This chapter and the last were reposted after a technical glitch.


The OWLs for fifth-years, and the NEWTs for seventh-years, went past in a blur. Harry might have been paying more attention to them if he hadn't had exams of his own, but then again if he hadn't had exams of his own he'd have not been at school so he wouldn't have had a chance to choose whether or not to pay attention to them.

He might have been overthinking things slightly.

Then the regular end-of-year exams arrived, Runes first, and in that particular exam Harry found himself having to identify Runes in various languages (not just Futhark) and translate them.

It was helpful that they were allowed to take their runic dictionaries into the exams, because it was hard enough to do with the dictionaries – the alignment of secondary properties for the runic letters in Linear A was completely different to the elements in Futhark, for example, and in Hieroglyphics a lot of how the language was written had redundancies which guided the reader – but to create a runic sequence sometimes they were left off, or kept, depending on the effect the additional components would have. Even the arrangement could matter, which was a bit like having to deal with the word 'million' being written like 'milolin' because it looked better or was closer to being symmetrical or something like that.

And then there was the numerological nature of many signs in Nahuatl… Harry was very glad of being able to use his runic dictionary to help, and that went double when the final two questions were translating a runic sequence from one language to another one – which, mercifully, was the familiar futhark as the target in both cases.

It hadn't been quite as bad as the OWLs, or it hadn't felt that way, and Harry supposed that perhaps he was just getting more familiar with it. Or it was how the OWLs had involved composing a rune sequence as well as translating it, even if the composition had been coursework.

Hopefully he wouldn't have to compose a rune sequence in the exam hall, at NEWT level.


On Tuesday the Sixth Years had Muggle Studies, though the only person who Harry knew particularly well who was actually doing it was Tracey.

She told him that – this year, at least – it had involved several questions about the recent Muggle election, which left Harry wondering a bit about politics and whether he should vote in the next one.

He'd probably be able to, assuming that there weren't a few problems resulting from the question of where he lived (and the nature of his being a dragon, if you needed an ID photo which was something he wasn't clear on), but he had to admit he hadn't been following politics much. Even Wizarding Politics, where Mr. Fudge looked likely to stay comfortably in power for a while, let alone Muggle Politics.

He couldn't wonder about it for too long, though, because after lunch came Alchemy.


"I would like your attention, please," Professor Dumbledore said, at the front of a large classroom. "This is the first Alchemy exam there has been in some years, and so I must confess that it is in the nature of an experiment. I hope however that it will at least do the job of telling me whether you are Outstanding, or Exceed Expectations, or other such things of that nature."

He smiled. "I would tell you that I expect you all to Exceed Expectations, but that would result in a dreadful paradox and then where would we be?"

Harry snorted.

"As for your exam itself," Dumbledore went on, "you will see that you all have a quite normal collection of alembics and retorts and other such equipment. In the cupboards beneath your desks you will find your Theory exam paper, which you may take either before or after your Practical – or at the same time if you feel yourself able – and also several reagents, plus a sheet of parchment detailing an Alchemical transmutation."

Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, so that everyone was giving him their undivided attention. "The transmutation on the sheet is not particularly complex, but the instructions are not complete. You will have to work out what goes in the missing steps yourself, and then perform the transmutation; it should take two hours, and the theory paper should take one hour, so you will have three hours divided however you please."

He placed a silver clock at the front of the room, then tapped it with his wand.

"You have three hours remaining," the clock said, quite clearly.

Harry got the things out of the cupboard, put the theory questions to the side for the moment, and had a careful look at the practical instructions.

It was a transmutation in which the intent was to give steel some of the properties of glass, meaning that it had to be an insulator of heat and see-through but not shatter when hit by a hammer, and also of wax (so it was very easily melted), though not making it flammable.

Unlike with many of the transmutations they'd done, Harry didn't necessarily think that you'd actually want something like this. He supposed it might be useful if you were expecting to leave something in very cold conditions which would normally make glass break, though even then he wasn't sure why you'd want to have it easily melted.

The very first step in the instructions was missing, and Harry decided within a minute or two that it had to be coppering. One of the pieces of equipment he needed to use was steel, and another was glass, and for both of them there was a risk of the equipment being altered by or altering the reaction.

Then the bit about what to use to sensitize the reaction to heat was also missing, and normally they used beeswax but this time it was beeswax they wanted the properties from. So it had to be something else, and Harry spent a bit of time thinking about it before deciding that – strange as it might seem – a good material to use would be chocolate, because that changed a lot when heated up and it was known for melting.

Even though that was more of the sort of thing you'd need when cooking, under normal circumstances.

