Wow, it's been over two months since I last updated. Sorry! I just couldn't figure out where to go from the last chapter.

So anyways, this is the second last chapter. Final exams and a new word that should be added to the dictionary.

Chapter 21

Oliver, Hannah, Nanda, Kaden, Danniell, and Raheem were in a corner of the common room with two whole tables piled with books, notes, papers, quizzes, homework, and tests. They were reviewing for their final exams, which would start next Monday. Kaden picked up one of Hannah's folders that was stuffed with so many papers that it was two inches thick.

"Are you sure this is a folder?" Kaden asked. "It looks more like a binder!"

"It was a folder at the beginning of the year," Hannah said.

"I was sure that was a binder," Nanda said. She was curled up in a bean bag chair with her hair in a very messy ponytail. She looked as if she'd just woken up. "Danniell, quiz me!"

"Um…" Danniell flipped through his history notebook. "The witch burnings of the sixteenth century were–"

"Completely useless!" Nanda interrupted.

"I was going to say, 'We're held in which five major cities.' But that answer works fine," Danniell replied, scanning over the page.

"I know this! I just read it an hour ago!" Nanda cried happily. "London. Manchester. Stafford. Cambridge. And… I forgot the other one."

"Glasgow," Oliver finished. "That's the one in Scotland, remember?"

Nanda thought for a second. "Oh yeah. LoMaStaCaG. That's how I remember it."

"Lomastacag?" Hannah repeated, looking completely bewildered. "What the heck goes through your mind, Nanda Hypatia Topoly?"

"Lo from London, Ma from Manchester, Sta from Stafford, Ca from Cambridge, and G from Glasgow. Lomastacag!" Nanda explained, as if they all should've understood it from the second she had spoken the word.

"Lo… Ma… Sta… Cag…" Danniell said as he wrote it down in his notes. Raheem followed suit and did the same. Kaden, however, folded his arms.

"You people are nuts!" Kaden said. "Do you really think that will help?"

"Yes," Danniell, Raheem, and Oliver said in unison.

"All I can ever remember are Glasgow and London," Oliver explained. He opened his history book, closed his eyes, and put his index finger on a random point on the page. He opened his eyes and read the line. "Okay, Raheem, the ambassador of 1353 for the merpeople of Caernarfon was…"

"Llewellyn the Leader," Raheem rattled off.

"Good," Oliver said.

Hannah laid her head down on the side of her chair. She closed her eyes, planning to just rest her eyes. But then she felt someone tapping her forehead.

"Hannah!"

Hannah tried to open her eyes, but they were too heavy. She swatted his hand away, trying to get him to leave her alone. But he didn't. Instead he held her wrists and continued to try and wake her up.

"Hannah, you've been asleep for an hour!"

"What?" Hannah muttered thickly. Her eyes slowly opened and she squinted her eyes. The room was still bright. Her eyes watered slightly as they adjusted. After a few seconds, she was able to tell that it was Oliver that had woken her up. "What's going on?"

"You fell asleep," Oliver informed her. He pushed a strand of her hair out of her face. "The others went to the library. So," he said, sitting down. "How have you been with these upcoming exams? Other than sleepy?"

Hannah smiled at him and yawned. "Nothing but sleepy," she murmured.

Oliver touched her head. "No, there's more."

Hannah sighed, trying to pretend she was annoyed with him. How did he always know when she was lying? Oliver waited patiently as she tried to find the words.

"It's just…" Hannah started, her blue eyes focusing on her hands and not Oliver. "I never get to see Terah. This entire year, I've only seen her about five times. I mean, getting to talk with her. And this year's almost over! I miss her so much, I don't know how I'm going to survive these next six years pretending she's just some other girl! And when Harry comes… I don't know what I'll do!"

Oliver smiled weakly at her. She chewed on her bottom lip slowly. He ran his hand through her hair. "Look, you gotta take it one day at a time. Worrying about things so many years in advance… it's only gonna stress you out. We'll figure something out eventually, okay? I promise."

"You promise a lot of things," Hannah said softly.

Oliver picked up Nanda's blanket and put it on her lap. "I know I do. But most of them are just to you. Like how I promised I'd never let anything happen to you. And that I'd never leave you."

"So what if I moved to Japan?"

"That's you leaving me!"

Hannah smiled just a tiny bit. "Would you ever move to Japan?"

"Not unless you were already there!" Oliver teased, pulling her into his lap. Hannah rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "I'll help you. Okay? I'm your best friend."

"My bestest friend," Hannah agreed.

Oliver put his head next to hers. "Still tired, Banni?"

"Yes," Hannah murmured. She rolled onto her side. Oliver put his arms around her. "And before you ask, I'm not moving."

