Chapter 17
The students returned in a loud mass via train, the Lowther twins chuckling over having freaked out muggle passengers by pretending to hold a serious debate on whether Alice Cooper or Pink Floyd had the best critique of schooling. This led to having to sing 'School's out for the summer' and 'We don't want no education' – properly titled 'another brick in the wall' – to explain; whereupon they were bombarded with indignant enquiries, mostly from the goblins in the school, as to whether muggles were stupider than Professor Nuffield said or was education so cheap for them that they treated it with such contempt. And Peter and Fred had to explain that education was, save for those who chose private schools, both free and compulsory; and had been for so long that it WAS treated with contempt, and that besides the point of the Pink Floyd song was that it was used to train children to conform more than to actually teach them; which had a significant element of the truth, rather like the way Durmstrang had brainwashed good little Nazis.
The critics calmed down over such an explanation and declared that free education was good but that those who didn't deserve an education didn't ought to get it and that should be gauged by behaviour.
The discussion got wildly political and was still raging by the time they got to Prince Peak where Darryl spoke up and said that this was why Marauders believed in opening schools for free but being picky about who they took and that half the kids offered places in Jade's school had turned them down because they didn't want to be with the other race which was equally silly from goblins as from humans; but nobody ever said people had to be sensible.
"And I must say" he said "Much as I love school I DO like it when school's out for the summer because a rest is good; and I get to see my girlfriend."
Mocking kissing noises were made and several people went giggling into school whilst undoing a selection of pustules and tentacles.
oOoOo
The weather was hot; and work hard to settle down to. The swarm of huge mosquitoes blown up the mountain in a freak air movement did not help and there was much misery, slapping, yelling and attempts to slay them one at a time with stinging hexes until Darryl solved the problem with a shouted 'Moskita Kedavra' that destroyed the whole ominously whining cloud in a flash of green.
"Lateral thinking there old boy" said Rory "I was wondering if we'd have to brew up an insecticide and what it would do to my garden plants; and whatever it was still preferable to being dive-bombed by a bunch of vampiric Stukas."
"THAT's a muggle reference that passes me by; but glad to oblige anyway" said Darryl. "Your garden and its carefully introduced suitable creepy crawlies are saved from extinction; let me just slip into a phone booth and get my pants off from outside my tights and resume the persona of mild mannered schoolboy etcetera."
"Idiot" said Rory amicably.
"I thought I heard millions of whining voices cry out and were suddenly stilled" misquoted Peter.
"Even Obi-wan Kenobi would whack mossies" said Fred, Gibbsing his brother.
oOoOo
There were a few magical accidents caused by hot children not concentrating; the fifth, permitted to revise outside under the beech tree were trying to keep cool by describing cool places; and Rose Hubble's rather uncontrolled wand, waved for emphasis, accidentally transfigured Stripy the School Leopard into Irritated, the School Emperor Penguin squawking in consternation and in imminent danger of falling off the branch immediately above Rose. The combined efforts of the First Peak Marauders had her back in her proper form as she fell so at least she landed on her feet; wherupon she gently but firmly cuffed Rose with a big paw and stalked off in high dudgeon to a place in the shade where she could wash vigorously.
Rose picked herself up and went over to do her ears in deep contrition.
Stripy made her work for forgiveness before firmly washing Rose and reducing her to a bundle of helpless giggle.
oOoOo
The thunderstorm in the middle of the night came as a relief; until those who had got up to watch it because there was no point trying to sleep though it – unless you were Emily Grant who would not, Elsie declared, awaken for the Last Trump or Ragnarrok or any other apocalyptic encounter without quidditch attached – had the shock of what looked to be a very apocalyptic encounter of their own. Ball lightening is frightening; and rolled about with seeming intelligence and malevolence. Even the prefects were frightened; and then the calm voice of Madam Malfoy was extending through the whole school explaining that Professor Snape was dealing with the noisy little problem in the yard and anyone who was awake should put on slippers and dressing gowns and proceed to the great hall where cocoa would be served presently.
What Severus and Krait did, with help from the other blooded staff, was to drive another copper rod into the earth actually inside the castle compound; the ones set up to electrocute the fey were protecting the cable car and the surroundings of the castle and reducing the number of balls that actually fell into the compound; the final rod dealt with any left.
The thunder continued to rumble however without rain; and Severus called for volunteers to join him down the mountain where the villagers might be losing their crops to burning balls.
The upper sixth volunteered as a body; apart from Emily who was still asleep and snoring, giggled Irmi, fit to rival the thunder.
Krait remained in charge of the school, cuddling a screaming David Augustus who refused to be pacified by blood pulse until he had made his disapprobation felt; and Severus led sundry staff and the upper sixth – he had refused to take any younger – to help the villagers. After all in the confusion it was hardly likely that they would notice that the School contingent were using magically summoned jets of water to put out fire.
He was glad that they did go; only the amount of water of a dozen concentrated aguamenti spells was sufficient to get a fire out in time to save the family trapped in the burning chalet and their livestock in the barn that was built against it.
And then the rain came; and the wizarding folk quietly withdrew to a place from which they could apparate discreetly.
The rain was torrential; and almost as noisy as the thunder. And Silvina absently fetched a drum kit from the music room and had her little brothers and sisters giggling with 'symphony for thunder and Emily's snores'.
The cocoa was welcome; and it was a couple of hours before it was worth while going back to bed.
And it may be said in the morning that Emily had three pillows thrown at her when she asked the other girls what was keeping them in bed so long and why hadn't the rising bell gone yet.
She was told in no uncertain terms and retired abashed in the search for breakfast by wheedling any elves who might be up.
Fortunately for Emily there were always those elves who did not permit night alarums to interfere with their routine; and she was fed coffee and a doorstep of bread and honey and listened to a fuller account of the storm than her sleepy dormitory mates were prepared to give.
"I say! WHAT a daisy; I'm quite sorry I missed it" said Emily. "And missed pulling my weight in the village too" she added soberly; for Emily had a well developed sense of responsibility.
"We all know you WOULD have been there if you had been awake" said Sirri coming in. "Nobody's about to point fingers or cast stones; though I fear you WILL get ragged for a while over your ability to sleep for Austria."
"Someone should have whispered in her ear that the gods were chucking bludgers of fire about" quipped Severus, coming in search of coffee "That might have penetrated where thunder, lightening and rain that was coming down so hard it stopped a foot off the ground failed."
Emily reddened but grinned.
"Fair comment" she said. "Well if I'm ragged I guess I can see why; it's rather funny really when you hear about it afterwards!"
"Well my dear, if I could bottle your capacity to sleep the deep dreamless sleep of the just I could make a fortune selling it to insomniacs" said Severus "Be pleased you have such a facility; it makes for a healthy girl when awake. And I hope you never lose it."
"Thanks sir" said Emily; who had heard the rumour that Professor Snape was himself something of an insomniac. He was right; it was well worth being ragged for so useful a capacity!
oOoOo
The storm cleared the air and studying was easier again; to the relief of those who DID want to study through lessons they had not grasped thoroughly first time around. And the main body of the school, outside the exam group, were of course continuing with normal lessons.
And the musicians and artists got together to produce an animated film to record onto the viewing globes used to show recordings on the viewing screen; and the song 'if Emily was awake' spoke of how the quidditch captain would use a bludger bat to knock the ball lightening right back over the walls.
Emily laughed as loudly as anyone; which is why they had ventured to do it because Emily WAS a good sport and could take a joke against herself. Even the quip by Arbrek that the IAQ was thinking of introducing an eighth position called 'Sleeper' in which that team player had to balance on the three hoops of the goal and remain asleep whatever transpired and either sleeper awakening could end the match in the same way as catching the snitch.
Emily cuffed him affectionately and laughed.
oOoOo
The Chanting Exam for both NEWTs and OWLs was first as Lucius had to travel around Europe to test it; and he declared that anyone who had participated in the twelve hour chant really required no other practical. As the only ones taking it to NEWT were Irmi, Darryl, Sebastian and Elsie, who HAD all taken part they were much relieved to have that dictate. As Darryl said, rather like those who had gained their DADA in toto for fighting Voldemort, you couldn't have a much stiffer exam than real life.
The written exams for both OWL and NEWT took place in the morning, with the practical for the OWL to be after lunch.
The four NEWT students thought it a nice exam; there was a big essay question quoting the nonsense rhymes cited by Cato the Elder for knitting bones and the question asked for comment on such muggle rhymes and chants.
