Hermione
It was hard to believe that the her third year at Hogwarts was already getting close to its end. It felt like only yesterday when she had been staying at her family's condo in France over the summer. Only yesterday since she had been worrying about how bad she was going to do in her third year, and only yesterday since Alina had been talking about how excited she was for all of the magic the fated four would accomplish. Hermione couldn't help but laugh a little at thinking of the name Alina had come up with for their group, she had not thought about it since the summer time.
It was crazy to think that two more weeks was all that was left of her third year. It seemed like the last few months of the year had flown by even quicker than the rest of the year had. All of the school's students had already entered frenzy mode, adding the last few details to their end of year projects and the last few lines to the essays they had waited to long on to start. She and her friends were no different.
The fated four, as Alina would call them, had all for the most part, taken up permanent residence inside their little potions lab over the last few days. The empty vials and flasks had quickly all become full, and the large desk covered with papers as the four of them worked on finishing everything they had left for the year. They had all been working around the clock nonstop. She had been so worried that she would not have enough time to finish her work that she, Hermione Granger, even managed to get a detention for trying to stay in their potions lab past curfew one night to finish her history of magic project. In the end though somehow in all of the chaos she managed to get all of her work done early.
She was proud of the work she had done this year. Between the attack on the school, the drama with her friends, and the chaos of third year she had expected her progress and projects at the end of the year to not be some of her best work. However it ended up being quite the opposite. In her most difficult year at Hogwarts so far she had managed to to create a new type of magic, create multiple spells within that magic, as well as come up with end of year projects for every one of her classes that all honestly had the chance for an 'M' mark.
She was proud of all of her friends' work too. Harry had managed to get published on the front page in the famous Transfiguration Weekly two different times this year. The first issue had been proclaiming him as the third youngest known wizard to complete a full body animagus transformation in the last hundred years. The second article, which made her very jealous, proclaimed Harry to be the next great face in the subject, and showed off some of the wing transfiguration magic he was working on. Even though he had only managed to produce one wing so far, Harry had already began to delve further into transfiguration magic that most professionals only dreamed of getting to.
Alina's progress this year had been just as good as hers and Harry's progress frankly too. Although both Alina and Marik could have probably done even better if they had not spent all the time they had fighting amongst each other. Thankfully those days were over now, for the most part. Alina had made amazing progress on her white light magic. In just one year alone she had managed to create over four different spells for her signature magic, each one more impressive than the next. If that wasn't impressive enough Alina was also moving along with her animagus transformation almost as quickly as Harry had. She already managed to add the third layer to her ritual and at the rate she was going would be on nearly the same pace as Harry had been to complete her full transformation.
Marik, for as rough of a year as he had, somehow also managed to end up having quite a good year with his magic progress and projects. The amount of rune work that Marik had done this year was honestly mental. Since over the summer Marik had committed to the subject and you could certainly see it in his work. He had managed by this point in the year to draw over fifty five different advanced runes, any of which would be worthy end of year projects. Although it was kind of funny, Marik's proudest achievement this year was that he actually managed to create a herbology end of year project that had a chance for a good ranking.
Altogether even against all odds they all had again done a great job this year. They had been through hell at some points in the year, but managed to still rise back up to the top, and even ascend higher. They had worked their asses off this year, and deserved a little break, which was exactly why she was sitting on the front lawn near Hagrid's hut at the minute waiting on her friends to show up.
Today was the day of the third annual Hogwarts dueling tournament. As it always seemed to be, the tournament had been postponed again this year, this time due to the attack on the castle. Dumbledore pushed the tournament back all the way towards the end of year, which was unfortunate for anyone who still had work to do. However, it did provide students with more time than normal to prepare and practice, which she was sure would result in better duels overall. While everyone else in the castle was stressing out about winning the tournament today, this year she was not.
Once you entered your third year at Hogwarts the tournament became optional. She had debated back and forth everyday since Dumbledore announced the new tournament's date whether she wanted to participate or not. In the end when Harry told her that he was not participating she decided that she would not either.
Even though the wildly competitive side of her wanted nothing more than another shot at beating Marik, in the amount of her time the tournament would take up over the summer if she won again she knew that she could do so much more research and studying with that time. Plus you had to give credit where credit was due, Marik was a better dueler than she was, he had proven that point quite well in their last duel. She would be content with cheering him and Alina on over the summer from the sidelines.
So instead of sitting in the stands watching the tournament in the Great Hall as her and her friends usually did, they would instead be doing something a little different this year. And speaking of her friends, here they were now.
"Hey Hermione," Harry said as he made his way over to where she was waiting, giving her his normal warm smile and warmer hug.