"Okay, but I'm pretty sure sleeping in your bed is loads more comfortable than the two of us on this chair," Oliver said. But he closed his eyes as well. "Night, Banni."

"Night, Oliwa."

"Ow!" Hannah moaned, rubbing her back. "Oliver, remind me to never sleep in a chair again!"

Oliver nodded his head sleepily. "Uh huh." His back was sore as well. The two had spent the whole night sleeping on the chair. Danniell, who'd been the first one down, had woken them up. Both of them felt as if their spines were permanently curved. Now the three of them, along with Raheem, were at breakfast. But Oliver wasn't exactly awake.

"Oliver," Danniell said, shaking Oliver's shoulder. "C'mon, wake up! We need to study!"

Oliver made a huffing noise and raised his head a little bit. "Screw it. I'm gonna be in pro Quidditch. I don't need to know when… what's-his-face saved town-so-and-so."

"What have we talked about the whole you need to have good grades to play Quidditch next year?" Raheem asked as he flipped through his Transfiguration book. "Hannah, are you any good at turning the rat into a potted plant?"

"Yeah, I guess," Hannah said. "Got a rat handy?"

Danniell waved his wand at the butter. The butter shone for a second, changed shape, and soon a rat was sitting on the plate the butter had been on. Hannah looked over at Danniell. "You know I'm not eating anything with butter on it for about a week now, right?"

Danniell nodded and went back to reading his Herbology book. Raheem watched Hannah as she grabbed the rat, sat it in front of her, and waved her wand. The rat squeaked as it changed shape again, this time a pot. Raheem examined it, seeing how it was a brown color and even had a hole in the bottom that all plant pots have.

"Now see, when I do this, it stays gray and you can see the rat's face on the bottom," Raheem said. "Danniell, change this back!"

Sighing, Danniell said, "Do I have to do everything?" But he changed the pot back into a rat. Raheem tried this time, and the pot was exactly as he said. "Um… I don't really know what to say to that."

"You'd get some points off, but it would still be good," Hannah encouraged him. Then she put her head back on the table. Nanda sighed and went back to her notebook. "Do I have to go to class today?"

"It's Sunday," Raheem said, his voice muffled because of his hand covering it as he tried to suppress a yawn.

Hannah's eyes screwed up in confusion, trying to think if it was Sunday. After a while, she remembered that she didn't have class yesterday. Oliver smirked at Hannah's confused expression. He waved a hand in front of her face.

"Alive?"

"No! I'm dead!" Hannah yelled at him.

Oliver rolled his eyes and patted her on the head. "Sure. Still need me to make that tombstone?"

"Yes," Hannah muttered. "And I want to be buried with the penguin."

"No," Oliver answered. He put his arm around her neck and pulled her closer. "Be good."

"Let go of my head!" Hannah punched him in the stomach. Oliver let go of her and Hannah sat upright, fixing her hair. Nanda shoved Oliver in the head for annoying Hannah. He grinned and put his head back down on the table.

"Hannah, focus!" Danniell yelled from across the table. He shook his messy blond hair out of his eyes. He hadn't brushed his hair since two days ago because Kitty had stolen his brush and chewed on it. After that, Danniell refused to use it. "Now quiz me on potions."

Grumbling, Hannah yanked her book out of Oliver's bag. "Stop taking my book!" She opened to a random page. "What are the twelve uses of Dragon's Blood?"

Danniell's mouth opened a bit as he tried to think of the answer. "Um…" He started clenching and unclenching his fist as he always did when he didn't know. "Well… er… one of them's being able to understand the speech of animals."

"Okay," Hannah said. "Eleven more."

"Snape said that wasn't on the test," Kaden muttered from behind his spoon.

Danniell glared at Hannah. "I hate you. You gave me a headache."

"Good," Hannah said. "Alright then, what's a bezoar, where do you find it, and what's it used for?" She smirked as Danniell went back into his nervous habit. "C'mon, he mentioned this at the beginning of the year!"

"You honestly think I remember what was said at the beginning of the year?!" Danniell snapped. He pushed his hair out of his eyes but it fell right back into place. "Nanda, when are you getting me my new hairbrush?"

"When Oliver gives Hannah his penguin," Nanda answered, rereading her Charms notes.

"Danniell, stop procrastinating! The answer!" Hannah yelled.

Kaden sighed and put his spoon into his bowl. "A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat that can save you from most poisons." He picked it up and shoveled more cereal into him mouth. Everyone stared at him. "What?! I do have a brain!"

"Really? There's one hidden in there?" Raheem asked, hitting Kaden's head with his knuckles. Kaden pushed his hand away.

