Not Mine!!!
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Harry woke early that morning. At first, he didn’t know why, but then he remembered, this was the first day of his NEWTs.
‘Shit.’ he said, as he climbed out of bed. ‘Fucking NEWTs…’
‘…can't believe this. I'm not even ready for them. Shit. Oh well. Shower.’
He went into the shower and turned it right down so it was freezing. This always woke him up. He felt the cold water trickling down his back. His mood brightened.
‘I've been revising for ages. What can go wrong? If I pass, I pass. If I don’t, I don’t.’
He wasn’t in a good mood, but he wasn’t in a bad mood. He was in the common room by seven thirty. He thought he’d be there first and the others wouldn’t be up for ages. He was wrong.
‘Ginny? What are you doing up so early?’
Ginny was sitting next to the fire, head in her hands.
‘Hey, what's wrong? Is it the NEWTs?’ he asked, knowing the answer already.
She nodded. ‘I only did my OWLs last year. I'm too young. I’ll fail them!’ she wailed.
‘No you won't! You’re way smarter than me!’
‘Yeah, I wish.’
‘Ginny, you are and you know it.’ Harry put his strong arms around her and pulled her into a hug.
‘It's just that my mum and dad…they’re so proud of me for getting moved up. I don’t want to disappoint them.’
‘You won't disappoint them! You’re one of the smartest witches in this year, never mind your own year! You’ll pass them with flying colours!’
‘Promise?’ Ginny asked.
‘I promise.’
Ginny turned around and kissed Harry softly on the lips. It was the first time in ages that they had been able to share a moment like it. Harry didn’t want it to end. He kissed her back, harder but with the same amount of love.
‘I love you, Harry.’ Ginny said, staring into his bright green eyes.
‘I love you too.’ Harry smiled softly. ‘Now go and get a shower!’
At eight fifteen, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny set off to the great hall for breakfast. Ever since Hermione had got up she was reciting definitions and fishing books out of her bag to check if she knew the exact details of one little fact.
‘Do you really have to do that?’ Ron had said but she gave him such a glare that he didn’t dare question her again.
When they entered the great hall, they saw that most of the students sitting at the tables were seventh years. Harry and co. sat down at the Gryffindor table beside Seamus, Dean, Parvati, Lavender and Neville. They were all pushing bits of bacon and sausage around their plates with a fork. Harry wanted to reassure them, like he did when they acted like this before a quidditch match, but he didn’t feel as if he had the authority to do it, so he began to eat. Ron was scoffing large pieces of bacon, eggs, sausages and everything else he could fit into his mouth. Ginny was nibbling at a slice of toast and Hermione kept picking up bits of food, putting them to her mouth and then putting them back onto her plate.
‘Eat it Hermione.’ Ron said. ‘It won't eat you.’
‘Yeah, I'm trying Ron. Shut up.’
Hermione was always snappy on days when they had tests and stuff. Harry remembered how very similar she had acted on the morning of their OWLs.
When breakfast was over, all the seventh years hung around outside the great hall for the first test. It was Herbology. The theory was this morning and in the afternoon, they had the practical.
Not many students were here. Neville was the only was who seemed a little bit cheerful.
‘Nice day isn’t it, Hermione?’ he had said conversationally.
‘If you think so.’ was Hermione's reply.
When they were let into the great hall, they occupied the seats with their names on it. Harry was sat directly behind Parvati. This had been a bit of a problem two years ago. He found that the sun sometimes caught in her hair and it became very distracting. Harry prayed that the sun would stay well away for the next week.
Harry made his way through the test. He didn’t find it particularly easy, but it was too difficult. When he had done all he felt he could, he put his quill down and looked around. Hermione was still scribbling away. Ron looked like he was about to fall asleep. Ginny looked like she was re-reading over her answers. Neville looked rather happy about something. Harry thought that he should read over his answers.
‘Nah, if I didn’t know them then, I won't know them now.’ he told himself.
When the time was up, the examiner waved his wand, said ‘accio parchments’ and told them all that they could leave.
Hermione ran outside and sat under their usual tree. The one Harry had seen Sirius, Remus, James and peter sit at in Snape’s pensieve. She dug a heavy book out of her bag and began looking up lots of pages. Gradually, a small smile made its way across her face.
‘Well, I think we can just sit here until lunch time. I'm happy enough.’
Everyone else nodded. They sat in silence, watching the world go past them. They watched Hagrid, who was in a lesson with a group of third years. He was showing them a hippogriff by the looks of it. They saw the giant squid lurking in the shallow waters of the lake and they watched some first year s getting lessons in flying.
Harry wondered how long things would stay so peaceful for him.
