Hi everyone. So sorry for the delay, I've been working on other things of late... I just wanted to give a quick thank you to the most recent guest reviewer. That comment of yours led me to post the next chapter! I hope you enjoy it. I was never really sure what a NEWT exam looked like, so I tried to do one in my own style. Hope everyone enjoys.

Best,

Alisson

Early June, 1978

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Blanche was not at all surprised to learn their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was experimenting with their N.E.W.T.s in using an immersive, divergent test in the 'darkest shadows of the Dark Arts.' Students who were also taking Charms N.E.W.T.s were divided from those who were not, so Blanche separated from Lily and Remus—both of whom decided to trade it for Care of Magical Creatures N.E.W.T.s instead. Both had qualified, but they preferred creatures to charms, and were not willing to add a sixth to their five N.E.W.T.s. Of everyone, Sirius and Blanche took the prize for number of N.E.W.T.s; Sirius was taking seven of them, and Blanche eight. They'd been so crammed with work in the past few days neither of them hardly had time to breathe. Even Sirius had been revising wildly, exchanging his private studies into the new battalion of Death Eaters for his academia.

Professor Fawley—that year's D.A.D.A. professor—was an animated yet dark character. Sirius liked his pragmatic approach to the curriculum and his dry sense of humour. Blanche favoured him over most other professors she'd had in the past seven years, but she'd never felt very comfortable with him since he presented the Cruciatus curse upon a snake several weeks after the start of second term. With the squeal of the snake she could hear echoes of Sirius' shouts ripping through her mind. Sirius had had to apologise for her to Fawley after she'd sworn at him and ran from the room.

"Your Defence Against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T. will take the form of a partnered challenge. To begin, I'd like everyone to select someone to partner with. If you cannot find a partner, one will be appointed for you. We have an even number here, so I shouldn't need to summon another student."

Blanche and Sirius didn't look at one another as it went unsaid they would be partners. They followed directions and dropped their robes but kept their wands at the ready. Fawley notified them they'd be going one pair at a time. A Sixth Year prefect from Ravenclaw collected their robes as Professor Fawley led them into the classroom.

The floor was barren of the desks and chairs that usually covered it, and it appeared much wider than it did usually. Between the dais upon which the professor taught and the group of Gryffindor Defence Against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T. takers was a hardly-discernible tent. The only indications that it was there were the shimmering strands through the air that outlined the tent's form. When Fawley slammed the doors shut behind them, the flaps of the tent rippled minutely—sending the classroom into a mass of shimmering wavelets.

"What you see before you is a Tent of Test-takers' Bane. Some of you may have seen one before, but if you have not you should know that this is not a massive Cloak of Invisibility thrown across an old tent. The interior of this tent is not at all like our surrounding environment, and all of you cannot see what's going on inside of it," Fawley grinned deviously. "But I can. Hence the name—you all must face innumerable hours of nothingness whilst I watch what's going on in the tent.

"If any of you hope to hear what charms you're going to need to use, I wouldn't bother with trying to listen, seeing you won't be able to hear anything. But I will give you one hint to which spells to use—" he said and the class leaned in "—not the same one more than once."

"Sorry?" James asked in surprise.

"You can only use a spell once. After it is used, the tent no longer recognises the spell's magical properties."

"Merlin's beard," Peter cursed into his hand.

"I'm required to inform you that in this tent you will be facing a number of alarming scenarios. Based on what you have learned in your past seven years at this school, you must come out of each scenario—and eventually—the tent as victor."

"But sir, what about the partnership? If my partner uses a spell, can I not use it after?"

"You cannot."

"But what if our partner's an imbecile who'll waste every charm upon seeing one sodding dementor?" Another students asked, referring to his best friend who Blanche recalled was someplace in the bottom quarter of the class.

"Tough luck," Professor Fawley grinned. Blanche rolled her eyes when Sirius grinned with him, but he wiped it from his face when he saw the look on her face. "Now, once you've finished this exam you can head directly over to Charms. After you finished Charms, you're released from exams. Do we have anyone who'd like to go first?"

Sirius nearly launched for Blanche to prevent her from sticking up her hand, but he was too slow. Professor Fawley instantly picked her seeing she was the only one with her hand up. "Excellent! Front and centre, please, Miss Greengrass and Mister Black."

Blanche stood up and pulled out her wand with Sirius following suit.

