With the Ball-fever behind them and all other tournaments finished, everyone's attention gripped around the incoming exams.
Students of all years were studying anywhere they could, in the Great Hall during breakfast, lunch and dinner, in the corridors from one location to another, in the Library, even in classrooms.
It was two days before the exams' start when a very delighted-looking Felix exited the Library holding Claudia in one hand and a large tome of bound-together parchments in the other.
Socrates accompanied by Emerick and Ethel found him midway to the History of Magic classroom.
"That looks forbiddingly heavy", Ethel joked seeing the tome in his hand, supported under his armpit.
"The Two Sisters' Brother essay?" Socrates asked looking intrigued.
"Yes", they followed him to Professor Binns' classroom where he slept, his face on his desk.
"Sir?" Felix woke him up letting the tome bang against the desk's wooden surface.
Professor Binns floated up. "Mr. Burton! How can I help you?"
"I've finished writing, sir. How do I submit it to the Wizarding History review for publication and peer review?" Felix cracked a wide grin.
"Finished already? Well, I'll read it, if I think it is up to par and standard I'll give it to the Headmistress with my recommendation. If she agrees with my recommendation she'll send it to the Wizarding Journal, they'll read it and decide if they will publish it. I suggest you concentrate on your exams, Mr. Burton, the process could take a few weeks…or months depending on if we require you to make edits and corrections."
Emerick opened the front cover taking a peek inside. "You placed all of our names as co-authors?" He stated surprised as well as astonished at his friend's extraordinary feet of kindness and selflessness.
"Of course, all of you helped one way or another. All of you, Bellerophon, Socrates, Claudia, you, Uriel, Ethel, Professors Binns, Jordan and Horsewood and Charles. My name may go first, but you all helped so all your names go in as co-authors", Felix nodded his head solemnly.
"That is very generous of you, Mr. Burton."
"Thank you Professor, guys. Thank you all, I couldn't have done this without you", Felix told them exiting the classroom taking a right turn for the Library where they started studying for their first exam, Transfiguration.
"Transfiguration or Arithmancy for NEWTs next year, I can't decide which one is going to drive me insane the most", Claudia whined, books spread in front of her, sitting next to Felix, their legs and hands touching lightly.
"You are cute when you whine", he chuckled. "Besides you're forgetting Potions for NEWTs."
"I'm not as worried with Professor Marvey gone, and these days you think that a lot", she teased him unable to restraint a smug, pleased smile.
"Not my fault you are drop-dead-gorgeous and cute as all fuck at the same time, not my fa…." his sentence was cutoff midway as she impulsively snogged him and he more than reciprocated.
Ethel her eyes?.
"Oh, shush it's not like you and Mineright practice any sense of discretion", Uriel teased her.
"Says the man who was locked up with Ariana in the Prefects' bathroom for five hours past Sunday", she poked her tongue at him.
"Yeah, we're all basically hornier than a bunch of jackrabbits", Emerick added making them all laugh out loud.
"Keep quiet or get the heck out of my Library!" Mr. Thorson came at them with god's own fury in his eyes.
"Sorry, sir. We'll keep quiet from now on", Claudia tried not to keep laughing.
"Right, and I'll turn into a pumpkin…" the Librarian turned to leave.
"If that's your wish, I could oblige, sir", Felix told the man quite calm and serious making Claudia and Uriel choke on their own saliva.
Mr. Thorson walked away cursing under his breath.
"I can understand the rest of us studying, but why are you? Do you even need to? Not like you won't get straight Os in everything anyway!" Ethel joked.
"The truth is I'm trying to find a way, something or anything to defeat Azrail without needing to use the killing curse, but so far I've struck out."
"Why because you can do the kill….you can?" Ethel's jaw dropped.
"I can, doesn't mean I want to."
"Can I?" She asked uncertain if she even wanted to.
"Do you loathe and hate yourself to the point of wanting to kill off a part of your own soul?"
"No?"
"Then no, not sure I do either anymore, but I've learned what is innate in all of us, can't unlearn what I've learned."
"Interesting my friend", Socrates started, "not only do you seem to not be willing to understand your own Prophesy, but your brother's as well. Remember what Achronia told him? He has to choose between the Shadeglass and the reason he wants it, and your life. That is how you will defeat him, by giving him exactly what he wants."
"He wants to drink from it, how does that kill him?" Ethel didn't understand, Felix did.
"Drinking the Book of Leaves wouldn't…the spring of Eternity?" Uriel asked.
