The calendar had reached the end of May, and both final exams and the trip afterward were beginning to look very close, chronologically speaking. Frisk wanted to have one longer meeting with the group. Hermione had wanted Dumbledore to attend with them, but he wasn't available. "Why not Professor Lupin?" the headmaster had suggested. "He speaks highly of you, and I certainly trust him. I will let him know what you are doing, and that it has my full support." This was how, despite the protests of certain studious students, Frisk had gotten the group, all nine of them, in the defense against the dark classroom.
Neville was the last to arrive, puffing as if he'd been running hard. "I didn't forget," he insisted as he sat down in one of the chairs, joining the others.
Frisk stood, with her back to the teacher, feeling small with all eyes on her. "I know people want to be studying..."
"I'm not sure why," mumbled Ron. "It's such a nice day outside."
"So I'll try to make this quick," Frisk continued, giving Ron a quick grin. "But for the people who haven't seen it before, I'd like to demonstrate monster soul magic, and maybe try to see if you can learn it yourself."
Hermione, who was fidgeting until that statement, suddenly focused on Frisk with wide excited eyes. "How do you get your soul to manifest itself like that?"
Frisk blinked at her vehemence. "Your soul is the culmination of all that you are. All your hopes, your fears, your friendships, and your dreams. It's how you connect with other people. It's not enough to just focus on those things, you have to be willing to show them to others, to expose your soul to the world." There was more to it than that, it was like... tensing a muscle you didn't know that you had, or maybe like riding a bicycle. But if you had help doing it once or twice, or several dozen times, it became something you could do yourself.
As she finished speaking, she concentrated on doing just that. As always, the red light of Frisk's own soul blossomed into view. Around the room, the souls of her classmates and friends followed suit. Luna's was first, her dark blue soul blazed into visibility almost as quickly as Frisk's did. Opal's light blue soul was next, followed by Ginny's green soul and Harry's red one (Frisk, who knew to look for it, saw the brief appearance of the black invasive... whatever it was). A second or so later, Ron's orange soul emerged, as bright as the fruit itself. And after a few more moments, Hermione and Steven's purple soul, and to probably nobody's greater surprise than Neville himself, a yellow one.
"Is there any risk to putting your soul on display like that?" came Lupin's soft voice from the corner.
"Uhm," Frisk said stalling. She'd never actually thought about that. "Normally, your soul is protected by your physical body. So, I certainly wouldn't want to put it on display if I thought there might be a risk to it. Other than that? I have no idea."
"Does that mean," Hermione asked, "That monsters have a greater risk to their souls, as their body is partially magically?"
"Maybe," Frisk admitted. It made sense, in a terrible she-didn't-want-to-think-of-it sort of way.
"Will souls always respond in that way?" Lupin continued. "By revealing themselves if someone else is showing theirs?"
"Mine always did in the underground," Frisk said, but just as she said that, both Hermione's and Steven's souls blinked out.
"Like Frisk said," Hermione explained, "You have to want to show your soul. I think all of us, on some level at least, wanted to. I just focused myself on wanting to be protected from others and it did." She looked at Frisk. "Maybe monsters have more practice calling out souls than you do."
"That seems reasonable," Lupin said, and Frisk agreed. She never intended to attack anyone through the soul, or by any other method, anyway. "Now," Lupin asked Hermione and Steven, "Can you call it back again?"
Neither of them managed it quickly. Hermione managed it first, and then Steven was able to reveal his soul again too. "It helps that there are others around," he admitted. "I don't know if I could do this without help. What does the purple mean, again?"
"The monsters said it meant someone who would 'Persevere'... but I don't know," Frisk said. "The purple soul I knew was a note taker and someone who knew the value of words... both to attack, and help others feel better," Frisk said, thinking back to her fight with... that giant plant thing that Flowey had turned into. "But Steven... you don't have to hide from me... us. Not ever."
"Not even if I want to be Minister of Magic someday?" Steven asked.
"A pretty big dream for someone in their first year of Hogwarts," Lupin said, with his wistful smile, "But that is, as Headmaster Dumbledore would tell you, why we dream. And it is nothing to be ashamed of."
"We're bringing back someone from being a soulless flower," Ginny said. "That seems simple by a comparison. So why not?"
"Thank you," Steven said.
"And yellow?" asked Neville, nervously.
"Justice," Frisk told him. They made eye contact. Frisk still didn't know what had happened to his parents. But Frisk would swear that, in the end, was what drove him. "Now the real question is," Frisk said, "Now that you know how to do it, can you do it on your own?" She let her concentration lapse, and one by one, the lights of her friends winked out. Except for Luna's, which continued to bathe the room is a deep dark blue light. She turned to Luna. "Can you focus just a bit harder? See if you can draw the others out?"
"Oh... I wasn't really thinking about it," Luna admitted, turning her unfocused gaze on Frisk. "But I'll try for you." She held her hands in front of her, the same way she had on the train, giving the appearance that she was holding her floating soul within them, and closed her eyes.
