.

Sometime later in the week found me treading the grounds of Hogwarts with the Golden Trio. We hadn't spoken much in the previous fortnight for obvious reasons and it seemed they were no closer to protecting the stone than before. After all, who would believe a students' claim over something they weren't supposed to know of in the first place.

Instead, the conversation topics varied from quidditch through to the Weasley twins and "their" latest antics. Ron was adamant that it was their work, because he was their brother and knew them well. Hermione shot me questioning looks and Harry seemed clueless.

We spoke of the significance of ducks in the whole mess.
"I think it's just an it thing now in the Wizarding world, every paper has had an article somehow about ducks last month. The Daily Prophet even had a double page spread covering the nesting customs for them. " droned on Hermione, but I was surprised. My pile of unread newspapers will require some attention.

"Do you think someone was just taking the mick?" asked Ron, who seemed really tall today.

"Why would they?" cut in Harry. His forehead must've been hurting him, as he held his hand up to it, squinting his eyes. I told him such.
"Yeah, it's been hurting me a lot, the scar" he said, gesturing to the unique scar. I had to admit, looking at it made the itching in the back of my head return. "But Hermione says it's just the stress about the exams. "

"I want to investigate! Oh, Harry, thanks to you, I've realised what job I want! I'll be a detective. "

While saying that, I raised my shirt collar to stand up and tipped an invisible hat on my head.

"Come, Weasley! We have a case to solve. "

The two raised in muggle families giggled, recognising the Sherlock Holmes reference. I felt bad for Ron, he never got my jokes.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on exchanging suspicions, followed by a trip to the lake to relax in the rather nice weather.

Over supper, l mused our possible potions scores with Draco and Blaise, the obviously more gifted Slytherins in the subject. We came to the conclusion that we passed, but there was no telling how harsh our Head of House would be.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Weasley twins staring in my direction. Their eyes burned holes in my head, until I turned to face them, falling silent halfway through a sentence. Who I was sure was George, though it seemed impossible to tell, mouthed a 'we need to talk' and wiggled his eyebrows. That set me giggling, before I understood the message : they knew.

I was in trouble.

Thus, I got up and hastily made my way to the closest empty classroom, knowing the ginger duo was bound to go after me. If I had to speak to them, I had to find a place I can't be ambushed in.

As I sat down at a desk, facing the entrance, the older boys strode in with identical, amused expressions.

"So, what did you want?" I asked quickly. I hated getting caught.

"That was some good work there, you know. It's so hard to find someone with a real... talent in our line of work." they spoke, switching between speaking every few words, but as their voices were very similar, they merged into one in my brain. "You're impressive, Snugly."

They shared a laugh.

"So how did you find out?" I asked. "I didn't think upperclassmen paid attention to first years."

"You're right. But you're a friend of our dear Ronnie-kins, of course we'd keep an eye on you." this time only Fred spoke.

"You're not exactly good at hiding your obsession with ducks either. Half of your things are covered with them in some form." I had to give George that one.

"Oh. Ha-ha. You got me. Can I trust you to not tell, as fellow trouble makers, or do we barter?"

"Well, we've been looking for an apprentice or partner for some time now, so you have two options." they reverted to finishing each other's sentences.

I was puzzled over being angry for being looked down on to be an apprentice, or happy they didn't want any more of me than to continue making pranks, but now with them.

Somehow, a time limit of a weekend for a decision recorded itself in my memory, through the internal battle between annoyance and joy. The classroom door closed with a creak after them.

To be honest it was not much of a choice: to be a prankster with the twins, or not to be and get in trouble. Not a choice at all.

The next day was tiring. It did not help that I couldn't sleep at all, or woke up from nightmares of the giant dog, walls of fire and Ron collapsing.
In the Great Hall I decided to spend the day catching up with Neville, who looked a bit lonely at the Gryffindor table.

While munching on butter less toast, I was avoiding Theodore's crazy owl, that decided today was a fine day to owl students' heads like the owl it was.

I missed Roger.

A trip to the owlery was in my plans today. With that in mind, I had to grab some toast for my feathered friends.

Suddenly, there was a loud clang of plates and bowls crashing together. Neville was standing still, all eyes drawn to himself.

Then he walked out slowly, so I got up and joined him. We made our way outside, to the lakeside. Neville enjoyed that place, finding many interesting and unknown plants.

"So what happened?" I asked, taking note of his shaking arms and shadowed face, that was rather pink, either from a short jog we did once out of the castle, anger, or embarrassment.

"It's nothing, really. I'm just being silly." we sat down and I started making a daisy chain.

"You know you can tell me, and if it's Malfoy again, I'll hex him so bad, he'll wake up in Mexico."

That got him laughing. Neville changed the topic, and we spent a good few hours talking about our families, herbology and plans for summer. He even invited me to his house for a week.

"It is Malfoy." he started suddenly. "But not just him. It's like everything all together: Hermione's always talking about the exams and next year, most of them are ignoring me and I'm scared of going back home. My grandma hates me."

He had tears in his eyes. I gave him a long hug, letting him cry on my arm. It felt a bit like a ghost walked through it, freezing and wet.

"It'll be fine, Neville. We'll work it out."

I spent all the time until the early afternoon comforting him, trying to cheer him up somehow, although my abilities of that weren't that impressive, leaving me cracking awkward jokes or silent.

"Let's go, maybe we can still get some lunch." said Neville, after he calmed down considerably.

"Sure, I'm starving!" I jumped to my feet.

Were I to get to the Great Hall, I would've eaten a lovely Shepherd's Pie, followed by ice cream, but I did not. Tragic, really.

Neville went off, saying he has to wash his face, and leaving me to walk the grounds alone. I guess fate has its own mind.

I ran into the Gryffindors, who were arguing about something.

"Hey, guys. What's up?"

"It's Snape! He gave Hagrid the egg!" shouted Harry. He looked shaken and angry and scared, manic.

He terrified me.

"We don't know it's Snape." said Hermione, probably to diffuse the tense atmosphere. I couldn't help but love her for it, as I was trying my best to continue breathing.
"Whoever it is, he knows how to get past Fluffy"

"It'll happen tonight." finished Harry.

Ron looked as overwhelmed as I felt, completely past white or even green in complexion.

Hey everyone! Hope you missed me as much as I missed writing for you.
I went on a trip to Poland, got a bit overrun with things to do, so I wrote this chapter on the plane ride back to England and plan to post the moment I get internet on my phone :)

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Comment at will and stay tuned for the next chapter.

Wow I really cannot believe I'll have to write the last chapter so soon.

xo Eddie