As the Sister of Harry Potter

Practical Charms. First exam of the day.

I ate breakfast in a slight jitter. I’m proud to say I only dropped my fork once. Ophilia, on the other hand, didn’t eat at all. She instead charmed her food to perform various tasks as she went along through her notes. She was the worst out of the three of us when it came to exams. I glanced over to the Slytherin table to see Sarlanda eating peacefully. ‘Her and her damn calm disposition,’ I thought.

Over at Ravenclaw, Brittany was chatting away happily. She had nothing to fear today; she was top of the class when it came to Charms. When she saw me, she waved cheerily. I waved back half-heartedly before moving my eyes on to the Hufflepuffs. Cedric looked a little nervous, but not nearly as much as Colin and Jared looked. Jared was reading a book nearly as fast as Hermione could, and Colin kept spilling things.

After breakfast, the seventh and fifth years hung around the Entrance Hall until a quarter past nine when the fifth years were called back into the Great Hall for their written exam, while the seventh years were herded into the small chamber attached to the Hall where we waited to be called for our practicals.

The third group to go consisted of, “Diggory, Cedric; Farley, Samantha; Fires, Stacey, and Flint, Gabriel.” Two groups later, McLaggen, Ophilia and Malfoy, Sarlanda left with Malfoy, Lance and Olgin, Thomas. I was glad to see Lance go; he had been standing in the corner, staring at me, with a look of smug satisfaction on his face and creeped me out.

Finally… “Parker, Colin! Pope, Isaac! Potter, Jennifer! And… Shoat, Matt!” I followed Colin out the door. “Professor Marchbanks, if you will, Potter,” squeaked Professor Flitwick, who stood outside the door. I nodded, and walked up to an absolutely tiny witch with an almost cobwebby face.

“Jennifer Potter, is it?” she asked rather loudly. Maybe she was deaf? So I merely nodded yes. “Alright then dear, if you could just turn this rat a couple different colours then… ?”

My practical went fairly well, considering it was harder than I had anticipated. I didn’t think I made any mistakes, but everyone in the hall stopped to watch Sarlanda conjure a beautiful dragon of fire and ice. I’m sure she got full marks.

Ophilia and I spent our lunch hour with our heads puts together, quizzing each other for the Theory of Charms exam we would be taking shortly. I hardly ate a thing, while Ophilia was munching down salad carrots faster than anything I had ever seen.

“Honestly Ophilia, keep up like that and you skin’ll turn orange!”

“I can’t help it Jen!” –crunch- “You know how I get when I’m nervous!” -crunch-

“Yes, but, come on Ophilia, it’s just Charms! And besides, if you’re going to go work at the shop, do you really think Fred and George are going to care how you did on N.E.W.T.’s when they never took the tests themselves?” I asked, trying to reason with her. She kept munching down carrots and reading Charms for the Charming at a lightning pace. I rolled my eyes. “Oh honestly, your most difficult classes are this and Herbology, and they’re not even that bad!” She just shooed me off.

The Theory of Charms exam went alright. I might have missed a few here or there, but I felt rather confident about Charms all together. The only exams I was really concerned about were Transfiguration (which was tomorrow) and Arithmancy… and possibly Potions. But I spent the night in Sarlanda’s dorm, her drilling me on spell theorems and complex magic until nearly midnight, when I passed out on the couch, exhausted.

Since there were only eleven students in N.E.W.T. Transfiguration, we were all called out at once to do our practical. “Chang, Brittany; Davis, Rodger; Farley, Samantha; Folchart, Bree; Floric, Daisy; Heard, Michael; Malfoy, Lance; Malfoy, Sarlanda; Pope, Isaac; Potter, Jennifer; and Shoat, Matt!” called out Professor McGonagall, and we were all assigned an examiner. I had a rather frail old man who only spoke what words were necessary. Although I was rather nervous, I managed to conjure a rather large flock of parrots and vanish them again without any problems. I did better than Bree Folchart, however, seeing as she somehow detached the legs of her stool and transplanted them onto her lizard without a clue of how it happened.

The written exam was much, much more difficult than the practical, and I didn’t think I would finish in time. Needless to say, I was the last one done. The night was spent with a relaxed Sarlanda, Cedric and Ophilia in the Head’s Dorm, studying for our Herbology exams tomorrow.

“I can’t believe they make N.E.W.T. students do a written exam as well!” said Cedric, disgusted that night.

“I can,” said Ophilia darkly. “Before long, they’ll be having a practical to History of Magic where you have to recite dates and such as fast as you can.”

“Ugh, remind me to never let that happen when I start teaching,” I said, flipping through 1,000 Magical Herbs and Fungi.

I thought that I did fairly well, other than a slight misunderstanding with a rather large Venomous Tentacula. The written portion went really well, and I permitted myself the night off, seeing as tomorrow was my Defense exam. Thursday morning when Umbridge called my name in her sick voice, I walked out proudly, with my head held high. I ended up with the excitable Professor Tofty, who delighted in seeing me pull off perfect defensive spells, all non-verbally of course. I glanced around the hall. All the members of DA were standing out, doing some amazing work. I felt pride surge through me.

“Well, you’ve done quite above and beyond the standards, Miss Potter… and…” Tofty lowered his voice, “…well, I’ve heard you and your brother produce quality Patronuses, so would you, um… care to demonstrate?” he asked somewhat shyly.

I grinned. “I’d be delighted to, Professor.” I looked over at Umbridge, who was watching me closely. I recalled the memory of Fred and George leaving, and uttered, “Expecto Patronum!” My lion paced the hall grandly, and by the time it returned to me, it had been joined by Sarlanda’s wolf, Ophilia’s eagle, and Sophia’s panther. The examiners broke out into applause, and we bowed.