The difference became apparent after just a few seconds, Frisk could feel the subtle call on her soul, it was the same call she'd felt so many times underground, though not nearly as strong. Frisk allowed herself to be caught up in that call, and let her soul be brought up to the surface with the rest of them.
They went around the room after that. While some, like Opal, managed it after about twenty seconds, it took others almost a full minute. Everyone could, eventually, manage to call up the others, but almost nobody matched Luna for speed. Except Frisk, who could almost do it just about at will.
"I think that's all pretty impressive," Lupin said, "But I think Frisk has taken enough time from your studying for finals. After all, when it comes time for it, you will all have support of each other, right?"
"We will," promised Ron, and the others echoed his sentiment.
The agreement filled Frisk with determination.
Finals week, on the other hand, did not fill Frisk with determination.
The potions final began with a written test. Said exam contained everything from having to remember uses of belladonna, to how to properly handle dittany. She had to list some of the antidotes to common poisons, and describe how to safely clean up a spill of dragon's blood. It ended with, naturally, trying to brew a potion from memory.
This part of the final she simply didn't understand. Her mother, even when she had made a dish a dozen times before, still referred back to her recipes. And these potions were a lot more dangerous than a batch of cookies that got the proportions of sugar mistaken. Why try to remember how to make a potion from scratch?
As hinted in an earlier class, the potion in question was the forgetfulness potion. Frisk spent a few seconds trying to remember if this classified as 'Ironic', but that didn't matter. What did matter was that she get the potion right... and she might have. At least, the blue potion was the most common color in the rainbow of bottles that were put on Snape's desk for grading.
The test she felt best about was Charms. It was practical only, so outside the charms room, Frisk gathered with the rest of the first year Gryffindors. They were called in one at a time to demonstrate their skill with various charms. "You're up Frisk," Laura told her. Frisk swallowed, and walked with as much confidence as she could muster into the Charms classroom. The first thing she saw as she came in was Flitwick, sitting on his stool.
"Let's see you start by levitating that rock," he said, in his high-pitched voice. After her experiences in potions, she was nervous about this. She could remember the charm, but the hand holding her wand was shaking. "Do, or do not," he told her, "There is no try."
Frisk was about to try casting her charm, when she realized exactly what he said and stared at him in surprise, before breaking out laughing.
"Muggles can tell some good stories too, you know. Besides, I had a relative in the third film." Flitwick told her, winking. "Now, we'll start over. Go ahead and levitate the rock."
Frisk took a second to calm down, but the surprise joke put her in good spirits, and she calmly levitated rocks, opened locks, and relocked them. She used "Repairo" on a broken pair of glasses, and lit a candle with the fire making charm.
"And finally," the professor said, and jumped down from his stool. He reached down behind his desk, and put a pineapple on top of it. "Give it some dancing feet."
Frisk focused her mind, pointed her wand, gestured, and called out, "Tarantula!" Frisk was rewarded by seeing the pineapple merrily tap its way across Flitwick's desk... until it reached the edge and unceremoniously toppled to the ground.
"Bravo," Flitwick said. "I don't think I can ask for anything else, Ms. Dreemurr. Well done. Go ahead and see yourself out. Please have," he consulted a piece of paper, "Mr. Wilcox in here next. And good luck in the rest of your exams."
Frisk could have danced in a way that would have made Mettaton proud on her way out of Charms, but instead she just held her head up high as she told Walter he was up for testing, and promised herself that she'd do no more studying until after dinner.
The next day was transfiguration (her mouse-snuff box was a very plain white, but at least it didn't have whiskers), and the history of magic final. The less said about history of magic, the better. "If self-stirring cauldrons were that important," complained Kevin, once they were safely down the hall, "We'd use them in potions." She wished, not for the first time, that they had a better professor for the subject. Though she wasn't sure how he was going to collect and grade the papers... maybe the other teachers did that?
In the Herbology practical, they dealt with echo flowers, puffapods, and for the second time, Dittany. And, for all her complaints about golden flower nightmares, Frisk did well in Herbology. The exam, which she took in the great hall, went reasonably well too. She was pretty sure, when she got her grades back, even Dad would have no complaints.
She had the Astronomy final that night. Producing a same night star chart might have been practical, but it wasn't high on her list of interesting activities. This was something she'd practiced, and got most of it filled in within the time limit. Still, it was rote memorization, and that was something she wasn't confident in.
The last final was Thursday afternoon, in Defense Against the Dark Arts. If Charms was her best exam, defense was the most fun, at least, it should have been. Professor Lupin had set up, of all things, an obstacle course filled with many of the dark creatures they'd discussed and saw. There were will-o'-the-wisps, to lead her astray, a Grindylow in a wading pool, a couple of gnomes (Frisk was careful to throw them away from Hagrid's vegetable patch), a small marsh where imps tried to push her and throw things at her, and finally, a large trunk.
