CHAPTER 30

The Quidditch match against Ravenclaw fell just one week after their end of year exams. Harry had no idea how it could be so soon. So now the teachers and Katie Bell were nagging at them to practise.

"Ron, you're not even looking at it!" Hermione snapped, handing Harry and Ron another perfectly neat timetable. "If you don't follow it, you're not going to do very well in the exams!"

"I don't understand all these things!" Ron moaned grabbing Hermione's notes and skimming through them. "I can't learn these by next week!" He threw them back to Hermione as though they were poisonous snakes.

"Well you should have started revising earlier like me instead of leaving it to the last minute."

"It's not the last minute! We've still got over a week!"

Harry turned back to his Defence against the dark arts book and began to read. He knew most of it already. "Accio Hermione!" Ron tried again with his face burrowed in the same book as Harry.

"That's not likely to work." Hermione told him. "You're not supposed to summon people, it's books and quills."

"Accio Hermione!" Ron tried again. Hermione frowned and opened a charms for the advanced book, similar to Gretchen's. "Accio Hermione!" Ron bellowed. Hermione swayed slightly but it didn't do any good. "Accio quill." Ron snapped gloomily as the quill came gliding easily over to him.

The exams drew nearer and nearer. Harry, Ron and Hermione spent one lunchtime out in the sweltering heat of Hogwarts' grounds. They were sitting under the exact same tree Harry had seen his father under in the pensive. Hermione pulled from her back a large stack of books and opened the top one. "I got them from the library." She explained and vanished behind the book.

"Oh this is so hopeless! I'm going to do worse than Fred and George!" Ginny snapped throwing the book from her. She was over by the lake with Scarlett and was evidently revising for her OWLs. "Oh that's just great!" She snapped as her book landed in the water. "Like it's any use to me anyway."

Without warning, the branch above them shook, and Luna jumped down. She had a book under her arm. "I'm going up to the castle." She explained. "It's too hot here."

"Luna wait!" Harry called. He still hadn't completely recovered from the shock of Luna jumping out of the sky. "Ginny saw you in the forest last week, what were you doing. It was the middle of the night."

Luna shrugged. She didn't seem to be very keen on the topic. "I'll see you soon." She mumbled and vanished. Harry sunk back down to where Hermione had begun her notes again.

"Can you test me on this?" Hermione asked them.

"I wonder why she was coming from the forest." Harry said thoughtfully.

"Maybe it's got something to do With Anna Chang, Ginny said she saw her with Luna once."

"Yeah, maybe."

The exams loomed ever closer. They were given their exam timetables and Hermione had stuck hers on the front of her Homework planner. Harry couldn't believe they were so near. Ron was apparently feeling the same way. "Why is it, that time goes really slow when you want it to go fast and then it goes really fast when you want it to go slow. Hermione?" Ron asked her.

"I don't know Ron!" Hermione snapped. She was in another bad mood. "Look, I need to learn all of this by tomorrow! Why aren't you?!"

"I've already learnt it!" Ron said outraged. "Test me!"

"Ok, what is the wand movement needed for the banishing charm?" Hermione asked him, still scribbling notes.

"Um... I don't know that one, but test me on something else."

By the end of the day, the number of students either scribbling furiously, or muttering spells to themselves had doubled. "I'm going to fail!" or "How can I learn this with only a few hours left!" Could be heard throughout the common room. It was past midnight when they finally went to bed. Several hours later, Harry remained awake and instead of thinking about the exams, which apparently the others were thinking about, as Dean was sleepily muttering charms and Neville was practising wand movements with his left hand, he found himself thinking about Voldermort. Would he force entry again? What if Dumbledore wasn't here? He had only been asleep for a few hours when he was awoken by Ron.

"Harry come on!" He said, pulling on his socks. "We've got Transfiguration first."

Harry didn't eat much for breakfast. He couldn't remember feeling like this before his previous exams, but somehow, these ones felt slightly more important. No one spoke as they headed down to the Transfiguration classroom; many were frantically doing some last minute revision as they walked.

"That wasn't very difficult." Hermione said to everyone's annoyance when the exam had finished. "I think I got all of the questions."

"My globe still had Wrigley legs!" Seamus complained. "And half the countries were missing."

"My centipede just went blue!" Lavender wailed.

Even Harry had to admit that their defence against the dark arts exam was easy. There were things from boggarts; to blast ended skrewts that he had to duel with. The potions exam wasn't as difficult as Harry had imagined, and then after potions, they could at last relax in the common room. All apart from Hermione who was revising for charms and care of magical creatures the next day.

"We have to breed from it?" Ron asked Hagrid again, looking excited. Their care of magical creatures exam was to produce healthy baby Mucostiles by the end of the hour.

"Mine didn't have a heart." Parvati said nervously afterwards. "Do you think I'll be marked down for that?"

"I got three!" Ron grinned happily.

Then in the charms exam, Ron managed to banish Hermione successfully and received full marks because of the size of the object he was banishing.

At the end of the week every one of the Gryffindor sixth years were exhausted. Ginny was moaning that she couldn't vanish her pencil in the Transfiguration exam, and Hermione had her nose buried in a book and was searching to make sure she got everything right.

A/N: Sorry about the short chapter... I'll try and make it up later!