"Hey Harry," She returned his smile as they released from their hug.
"So how much longer until we get to find out what your secret surprise is?" Alina asked her, looking like she was dying from not knowing.
"Soon! Don't get too anxious though, I don't think you all will be as excited as I was," she told her friends, hoping that they would actually be excited as she was.
"Anything will be better than watching the first year dueling tournament, Kingsley told me this first year class was one of the worst classes he has taught in a long time. You didn't hear that from me though," Marik said.
"Luna wasn't mad that you were missing her duels?" she asked her friend, noticing Alina's usual grimace at the mention of the blonde's name.
"Nah, she understood. Friends come first," Marik answered her.
"Well then before we get going I guess some backstory is needed," she started to say.
"Here we go," Alina started to say.
"We might want to sit down for this," Harry added. She just rolled her eyes at her friends.
"ANYWAYS! So as you all know I submitted my essay on the third batch of animareavelo potion that I brewed earlier this year. If you remember the essay was focused on the use of enchanted unicorn hair along with unicorn blood mixed with dried dragon's blood as substitute ingredients. Well that paper won the Ameatuer Brewer's Award," she announced to her group of friends.
"What? Congratulations Hermione!" Harry congratulated her and gave her another hug.
"Thats awesome 'Mione," Marik added.
"So what does that mean?" Alina asked her after they all had given her a congratulatory hug.
"Well for one, my essay will be published in a future article of The Brewers Batch, but along with that I was given a reward sum of money," she announced.
"And you decided to buy as all presents!" Alina shouted.
"Kind of, but no," she answered with a smile. "So as you know I still have not spent all of my ministry grant money either. So with this reward money along with the grant money, I came up with an idea for something good to use the money for. Thanks to the help of Hagrid and Dumbledore I was actually able to put the money towards a good use," she said, sounding proud of herself.
"Well what did you buy?" Harry asked her, looking curious.
"Follow me!" she waved them over to where she was walking. She led them past Hagrid's hut to a small clearing on the edge of the forest.
"Oi there errybody," Hagrid shouted upon their arrival.
"Hey Hagrid," they all said in unison.
"Is everything ready?" she asked her care of magical creatures professor.
"Yup, jus' finish'd tha last few fences dis mornin'," Hagrid answered her.
"Okay everyone this way," She led them towards the edge of the nearby fence.
"You bought a fence?" Marik asked her, as they all leaned over the fence.
"Yes, I did actually. And I helped buy what is inside the fence," she answered him.
Right on cue two baby unicorns made their way from behind some of the thick trees inside of the pen towards them.
"You bought unicorns?" Alina asked, sounding excited.
"I sure did. Meet Varda and. . . Goonie jr. . ." she announced the names of the two unicorns, watching the large grin appear on Marik's face at the name of the second unicorn.
"No way, you named him Gonnie jr?" Marik asked her, his grin only growing.
"I didn't want to at first, but it was the only name that felt right," she answered him, allowing herself to smile at the name, even if it was a silly name. "Dumbledore used his influence within the ministry to make the purchase. He thought the idea was a good one and actually purchased the second unicorn himself. When I told Hagrid my plan he started building them the pen."
"Hogwart's will 'ave its very own unicorn stables. It will give me at least six more lessons I can teach each year now too. It was a great idea from 'Ermione," Hagrid added, causing her to smile at his compliment.
"This was a perfect idea Hermione," Harry added and gave her another hug.
"Goonie would love it," Marik said.
"I thought so to," she replied back with a warm smile.
"So how long until I get to ride one?" Alina asked, breaking the silence as they all were watching the two unicorns inside the pen.
"One does not simply ride Goonie," Harry answered, causing Marik to laugh.
"Lame!" Alina said sarcastically.
"Don't call Goonie Jr. lame!" Marik joked.
"You're lame!" Alina argued back.
"Welllll I'mma let you all 'njoy it. I bes be gettin up to the castle," Hagrid said, leaving them alone by the pen.
"This really was a great idea Hermione. You said you wanted to do something and you did," Harry said to her, giving her another warm smile.
"Thanks Harry," she said to her friend.
"I feel like we need to cut a ribbon or pop a bottle of champagne to officially commemorate this," Alina said, as the all started to watch the unicorns again.
"Yeah, I agree," Marik added.
"On it," Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out his shrunken bag. After digging through it for a while he pulled out a bottle of Weasley Wizard Wheezes Wonderful White, patent pending.
"One, why do you have this? Two, why are the twins selling wine? Three, no way this is safe to drink," Alina said as Harry transfigured some nearby sticks into cups.
