After the Dawn: The Philosopher's Stone
Chapter Twenty Seven: Exams
Harry did talk to his friends in the morning, and while they were concerned over Voldemort being in the forest, Hermione and Neville both remained perfectly happy to think that Dumbledore was in complete control of the situation and the Stone was perfectly safe – after all, what could three eleven-year-olds do that the formidable Headmaster of Hogwarts couldn't?
Hermione remained firmly of the view that they all had to concentrate on the exams, which were almost upon them. Harry, on one hand, thought that she had a point, and on the other was certain that there was something that he could do ... what if Dumbledore didn't know what was happening? What if he was completely oblivious to Voldemort's presence in the Forbidden Forest ...
The worst thing was, Harry couldn't trust any of his thoughts to letters. Sirius was busy doing his own thing, Harry was sure, and he was also fairly certain that Snape could intercept the students mail ... it wouldn't do to let any word of Harry's suspicions reach Snape's ears.
"I don't know what to do!" Harry ranted one day out by the lake. Neville and Hermione were both in the library, studying, and Harry had taken Blaise out into the grounds to train for a while, because he was bored silly with being locked up inside all day.
"At the moment, I think Hermione is right," Blaise said, "Concentrate on getting full scores in your exams and getting into the next year of Hogwarts. That's the important thing right now. Once the exams are over, we have a week to confirm our suspicions. At the very least we can tell Dumbledore what's going on."
"But what if something happens," Harry fretted.
"Then something happens," Blaise said, "But this castle is safe so long as Dumbledore is here. You know the stories, Dumbledore is the only one that You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. He won't attack while Dumbledore's around."
Harry sighed, "I guess you're right," he said, "But I can't help worrying."
"Just like Hermione can't help worrying about the exams coming up," Blaise teased him. "I'm sure she doesn't completely understand your worry over the stone being more important than studies."
"Blaise, if the Stone gets taken by Voldemort, the wizarding world is screwed. If we fail these exams, we just have to repeat the year," Harry pointed out. He hardly noticed when Blaise flinched at the sound of Voldemort's name – Sirius never flinched, and Harry didn't understand why everyone did now. Sure, Voldemort had been evil, but that was no excuse for flinching every time his name was mentioned.
"And if Hermione had to repeat the year, or worse yet, leave the school, she would probably die, Nemo. She couldn't go back to a Muggle life knowing that she'd seen magic, held it for a moment, then lost it completely just because she failed a test."
Harry shrugged, he hadn't really thought about it that way. He'd been around magic his entire life, and couldn't imagine life without it ... and he knew that even if they tried to snap his wand, he would be able to do magic anyway. Hermione didn't have that option. "Let's go back inside," he sighed, "Maybe as we're studying I'll find some hint of what's to come and get a head start on Voldemort."
"Must you keep saying his name?" Blaise asked plaintively. "It's ... weird."
"Well, if you hang out with me for long enough, it'll stop being weird and start being normal. Then you'll start saying it yourself and you'll realise how silly you were for being afraid of a name, of all things."
Blaise gave him a look, as if she didn't believe him in the slightest. Harry only sighed and they walked back indoors. After the incident in the Forest, Blaise reported that Draco Malfoy was acting somewhat subdued, but that his hatred of Harry seemed to have increased greatly.
"Hey Hermione," Harry said as they walked into the library where Hermione and Neville were studying frantically.
"Shush," Hermione said impatiently, and went back to reciting the Werewolf Code of Conduct – just in case it was in their exams, even though Professor Binns had certainly made out like it wouldn't be necessary.
Harry rolled his eyes at Blaise and Neville, and sat down, pulling a book toward him and starting reading about Goblin Rebellions. The book was extremely dull, and Harry reflected that the saddest thing about that was that it was far more interesting than the teacher himself.
Then again, the only bright point of Binns' classes was the fact that he entered the classroom through the blackboard, and after nearly a year of this, it was starting to lose its novelty.
Fred and George had told Harry that Binns never changed. He'd been entering the classroom for years, ever since he'd fallen asleep in front of the fire, and gotten up the next morning to teach, leaving his dead body behind him, and had gone on teaching for many years since.
