Year 2: Triple the Trouble

Chapter 20: June 2013

Monday morning of their first week of exams, everyone was nervous. The Great Hall was unnaturally silent and very little food was eaten. All too soon, it was time for the second years to start the long trek down to the dungeons. This year was even more stressful than the previous year, because some of their exams had practical components. For their potions exam, they were going to be asked to brew one of the potions they'd studied that year. Victoire had stayed up all night going over the recipes for the various potions, but even as she descended the staircase to the dungeons, she could feel steps falling out of her head.

When all the second years had arrived and gotten themselves situated, Professor Abbott-Longbottom distributed their test papers. They were all assigned different potions at random and weren't allowed to talk to each other, so they couldn't copy off their friends, because they didn't know who was brewing what. Victoire glanced down at her paper and breathed a sigh of relief when she discovered that she only had to brew a simple sleeping draught. If she'd had to brew a hair-raising potion, she knew she'd have messed it up.

As soon as the test began, Victoire hurried to the store cupboard to stock up on the ingredients she would be needing. She grabbed the wormwood and the valerian right away. Then she reached up for some nettles and asphodel petals, transferring everything into her left hand as she reached into the final jar and pulled out a single Flobberworm.

"Gross," she muttered as she hurried back to her table and deposited everything. When they'd brewed this in class, she's made her partner deal with the Flobberworm. Unfortunately, she didn't have much of a choice about it now.

She checked the clock and saw that time was running out. She knew that her potion needed to simmer for about seventy minutes midway through, so she knew she had to get going. They only had an hour and a half period to complete the practical exam and she couldn't afford to hand in an unfinished potion.

She started by filling her cauldron with eight cups of tepid water and then tossed in two teaspoons of standard ingredient. She lit a small fire under her cauldron with her wand and stirred the standard ingredient into the water. While that heated up, she threw the wormwood into her mortar and started grinding it down to a powder with her pestle. Once it was ready, she inserted her thermometer into the water and checked the heat. It wasn't quite warm enough yet, so she waited another minute until it was at the perfect temperature and then added the wormwood, stirring in a clockwise direction as she poured it in.

Leaving that to simmer, she turned back to her desk and forced herself to remember what came next. It was either the valerian or the Flobberworm, but she was pretty sure the valerian came first, so she grabbed a knife and began to chop it up. She threw it in and then grabbed her wand to increase the intensity of the fire. She stirred a couple of times and then reluctantly reached for her Flobberworm.

It was squishy and slimy and extremely uncomfortable to handle. She really didn't want to do what she knew she had to do, so she looked away as she dropped it into her mortar and started grinding it down with the pestle. When it was nothing more than a mucus-like paste, she used her spatula to scrape the sides of her mortar and she poured the Flobberworm into the cauldron.

Once it was in, she grabbed her stirring rod and started to stir vigorously. To her relief, the potion started to turn purple – exactly the color she was hoping for. She knew she had to keep stirring until it because pink, but that if she stirred too long and it turned red, it would be ruined. She kept a close eye on it and as soon as it started turning pink, she grabbed her wand and lowered the heat of the fire. She gave the potion one more stir and then pulled the stirring rod out to let the potion sit.

"Shoot!" she muttered to herself, realizing she'd forgotten the ingredient she would need for the next step. Hoping her potion wouldn't do anything questionable while she was gone, Victoire hurried back to the storeroom to grab a sopophorus bean. She brought it straight back to her desk and picked up her knife, ready to chop it. She remembered from the last time she'd tried this that the sopophorus bean was extremely difficult to cut into and likely to fly away if she didn't hold onto it, so she anchored it to the table with one hand and using all the force she had, pressed down with the knife in the other.

It was slow, but eventually, she had the whole bean chopped up and she added the pieces to the cauldron. Then she increased the heat so that the bits of bean would melt into the rest of the potion and stirred. Here came the long part.

Victoire pulled up a chair and got comfortable. The potion was on a high heat, which meant she had to keep an eye on it, but it also had to sit there for seventy minutes. She waited for it to start boiling, and then turned the heat down just a little, but keeping it still high enough that the solid particles would mix in.

This would be the perfect opportunity to revise for other classes, Victoire thought. Unfortunately, they weren't allowed to bring any notes into the exam, in case they tried to cheat. Instead, Victoire glanced around the room, curious to see what everyone else was doing.

At the next bench over, Kara was adding lethe river water to her potion. It looked like she was brewing a forgetfulness potion and Victoire blanched. She hadn't known potions from last year were testable material too! It was a good thing she'd gotten one she'd studied, because Kara looked completely lost, unsure which direction to stir.

At the table in front of her, Brianna was grinding up some lavender. It looked like she might have gotten stuck with the hair-raising potion, but Victoire couldn't be sure.

