Chapter 6 – Exams
Everything was going well at Hogwarts a few months later. The four couples were still close and happy with their significant other. Rita had been convicted and would be spending the next 20 years in a dementor-free Azkaban. The public was finally starting to see the good in Draco and Hermione's relationship and rude letters and attacks lessened to nearly nothing. Rumors about the friends had also decreased to nothing as exams approached.
Draco kept Hermione from getting too stressed out by the exams and forced her to pull her nose out of the books every once in a while for social interaction, something no one else had been able to do until now. It wasn't unusual to see the friends hanging out and laughing nearly as often as sitting around a table in the library or the Gryffindor common room studying. That was also something that had become a normal sight, Luna and Draco in the Gryffindor common room. There was outrage at first about it, but when it became clear that they would stay the rest of the house was forced to get used to it.
All too soon though, exams were right around the corner and all were seen studying at every opportunity while struggling to complete the mountains of homework assigned. The friends still tried to hang out, but hanging out more and more often qualified as studying and doing homework together, even Ron was studying which was something rarely seen in past years. Finally, NEWTs were over and all there was left to do was to wait anxiously for their grades so they could apply for jobs. Lavender had finally figured out what she wanted to do and it was something that suited the girl, she wanted to become a fashion designer, making her own line of both magical and muggle clothes and mixing the two to update the Wizarding World in at least a clothing sense. No strange men in nightgowns like at the Quidditch World Cup a few years before was her goal, so they could blend in better.
Grades came in with Hermione getting perfect grades on all her exams, and also Draco doing the same. The rest all passed most of their classes, the ones they didn't weren't important for their chosen field. All in all, a year ended well with happiness and no major struggles. Harry would go off to Healer training, Neville and Ron had already spoken to McGonagall and she had said their prospects as professors looked well, Lavender had an apprenticeship with one of the top designers in the business, Ginny had offers from most of the Quidditch teams in England, and Hermione and Draco both were being called for interviews at the new department. Luna was a mystery, as she wouldn't tell anyone what was happening with her career path, not even Neville. Graduation was only a week away and with the stress of exams gone, the friends were hardly ever apart, especially with curfew lifted for the 7th and 8th years after exams finished.