I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.
Exams
"Aren't you supposed to be supporting your own House for this game?" Alex asked Luna, who was wearing her huge lion hat.
"I can still cheer for Ravenclaw," Luna said. "But I'm going to support my boyfriend first and foremost."
Alex smiled, kissing her, then headed to the locker room, where Angelina was waiting impatiently. "Sorry."
"It's fine," Angelina sighed. "Alright, now, everyone be very careful. We have to win this."
Everyone nodded, and a few minutes later, they headed out onto the field.
"You can do this, Ron," Alex said as they mounted their brooms. "Just ignore the crowd altogether. And hey, maybe if you win the game for us, Hermione will be so proud of you she'll kiss you."
Ron recoiled as though slapped. "Hermione!? What are you on about?"
Alex shrugged. "Nothing important."
Madam Hooch blew the whistle and they were all off, only for Alex to fly alongside Kirke and grab him by the back of the neck.
"Listen very carefully," Alex said icily. "You don't need to do much this game. Just keep the bludger away from the girls. Full defensive. Don't worry about targeting Ravenclaw, that's what I'm here for. Hit the bludgers into the ground if you have to. Or better yet, hit them toward me."
Kirke nodded. "Got it."
Alex nodded and released him and they sped off, both hitting a Bludger away from Angelina, who was after the Quaffle. Kirke's slammed into the field below them, but Alex's slammed into the Quaffle, knocking it out of the Ravenclaw Chaser's hands and allowing Alicia to steal it. Gryffindor roared with cheers, as did half of Hufflepuff. Luna's hat simply roared. Alex chuckled at the hat, glancing at Kirke just as he knocked a Bludger away from Katie. Then, he took off, flying as fast as his borrowed broom would allow. He reached Angelina, who was going for a shot, in time to roll upside down under her, then knock a bludger away and toward the Chaser closing in on her, forcing him to break off. Then, he flipped downward away from Angelina so that he could right himself just as she scored. He grinned, and looked to Luna and the others, only to see Harry and Hermione leaving with Hagrid.
"Alex!" Angelina shrieked.
He whipped his head back to the front, just in time for a Bludger to slam into his chest, hurling him off his broom. Slytherin cheered, everyone else screamed. Then, Kirke caught him by the arm and flew him to the ground where his broom had landed.
"Nice catch," Alex said, massaging his chest. "Thanks."
"You alright?" Kirke asked.
"Yeah, I'm good," Alex said. "Go."
Kirke nodded and Alex remounted his broom, kicking off hard. As he passed over his fallen bat, he snatched it up in time to send a Bludger rocketing skyward. Then, he rejoined the game. And then, Ron got his first save of the game. And then, five minutes, and two goals for Gryffindor, later he got another. Then another. He let one through, then got another. Ron was grinning widely by this point, and the rest of Gryffindor team had rallied beautifully to the occasion. Kirke began to go on the offensive as well, and actually managed to make a Chaser miss a shot, badly, at one point, Angelina, Alicia, and Katie began to take a page from Alex's tryout playbook and pass the Quaffle backward just before taking a shot, allowing whichever of the other two was behind them to do it, confusing both the Keeper and the Chasers, and then, finally, Ginny caught the Snitch from right under Cho's nose. And Cho was so angry that she'd lost the catch that she'd cried, then threw her broom as soon as she'd landed. Alex grinned, flying down with the rest of Gryffindor team as they were awarded the Quidditch Cup. The team hoisted Ron onto their shoulders, Alex passing him the cup, as they began to sing their own rendition of "Weasley is Our King" that involved Ron being an excellent keeper, and as soon as they were out of the stadium, Luna met Alex with a flying hug and a kiss.
"Congratulations!" she smiled.
"Thanks," Alex smiled. "But this one's all Ron's."
Luna nodded, smiling, and slipped her hand into his as they headed for the school again. However, harry and Hermione intercepted the pair of them in the Entrance hall, pulling them off to the side to tell them why they'd left. Hagrid had finally shown them why he was always injured and what he'd been hiding. His Giant half-brother, Grawp, who was hidden in the forbidden Forest and who Hagrid wanted them to teach English to if he was sacked. Alex sighed, glancing after the rest of the team.
"Give it a day or two before we tell Ron," Alex said. "Let him have his moment of fame."
The others nodded and they all headed for their common rooms, Alex walking Luna toward hers, as always.