"The scoring goes as follows," Fawley announced. "Each pair will begin with a total number of points. Within the tent, each challenge will be timed. A certain amount of points will be deducted depending on your timeliness or lack thereof. If you are injured by the challenge, a certain amount of points will be deducted based on the severity of the wound. Obviously, that wound will become nonexistent upon your leaving the tent. If you attempt a spell a second time, a set number of points will be deducted. You will also be judged on your response to each challenge, your ability to protect your partner, and your creativity in defence. If you face a challenge which you cannot solve, you will move onto the next and receive an incomplete for that challenge—which will drastically sink your score… So don't do that. You should all also know that one of the challenges is extremely difficult and technically beyond any of your skill sets—to my knowledge. For this reason, that challenge was deemed merely an opportunity for extra credit. And as I expect each one of you to fail this challenge, it will not negatively reflect on your score. You may attempt to overcome this challenge, and your attempts may reward you points. There is one true way to overcome it, but you can try other ways… It's the effort that counts—or whatever rubbish McGonagall told me to use as an excuse for this challenge."

Sirius looked at Blanche with a frown. "Ready?" He asked her.

"Less than you. You're better at the Defence Against the Dark Arts," she sighed. "But hopefully I'll kick arse in Charms, right?"

"Of course you will," he smiled and held out his hand. She gripped it firmly, threading their fingers together. She didn't mind much that Peter and James and the rest of the class could see it all—they all were aware there was something more than friendship flickering between them. Displays of affection were rarely seen, but her noticeably kinder treatment of him was noted.

"Wands at the ready?" Fawley asked and both Sirius and Blanche raised their wands. "Enter!" Fawley commanded, and Sirius held up the flap to the tent for Blanche. Everyone strained their necks to look into the tent, but all they saw was darkness.

When the tent dropped behind Sirius as he moved closely to Blanche in the dark and held her closely, all light seemed to be ripped away from the world. No light seeped in through the edges or seams of the tent. Blanche took a long breath. "Thank Merlin I'm not doing this alone," she admitted. She was glad it was dark so she didn't have to look at Sirius when she admitted such a weakness.

"You'll never be alone," he replied as he tightened his grip on her shoulders. "Lumos," he cast, partially illuminating the darkness with his wand tip. Not far from them was something in the ground; as they enclosed upon it with Sirius' illuminated wand, they discovered it to be a door with a lock.

"Alohomora," Blanche said. The lock on the door began to creak, but it didn't open. "Alohomora Duo."

The doors on the floor flew open with a great gush, knocking Sirius back along with his light. They were encased in darkness once again, and Blanche didn't have Sirius' arms around her this time.

"Lumos Maxima!" She yelled, and her eyes followed up what her wand had threw light upon. It was a large tree—rather scantily branched for the first several metres. But one thick limb parted from the trunk, and it stretched far from the tree with a sharp shadow moving away from Blanche. And the peculiar shadow that hung unnaturally was out of place but familiar—painfully so.

Sirius was tying the knot at the top of the branch, impervious to Blanche's screams. Lily already hung—her red hair draped across her pallid face—next to Remus and James.

"Sirius!" Blanche screeched from the top of her lungs. She ran to the trunk of the tree and clawed its bark, ripping apart two of her nails until blood welled at her fingertips. All awareness dropped from around her—she didn't know where she was, only that a familiarly sinister voice floated from someplace in the tree's sparse foliage: Going by by himself, it seems. He doesn't need the curse. He wants to after his friends…

Blanche was screaming his name, but he refused to acknowledge her, tying the knot.

"I'm right here, Blanche!" She felt arms around her midsection. "It's a boggart! We're all alive!"

Just as the imaginary Sirius stepped from the branch with the rope around his neck, Sirius threw Blanche from the tree and turned her around so she couldn't see. The tree, Lily, Sirius, and the ropes faded into black before taking a new form—but this form nearly just as black. A Dementor in heavy robes pulled a gnarled, blackened hand from its ragged sleeve; it reached for something emitting a great light before it. Much like Blanche's own fear, Sirius watched an artificial replica of Blanche die by the kiss of a Dementor.

A strange sense of instinct overtook him as he watched the Dementor drain the life out of the woman he loved. "Expecto—"

"No, Sirius!" Blanche cried behind him, pushing him to the side so his spell was fragmented and ruined—but still refusing to glance at the boggart.

