A/N: Thank you to lexiigirl01, 73amy37, Serephina21, K-MC-N-Z-27, TeamSalvatore29, & LylitheNocturnal for my new follows/favorites, & thanks to HallowRain8587 & Amanda for the reviews!

Here's chapter 25 - sorry if it's not as exciting as other chapters, hope you still like it. Probably only 1 or 2 more to go! JKR owns all as always, I just play. Please R&R, & enjoy! :)

The Quidditch season was over. The battle's anniversary had come and gone. Warm weather had finally made an appearance. To the seventh and eighth years, this meant only one thing: their N.E.W.T.s had finally arrived. The eighth years, usually accompanied by Ginny, spent long hours holed up in their common room surrounded by notes and thick stacks of books. Predictably, Hermione was the worst of the lot – her piles of parchment were three times as thick as anyone else's, and she muttered incessantly to herself as she hurriedly checked facts and figures in her textbooks, the look in her eyes similar to that of a cornered animal. At the moment, she was reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood so quickly that rules three through six blended all together to those who could hear her, her hand acting as a bookmark so she could check the exact wording of each as she spoke it. Draco glanced over at Neville, who was scanning his Herbology notes, and muttered, "Is she always like this?" Neville chuckled quietly and nodded.

"Did you expect anything less?" he asked. "This is the girl who was disappointed that exams were cancelled second year because she'd already studied." It was Draco's turn to laugh.

"Only Hermione Granger would study for exams after having been Petrified for a month," he said. True, he'd seen Hermione in the library during exam time in years past, but as she was almost always in the library anyway, he'd never really witnessed her study-induced frenzies. In all honesty, it was actually bloody hilarious how much she was falling to pieces about something so mundane as exams after everything she'd faced, but he wasn't about to tell her that – in her current state, she was liable to hex him if he did.

"When using dragon's blood as a strengthener in certain potions, it is imperative to…to…" Hermione faltered in her recitation, whimpered a little, and frantically flipped her book open again, nearly tearing several pages in the process.

"Granger, calm down," Draco said, raising his eyebrows at her panicked expression.

"But I can't remember the-"

"You know the properties of dragon's blood like the back of your hand-"

"These exams are so important-"

"You've been studying for ages-"

"I'm going to fail everything-"

"For Merlin's sake, Hermione!" Draco nearly snapped, causing both her and Neville to jump slightly and the rest of the group, who sat around the fire, to look up questioningly. Draco took a deep breath before rounding the table and placing his hands firmly on Hermione's shoulders, forcing her to look up at him.

"Granger, I will give you that these things aren't called 'Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests' for nothing," he began, "but that's all they are – tests." Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but Draco quickly placed his index finger over her lips, wordlessly telling her to be quiet. "I'm not finished. You're probably wanting to rant on about how important these exams are and all that, but let's face it – you could fail every single one of them and still go on to do whatever you wanted. But you won't – hell, you probably aced your N.E.W.T.s just by tromping around in the woods last year, but since you're you, you wouldn't have been satisfied if you hadn't come back to tackle the real thing. That's going to be a bit difficult to do if you end up in the hospital wing due to anxiety, so do us all a favor and bring it down a notch." Having finished his lecture, Draco removed his hands from Hermione's shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning one hip against the table as he continued to study her face.

The rest of the group held their breath as they waited for Hermione's response. Ginny in particular looked at Draco as if wondering whether she should commit him to St. Mungo's – didn't he know that approaching Hermione during exam time was like provoking a dragon? It just wasn't something you did if you wanted to walk away unscathed. To her immense surprise – and relief – Hermione actually laughed.

"I'm sorry," she said between giggles, "I suppose you're right. After everything I've done, I shouldn't be freaking out over some exams…it's just my natural instinct, I guess."

"Why bother to freak out when you know you're gonna end up with the best N.E.W.T. scores since Dumbledore?" Draco muttered, but he grinned all the same. At the very least, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to focus without Hermione's anxious babbling.

"Oooh, don't say that!" Hermione whined, looking nervous again. "You'll just jinx me!" Draco glanced over at Ginny, who merely rolled her eyes in response. Some things really did never change.

