The O.W.L.'s seemed to be approaching at breakneck speed. Students, of course, were stressing big time over them, but Konata was especially affected. As the tests came closer, she started eating, sleeping, and breathing spells and facts. Every time Shiro would go to kiss her, she'd shriek and yell at him for interrupting her practice of spells. Sure enough, there was rarely a moment she didn't have her wand out, her lips moving quickly.
"Konata, love, maybe you should let us help you study…" Shiro suggested one day as Konata sat in a corridor outside, textbooks spread out everywhere.
"The giant war began in- o-oh, um, yes, any help I can get…" Konata responded, beginning to twitch. Shiro took her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him.
"Sweetheart. Calm. Down. It won't be the end of the world if you fail, and you WON'T fail. I just know you won't." Still holding eye contact with her, Shiro brought one hand down to grope the ground for a History of Magic textbook. "I'm dreadful at this subject, so if you help quiz me, you'd be learning the questions too."
"Yeah… Y-yes, yes, alright." And so, for the next 35 minutes they, along with Blaze, reviewed nearly everything Konata could think of to review. "Okay, w-we can't spend TOO long on this, l-let's move onto… Um, let's do Charms! Quiz me on Charms, please, please ,PLEASE!" Konata squeaked as Shiro went through everything once more in his head.
"Ah, lovely idea. Let's begin with-"
"Oh, no, I don't know that one. Or the other one. Or, o-or any Transfiguratons, or spells for tha-that matter." Konata's emerald green eyes were now almost as huge as Professor Trelawny's, and she began shaking while making quiet, distressed sounds that were a combination of crying and shrieking.
"Konata? Konata, are, you alright…?" Shiro was unable to get a response out of his gradually paling girlfriend. Sighing, Shiro scooped her into his arms bridal style, asking if Blaze would please gather up Konata's books and such. Ignoring the stares he received, Shiro carried Konata up to the hospital wing as she shook slightly, murmured incomprehensibly, and twitched on occasion.
"Pardon me, Madam Pomfrey… Poor Konata here needs a-"
"Calming Draught, I can see that," Madam Pomfrey interrupted as she applied an odd looking sort of paste on a very pale patient's arm. She motioned toward one of the empty beds. "Lay her down… I'll be right over." With a nod, Shiro did as he was told, feeling increasingly more concerned about his girlfriend's wellbeing.
"She's only the fourth to snap… The first was her friend Hannah Abbott," Madam Pomfrey explained absently as she emptied a liquid into a goblet. She gripped Konata by her bony chin, gently forced her mouth open, and poured the potion down the brunette's throat. Shiro bit his lip anxiously, but clearly was worrying for nothing: within moments, Konata brought her whimpering to a halt, she stopped shaking, and color drained back to her skin.
"Oh, blimey… It feels like my mind was on a fuzzy radio station and someone adjusted the tuning." Konata smiled sheepishly at Shiro. "Thank you for bringing me up here… Now where were we in studying?"
The legitimate O.W.L.'s came in a flash. On the first Monday of testing week, students were to take their Charms test. Thanks to her study sessions with Shiro, Konata had no trouble writing down the incantations for Levitation and Cheering charms, though she spent some extra time wracking her brains for the Counter-charm for hiccoughs. For the practical portion of the test, Konata managed to make her egg cup to spin off the table when it was supposed to be doing a cartwheel, which made her go very pink in the face. Her Levitation, Color Change, and Growth charms turned out decent, though; Shiro and Blaze performed theirs to perfection, earning them enthusiastic praise from their judges.
Tuesday brought Transfiguration. Konata was agonized when she realized she mixed up the Switching and Vanishing spells; fortunately, however, she corrected her mistake at the last moment. Shiro's spells were very slightly off, while Blaze got hers as close to perfect as possible.
To Konata's relief, Herbology was the next day. While Shiro and Blaze's work with their Fanged Geraniums was average, Konata finished successfully with 10 minutes to spare. Defense Against the Dark Arts- Thursday's test- came easily for every member of the D.A. Many of them, in fact, awarded themselves extra points for performing Expecto Patronum.