As it happened there was some chocolate among the reagents, but there was also some gallium (which melted at a low temperature) and some mercury, which was probably a red herring. There were plenty of other things as well, so they couldn't just work out which was the right option by guesswork, and Harry noted down his choice of sensitization reagent before continuing down the list.

It was kind of like a big puzzle as much as a normal exam, and Harry was finding it a great deal of fun.


Dumbledore took in their parchment answers after the exam, along with taking their individually produced ingots of the material he was after, and presumably made a few notes about things that had happened during the exam as well.

Someone's glass flask had caught fire at one point, which was probably going to cost them a few marks, but perhaps not enough to fail the test.

"That went quite well, I think," he said, as the Alchemy students left the room. "Though I must ask Nicholas for help in marking the NEWT next year…"

Harry supposed that, yes, there weren't really all that many qualified alchemists. Though Fred and George would probably be able to pick it up by self-study if anyone could.

That made Harry wonder if, perhaps, such a thing had already happened…


Wednesday saw Defence, which Harry had been looking forward to – though when it actually arrived he realized one of the downsides of his current set of subjects and the exam schedule that resulted, which was that he had three days of exams in a row and then almost a week's pause before the fourth. It would have been easier if he'd had alternating exam days and non-exam days, but then again Harry supposed that every previous year they'd had exams every weekday so he should probably just deal with it or something.

The practical was mostly just spellcasting – plenty of different spells came up in a list which none other than Remus read out (after smiling and explaining that he was here only as an examiner, which meant he hopefully didn't count as a teacher) and Harry had to cast them, sometimes silently or as point-casting, and on two occasions wandlessly.

Harry checked if breath-casting counted, and Remus informed him that, yes, it did, though it would be a small extra-credit mark if he could cast wandlessly without using his breath as well. Harry couldn't quite manage it, which was a pity – he supposed it was because he'd been using his breath for all the spells he'd cast before that hadn't involved his wand – and he had something new to practice.

Apart from that everything went well, though.

The theory exam came that afternoon, and it was a peculiar one. A lot of the questions were similar to previous Defence theory questions, but there were also half a dozen questions which were extremely long and complicated – one of them was a whole page long – and went into a great deal of detail about a fictional situation, such as how there were nearby shops and what each of two attackers looked like. Or how there was a long drop nearby and you were miles from anywhere, being set upon by Red Caps in the month of September during a dusky half moon mostly hidden by cloud.

The trick – and it was a trick, though one Harry didn't realize for a while – was that most of the details were unimportant. You had to read the problem and work out what the actual important bits were, and then give three possible solutions to the problem… which meant for the Red Cap problem, one answer was just to Disapparate, because you were miles from anywhere and so you were miles from an Anti-Disapparition Jinx.


"Well, that's done with," Ron said, that evening. "And now no exams until Tuesday."

"I've got Potions tomorrow, I'll have you know," Hermione replied.

"Yeah, and I've got Divination on Friday," Dean added. "And, come to that, Care of Magical Creatures on Monday."

Ron nodded sagely. "Right, but in all three cases that's your fault. You're the one who chose to take Potions."

"Weren't you the one who chose to take Astronomy, which you've been grumbling about in anticipation?" Hermione asked sweetly. "About how you've got three exams in a row next week?"

"Yes," Ron agreed. "But there's a very important difference there, which is that in my case it's happening to me."

Neville sniggered. "Is this a competition? Because I'm the one who's finishing his exams last."

Harry coughed. "Technically we're the last two taking some kind of test this year."

"Huh?" Neville asked, then remembered. "Oh, yeah, Apparition this August."

"Does that count?" Ron said. "Because if it counts then it's us seventeen year olds who've spread our exams out over the longest time."

He glanced at Hermione. "Isn't it?"

"The August test's the twenty-first," Harry supplied. "So I think it's further from the start of our end of year exams than the April one is from the end."

"Well, if you count the exams you take at a given age, Harry and I certainly win," Neville decided. "Our NEWTs are going to be when we're seventeen, and so are our Apparition tests."

"I think we've sort of lost the plot here a bit," Ron said.

"So, does that lack of exams mean you have time for some Quidditch?" Ginny asked brightly, coming over and leaning on the back of Ron's chair.

"Depends," Ron replied. "Half the team's still got end-of-year exams going on, right?"

"That is the flaw in my argument," Ginny conceded.

The chair shifted slightly, and Ron glanced up at Ginny. "Careful, I don't want to go over backwards."

"Oops," Ginny admitted, letting go. "I can see why you're in Gryffindor, though, Hermione."