"Boggart," Frisk mumbled to herself, eyeing the trunk. It had to be a boggart, and she was ready for it. She had figured out how to deal with Flowey. But when she got in to the trunk to face the boggart, it wasn't Flowey, or Asriel, or Asriel turning into Flowey. Instead, she was face to face with the black robe of a dementor.
Frisk gave a rather loud yelp of alarm as she felt the air grow colder. She backed up so quickly, she crashed into the side of the trunk. Professor Lupin looked into the trunk quickly, saw the creature, and instead of intervening. "Don't lose your head, Frisk! What must that be?"
"Boggart!" She focused on the picture she had of Flowey. "Riddikulus!" There was a whip-crack noise, and the boggart's form changed into what was, still a black cloak, but decorated with all sorts of yellow flowers, looking up at the boggart's face with mocking expressions. Lupin, still watching, began to laugh, and Frisk laughed with him.
She climbed out of the trunk. "Very nearly full marks, Frisk, well done," Lupin said, still laughing.
"I knew it was going to be a boggart," Frisk said, as her breath caught up with her. "But I thought it was going to become Asriel... and when it wasn't, I was surprised. Why'd it change?"
"That's an interesting discussion, Frisk," Lupin said, "But I have to keep going with the final. I'd be happy to talk to talk about it say, tonight after dinner? In my office?"
"Okay!" Frisk said. She watched the next couple of students go through their paces before heading back to the common room to drop off her things one last time.
The mood that evening at dinner was celebratory. The students of Hogwarts had made it through their finals, their OWLs, and even (for a lucky few) NEWTs. Well, for most people. For Frisk, and a few others, there was still one final left, and it was the most important one.
Percy, in one of his last acts as Head Boy, had delivered the note from Dumbledore to Frisk. The machine was ready. The destination time was known. They were to meet outside his office at ten in the morning. "Transportation has been arranged," the note said, though there wasn't any hint of what that could be.
But that was for tomorrow. She took the time to find each of her friends, and had a good conversation with each, before promising to see them the next day. Steven even came to her, no matter what the Gryffindor table thought of him, she was convinced he meant well. After all this, Frisk still wanted to know why Boggart in the final had decided to become a dementor, if only to take her mind off the butterflies in her stomach.
She was one of the last to leave the great hall, and one of the few not to be heading straight for a common room. Instead, she climbed the stairs and headed down the hall to Lupin's office, where she announced her presence by knocking on the door.
There was no reply.
After a few seconds, she tried knocking again. There was still no response. Surprised, Frisk tried to remember if she'd seen Lupin at the staff table during dinner, but couldn't remember... she hadn't looked. Convinced he'd stepped out for a moment, Frisk sat down to wait for him. Her mind was cheerfully thinking of all the things that could go wrong the next day... including one nightmare that left all seven of them dead, and allowed a dark Flowey to rampage across the United Kingdom. Dumbledore would be with them, right, so that wasn't going to happen, she told herself sternly.
Minutes ticked by, and there was still no sign of Lupin. She was starting to consider heading to the Gryffindor common room, to fill her mind with conversation instead of possibilities, when, of all people, Professor Snape came into view around the corner, holding a heavily smoking goblet. He looked down at the student and narrowed his eyes. "What are you doing here, Ms. Dreemurr?" he asked.
"I wanted to discuss the defense final with Professor Lupin," she said. "I think he's stepped out."
"Has he?" Professor Snape said grumpily. "Did you so much as try the door?"
"No, sir. I thought that would be rude," She stood quickly. "Is that for him? Would you like me to get the door for you?"
"Yes," was the potions master's one word reply. So Frisk stood and tried the door. It was, in fact, unlocked, and Frisk held the door open for the professor. But she didn't hear Lupin inside. After about thirty seconds, Snape dashed back out, his hands empty. Bewildered, Frisk went into the office, and saw the still smoking goblet on Lupin's desk. There was, however, no sign of the professor. She ran over to look, and next to it, sat an unrolled parchment map.
"Was he looking at this?" Frisk wondered aloud, peering down at the map. It was a very detailed map of Hogwarts, so detailed there was a dot labeled 'Frisk' in a box labeled as Lupin's office. Professor Snape's dot was rushing towards the Grand stairwell, but what had he seen?
Frisk glanced through the map as quickly as could, and then she saw it. Lupin's dot was heading down a corridor that went off the edge of the map. To where, she wasn't sure. But she was sure of this: it was a full moon that night. And Lupin's potion, to stop him from transforming into a werewolf, was right there in front of her. If he didn't get it immediately, there was no telling what could happen.
For a moment, Frisk stood paralyzed. If she went out, and she was attacked, not only might she die, but she would be condemning Asriel to a lonely, Flowey existence without a soul.
But the idea that anyone would get hurt while she searched for a teacher, brought them back here, and then got out was worse.
She picked up both the map, and the smoking goblet, itself warm to the touch. Then she followed as quickly as she dared after Professor Snape.