Chapter Nineteen: Final Exams
Melissa had an Ancient Runes test, so she begged out of Richard's assignment. "But I'll help if I can," she said anxiously.
"Just pass your test," Beth said with a sigh. "The three of us can do it."
As it turned out, a long Potions lab prevented much more that a few quick chats and some shallow research. Beth didn't feel much more knowledgeable than she had been before. When they got up to present their findings that Thursday, it was little more than a review of what they already knew.
Beth started in with what she'd seen and her original theory. "So you can see why I thought it was the Baron at first."
Daedalus rubbed his left arm unconsciously. "But the Baron can't even drink."
"Richard told us," Beth agreed.
Bruce spoke up. "That's what made me think a little. Someone who needs this kind of thing can't really get it. You know? Like, if you're weak enough to need the Sorcerer's Stone, how are you going to break into a bank to get it? Or if you need unicorn blood that badly, how do you have enough strength to kill a unicorn?"
Several members nodded.
"So we can't really go with a physical description," Beth finished. "Because whoever is doing all this is doing it for someone else who can't."
"All right," said Richard thoughtfully. "Then who?"
Bruce looked at his shoes. "That's where we're stuck."
"We thought maybe a ghost, or someone who's dying," Beth said. "Maybe one of the students has a brother or something who needs to be cured."
"Maybe," said Vivian, but Mervin interrupted.
"No, no, that's not it," he snapped. "We talked about this too. That's a good cause. If my mom was dying, I'd just ask for the Stone from whoever owns it."
"Flaversham, or something," said Uther.
"More like Flannel, I think," Bruce said.
"Flamel, Nicholas Flamel," Jerome clarified. "I had to learn about him for the N.E.W.T.s. Mervin's right. Why break into a bank or kill something if it's a good cause? It's got to be something that no one would let them use unicorn blood for, if they knew about it."
Vivian laughed. "All right then, we're Slytherins, right? Let's think of bad causes."
"Making money," said Melissa immediately.
"Power, blackmail maybe," said Uther.
"Maybe to bring back someone who ought to stay dead," suggested Daedalus.
"To hurt Flannel."
"Flamel."
"Or to keep someone else from having it."
"Wait, wait." Richard's eyes were wide. "How about this. I like what Daedalus said, to bring back someone that should stay dead. Add in the power thing. Who can you think of that's dead but not gone, and power-hungry to boot?"
Melissa let out a little nervous giggle. "The Dark Lord."
"Exactly."
The Vase Room burst into cacophony. "I was kidding," cried Melissa.
"Why would You-Know-Who be trying to come back now?"
"You're off it this time, Rich."
"Oh come on, wouldn't someone know it if he was trying something? What about Dumbledore?"
Richard waved his hands. "Think about it! He's got the need and he's got the followers to do it. No one should know better than us that there are still Death Eaters out there." Riggs grimaced. "Plus if he gets hold of something to bring him back, and it's at Hogwarts, he gets a shot at taking out the Potter kid at the same time."
Bruce, apparently remembering the Quidditch match, got a look that said he wouldn't mind taking out the Potter kid.
"I guess it's possible, Rich," Vivian said slowly, "but if it is You-Know-Who, what are we supposed to do about it?"
Richard bit his lower lip. "Don't know. Guard the corridor, maybe."
Riggs looked pained. "But the O.W.L.s are in a week --"
"Oh, buck up," boomed Uther, giving Riggs a pat on the back that nearly sent him flying. "You'll get more O.W.L.s than the people giving you the test."
"We could take shifts," Daedalus suggested. "Keep an eye on it. No one would try to break in if we were standing around."
"No, they'd kill us and then break in," said Mervin sardonically.
"Won't it be sort of suspicious, for us to be hanging around the forbidden corridor?" Melissa added in a reasonable voice.
Richard looked irritable. "All right then, we don't have to guard the corridor. But keep listening around. Pass it as often as you can. Because if it's really the Dark Lord who wants to get the Stone, the stakes are higher than we ever thought."