She looked around the rest of the room, wondering who else had gotten the Sleeping Draught. Sara Pucey was just sitting and watching her cauldron with a bored expression, so Victoire surmised that she was probably brewing the same thing as Victoire. Looking around the other side of the room, she noticed William Shimpling struggling with his sopophorus bean and figured he was brewing a Sleeping Draught as well. She couldn't look behind herself without it looking like she was trying to cheat, so after checking out all the classmates she could see, Victoire returned her attention to her cauldron.

The potion was starting to turn a lovely green color. Victoire tried to remember if that's what she wanted, but couldn't remember. She wanted to stir the potion, but she knew that she might mess it up if she did, so she resisted the urge, just waiting and hoping it would turn out all right. When the seventy minutes were up, she began to sprinkle some asphodel into it. When it started turning yellow, she stopped and threw in the tablespoon of dried nettles, heating the potion just a tad until it started to boil again.

She stirred slowly as the potion was drained of all color and once it was clear, she removed it from the heat and dipped her ladle in, pouring it into the vial she'd been given. She labelled the vial with her name and the name of the potion she was trying to make and brought it up to the front.

"Thank you Victoire," Professor Abbott-Longbottom said, taking her vial and putting it with the rest of them. "As soon as you've cleaned up, you can go."

Victoire hurried back to her station and started cleaning out her cauldron. She wished they had learned the cleaning spells in Charms so that they wouldn't have to clean this way, but cleaning spells were more advanced than second years were ready for and Victoire wasn't all that good with Charms anyway.

Once her cauldron was clean, she did a quick rinse of her knife, mortar, and pestle, and then she wiped her station clean with a rag, tossing it into the sink at the side of the room. Satisfied, Victoire grabbed her bag from the back of the room and left, sitting down outside the classroom with her Transfiguration notes while she waited for Kara and Brianna.

"That was awful!" Kara exclaimed, emerging moments later and sitting down next to Victoire. "I didn't know she was going to ask us to brew things from first year. It's been months since I've reviewed the recipe for forgetfulness potion!"

"I'm sure you did fine," Victoire assured her.

"I'm not!" Kara cried. "My potion was green. Green. That's a far cry from the deep purple I was shooting for."

"Maybe it's not as bad as you think," Victoire said. "You probably only missed one step somewhere. You'll still get a decent grade."

"I hope so," Kara said. "What'd you get?"

"Sleeping Draught," Victoire replied.

"Oh, I'm jealous!" Kara cried. "I could brew a Sleeping Draught in my sleep. Did you get the right color?"

"Yeah," Victoire said. "But I might have let it simmer for a little too long when I had to go back to get a sopophorus bean. I forgot about it when I was in the storeroom the first time."

"Oh yeah, I noticed you ran back there," Kara said. "Well I'm sure it's not a big deal. It probably didn't affect the potion at all."

"I hope not," Victoire said. "But it's over now, and there's nothing I can do about it."

Brianna joined them ten minutes later and they all hurried to the library to keep on studying. Victoire had been right. Brianna had been required to brew a hair-raising potion. She seemed confident enough about it, but Victoire wondered it if was because she didn't want to worry herself about the things she might've done wrong.

Tuesday morning was no different than Monday morning. The Great Hall was quiet as everyone revised for the day's exams. On the bright side, the second-year Transfiguration exam was written, not practical, which Victoire found significantly less stressful.

It went alright. There were twenty-three questions and only four had Victoire questioning herself, so she knew she couldn't have done too badly. Brianna seemed extremely proud of herself when they emerged from Professor Tonks' classroom for lunch and another afternoon of revision and Victoire had to keep reminding herself that she couldn't let other people's successes or failures affect her concentration.

Wednesday was the worst day for Victoire. It was the day of their Charms exam, and Professor Flitwick was going to be testing their practical skills individually. After breakfast, the second years gathered in the hall and one by one, Professor Flitwick called them in for their exams.

It was even more stressful waiting for her turn than it was to actually do an exam, Victoire thought. Professor Flitwick was going alphabetically, which meant that she would be one of the last people called. When Kara's turn came, Victoire and Brianna wished her luck, even though they both knew she didn't need it. Kara was a natural at Charms. She would pass with flying colors.

Brianna's turn came immediately after Kara's, which left Victoire on her own, worrying about how she was going to do. Nobody was returning after their exams were done, suggesting that Professor Flitwick was sending them out by another route to keep them from divulging details of the exam to their friends.

When Victoire's turn finally came, she got up shakily and walked into the classroom. Professor Flitwick sat down at his desk at the front of the room, indicating that Victoire should sit in the chair opposite him.

"This is going to be a very straightforward exam," Professor Flitwick said. "So don't worry about a thing. Now, first thing, can you please levitate that chair over there." He pointed to a nearby chair that was lying on it's side, probably from being dropped by the last student. Victoire had suspected, after what happened in potions, that she might be tested on first year material in her other classes, so she'd practiced her first year charms the night before.