"No one's too sure when he died, but it was a while ago," Fred grinned at Harry. "And the worst thing about it is, it's really quite hard to prank a ghost. The only thing you can really do is freeze them, and that wears off, and through things at them, which is stupid because it goes right through them. There are only a few ghosts who get emotional about things like that."
Harry had heard what they'd said, and immediately put himself to thinking of a prank that would be possible to play on the dull Professor Binns.
Five minutes after opening the book on Goblins, Harry realised that he'd become caught up in thinking of pranks, and hadn't read a single word. He shook himself and got to studying – after all, the exams were now really starting to creep up on them.
Harry, Hermione, Blaise and Neville studied hard until the sun began set, and dinner time came around. After dinner, Hermione dragged Harry and Neville up to the Gryffindor common room and tried to get them to study more. Soon after, Harry abandoned the other two and went to bed, resolving that he couldn't learn that much by reading words when he was far too tired to pay much attention to what he was reading.
Hermione tried to convince him to stay, and Neville cast longing looks at the stairs to the boys dormitory, as if wishing that he could turn against Hermione's command and go and sleep himself.
"Don't stay up too late, otherwise you'll be really tired in class tomorrow," Harry called over his shoulder, and Hermione nodded. That was Harry's only means of convincing her that she should get some sleep, and it had worked ever since he'd befriended her.
"Think you're so good, don't you," Ron Weasley was up in the dormitory, "Think you don't need to study because you already know it all, don't you?" he was reading a large book on Defence Against the Dark Arts while lying on his bed.
"Not at all," Harry replied, "I just know when to quit."
He went into the bathroom to shower and prepare for bed. He always tried to take two showers, at the very least, each day. When he was on holidays and in his natural environment at Potter Mansion, he showered after every training programme or other physical exercise, because it felt good to get the sweat off his skin. That practice was one that he kept up, even when he didn't do much physical exercise during the day.
When Harry returned to the dormitory, Ron had pulled his drapes closed, but there was still a light coming from behind them, so Harry figured that this was the other boys way of ignoring him.
Well, it wasn't as if he cared. Fred and George were his good friends, and Ron hadn't made himself seem like a particularly good person to have as a friend, though he certainly seemed fairly loyal to Seamus and Dean, who'd befriended him.
Feeling the need for something humorous and thoughtless, Harry pulled out the latest edition of 'Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle' comic book, which, while funny, was pretty inaccurate. He usually didn't care for the series, but when he was tired and not in the mood to think, he often read the latest escapades, and it did provide a nice change to the text books he'd been reading so much of late.
It did not take long for the need to sleep to overtake reading about Martin's adventures when she wandered right into the Ministry of Magic (never mind that this was an impossible feat).
By the time Neville staggered upstairs, Harry was fast asleep and Ron had fallen asleep with wand still alight, though the light was changing from the pale gold-white it was supposed to be to a sort of sickly green, then blue. Harry would have probably found this a little sad, had he been awake to see it.
The time before the exams flew away, and soon enough they were upon the students. It wasn't just first year, which Harry thought was a bit of a relief. Percy Weasley, the Prefect who Harry also didn't particularly like, had his OWLs, the Twins both had third year exams to sit and the older students, who Harry didn't have much to do with, were taking their NEWTs.
All the first exams were the practicals, and Harry knew that these would be very easy for him – though it didn't help to have Hermione sitting beside him as they each waited for their turn at doing at each task. She would be muttering about different spells that they might need, fretting that they might not have learned them, and wouldn't listen to a word anyone else said.
In Charms, they had to make a pineapple tap-dance across the desk. To get higher marks, Harry charmed lights and music for it to dance to, which Flitwick seemed to think was pretty brilliant.
In Transfiguration, they had turn to a mouse into a snuff-box. You got points for how pretty the snuff box was. Again, Harry was pretty sure he got full marks – if he'd been anyone else, he probably wouldn't have, because his magic didn't seem to want to let him perform the spell, so he made the movements, said the words, then lashed out with Wandless magic to make it do what he wanted. Probably not the best method, but Harry couldn't help it – it was second nature to rely on his Wandless magic when normal magic failed.
The practical exams went by too quickly for Harry's tastes – at least he had a fall back plan if he couldn't remember the spells, after all ... However, he'd been frantically revising everything they'd been taught this year with Hermione, so he was fairly sure he'd do alright.