"That'd make him immortal, no?"
"No, without the Protection that'd kill him, for the Old Gods eternity wasn't life everlasting, it was death. It meant accepting one's own mortality, it meant dying from this mortal life and accepting the afterlife which is eternal. With the Protection…I'm not sure what it'll do. So, for that to work, I somehow have to make him remove the Armour of the Old Gods."
"What if he was a Muggle and drunk from the spring?" Emerick asked.
"The Protection wouldn't work for him, then he'd die the instant the water touched his lips. But he's not a Muggle."
"Indeed", Socrates had that look about him, the you-should-understand-more look, yet he decided to say nothing more.
"I've got Astronomy and Divination revisions to work through", Felix went back to his books and his left hand caressing Claudia's right hand absent-mindedly.
Felix exited the Great Hall, having finished his Astronomy and Divination exam, the day after his Transfiguration exam.
He sat down with his back against the wall waiting for the others to finish, and Claudia.
Claudia exited last talking with Professor Ixion.
"And do you think you did well, Mrs. Russo?" The centauress looked at him standing up.
"I think so, Professor. The question about the eyes of Delphinus was a tricky one, but I think I got it right."
"Even the most powerful of wizards can fall victims to that which they consider beneath them, the eyes of Delphinus, the House-Elves' favourite constellation teaches us this. At least to those who have not forgotten information they used to know."
"Now, I'm less certain, Professor", Claudia giggled nervously.
"I'm sure you did fine, Mrs. Russo", the centauress gave her a nod leaving the castle.
"You waited for me", Claudia hugged him with a kiss.
"Of course, and the weather's nice as well", he said passing a hand around her waist. "Take a walk with me on the viaduct and lakeshore?"
"Sure, but we have Potions exam tomorrow…"
"Taking an hour's walk with your boyfriend isn't going to be detrimental to tomorrow's exam, or studying for it the rest of the day. Come on, we have been studying nonstop for weeks now, an hour's walk will help us unwind and unclog our minds…and I like spending time with you."
She blushed nodding. "Okay, although you can be with me and study, you know. But okay, I like spending time with you as well… a lot."
They made their way across the school and to the viaduct, walking slowly, chatting and enjoying the late spring sun.
"What'll you do for the summer? Italy?"
"No, dad mailed that we're going to New York…if all goes well. You? Hogwarts?"
"Yeah…for the last time, I mean we graduate in a year."
"I mean you could come with us?"
Felix shook his head. "I don't think that'd be a good idea, or safe for anyone. I don't mind dying if I must but losing you…I don't even want to contemplate it.
"I mind you dying immensely. It is unbearable to think. We will write each other daily, yes?"
"We will", he nodded giving her cheek a kiss.
They walked along the lakeshore. "Do you know the theory going around that the Giant Squid is actually Godric Gryffindor in his animagus form?"
"Yeah, I've even heard an exaggerated version of that theory stating that he takes human form at night and walks the castle, inspecting it and uses obliviate to anyone who might happen to see him. But I suspect this might be one of Alfred's more elaborate ways of trying to impress me with his Knowledge on Hogwarts lore", Felix smiled at his younger cousin's fantasy.
"Oh, speaking of Alfred did you hear he asked Bernadette Saunders out? She's like third year's most popular Ravenclaw girl."
"I see he mustered the courage for it. No, he didn't tell me anything about it yet."
"Well, apparently she said no, but somehow a fifth year Slytherin girl said yes and now dear Bernadette keeps trying to win him over."
"I mustn't laugh, I really mustn't. But it's funny, right?" Felix cracked a grin.
"I laughed when I heard. Like, girl make up your mind already!"
"What's that perfume you're wearing?" Felix asked her, nuzzling his nose on her neck.
"Lemon flower, honey and Lavender, why? Don't you like it?" She replied trying to hide her worry at the possibility he didn't.
"Don't like it? I love it, it's very much you", he replied trying to kiss her lips.
"Thanks", she smiled giving his hand a squeeze and turning her head to meet his lips with hers.
They continued to walk for a while more before heading back to the Library and studying Potions.
Late at night, Felix returned to the Hufflepuff common room and collapsing on one of the sofas he picked up a third-year care of magical creatures textbook lying on the table. Just for old times' sake.
Next thing he knew he was waking up with dawn breaking outside, the book open on his chest.
"Lovely…by no means am I exhausted…" he thought stretching and rubbing his eyes before standing up.
He went to the Great Hall to eat breakfast before going to the Potions classroom for the exam.
