As all of you here now know, the story of the Weasley twins' flight to freedom has become yet another classic legend at Hogwarts. Every time there's news that Hogwarts: A History is considering releasing an updated edition, a flurry of letters carried by owls rush towards the editorial department, demanding that this episode be included. However, stories tend to get more exaggerated as they are passed from mouth to mouth. If the reporters from The Daily Prophet were to interview today the students who witnessed that scene with their own eyes back then, many of them might well be convinced that they saw Fred and George flying away on broomsticks after throwing several dung bombs at Umbridge. I have to clear this up for them (though the people directly involved might not think it's necessary) – they didn't do that at that time.
The departure of the Weasley twins didn't plunge Hogwarts into silence. No one knows exactly how many Skiving Snackboxes and Nosebleed Nougats they sold while they were at school. The teachers also all said that they had no idea what to do about the patch of swamp that stretched across the corridor on the east side of the tower. ("I think Flitwick could clean it up in a second." "Then I bet McGonagall could do it in half a second.") Filch had to drag out the cumbersome flat-bottomed boat to ferry the students across the swamp to their classrooms – this took up a great deal of the time he should have been using to catch students who broke the rules. But there were so many students trying to break the rules now that even if he walked up and down the corridor all day long with a riding crop in hand, he'd still be driven dizzy by the noises coming from all directions.
"Was Umbridge furious?" When we went to the library, we saw a large group of younger students, with blood running from their noses, vomit on their faces, sweating profusely and looking deathly pale, leaving Umbridge's classroom in high spirits in a group. Ron seemed to be one of them. "I feel like she doesn't even come to the Great Hall for meals these days except for classes!"
"I heard that she's been losing her hair for no apparent reason recently," Harry replied in a satisfied tone. "Peeves has been following her around, making a racket. The day before yesterday, he suddenly lifted her hat off – I heard from the Ravenclaws that they thought there was suddenly an extra lamp in the classroom."
"Which genius did that?" Taurus's eyes sparkled. "I thought making cornflakes grow on Warrington's body was the limit."
"Who knows? Madam Pomfrey should be able to treat her, right?" I muttered. Hermione glanced at me but didn't say anything. I knew she'd actually been secretly delighted for days because Parkinson had grown antlers on her head.
"I really wish Madam Pomfrey could say she's powerless, just like Professor McGonagall and the others," Neville shrugged, joining us while holding a pile of books covered with strange symbol-laden notes. "Hey, I heard from Hannah Abbott of Hufflepuff that Montague of the Slytherin Quidditch team seems certain not to be able to play in next week's match."
"He should be glad he didn't run into me when he ran into Fred and George," Ron's molars started to grind at the mention of that name. "He actually followed Ginny and tried to do something to her – "
"Keep your voice down. I heard his parents are coming to pick him up today," Hermione reminded him. "Don't get your brothers into any more trouble."
"Trouble? They're free now! Only I'm still stuck here!" Ron protested angrily. "I'm the only one who's worried all day long, fearing that the second letter from my mum that passes Umbridge's censorship will be a screeching one asking why I didn't grab the tails of their brooms and stop them!"
"This note looks really interesting," I quickly changed the subject when it seemed they were about to start arguing, pointing at the notes on Neville's textbook.
"Oh, Luna gave them to me," Neville seemed to be in a good mood today. "The other day she asked me if there'd be any more D.A. activities in the future. We had a chat for a while, and she said these notes are helpful for enhancing memory."
"Wow, can you give me some too?" Ron indeed turned his head and asked. I saw Hermione roll her eyes behind him.
A week passed, and there was only a tiny bit of time left before the exams. We really couldn't understand why the boys still had the mood to discuss the Quidditch match. ("There's a Quidditch trophy every year! O.W.L.s only come once in a lifetime!" "For Merlin's sake! Hermione, don't be a killjoy, okay? This is the only thing that can bring us happiness!") Hermione, with a stern face, was nestled behind a rickety pile of books, revising Ancient Runes. While I watched the teacup in front of me running back and forth, I listened to the boys enthusiastically analyzing the upcoming final Quidditch match, Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw.
"I mean, I know Malfoy has always been bad, but I really didn't expect him to be in such a poor state," Taurus said cheerfully, sending the ink bottle and parchment flying around with a swish, and then grabbing them back like a Seeker. "Several times I saw the Golden Snitch swirling at his feet. My eyesight is much worse than Harry's, and we were all outside the field."
"He deserves to taste the feeling of having everyone shout 'Cedric Diggory - the real male prefect' all over the field," Ron said tartly. "Falling off the broom and leaving without catching the Golden Snitch just made everyone laugh at him."
