Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.

Original A/N: Thanks to MaeSilverpaws1, who is beta-ing this story.

Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Six

End of Term

"Bloody hell, I'm glad that's over with," Ron exhaled as they walked out of their last O.W.L's exam, History of Magic.

"Yeah," Harry responded, that was a particularly bad test as he had to write several essays. "But now it's time to celebrate."

"Celebrate!" Hermione groaned. "I can't think about celebrating! I have to go and make sure it was …"

"NO!" Ron shouted at her, a little too harshly he seemed to realize when he saw her expression. "Hermione the exams are over, everyone knows you did brilliantly. I'm not going to let you open another book for a week at least. Don't stress yourself out …"

"If I don't make sure Ron, I'm never going to be able to relax," Hermione practically whined.

Ron groaned and Harry laughed, they both knew she was telling the truth.

"Fine, check your books, but we're still going to have a celebration tonight and you're going to have fun at it!"

"Deal," Hermione smiled at him and they walked to the dorm room where Hermione ran up to get her book to check all her facts. Ron and Harry stayed in the common room playing chess as she did so.

"You know the exams weren't as bad as I feared," Ron said.

"I thought you didn't want to talk about the exams?" Harry said and then called out a move for his knight to make.

"Not with Mione around," Ron said. "Merlin she hasn't been able to talk about anything else for weeks. Only way to get her to shut up about it was to snog her …"

"Which I'm sure you did more than once," Harry said as Ron commanded his pawn to make a move.

"Yeah," Ron smiled and sighed. "But not nearly as much as I'd like to. She wouldn't allow herself to be distracted for long. I could never really tell her how nervous I was about the exams myself because that would usually set her off on her own nervous breakdown. Completely useless … like her checking in her books right now. It's mental how she gets."

"Yeah," Harry chuckled. "But she's been like that for as long as I've known her. She wants to be the best and pushes herself really hard."

"Too hard," Ron grimaced.

"I guess the O.W.L's weren't so bad," Harry said realizing that Ron didn't really want to talk about Hermione and O.W.L's anymore but he had brought this subject up for a reason.

"Like you care, you really didn't seem to study much for it at all," Ron pointed out and Harry shrugged.

"Well it's not like it matters," Harry said, he didn't want to spend his time on study when he could do better things. Of course after Susan had broken up with him he didn't have as much pleasant distractions, but he still didn't spend all his time studying like most of the other fifth years. "I still think I did well, I mean I did work hard the last four and a half years … it's not like I forgot what I learned."

"Lucky you," Ron made a face. "I always felt like I was forgetting things … my mind would go blank most of the time I tried to think of something while doing the exams … maybe it would have been better for me if I didn't care either."

"Maybe," Harry chuckled, Ron wasn't at his best when it came to academic pressure … sure real danger and he could pull all sorts of spells out of his arse, but put him in front of a professor and he got nervous. "I'm sure you did okay."

"Well yeah, I think so too," Ron admitted. "I mean usually I did pull out the spell in the end. There was just so much extra information in my head …"

Harry shrugged, not sure what else he could say to that. He didn't feel that way with his exams, though he had known some of his answers to the essay question were a little flimsy as he couldn't remember all the definition and spells, his practically test had all gone well. Oh well, whatever will happen will happen … knowing his luck, he probably won't even live long enough to find out how he did on the O.W.L's.

"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked and sat down next to Ron.

"Done revising already?" Ron asked, not answering her question.

"I got the answers right," Hermione said happily, "I'll look at the details more later."

"Later huh?" Ron said. "Are you actually trying to relax?"

"Well, we have finished our exams, I'm due a little relaxing," Hermione said and Ron beamed at her. "Are you going to tell me what you and Harry were talking about?"

"The party we're going to have," Harry answered, which of course was a lie, but it was something he wanted to discuss now. "I was thinking we could invite all our friends and go to the Room of Requirement and really relieve some of our stress …"

Hermione raised her eyebrows looking nervous about something.

"Don't go all Prefect on us now," Ron said. "You said last time you wanted to go out with us?"

"When was that?"

"Mione was all upset that we snuck to Hogsmeade and didn't invite her," Ron told Harry. "She said she'd like to have gotten sloshed with us."

"I said nothing of the sort!" Hermione gasped looking scandalized. "I might have mentioned wanting to be invited … but that would be just the three of us."

"Ah … don't want to be seen breaking the rules by all your peers," Ron nodded his head. "Don't worry about that, they'll be breaking the rules too so they can't blackmail you."

"I wasn't thinking about blackmail," Hermione rolled her eyes; she didn't think she would be able to relax if there were so many people.

"Come on Hermione, I know you're going to have fun, trust me," Ron told her looking at her earnestly.