This called for quoting the various repetitive and jangling rhymes from a number of cultures, some of which featured in Severus' book 'One hundred and one simple chants and rhythms and their meanings' because muggle culture did borrow – especially before the statute of secrecy – from the magical world. Darryl wrote confidently that the precise wording of a chant was relatively immaterial providing it was appropriate in the mind of the chanter by assimilative correlation of some form or other, though most wizards would be most comfortable using either the Hittite chant 'hastai-kan, hastai handan' meaning 'bone be attached to bone' or the Irish 'Ault fri halt di, féith fri féth' of 'joint to joint, sinew to sinew' since both contained seven syllables and most of the rest contained fifteen, a good number, being three fives, but not as traditionally powerful and that personally he would design one with twenty three syllables on a seven-nine-seven syllable base of three lines. He added that it was interesting that muggles believed in the power of such chants, perhaps suggesting that the muggleborn were rather ignored by the wizarding world but managed to get action out of chanting to give the chants credence; even after the meaning had been lost by the Romans managing to garble the Etruscan so badly that translation of Cato's quotes was now impossible for being so meaningless.
The other three were writing equally busily, also quoting Severus, and Elsie was cheerfully writing that it seemed likely that either the wizarding community had been fairly well connected across indo-European countries of antiquity that similar chants were to be found in so many languages or there was a convergent evolution of ideas in different communities. She noted that most of the chants were a bit pedestrian and that personally she would prefer to use assimilative correlation by culture and use the nursery rhyme 'Healer Healer fix my thumb' that every wizarding child knew because assimilative correlation was more powerful than any set words.
All of them wrote that the power of twenty three in a healing chant was likely to be more efficacious.
There were paragraph questions too on curse breaking chants – some of which called for a chant to be designed to break a particular curse – and on the origins of chanting and on various poetic forms. In the curse breaking chants Elsie, Darryl and Sebastian included far more Arithmancy than was necessary and Elsie and Darryl included more ancient runes than were needed too. It may be said that Lucius enjoyed reading the papers that year, which also included efforts from Ming Chang, Gorbrin and Lilith in Hogwarts and Takeo Namudzu as well as the Asimov twins, who both took it a year early, in Durmstrang; and was, in his opinion, the most erudite set of answers he had ever received in any one year, discounting the odd singular student.
oOoOo
The eleven of the fifth who were taking chanting – all but four of the class – had written knowledgeably enough as behoved the students of the man who reintroduced chanting to the wizarding world. The exam was along fairly expected lines, covering knowledge of poetry forms, picking which form to team with which type of curse to be broken, and designing a brief chant to tie a charm to an item if one knew no enchanting rituals. The fifth thought it all very easy.
The ruthless drilling that had been done in voice training left them no excuse for not finding the practical in the afternoon easy too; Lucius divided them into groups of seven and four, for an arithmantically good number and a locationally arithmantically good number as being the cardinal points, and they chanted for an hour to exclude all sharks from the circle they defined; which almost disrupted Flo, who had to fight a fit of the giggles over the idea of finding sharks on top of a mountain.
oOoOo
Then there was almost a week to wait before the rest of the exams would begin; which would start with the NEWTs. And the NEWT students decided to rest their brains somewhat and take a long weekend without any study and returned to last minute revision much refreshed.
oOoOo
This was the first year of the new format potions exam which permitted the brewing of a more complex potion than could be completed in a single session to demonstrate virtuosity, allied with a simpler and shorter practical. Elsie, Sebastian and Darryl had elected to brew Felix Felicis; which had entailed some negotiations with the examination board. As the longest part of the brewing required the collection of bottled sunlight collected in a specially prepared potion held in a prism-cut bottle the brewing had needed to begin just after Yule; and the students of Prince Peak were glad not to be the solitary student in Hogwarts that the examiner mentioned was brewing the same potion; collecting sunlight in Scotland would require beginning the brew long before Yule. As the peak of the Prinzhorn was rarely encased in too much weather, being well above most of the jetstreams, collecting sunshine was not a problem and it was guaranteed that it would mature after the Easter holidays for last minute inclusion. Mr Hopkirk had murmured something about it being inevitable that the students of Severus Snape being so ambitious when he had spoken to them at the beginning of the September term.
Emily, Evangeline, Adrian and Irmi were a little less ambitious, although Potioneering was Emily's best subject. They decided that the brewing of Veritaserum, taking a full moon, was a less exciting alternative and still an 'O' grade potion; Felix was, declared Irmi, purely for pose-points.
"But we DO get a licence to brew Felix out of it" said Darryl "And if we want to do potioneering or teach to high level that means we don't have to take a separate exam for it; it's pure laziness, not entirely swank."
Irmi laughed.
"Darryl, you're as bad as a Malfoy; you can swank AND find a way to be lazy both at once."
"Guilty" said Darryl, winking at Sebastian who was pulling a face that he had not thought of the quick come-back to his girlfriend.
"Who IS brewing Felix in Hogwarts?" Irmi had asked "Lilith?"
"No; Lilith decided like you that Veritaserum was enough to show her virtuosity" said Severus "It's Gorbrin."
"Oh, a Malfoy; no surprise then" said Irmi laughing. "I'm surprised Lilith isn't, though."
"Lilith reckons that brewing Felix is too much of a breeze – she's been helping me for years - as well as deciding not to put the time she can use for other subjects into something she reckons she should do well at anyway," explained Severus. "She can't have a Felix licence until she's seventeen anyway."
The Prince Peak potioneers used The Acme Almanac which despite the corny title – or maybe because of it – was a very good publication, and Callum Prince was one of the contributors on the predictions side. And the four editors, which included Callum and his Arithmancer wife Cynthia, were all veterans of the MSHG. It was however very nice of Professor Fraser to contact the school with the information that the reputable and well established 'Arithmancer's Almanac' had got the dates of the moon phases over the holiday wrong by a day – fortunately a day early rather than a day late – that could have seriously affected the brewing of Veritaserum and the other few moon-based potions. The Acme Almanac was spot on.
When the exam came, all six candidates felt very confident in their prepared potions that were labelled, signed for, and stored under lock and key to be taken away by the examiners; and they went happily one by one to undertake the new tests, that emphasised more the collection and storing of potioneering ingredients. Collecting and storing ashwinder eggs posed no problems; nor did analysing a blended poison and collecting the ingredients that would be required to brew an antidote. They were not required to brew an antidote but Elsie picked up some extra marks for commenting that the amount of certain ingredients could be reduced by the use of a complex arithmantic procedure of stirs or a chant. Darryl just chanted over his ingredients and then explained why; though this was still worth extra points. The final test was to identify unmarked ingredients with extra marks given if the candidate did not have to resort to Scarpin's Revellaspell. None of them had to; this was something else they were well drilled in, and a glance and a sniff sufficed for all of them. The examiner was impressed.
The written followed in the afternoon; which involved the analysis of potions by printed Malfoy Lines from the Revellaspell; and all made the disapproving note that as the Elixir to Induce Euphoria lacked peppermint it was an incomplete potion that would display unwanted side effects. The question 'explain why Golapott's first law is not merely assumed within the third' was rather interesting and the subtle distinction that the first law required, for the antidote to a single poison, merely that the antidote's ingredients EQUAL or exceeding it; whereas for a blended poison, covered in the third law, exceeding the original sum of ingredients was required. Darryl, Sebastian, Emily and Elsie wrote that this was due to the additional effect – Darryl wrote 'additional synergistic effects', being more subject to Severus' vocabulary – of a blend making a whole new poison with additional and sometimes unexpected effects, and Darryl added arithmantic notes and a sketched graph which was decidedly post NEWT in scale and came from discussing the matter over breakfast one morning with Severus and Krait in the Yule holidays, which had prompted pointed comments from several other breakfasters on the lack of wisdom of eating when potioneers were allowed to talk.
And Darryl grinned to himself recalling the discussion, certain that Lilith, who had joined in, was also drawing a graph and writing too many arithmantic notes!
It may be noted that though the rest of the class were not AS affected by Severus' vocabulary as Darryl, several people did describe a blended poison in terms of a 'concatenation of not wholly controllable effects'.
oOoOo
The next exam was Arithmancy; only Elsie, Darryl and Sebastian were involved in this.
The exam had the usual nasty pieces of calculus to solve apportation; the calculation of where two nodes were for nodal shift given four ley lines; and the calculation of the best time to tackle a curse
with temporal properties. It was apparent that the examiner who set THAT question had knowledge of muggle films since it asked that if Princess Fiona was cursed to turn into a troll during the hours of darkness, when should one attempt to break the curse for best results. Darryl answered that the time to break the curse depended on whether Princess Fiona preferred to be a human all the time or a troll and that the enchantment in all good Arthurian tales could only be truly broken if she was given the choice. He then proceeded to work out the optimal times for both preferences of the princess; after all in Shrek, Fiona had preferred to be an ogre with her ogre boyfriend. There were other normally excruciating questions and the final one with its ominous disyllabic question 'explain' was nothing more nor less than the engulfing charm and so quite easy to explain.
oOoOo
After Arithmancy was Ancient Runes; which was taken only by Darryl and Elsie. There were three passages to translate; one in Ogham, one in Hittite and one in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Each one dealt with the transcription of the trial of a thief and the sentence given; and the remainder of the exam was to comment on how the national characteristics of each culture might be shown in the choice of language and to a lesser extent in the punishment given. The Celtic nature dealt in balance and reparation and putting right damage caused by a criminal; the Hittite courts leaned heavily to punishment for discouragement of others; and the Egyptian view was more the horror of the sacrilege of stealing from a tomb and the fact that the greater punishment would occur in the afterlife. Both Elsie and Darryl enjoyed themselves no end, since this sort of discussion of how a language and its use defined a society was to their tastes; and they had enjoyed many discussions on the subject in and out of class. Darryl had too enjoyed such debates with Gorbrin and Ming before he came to Prince Peak; and only regretted that he had not made friends with Gorbrin and his set before. He had taken Ancient Runes to OWL initially because he was interested; and having maintained that interest was also a convert to the Snapian philosophy that Arithmancy underlay everything and Runes were required for the highest level of use of practical skills such as enchantment, potioneering and chanting and helped to avoid the dark arts if one might only recognise harmful sigils; and ward off dark arts by the use of protective sigils. He wrote more than he needed and returned an essay somewhat above NEWT level and including quotes from 'Translations and Text' forgetting to translate the German of Agalisse Schreiber, the contributor he was quoting, back into English since he had become quite trilingual in Prince Peak.
oOoOo
Nobody was taking the new exam in Art at NEWT; Randolph would take it at OWL this year, his lower sixth year, and take NEWT with his other NEWTs the year after. Therefore the next exam was Charms, since nobody was taking astronomy this year, Pru being in the lower sixth and sufficiently readily keeping up with her work that Severus had no qualms about letting her continue with all four of her chosen subjects.
The two long questions, one on Barrier Charms and one on Memory Charms were looking for answers about how to control muggles; so Darryl feeling contrary wrote about age lines and dark creature exclusion lines under Barrier Charms as well as the usual charms to inhibit eavesdropping, locking spells and the fidelius charm. In Memory Charms he mentioned confundment and obliviation for muggles almost in passing and wrote a post NEWT answer on the use of memory modification as a medical aide with children who had suffered deep trauma perhaps by drawing off memories to store until the child was older and might wish to view them second hand in the Pensieve. Emily, who did not realise she was supposed to be talking about muggles, wrote happily about the use of the new barrier to prevent bludgers threatening the crowd as an added part of the game of quidditch as well as mentioning all the normal charms to prevent pests and juniors, but she repeated herself, from entering certain places. Elsie, Sebastian and Yukya all returned more or less conventional answers only at a generally higher level than was required. The short questions posed no problems to anyone.
The practical followed fairly standard lines. Holiday makers up to see the rack railway had to be observed from invisibility then confunded or obliviated to forget that they had seen a flying horse. The students were then required to move a tree from one place to another using digging charms and mobiloarbus which was easy enough to arrange as the charcoal burners were considering felling some sycamores, that did not make good charcoal, to make way for some oak saplings; and with a little arrangement the candidates moved the young trees to the land owned by the school; with the charcoal burners watching in wide eyed wonder, much to the disapproval of the examiner.
"They are not about to tell the folk in the village" said Emily, impatiently "They stood by us to fight the werewolves of Odessa; they knew it was a school for magic in Miss Cackle's time and said it had been the castle of a wizard time out of mind before her mother even. For some muggles it's just politer to let them know; they are friends of the wizarding world."
It seemed unnatural to be watched by muggles; but Madam Trewkettle put up with it. Somehow she realised that the self contained young people of Prince Peak would go out of their way to preserve the right of these muggles to know; and she preferred not to cross the straight-looking, confident and able pupils of Severus Snape, such a far cry from the pupils of Cackle's that he had taken on.
oOoOo
Nobody was taking Comparative Magic; apart from the odd maverick of previous years, it had not really been going long enough as a regular class. The largest number studying it seriously was currently the fourth and below. Care of Domestic Beasts was equally unpopular in this year, though Elsie and Sebastian had gained 'O' at OWL; but then they had done so well over all that they had to drop a few subjects at NEWT! Hence there was a full day's break before the DADA exams. And all those who had been involved with repelling the Fey last year were exempted the practical, which was all five of those taking the exam, Emily, Sebastian, Adrian, Irmi and Darryl. The written exam covered the unforgivable curses, cursed items, the recognition of someone under compulsion, and counter curses. There was the usual bonus question on horcruces and how to destroy them; and the five thought it quite ridiculously easy. Which for seasoned fighters against the dark arts it really was. Severus told the group afterwards, with a wry smile, that the exam was harder than in his young days; but that such was merely a reflection of a whole generation used to fighting dark arts and dark creatures whilst still at school.
oOoOo
Nobody was taking Divination; and only Yukya and Evangeline were taking enchantment. There was a long question regarding the enchantment of gates, hiding doors and the ways into wizarding space, citing platform nine-and-three-quarters as an exemplar. Yukya returned a good solid answer; and wrote a second essay on wand woods and cores, and matching wand to wizard, using Willow Prince Black's book 'Why the Wand IS the Wizard' to quote from since the school had been sent a complimentary copy and Yukya had baggsed it first. The last two questions were shorter essays, one on dedicated wands and why they were still useful in a world where all adults could carry a wand; and on the choice of broom woods and the way different woods took the cushioning charms. Yukya pointed out that as the current statistics suggested that less than half the wizarding world attended school if one counted goblins, elves and sundry other beings, the use of dedicated wands enchanted to a single spell effect were imperative for those who could not manage all of the spells to be found within such items; and that of those who had attended school it was a small percentage of those who achieved a NEWT in Transfigurations to use that level of transfigurational spell such as water summoning; and what were the faucets in wizarding tents but dedicated water summoning wands hidden as familiar items. He added that moreover many children below seventeen found dedicated wands useful, such as those old enough to shave but too young to cast their own grooming spells at home. He finished off with a methodical treatise on broom wood and how well each shaft took a cushioning charm and noted that it was a compromise between speed and comfort.
Yukya was never going to set the world alight with any new research or innovation; but he was a solid student capable of getting 'O' in the three subjects he was taking; and he was considering teaching as an option.
The practical involved coring a wand, then enchanting one of a number of items – a candlestick, a pair of slippers, a book, a plate and a bottle – to perform an enchanted action when a particular condition pertained. Yukya, who found it easy, got carried away and did all five. He enchanted his candlestick to light a candle when it was placed in the socket, his pair of slippers to act as a warming charm if the temperature was below forty degrees Fahrenheit – any higher was, he said, unnecessary and sinful luxury – his book to always open where it had last been closed so you would never lose your place; the plate to fill on command with things you knew were in the preserving cabinet; and the bottle to pour of its own accord when ordered to do so. They were more pedestrian enchantments than some but perfectly reasonable and very well crafted. Making a shopping trolley fly was child's play. Evangeline grinned shakily when it was all over and said she thought she had done enough to get an 'E'; which was for her the sum of her ambitions.
oOoOo
Sebastian was the lone entrant for Geomancy; and if Madam Burns did not take her class of one for breakfast at sundry sites around Austria as David had done, she was a good teacher and Sebastian felt well prepared.
He calculated the speed of travel of three means of travel from one given location to another to see which was the quickest route and discovered that anyone who had assumed and wrote 'nodal shift' would have been wrong. It was one of those times that being a good arithmancer came in handy. Then he wrote the list of probable order in which the Knight Bus would visit a set list of destinations, using Assimilative Correlation by Locational Nomenclature, or as he wrote dryly in the case of Ernie Prang, Assimilative Correlation by Awful Pun and Empty Head. The last essay question was on the reasons behind the choice of the route of the Hogwarts express, which included the use of ley lines, the avoidance of concentrations of muggles and other factors. Then there was a paper of short questions; and the written was over.
The practical involved being taken to England to collect a pale blue scarf from Cambridge, a bright green hat from Lincoln, a macrame bag from Nottingham and a Fair-isle sweater from Carlisle. Sebastian sniffed and muttered about Assimilative Correlation by Janus Thickey Ward and did as he was bid.
The Herbology exam involved Snargaluff this year; and Elsie groaned. Had she had a mandrake to uproot she was fairly confident of getting an 'O'; being slight as well as having been delicate, dealing with a snargaluff would cost her the highest grade. She shrugged, sighed, and got on with it; but managed only one pod in the time allotted. Still that was a pass; and she might pass on to the written on which she hoped to drag her mark up to an 'E'. Evangeline was delighted to get two pods; her theory was not as good as Elsie's.
Elsie enjoyed the written exam as it happened; and wrote a learned essay on compost and soil types and strayed into a post NEWT discussion on the level of acidity or alkalinity of the soil, as might be measured using Scarpin's revellaspell and was graded according to the method of Adam Scarrab, author of 'Soil types and how to exploit and improve them' and 'The importance of Manure'. It had taken a while for his discoveries to be made any real use of; since Mr Scarrab had been writing in the 1960's and made his amendment on acidity in the early 1970's, by which time Voldemort was causing enough trouble to those in power that Herbology had seemed a rather irrelevant study. Elsie had always had window boxes even before she came to school and spent a lot of time in bed; because there was endless variation to look at. And her mother was a keen gardener who had introduced her to Scarrab at a relatively early age. And since Elsie was a perfectly competent arithmancer she was quite happy with fractional measurements of the level of acid in a square foot of earth. Neutral was zero; and alkalinity was measured as negative numbers, entirely different from the muggle method, which Elsie was currently studying for fun.
She enjoyed the whole paper which was more than Evangeline, the only other entrant did – and declared happily that she had only got two exams left.
This was one more than anyone else except Irmi.
oOoOo
Irmi and Elsie were both taking History; and had to pick four questions out of eight. Both chose the question on Gellert Grindelwald's rise to power; it was something they had been at least vaguely associated with through fighting Odessa, the legacy left by the dark wizard in the hands of his grandson. Elsie also chose to answer the question on the temporary statute of secrecy during the various Roman pogrums on the magical; and on the relative status of potioneers and diviners in bronze age Hellenic culture, where potioneers were considered decidedly dodgy but augurers were revered. Her fourth essay choice was on the reasons behind the goblin uprisings in the late medieval and early modern era. Irmi picked the period of religious upheaval in Europe that was one of the main factors leading to the statute of secrecy as her second essay; returned to cover the status of potioneers and augurers in the bronze age and settled for her final essay on a discussion of the myth that witches were burned during the middle ages; it almost duplicated her work over religious upheaval, since it was heretics, not witches, who were burned; but it was easy to confuse a pagan witch for a heretic.
It was a stiff exam and neither fancied questions on the role of muggles in wizarding history since the statute of secrecy nor the one on the need to introduce more laws to limit activity as a result of the statute of secrecy.
oOoOo
And then it was Transfigurations, the final NEWT; which was Elsie, Sebastian, Irmi, Adrian, Yukya and Darryl.
There were no surprises in the written and all were trying to recall the exceptions to Gamp's law of elemental conjuration. There was a question on human transfiguration, and on the reasons that summoning matter was more difficult than summoning raw energy. And it was no surprise that Elsie, Sebastian and Darryl got far too arithmantically technical over that question! Irmi merely used Jade's example that bunnies were made of sunshine, but when you considered how much grass a bunny ate while it was growing up and the amount of sunlight required to grow that grass, the amount of energy to make a bunny suddenly looked rather large.
And in the practical they all produced permanenced potted plants of one kind or another and even Darryl managed to be fairly uncontroversial and only produced tomatoes. Their transfigurations of a fiddle to a cat went smoothly too with a selection of pedigree cats. And then the NEWTs were over; and they might enjoy their last few weeks as schoolchildren without further responsibility – save for those who were prefects!
And they all heaved a collective sigh of relief and went to relax on the high alm with picnics.