She pointed her wand at the chair and cast the spell flawlessly, causing the chair to float up into the air.

"Excellent," Professor Flitwick said. "Now if you could just put it back down standing up straight please."

This was easier said than done. Levitating was easy, but the difficult part was controlling the orientation of the levitated object. Victoire tried her best, and almost managed to sit the chair down nicely, but she lost control at the end and the chair ended up on it's side.

"Alright," Professor Flitwick muttered, making a note on the test paper. "Now if you could please light a fire in that fireplace." He pointed to the fireplace in question – which Victoire was pretty sure hadn't existed the last time she'd been in the room. Luckily, Victoire was quite good at making fires, always having to make them in potions class, and she had no trouble doing it now.

"Lovely," her Professor said. "Now if you could please enlarge this inkwell to twice it's normal size?"

Victoire took a deep breath and focused. She could do this. Teddy had helped her with the engorgement charm and she'd practiced it many times. She just had to remember to keep her wand movement fluid.

"Engorgio," Victoire said. When nothing happened, her heart sank.

"Give it another try," Professor Flitwick suggested.

Victoire tried again and still nothing happened.

"I swear, I can do this spell," Victoire insisted.

"Perhaps we should move on – "

"No, I can do this!" Victoire cried. She cast the spell one more time and finally, she succeeded in making the inkwell grow.

"Excellent," Professor Flitwick said, making a note. Victoire was pretty sure she'd lost points for the number of attempts it had taken her, but at least she'd managed to cast the spell in the end.

Professor Flitwick had her do another three spells before announcing that the exam was over.

"Did I do alright?" Victoire asked nervously.

"You did fine, my dear," Professor Flitwick assured her. "Now go on, out the back door."

He pointed to a door that Victoire had never seen before. She walked through it and suddenly found herself on the sixth floor, completely across the castle.

"He really didn't want us going back to tell anyone about the exam," she muttered to herself, finding her bearings so that she could return to Gryffindor Tower to study for her Astronomy Exam the following evening.

Because the Astronomy exam was at night, the second years had the whole of Thursday to study. That evening, they simply had to map the stars in the sky and label them correctly. It seemed simple enough, but Victoire was worried she may have mixed up a couple of the planets.

On Friday, the second years had a break from exams because they'd had to stay up late the night before, which meant they had a long weekend to prepare for the following week's exams. There were only three exams remaining; Defence, Herbology, and History of Magic.

"I can't wait until Wednesday night," Brianna sighed as they poured over their History notes. "Exams will be over and done with, and we can just relax."

"Yeah, but first we have to make it through these last three," Victoire grumbled.

Monday was their History of Magic exam, which was a three-hour long period where they had to sit and write three mini-essays on the topics they'd covered that year. Luckily for Victoire, one of the questions was about the International Warlock Convention of 1289, a topic she knew a great deal about. She didn't feel too confident about the other two essays though, and hoped that the one she did have a lot to say about would boost her grade.

On Tuesday, they had their Defence exams. Similar to their Charms exams the week before, they were each called into the classroom one by one to do their exams. Once again, their Professor called them alphabetically, which meant that Victoire had to wait until the end.

"He's making us all duel him one on one!" Nathan Abram said when he emerged from the exam twenty minutes later. "It was awful."

This only made everyone panic even more. When Victoire's turn came, she was a complete puddle of nerves.

"Leave your bag by the door," Professor Leftbridge instructed when she entered. "You'll just need your wand."

Victoire did as instructed and moved to the center of the room, which had been cleared of all desks, to face off with her Professor.

"I'm sure you've heard by now," Professor Leftbridge said. "We're going to duel either for fifteen minutes, or until one of us gives up. If you're able to beat me, you get an automatic O."

"How would I beat you?" Victoire asked. "Obviously we're not dueling to kill here."

"Since this is a second-year exam and I'm not expecting you to know any spells we haven't learned in class, a win for you would be capturing my wand," Professor Leftbridge told her. "As for me, I will only be using spells that we've covered in class so that the duel will be perfectly fair. Are you ready?"

Victoire took a deep breath and nodded. Her Professor began by sending a Knockback Jinx in Victoire's direction. She managed to dodge it and returned with a Tickling Charm that Professor Leftbridge dodged with style.

Her Professor continued sending spells her way and panicking that she wouldn't be able to dodge them all, Victoire threw up a Protection Spell. She couldn't attack from behind it though, so she prepared herself to cast a disarming spell and lowered her protection between attacks from her Professor.

The Disarming spell missed, hitting the window behind her Professor and shattering it. In her distraction, Victoire didn't notice Professor Leftbridge send a Disarming spell her way, and suddenly her wand was jumping out of her hand and sailing through the air to be caught by her Professor.

