Platinum Obsession (Dramione Story COMPLETED)

Chapter Thirty-Five - Harry's Tribulation

Hermione POV:

As I got into study mode preparing for end of year exams, life became trickier. Teachers were dishing out more homework than they ever had before and if senior students thought they were stressed during mid year exams this was well beyond that.

Practically drowning in assignments, I had pretty much moved into the library. I ate there surviving on snacks of biscuits and fruit, I worked there and some nights I even slept there curled up in a chair somewhere. It was freaky to stir in your sleep, eyes half open and a silver-white ghost drifts past you.

Every bit of knowledge I had ever learnt during all my years at Hogwarts was suddenly put to the test. Every subject came beating at my door wanting answers to it all through essays that could've spanned the length of my bedroom twice over.

I was on the verge of becoming a mad-woman under this stress and I was supposedly the brightest witch of the age.

Defense Against the Dark Arts was absolutely killing me as we had begun physical training lessons now. This meant one on one duelling (with guidelines around spell casting of course), fitness level tests and even muggle combat training.

The other three courses that senior students had done had all spent time away from the castle at some point in the year.

Luna and Neville's class had gone on expeditions with Hagrid journeying out to the Giant Mountains and attempted to track Thunderbirds on the other side of the world. On a separate occasion, Professor Sprout had also accompanied them to study rare plants and fungi through the Amazon rainforests in South America.

The 'healers' class as we had nicknamed them, had spend the majority of their year moving back and forth between St. Mungo's hospital and Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall had set up a building block for students to stay overnight in the area near St. Mungo's if they needed because too many students were in the hospital wing for exhaustion and sleep deprivation from all the apparating they were doing.

The 'politicians and future leaders' class had just come back from a two month trip where they were hosted by Beaubaxtons Academy and travelled Europe assessing and observing different wizarding political systems. According to Padma who told Parvati who shyly told Luna who told us all, the world wasn't divided in the same way for wizards as it was for muggles. For example Canada and North America shared a single wizarding government and the two countries were (to wizards) in some ways one! The same concept was exercised with Norway, Sweden and Finland also along with a few others.

During one particular Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, Madame Hooch had told us that our time had come to go on an excursion.

She had explained that we were going to a training camp in an undisclosed location where the Aurors in the ministry went to do their fitness tests before completing their Auror Training. On our way back from the camp we would be visiting other wizarding prisons like Azkaban where we would learn the systems, curriculums and general day to day activities that happen within these institutions.

My brain immediately jumped to the thought of Harry at the mention of Azkaban. After all this time I still couldn't believe that Harry was in jail. It just wasn't right. I had cancelled my subscription to the Daily Prophet back when Ron had warned us about media backlash before Harry's sentencing. I couldn't see what the Prophet was publishing about my friend. It hurt too much.

The night before our trip I sat in the bathtub as Ginny kept me company, painting her nails by the vanity.

"Ginny?" I said awkwardly as I lay in the bath.

"Yeah?" She replied.

"Do you ever think about Harry?" I asked.

"Sometimes." She said. "I mostly find myself asking where it all went wrong for him."