The following week was even more draining. Everyone was on edge. The tests were grueling affairs with all four houses brought into one room. The practical parts were more bearable as single students were called into a separate area to demonstrate their proficiency. Despite that he felt more confident of his scores on the written tests, especially in Herbology. After each test Cascata, Susan, and Hannah immediately congregated to decry their own miserable performance, reassure each of the others that they couldn't have done that bad on the tests, and then get down to the business of discussing specific answers and which practicals they managed and which they didn't.

Tamblin avoided these as much as possible. While he did hope that they would all do well on their finals, and while he was also sincerely making an effort to be more social, the last three weeks had been very taxing on him. All he wanted after each day's test was to find a quiet balcony or chamber and just enjoy the peace and solitude. By the time tests had finished on Friday Tamblin was beyond exhausted but also going stir crazy. He barely waited for his fellow Ravenclaws to drift off before he crept out of the tower and into the castle proper.

As he roamed the halls he called to mind various events that had happened at each place. He found himself smiling at the recollections. He wandered all over the castle lost in reverie. On the third floor he stopped, startled by a motion ahead. A door was closing but he saw no one on the other side. Odder still, he thought he could hear the faintest strains of music, cut off as the door firmly shut. Worst of all, he knew that door all too well. It was the one that lead to the room with the three headed dog. He'd been very careful to avoid it since that first encounter.

That was the room Dumbledore had hinted he was especially concerned with. Considering the door seemed to close with no one there it was likely that someone had the cloak and was using it to sneak past the dog. Dumbledore had said that he was returning the cloak to the rightful owner. Was that the Gryffindors who had used it that night in the astronomy tower or someone else? If it was the Gryffindors then that meant that students were in there. Why would they want to sneak in there? Tamblin didn't know enough about what was going on to judge the situation. Still the beast was dangerous, of that he was certain, and if it was the Gryffindors they'd already been involved in strange things.

His hand slipped into the internal robe pocket. The willow token Dumbledore had given him was still in there. He brought it out and looked at it. The Ivory slip was thin but when he tried to snap it he found it stronger than he thought. He placed it down on the stone floor and brought out his heavy wand. A bloodwand, Quirrell had called it. The thick black rod had been in some ways a problem. His wrists and hands were too small still to manipulate it as delicately as the slim wood wands used by the other students. For this, though, the wand was perfect. He slammed the end of it down on the willow token which smashed into two pieces.

The two pieces began to glow at the broken edges. The glow brightened and wavered like light reflecting off water. Then the token began to dissolve at the broken ends into a silver glowing substance. It flowed out into a fluid stream that got longer as the token unraveled like a sweater. Once the token dissolved completely the strands themselves evaporated leaving nothing in the air but a smell like before a lightning storm. Not one shard of the token remained, but Tamblin assumed it had done its job in alerting Dumbledore somehow.

He made his way back to the Ravenclaw common room unsure if he'd done the right thing but too tired just now to care. The morning would be soon enough to find out.