That got puzzled looks.

"Voluntarily doing Potions at NEWT level," she explained. "Now that's bravery."

"Doesn't Herbology count?" Neville checked. "There's some vicious grasses out there."

Dean raised his hand. "Okay, I have to ask," he admitted. "Are there really vicious grasses?"

"Spinifex is nasty, that's Australian," Neville replied. "Apart from that, not really, there's bluegrass but that's just weirdly coloured and catches fire easily."

"Still, I wouldn't want to be alone in a greenhouse with some of the stuff you study," Dean decided.

Ron coughed. "Dean, mate, you're literally doing dragon riding in Care of Magical Creatures these days."

"And you're building a home made space rocket to the moon," Dean countered. "We've all got weird habits."

"Actually, about that, I had this idea during the exam," Ron said. "Hermione, Harry, you two are doing Runes as well… if you had a basic Futhark rune sequence of F-A-R, that's fire-air-air, right? And there's nothing stopping you from just inscribing it over and over again in a ring."

"Where's this going?" Hermione asked.

Ron waved his hand. "I think that's the thing… I'm not sure if it would work, but if it did, I was imagining some kind of amplifier for Apparition distance. So you can do that stuff they do in those Talents books."

Harry had to sit back for a moment.

"You do not think small, man," Dean said, shaking his head.

"I think maybe you'd want to include Nauthiz," Harry frowned. "For accomplishing the impossible. And you've got Raido, for journeys… what about Far And Fast And, and repeating that over and over?"

He shook his head. "I have no idea how you'd test it safely, though…"


While everyone quickly came to the decision that whatever they put together for the amplifier had to be something they were certain would work as intended – which probably meant specifying it was for amplifying Apparition specifically, rather than just making it amplify anything – they didn't come to any kind of understanding of what that would be.

There was also some speculation that if Harry was on board something with that amplifier then it might leave him behind unless he was the one doing the Apparition, which would be annoying if so, but then Dean reminded them that while he did enjoy trying to find the possible holes in things he was also supposed to be getting ready for his own exams.


The next few days were spent in a weird kind of limbo, where Harry was doing his Charms and Transfiguration revision, but the nearly-week-long gap between exams somehow didn't feel real.

When exams were on for people who were doing exams, the common room and the school felt less crowded than it usually did even over the holidays – the library with only a dozen or so Sixth-Years in it, and the common rooms mostly empty as well since almost all the Fifth- and Seventh-Years were outside enjoying the sun.

Harry deliberately didn't go to Fort William, because having a new book seemed like it was a bit too tempting really. Sometimes books just grabbed you and didn't let you go until you'd finished them, and when Harry was doing his best to remember the Rules of Transfiguration and the necessary components of silent Charm casting that just sounded like the kind of distraction he didn't need.

The weekend arrived, then went past, with Dean reporting that the Divination exam seemed to have been written by Firenze this year. It had all been a bit abstract, anyway, with questions involving sequences of sometimes-contradictory visions and asking how to interpret them, and by the sounds of things there wasn't really a right answer and it was only halfway clear whether there was a wrong answer.

Then came Tuesday, and Charms.


Their Charms exam wasn't as difficult as Harry had been wondering about, in the end. They had some questions about examples of spells going wrong and how they could go wrong, and a few questions about the historical development of more complicated spell effects – which were mostly about how the spell had been refined and distilled over the years – but overall most of the paper was a lot like a somewhat harder version of the ones from previous years.

Then the practical was almost exactly like a Charms practical from a previous year, with only one or two spells they hadn't already learned by OWLs. The main difference was that it was done in complete silence as much as possible, because any spellcasting where you had to say the incantation out loud cost you points, and that when a spell had an effect they usually had to guide it a bit – so instead of using the Banishing Charm to send an inkwell flying away across the room, they had to send it flying away without spilling any ink and to land on the desk on the other side of the room, or as close as they could manage.

Harry felt like he was really starting to at least see the path of how you went from a first-year student who had trouble casting any spells at all to being a Grand Sorc. where as far as anyone else was concerned you just swished your wand about a bit and whatever it was you wanted happened.

Transfiguration the next day just reinforced that, as while the theory paper looked in detail at anatomy and what you could or could not do with Transfiguration – Human and otherwise – the practical test was more than half composed of Free Transfiguration.

Being able to turn a teacup into a rat was one thing. Being able to turn a teacup into anything was something else entirely, and Free Transfiguration had been creeping up on them so gradually that Harry was honestly surprised to find how much he could already do with it.

Then again, he supposed that at this point he'd actually had more magical education than Cedric had had during the Triwizard Tournament. So it kind of made sense there.

