I see re-categorising this was definitely a good idea - welcome new readers! Hope you've enjoyed reading in one go what's taken me all month!

It was towards the end of the summer before their sixth year started. Tyson had previously been enjoying a nice lazy lie-in, but this was completely spoiled by Hilary physically tossing him out of bed and screaming "Results have arrived!" into his half-awake, uncomprehending face.

Why did he have Hilary and Kenny staying over? Why had that seemed like a good idea at this time of year? She hadn't even had the decency to look embarrassed when he plopped out of the bedcovers wearing only underwear with a hole at the side.

Grumbling to himself, he grabbed yesterday's T-shirt and tried to make himself look even slightly presentable. Nerves were coiling slow tendrils in his stomach, but he wasn't too bad. He thought he'd probably passed everything.

He was never going to equal Hiro's results anyway. Not his Head Boy, never failed any subjects at all, ever, big brother.

By the time he made it downstairs, Hilary looked like she might explode at any second. There were three big official Hogwarts owls lined up in his back garden with envelopes tied to their legs. Hilary was pacing up and down in front of them, muttering to herself, and Kenny was, probably without realising, trying to push himself into a corner and disappear.

Tyson took a deep breath. He pushed down all the complicated Hiro feelings that he'd managed to forget about until exam results brought them back again, and amped up his clownlike behaviour.

Five minutes later, some of Hilary's tension had been defused as she chased Tyson round the garden, threatening to hex him for his comment and damn the consequences. Kenny was laughing. Just as Tyson was feeling pleased with himself, one of the owls hooted. The others shifted from foot to foot.

Hilary swore and went white again. Kenny visibly swallowed.

"You two are such scaredy-cats," Tyson said in as casual a tone as he could muster. He walked right up to the owl who had hooted, which immediately held up its leg. "Yeah, bet you want to head off home, don't you?" He dug in his pockets and offered it a slightly dusty owl treat. While it gobbled that down he untied the envelope.

The plain white envelope filled his entire field of vision. Suddenly he felt sick. He picked ineffectually at the corner of the envelope.

"Wait!" Hilary brandished her and Kenny's envelopes at him. He hadn't even noticed her taking them from the other owls. "Together." Her hands were shaking.

"Together." Tyson and Kenny agreed.

"On my count," Hilary said, "Three … two … one!"

Tyson abandoned all caution and just ripped his envelope in half. He unfolded the parchment. He scanned his results and waited for his lungs to start working again.

ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS

Pass Grades:

Outstanding (O)

Exceeds Expectations (E)

Acceptable: (A)

Fail Grades:

Poor (P)

Dreadful (D)

Troll (T)

Tyson Granger has achieved:

Ancient Runes: A

Astronomy: A

Care of Magical Creatures: E

Charms: O

Defence Against the Dark Arts: O

Herbology: E

History of Magic: D

Potions: A

Transfiguration: E

He whistled a long sigh of relief through pursed lips. In the distance Gramps' Crup yapped in response. Two Outstandings was fantastic. He'd kind of been expecting one in Charms, but to get one for Defence Against the Dark Arts too made him grin ear to ear. Ok, so he'd failed History of Magic. That wasn't the end of the world. He was surprised he hadn't got a T for that, actually. He'd only answered one of the three essays questions.

An 'A' in Ancient Runes hurt for Hiro-related reasons, so he tried to pretend that hadn't happened. It had been such a boring subject, though ...

"How'd you do? " he asked, aiming the question into the air for either of them to answer. Both of them were the type to read results like a hundred times before answering, so he was pleased when Kenny answered promptly,

"Yeah, good." He chuckled, shrill from nerves. "Got a P in Care of Magical Creatures, though."

"You what?" Tyson burst out laughing and made grabbing motions with his hands. Kenny went pink but handed the torn open envelope over. Tyson scanned the parchment. Yes, Kenny had indeed failed Care of Magical Creatures. That really wasn't surprising given the number of times he'd run away, fainted, or refused to go near the creature of the day. However, being Kenny, he had got five Outstandings as well as an E and two As. Tyson grabbed Kenny and gave him a quick, tight hug. "Just a few Outstandings, hey?"

Kenny grinned and hugged Tyson back. "How'd you do?" he said in turn.

"Pretty well, got an Outstanding in Defence!" He handed the parchment to Kenny, and threw the wadded up envelope at Hilary. She was still standing there like a stone reading and rereading her parchment. "Snap out of it, Hil!"

She glared at him over the top of the parchment, but then sighed and held it out to him. He read it and raised his eyebrows.

"An 'A' in Muggle Studies?"

She gave him a poisonous look. He held up his hands and took a step backwards. He knew, of course, about the problems that she had with Hogwarts' Muggle Studies course ("They don't have a clue about anything, Tyson! They still set essays on electricity! I'm not sure our teacher even knows what a mobile phone is!"), but he had assumed that her desire for perfect exam results would have overcome her disgust. Clearly not.

She tucked her hair behind her ears. "I didn't actually think I'd pass it. I updated their essay question for them." She went pink when Tyson whooped at her, but then frowned again. "Not happy with Defence, though. I tried."

Tyson checked her parchment again. Ah, she'd only got an E for Defence. Privately he thought it was because she had never joined in with any of their jinxing matches, calling them stupid and against school rules. As a result, although her theoretical knowledge blew them all out of the water, and although there were some spells she had practised a lot and enjoyed, her overall practical abilities just hadn't been exercised enough for an Outstanding result.

"Are you still taking it for NEWT?" he asked.

She nodded. "Of course! I need it."

Tyson wished that he was half as certain about his future career as Hilary was with becoming a Healer. He was largely clueless still, which was not good when the next thing they had to do was choose their NEWT subjects. "I suppose you've both already chosen all of yours?" he said, resigned.

Hilary took a big breath: "Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Defence, Herbology, Astronomy, Arithmancy, and I'll see what History of Magic is like."

Kenny shrugged. "Arithmancy, History of Magic … I don't know. Charms? You're doing Charms, I suppose?"

Tyson felt grateful. Just about the only subject he was sure of. "Yeah, Charms and I guess I'd better do Defence, ha. Don't know about the others, though." He chewed his lip. Care of Magical Creatures? Herbology? It was so confusing when he didn't have an end goal to aim for.

Hilary poked his shoulder. "You'd better do more than two. I know you can do more than that."

Tyson pulled a face. Faced with so many possible subjects, his chances of choosing 'the right" ones seemed very low. Wanting to get away from this topic he said, "I'm going to go and find out what the others got."

Hilary let him get away with that, as she hurtled off to find out what the rest of her dormitory had achieved. So Kenny came with Tyson and they argued over who to contact first. Max would be the easiest to get hold of, but both of them really wanted to know how Kai had done.

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx