O.W.L. Post
A week had past since Harry and Arthur's very big day. Dumbledore and Remus had gone over Sirius' Will with Harry and told him that he had inherited all of Sirius' possessions, including Grimmauld Place. Harry couldn't take full legal possession until he turned seventeen so Remus would be the care taker until then. Harry spent the next couple days after that sulking in his room.
"Harry," Ginny said quietly as she entered his room, "I know you are sad right now, but remember what you said at your celebration dinner. Don't forget how to keep living with out Sirius."
Harry gave her a small smile and said thanks, that was all he really wanted to hear, that someone had listened to him. He followed her back downstairs and joined everyone.
The next two weeks were spent cleaning Grimmauld Place and removing as many dark or questionable objects as possible. Kreacher made the first week of this task very difficult as he would continually retrieve items from the dust bins and hide them away. On Monday of the second week though something unexpected had happened. Harry had sent Kreacher to Buckbeaks room to clean, Kreacher continually mumbled under his breath while cleaning. While he was cleaning he wondered over near the cabinet that stored Buckbeak's food. Buckbeak, thinking he was going to be fed let out a low squawk.
"Oh shut up," Kreacher said under his breath, "you ugly, stupid creature. You should be dead along with my mistresses ungrateful scum of a son."
Kreacher didn't know this, but Buckbeak heard his comment. Buckbeak charged directly at Kreacher and with one slash of his front talon had quickly removed Kreacher's head from his torso. Buckbeak leaned down to sniff Kreacher's body but decided that Kreacher was too foul to even eat.
Harry and Ron heard Buckbeak squaking upstairs and ran up the stairs as fast as they could to see what was wrong. Harry expected to open the door and see Kreacher attacking Buckbeak or teasing him with dead rats. He wasn't prepared to see Kreacher's lifeless body lying on the floor his head three feet away.
"UH! Remus," Harry yelled down the stairs hoping Remus would hear him, "Can you come to Buckbeaks room please?" They heard the sound of Remus's shoes hit the floor as he ran to see what was wrong. Remus let out a deep breath when he turned the corner to see both Harry and Ron were ok.
"What is it Harry," Remus asked his voice shaking, "are you both all right?"
"Yeah we are both fine, "Ron answered, "It's Harry's house elf that needs to, um, pull himself together."
Harry and Ron both snickered at Ron's comment. Remus pushed past the boys and entered the room, he immediately saw what Ron had meant and chuckled to himself.
"Well yes," Remus began saying, "I could see that he is having some difficulty." Remus bowed to Buckbeak to calm him down and slowly made his way to where Kreacher lay.
"Evanesco," Remus cast the spell as he flicked his wand at Kreacher's body. Kreacher's body and head both vanished. "Scourgify," came next as the blood vanished from the floor. "Harry," Remus began, "I'm sorry about the loss of your house elf."
"That's ok," Harry said, not too depressed over the loss, "he wasn't very good anyways, and now he won't be a liability to the order anymore." The three of them went back downstairs and informed everyone what had happened.
A week had past since what everyone had deemed Buckbeaks third finest moment, the first being rescuing Sirius and the second attacking Draco. Grimmauld Place had never been so clean, and was quickly becoming a very enjoyable place to stay. On the morning of July 15th a large brown barn owl came flying in through the kitchen window and landed in the middle of the dinning room table. The bird hopped first to Harry, then Ron, and finally Hermione. They each took the envelopes addressed to themselves and the owl flew away.
"What are these," Ron asked, "they can't be our Hogwarts letters yet, we haven't chose our classes yet."
"Honestly Ronald," Hermione said quickly, "these are obviously the results to our O.W.L.s"
Rons ears quickly turned red but before he could retaliate Ginny spoke up.
"Well go on then open them!" she said.
Hermione was the first to tear open her envelope. Hermione blushed a bit as she began to smile.
"Well," Ron said, "how did you do?"
"Well," Hermione said shyly, "I got E's in all of my studies."
Rons jaw fell open, "E's in all of your classes? Has that ever happened before?"
"Not in my time at Hogwarts," Professor Dumbledore's voice answered from the doorway, "Congratulations Ms. Granger fourteen exceptional O.W.L.'s, I trust you know what classes you would like to continue in?"
"Actually no sir," Hermione replied, "I want to take so much that I don't know what I should do."
Harry and Ron both rolled their eyes hearing this. "Why don't you just take all of the classes," Ron chimed in, "I'm sure you could accomplish the task."
"Nice of you to say Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said before Hermione could snap at Ron, "However I am sure she would rather focus on a few core classes."
Hermione smiled and nodded while Molly began helping Ron open his envelope. Ginny was laughing at her brother as he struggled to get the envelope away from his mom. He finally was able to pull his paper results out of his envelope and read his results.
"OH, Ronald," Molly squealed into his ear while reading over his shoulder, "well done! Ten O.W.L.s for you. I'm so proud of you."
"Thanks mum," Ron said, "how about you Harry?"
"I got," Harry said as he started counting the number of O.W.L.s he got, "twelve."
"Yes," Dumbledore spoke again, "you all did very well, now I need you to fill out a class list that you would like to take and have an owl bring them to Professor McGonagall. Great job you three, I am very proud of all of you." With that Professor Dumbledore disapparated out of the house.
"Harry," Hermione said while still staring at her results, "can I use Hedwig to send my parents my results?"
"Yeah," Harry replied smiling. He now knew he could take the courses needed to become an Auror, "she is probably in the attic with Buckbeak."
"Thanks Harry," Hermione said as she ran out of the room.
Later that night Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat at the kitchen table deciding what classes to take while Ginny read through brochures of jobs and what classes they would need to take.
"Wow, Harry," Ginny said looking at the long list of classes for Aurors, "you need to take Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Care of Magical Creatures, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, they also recommend that you take Divination and Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts for Aurors and Herbology."
"Not to mention I have to continue Occlumency with Snape, I am Quidditch captain, and we are going to continue the DA aren't we?" Harry replied, "Sounds like fun."
"Hey, Hermione," Ron said, "what classes are you going to take?"
"Well I was planning on taking," Hermione began as she was taking a deep breath, "Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Arithmancy, Muggle Studies, Care of Magical Creatures and Introduction to Wizard Politics."
Ron's mouth fell open, "Wow," he said in an awed voice, "I only plan on taking Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Transfiguration and Care of Magical Creatures."
"Well that is still a good number of classes Ron for sixth and seventh year," Hermione said smiling at Ron.
When they had finally filled out their class lists they used Ron's owl Pig to deliver the letters as Hedwig hadn't returned yet. They stayed up until late that night talking and joking with one another until the girls went to their room and they all went to sleep.