The only problem, of course, was that he had very little concentrating – thinking that Voldemort would come bursting through the door at any moment kind of did that to a person.
But he did alright, he knew, when he'd finished the exams. It was a relief in more ways than one to put down his quill and stop having to think about different goblin leaders, or the three different ways you could transfigure a small object into another small object. The main relief, however, was that now he could think of what he should do to keep Voldemort away from the Stone. Snape as well, since it was obvious that the man was working for Voldemort in trying to get the Stone.
He wrote a letter to Sirius telling him that he'd gone well on the exams, but that there were problems at school. He wanted his godfather's familiar presence to keep the danger at bay, but at the same time, he wanted to try and handle it for himself, to show himself that he could get by without Sirius there to watch over his every step.
He, Neville, Hermione and Blaise spent a lot of time together in the lazy period after the exams were over, sometimes just sitting, at others practicing, though, with the British summer approaching, there was a lot less practicing going on.
They spent most of their time in the grounds, lolling around near the lake, talking about the Philosopher's Stone and what they could hope to do about it all.
They came to the conclusion that they'd have to talk to Dumbledore about it, but then they were faced with the dilemma of how to find his office. As Harry watched an owl winging it's way toward the castle, he had an idea, "Wouldn't Hagrid know where his office was?" he asked, and so they decided to go and see their friend in his little cabin down by the Forest, though Harry didn't like venturing any closer to the Forest than he had to.
Earlier in the week, the day after the exams were over, Harry, Neville and Hermione had introduced Blaise to Hagrid, and the pair of them had seemed to like each other quite a lot.
When they reached Hagrid's hut, he was sitting outside, in the shadow of the doorway, shelling peas. "Afternoon you four," Hagrid greeted them pleasantly, "How about a nice cold drink, eh?"
"Yes please Hagrid!" the four answered, almost as one, and they moved inside. Hagrid poured them all glasses of chilled pumpkin juice, and they sat around his large table, sipping quietly, each of the visitors wondering how to bring up the subject of the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort, and the need to get to Dumbledore's office and explain what they thought was going on.
Harry noted a charred spot on the bottom of the door, and, not for the first time, wondered how Hagrid had gotten his dragon – there must be more to it than meeting someone down in the pub and finding that the man had a dragon egg.
"Hagrid, how exactly did you get Norbert's egg?" Harry asked.
"I tol' yeh about this already," Hagrid told him.
"I know, but could you tell me again?"
"I won 'im, from a Greek chappie in the pub," Hagrid said, repeating what he'd told them the last time they'd asked.
"Won him?"
"We played cards," Hagrid replied, "I tol' the man I'd always wanted a dragon, and he said he had an egg, and that we could play cards for it, if I liked."
"And of course, you said yes," Harry deduced.
"'Course, I've always wanted a dragon," Hagrid smiled at the memory.
"Did the game seem fairly easy, to you?" Harry enquired, half hoping Hagrid would say no, half hoping he'd say yes.
"Can' quite remember," Hagrid replied, "Fella kept buying me drinks."
"Did you tell him much about Hogwarts?" Harry asked, already realising that Hagrid had made a mistake in taking so many drinks.
"Well," Hagrid said, thinking back, "Musta cum up sometime ... lemme see ... yeah, the fella wanted to know if I'd be alright to cope with raising a dragon – not many people could, yeh know."
"Yeah, I figured," Harry said darkly, remembering the bite he'd received, and thanking the powers that be that Sirius had been around to help out. "What did you tell him?"
"Well, I told him that after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy," Hagrid replied.
"Was he interested in Fluffy?"
"Well, o' course he was. There aren't that many three headed dogs around now a days," Hagrid said.
"What did you tell him?"
"Oh, I tol' him that Fluffy was a piece of cake, just play him a bit of music and he'd go right off to sleep," Hagrid replied, then looked panicked, "I shouldn'ta told yeh that!"
"Forget shouldn't tell us, you told a complete stranger, who was likely a criminal of some sort, exactly how to get past Fluffy!" Harry said. Hagrid looked even more panicked than before.
"I have to go and see Professor Dumbledore ... tell him he should sack me," Hagrid said, and was gone before any of the first year friends could respond.