"We can't be too optimistic either. After all, they didn't lose by a large margin," Harry said. The parchment on which he should have been drawing an astronomical star chart was now densely filled with the total season scores of the four houses and several formation diagrams commonly used by Ravenclaw. Ginny was sitting beside him, listening intently to him talk about Cho Chang's performance characteristics on the field. "She doesn't fly as well as you, I'm sure of that. But she's very persistent - it's even harder to shake her off without the speed of a Firebolt. We'd better think of some other ways."
"What if I let her be?" Ginny pondered for a while and asked. "I could divert her attention in return. If, as you said, making sharp turns at high speed is one of her weaknesses..."
"Iris," Hermione reminded me, and I realized that my teacup was almost running off the edge of the table. When I came to my senses, I found that I couldn't understand what Ginny was saying anymore. Of course, Harry must have understood, because he kept nodding in agreement.
Although Slytherin's defeat in the match rekindled Gryffindor's hope of winning the Quidditch Cup, everyone knew that the situation wasn't as optimistic as they had imagined. Ron still let in goals easily, and Laaper would occasionally hit his teammates or his own face with the bat. Only Ginny's exceptionally good form could make Angelina feel a little more at ease.
"I actually hope they finish the match soon," Hermione said impatiently as she scribbled on her planner. "It's so noisy and inefficient all the time. Now I don't want to care about them anymore, and they'd better not come to me when they panic after the match."
"Yeah," I replied absent-mindedly, knowing that if the boys asked her for help in the end, she would definitely help them with a cold face. Over the years, the boys had already figured out Hermione's temper. But I also really hoped that the Quidditch match could end soon.
"Are you going to watch the match?" Hermione asked me. "This time it's not Gryffindor versus Slytherin."
"No," I said simply. "Professor McGonagall said I need to put in a little more effort in Transfiguration if I want to get an 'O'. Anyway, I've hardly ever watched a Quidditch match, and no one will find it strange."
It turned out that Angelina's judgment was correct. Maybe it was because the Weasley twins, who had been watching Ron's performance intently, weren't there by the field this time. Maybe it was because the training over the past year had suddenly achieved a qualitative change. Or maybe it was because the Slytherins' chant of "Weasley is our king" didn't distract him this time. Ron's excellent performance in the final Quidditch match made him a hero of the entire Gryffindor house. The loud singing of the Gryffindors was so clear that I could even hear some of it while I was in the library. He rarely had the opportunity to be surrounded by everyone like this. Most of the time, it was Harry or Neville who were in the center of the crowd, and those who couldn't squeeze in would ask Ron what had happened. So Ron was completely immersed in this enthusiastic atmosphere and seemed to be in a daze.
"It's just for one night," I said to Hermione, noticing that she had been looking thoughtfully at Lavender Brown, who was squeezing beside Ron and handing him a Butterbeer. "He'll definitely start worrying about the exams tomorrow morning."
"I don't really care what he wants to do today. I mean, I know he performed very well today," Hermione said absent-mindedly, waving her hand. Only then did I realize that both she and Harry had seemed rather unhappy, even preoccupied, from the end of the Quidditch match until the evening.
"What happened?" I asked the two of them in a low voice, seeing that everyone around was still laughing and chatting loudly.
"Hagrid has a giant in the Forbidden Forest?" I widened my eyes after hearing Harry briefly tell us how they were taken away by Hagrid and missed almost the entire match, and how they first encountered a giant and then centaurs in the Forbidden Forest. "Centaurs... Don't we have a centaur teacher? Why did they treat you and Hagrid so roughly?"
"Centaurs have always been unfriendly to humans," Harry raised his Butterbeer and saluted Ron and Taurus, who were grinning on the other side of the common room. "I encountered them in the Forbidden Forest when I was in my first year. Firenze is the odd one out among them, so he was expelled."
"Hagrid also asked us to teach his half-brother how to speak English," Hermione said in a horrified tone. "And we actually nodded and agreed. I still don't know how to explain this to Ron... He finally won a match, but we didn't watch it, and now we have this extra trouble..."
"I'll talk to them. Taurus probably won't care. He might even think it's fun," Harry rubbed his hair, making it look even more like a bird's nest. Only then did I notice that there were still a few leaves caught in his hair. "If we really have to teach him... I'll go with Taurus. After all, the two of us can do Ani— I mean, the two of us can run faster."
"Let's worry about the exams first," Hermione said in an extremely tired tone, ending the discussion. "It'll be June after this weekend."
The arrival of June meant that the fifth-year students no longer had any chance to take a breather. We didn't need to do our homework anymore, but everyone still sat in their seats with blank stares, mumbling various knowledge points quickly. As soon as someone shouted that they didn't know a certain obscure knowledge point, it would immediately cause a panic. During this period, the number of people who fell into the prank stairs while walking and reading increased sharply. I completely didn't have time to ask Neville how his Occlumency practice was going recently. Although I never said it out loud, I still secretly hoped that I could get several outstanding grades in this exam, at least not be too far behind my parents back then.