"Fine," Hermione sighed.

O

"Do you know!" Hermione yelled at Ron later that evening sitting on his lap and giggling, "I think I like parties!"

"Yes," Ron said winching at her yelling at him from such a close distance but he was amused too. After her third butterbeer he had finally gotten her to try some of the firewhiskey, which she told him she didn't like but finished her first shot anyways. Then after another two butterbeers she had accepted her second shot, still complaining it was too strong, but it didn't seem to stop her from taking another. "Talk about getting sloshed."

"I'm not sloshed," Hermione protested leaning away from him and swaying in her seat (on his lap) as she tried to swat at him.

"Okay," Ron grinned at her, his head buzzing with his own drunkenness but that didn't stop him from seeing how sexy she was when she was like this, free of inhibitions and pressing herself closely to him, not worrying about the other people in the room.

"Are you two going to go at it again?" Ginny groaned, she was sitting across the way with Dean. "You nearly made me puke the last time."

"Correction … you nearly made us all puke," Fred added. "I thought you had more control than that, Granger."

"Why don't you stuff it, Fred?" Hermione replied. "You're just upset you don't have your own girl to snog."

Fred made a face at that as his siblings laughed.

"I like drunk Hermione," George laughed as his brother punched his arm.

"I'm not drunk … I'm only mildly inned … enumerated … in …" Hermione said.

"Inebriated," Ron supplied for her.

"Yes, that," Hermione agreed. "I'm mildly enumerated."

Ron shook his head and tried not to laugh with the other and failed miserably. Hermione pouted at him, telling him it wasn't funny, which only made him laugh more. She glared at him but he captured her lips again, which immediately distracted her.

"Seriously guys," protested Harry this time.

"Oops," Hermione giggled, "Maybe I am a little more than inebriated than I thought."

"You know you're part of the family now, right Hermione," Fred told the girl suddenly. Hermione blushed and turned to look at Ron (who was also red in the face) but Fred's laughter caused her to turn back to him. "I didn't mean it in that way … but it's nice to know you're thinking that way, I'll have fun teasing you about that. I'm talking about the Weasley tradition when it comes to drinking."

"No … no, that does not apply to me," Hermione said paling as Fred grin spread so now that George was smiling too. She turned to Ron for help, but he was grinning to.

"I don't know Mione, it sounds reasonable," he smirked.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, knowing he was thinking about how she had given him the fake hang over potion. Bloody prat would just love getting back at her.

O

"That was an interesting year," Harry said as he and his friends walked to the horseless carriages a few days later.

"Yeah, one of my favorites," Ron agreed, pulling Hermione in closer to him as she had played a big role in making it so good. She narrowed her eyes at him, still acting upset about the fact that he hadn't given her a hangover potion the morning after the Fifth and Seventh year celebrating the end of term exams being over. He knew she was only acting because every time he said it was a Weasley tradition her eyes would twinkle before she narrowed them to glare at him. He knew she was pleased that his brothers had adapted her into the family, and for reasons that didn't involve her relationship with him.

Harry frowned; he couldn't quite agree that this was a good year, not with his mind dwelling on what he learned in the latter half of this school year. Still he did have a lot of fun, and there were times that he had actually felt normal, something that never seemed to happen before. Maybe the year wasn't so bad after all.

Just when he thought this the carriage arrived and he got in followed by Ron and Hermione and they chatted as they waited for it to take them to the train. Harry vaguely wondered if anyone else was going to join them when Neville and Hannah enter. He smiled until he realized that Susan was following them. He tried to keep smiling but he knew it had turned very awkward and wasn't helped at all as everyone seemed to be looking between him and Susan.

"Maybe I should find another carriage …" she mumbled standing at the door.

"What, don't want to have a nice awkwardly silent ride to Hogsmeade station?" Harry asked her, trying to give her a smile, but he wasn't sure if he came out right.

She shrugged.

"Well, I'm sure Ron, Hermione, Neville and Hannah can have a conversation and only you and I have to be awkward," he continued.

"Oh yes, and that sounds so much better," Susan said rolling her eyes, but he knew he had appealed to her odd sense of humor. She sat down next to Hannah. "Let the awkwardness begin."

"Er … so … did anyone here about the Cannons game," Ron offered a conversation topic as the carriage started moving.

"You know we weren't actually asking for an awkward conversation, right?" Harry informed his best friend who glared at him as his ears turned red.

"Well, it's not like I bloody know what else to say," Ron grumbled.

"Anything but Quidditch," Hermione said as Hannah asked, "does it really have to be Quidditch?"

The girls smiled at each other as Ron rolled his eyes.

"Well than someone else is go –"

He never got to finish that sentence as there was a loud noise and the carriage was suddenly sailing through the air.