Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests

Harry woke up bright and early the next morning trying to process all the information he had gone over in his head last night. He had been practicing late into the night trying to go over everything that might come up in the test and he felt he was ready. He ate a quick breakfast and then apparated to the ministry.

"Good morning Mrs. Marchbanks, how are you this fine day?" Harry said, entering her office from the hallway.

"I am well, Mister Potter and how are you? Ready to try for your N.E.W.T. s already, I see. I didn't think you would be taking so many early but if you feel you will pass I will give you the tests. You have two hours for each written part, and then one hour for each practical part. You can stop at any time if you're not feeling up to continuing or if you finish early you can just bring your papers up to me and we can continue on to the next part. Which one would you like to try first?"

"Well, I'm wide awake right now so if we can get the History of Magic test out of the way now I won't be tempted to fall asleep on you later," Harry said with a smile, sitting down at the desk in the middle of the room.

She laughed at his joke and passed him the papers as he took out his parchment and quills. He took the test and started filling out the information. He had trouble with several of the answers but he finished the rest of the test and went back to them. He racked his brain and none of the answers given on the sheet were the correct ones. He stood up and walked over to the examiner to ask her about the questions.

"Mrs. Marchbanks? I have a couple of questions about this test. There are ten questions that don't have a proper answer to them. I know the answers but they aren't listed as possible choices for the questions," Harry asked pointing out the questions he had problems with.

As Harry finished his question a goblin and a dwarf stepped out of the shadows and clapped their hands. He silently cursed himself for not checking the room when he entered; that could get him killed one day. Constant vigilance screamed in his mind as he looked around the room again.

"Very well done," said the dwarf.

"No one has ever caught all ten mistakes before," said the goblin, bowing to Harry twice before sitting down in a conjured chair.

"What answers would you give to these questions, Mister Potter?" asked Mrs. Marchbanks.

He gave the real answers to the questions and they all smiled at him before clapping their hands again.

"Very good Mister Potter," she said as she cast a spell on the paper and it gave him a score of one hundred percent. "The ten questions without answers are a bonus, and because you answered them correctly that gives you an O+ on your History of Magic exam. Congratulations! That is one exam out of the way, what one would you like next?"

"Well let's do Ancient Runes next, then Arithmancy, and then Astronomy," Harry said, pleased with his first score.

The next few tests went fairly quickly and Harry received similar marks on all of them so by lunch time he had received two O's and Two O+'s.

"Would you care to join me for lunch?" he asked as she filed his scores and got the next tests out for him to take after lunch.

"I would be honored Mister Potter," she said and stood up, following him out the door.

As they reached the apparition point Harry handed her a slip of parchment. She read it a few times before understanding hit her, and she stared at him with her mouth hanging open.

"Mr. Potter! Is your house protected under a Fidelus charm?" asked Mrs. Marchbanks.

"Yes it is and please, just call me Harry," he said as he took out a toothpick and enlarged it. "If you will grab a hold of this we can get going."

"Well then, I insist you call me Griselda," she said as she reached out and touched the portkey. After a second she felt the familiar tug behind the navel and disappeared from the ministry.

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"I always hate those things," said Harry as he picked himself up off the floor. "The leaving part is easy but the arriving part still seems to be a problem for me," he said sheepishly. "Welcome to my sitting room," Harry added as he called for Dobby.

"Yes Harry Potter sir," called the house elf after a few seconds.

"Dobby if we could have tea and a light lunch set up, that would be great thanks," Harry responded to the elf, happy he dropped the master part finally.

"Right away sir! Is there anything else I can get you or your guest?" he asked, before popping away to get the tea.

"Mister Potter, am I correct in assuming this house has more than one Fidelus charm on it? I can see two rooms when I do a scan of the house and neither of them have a door to the outside or contain the house elf that just left."

"Yes and please call me Harry. My house is protected by multiple charms both on the inside and the outside. The slip of parchment I gave you was for guests dining with me. It is so I could bring you into the sitting room and then the dining room. I use another for overnight guests and I have several other parts of the house hidden as well for different purposes. Right now I have five charms in place to hide different things from different people. I will be hosting my group of friends here from the DA, a group I started last year, and I don't want them reeking havoc on my entire house while they're here for the month."

"Interesting Harry, and who did you get to cast all those charms for you or did you manage to cast them yourself?"