On Friday, Shiro set off to perform his Ancient Runes test as Konata and Blaze obtained a break. Blaze used it to secretly snog Satoshi; Konata took lengthy naps and played with Tar. Though Blaze had the entire day off, later on, Konata and Shiro had to head off to take the test for Muggle Studies. For once, Konata put her quill down feeling extremely confident while Shiro felt a bit doubtful.
The weekend came as a blur. It basically consisted of students spending half of their time relaxing and the other half studying for the remainder of their tests. Shiro and Blaze were incredibly secure during their Potions test on Monday, but Konata went up to her common room with a lump in her throat and clammy skin. Tuesday was much more promising. Each of the trio breezed through identifying a knarl, handling a bowtruckle, choosing what to feed an ill unicorn, and safely cleaning out a fire crab. Nevertheless, Shiro was probably the only one who walked away with a smile on his face.
Shiro was let off easy on the next Thursday. He only had to take Astronomy, while Konata and Blaze had Divination as well. The girls did quite well: apparently they had read palms, tea-leaves, and a crystal ball admirably. Astronomy went fabulously for the whole trio, too. They heard, though, that the session after theirs was disastrous.
"Do you have any clue what happened?" Konata inquired as she sat with her two best friends at dinnertime. Shiro, she noticed, was acting particularly grim.
"That Umbridge is mental," he began in a whisper. "Long story short… she attacked Hagrid. In the middle of the night, too, the utter NERVE of her… Professor McGonagall came to defend him, as she absolutely should have, and… Umbridge was so wretched that she hit the woman in the chest with a Stunning spell!"
Blaze, who had been advised of this already, stared down at her plate; Konata covered her mouth and gasped. "Are they going to be alright…? McGonagall and Hagrid, I mean."
"Hagrid, probably… But McGonagall… They had to take her to St. Mungo's, it was so bad. She IS up in the years… And to take such a powerful spell to the chest…" Shiro shuddered visibly. A clearly distressed expression on her face, Konata took a slow sip of her pumpkin juice.
The final day of the O.W.L. exams took place on Thursday, and the students were faced with History of Magic essays. Konata, who had read over her well-written notes so many times she knew them as well as she knew her name, had no trouble describing the Goblin riots of the eighteenth century. Blaze had a decent amount of faith in what she'd written down, while Shiro was positive that if not for studying with Konata, he would have flunked. Right when he was getting to his last paragraph and Konata was checking hers over, Harry Potter suddenly collapsed and was taken to the hospital wing, which caused quite a bit of disruption among the test takers.
"See, that wasn't so bad. Just another test, right?" Shiro remarked as the trio headed up to their common rooms.
"Yeah, just another test that determines your fate…" Konata murmured pessimistically. Shiro crooked his elbow around her neck, stopping in his tracks and causing her to do the same.
"You, my dear, need to start thinking on the bright side. I will MAKE you cheery, even if it kills one of us." Ignoring Blaze's presence, Shiro lightly swung Konata so that she was pressed against a wall. He slid his hands behind her back and firmly stood his ground, making escape impossible on Konata's part. Closing his eyes, he slid his head down so that his nose was pressed against the side of his girlfriend's neck. "You did just fine on those tests. And now we have time to do whatever we want," he purred, his warm breath caressing Konata's skin. He tenderly kissed her throat, making her face go crimson.
"Shiro, please!" Konata squeaked. Chuckling slightly, Shiro took a couple steps back.
"I'm sorry. I just missed kissing you without having it be followed by you spitting out charms and facts about giants."
Konata took on the appearance of a guilty puppy with its tail between its legs. "Mm, no, I'M sorry… I've been freaking out so badly lately, I must've been a real pain…"
"Oh, the realest. But that doesn't mean I don't still love you with a burning passion."
The blush returning to her cheeks, Konata stood on her toes and touched her lips to Shiro's. "Naturally I love you as well… I can imagine that our break day tomorrow will be bloody wonderful."
Shiro grinned. "The wonderfulest." Laughing, they leaned in for another, longer-lasting kiss.
"Good night, Shiro," Konata giggled. "'Night Blaze," she added absently. But Blaze had already gone up to the Gryffindor common room, praying that her two best friends would still be virgins by the next night. Nonetheless, she couldn't help but wish it had been Satoshi snuggling her in the hall, not Shiro snuggling Konata.