As June arrived and the OWLs approached, homework was ended and all of their classes shifted to revising the subjects the teachers had already taught. Almost all of the Fifth years were stressed beyond anything Alex had seen, short of Harry both before his hearing and also during the Christmas holidays. Everyone was spending all of their free time checking and rechecking their notes, studying things they'd already learned and trying to memorize years of information in a few days. Alex found that he himself now had to drink from his extended potion bottle almost once an hour to keep calm, and it made him feel like Imposter Moody. And Umbridge didn't help. The weekend before his exams, which started Monday, his check-in with her lasted until two in the afternoon Sunday. Not that it mattered. Alex and Luna had agreed to spend whatever free time Umbridge gave them relaxing in their cave before tests, that way Alex would have as long as possible to let the information settle so that he wouldn't data-dump it.
Then, finally, it was time. Luna gave Alex a calming, reassuring kiss before leaving from breakfast to her classes, and Alex drank one last dose of Draught of Peace before waiting with the other Fifth and Seventh Years, the Seventh Years waiting to take their NEWTs. Finally, the Fifth Years were called back into the Great Hall, which had been rearranged for the exams. The House Tables had been replaced with a sea of one-person tables, all facing the Staff Table, where Professor McGonagall stood beside an enormous hourglass. Once everyone was seated, she told them all to begin and turned the hourglass over. Alex dropped his eyes to the paper. The first question was asking for the incantation and wand movement to make something fly. He grinned, writing in the answer. In his mind, the first image to pop into his head was Seamus Finnegan lighting his feather on fire. The second was a troll's club falling onto its owner's head in a girl's bathroom. And the questions, while difficult, weren't unreasonable. So, two hours later, he joined the others in the Entrance Hall where Ron stopped Hermione from going over the entire exam with them. After a few minutes, they went back into the Great Hall for lunch, finding the Head Tables had been returned, and Alex greeted Luna with a kiss, smiling. Then, they headed to a small room off to the side of the Great Hall to wait for their turn to take the practical exam for Charms. Alex smiled confidently as he walked out to his examiner. Practical exams he could do. Easily. And he did. He finished the practical exam with a perfect record, and left the room before the other three he'd been called with.
The next day was Transfiguration, and again, he aced the practical exam, and did what he assumed was a minimum of well on his written exam. Then was Herbology. He didn't do quite as well as he'd like, but on the practical exam, he and Neville were the only two who were able to take the seeds out of Gillyweed without ruining the plant itself. After Herbology was Defense Against the Dark Arts. He actually felt himself excited for that one. It was a chance to spit in Umbridge's eye without repercussions. The written test was easy, the practical exam was even easier, and he got permission from two of the examiners to have them check his ability at banishing a Bogart in private, due to knowing exactly what it would turn into initially. Then, for four bonus points, he was allowed to perform Wandless magic, making sure to do it while Umbridge was focused on Harry, who was getting one extra point for performing a Patronus. As they two of them left the room, both of them ignored Umbridge's nasty smirk. Neither cared. Both knew, without a doubt, that they'd just achieved Outstanding OWLs.
"How'd yours go?" Harry asked.
"You really need to ask?" Alex smiled. "I got bonus points, on top of a perfect score in the practical exam, for doing Wandless magic, and they let me borrow another examiner to do the Bogart, so no one else saw what it turned into."
"What was it?" Harry asked.
Alex gave him an unimpressed stare and Harry raised his hands in defeat.
"Sorry, shouldn't have asked," Harry said.
Alex shook his head, sighing, and they headed back to the common room. The next test that he was worried about came that next Monday. Potions. The practical exam, as usual, was one thing, but the written exam before it was hard, to put it lightly. However, he was relatively certain he'd done well enough to make it into Snape's class next year. Tuesday was Care of Magical Creatures, and Alex passed it easily. First he had to identify a Knarl from a group of hedgehogs, and did it by offering them all a bowl of milk, only the Knarl refusing, then calmed him briefly, greatly impressing his examiner, before moving on. Second was to demonstrate the correct handling of a Bowtruckle, which was easy, third was to feed and clean out a Fire Crab without serious burns, and choose, from a wide selection of food, what to feed a sick unicorn. Having had first-hand experience with this, he'd finished assembling all of the correct options and into an entire diet schedule, even before the examiner could finish explaining the task.
However, his OWLs took a back seat during his Astronomy exam when six silhouettes left the castle in the middle of the exam and headed to Hagrid's hut. At first, Alex ignored them in favor of his exam, but as he heard Fang bark in answer to their knock, neither he, nor Harry, could focus on the exam. They tried, or at least, he tried while Harry tried to fake it, but as a roar echoed from the grounds, they both gave up all pretenses. After a moment, Hagrid's door banged open and he emerged, brandishing his fists, as the six people around him, of which Umbridge was definitely one, tried to stun him. Alex's gut dropped. If he was fighting, they meant to send him to Azkaban.
One of the examiners tried to get everyone to focus on the exam, but no one listened.
"Be reasonable, Hagrid!" a man shouted from the grounds, where their Stunning Spells seemed to be bouncing off of Hagrid.