Or that was Harry's opinion, anyway.


"Phew," Ron mumbled, on Friday, yawning and sitting down at their table in the Gryffindor Common Room. "That's that over for another year."

Harry looked at the clock – which said it was half past ten in the morning – then at Ron. "Astronomy, right?"

"Good guess," Ron said, shaking his head slightly. "It's a really interesting subject, but sometimes I wish you could study it in the middle of the day."

"What was the practical like, then?" Dean asked. "More star charts?"

"Nah, that'd be too easy or something," Ron shrugged. "It was more like… they did give you a star chart, or actually two of them, one for last month and one for last night, and then you had to identify what a couple of dozen things on it were. I'm still not sure if I was right about one of them."

"What did you think it was?" Hermione checked.

"Well, when I looked at it in the telescope it was really faint, but I could see it," Ron replied. "And in the last-night's picture it was in the plane of the ecliptic but not in the same place, so it seemed to be an asteroid… so I said it was probably Ceres."

"Seems like as good an approach as any," Harry told him. "Even if you're wrong about that, you're thinking about it the right sort of way."

He shrugged. "Probably."

A faint blur of movement suddenly turned into Ginny, as she shifted smoothly from her Animagus form to pop up above the edge of the table. "Just so you know, the final matches of the Quidditch tournament are coming up soon," she said. "Are you good to practice now?"

"Not right now," Ron answered, waving his hand at her. "Prat. I haven't had breakfast yet."

Ginny's expression fell. "Are you all right?"

Now Ron just looked puzzled. "Well, yeah, I just got up late-"

"If you've missed a meal, it must be serious," Ginny went on. "Hermione, do you think he's going to live to the end of the week?"

"It's Friday, Gin," Ron groaned. "It already is the end of the week."

"I'm mostly asking because if my brother's dead before next week, we're going to need a new Keeper-" Ginny said, then danced back out of range as Ron waved a fist at her.

Harry started laughing.

"This would work better if I was the one with the intimidating Animagus form," Ron grumbled.


The final two games of the Quidditch Cup came in a rush, with Slytherin versus Hufflepuff first – which saw a nasty defeat for Hufflepuff – and then Ravenclaw versus Gryffindor for the final match of the season.

"One good thing about the scoring system for Quidditch," Dean said, as they waited for the game to start. "It's pretty much impossible to have a situation where neither team in the last game has a chance of winning."

"Does that happen in football?" Hermione asked him.

Dean gave her a look. "Are you a Muggleborn or not?"

"I may be a Muggleborn, but I'm also a girl," Hermione replied, huffing. "And a bookworm. I'm exempt from needing to know about sports."

"I'm a bookwyrm but I've read a bit about football," Harry volunteered. "I know sometimes teams finish with lots more points, and a team can only get three points in one match, so if you've got four more points than the closest team behind you there's not really any need to play very well."

"Right," Dean agreed. "And I think they had to change it so all the last games in the season happen at once, because before that sometimes two teams would know that they didn't need to try very hard."

He waved his hand at the pitch, where both teams were now trooping out with their brooms. "But because of how Quidditch scoring works, no matter what the scores are one of them could score enough points to win. Which is better, probably, or something."

"You sound convinced," Neville commented.

"Well, you know how it is," Dean replied. "I'm about as certain as most of those people who talk about football on the radio-"

He was interrupted for the next twenty or thirty seconds as the dragons – all ten of them, now – came over with a whoosh, doing a flypast in a one-three-six formation which Harry thought wouldn't be very good for football but which looked good when it was Nora in front, then the three two-year-old dragons behind her, and two wyrmlings flying in a V behind each of them. Blue and silver and red and gold flame filled the air, and a wave of applause rippled over the stands.

"Good to hear from you, you seemed a bit down," Dean added. "Everything all right?"

"Oh, just… news about my dad," Neville explained, looking down a bit. "He hurt himself last night, or something. It wasn't serious, but there was a bit of blood."

Harry winced, and Dean hissed through his teeth. "Damn. Sorry."

"Hopefully he'll be okay, or it won't be a big problem, or something," Neville replied.

A few seconds later, Luna began commentating. "I hope everyone's ready for the final Quidditch match of the season!" she announced. "Especially the players, because it's just about to start whether they're ready or not."

Madam Hooch released the Snitch, then the Bludgers, and after a pause long enough for the three balls to rise into the air (and out of sight, for the Snitch) she threw the Quaffle in the air and blew her whistle sharply.