Finals week dropped on them like a tornado.
Suddenly Beth found herself spending more time away from her dormitory than ever before. Classes merged into study groups. People started taking pillows to the library with them, and some of the older students went to work on mixing potions that would let you stay up all night, which they sold underground to desperate crammers. The third-years were beside themselves, with six tests looming in a scant four days.
Beth and Melissa spent the afternoon in the Vase Room, struggling to transform a toad into a mouse. Their final result was green-furred and large-eyed.
"I've had it!" Beth shrieked, as the creature croaked lazily, revealing a pair of buckteeth. "This is good enough to pass, isn't it?"
Melissa shrugged. "If you say so. I'm going back to practice in the common room. Someone there can probably fix this thing up." The animal's slimy tail wiggled back and forth tauntingly. She started to pack up her books. "The Vase Room is always empty these days. Since O.W.L.s, N.E.W.T.s and finals are almost here, it's as if no one but the third-years want to study here."
Beth shook her head. "Vivian said they're all in the library."
"All right, then I'll be in the library. See you at dinner."
"See you there."
As soon as Melissa had left, Beth fell back on Vivian's divan in frustration. This was the worst time of the year. To top it all off, the idea that the Dark Lord might be lurking about was an unnerving one. The night before, Beth had laid awake expecting an angry, twisted head to poke through the curtains of her canopy bed and -- well, she never let herself think that far. She had trouble sleeping already.
WHAM! The door to the Vase Room slammed shut and Beth's eyes flew open. She sat up with a start.
Mervin came into the room lugging his cauldron, stuffed to the brim with books and bottles of ingredients. "Couldn't help me carry this, could you?" he gasped, arms quivering.
Beth rushed to catch the heavy cauldron as it slid out of his arms. "Haven't you got that shrinking potion right yet?" she asked as she set it on Vivian's divan.
"No," said Mervin, sounding discouraged. "I've killed off four capons and the other two disappeared completely. Hagrid's going to start wondering where his chickens are getting to." He started setting up his ingredients on the divan.
Beth helped him. "Let me watch what you're doing, maybe I can tell what's wrong."
Mervin scowled but didn't make her leave once he started mixing the potion. Beth had to try hard not to criticize the way he was stirring it, although she did comment on the inadequacy of pewter cauldrons. About halfway through she caught the error.
"That must be it -- look, rat liver, not gnat liver."
Martin took a closer look at his recipe. "Someone got a bug on it," he grumbled, brushing away a flattened fly to reveal the actual ingredients.
"Actually I'm impressed. Must have been tricky to get a liver out of a gnat."
"Well, I had to use an Engorgement Charm."
By the time Mervin had succeeded in turning a half-grown chicken back into an egg, Beth was sick unto death of Potions.
"I'm going to work on Arithmancy," she announced half-heartedly. Mervin grunted back, too caught up in his own studies to speak coherently. Beth collected her things and headed to the library, where she spent hours trying to remember names like Pythagoras, Euler and Euclid. When she thought her head would burst, she stumbled to bed, and then she woke up and did the same thing over again ... and again ...
... and before she knew it, the actual test time had come.
In a way, taking the final exams was more relaxing than studying for them. It was a wonderful feeling to have the burden of each class taken off one by one, until there was nothing more she could do about her grades and she was too tired to care. Arithmancy was a special beast: there were only three problems on the test, and each of them took two feet of parchment to finish. Nevertheless, she didn't feel battered by any of them, which was more than some students could say.
The last exam was Potions with Professor Snape. It was run like an extremely long class, with all of the necessary ingredients stocked away so that you had to know what you were looking for. It was late in the evening before Beth stumbled back to the dormitories, dazed but triumphant.
She flopped back onto her bed, not bothering to close the canopies. For once in her life, she thought that she never wanted to mix another potion.
The sound of footsteps came crashing up the staircase.