𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, harry potter

˗ˋ 172

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
AND SEVENTY TWO
✧
-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH ITS THE 
NIGHT BEFORE

. . .

Exams were fully upon them, and thus far, Harry somehow had never seen his girlfriend so focused. Which was a telling point, considering that anything remotely academic or in some cases the less-academic and more-Umbridge-fuelled-hatred-occurrences, had certainly led to spells of silence and pinched eyebrows as she scribbled things down, but nothing Harry had seen so far prepared him to see the intensity that was Aviana actually within exam season. 

He was thoroughly surprised to see her, at every meal she turned up to rather than eating in the kitchen with much more peace and quiet, let alone when she was there during any free time they had but she was there. Even if she wasn't talking to them and had her head buried in a textbook majority of the time. 

The same could be said for that Sunday evening of the last week prior to exams beginning. The very next day was Charms, the written examination, Theory of Charms, in the morning as McGonagall had told them and then the practical in the afternoon. And it was safe to say that nobody was particularly taking that certain feeling of impeding doom and nerves lightly. 

Dinner was a subdued affair. Harry and Ron did not talk much, but ate quickly and kept going for seconds, having studied hard all day. Hermione, on the other hand, kept putting down her knife and fork and diving under the table for her bag from which she would seize a book to check something. Aviana was ignoring them all, her food remaining mostly untouched, despite the fact she had cut everything into bite size pieces so that she didn't have to pay much attention to what she was eating and didn't have to take her eyes off of her book to stab something with her fork. 

"You won't sleep, Hermione, I'm telling you." Ron said, as Hermione dove down for the umpteenth time and came back with another book, opening it on a page as she reached for her fork. 

"I'll sleep just fine." Hermione retorted.

"You won't, not if you don't eat a proper meal." Ron pushed. "I'm telling you, don't know what it is or why it happens but if you don't eat a proper, decent dinner then you have no chance at all." 

"I'll be fine, Ron." Hermione repeated, and tried to nibble on a piece of chicken to subdue him. 

All of a sudden, from beside Harry, Aviana's book went limp and clattered on the table and her head shot up, looking as round as though she was a predator who had sniffed out their next prey. Hermione suddenly had the same reaction and her fork tinkered on her plate.

"Oh my goodness." She said faintly. Harry and Ron craned their necks to see what the two girls had been distracted by. It was difficult to force them away from their studying at the best of times; whatever it was was almost guaranteed to be something momentous. "Is that them? Is that the examiners?"

Aviana nodded, palms pressed down on the table as she rose up in her seat to bypass the blockage of a row of other Gryffindors' heads. "That's them." She agreed, her eyes on Umbridge standing with a group of ancient-looking witches and wizards. She smiled; Umbridge certainly looked nervous. "Let the bitch sweat." She added.

Ron glanced over at Harry, his eyebrows raised as he looked between the two girls. "Should we go have a closer look?" He suggested carefully.