My mother sent me several letters. Judging by the dates, some of them were delivered early in the morning, but they only reached me now because of the slow censorship. However, I found that these words of comfort didn't really help much for someone who was about to face an exam. Instead, it made me feel a sense of guilt like "What if I don't perform well enough and let down this tenderness?" So I simply stuffed all the letters under my pillow and planned to read them carefully after the exam.
It wasn't just us who were busy. Some strange things started to become popular among the fifth-year and seventh-year students, from "glasses that can see through the people in the front row" to "Buffey's Brain Elixir, which costs twelve Galleons a pint and can help you get nine Outstanding grades in O.W.L.s". If I hadn't passed by that day, Harry and Taurus would have already paid that Ravenclaw boy. "You can crush the Peppermint Toads that cost ten Knuts a box at Honeydukes, mix them with water, and then sell them for twelve Galleons," I said as I shook the bottle and smelled it to see if there was anything else more valuable inside. "No wonder this person can get nine Outstanding grades with such a brain."
"Is it really fake?" Taurus and Harry looked dejected. "I mean, is there any possibility that it might be a little bit useful—"
"—No." Hermione rushed over, having confiscated a large bag of contraband, and took the bottle out of my hand. Ron, who was following behind her, looked longingly at the bag and said, "But Harold Dingle's Dragon Claw Powder—"
"I've checked. That's dried Bowtruckle droppings," Hermione said with a stern face as she stuffed the bottle into her pocket. "Do you still want to eat it?"
The three boys shook their heads like rattles, and they were much more well-behaved during the subsequent review time.
"Malfoy said that his father has had a long-standing friendship with the head of the Wizarding Examinations Authority," Hermione brought up what Draco had loudly boasted to those around him in Potions class before, on the night when we got the exam schedule. Everyone was too nervous to read the books, and she was even so flustered that she tried to confirm with me. "The Examinations Authority should be very fair, right? Even if what he said is true, I mean—"
"I don't remember ever seeing that Griselda Marchbanks in his house," I recalled with some difficulty. "But it's no use asking me about his family's connections. We were all too young at that time."
"I don't think it's true," Neville suddenly interrupted. "Professor Marchbanks used to be my grandmother's friend. After my grandmother passed away, she visited my great-uncle's house a few times. I've never heard her mention the Malfoy family."
"What's she like? Is she very strict?" We immediately surrounded Neville eagerly.
"It's hard to say. She doesn't have good ears," Neville said glumly. "I guess I really disappointed her. I didn't inherit even a bit of the advantages of my grandmother and father."
The O.W.L. exams hadn't undergone major changes. Just like the current system, it lasted for a full two weeks. The theoretical exams were in the morning, and the practical exams were in the afternoon. The practical Astronomy exam was in the evening, and the results would be delivered by owls in July. It's really difficult for me now to carefully recall the specific content of the exams back then. Because of the nervousness, many details became blurry, and I even had the feeling that I was actually sleepwalking during that period. Since we had been reviewing for such a long time, filling in the answers on the test paper became an instinct. Even before my brain had carefully understood what that line of letters really meant, my hand had already picked up the quill and started answering. The only thing that made us happy was that Umbridge had to step forward to receive the examiners who had come from afar. She wore a hat even bigger than usual, wrapping her head tightly. From time to time, she would reach out to check if the hat was still there. And the elderly examiners weren't very enthusiastic towards her. They were more curious about where Professor Dumbledore had gone and firmly insisted that the Ministry of Magic couldn't possibly have the ability to catch him, which greatly inspired us.
The first week of the exams went very smoothly. The members of D.A. all wore rare smiles after the practical exam of Defense Against the Dark Arts – except for Hermione. Her habit of having to retell the exam content in its entirety to find mistakes made everyone reluctant to stay by her side. She was as irritable as the last Blast-Ended Skrewt Hagrid raised in the fourth year. She shrieked at us that someone had thrown a Niffler into Umbridge's office again, as if one of us had done it.
"What a lovely and gentle girl," Ron murmured softly after Hermione stormed back to the girls' dormitory.
"She's worried that Hagrid will be fired by Umbridge, and it's not without reason," I retorted. "Isn't it easy for Umbridge to blame Hagrid for the Niffler incident?"
"I can't argue with you girls. You always have the logic on your side," Ron muttered, making the queen on his wizard's chessboard thrash Harry's knight. "What can we do! Are we going to be troll guards for Umbridge?"