Ron immediately spun around and went at maximum speed for the Gryffindor goal hoops, and Cormac and one of the Ravenclaw Chasers briefly contested the Quaffle before it bounced away to Dennis who scooped it up and went for the Ravenclaw goal hoops.

The Ravenclaw Keeper had already arrived, but Dennis did a funny sort of sideways slide and threw the Quaffle through one of the undefended hoops. That scored the first goal, and the first ten points, and there was a brief burst of cheering before a red spark went whooshing up from behind the Gryffindor goal.

It burst in a crackle of sparks, making a red-maned golden lion which roared once before dissolving, and Harry leaned forwards slightly to check something.

"What was that?" Neville asked.

"Either Tyler or Anne," Harry answered, having spotted a familiar-looking kitsune by the base of the Gryffindor goal rings – along with a large supply of fireworks – and their sibling, along with a second pile, by the Ravenclaw ones.

"I wonder if that's going to happen every time someone scores a goal?" Luna asked, interested. "It's ten points to Gryffindor, by the way."


About forty minutes into the game, and with the scores on both sides past a hundred, Harry checked over his working again to see who currently had the advantage.

Ravenclaw had more points than Gryffindor going into the game, but both teams had been out-pointed by Slytherin as of the start of the game… but, obviously, Slytherin couldn't score any more points because they'd run out of games. Half the reason Slytherin were ahead was because they'd run up such a score in their game against Hufflepuff a few days ago, which had seen Isaac manage the nearly-unheard-of feat of a clean sheet.

Well, it was unheard of unless you were playing against the Chudley Cannons or the game lasted less than five minutes, he supposed, but those didn't really count.

At the moment, though, Gryffindor had about a forty point lead, and if they caught the Snitch then Slytherin would win. Ravenclaw, meanwhile, were still at the point where if they caught the Snitch then they would win, and their seventh-year Seeker Cho Chang was orbiting high overhead on the constant lookout for the Snitch.

Even as he was checking on that, though, Cormac got another Quaffle through the Ravenclaw goal. That made it so that Gryffindor was fifty points ahead, and that now if Gryffindor caught the Snitch it would result in a draw on points – and that Slytherin would win, because Slytherin had won the head-to-head matchup of the two teams.

"I wonder what happens if the head to head matchup is a draw between two teams that draw at the top of the contest?" Harry wondered, out loud.

"I think it's total Snitch catches?" Dean guessed. "Or… total wins? It involves both of those, but I'm not sure which comes first."

Neville counted under his breath for a moment.

"It can still be a tie, though, right?" he asked. "Because the teams can have achieved basically identical results."

"So you'd have, um, Slytherin and Hufflepuff having had a draw in their respective matches," Harry said. "And Slytherin caught two Snitches total, from Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff caught them from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. And all of their matches being draws."

"Aha, that must be it," Dean realized, snapping his fingers. "There's no way that in their head to head both sides caught the Snitch."

"Except for that one time," Harry corrected him.

"Except for that one time," Dean agreed. "But nobody actually plans for that, right? So that must be the final deciding factor unless, I dunno, they flip a coin."

There were nods and shrugs aplenty.

"I mean, we're sort of guessing here," Harry added. "But it makes sense."

Hermione nodded at the pitch. "Ron's the one who knows all this stuff, but he's a bit busy."

Even as they watched, Ron switched smoothly into his Animagus form and spun his broom around to deflect the incoming Quaffle like a bat. Without the weight of a human on it the Nimbus 2001 spun even faster than usual, batting the Quaffle away, and Melody hammered a Bludger into it hard enough to knock it the whole length of the pitch.

Harry belatedly realized that the Gryffindor team must have had a plan to try this, because all three Chasers were down the far end near the Ravenclaw goals. Cormac intercepted the Quaffle and then threw it to Dennis, who threw it to Demelza, who threw it back to Cormac. Cormac took the shot on goal, slipping it through the hoop, and now Gryffindor was sixty points up.

Cho Chang suddenly dropped out of the sky, corkscrewing slightly, and Ginny sped up to follow her before starting to pull level. She was in for a surprise, though, as Cho let go of her broom before blurring into the shape of a white swan and flaring her wings out.

That pulled her off the path she was taking, letting her pull up and around to go after where the Snitch actually was, but with all eyes on the Seeker dive just about everyone had lost track of the Beaters. Jimmy Peakes had just hit a Bludger away from Cormac to prevent the Chaser getting it in the ribs, and while it didn't go anywhere near Cho it did go near Melody.

The vampire girl wound up and smacked the second Bludger in less than fifteen seconds, and it pinged the Snitch just before Cho could reach it – sending it off course, away from where Cho was going to grab it, and squarely into Ginny's path.