After lunchtime, they had to wait outside the great hall for another little while. Hermione was pouring over a book, once again and Ginny was biting her nails. Harry and Ron were deep in conversation about how much of a git Malfoy was and Neville was still walking about, smiling at everyone.
When they were allowed in again, Harry made his way to the table marked ‘Potter, Harry’ then looked at the name beside it. ‘Malfoy, Draco’. He was almost sick. There was only one tray in front of him so Harry assumed they would be working together.
Harry watched at Malfoy walked around every table looking for his name, but without any result. He scanned the room, looking for a table he had missed out, and then his eyes landed on Harry. They exchanged looks of pure loathing as he swaggered over to the table.
‘Alright Potter. Here’s the deal. We forget about the hate thing and get this over with.’ he said, as soon as he reached Harry.
‘Um…fine. Yeah, that’s cool.’
The examiner stood up on the platform at the front of the room and spoke loudly.
‘You shall be working in pairs with the person beside you to do the task. You have one hour. Go!’
A piece of parchment appeared on the desk and Malfoy picked it up and started reading.
‘Let me see it.’ Harry said and Draco reluctantly moved it a little closer to him.
Harry picked up the knife and began chopping up a pumpkin.
‘What do I do next?’ he asked, when he was finished.
‘We have to plant them beneath this mandrake. It's supposed to help make some life-saving potion.’
‘Do you want to pull it out or shall I?’ Harry asked.
Draco looked slightly amused. ‘I’ll hold the pot and you pull.’
Harry smiled. ‘I thought you’d say that.’
Potter, did you just smile at Malfoy, his brain said.
Did I?
Yes.
Holy shit.
I know. Stop it.
But he’s being normal. I think I'll act normal too.
He is probably a death eater! His brain seemed to shout at him.
Shut up.
‘Potter? Are you listening?’ Malfoy was waving a hand in front of Harry's face.
‘Sorry, I was…er…arguing with my brain.’
‘Erm…okay.’ Draco said. ‘You need to put on those gloves.’
Harry pulled on the dragon hide gloves and placed his hands over the sleeping mandrake. ‘Hold on, aren’t we supposed to be wearing earmuffs?’ he said to Draco.
‘I think that if we pull them out while they are sleeping, they don’t make any noise.’ he replied.
‘Okay, then. Ready? On the count of three. One …two…three!’
Harry pulled the mandrake out of the pot Malfoy was holding. He held it at arms length as Malfoy carefully placed the bits of pumpkin to the pot and signalled for Harry to put the mandrake back in.
Harry did as Malfoy directed him. He seemed to be pretty good at Herbology.
‘That went pretty well.’ Harry said, amazed at how easy his NEWT was.
‘Yeah, now we have to do the hard part.’ Malfoy said, half smirking, half smiling.
‘Which is?’
‘Separating this.’ Draco held up a large plant, which looked like a larger version of a spider plant Harry had seem in Mrs Figg’s house many years ago.
‘What the fuck is that?’ Harry said, looking at it with disgust.
‘It's an acromantula plant. I think there’s a muggle version of it.’
‘Yeah, a spider plant. What do you mean, we have to separate it?’ Harry said, with a slight quiver in his voice.
‘Scared of a plant, Potter?’ Draco teased, but Harry knew it was in a friendly way. ‘See all these arm things coming out of it. In every acromantula plant, there’s one leaf which has incredible healing powers. We have to find the one in this and feed it to the mandrake.’
‘In forty five minutes?’
‘Yep!’
Draco explained to Harry what the special leaf looked like and they both got to work, searching for it.
‘Is this it?’ Harry showed Draco a brown leaf.
‘No.’
‘This?’
‘No.’
‘This?’
‘No!’ Draco laughed. ‘Harry, you are hilarious. Here I've found it.’
Harry didn’t know what was coming over him but he had just found a tiny little liking in his body for Draco Malfoy. Plus, he had called him ‘Harry’.
Draco showed Harry how they had to break up the leaf into identical bits and feed it to the mandrake with eyebrow tweezers. Harry watched as Draco separated the leaf and handed Harry a pair of tweezers.
Draco fed it the first one, to show Harry what to do and then let Harry get on with it, while he cleaned up the mess.
‘Draco, when did you get so good at Herbology?’
‘I don’t know.’ Malfoy said, half surprised to hear Harry call him Draco. ‘I've always been okay at it. And I revised a lot.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I revised for everything. Even DADA.’
‘What? You’re not taking DADA!’
‘I am.’
‘You haven’t been to any classes.’
‘I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone this but…I've already let it out of my big mouth. Anyway, well, you know that my family are big supporters of you-know-who.’
‘Voldemort.’ Harry said, with defiance.
‘Yeah,’ Draco shuddered. ‘Well, my dad didn’t allow me to take DADA as a NEWT. He doesn’t think I'll need it, so I told the headmaster and he’s been giving me private lessons.’
