Hogsmeade in the spring was more lively than at any other season, as this was usually the time when the students from Hogwarts, or at least those old enough to go unsupervised, crowded the high street, the pubs, taverns and shops in the quaint town that had the distinction of being the only all-magic town in the whole of England, Scotland and Wales. The Hogwarts Express sat idly in the station, open as an exhibit for train anoraks and little children who listened to people dressed like its engineer Malcolm Stephenson tell its stories, a flock of red coats and top hats all over the station. Today was also a Test Day for sixth-year students to get their Apparition License and was the biggest turnout. of the year Hogwarts seemed to have a lot of March babies as a virtual army of them trooped down the road to the hall where the examiners were waiting.
The examiners wore big red badges and grey robes lined with a carapace that signified their authority as License Officers. Each of them also had a kit strapped to their backs that had all sorts of things protruding from it. They arranged the thirty or so students that had applied just in time for their 17th birthdays, bewildered by the sheer size of this batch. Many classes were cancelled; Slughorn's class was the only one running even though only three students were available while Flitwick enjoyed a rare Thursday morning off.
Wilkie Twycross, the head instructor furiously waved his clipboard over the heads of his subordinates, ordering them to put the mob below them into orderly lines. The helpers tried again and again to organize the teenagers but were but mere volunteers and outnumbered.
"Please, if there are any Prefects among you, I could use your assistance!" Twycross was about to hurl the clipboard at the group. Four voices came up at once.
"Get into line, NOW!" Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Blaise Zabini and Padma Patil called out. Padma was on the sidelines as she had already done the test and was there to support Blaise, who was uncharacteristically nervous.
"You want points off?" Blaise put his finger out at a pair of Hufflepuffs who wouldn't shut up. He raised his foot and thundered it into the ground, making everyone slide into line and staring right up at Twycross, who only realized he was being watched after twenty seconds.
"Thank you, Zabini," Twycross loomed large over everyone else in the room. "You are all here to take your Apparate tests despite some of you not doing so well during the lessons…I want you to come up in fours to this stage and go to where my instructions take you! Remember…."
"Destination, Determination and Deliberation," the group seemed to hum in unison. Hermione was excited, Ron less so. He had resorted to looking himself in the mirror naked after every lesson just in case he had Splinched something unseen. Hermione tried to assure him but unlike her he was no natural talent at Apparating. It didn't really run in the family either as his older brothers all preferred brooms, or in Curse-Breaker Bill's case, desert cars that flew at over 100 miles an hour, tuned to outrun tomb spirits. If the 'cool' and 'funny' brothers couldn't really do it, what could 'near-Squib' Ron do?
"You can do it, Blaise!" Padma joined the chorus of support for the group as the three prefects and another student got on the four circular platforms. Blaise weakly nodded at her although sweat was all over his face. Hermione was gagging for it while Ron was chattering his teeth.
"Stop that!" Hermione spanked his hand.
"I just hope I don't end up in a wall!"
"Not possible!" Hermione's hiss turned into a quick smile as Twycross handed her the destination.
"You'll do very well, my dear!" Twycross turned to the group, "I advise everyone to follow Miss Granger's example." That was an odd thing to say as she hadn't done anything at all yet.
"Reveal your destination, my dear girl," Twycross grinned, nodding at the sure prospect of a wildly successful test result for once. Ron mouthed my dear girl with a raspberry face as Hermione read out her destination.
"Zonko's, the front door," she closed her eyes and popped out of the hall. Twycross sent off one of his underlings and after Disapparating she came back with a white flag up, indicating that Hermione had passed with no signs of bodily loss. Blaise stepped up, trying to remember to feel every part of his anatomy, as Padma had suggested.
"Is something the matter?" Twycross held out Zabini's destination and ordered him to read it out loud.
"The Hog's Head Public House," Zabini looked at Ron, who had no answer to his fear. With one gulp Blaise leapt up and popped out. Padma couldn't look, hiding behind her sister Parvati, waiting for the officials to return. Instead of the official, an angry looking man popped in with Blaise under his arm. He had two strips of white hair on his otherwise wrinkled head, one of his eyes was squinting and he seemed to have another pair in the back of his head as the group dared not move towards him. The officer appeared behind him but shrank away.
"Who sent this underage boy to my establishment?" Aberforth Dumbledore dropped Zabini, who crawled towards the test takers. "I do not appreciate people appearing out of nowhere and frightening my customers!"
"You should read your instructions better, Mr. Zabini!" Twycross shook his head and Blaise shrugged, showing his location card to the others, saying that it didn't say where in the Hog's Head.
"Sir, I assure you the Ministry can compensate for any damage…." Twycross carefully tiptoed down the stage, knowing full well whose brother this was.
"Oh, no damage done! He just needs to land on his feet!" Aberforth pulled his belt up and nodded. "Frightened, I was when he appeared flat on my floor! Customer near stepped on him!"
The group giggled; even Padma was gurgling despite her best attempts. Zabini scratched his head and sighed in relief, as Twycross waved Ron to come forward. Failures would be announced immediately in this test and Blaise heard nothing. He looked at Padma, who had her hands in her mouth and nodded hopefully at him. Parvati rolled her eyes at her sisterbeing such a girl and with the Slytherin prefect, no less!
"Madam Puddlifoot's Tea Shop," Ron held up his yellow paper. Hermione gave him a reassuring nod, placing her hand on his.