"One, it is safe to drink. Two, it was a thank you gift for my investments. Third, I tested it myself to make sure it wasn't poisoned," Harry said with a laugh at the last part. Harry poured each of them a little glass.
"Anyone have any good cheers?" she asked them before taking a sip.
"Cheers to Hermione, for honoring Goonie and putting Fudge's dirty money to a good cause," Harry announced and they all clanged glasses.
"To Hermione!" everyone except her shouted. She just smiled.
"And cheers to Goonie! May Jr. here live a magical life and carry forward the great legacy," Marik added.
"To Goonie!" they all shouted again, and they all laughed. After they all finished toasting she took a sip of her glass.
"Still can't believe it is almost the end again," Harry said, shaking his head in a look of disbelief.
"Yeah, time flies when you are working your ass off," Alina added.
"I second that," she replied, laughing a little at Alina's words.
"If no one else has any more unicorns to show off or anything else to announce I actually have some pretty good news," Marik said, causing them all to look at him curiously.
"You're being kicked out because Dumbledore found out you were cheating all along?" Harry joked.
"Ooh ooh ooh that rumor of you joining the Hogwarts choir was true?" Alina added sarcastically too.
"Your real name was actually Malik all along and you are actually Italian?" she joked, earning weird stares from everyone.
"Wow Hermione, you really went deep on that one. Is there something personal you need to talk about?" Marik asked her.
"Shut up just tell us!" she shouted at him.
"No no no please, go ahead Hermione," Marik said to her again. She just glared at him.
"Anywasss, so I don't know how much you all know about this, but as a student of Hogwarts and a citizen of Britain under the age of sixteen I am required to have a legal guardian. Well as you all know I lost my guardians. So technically as soon as this school year ends I would have to spend the summer at an orphanage until the start of the next school year," Marik started to explain, the mood died down a little. Hermione's champagne lost its sweetness.
"Marik. . ." Alina started to say, her voice sounding sad.
"Let me finish. I asked Dumbledore if there was someway I could stay at Hogwarts over the summer or even work a part time job at the castle so that I didn't have to go to an orphanage, but there are apparently a bunch of laws against that sort of thing so he said no."
"Could you just stay with my family then over the summer? Is that legal? I know my parents would both say yes for sure!" Harry interrupted.
"Thanks for the offer but actually I have a place to stay now," Marik answered, a surprising smile given the situation appearing across his face.
"Where?" she asked.
"Well, I said no a bunch at first, but in the end he told me I did not have a choice. Kingsley approached me two weeks ago with his wife and practically told me there was no way in hell they were letting me stay at an orphanage over the summer. So Kingsley and his wife asked if they could be my foster parents. And I said yes," Marik explained, and a large smile that she had not seen in awhile crossed his face.
"Oh my god Marik, that is amazing! Why didn't you tell me before?" Alina shouted, before giving Marik a huge hug.
"Uhhh, I was waiting for the right time I guess," Marik answered, looking taken aback from the hug Alina was giving him.
"That's good news Marik. I'm so happy for you," she added, giving her friend another hug.
"Goonie would be happy for you," Harry joked as he gave Marik a hug too.
"Oh enough with the Goonie already!" Marik shouted while laughing at Harry's joke.
"Do foster parents in the wizarding world work the same as they do in the muggle world?" she asked him. She still didn't know a lot of things about how certain areas of the wizarding world worked.
"Kind of yeah. In the wizarding world though it is closer to just straight adoption though. Since my parents are dead the Shacklebolts are now my legal adopted parents. They have all the the responsibilities and authority over me now just like my parents did. I will be living with them over the summers now too," Marik answered.
"Marik Shacklebolt. I like it," Alina said.
"I'm not changing my name Alina," Marik said, rolling his eyes.
"I'm think you should," Harry said.
"Sounds better than Ose that's for sure," she added, flashing Marik a grin.
"Wow. Feeling the love guys," Marik laughed, shaking his head.
"You know you kind of do look Kingsley now that I think about it," she joked too, feeling happy for her friend that he still had a home to go to over the summer.
"Yeah, he does. They both have the same thick eyebrows," Harry added, leaning his head in close to Marik's.
"Really?" Marik shook his head.
"So do you get grounded or detentions now?" Alina asked him.
"Or spanked?" she added. Harry did a spit take with the last of his wine. They all found themselves rolling on the ground dying from laughing after that.
If anyone would have seen them then they would have thought their group was a little crazy. Maybe they were too. So many bad things had happened that year but you never would have been able to tell by looking at them now. In all the bad that had happened just as many good things had happened too. It seemed that professor McGonagall had lied to them, third year wasn't so bad after all.
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