And the look on Umbridge’s face? Priceless.

We all enjoyed Friday off while the Ancient Runes classes had their exams. We sat in the common room and held a pretty competitive chess tournament (which Ron won, of course). The good mood continued into Saturday when a huge group of us went swimming in the Lake, playing with the Giant Squid, who had finally been extracted from the Prefect’s Bathroom.

But on Sunday, it was back to work studying for Potions on Monday. My Draught of the Living Death was quite good, and it helped when one didn’t have Snape breathing down your neck. The written part went well too, and I remembered just about everything Launa had told us during her time of drilling us on Potions during lunch.

Our Care of Magical Creatures exam was, in a way, fun. We had to handle a Hippogriff properly, and, if we could see them, feed some Thestrals. Easiest exam ever. Wednesday was an unusual exam day though. We would be taking out practical Astronomy exam at eleven alongside the fifth years. My morning Arithmancy exam went okay, and Theory of Astronomy was a piece of cake.

After dinner, all the Gryffindor Astronomy students took over the common room for one last session of scanning over our star charts. At quarter to eleven, we all filed up to the Astronomy Tower for the exam.

“How was Divination, Ophilia?” I asked.

“Alright. I only had to improvise once or twice.” By Ophilia’s standards, that was amazing.

I ended up between Cedric and a Slytherin named Cacia Heath. It was a cloudless, noiseless night. I worked methodically around my chart, working fast. An hour passed, and I had filled in about three quarters of my chart. I was working on Saturn when the front doors opened and closed and six figures marched across the lawn. The leader could only have been Umbridge, because I had yet to meet another person of her physique. As they approached Hagrid’s hut, I gave Cedric a slight tap with my quill and pointed out over to the hut. He frowned as he squinted into the darkness, trying to see what was going on.

Professor Tofty was behind us, so we hastened back to our charts just as an echoed roar met our ears from the cabin.

“Try and concentrate, now, boys and girls,” Tofty said, and I went back to my telescope. There was a loud BANG from the grounds, and I jumped poking my eye on the scope.

“Ouch,” I muttered, turning my head to see what was going on down below. Hagrid’s door had burst open, and from the light, we could almost make out what was going on.
The massive figure that was Hagrid was surrounded by the six other figures, and they were shooting Stunning Spells at him. Everyone on the tower stared down upon the scene, transfixed, exams forgotten. The Stunning Spells were merely bouncing off Hagrid. The sounds of the fight were echoing across the grounds.

One man yelled, “Be reasonable Hagrid!”

To which Hagrid roared, “Reasonable be damned, yeh won’ take me like this, Dawlish!”

“Look!” squealed one of the fifth year girls, pointing down to where the front doors had re-opened and there was now another figure sprinting towards the battle.

“How dare you!” shouted the figure as she ran. “How dare you!”

“McGonagall,” muttered Cedric, turning his telescope towards the grounds so he could see better.

“Leave him alone! Alone, I say!” rang McGonagall’s voice out of the darkness. “On what grounds are you attacking him? He has done nothing, nothing to warrant such –”

Several girls screamed. I gasped and accidentally broke my quill in half.

“PROFESSOR!” I heard Ophilia scream as four Stunning Spells hit McGonagall square in the chest. She was lifted right off her feet and fell flat on her back, and moved no more.

“Galloping gargoyles!” shouted Professor Tofty.

“RUDDY COWARDS! TAKE SOME O’ THAT – AN’ THAT –” Hagrid’s bellows carried clearly up to the tower as he proceeded to knock most of the part out cold with his bare hands. He then bent over and threw a stunned Fang around his neck, and sprinted across the grounds for the gate.

“Um… five minutes to go, everyone…” said Tofty feebly when it was all over. I didn’t finish my chart, and when we were dismissed, everyone was talking about it.

“That twisted old HAG!” cried out Ophilia, swinging her bag over her shoulder violently. “That… that… Banshee! What the bloody hell does she think she’s doing?”

“Probably avoiding a Trelawney and Twin scene all over again,” said Cedric through gritted teeth.

“Hagrid sure kicked some arse though,” I added. “Mind you, they were probably freaked out when their Stunners didn’t work. Thank goodness he’s part giant, eh?”

“Yes, but poor Professor McGonagall,” said Ophilia, frowning with worry. “I hope she’ll be okay, they attacked her pretty badly.”

By the time we got back to the common room, everyone was up and talking about the attack. “Plus, she thought Hagrid was the one putting Nifflers in her office,” Katie Bell was saying.

Lee covered his mouth in shock. “Oh blimey, it’s me’s been doing that! I’ve been levitating them in through her window…” I could have slapped Lee upside the head right then and there.

I forced myself to sleep at around two, because my History of Magic exam was after breakfast. I spent all of breakfast going over every note I had taken since first year. Goodness, my handwriting had been nearly impossible to read back then. After breakfast, Cedric, Courtney Andrews, Rodger Davis, Daisy Floric, Michael Heard and myself spent two laborious hours answering questions on the obscurities of Wizarding history. I wrote and wrote, fighting the exhaustion that was trying to take over my brain, and forced myself to think. I finished with ten minutes to spare, and when it and lunch were all over, Cedric and I went for a walk to the Lake. He sat down with his back against a tree, and I laid my head down in his lap.

“We’re done,” I sighed. “No more class, no more homework, no more exams. Nothing to worry about until we get our final scores.”

“Yeah. But,” Cedric said, playing with my hair absent-mindedly. “I’m gonna miss Hogwarts.”

“Me too Cedric, me too.”