‘Holy…’
‘Don’t tell anyone, Harry. Please?’
‘I won't. I promise. So, you’re not interested in the dark side?’
‘Nope. Not at all.’ Draco said with an air of cheeriness.
‘I'm done here.’ Harry said, after feeding the mandrake the last piece of acromantula leaf.
‘Just let it sleep, then.’
‘Right.’ Harry left the mandrake and went to help Draco pick the leaves of the acromantula off the ground. ‘So, then, why do you hate me?’ Harry said, knowing it would be a touchy subject.
‘I don’t.’
‘I think you do.’
‘Well I don’t, okay. I just…I hate the attention you get.’ Draco burst out, dropping all the leaves all over again.
‘So do I. Harry muttered.
‘I mean, no offence or anything, but you don’t even know how you did it!’
‘I know.’
‘You know?’
‘Yeah, I know. But I also know that I have the ability to defeat Voldemort. I have to.’
‘Yeah, I know that. My dad talks about it all the time. He says he knows you-know-who will kill you, but I know he’s not certain.’
Harry was getting a lot of information from Draco, not that he had to ask for it.
‘He’s always got his death eater friends around for dinner and stuff like that, as if it was a golf club or something they’re all involved in! And then he tells me to stay friends with Pansy and Crabbe and Goyle. God I hate him!’
‘Goyle?’
‘No, you idiot! My dad! I'm not too fond of Goyle either, though.’
‘Oh. I can see why you hate your dad. Not letting you take a simple subject.’
‘Everyone’s going to find out this week anyway. I have to take my DADA NEWT with everyone else. Oh well. I’ll just hope he doesn’t hear about it.’
The signal went for everyone to stop what they were doing and step back from the tables. Once everyone’s mandrake was collected, they were free to go. Harry and his friends made their way to their tree and sat down. Hermione had a face like thunder and didn’t even get any books out.
Ron opened his mouth to speak but Hermione got there first.
‘Parkinson! That stupid bitch! She is such an idiot! And now she’s going to get an excellent mark because she worked with me! And I simply had to do my best! I want to pass, but I don’t want her to! God, she makes my blood boil! And she just stands there with her horrid face and goes, “Oy Granger, what's this for?” with a pair of eyebrow tweezers. She's such a man; she doesn’t know what they’re for!’
‘At least you didn’t get Goyle. I always knew he wasn’t the brightest person, but I honestly didn’t think it was possible to be THAT stupid.’ Ron fumed. ‘And I'm going to get a shit mark because he decided to tickle the mandrake before feeding it. Then it was laughing so hard that it didn’t want to eat it. So I had to force feed it and that wasn’t the best thing to do.’
‘Crabbe is pretty much like that too. Except instead of tickling it, he pokes it I'm the eye and says, “What does that thing do?” I'm like, it's his fucking eye! It's for seeing! But then I conjured a quill and parchment and told him to write up everything I did. He thought he was helping, stupid git!’
Everyone looked at Harry, waiting for the explosion. He had been paired with Malfoy, and therefore, was expected to be in the worst mood, but he wasn’t.
‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked them, seeing their expressions.
‘Wasn’t it awful?’ Hermione asked.
‘No, he’s pretty smart actually. The first thing he said was, “let’s forget about the hate thing until this is over”. It was just as if I was paired with someone like Justin.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, and I think I would have failed if I hadn’t been with him. He knew exactly what he was doing. I didn’t have a clue.’
‘Oh Harry! I thought you had revised.’ Hermione wailed.
‘Quiet, Hermione.’ Ginned scowled. ‘So it wasn’t awful?’
‘Nope.’
‘And he didn’t say anything about me?’ she asked.
‘Not one word.’
Harry almost thought Ginny looked disappointed, but he was obviously mistaken, she was relieved.
‘Well, I have to go and revise for Arithmancy. I've got it this evening.’ Hermione said.
‘Yeah. And I've got divination.’ Ginny said. ‘We’re off to revise. See you at dinner!’
And the two girls headed off for the tower. Ron and Harry stayed by the tree, soaking in the feeling of summer. Harry knew it wouldn’t last too long. As soon as the NEWTs were over, he would be on the lookout for anything strange. The battle was coming. He knew it.
‘I still can't believe you enjoyed working with Malfoy!’ Ron said, laying back and closing his eyes.
‘I didn’t enjoy it, Ron! It just wasn’t awful!’ Harry said, leaning his back against the tree. He knew he was lying; he had enjoyed Draco’s company. But he would never admit it.
‘What do we have tomorrow?’ Ron asked, lazily.
‘Charms.’
‘Oh, that’s not too bad. When do we have potions?’
‘Thursday, I think.’
‘I hate Thursdays.’