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6) NEWT's
By the end of the day Harry knew why they were called "Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests". Ginny had been right, but she couldn't have known what would happen.
They had to face Hermione's anger first thing in the morning.
Sneaking out of the hospital wing had been easy due to a couple of puking first years, who Ginny had bribed into taking some of Fred and Georges Puking Pastills.
Then they had taken a secret passageway down to the third floor and used the confusion caused by a completely new trickstep (Dobby had been delighted to help his hero here), and they got past a revolting Filch with the help of a certain Poltergeist.
The Great Hall was already filled with students when the two arrived because Harry had to take a rest behind a statue. This had earned him a "Told you so!" from Ginny.
Hermione had actually been looking for Ginny when they walked in. One student saw them and told it to his neighbours and the hall was quiet within seconds.
Due to the upcoming NEWT's the High Table was crowded. Not only the Hogwarts professors but the Ministry examiners were staring at Harry wide eyed.
Whisper broke out. And if Harry hadn't seen the fuming Hermione approaching he would have rolled his eyes at that.
"Harry Potter!" Not only Harry was reminded of a certain howler. "Why are you not in your bed? You are not well enough to be down here yet!"
"Hermione!" Harry tried to calm her, he was a little embarrassed. This in front of the whole school! But Hermione turned to Ginny as if he wasn't really there.
"Ginny, how could you! He was half dead! I thought you would care more for him than that!"
Ginny blushed. Professor McGonagall saved her.
"Mrs. Granger! Will you please keep it down!" She turned to Harry. "I am very happy to see that you are so much better, but I think Poppy's breakfast isn't that bad and I agree with Mrs Granger that it might be a little risky…"
"Thank you Professor but I have had breakfast, that's not what I am here for."
"You could have wished your friends luck yesterday."
Harry was smiling broadly at his favourite teacher.
"I did that, Professor."
"Then why are you here?"
"Well I guess I am here to take my NEWT's."
Ron was actually abandoning his breakfast what was near a miracle.
"You really have no temperature? Cause you could take my tests if you really have to!"
The Professor looked at him sternly and he rather shut up.
"Note, Mr Potter that you can't take the tests again next year if you fail. I would advice you to rethink your decision."
Harry shook his head. "No Professor, I will be graduating with my friends. I will not let Tom interfere with my life anymore." And he sat down next to Ron to wait for the exams to start.
Professor McGonagall shot a help seeking glance to Dumbledore who, to her disappointment, smiled and nodded.
Harry sat down at his table when the younger students had cleared the Great Hall and the desks appeared like they had for their OWLs. When Ginny had walked out she had given Harry a kiss on his cheek in front of the whole school! Harry blushed. He still felt the warmth on the spot her lips had touched when he turned the first page. Then he was all consumed in his exams.
It was not easy, but he thought he did fairly well. By the time for lunch Neville was sweating, Ron groaning and Hermione babbling about her answers.
"Hermione, it's done. Let's eat and get this day over with."
"You, be quiet. I'll have a word with you later, believe me," she threatened him with her fork.
Ginny had been right about not getting any rest after lunch and so when his final exam approached he was quite tired.
They had been separated into groups of four students, one of each house.
Harry wasn't with his friends and he had the bad luck to be in the last group to be tested.
They were waiting in one room and were called into another, one group after the other. No group came out so they had no way to find out what was awaiting them.
Ron had been gone with one of the first groups for quite some time and Hermione just went in when the entrance door opened for one moment.
No one except Harry, who was sitting away from the others, really noticed. He had seen the knob turn so there must be someone invisible, he prepared himself for an attack.
When he felt a familiar tuck on his robes he asked: "Ron?"
"Harry, you will have to duel. Nothing bad actually, quite fun," the air whispered back.
"You are here to tell me that?" Harry looked around for the Professor that was having an eye on the students. But as there were lots of others whispering to themselves he wouldn't look suspicious.
"No, listen! There is this one examiner, there are three actually, but he is kind of strange. I have a bad feeling about him so please be careful." It sounded worried.
The last but one group went in and it would have looked suspicious if he had stayed on his own, so he got up, nodded to Ron that he understood and joined his group.
The only other person of his group that he knew a little was Hannah Abbot from Hufflepuff. She had been in the DA and they exchanged a smile when they saw the duelling area in the set up classroom.
They had to say their names and houses and the examiners, two men and a woman, introduced themselves. Then the woman read the rules. She must have been doing this all afternoon because of her bored tone.
"The Exam consists of a formal duel between the tested and one examiner. There will be Hufflepuff first, then Slytherin, and Ravenclaw, with Gryffindor at the end. No cheating, no illegals, no Unforgivables. Any questions? No? Sign here."
Hannah sighed when she stepped up as the first but she did well against her opponent who wasn't really fighting her, but tried to get as much out of her as she was able to do. Harry couldn't say what Ron had meant.
"Well done Miss Abbot, next please."
The Slytherin was dreadful and lost his wand twice before the examiner ended the duel. Harry could have sworn that the female examiner shook her head slightly while taking notes. The Ravenclaw boy did well enough.
When Harry stepped up he noticed to his surprise that the other male examiner gave his papers to the one who had been duelling the others and stepped up the platform.
"Bow!" said the woman and Harry just wanted to do this as he felt shields being drawn around the platform. He looked at the man in front him sensing danger. The others seemed not to notice.
"Bow, Mr Potter. This is a formal duel, you know?" his opponent smirked and Harry got angry and took a guess what this was all about.
"I never did to your Master on my own free will, so you will have to force me."
Before the others even realized what was going on the fighting started. The shield was blocking the other examiners to interfere but it also blocked curses from being fired at the onlookers. So Harry needed not to worry about them at the moment what he was thankful for because there was more than one Cruciatus he had to dodge or block.
All the normal entrances to the room were blocked as Hannah realized horrified. She couldn't get out for help!
But what she didn't know was that there was already someone on his way to Dumbledore. Ron had snuck in with the group just for the fun of looking at Harry's skills and because of the bad feeling he had had. As soon as he saw what was going to happen he had opened the Marauders Map to find the next possible way out.
The Death Eater was not a bad dueller at all, but he wasn't Voldemort either. The only thing he could do was tire Harry out. And tired he was by now. Tired and pissed off. His body ached for a rest.
'Well,' Harry thought. 'She said nothing illegal but she didn't rule out wandless magic, right?' Harry's plan was to take the man down in surprise. So he just dropped his wand.
"Ha, Potter! Not so great now, are we? You don't get off so easy."
Harry just smiled at him.
The Death Eater raised his wand but halfway though the killing curse he got hit by Harry's stunner. Harry had overdone it a bit as his enemy not only dropped to the ground, but flew into the next wall. The shield fell and Harry realized the amount of people in the room. Ron and Hermione were at Harry's side almost immediately to help him sit down right were he was. He was exhausted.
"Hey mate, you all right?" Harry only nodded. He watched the school nurse help the female examiner that had fainted. A couple of Aurors were busy with the Death Eater. The Headmaster was talking to one of them, then came over and kneeled next to him.
"Harry, Auror Clay asks you to lift your stunner as he can't break through."
Harry wasn't really paying any attention and simply waved his hand over his shoulder, reviving the man.
He didn't realize Dumbledore's raised eyebrow nor the shocked looks from the Aurors and the leftover examiner.
