I didn't bother with class on Thursday: I decided to take a day to think and recover from traveling instead. Hieronymus wasn't so lucky, I knew.

I thought about trying to see if I could join him for lunch, but he 'felt' busy across our link, and I decided to leave him alone. I'm sure he had a lot of work do to, both with catching up in classes, and in setting up/proctoring the exams.

I said as much to him the next day, after class. "It is nothing I did not expect — and Petunia is well able to run them on her own, if she wishes." He shrugged.

"I'm sure. I just 'felt' how harried you were yesterday."

"While you were relaxed."

I shrugged. "I had the luxury of taking the day off, if I wanted to. I'm pretty sure I can pass my exam anyway." I grinned at him.

"I am sure you can. And I know you are studious enough to be able to take off a few days from studying, if you need to."

"Thanks." I paused. "It felt odd to not be sitting across from you during meals. I'd been enjoying our chats." I admitted.

He shrugged, and smiled. "You are welcome to join me any time. I enjoyed having someone sensible to converse with as well."

It was a dig at Potsdam, and I laughed, a bit. She was more sensible than she appeared, and we both knew it. "Well, maybe I'll see you after the exam. I could 'call' ahead." I grinned at him.

"I will not attempt to stop you." He replied, and I nodded, heading out; my exam wasn't going to be a long wait.

I had actually gotten through the doorway when I heard his voice, slightly panicked, behind me: "Wait!"

"What?"

He caught up with me. "We must see the Headmaster." He informed me.

"Ok…" He seemed to feel it was a matter of life-or-death. "What's wrong?"

He was pulling me along, and looked back at me to answer. "You can't take the exam."

I'll admit to being a bit flabbergasted at that, but he didn't seem to want to wait to explain, and I figured he'd explain it eventually so I just followed.

We found Potsdam in one of the empty classrooms, setting up magical viewing screens of the dungeons. Something was moving in one of them, but I couldn't quite tell what from the angle I had.

"Headmaster." Hieronymus said as we got through the door, pleading for an audience.

"Hieronymus, what is the matter?" She said, turning. Seeing me, she added: "You know she should not be here."

"It is irrelevant. My wife must be excused from this exam. Due to circumstances beyond her control, she is unable to attempt it."

She turned to me. "Is this true?"

I raised my hands and shrugged. "He hasn't explained to me either."

Her attention returned to her employee, and her expression transformed to one I hadn't seen often on her face: Intense, and interested, scrutiny.

That of a hawk, looking at prey.

Hieronymus sighed, or let out a breath, I wasn't sure. "I am sure your keen eyes have noticed a new piece of jewelry that Susan is wearing."

"And its match that you are wearing, yes. I take it they are more than the wedding bands they appear to be?"

"They are 'communion' rings."

It obviously wasn't enough to change her mind, though Potsdam was amused. "Well, I'm glad to hear you are getting along at least. I see the issue, but Susan could just remove the ring — if the shields around the dungeons to prevent communicating outside are not enough to interrupt the link."

Hieronymus did not look like he was enjoying having to explain. "My family claims as heirlooms the Saltash Set."

Potsdam's eyes went wide. "You put on her hand the Saltash…"

He rolled his eyes. "It was not intentional. My father sent them as part of a wedding gift — intending to embarrass me, I believe."

Potsdam was looking back and forth between us. For a moment, she actually looked lost, then she broke into a huge grin. "I knew you were good for each other." She proclaimed. "And I agree that Susan cannot take the exam. Still, we do have to follow the rules. I can't just let her off."

I decided to break in. "Just give me demerits or whatever. It's not like I don't have enough merits to handle it."

Potsdam was a bit surprised. "You don't care?"

My turn to roll my eyes. "I maxed out merits back in January. I nearly had fifty before Christmas — I can take a few demerits. I don't think you are going to throw me out over this or anything."

She nodded. "True — though if Hieronymus hadn't warned us, I might have had to throw you out." At the alarm on my face, she hastened on: "The Council is very specific about the penalty for trying to maintain a mental link to a professor during a magical exam. No matter the reason."

Ah, yes. That made sense. And the Council tended to resort to one solution, that I knew of…

Hieronymus' panic made sense now. Clearing a suddenly-dry throat I managed to reply. "Ah. Yes. I can see that would be a problem. Hieronymus tells me we will be able to remove the rings in a few weeks, so I shouldn't have any trouble with the final exams."

"I am aware of the enchantment on the Saltash rings dear; it's rather famous."

Great. I looked down at the ring on my finger — it looked expensive, and it was obviously old, but the idea that it was famous wasn't all that reassuring.

"Under the circumstances… Five demerits, and detention tomorrow. I think that should be mollify anyone who thinks we are being unfair."

Hieronymus looked ready to argue, I didn't think it was worth it. "Fine with me." I said before he had a chance to say anything.

"Good. Now… I have exams to watch, as do you, Hieronymus. Susan, don't bug him."

I shared a look of exasperation with my husband, but went back to the dorms.

Virginia was the first one back from the exam. "Done already? How did you manage that?"