"No touching, unless you want to lose that hand," Twycross pulled Hermione's wrist away as Ron disappeared. A crash could be heard down the road but after that, an eerie silence. There were sounds of harsh wailing and curse words in the distance as the official came back, raising a red flag.
"Failure due to the Splinching of this eyebrow," the skinny-looking man held up a pair of undeniably red hairs. Hermione felt her heart drop but knew she couldn't convince Twycross, no matter how well he thought of her. A couple of the test group also started protesting and even Zabini gave Twycross a pleading look. The official returned with Ron, who sat, eyebrow-less by the Patil twins and the other supporters.
"Did you at least make it to the tea shop?" Parvati whispered.
"A full shop off, at Scrivenshaft's…but bloody hell, an eyebrow!?" Ron sat, shaking his head.
"Bad luck, Weasley," Zabini sat beside him as the fourth student Disapparated away.
"I'll be sure to accept your fond wishes, Zabini," Ron didn't look up.
"Ron, he was being nice," Padma stepped out beside Blaise, taking his hand. Blaise stuck out his other hand and Ron shook it weakly as he grumbled about having to wait a whole year to do something Hermione accomplished in five minutes. Padma took Blaise to one of the officials, asking for the registration papers now that Blaise had (barely) passed the test. Hermione followed them, taking her form and instantly filling it out.
"You have to sit beside me?" Ron rested his chin on his palm.
"It was only an eyebrow, I thought that wasn't really fair of them either," Hermione patted him on the back. "Let's drink it off at the Three Broomsticks. It'll be different without Harry, who's no doubt enjoying his Potions class."
"Broomsticks, someone said?" Padma and Blaise came towards them, his form filled and ready for submission.
Hermione frowned slightly at the loss of this chance to speak to Ron in private and wished she knew Professor Pendragon' s inverted Fidelus spell. The Gryffindor Tower was a no-no, as the juniors were all over it studying for their W.O.M.B.A.T tests and the O.W.L revision sessions were already beginning to appear for the fifth years. There was virtually nowhere in Hogwarts she could talk to her recently renewed friend alone; even in his very bedroom Harry was always there , obsessing over the Marauder's Map and Draco Malfoy. She nonetheless accepted Padma's invitation and yanked Ron off his bench as the official returned, announcing another failure and having called a rescue squad to get the poor trainee off the rail station's mast.
Surprisingly to Ron and Hermione, Zabini was unusually normal for a Slytherin, making jokes about Twycross and his three Ds, with Padma seeming to finish his every sentence. Parvati quietly sipped her Butterbeer in a rare reversal of roles for the Patil twins. Five years ago they all took the House rivalries incredibly seriously, not even wanting anything to do with the other three Houses. They were all seventeen or near it now though; in their ordinary clothes even Muggles would think that they were just a group of friends having a drink, which is pretty much what it was.
"You should have seen that barman's look when I landed in that pub, I thought he was going to feed me to the Giant Squid," Zabini had his arm around Padma.
"A single eyebrow, isn't that crazy mate?" Ron was halfway through his pint.
"Oh stop it, Ronald," Hermione bit into her sandwich. "There's still next year and I can help you, you know."
"I only have one left, 'Mione," Ron pointed to his right eye. "What's Mum going to say?"
"Stop whining, Weasley," Padma leaned into Blaise.
"It'll grow back, you know," Parvati put her mug down.
"N.E. next year, who's ready?" Blaise finished his mug and wiped his mouth.
"I like to prepare early, but this is a nightmare timetable. DADA is incredibly difficult this year," Hermione tapped her wand on her empty mug.
"Snape makes it hard for everybody," Padma twirled a spoon, "We're lucky the DA stuff helped us, otherwise we'd be as dead as the ghosts in his class."
Ron and Hermione looked at Padma like she had opened Pandora's Box; Zabini was one of those who supported the Inquisitorial Squad against the D.A back in the fifth year, although he had stayed out of most of their activities and was more like a brooding presence in the background until finally turning against his gang of enforcers.
"It's alright, Blaise knows," she grabbed his chin and wobbled it, "I trust you," she craned her neck and kissed him softly, earning a stroke on her cheek. "Can't you make him a coin, Hermione?"
"I'm not really with Malfoy and his crew anymore; we never see each other in the Common Room- in fact no one seems to be able to find Draco out of class. I enjoy better company these days," he gave Padma a squeeze.
"The Detective Club? Professor Pendragon's Story Telling Club, more like it," Parvati sneered.
"You're just jealous because he didn't invite you to join," Padma shot back.
"He never seems to invite me to anything, even though…"Hermione stopped herself.
"Even though what?" Ron turned to her.
"Even though… I've never done anything wrong in his class?" Hermione quickly spoke, trying to hide the fact that she had confided in Pendragon more and more these days.
"So what do you do in there? It's like the Chamber of Secrets in an upstairs room," Ron turned to Blaise.
"We discuss old Auror cases and how they solved them. Sometimes we look around Hogwarts trying to recreate the crime scenes, or we use the mirror in his office."
"See? I should be in that club," Hermione adopted Ron's earlier moping pose.
"You Gryffindors, always trying to do everything at once," Blaise shook his head, "we did ask if anyone else could join, but he said membership was closed for now. Sorry Granger."
"I'll have a word with him," Hermione defiantly replied.
"To your success," Blaise raised his nearly-empty mug. Ron and Hermione looked at each other and slowly toasted to it, although post-Apparition fatigue was beginning to set in. "To everyone's success!"