Ginny barely reacted in time to catch it, looking as surprised as anyone at how things had ended up, and there were almost five seconds of complete silence before someone belatedly started cheering.

All the remaining lion rockets went off at once.


Everyone – Luna, Ginny, Cho, Madam Hooch and Melody herself – agreed afterwards that what had just happened was not quite impossible but very improbable. So improbable in fact that it probably wouldn't be possible to make it happen again even if everyone was co-operating to do it.

Hitting the Bludger at a Snitch to knock it out of the way was one thing – that was difficult but doable, as far as everyone seemed to think, and Harry had to agree because hitting Bludgers at fast moving objects was the sort of thing that Beaters did all the time. But using that to knock the Snitch into someone's path was the sort of thing that was simply a matter of the angle the Snitch happened to be dodging at the time and the way the Bludger hit.

"You could have pretended it was intentional, you know," Tyler pointed out, that evening.

"I do that and people are going to want me to do it again," Melody replied tartly.

"She's got a point," Anne agreed. "Well, two, one each side of her mouth."

Melody made a rude gesture.

Harry wondered if perhaps he should be telling Melody off for that, because he was a Prefect, but it seemed like it was all in good fun.

"Anyway, you know what that means, right?" Flopsy asked. "It means Gryffindor has won the Quidditch Cup!"

"And the House Cup as well, I think," Mopsy added. "They were pretty close last week, but that was before that big injection of points. I think Slytherin's just been pipped into second place?"

"I'm actually not sure," Tyler mused. "Don't forget, Slytherin didn't concede any goals."

"This would be a lot easier if we were discussing it in the Great Hall," Isaac said.

"Who cares, anyway?" Dominic asked, with a shrug of his wings. "Someone wins the House Cup every year, and this year it's not us. Someone wins the Quidditch Cup every year, and this year-"

"-it's one of the teams who were good?" Tyler suggested.

That got grumbles or groans from all the Hufflepuffs in the room.

"Just you wait," June suggested, with a laugh. "Next year Dominic might be on the Hufflepuff team as a Chaser. How's that tail at shots on goal?"

"Sharp," Dominic replied. "And I might need to get my spines clipped first too. It'd be embarrassing to puncture the Quaffle."

"Harry once spent half the match being beaten up by a malfunctioning Bludger, though, so it's not the first time something weird's happened," Tanisis told him. "And a few years ago the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor Seekers caught the Snitch at the same time and it exploded."

That just seemed to confuse the young manticore.

Tiobald signed something, and Luna nodded brightly.

"Tiobald's right," she said. "It was interesting. It's the only time I've ever seen the inside of a Snitch."

She tapped her chin. "Actually, I wonder if their flesh memories trigger based on the form you're in at the moment you catch it. I'll have to ask Ginny later."

"What's a flesh memory?" Skara asked.

"It's a thing that Snitches have, which detects who the first person is to touch it," Harry explained. "Quidditch Through the Ages doesn't explain it very well, it's more interested in the history of it, but it's in case they're not sure who has caught the Snitch. It means it can tell who was the first to touch it, though I'm not sure how they handle it if someone touches the Snitch but doesn't catch it."

"Did they try that when those two Seekers caught the Snitch at the same time?" Skara said. "That seems like an easy solution."

"You'd think so," Luna replied. "But unfortunately it was a little bit too exploded."

She considered. "Or perhaps it was just exploded enough, because both or neither of them getting the points was quite a fair way to do it in the circumstances."


There were a lot of goodbyes to say, as the term wound down towards the end, and Harry made sure to try and think through a lot of the magic he'd want to do over the first half of the holidays and do it before he left Hogwarts.

It would only be a month he wouldn't be able to cast spells, perhaps, but it was his last month not being allowed to cast spells and that mattered. So he refreshed the ink erasing charms on the back of his feather quills, because unlike after Fifth Year he had homework over the summer (though, fortunately, none of it involved setting up a small alchemical arrangement in his bedroom), and Transfigured a few things which would make his lair look a bit better.

"I just got to thinking about life after Hogwarts," Dean said, as they were in the middle of packing the afternoon before the Feast. "And I realized that, well, wizards don't have much trouble with fitting things in their homes, because of magic… and they don't care much where they live, because of magic… and, you know, there's all those things that Muggles like my sisters have to worry about that wizards like us don't."

He shrugged. "It's just a funny thought, that's all."

"What sort of thing are you thinking of?" Harry asked, curiously. "I'm sort of… almost all the way to doing curse breaking, but I could do a lot of things."