On Monday of the second week, there were both the theoretical and practical exams for Potions, and it was also the subject in which I did the best. I noticed that I wasn't the only one who was happy. In the afternoon, my father wasn't present. I had never seen Neville and Harry smile while standing by the cauldron, and they didn't make anything that gave off strange smells either. The Arithmancy exam that followed was much more difficult. When I wrote down the last number on the parchment, I felt my face burning, as if my whole brain was about to explode due to the non-stop calculations. Until I handed in the paper, I was still doubting that I had made a mistake in converting the letters of the surname into numbers from the very first step of the last question, but I didn't have the courage to recalculate it. The boys didn't seem to care about the Divination exam that they had done terribly in. They even let out a sigh of relief and said that they could finally throw the used tea leaves directly into the trash.
The Astronomy exam was at eleven o'clock in the evening, and we needed to fill in the precise positions of the stars and planets in the sky through the telescope. The lights in the windows of the castle gradually went out in the night. Even though it was summer, the wind near midnight still carried a hint of coldness. Suddenly, the mournful howl of a large dog came from the empty field, followed by someone's roar. Many classmates raised their heads in surprise.
"Please focus your attention," Professor Tofty reminded us. "You still have twenty minutes."
Most of my chart had been completed. Mercury was very dim and difficult to observe today. When I was carefully searching the sky through the telescope, there was another loud bang on the field. I found that most people weren't looking at the sky through the telescope anymore. Everyone was eager to know what was happening on the field, and then I heard Hermione beside me let out a cry of surprise.
At this time, there was no need for a telescope to see the red lights flashing beside Hagrid's hut. I quickly adjusted the lens and saw that the Stunning Spells bounced back after hitting Hagrid, and he didn't seem to be affected at all. The wizards surrounding him were gradually closing in. A Stunning Spell hit Fang, who was trying to protect Hagrid with his body. Hagrid let out a roar and lifted the person who cast the spell and threw him out. It seemed that no one cared whether their star charts were filled in or not. Many girls covered their mouths to prevent themselves from making a sound.
"Sixteen minutes left!" Professor Tofty shouted, but he also stared blankly as a tall and thin figure rushed from the castle towards the people in the fight.
"How dare you!" Professor McGonagall's voice pierced through the night. "What right do you have to attack him? He doesn't deserve to be—"
"No!!" I shouted, completely forgetting that I was still in the exam. The entire Astronomy Tower was filled with the screams and roars of the students. The Gryffindors stood there helplessly and watched as their head of house was hit by at least four Stunning Spells at the same time. Professor McGonagall was suspended in the air like an unconscious object emitting red light, and then she fell heavily onto her back and didn't move anymore.
"Galloping gargoyles!" Professor Tofty joined us. "Shameless! Outrageous! Unimaginable!!"
I can hardly remember how the exam ended. After Professor McGonagall was attacked, Hagrid let out a terrifying roar. After knocking out two attackers, he escaped through the gates of Hogwarts. We stared at Umbridge's back through the telescope as if our souls had left our bodies. At that moment, I truly thought about using the Sectumsempra Curse or the Reducto Curse from behind – even the Cruciatus Curse would be okay. I wanted this vicious woman to also cry out in pain and beg for mercy, to show a desperate expression, and to just disappear from this world.
The bell indicating the end of the exam rang dully. We almost stuffed our star charts randomly into the hands of the examiner and left in a hurry. But no one wanted to sleep, even though there was still the last exam, History of Magic, the next day.
"Will Professor McGonagall be all right?" Lavender Brown had been crying since Professor McGonagall was attacked. This was the question that everyone was most concerned about. Hagrid, on the other hand, wasn't discussed much because he was seen to have successfully escaped from Hogwarts.
"She has been carried into the castle," Colin Creevey, who was in the common room, told us. "But we still don't know how she is now. It's already curfew, and no one can sneak out."
"Don't go now," Hermione said weakly, trying to stop Harry and Taurus who stood up. "It's no use going. Can you help Madam Pomfrey?"
No one slept well that night. Although the History of Magic exam was in the afternoon the next day, when many people walked into the Great Hall, sat down in front of the upside-down exam papers, they all looked haggard and didn't feel any joy that the exams were about to end.
"Please turn over your exam papers," Professor Marchbanks turned over a large hourglass in front of the Great Hall. "You may start now."
I was sitting in the row at the junction of the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. Even though I could already start answering the questions, I felt a bit restless. Maybe it was because the sunlight outside the window was too bright and warm. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. I suspected that I heard the sound of Hermione, who was sitting in front of me, turning the page. I looked around. Draco, who was sitting diagonally in front of me on the left, seemed to have already finished the first question, but the others seemed to be in the same state as me and hadn't gotten into the groove yet. Harry, who was sitting on my right, was twirling his quill...
"Ahem," Professor Marchbanks coughed, and I finally started to look at the questions.
Just as I was writing the last question on the exam paper, there was suddenly a dull thud. Neville fell straight to the ground, covering his scar and crying out in pain.