Professor Hudson was to supervise their sixth-year Potions exams.
"Unfortunately, even though Professor Marvey is no longer with us, you have to take the exams she's submitted…and it's not an easy or fair one. The Headmistress will be grading them, but do not read too much into that, please", he told them giving each an exam papers and an empty page for notes.
People still could not believe his sudden change from a tyrannical Deputy Headmaster to this newfound sweet and gentle person who cared for fairness.
As the exam progressed there was a plethora of gasps, sighs and groans. Professor Hudson walked silently between their rows of single-person exam desks and collected their exams in the end.
Socrates finished the theoretical part of the exam first, but Felix finished the practical one first, followed by Socrates, Claudia, Emerick and the others.
They were exiting the classroom when Professor Hudson bid them to wait.
"I…in my grief and torment I was rude to you all and behaved in a most unprofessional and in some cases inhumanly towards you all and for that you have my deepest apologies. I can only ask for your forgiveness and patience while I start acting more like an adult Professor than a hurt child during your seventh year."
Claudia was not alone in her jaw slacking. Only Felix seemed to not feel awkward.
"I…erh…yes, sir", Uriel voiced stammering.
"What he said", Emerick nodded nervously.
Felix gave Claudia a gentle prod on her back. "Yes, sir. And I'm sorry for Betchy…"
Professor Hudson nodded his appreciation. "Thank you, Mrs. Russo. Well, I have Norman now. If you would please come with me", they hesitantly followed him up the dungeon stairs to the Great Hall where they stood behind him and away from the Great Hall's entrance, Norman playing with their feet as Professor Hudson retrieved his wand and in one quick nonverbal cast made the wooden frames containing his edicts break up in splinters before disintegrating.
"The edicts are all null and void. Come the start of next year we start anew", he said and left.
"I was expecting you to get him fired, or something…I guess this works as well", Ariana whispered to him once he was out of sight.
"That as the original plan, but plans change sometimes", Felix replied.
"My strategic genius", Claudia told him with him snogging her. Emerick teased them by making a vomiting grimace.
"Oh, shush you and Miremba snog each other's tongues out on more than a daily basis!" Felix told him flipping him the finger.
"Damn straight!" Emerick exclaimed making everyone laugh.
"Now, imagine if "she" was still our Potions Professor, no one would be getting more than a passing grade", a Ravenclaw girl said.
"Yeah…she turned out to be a much worst villain than Professor Hudson", Ariana agreed.
"It'll probably take her a while to remove all the stench from her clothes, so that ends well…in this front", Felix replied.
"I sensed you and Socrates were sort of competing during the exam for who would finish first, or was it my imagination?" Claudia tried not to laugh.
"Finish first with the highest possible grade", Socrates corrected her.
"So, basically, first with an Outstanding", Felix added laughing.
"Oh, of course…boys…" Ethel joined in the "boys".
"This exam has me famished, who else is hungry?" Uriel asked them, rubbing his belly.
"Dear Lords, we had breakfast like three hours ago!" Ariana shook her head in disbelief over the quantity of food her boyfriend could consume.
"Indeed, academic excellence has me feeling hungry as well", Socrates agreed.
"I mean it is almost one past noon, might as well eat lunch while we're here", Felix added.
"Yeah I could eat" Emerick also nodded.
The three girls rolled their eyes joining them in the Great Hall.
Felix and Claudia sat in the Gryffindor table, next to Alfred, who was studying for his care of magical creatures exam coming up whilst eating lunch.
William sat next to his brother. Emerick went to Miremba in the Ravenclaw table with Socrates and Uriel with Ariana decided to sit somewhat more isolated in the Slytherin table while Ethel went to her boyfriend in the Hufflepuff table.
"Heyo Alfred, Whatcha doing?" Claudia greeted him.
Alfred looked up beaming at them. "Yo! Studying for the CoMC exam we have tomorrow", he said looking back down to his notes.
"Studying Transfiguration", William replied without looking up. "Not the easiest of subjects…"
"Not to anyone but your cousin", Claudia told him still holding hands with Felix.
"Yeah, he's a Transfiguration freak", Felix tried to tickle him under his armpits when he froze, his eyes fixed on Alfred's book.
"House-Elves are magical beings. Unlike Humans they cannot survive without their bond to magic. They are immensely devoted and loyal to…" Felix read and reread the passage. "The House-Elf survived for ten minutes after…my god I have it!" he yelled internally trying to appear calm.