"Riddikulus!" Sirius cast directly after. The Dementor shrunk to a much smaller size and its feet met the ground. Sirius soon realised that it was not a Dementor but Peter Pettigrew who was kissing a girl. And he wasn't kissing Blanche but Peter's Third Year girlfriend, Tricia Tracy. The relationship had lasted about a month and Sirius had found great amusement in it, as Tricia was half a foot taller than Peter.

Sirius began laughing at the old sight of them together, then recognised Blanche's silence. "Are you alright?" He asked, walking toward her. Strangely enough, he could see her now; the room was lightening with a pale glow.

"Sure," she said. She didn't look alright, but Sirius figured it wasn't the best time to work at it, seeing the ground around them was falling into darkness; Sirius and Blanche were soon standing on a small island formed by large rocks, and the space around them wasn't water but absolutely darkness. When Blanche looked over the sharp edge of their island, she could see down several metres just before all vision was wiped into blackness. "What is this?" She asked Sirius. He looked over the cliff on the opposite side.

"No idea—" he began, but stopped when he saw a human hand grip the rock farthest from him that he could still see. The hand was grey like ash, but Sirius could see black strands behind its skin in thick, frozen branches like expired veins and arteries.

"Is it some kind of Dark Wizard?" Sirius asked Blanche as she hovered beside him. She ran to another angle in their circle of raised land when she heard scratching against rocks.

"There's another over here," Blanche told him. A hand grappled at a closer rock and Blanche saw its skeletal forearm connected to a massive knob of an elbow—like all the muscles and pockets of fat on the human arm had been sucked away. "Sirius…"

Then Blanche saw the closest creature's head arise from the darkness, like a pale, round moon rising over a black sky. Its face was contorted and sunken with decomposition, and every lively feature in a human face had faded from it—lips were thin leaves of black, cheeks the colour of soot, hair reduced to a few moulded strands hanging from its scalp. Most startling were its eyes, which resembled large, clouded marbles in hollow, black bowls. There was no distinction between pupil and iris—it was a fog.

"Inferi!" Blanche shouted, running through all her Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons in his head. They were creatures of and created by the darkness, so they were weakened by the light. "Lumos Solem!" She cast, sending a beam of sunlight right for the nearing Inferius. It released a harrowing, high-pitched wail and shrunk back—as did its nearby lookalikes who were now illuminated. But they didn't blow away as Blanche had hoped, they were merely set back a few paces. But after the light faded into the murky depths, they kept on.

Sirius watched in dread as the sunlight faded from Blanche's wand, but he kicked off a sickly hand closing in on his ankle and moved to the centre of the island. "Ignisio!" He yelled into the black sky, and a tempest of fire spurted from his wand and flew into the air. It curled around whatever structure they were trapped within like a dragon, and as Sirius moved his arms in slow circles, the fire moved with him. He lowered the curling body of flames down into the darkness around them, and the fire seemed to blow them away like a tornado did a house. The flames eventually faded into away into falling embers. There was something about Sirius' talent that was as irritatingly effortless as it was admirable. A good portion of it came from his natural smarts, but Blanche knew it was rooted more deeply in his passions. His heart was so strong—that's where the real power of a wizard came from.

"Maybe you will beat me in Charms," Blanche breathed heavily, watching as the sparks flickered to smoke in his wand and left them in darkness again.

"Trust me—that's never worked before," he sighed. And with a large crack, the island dropped into flat ground. Now there was nothing—no door in the ground nor abyss surrounding them. "Brilliant," Sirius commented sarcastically.

"Let's think of it this way—it can't be that much worse, can it?" Blanche peeped with optimism, which she had been playing around with much more lately.

"I don't know. Maybe we'll be mauled by werewolves? Or maybe we'll get the pleasure of facing You-Know-Who himself?"

"Or maybe we have to have dinner with our families!" Blanche suggested and Sirius broke into laughter. It was a nice break between the challenges, and Blanche had almost forgotten what she'd just seen by the powers of the boggart. When she realised this, she silenced herself and felt guilt seep into every capillary of her heart.

The sound of knives piercing the ground echoed around them and Blanche looked to see tropical trees stabbing up into the air. Sirius' hand reached for hers and she took it, strangely uncomfortable when a warm breeze brushed through her hair. Moonlight began to flicker through the treetops, although neither Blanche nor Sirius could find the moon in the black sky hanging over them. They were just happy to be able to actually see, even though the scene was rather dark.

But their acquaintance with the dark proved useful when they were able to identify it, for a thick and wide pure blackness contrasted with the moonlight in the trees. The creature moved without sound through the trunks, and Sirius and Blanche both raised their faintly-illuminated wands.