"Reasonable be damned!" Hagrid roared. "Yeh won' take me like this, Dawlish!"
Fang tried to defend Hagrid, but was stunned, and Hagrid gave a thundering roar of rage and picked the culprit up, then hurled him. The man did not immediately stand again. The door below them opened again and someone left the castle at a sprint.
"How dare you!?" McGonagall's voice shrieked. "How dare you!?"
"Leave him alone! Alone, I say!" Professor McGonagall's voice shouted through the darkness. "On what grounds are you attacking him? He has done nothing, nothing to warrant such-"
Hermione, Parvati and Lavender all screamed. The figures around the cabin had shot no fewer than four Stunning Spells at Professor McGonagall. Halfway between cabin and castle the red beams collided with her. For a moment she looked luminous and glowed an eerie red, then she lifted right off her feet, landed hard on her back, and moved no more.
"Galloping gargoyles!" the examiner shouted, who also seemed to have forgotten the exam completely. "Not so much as a warning! Outrageous behaviour!"
"COWARDS! ! !" Hagrid bellowed, his voice carrying clearly to the top of the tower, several lights flickering back on inside the castle. "RUDDY COWARDS! HAVE SOME O' THAT! ! ! AN' THAT! ! !"
Hagrid took two swipes, knocking two of his attackers out cold, then stooped and lifted Fang's unconscious form onto his back.
"Get him, get him!" Umbridge screamed, but her remaining helper seemed highly reluctant to go within reach of Hagrid's fists.
In fact, he was backing away so fast he tripped over one of his unconscious colleagues and fell over. Hagrid had turned and begun to run with Fang still hung around his neck. Umbridge sent one last Stunning Spell after him but it missed; and Hagrid, running full-pelt towards the distant gates, disappeared into the darkness. There was a long minute's quivering silence as everybody gazed open-mouthed into the grounds. Then the examiner's voice said feebly, "Um...five minutes to go, everybody."
When the exam finally ended, everyone raced from the tower as fast as they could. Alex filled Luna in on his way to the hospital wing, at least on the basics, and she met him there as Madam Pomfrey was inspecting McGonagall.
"Will she be alright?" Alex asked. "Is there anything I can do?"
Madam Pomfrey glanced at him and shook her head. "She needs to go to Saint Mungo's. She'll need to be Apparated."
Alex nodded, snapping his fingers. Winky appeared at his side instantly. "She can take her."
Madam Pomfrey nodded sharply and quickly wrote out an explanation of what happened for the Healers there, signed it, and gave it to Winky before telling her where, exactly, to take McGonagall. Winky bowed, then Disapparated with the note and Professor McGonagall. Madam Pomfrey sighed.
"She should be alright, now," she said before her worried look turned into one filled with rage. "That...horrible..."
"We should get to bed," Alex decided, able to see she couldn't vent in front of him.
He and Luna hurried from the room, then split up at the stairs, heading for their own common rooms and putting hearing aids in as they walked. Just shy of the Fat Lady's portrait, Peeves floated up through the floor, looking outraged.
"There you are," Peeves said, sounding all business. "I may not particularly like humans, but Dumbledore and McGonagall were at least fair to me, for the most part."
"I know," Alex said, clenching his fists. "Make her suffer, Peeves. Make Umbridge's life Hell until she can't stand being here. Make her so miserable she resigns in the next month."
Peeves nodded once and shot off through the wall.
"Are you okay?" Luna asked.
"No," Alex said. "I'm not. McGonagall was the one who took me to Diagon Alley the first time, who one who helped me get started at Hogwarts. She helped me keep my heritage a secret the first few years, and helped keep teachers off my back about it. She was like an Aunt-I guess? Maybe grandmother?- to me. I don't know what exactly, family's confusing for me sometimes."
"But she is family to you," Luna said. "That's enough."
Alex nodded, even though she couldn't see it. "I'm going to make that toad pay. I'm going to make her regret ever having come to this school."
"And I'll be right there to help," Luna said.
Alex smirked as he watched Peeves chasing Umbridge around the Entrance Hall, pelting her with water balloons filled with stink sap and Bubotuber pus. She was mostly avoiding them, but a few spots had been hit with the pus, as evidenced by the boils covering one of her cheeks and the backs of her hands. Alex hid his smile and headed for his History of Magic exam. Except, almost halfway through it, Harry screamed, falling out of his chair sideways and waking by the time he hit the floor. Alex's eyes widened as he stared at him. He was sweating profusely, gasping for breath, and there was panic in his eyes. Before Alex could react, one of the examiners had helped him out of the room and was heading for the Hospital Wing. Alex grit his teeth, struggling to focus on his test and not the inevitability of something being horribly wrong.
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