𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐰𝐡𝗼 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧'𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝗼𝐰; Harry Potter

chapter thirty

"Okay, okay, don't kill me.." She teased. "I mean, what? do you have like a time machine?"  She joked.

Hermione tensed.

Rose noticed, and her smile slowly disappeared. "You—you have—a time—" Hermione threw a book at her.

"Hey—" she catches the book before it hit her in the face.

"I do not have a time machine." Hermione whisper-shouted.

Rose squinted her eyes at her. "Right.. okay." She slowly backed away out of the portrait hole to catch up with Ron and Harry.

——-

"Beaky's gettin' a bit depressed," Hagrid told them, bending low on the pretense of checking that Harry's flobberworm was still alive. "Bin cooped up too long. But still... we'll know day after tomorrow—one day or the other—"

They had Potions that afternoon, which was an unqualified disaster. Try as Harry might, he couldn't get his Confusing Concoction to thicken, and Snape, standing watch with an air of vindictive pleasure, scribbled something that looked suspiciously like a zero onto his noted before moving away.

Rose wasn't struggling, she wasn't as bad as Potions as Harry was. Snape stopped by her desk, and leaned over to look into her cauldron. "Hm." Rose paused and stared at him blankly. "Yes?"

"Nothing." He stated before scribbling something else down into his notes. She narrowed her eyes as he walked away, making a childish face at him when his back was turned. Harry laughed.

Then came Herbology, in the greenhouses under a baking-hot sun; then back to the common room once more, with sunburnt necks, thinking longingly the next day, when it would all be over.

Their second to last exam, on Thursday morning, was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Professor Lupin had to compiled the most unusual exam any of them had ever taken; a sort of obstacle course outside the sun, where they had to wade across a deep paddling pool containing a Grindylow, cross a series of potholes full of Red Caps, squish their way across a patch of marsh while ignoring misleading directions from a Hinkypunk, then climb into an old trunk and battle with a new Boggart.

"Excellent, Harry," Lupin muttered as Harry climbed out of the trunk, grinning. "Full Marks."

Flushed with his success, Harry hung around to watch Rose, Ron and Hermione. Rose was done with the other obstacles, and entered the trunk. She was definitely prepared to see Aurora shouting at her again.

"You! You—"

"Riddikulus." Rose boringly muttered, aiming her wand at the Boggart. She then stepped out of the trunk, arms dangling at her sides. She stopped my Harry and stood there waiting for Ron and Hermione to finish the course.

"Brilliant, Rose." Lupin stated to Rose. She nodded in acknowledgment.

Harry blushed at the very close proximity between them, Rose's pinky just barely touching Harry's, and he quickly turned his head opposite of Rose's direction so he wouldn't embarrass himself. Lupin noticed and snickered.

Ron did very well until he reached the Hinkypunk, which successfully confused him into sinking waist-high into the quagmire. Hermione did everything perfectly until she reached the trunk with the Boggart in it. After about a minute inside it, she burst out again, screaming.