"You still like Fawley?" Blanche asked in a shrunken voice, petrified of what stood before her.

The Lethifold was some ten foot long creature cut in the shape of a cloak—the purest of blacks and several inches thick. It had no features at all aside from a gaping hole which Blanche reckoned was its mouth, and it was only identified by the slick wetness it added to the darkness. The Dark creature had no legs nor arms nor tail—it was only this expanse, and in that it was more frightening than a Dementor, because it truly was nothing but hunger and darkness. It had no true form, it was only a cut of shadow.

"I'm blanking," Sirius panted beside her, his wand trembling. She figured it was time for her to contribute something to this exam. She stepped closer to the creature and felt a sensation of suffocation crumble her placement on the ground, for the Lethifold suffocated its victims of something much worse than death. Lysander X. Willow, author of Most Macabre Monstrosities, has argued the Lethifold is only rivalled by the Dementor, Blanche remembered from her textbooks. 'The Lethifold first absorbs its victim of joy, rendering it to naught but a saturnine, empty body before digesting it whole and, regrettably, still physically alive. The sensation is allegedly comparable to suffocation, much like the extraction of life by means of a Dementor—a process popularly called the Dementor's Kiss,' says Willow.

Blanche could only think of one way to remedy this problem before it stole away every happy memory she had. Lethifolds were too rare and regionally-specific to have been of any note to the students. The only way to know which spell to use really depended on a knowledge of dark essence. Thankfully, Blanche often read outside of the curriculum.

"Expecto Patronum!" She yelled at the top of her lungs, and a familiar flick of light shot up her wand and sprung from its end. She thought of her go-to memory: the Sorting Hat announcing 'Gryffindor!' across the entire Great Hall in her First Year. In a gush of electric white-blue light, a large, slender leopard leapt at the Lethifold. Blanche expected the creature to be illuminated by her Patronus, but the true colourlessness of the Lethifold was revealed when it was not even enlightened by the glow of the charm. It only retracted backward, into the cover of the wood.

There was hardly a pause as Blanche and Sirius descended into the next challenge, and they were both rudely awakened of this when they heard a distant keening someplace faraway in the woods that were thickening by each one of their rapid heartbeats. The sound could never be manmade, for it wobbled and belted in such a way it made both Sirius and Blanche go numb with pain.

Sirius' eyes were barely open enough through their clench to see the long-haired, slender figure of a Banshee move away from the shadows of the trees. She was not unlike an Inferius in appearance, but Sirius felt her desire to hurt was much more human than that of the Inferius. For Banshees were women broken by the loss of their families—so overtaken with grief and drawn to shadow that even time forgot them, and they were left to rot and cry in perpetuity.

For that small piece of faded light in them, Sirius fought the pain and stood, pointing out his wand. "Rideodus!" He shouted and the Banshees' wails faded away. Feminine laughter crackled through the trees and Sirius felt a lightness of being for a short moment. He hoped they forgot their losses—if only for a few fleeting moments.

With a cold breeze, the scenery swept away, and Blanche looked down to see her feet on rocks. But these rocks were not like those stacked high up which the Inferi climbed; these rocks were like those forming a mountain. Around their spot on the peak of one stony crest, other sharp formations of rock rose and fell and were dotted with alpine trees. It was finally light as well; dawn coated the landscape in an orange shroud.

"If this is a Yeti, I swear I'll—" Sirius began.

But it wasn't a Yeti. It was a handsome, slender cat the size of a small lion. It had no mane and was the colour of amber in sunlight. It had great, yellow, luminescent eyes that reflected the warm light of the rising sun. And oddly enough, as it drew closer to the two, it stepped up and stood on its two hind legs—its two forelegs drawing upward with its chest.

"Is that a Wampus cat?" Sirius asked her quietly, his voice falling away slowly.

"I think so," Blanche answered. She was glad to be before a creature so peaceful, but as she looked at it and found a world of glittering peace in the Wampus' eyes, she couldn't remember what the Wampus was so dangerous for.

"Something's happening…" Sirius mumbled.

"I know…" Blanche airily answered. "But I can't remember… What…"

"It's like it's… digging into me…" he said. "It's… in my head…"

Digging into my head, Blanche felt her voice shout in some darkened corner of her skull. She painfully clenched her eyes shut, shaking her head to wash away the effect of the Wampus cut. Blanche shook her head, which was ineffective—but at least she felt somewhat protected with closed eyes. She blindly walked over to Sirius and knocked him away with her body—thoroughly disturbing the trance.