"I cast them myself. I've been experimenting with the charm since the beginning of the summer and I've mastered it, and changed it over, since then."

"Changed it, what do you mean?" asked Mrs. Marchbanks.

"Well I added a few extra features into it. A muggle repelling charm and a spell I created a few weeks ago. I call it a wizard repelling charm. It blocks an area from being seen by wizards and masks magic that has been done there. It makes the space an open area that contains nothing but land. I cast this charm on my muggle relatives' house before I bought this one so they wouldn't be disturbed by witches and wizards after I left. Dumbledore was very worried when he went to my house to find me and couldn't find the house or the Dursley's anywhere."

"Dumbledore couldn't even find you huh? Well I'm impressed, and if you can show me where your relatives house is I'll give you extra points on your charms' N.E.W.T. for your advanced spell work."

"No problem. I can take us there after lunch, it'll only take a few seconds. Speaking of lunch, it's waiting in the other room, if you would care to follow me."

Thirty minutes later after a pleasant lunch Harry made another portkey and they were off to the Dursley's house.

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They arrived in the middle of a dining room, where several things happened at once. There was a shrill cry and the sound of glass hitting the floor, followed by a large man yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Boy what the devil do you think you're doing here, popping up unannounced in the middle of our meal. You should have at least had the decency to have told us you were bringing a guest," Vernon ranted angrily.

"Don't scare us like that Harry, we heard a load bell and we stopped what we were doing and then you just appeared in front of us," his aunt said, still shaking from the fright.

"Well we didn't expect you to bring your girlfriend home so soon, although we did want to meet her one day Harry," sniggered Dudley from his end of the table.

"Don't be a prat Dudley; this is Griselda Marchbanks, head of the Wizarding Examinations Authority. I'm trying to get some of my N.E.W.T. s out of the way early so I can have more time in school over the next two year for more important things. I came here to show her the spell work I did on this house. We'll be leaving shortly, and I had to bring her directly into the house because that is the only way to prove the house is really here without taking down the spells and recasting them."

"Oh," Petunia said as she walked forward and offered her hand to the elderly witch. "Pleased to meet you, I'm Harry's Aunt Petunia and this is my husband Vernon. That's our son Dudley and welcome to our home."

"Thank you, you have a lovely home," she said, shaking everyone's hand.

"Well, we must be off, I'll see you all later, we need to go outside, then get back to the ministry," Harry said walking to the door.

As they stepped outside she turned around just as the house vanished before her eyes. She did a quick double take and started casting all sorts of revealing spells but found nothing there. She walked back and forth over the grass and didn't bump into anything. She turned back to Harry and asked, "Where did it go? I can't even detect there was ever a house there."

"Exactly. That is the point of the charm. Excuse me sir," he asked stopping a man who was walking down the sidewalk. "Can you tell me if this is number four privet drive?"

"Well that is what the sign says, or are you blind or something? And why is that old lady playing in the flower bed?" He asked, shaking his head at the pair before he kept walking down the lane.

"You see, only muggles are able to see the house. I can't even see it anymore, that's why I had to portkey us into the house first. I know the inside of the house but I can't see the outside."

"Very interesting Harry, full marks, and I'd bet you could sell this charm for a lot of money to the ministry. They buy spells you know, and I'm sure they would pay top galleon for a spell of this magnitude."

"Yes I am sure they would, but until the ministry is back on their feet it will be my little secret and only a few people know the spell has even been cast. Well have you seen enough, I'd like to get the rest of these tests out of the way today, if possible.

"Very well, I will meet you back in my office, Harry," she said before apparating away.

He followed after her but went directly to her office instead of taking the long way around. He sat down and was just getting ready when she came walking in.

"I'm not even going to ask how you arrived here before me, Mister Potter. Here's your Charms Exam, bring it up when you are finished," she said, handing him the parchment.

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Four hours later he was walking out of the ministry of magic with a big smile plastered on his face. He walked down the alley and into the Leaky Caldron. He showed his results to Tom and bought everyone a round of whatever they were drinking. He then went outside and apparated to number twelve Grimmauld place.

"Hello? Anyone home?" he yelled as he stepped out of the fire. Several noises were heard in the other room before he was practically run over by two women, one with red hair, and the other with brown.

"Harry! Where have you been? We've been calling for you for hours!" yelled his girlfriend.

