The good atmosphere surrounding the sixth formers on the Gryffindor table was so utterly different from last night, it was almost unbelievable. Dean and Seamus, although still somewhat disgruntled from their early morning, joked and laughed nonetheless. Hermione slid into a seat opposite Harry and Ron, and smiled cautiously at Harry. When he grinned back at her, she pulled out a sheaf of parchment from her bag, and placed them on the table.
"Timetables." she said. "And Ron, where is your prefect badge?" Harry was glad to see that she was wasting no time in getting back to normal.
"Lost it," Ron replied, swallowing a large mouthful of eggs and pulling the parchments towards himself. Ron obviously did not want to get into more fights about talking with his mouth full after Hermione's constant niggling last year. However, his answer seemed to have induced a mild fit in Hermione. She glared at him sternly, and Harry was reminded, not for the first time, of Professor McGonagall.
"Ronald Weasley! How can you be so careless? What kind of example are you setting, to the first years especially? Right, directly after breakfast we will be going to Professor McGonagall to see if we can get you a new one." knowing better than to argue, Ron merely carried on shifting through the sheets of parchment before he came to one with his name on. He passed the pile to Harry, who found his quite quickly.
"Double Defence Against the Dark Arts, double Herbology, double free…free?" he looked questioningly at Hermione.
"Oh yes," she said airily. "Students have free lessons in sixth and seventh years. They are supposed to be for work." the expression on Hermione's face indicated that she rather thought that the two boys opposite her would not use them for this purpose.
"Score!" yelped Ron. "I have six!" he swallowed another mouthful of his breakfast before turning to Harry. "So, Harry, what you going to do about DA this year?"
Hermione looked slightly disconcerted that her advice had been so blatantly ignored, and took out the large book she seemed to be carrying everywhere from her bag. Shooting Harry and Ron one more annoyed look, she opened it and started reading.
"I guess I'll just have to accept the position won't I? I can't just turn Dumbledore down." Harry replied, setting his timetable aside. "Anyway, it will be fun thinking up punishments for Malfoy and cronies."
Ron snorted into his eggs.
"You'll have to study how to turn people into ferrets. I want another repeat of fourth year!" and Ron went off into peals of laughter, remembering Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret. Harry could hardly help but join him, only to be brought out of it by a loud tutting coming from behind Hermione's book.
"I suppose you remember that Dumbledore is against transfiguration for punishment." she sniffed.
Harry rounded on the girl, who seemed determined to keep things as solemn as possible this morning.
"Hermione, what is the matter? Are we not allowed to have a laugh any more?" he asked, but there was an amused glint in her eye as she lowered the book.
"It was hilarious. And you have post." she said, indicating the official looking brown owl sitting in front of Harry. There was one in front of Ron, and Dean, and Seamus and Neville for that matter. Hermione was holing a brown envelope similar to the ones on the owls.
"They're you're OWLs results. Obviously you did well enough in your chosen subjects, but it has the rest there as well." she stated. But Harry detected a slight tremor of excitement in her voice before she used her knife to neatly open the envelope.
'Well, here goes.' He thought nervously, ripping his open. He unfolded the parchment inside.
Dear Mr. Potter,
Below, you will find the results of your Ordinary Wizarding Exams. Any exams unfinished, due to unforeseen events, were marked on the general level of work throughout the rest of the exam.
Mr. Potter received an OWL in the following subjects.
Transfiguration O
Herbology E
Potions O
Defence Against the Dark Arts O
Astronomy A
Divination E
History of Magic A
Charms O
Care of Magical Creatures O
If there are any problems with the results, or you would like to re-sit any of the subjects, please inform the Ministry before 30th September.
Harry put down the parchment in shock. He had not only passed all the exams, but he had received five O's, and even more, he had got an E in Divination!
Harry looked at his friends. Hermione was craning her neck, trying to see what he had received. She was obviously pleased; he doubted whether she had got under and O in any of them. He glanced at Ron. The colour had completely drained from Ron's face, and he didn't seem to be breathing.
"Ron?" Harry nudged his friend. "Ron, you ok?"
Ron turned his head to look at Harry, his mouth hanging open.
"I didn't fail, Harry!" he squeaked. "I got four O's, three E's and an A!" Harry laughed and clapped him on the back. Hermione shot Ron an appraising look before Harry turned to her.
"And you, Hermione?"
She blushed a deep pink, and handed him her letter. It was just as he had expected, every single subject had a large round O next to it.
"Well done! Looks like we all got what we wanted." the smile faded off his face as he remembered something. "I just wish Sirius could have seen how well we all did before he…"
"I know, Harry." Hermione reached out and held his hand, as Ron shot him a sympathetic smile.
Harry drew a deep breath before standing up and grabbing his bag.
"Yeah…Come on. We all have Defence first right? And there's no indication as to who the new teacher is. I want to get there early." Hermione and Ron glanced anxiously at each other. Since that one time in Diagon Alley, Harry had not talked to them again about Sirius, and they knew that couldn't be healthy. However, now was not the time or the place. The grabbed their belongings and hurried out of the Hall, after Harry.
Because of the ominous threat of Voldemort last year, it seemed that everyone in Gryffindor had opted to take this particular subject. However, the house was split up and mixed with the rest of the students in the other three houses. Harry, Ron and Hermione's class consisted of Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abbott, Padma and Parvati, Lavender, Justin Finch-Fletchly and a couple of Ravenclaw boys, who Harry did not know very well.
The class was lined up along the wall outside the classroom, waiting for the teacher to appear, when the door swung open and a very familiar voice called out for them to enter the room.
Harry stopped abruptly when he walked into the classroom. There, sitting behind the desk, blue eyes twinkling at the stunned class, was Albus Dumbledore.
A.N: Just a short one to keep you guys happy. Thinking about uploading maybe every three to four days? Then it gives me time to actually get out a good chappy, rather than a poor, short one.
Thank Yous:
Flying High, Virginia Riddle-Malfoy, Horsefly, Lady Apolla, Unknown Reviewer and HoshiHikari…THANK YOU! Just knowing you guys are still enjoying it really helps the writing flow. Honest, I'm a chronic sufferer of writers block!
Circe: My lovely, you are very sweet (she gave me a wonderful plug in the a/n of her last chapter) and I really appreciate it! Also, your story rocks, as I have told you many times. Go check it out, it's called Fated, and is fantastic!
And a special mention to odders, because I left him out of the last chapter, and he told me off bout it :S sorry honey!
No special mention to Fippets this time because the mean lass did not review and also was not around to beta…spending far too much time on that wonderful story of yours me darlin'!
JM xxx