Nanda was shuffling through her History of Magic notes again. Sighing in defeat, she tossed the notebook onto the table. "I will never remember any of this! It's so boring!"

Raheem took her notebook and began to read it. Unlike Nanda, he kept reading it without showing signs of boredom. Nanda gazed at him in amazement as he turned to the second page of notes. "How can you do that? That's the worst part!"

"Have you tried picturing it in your head? If you can do that, it's better."

"I do! But I just get this image of a million Binns floating around and that's not very interesting," Nanda complained. She dug through her bag to find her Charm notes. She flipped to page 35, took out her wand, and tried to make her fork skip across the table. Across the table, Hannah made her fork and knife dance around on her plate. Kaden watched the progress of the silverware until they danced onto his plate and fell into his eggs.

"Oops, sorry," Hannah apologized, picking up the fork and knife.

"It's alright," Kaden mumbled, pushing his plate away. "I wasn't hungry."

"Don't worry, mate, we've got one more week before the exams," Oliver said, only halfheartedly. Kaden didn't look convinced. Oliver turned to Danniell. "Mate, do you think you could see what the test answers are?"

"Yeah, right," Danniell said. "I can't even tell what the weather is gonna be like tomorrow. What I can tell you is Snape would give us detention if we had similar answers to each other that nearly matched his answers. And I don't think we need that on our record for our first year."

Oliver shrugged. "Yeah, you're right."

But by the end of that week, Danniell seriously wished he could tell what the answers were. It would save all of them from the stress of trying to remember every last thing the teachers had talked about from the beginning of the year. Raheem remained the only one who could read History of Magic notes for an hour without nearly falling asleep. Hannah and Nanda were always practicing Charms and Transfiguring sticks into quills, as well as Kaden's shoes into two rabbits. Oliver was always reading something; he allowed himself half an hour a day to read one of his Quidditch books, but that was it. As for Kaden, he'd become extremely quiet and could always be seen in a corner with a stack of his books, reading at least one subject every day.

Finally, Monday arrived. In the morning, they took their Charms test in Flitwick's classroom. As worried as they had been for this, it really wasn't that hard. They'd been given an hour and a half to complete the test. Danniell, who'd taken the longest of the six of them, finished with forty minutes left. They were given a break until lunch, so they took the time to study Herbology. Like Charms, it too had been easy. Hannah and Oliver both took a while on the test, having only half an hour left, but that was because they went back to recheck their answers. If only the easiness could've kept going.

Potions was an absolute nightmare. All of the students kept working until the bell; even then, they doubted that anyone had finished the exam. Unlike Charms or Herbology, when they'd known the answer almost instantly, they often had to stop to think about the answers. Even Percy Weasley couldn't keep a steady pace of constant answers coming. After Potions, they went straight to Classroom 8 for their written Astronomy test. It wasn't that long of a test; it only counted for one fourth of their grade. The bigger part of the test would be the next day during the night.

Wednesday was History of Magic, even worse than Potions. Raheem finished first, but the others dragged behind. There was the question about the Witch Burnings that they used Lomastacag for, but other than that, the rest were so difficult that Danniell and Hannah both had headaches at the end. The only good part about Wednesday was that they had the rest of the day off until eleven that night to study. Kaden, Nanda, and Hannah slept for an hour after lunch while Danniell, Raheem, and Oliver studied their star charts. At ten thirty, they left the common room and headed up to the Astronomy tower, where Mrs. Norris tried to head them off. Hannah's eyes flashed green and Mrs. Norris was thrown down the hall. The cat scurried away, mewing loudly. Once they got to the tower, they got their star charts, set up their telescopes, and waited for the okay to start. After two hours, they turned in the charts and headed back for their common rooms, all of them yawning loudly.

Thursday morning, every first year slept in late. Around noon, they woke up and started to study for their last two exams, Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts. After a quick lunch, Hannah and Nanda headed for Professor McGonagall's classroom; the guys were still hungry. But they weren't the first ones in the classroom. Terah and Veronica were sitting in their usual seats, practicing wand movements. This test was half written, half practical. Nanda and Hannah sat down across the aisle from them and opened their books. Over the next twenty minutes, the rest of the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws filed in. Kaden kept muttering incantations under his breath while Danniell repeated the same motion with his wand. Finally, Professor McGonagall marched in and they removed their books from their desks. She handed out the tests and sat at her desk. The test was sixty questions long, and they had an hour and a half to finish it. All of them were short answer questions, making the test slightly easier. Once they were at the end, Professor McGonagall collected their tests and handed each of them a white mouse. They were instructed to turn their mouse into a squirrel and had ten minutes, a generous amount of time from Professor McGonagall.