"I actually kind of like the sound of the Department that works with Magical Creatures, at the Ministry," Dean said. "They're going to need people there who can work with the new dragon community. How's my voice sound now, by the way?"

"I couldn't tell you'd switched to Dragonish," Harry assured his friend, about to glance over at his dragon picture by the side of his bed. "Except that you didn't know accent was 'accent'."

"Accent," Dean repeated. "Accent."

"There you go," Harry told him, with a nod. "And yeah, that could work."

"It's just funny to me that I could get a tent like yours, and live in a tiny one-room flat," Dean went on. "In Sheffield or Birmingham or somewhere, not just in London. And then heading in to London would take a stupidly short time."

"Why not live in a village in the country somewhere?" Harry suggested. "Like Godric's Hollow, that's not far from the sea, or somewhere like that."

"I… yeah, that could work too," Dean agreed. "It's just weird because for a moment I was going to say I prefer the shops in London, but I could absolutely do my shopping in Cheapside or whatever even if I lived in Cornwall."

He shut the lid of his luggage. "Okay, I think that's everything I won't need tomorrow… any idea where the others are?"

"Seamus is on a date with Lavender, I think," Harry answered. "Not sure where Neville is, probably getting in a bit more sword practice… and Hermione said that she and Ron were going to be working on the reaction control thruster stuff."

Dean winced. "Blimey," he said, as Harry crossed to one of the windows of their dorm room. "Hope they remembered the Silencing Charm."

Opening the window, Harry looked out. He could see Ron's rocket floating over a nearby hill, with Hermione pointing her wand at it and the rocket occasionally spinning first one way and then the other.

"I don't think they need a Silencing Charm for that bit," he said, looking back. "The control thrusters aren't as strong as the main engines, because they just need to steer it a bit. It's sort of like how you have the flaps on an aircraft that can steer it, but you couldn't fly the aircraft by just waggling the fins up and down."

"Makes sense," Dean shrugged. "You all done with packing?"

"Nearly," Harry replied. "I've still got to decide which books I'm reading tonight and tomorrow, but that's about it."

"Great," Dean declared. "I want to try and teach the dragons football, there's enough for five a side, but I might need you to help me explain the rules…"


Dumbledore told them all at the feast that he hoped they would be safe over the summer holiday, and went on to clarify that he hoped that every year and that it was a wonderful thing when there were as many students at school one year as there were the previous year.

He also said that he hoped the food would lure them back, and that sounded quite likely to Harry given how good the food usually was. It was only one more year he'd be able to eat at Hogwarts, at that, though Harry was sure he'd get over it after he'd graduated.

Then it was a last night's sleep in the dorms, then onto the Hogwarts Express, and as the train smoothly gathered speed Harry looked around the Prefect carriage.

"It sort of seems funny that they only use this train six times a year," he said. "It's a very nice train, especially this bit."

"Perhaps, Potter, but what else would it be used for?" Draco asked him. "It's not as if it would be good for trips home over the weekend, would it?"

"Admittedly, that is kind of a funny idea," Ernie said. "You'd get to, what, sleep at home? And you'd have to do all your homework on the train."

"Much easier to Apparate," Draco asserted. "Or Floo, or something else of that nature."

Harry had to agree, and did so.

"So," Katie said, after a bit of a pause. "I'm kind of glad not to be Head Girl any more, but who do you think is going to be Head Boy next year?"

"Well, if you're asking for suggestions…" Draco drawled.

"I've got nothing to do with the choice," Katie reminded him. "Nor does Russell, for that matter, even though he was Head Boy."

"I still am, right?" Russell protested. "I've still got the badge."

"Hold on," one of the Fifth-Year Prefects asked. "Shouldn't you be asking about Head Girl, if you've been Head Girl?"

"I don't think there's much need for that," Hannah told her. "We all know who it's going to be."

"We do?" Hermione asked.

Draco tsked. "Obviously it's going to be you, Granger. Have some common sense."

"But-" Hermione began, looking at the other three Sixth-Year girls in the carriage. "Don't any of you… I mean…"

That just earned her three head-shakes.

"Clearly you," Hannah said.

"Absolutely," Pansy agreed.

"But it doesn't have to be a Prefect, it could be someone who isn't a Prefect in their fifth and sixth years and goes straight to Head Girl," Hermione pointed out.

"Yeah, we're already taking that into account," Padma said.

Hermione went a bit pink, and didn't seem to know what to say.

"It might end up being Potter, actually," Draco mused. "I don't mean Head Girl, I mean Head Boy, but you know what Dumbledore's like with bias towards Gryffindors."