"Yeah! Do you know how much we've been worried! Thanks for the note by the way, I went to visit my parents today and they wanted me to thank you for putting that spell on their house. I still haven't figured out how you did it though, and I've been searching the library for the spell since yesterday."

"Well good luck with your search but you won't find the spell in a book just yet." He walked over to her and whispered in her ear, "I only created it a few weeks ago and I haven't shown anyone else how to cast it yet."

"Well Ginny, would you like to go out for dinner tonight? There's a restaurant I heard about and I would love to try it out," he asked looking into his girlfriends chocolate brown eyes.

"I would love to Harry, when do we have to leave and what should I wear? Well if you and Hermione would be ready in about an hour, Ron and I will be ready to escort you then."

Ron winked at Harry as he walked into the room and turned to his girlfriend. "I believe the outfits I saw lying on your beds will do for tonight," he said kissing his girlfriend on the cheek. "You had better try them on first though, we have reservations for the Crystal Palace at seven."

Both girls took off running towards their room to try on the clothing that was waiting on the beds. Ron looked at Harry with a smile on his face as he said, "It's good to see you mate and I owe you one for that."

Harry just shook his head and asked, "Has Remus asked his date yet or is he still fighting with himself whether or not to ask her?

"I haven't seen her to ask yet," Remus said walking into the room.

Harry smiled at him and then winked at Ron before yelling out, "Tonks, Remus has something to ask, he's in the living room! Hurry! It's urgent." Both Ron and Harry started laughing as half the order came in to see what all the noise was about, followed by a pink haired Tonks who had a devious smile on her face.

"Yes Remus, you have something to ask me," she asked sweetly.

"Oh um yes," he said shooting an evil glare at Harry.

"No pressure Remus, remember your Gryffindor Courage, we'll be upstairs getting ready," Harry yelled out as he and Ron ducked out of the room and fled up the stairs.

"That was pure evil Harry," Ron snickered as the walked into their rooms and put on the suits they had picked up the day before.

"Yes, but she'll need to have time to do her hair and all that other stuff girls do to make us wait for them before a date, Harry said as he finished putting on his suit.

"Good point," Ron said, finishing with his own suit.

They suddenly heard loud cheering from downstairs and looked out the door, just as Tonks ran past them towards the girl's room.

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"Well that wasn't so hard, was it Moony?" Harry asked when he and Ron walked back into the room. "You should probably get ready too, we put your suit on the bed in Ron's room."

Remus glared at them once again before heading upstairs to get changed himself.

Molly Weasley just smiled at her boys as Arthur walked back in the room with their family's camera.

"Well, line up boys, lets get a few before the girl get down here," Arthur said as Remus walked back into the room.

The boys grouped together by the door as their father stood at the foot of the stairs and snapped a few photos. "By the looks on your faces in the last shot I would have to guess the ladies have arrived," Arthur said turning around to look up the stairs. His mouth dropped open as well and the camera almost fell out of his hand before Dobby popped up and grabbed it.

"You look absolutely breathtaking Ginny. Can I have the honor of escorting you to dinner this fine evening?" Harry said walking to the bottom of the stairs and kissing her hand.

"You may Mister Potter," she said as they walked to the door followed by the other two groups who were receiving the same invitation by their dates.

Several camera flashes later and they grabbed Harry's portkey to the restaurant.

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Several hours later two of the couples were sitting around a cozy fire at number twelve Grimmauld place.

"I had a wonderful time tonight Harry," whispered Ginny in his ear. She set her hot chocolate mug on the stand and snuggled a little closer into him.

"So did I," he said glancing at the sleeping forms of Ron and Hermione across from them on the couch. "Should we leave them there or take them up to their rooms?" Harry asked.

"Lets leave them there, they look so peaceful like that," she said falling asleep in his arms.

Harry watched as she drifted off in his arms, she looked so small and vulnerable and at the same time so powerful and beautiful. This is what I'm fighting for. This is what I want out of life. To sit around and enjoy the company of friends and family and not have a care in the world. This is why I'm going to defeat Voldemort. He smiled and soon he was also sleeping on the couch.

Several hours later a woman came into the room and smiled she pulled a couple of blankets out of the cupboard and placed them over the couples to keep them warm.

She turned and was heading out the door when she heard a voice whisper into her ear, "thanks, mom." She turned around to see Harry's eyes open and a smile on his face that she would never forget. She whispered back, "anytime, son," as she left the room with a tear in her eye