"We'd better go after him," Harry said, "Tell Dumbledore we think it's Snape under that Cloak, and that we think he's after the Ruby to give to the Dark One."
The 'Dark One' was, predictably enough, Voldemort, but should anyone ask what it was in reference to the cover story, the 'Dark One' was named that because of Voldemort, and the name was based on Sauron from 'Lord of the Rings,' so that their families could understand what was going on.
Blaise, Neville and Hermione all nodded, so the group quickly tossed back the last of the pumpkin juice, and hurried after Hagrid, who was already half way to the castle.
"We should run," Harry said, "He's way ahead of us, and we don't want to lose him when we reach the castle." Groaning, his friends followed him into a jog which was very uncomfortable in the Summer heat.
Up in the castle, they discovered that they had managed to lose Hagrid anyway, much to their dismay. They wondered around listlessly for awhile, half searching for Hagrid. Harry had never paid much attention to the location of Dumbledore's office on the Marauders map, and had left the map in the common room – by the time they reached it, Hagrid would have left anyway.
"What are you four doing inside on a lovely day like today?" Professor McGonagall asked from behind them.
The foursome spun around, "Professor!" Harry exclaimed, "We need to speak to Professor Dumbledore! It's really urgent!" he wanted to talk to the Headmaster in any case, whether Hagrid was or not.
"I'm afraid you are out of luck, Mr. Proctetium, Professor Dumbledore has left to go to the Ministry of Magic, and won't be back until tomorrow at the very earliest."
"He's left? Now? But he can't have!" Harry said, feeling panic raising inside of him.
"Are you trying to say that you are more important than the Minister of Magic, Mr. Protectium?" McGonagall demanded coolly. "You are only an eleven year old child, and the Minister himself has requested Professor Dumbledore's immediate attention. Go back outside, and contact me about seeing the Headmaster tomorrow afternoon, when he should have returned."
"But!"
"Run along now, all of you," McGonagall interrupted and sent them going with a dangerous little frown. Harry and his three friends went outside and skirted the grounds until they found somewhere private where it was unlikely that they would be overheard.
"The thief will strike tonight," Harry remarked, "And the ruby will be taken to the Dark One, to give him more power than he has ever had before, now that the Protector has been forced away."
His friends nodded grimly. "What are we going to do? The letter was obviously a lure," Blaise said, "And no one else is about to believe that we're telling the truth and do something about it!"
The three thought for awhile, and eventually Harry voiced what was on everyone's mind, "We'll just have to get the ruby before the thief does," he decided.
"But Nemo! That could be dangerous!" Hermione cried.
"Too bad. We can't let the thief take the ruby to the Dark One!" Harry replied vehemently, "If the Dark One gets hold of it ... who knows what will happen?" he couldn't tell them that his scar had been hurting more and more of late, because, of course, they didn't even know that he had a scar, and despite the fact that he had become good friends with the group, as yet he still didn't want to tell them who he was. He liked just being 'Nemo' for them, rather than the 'Boy Who Lived' or any of the crap he'd heard since returning to the Wizarding World. Besides, everyone still thought he was dead.
"How could we do anything like that?" Hermione asked.
"Well, obviously we'll have to make a plan," Harry said, "I'm sure we'll be able to get through somehow."
"Nemo, the Protectors probably got the finest defences ever, do you really think a group of eleven year olds could get through to the Ruby?" Hermione demanded, arching an eyebrow.
"As long as I'm with you, I reckon we could do it," Harry said, with a confidence he didn't really feel. Sure, he was a Wandless mage, to some extent, but that didn't mean he could get through everything that would have been done.
"Why you?" Blaise asked with interest.
Harry leaned in closer to them, and, instinctively, everyone else leaned in too. "I never told you, because I don't like to make a big deal of it, but I can do Wandless magic, and I'm fairly good at it ... though it gives me a headache if I try to do too much... If we run into anything really hard, I don't doubt that I'll be able to get us through – Wandless magic doesn't require incantations either."
"So it's been you, writing all that stuff in Professor Snape's classes!" Hermione said, gazing at Harry with wonder.