"Did I just fail?" Victoire asked nervously.

"Not at all," Professor Leftbridge assured her, tossing her wand back. "You actually held your own very well until you got distracted by the broken window."

"So I passed?" Victoire asked.

"Don't worry Victoire, you did fine," her Professor assured her. "Can you please send in Lia Weston on your way out?"

The next day was the day of their final exam; Herbology. It was a written exam, thankfully. Victoire actually felt quite confident about this last exam, and even took some time off studying that night to touch up her fingernails.

"How are you not freaking out?" Brianna demanded as she and Kara poured over their notes.

"Herbology's just not that hard for me," Victoire shrugged.

"Oh, stop bragging," Kara muttered. "Just because you got an O in it last year doesn't mean you're a genius."

The exam turned out to be even easier than Victoire had expected. When they walked out of their final exam, she felt extremely good about it.

The next week was utter torture. Everyone was waiting for their exam results and the anticipation was killing them. Victoire was still convinced she was going to fail Charms for not being able to enlarge the inkwell on her first few tries, and Kara was convinced she'd failed potions because she'd forgotten to add the lavender to her forgetfulness potion.

Finally, their exam results were ready to be viewed. As soon as the announcement went out, the girls hurried down to Professor Longbottom's office to receive their reports. Victoire was extremely happy to find that she'd maintained her Outstanding's in Herbology and Potions. Her Charms grade had gone down to an A, but she was just happy she'd passed. Her Astronomy grade had also gone from an E to an A, but her Defence mark actually increased to an E. Victoire was a little surprised by that one. Transfiguration and History of Magic remained A's. All in all, Victoire was quite satisfied with her report.

When the day of the final Quidditch match of the season came around, Victoire and her friends elected to remain in Gryffindor Tower instead of forcing themselves to sit through the boring game. It was nice, because they basically had the whole common room to themselves.

"So what are you guys going to do this summer?" Kara asked, dealing the card for exploding snap.

"Nothing much," Brianna shrugged.

"My sister's going to be all over me about how she gets to come to Hogwarts next year," Victoire rolled her eyes. "She'll want to know everything. I'm not going to get a second of peace."

"What about you?" Brianna asked Kara. "Are you doing anything special?"

"My parents were thinking of taking me on a trip to Italy in August," Kara said. "It's not for sure or anything, but I'm pretty excited."

"That's so cool!" Victoire cried. "If you go, you have to tell us all about it! I've always wanted to go to Italy. My Aunt Gabrielle has been and she says it's just spectacular."

"I'll write you guys every night," Kara assured them.

It turned out that Gryffindor had won the Quidditch Cup that year. The girls discovered this when suddenly, hoards of Gryffindors started pouring into the common room, bearing the team players on their shoulders. In moments, there was music playing and food seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

"Do you guys want to go upstairs?" Victoire suggested when it started to get so loud they could barely hear each other.

Kara and Brianna nodded and they hurried up to the dorms, shutting the door firmly behind them.

"This school gets way too worked up about Quidditch," Victoire muttered.

"I am going to pretend I did not just hear that," Caitlin said, surprising them.

"Caitlin, why aren't you down at the party?" Brianna asked.

"I was just changing my clothes," Caitlin said. "If I'm going to make a good impression on Claudia Coude, then tonight's the night."

She hurried back downstairs to the party and Brianna rolled her eyes.

"I'll never understand that girl," she said.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Well, this is it," Kara sighed the following morning as the girls dragged their trunks out of the dorm. The Hogwarts Express was leaving at nine and they wouldn't be back for two months.

"It was a fun year," Brianna said.

"You know," Victoire said. "I think I'm going to miss this room."

After a quick breakfast, the girls found themselves boarding the train, and soon they were speeding down the tracks, on their way back to London. Before they knew it, they were pulling into King's Cross and the conductor was announcing that they all had to get off.

"Well… bye," Victoire said, giving each of her friends big hugs.

"See you in September," Kara said.

"Don't have too much fun in Italy without us," Brianna told her.

Victoire rolled her suitcase down the corridor and lugged it off the train, wheeling it down the platform until she found her family.

"Maman! Papa! Dominique! Louis!" she cried, hugging each of her family members. "I've missed you all terribly."

"We've missed you too chèrie," her mother said.

"Papa let me paint my room purple," Dominique announced proudly. "It's so pretty, I can't wait for you to see it."

"Should we get some ice cream?" papa suggested.

"Yes!" Louis shouted loudly.

Victoire chuckled. "Ice cream sounds great," she said, loving their new family tradition.

As they passed through the barrier back into the Muggle world, Victoire turned back and took one last look at the Hogwarts Express. I'll be back soon, she thought. Third year, here I come.