Nanda whipped her wand in the air and her mouse rolled over on the desk as the spell hit it. Its white fur changed to a dark brown, its red eyes were now black, and its thin tail became thick and bushy. Ahead of them, Kaden closed his eyes, crossed his fingers, and waved his wand. His mouse squeaked as he poked it in the stomach.

"Sorry," Kaden hissed. He put his head on the desk so he could look at the mouse in the eyes. "Please, please, change!" He waved his wand again. The mouse scurried towards the end of the desk and prepared to jump off. "Get back here! Accio!" The mouse flew into his hand, looking upset. "Look, just change!" He waved his wand again and to his surprise, a squirrel now was blinking its eyes at him. "Uh… thanks!"

Next to him, Danniell's squirrel still had a mouse tail. Oliver's squirrel was still albino, but Raheem's look similar to Kaden's. Hannah and Nanda's squirrels were now playing on their desk.

Professor McGonagall stood up from behind her desk. Desperately, Oliver waved his wand, begging for his squirrel to turn brown. Just as Professor McGonagall started to say, "Wands down," the squirrel became a medium brown, but its eyes remained red.

"Well, at least it wasn't white," Hannah said comfortingly as Oliver explained his squirrel.

"Yeah, I guess," Oliver muttered. He pulled back a tapestry and the six of them took the secret passage down two flights of stairs and arrived at the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. "Think this is gonna be difficult?"

Hannah scoffed. "Doubt it."

They entered the classroom for the last exam of their first year. As usual, they were given their exam and had an hour and a half to complete it. Hannah rested her head on her hand as she looked down the test. The first two questions she couldn't remember the answer to, but the next five were simple. Number 17 asked for the quickest way to kill a vampire. Shaking her head in laughter, Hannah wondered what Lucy would've thought about the question. Next to her, Oliver was already on the back, answering the last questions like he always did. He had a tendency to work backwards on tests. Ahead of them, Nanda was writing furiously while Danniell had stopped and was sucking on the end of his quill. Kaden was gazing into space, trying to think of an answer and Raheem was tapping the desk with his fingers.

Finally, the testing was up and the six of them left the classroom and headed for the grounds.

"It's over," Oliver said happily, toppling onto the grass. "It's over and we don't have to worry for a whole week."

"And Nanda, Hannah, please don't start yelling that you've failed everything," Kaden said, now using his bag as a pillow.

"Yeah, because we all know you passed," Raheem muttered, resting against one of the beech trees.

"With probably the highest scores of everyone," Danniell finished, collapsing in between Kaden and Oliver.

Nanda and Hannah joined the boys with more grace. "Don't worry, we'll only do it to each other," Nanda said.

"Well, you might," Hannah interrupted. "I'll be complaining to Oliver."

Oliver sat up so quickly he knocked Hannah over. "If you do, you'll regret it this summer."

"What are you going to do?" Hannah fought back, but she was smiling in a know-it-all kind of way. "You'll get in trouble if you hurt me."

Oliver pushed Hannah back onto the ground. "No I won't."

"Yeah, right," Hannah said, kicking Oliver over. He still looked unhappy. "Okay, okay, I promise I won't complain to you."

"Thank you, Banni," Oliver mumbled.

"So how were your exams?" Mitchell asked. Behind him, Kevin, David, Andrew, and Derek were walking over.

"Awful," Oliver complained.

Mitchell sat down next to Oliver's head. "Yeah, but it's over. Don't worry. And besides, first year is simple!" He messed up Oliver's hair to annoy him. "So we're gonna have a football game Saturday after lunch. Want to join?"

"Why not," Oliver said. "S'long as I can sleep tomorrow. What about you guys?"

"Sure," Raheem said. Danniell nodded his head and Kaden grunted. "They're in."

"Me!" Hannah yelled, jumping up. "And Nanda."

"Why do I get dragged into this?" Nanda asked, but smiled. "Alright, so after lunch on Saturday. Who else is playing?"

"Azra, Froggie, Cricket, Webb, and maybe Curt," Kevin said. "We'll figure out teams later. See you guys. Get some sleep, Oliver, you look like hell."

"Thanks," Oliver said, his voice muffled.

"Bye, guys," Hannah said. "See you later."

"Bye Hannah," the Wood Boys said as they walked off across the grounds towards the Forbidden Forest where Hagrid was outside with Fang.

Sorry there wasn't any Harry, I promise he'll be in the last chapter for a little bit. Yeah, so next chapter's the last one. I'll be skipping to year four, but I'll add one last thing at the end of this story to fill you in on a few things and give you the link to Year Four. So see you guys!