Harry Potter and the Year of Surprises by erinpotter

Thursday

Not Mine

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The next morning, Harry woke, positively dreading the test today. Not that he was bad at making potions, but because he was useless at the theory. He got up and showered anyway and got dressed for eight o’clock. He was looking over some more facts about potions when the rest of them made their way into the common room. 

They went down to breakfast and none of them ate anything.

‘What's wrong with you, Ron?’ Hermione asked. ‘You’re not eating.’

‘I hate potions. I'm so going to fail!’

‘You’re not! Now eat some toast.’

After that, everyone made an attempt at something. Harry managed a slice of toast before they had to vacate the hall. Ginny was feeling physically sick and Ron was a funny colour of green. Hermione was pacing, reciting a poem she had made up to remember something. Harry was trying to stay cool, but it wasn’t working too well. He was just as agitated as Ron and was reciting facts in his head.

Ever since Harry had asked Snape to stay for Christmas, he had certainly been less cold towards them, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t giving them any work. And that it wasn’t hard. They were finally allowed in to go and sit at their desks for the second last time. Harry made his way quickly to the familiar desk and sat down, quill in hand. He hoped that the sooner it started, the sooner it ended. The parchments weren’t given out quick enough and Harry leant across to Dean. 

‘When are they going to start?’ he asked.

Dean pointed to the small man at the front who was holding the parchments. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He wanted this over and done with as quickly as possible. As soon as the examiner gave Harry the parchment, he scribbled down his name as quickly as possible and waited to be told when he could write. As soon as he was given permission, he started writing. 

‘Question one. Name all the ingredients of a Polyjuice potion.’

Not too bad, Harry thought. But then again, they might only be starting easy.

‘Question ten. Name the potion used to keep werewolves calm at the full moon.’

Another good one, Harry said to himself. This might not be as bad as I expected.

And when Harry got to the last question, ‘Question forty five. How long does it usually take to brew veritaserum?’ he felt rather good about the whole thing. He put down his quill, leaned back in his chair and messed up his hair. He looked around. Hermione had just dotted an ‘i’ rather ferociously and Ginny was scratching away at the parchment. Ron had the parchment held up rather close to his face and he had a puzzled expression on his face. Harry looked through the test, to make sure he hadn’t missed out an extremely hard page that everyone else seemed to be on, but no. he hadn’t.

In fact, the only person who was looking as happy as he felt was Malfoy. He too, was leaned back in his chair, staring absentmindedly around the room. 

When the students were finished, they all left the room and Harry and his friends went to their usual tree. 

‘I didn’t think it was that bad.’ Harry remarked.

‘It was okay, I suppose, but there were a few hard ones in there, too.’ Ginny said.

‘Yes I agree. I got stuck on one and I knew the answer, but it just wouldn’t come into my head!’ Hermione said. ‘It was question eleven.’

Harry racked his brains but couldn’t remember what it was. Lucky too, because Hermione would have been fuming to think that Harry got something right that she didn’t.