She sounded like she was expecting me to have accumulated more merits somehow. I held up my left hand, obviously showing off the ring.

"What? I know you are married, they haven't let that change anything before…"

"No. The ring. It's… Well, I think Hieronymus called them 'communion' rings. A 'present' from his father — and they don't come off. Not for a month or so."

She understood. "And they can't let someone with a mental link to a professor take an exam. It'd be cheating."

"Yeah. And since this is apparently a particularly powerful set of communion rings, they can't shield it either." I took a breath, and asked a question that had been bugging me. "How common are communion rings, anyway? I mean, you've heard of them at least, so they can't be completely uncommon, but Hieronymus made it sound like they were unusual. He didn't even realize this set was — apparently there's a matching set that isn't."

She took a seat. "I've only really heard about them — they are expensive, and not many witches get them. It's… Well, it's a bit extravagant. Like renting out a hotel room and filling it with rose petals or something. I only really know about them because my uncle has a cheap set from his first marriage — we used to play with them, using them as walkie-talkies, basically. You could 'talk' to the other person, with a bit of work. I take it that set is a bit stronger?"

I looked at the ring on my finger. "You could say that… From what I understand, you could shield the two of us with anything you wanted to, and it still wouldn't take 'work' for us to talk to each other."

"And if you aren't shielded?"

I gave a sheepish grin. "Um… Wandering into each other's thoughts is easy?"

She looked shocked. "How easy?"

"Without shields? All I have do to is wonder what he thinking, or what he thinks of something."

"So I take it you're keeping a shield up."

I blushed. "Yes. We are."

She looked at me oddly. "What's with that look?"

My face got hotter. "Let's just… I said that we didn't know they were communion rings, right? There was a little accident. You don't want to know details."

"What? You learned something personal?"

Still blushing. "You could say that."

She started to ask something, then stopped. "You know what, I won't ask. He's your husband, not mine."

"Thanks." I felt a lot better once I didn't have to be talking around Hieronymus' fantasy.

Not that the fantasy itself was embarrassing, as long as it was between the two of us…

"So, how did you two do?" Ellen asked, walking in the door.

"I passed. Susan couldn't take it: She's got Graby in her head."

"What?"

I held up my hand again. "Hieronymus' father tried to embarrass us with the 'honeymoon' ring set: Communion rings, that we can't take off for a month. In the meantime… I've got a mental link to Hieronymus. I didn't mention it because… Well, it's kinda personal, and it doesn't really change anything."

"And from what she's been telling me, it's a really strong link."

"How strong?" Ellen asked the obvious question.

"Strongest I've heard of." Virginia answered. "I didn't know they made them strong enough to 'accidentally' read each other's thoughts." The last was to me.

"Ancient noble house — it's an heirloom." I clarified. "They have a matching set that aren't communion rings as well — that's what Hieronymus thought this was."

"And you think his father sent them to embarrass you?" Ellen asked. "How?"

"Um… Neither of us can actually hide what we are thinking from each other — even shielded, I can tell how he's feeling. He probably wanted to put us in an awkward position."

Neither followed up on that, thankfully. Ellen just nodded: "Yeah, I can see that. So what are you doing about it?"

I shrugged. "We're keeping our shields up — it keeps the 'accidental' down, so it's only if it's intentional, and we are respecting each other's privacy. I can still feel his mood, but that's it. Anyway, until the term is up, that's about it, really."

"But you couldn't take the exam."

"Against the rules to have a mental link to a teacher. Council rules. I get detention tomorrow as well."

"Kinda like when I got sick last year." Virginia added.

"Yeah." I replied. "So, how was the exam?"

Which started a discussion on the various ways to handle that afternoon's dungeon.

Author's Notes: Maintaining a link (with, for instance, Farspeak) to outside the dungeon is cheating. Obviously. It never comes up in the game, but I'm sure a few students try it every year - and I'm sure the normal wards prevent that just like they prevent teleporting out.

I didn't want the rings to be unique, but I did want them to be special. I'd actually expect *all* wedding rings in the magical world to be enchanted, one way or another. The standard enchantment just protects the rings and informs the spouse of dire threats to health and safety. Communion rings are not uncommon, but they aren't common either. And the set Susan is wearing is a unique set...

The 'Saltash set' is a shout-out to Patricia C. Wrede's Mairelon the Magician stories, a set I'll recommend to anyone who likes magical romance stories. There is a good bit of Kim in Susan. (Hieronymus owes more to Georgette Heyer's works, also recommended, although they don't have any magic.)

Reviews! A new reviewer currently calling themselves SlytherinGirl108 wrote several, and I thank them for *all* of them. I won't promise a Junior year continuation at this point, mostly for time reasons. ;) But I'm glad you are enjoying the story so far. And I thank Foreveralone16 again for their review - I too liked the unicorn section. As for Susan bringing up that Hieronymus wasn't a virgin... Hmm. I really should have thought more about that, in retrospect. I think the girls just figured that of *course* he wasn't, given his age, but I suspect that Hieronymus wouldn't be flattered to know that Susan told her roommates.

Anyway, thanks for all reviews, and know that I always appreciate any I get.