Over the next few weeks, the rest of the group managed to keep Hermione's nerves in check – she still studied more fervently than any of them, and she still muttered to herself when the exact wording of a particular law or theorem evaded her, but overall, she was much more tolerable. However, she couldn't help the whimper that escaped when Professor McGonagall gave them the official spiel and handed out the exam schedule, and her dorm mates teased her good-naturedly about it for several days afterwards. In an effort to keep the tension to a minimum, they even took a short break one evening to craft new names for the upcoming exams based on synonyms for 'Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests' – their favorite was 'Viciously Draining Magical Examinations,' and even though they weren't able to come up with one that spelled a magical creature, even Hermione had to admit that the little game helped with the stress.

Just as had been the case with their O.W.L.s, the first scheduled N.E.W.T. exam was Charms. After breakfast, the fifth, seventh, and eighth years milled about the entrance hall while the rest of the school retreated to their common rooms or the grounds, and they filed into the Great Hall and found their seats when Professor Flitwick instructed them to do so. Draco flipped his paper over when their time started, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Hermione, who sat one row to his right and a few seats forward, was already scribbling madly. Chuckling to himself at her signature overzealous behavior, he turned his attention to question one: Define the terms listed and explain why it is important to know the difference with regards to Charms work – spell, jinx, hex, curse…

"That wasn't too bad, I suppose," Neville remarked as they sat down to lunch some three hours later.

"No, not bad at all," Ginny agreed, reaching over to help herself to a ham sandwich, "although I noticed the questions were a lot more in-depth than the ones we had on our O.W.L.s. My wrist kinda hurts."

"I don't think I did question fifteen justice," Hermione said, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. "I think I may have forgotten-"

"Granger, you probably wrote more than the rest of us combined," Draco interrupted, gesturing to her ink-stained hands and smirking slightly when Hermione flushed. "And I don't think any of us really want to go over the exam again, so just accept that you blew it out of the water and get ready for the next one." Hermione couldn't think of a suitable response, so she merely nodded and turned her attention to her lunch, the telltale warmth still spread across her face.

That afternoon, the students faced their Charms practical. As they'd done with their O.W.L.s, they closeted themselves in one of the Great Hall's antechambers while they waited to be called. The exercises, while difficult, were fairly straightforward, and the friends chatted optimistically as they headed back upstairs to prepare for the next day's exams.

The rest of the exam period passed in a blur, their days filled with long sessions in the Great Hall and their nights devoted to a last spot of revision. One of the most drastically different practicals they faced was Potions. For their O.W.L., they'd been given a set length of time to brew one specific potion – however, many of the potions they'd studied at the N.E.W.T. level took far longer than an afternoon to brew. The students entered the Great Hall for this exam to find three cauldrons at each place, each one under a Stasis Charm. Each cauldron held a partially completed potion – their task was to identify their potions and finish brewing them accordingly in the time given. Thankfully, nothing exploded or melted, but the experience was still frazzling, and Draco, Hermione, and Ginny were glad that they had the next morning off.

Finally, after an uncomfortably warm afternoon dealing with Venomous Tentacula, Snargaluff pods, and bubotubers, their N.E.W.T.s were over. The eighth years trooped back to their common room to wash away the dirt and sweat accumulated during the Herbology practical and then promptly collapsed onto the first soft surfaces they found – Blaise didn't even make it to a chair, opting instead for sprawling across the common room carpet flat on his back.

"Remind me again why I put myself through this," he muttered, more to himself than anything else.

"Because you're an idiot," Draco supplied helpfully as he flopped down on the couch. Blaise reached over to swat his friend's arm and missed, but he was too exhausted to care about trying again.

"We did it for the closure," Lisa reminded them. "We came here on our own terms seven years ago, and we wanted to leave on our own terms as well. Besides, we had an advantage."

"What's that?" Draco asked curiously.

"We had a whole year to prep for these exams," Lisa replied. "Any of our classmates who took the mock-N.E.W.T.s last summer barely had six weeks, and their exams were just as hard as ours."

"That's true," Hermione said, nodding in agreement. "Harry and Ron spent the entire day at the Ministry taking that test."

"How did they pass without you there to hold their hands?" Draco snorted. Hermione rolled her eyes at him.

"I don't know, to be honest," she finally replied, still glaring at him, "but they did, so you be quiet." She paused for a moment to scoop up Crookshanks, who'd slinked over to the group as they talked. He gave a contented purr as she scratched his ears, and she smiled broadly. "I can think of another advantage we had."

"What's that?" Lisa asked. If possible, Hermione's smile widened even further.

"We got to spend another year at Hogwarts."

Nobody could disagree with her that this was arguably the best advantage of them all.