He was smiling as he said it, so that was probably a joke.

"Technically, I'm not a Gryffindor," Russell pointed out. "And if Granger is the Head Girl, that's the bias fulfilled."

"I'm not sure he's making decisions like that," Harry said.

Then, because it was Dumbledore, he clarified. "Or, if he is making decisions like that, it's also for another better reason."

"Always is, with him," Draco conceded.


There wasn't actually all that much to talk about, once the train was on the move – except for the outgoing Seventh Years to remind the Fifth and Sixth Years about the Seventh Year stuff which they'd have to handle next year – and Harry, Hermione and June made their way back down the train to the compartment their friends had already occupied.

It was quite a big compartment, thanks to all the space expansion.

"...anything you're looking forward to over the summer?" Tanisis asked, as they opened the door. "Oh, sorry, I wasn't sure when you three would be back."

"It's not like we'd want you to be silent before we did," Harry replied. "But if there's anything good we missed, a recap would be nice."

That caused a few considering looks.

"Don't think so," Neville said eventually.

"Right, so, is there anything you're looking forward to over the summer?" Tanisis reiterated.

"Seeing how my aunt, uncle and cousin are doing is going to be nice," Harry admitted. "And being able to do magic outside school at last."

"Lucky you," Taira said. "We're limited to potions. And would be limited to Alchemy too, if we'd learned it."

"Which is next year," Anne interrupted.

"Which is next year," Taira agreed.

Harry wondered briefly if perhaps there was an emergency backup castle on the grounds.

"Yeah, doing magic is going to be nice," Hermione agreed. "There's so many times over the summer I usually have to catch myself and stop myself doing magic, and now I just need to be responsible about it."

"What I'm looking forward to is learning the wings spell," Tanisis informed them. "The best bit of sphinx magic, in my opinion. Normally we learn it after we turn sixteen, but obviously I was a little bit too at school to do that, and since I don't have homework this summer it's a great time to do it."

"I was wondering about that," Neville admitted. "I've read books where sphinxes fly about, but I wasn't sure how after actually meeting you."

"Ask me next September, I should be able to demonstrate," Tanisis told him.

"That'll be nice, it means we could go flying together," Ginny said. "Assuming we're somewhere nobody will see… well, Quidditch stadiums aren't always being used."

"Sounds like a plan to me," the sphinx agreed.


The conversation meandered over the next several hours, in a pleasant sort of way.

Isaac wanted advice on what the electives were going to be like – he'd opted for Arithmancy and Muggle Studies – and Melody and Matthew listened in as well as between them Neville and Harry and Dean tried to give a rundown on what it was like.

Then June checked to get some idea of the workload at NEWTs, and Harry thought it over a bit before saying that the individual lessons were more work than OWLs but that because you weren't doing as many of them it was easier to cope with on the whole.

They talked about books, about Quidditch, about football (which meant there was a spirited debate between Isaac and Dean about whether Everton or West Ham was the better team. Since the two teams had had an almost exactly identical record of points scored, games won and games lost, and West Ham had a better Goal Difference but Everton had won one of their head-to-head games, it sounded like the sort of question normally given to philosophers and scientists with microscopes) and about whatever else seemed to come up.

As they were getting closer to London, though – going through a bit Harry more or less recognized as about half an hour from London, with station names like Leighton Buzzard and Cheddington disappearing behind them – Harry noticed that Hermione was deeply engrossed in a large and new-looking book.

Except she kept flipping forwards through it, which didn't seem normal for Hermione with a new book.

"What's that?" he asked. "Interesting?"

"It's fascinating, especially with who wrote our Alchemy textbook," Hermione replied, showing Harry the cover – The Philosopher and the Stone. "It's the latest updated version of Nicholas Flamel's biography – it's updated every couple of decades, and the most recent one came out less than a week ago. I got it in Hogsmeade yesterday evening, but obviously I've read the previous one so a lot of what I'm doing is looking for new things."

Harry nodded, thinking one of those funny thoughts about how long witches and wizards could live.

You could last so long that a biography of you written when you were a hundred years old could end up an antique.

Still, having a collection of books about you sounded fun. It was a bit egotistical, but Harry was a Gryffindor and that was one of the things they were supposed to be.

Possibly.


AN:

Any relation between the Alchemy Practical and the Technical challenge is entirely unintentional.

On the part of Dumbledore.

Also, this is around the time Mr. Blair discovers that there's a magic portrait in Number Ten. Nothing major going on, though, unlike his predecessor for which everything was Major.

If there were issues reading this chapter when it was first posted, sorry; seems there was a glitch.