"Yeah," Harry replied uncomfortably, "I only do it when I really feel like a laugh though ... and that last time was because he was being a greasy git. I made him slip in the court yard too, once."
"I remember that!" Neville said, "But I'm surprised you never told us before."
"Like I said, I don't like to play up on it," Harry shrugged, uncomfortable.
"It's always good to keep a weapon in reserve," Blaise remarked sagely, "So if we can get on from that, what are we going to do about tonight? Like Nemo said, we need a plan of action."
Harry nodded. "OK, so I don't think we can have much of a force. It'll restrict our movements, and make it harder to get through the castle without running into anyone," he didn't mention the Marauders Map – as Blaise said, it was always wise to keep a weapon in reserve.
"I'll stay behind, and make sure no one misses you," Neville volunteered, "I don't know how much of a help I'd be, is all."
"You'd be a great help, but you're right, we should probably have someone holding fort, and if you don't mind Neville," Harry said.
"I don't mind at all," Neville assured him. Harry could see that Hermione and Blaise didn't think that Neville would be much help, but he thought that it could be different – after all, Neville's parents had been great Aurors, the both of them.
"Well, I've got the Invisibility Cloak, so if Hermione and I come down to the dungeons at a specific time, I think we could pick up Blaise and get ourselves to the Third Floor Corridor before it gets too late."
"How about nine?" Blaise suggested. "I could get out before then and hide in one of the broom closets or something. No one would miss me."
Harry nodded, "OK, we'll find a central location for you when we go back to the Castle," he said. "The only thing we know we're going to need is a musical instrument of some description."
"I've got a pennywhistle," Blaise said, "I'm pretty good at playing it too."
"Good, that's settled. Hermione, you and I can over some stuff in the library about Charms, Potions, Transfiguration and Herbology," Harry said, "See if we can get a step ahead of the spells we'll no doubt encounter.
"What about Defence Against the Dark Arts?" Hermione asked.
"If Quirrel made it, I don't think it'll be that hard to get through," Harry replied, a little dismissively. He didn't have a very high opinion of Quirrel at all.
"So, that's agreed?" Blaise asked, and everyone nodded, before heading inside to find an appropriate broom cupboard to hide Blaise in after dinner, until it was time to go to the Third Floor.
Well, that's that chapter over and done with – they are getting longer, This one was 4000 words long! And the last chapter was, if I recall correctly, longer! Next chapter is 'Through the Trapdoor' – wow, this story is nearly over. It feels as if it's been going on forever! When I finish this story, I'll be moving on to Shines A Light, so In Every Darkness fans can celebrate, their long wait for a sequel is now nearly over!
Thanks:
Surarrin, darkangelgep, Crissy Potter, skeeter001, icedrake1, Nerwen Elendil, NateP, easilyamused, Nicoletta, athenakitty, athenakitty, Rawiya Prabhakar, I-Want-to-Fly, michaelccurtis, azngtr01, JeanieBeanie33, washu, Empress Sarah-sama, Samara-Morgan-101, kraeg001, hermione21, Jeanne2, Leeanna-Marie-Malfoy, Musicstarlover, sami1919229, Shitza, Shitza, Lady Siobhan, Shitza, Shitza, Shitza, tramp3834, Romm, cyress, Gene, Caitlyn Caro, blip-dragon, uNoeWho, pirate grlEe, da dinkidy dink dink, Silver Scale Serpent, movielvr, prongslives, kraeg001, Shitza, Surarrin, deb-sampson, NateP, darkangelgep, cyress, Churi, madmanhg, grand admiral chelli, SirDarlon, prongslives, tish tosh, Akuma-sama, Tonda, washu, wOlf1e, Nicoletta, Musicstarlover, torifire126, Empress Sarah-sama, Jeanne2, Rebereo, Iroshitaka, JanieBeanie33, Nerwen Elendil, Samara-Morgan-101, michaelrccurtis, Leeanna-Marie-Malfoy, sami1010220, cantfindagoodname, RosieCotten, Akalon, TekNthzpn, Crissy Potter, I-want-to-fly, LupinAndSiriusLover, The REader of Books, blip-dragon, Hermione21.
Well, I suppose that's what I get for not doing thanks last chapter - I did them all this chapter, and they took a long time ... Oh well! You guys all rock!
WolfMoon