"Ow!" She heard him shout.

"Don't look at it!" She cried, reaching out for him desperately. He seized her as she violently tugged his shirt. "It uses Legilimency!"

"How… We can't beat that!" Sirius argued in shock.

"It's the extra-credit challenge, remember?" Sirius nodded in response, keeping himself turned away from the cat.

"Well, what are we supposed to do? Should I stun it?" Sirius asked.

"No," Blanche shook her head, seeing as something was really gnawing at it. All those books she really was not supposed to be reading on Occlumency and Legilimency—there was something in it she was trying with all her might to remember. "If I just find a way to avoid it…"

"What about the Shield Charm? Wouldn't that just reverse the effects?" Sirius asked.

"Yes, but you can't cast blindly and you also can't look at it. That will only work when someone uses the incantation… The Wampus cat just looks at you and you're done for."

"What should we do? I reckon you know a bit more about this shit than me," Sirius sighed hopelessly.

Blanche rehearsed everything in her mind; she mentally zoomed through pages of content: Introduction to Occlumency, Methods of Occlumency, Types of Occlumency, Occlumency in Nature, Notable Occlumens, Inherent Occlumency, Occlumency Theory… It was there in theory. Occlumency was theory before anything else—there was no spellcasting or cursing or shielding, it was all thinking.

Blanche remembered every time she'd shut the world out of her mind and let herself wallow in her own quiet sadness. Then she erased it all—the grief, the heartbreak, the guilt. If she presented that fresh palette to the Wampus cat, she'd surely lose the challenge. So she spent an incalculable amount of time with her fingers on her temples, sending blankness into her mind. Erasing all the feelings, the memories—whether good or bad. She couldn't look at Sirius because she'd see the beauty of him and the memories she kept of him and the Wampus would eat those whole; she had to close her eyes and see only darkness, then press that emptiness into her own mind. She had to be blank.

Sirius was completely unsure of what Blanche was doing, but all he knew was that she wouldn't respond to him. He considered shaking her out of whatever trance she was putting herself into, but for some peculiar reason he trusted her with this. Blanche retained nearly everything she read, and if she'd read—in counting—six books on Legilimency and four on Occlumency, she'd know how to do it. He trusted her with this. So he quieted and remained standing a metre away from her with his eyes closed.

After a quiet and long stretch of time, Blanche turned around. Sirius caught her eyes on her way around and realised they were dead—not much different from those within the hollow sockets of the Inferi. But when she looked at the Wampus cat with all that nothingness in her, it lowered to all six legs and took a few steps back; it let out a growl and, soon enough, scampered off down the mountain.

"Blanche!" Sirius cried genially, wrapping himself around her to pull her back into humanity. She shivered against him when the feelings and memories flooded back into her, and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.

"I did it!" She nearly cried with joy after she warmed. There was nothing that made her happier than excelling in her interests.

"You did! Fawley said no one would do it right!" Sirius exclaimed. And the blackness dropped around them. Light coursed in through the windows in broad ribbons and they both squinted at the brightness. They were in Fawley's classroom again.

"I did," he had materialised before them. Blanche started at his sudden manifestation beside them, but only let out a long breath through a wide grin when she settled. "And I was wrong. You did it. How?"

"She does a lot of unnecessary reading," Sirius laughed happily, tightening around her.

"Well, you did what no other student has done yet," Fawley smiled. The euphoria of success brightened his smile in Blanche's eyes. "Interesting. McGonagall was the only other teacher who approved of this challenge, and it is only permitted to be used on N.E.W.T. students taking both Defence Against the Dark Arts and Charms. he said there was one student who she thought could do it, you know. It looks like she was right."

Blanche looked up at Sirius and they shared the proudest, most painfully wide smile with one another. Even before Fawley they shared a quick, simple kiss of joy.

"Aside from your behaviour with the Wampus cat, I'm proud to tell you both that you excelled fantastically. Do either of you have any interest in a career as an Auror?" He asked.

Blanche blushed and looked at the ground, smiling through closed lips. She'd considered it, but she never considered herself enough an adventurer to be an Auror. She'd travel for the sake of study, but otherwise she didn't find much pleasure in flying around the world on a broomstick.

As Sirius gushed about his interest in the suggested career, Blanche slumped into Sirius' arm slowly. She was proud of herself.