* * *

            THE STORY OF FRED, GEORGE, AND AURORA'S FLIGHT TO FREEDOM WAS RETOLD SO OFTEN OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS THAT ELARA COULD TELL IT WOULD SOON BECOME THE STUFF OF HOGWARTS LEGEND. within a week, even those who had been eyewitnesses were half-convinced that they had seen the twins and aurora dive-bomb umbridge on their brooms, pelting her with dungbombs before zooming out of the doors. in the immediate aftermath of their departure there was a great wave of talk about copying them, so that elara frequently heard students saying things like, "honestly, some days i just feel like jumping on my broom and leaving this place," or else, "one more lesson like that and i might just do a weasley. . . ."

            fred, george, and aurora had made sure that nobody was likely to forget them very soon. for one thing, they had not left instructions on how to remove the swamp that now filled the corridor on the fifth floor of the east wing. umbridge and filch had been observed trying different means of removing it but without success. eventually the area was roped off and filch, gnashing his teeth furiously, was given the task of punting students across it to their classrooms. elara was certain that teachers like mcgonagall or flitwick could have removed the swamp in an instant, but just as in the case of the wildfire whiz-bangs, they seemed to prefer to watch umbridge struggle.

            then there were the two large broom-shaped holes in umbridge's office door, through which fred and george's cleansweeps had smashed to rejoin their masters. filch fitted a new door and removed harry's firebolt to the dungeons where, it was rumored, umbridge had set an armed security troll to guard it. however, her troubles were far from over.

            inspired by fred, george, and aurora's example, a great number of students were now vying for the newly vacant positions of troublemakers-in-chief. In spite of the new door, somebody managed to slip a hairy-snouted niffler into umbridge's office, which promptly tore the place apart in its search for shiny objects, leapt on umbridge on her reentrance, and tried to gnaw the rings off her stubby fingers. dungbombs and stinkpellets were dropped so frequently in the corridors that it became the new fashion for students to perform bubble-head charms on themselves before leaving lessons, which ensured them a supply of fresh clean air, even though it gave them all the peculiar appearance of wearing upside-down goldfish bowls on their heads.

            filch prowled the corridors with a horsewhip ready in his hands, desperate to catch miscreants, but the problem was that there were now so many of them that he did not know which way to turn. the inquisitorial squad were attempting to help him, but odd things kept happening to its members. warrington of the slytherin quidditch team reported to the hospital wing with a horrible skin complaint that made him look as though he had been coated in cornflakes. pansy parkinson, to hermione's delight, missed all her lessons the following day, as she had sprouted antlers.

            meanwhile it became clear just how many skiving snackboxes fred, george, and aurora had managed to sell before leaving hogwarts. umbridge only had to enter her classroom for the students assembled there to faint, vomit, develop dangerous fevers, or else spout blood from both nostrils. shrieking with rage and frustration she attempted to trace the mysterious symptoms to their source, but the students told her stubbornly they were suffering "umbridge-itis." after putting four successive classes in detention and failing to discover their secret she was forced to give up and allow the bleeding, swooning, sweating, and vomiting students to leave her classes in droves.

            but not even the users of the snackboxes could compete with that master of chaos, peeves, who seemed to have taken aurora's parting words deeply to heart. cackling madly, he soared through the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, and toppling statues and vases. twice he shut mrs. norris inside suits of armor, from which she was rescued, yowling loudly, by the furious caretaker. he smashed lanterns and snuffed out candles, juggled burning torches over the heads of screaming students, caused neatly stacked piles of parchment to topple into fires or out of windows, flooded the second floor when he pulled off all the taps in the bathrooms, dropped a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the great hall during breakfast and, whenever he fancied a break, spent hours at a time floating along after umbridge and blowing loud raspberries every time she spoke.

            none of the staff but filch seemed to be stirring themselves to help her. indeed, a week after fred, george, and aurora's departure elara witnessed professor mcgonagall walking right past peeves, who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier, and could have sworn she heard mcgonagall tell the poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth, "it unscrews the other way."

            ron's euphoria at helping gryffindor scrape the quidditch cup was such that he could not settle to anything next day. all he wanted to do was talk over the match and elara, harry, and hermione found it very difficult to find an opening in which to mention grawp — not that either of them tried very hard; neither was keen to be the one to bring ron back to reality in quite such a brutal fashion. as it was another fine, warm day, they persuaded him to join them in studying under the beech tree on the edge of the lake, where they stood less chance of being overheard than in the common room. ron was not particularly keen on this idea at first; he was thoroughly enjoying being patted on the back by gryffindors walking past his chair, not to mention the occasional outbursts of "weasley is our king," but agreed after a while that some fresh air might do him good.

            they spread their books out in the shade of the beech tree. elara, already tired of studying, laid out on her back. ron talked them through his first save of the match for what felt like the dozenth time.

            "well, i mean, i'd already let in that one of davies's, so i wasn't feeling that confident, but i dunno, when bradley came toward me, just out of nowhere, i thought — you can do this! and i had about a second to decide which way to fly, you know, because he looked like he was aiming for the right goal hoop — my right, obviously, his left — but i had a funny feeling that he was feinting, and so i took the chance and flew left — his right, i mean — and — well — you saw what happened," he concluded modestly, sweeping his hair back quite unnecessarily so that it looked interestingly windswept and glancing around to see whether the people nearest to them — a bunch of gossiping third-year hufflepuffs — had heard him. "and then, when chambers came at me about five minutes later — what?" ron said, stopping mid-sentence at the look on harry's face. "why are you grinning?"

            "i'm not," said harry quickly, looking down at his transfiguration notes and attempting to straighten his face. "i'm just glad we won, that's all."

            "yeah," said ron slowly, savoring the words, "we won. did you see the look on chang's face when ginny got the snitch right out from under her nose?"

            "i suppose she cried, did she?" said harry bitterly.

            elara laughed loudly for a second but clamped her hand over her mouth. she sort of felt terrible for cho.

            "well, yeah — more out of temper than anything, though . . ." ron frowned slightly. "but you saw her chuck her broom away when she got back to the ground, didn't you?"

            "er —" said harry.

            "well, actually . . . no, ron," said hermione with a heavy sigh, putting down her book and looking at him apologetically. "as a matter of fact, the only bit of the match lara, harry, and i saw was davies's first goal."

            ron's carefully ruffled hair seemed to wilt with disappointment.

            "you didn't watch?" he said faintly, looking from one to the other. "you didn't see me make any of those saves?"

            "well — no," said hermione, stretching out a placatory hand toward him. "but ron, we didn't want to leave — we had to!"

            "yeah?" said ron, whose face was growing rather red. "how come?"

            "it was hagrid," said harry. "he decided to tell us why he's been covered in injuries ever since he got back from the giants. he wanted us to go into the forest with him, we had no choice, you know how he gets. . . . anyway . . ."

            the story was told in five minutes, by the end of which ron's indignation had been replaced by a look of total incredulity.

            "he brought one back and hid it in the forest?"

            "yep," said elara grimly.

            "no," said ron, as though by saying this he could make it untrue. "no, he can't have. . . ."

            "well, he has," said hermione firmly. "grawp's about sixteen feet tall, enjoys ripping up twenty foot pine trees, and knows me," she snorted, "as hermy."

            ron gave a nervous laugh.

            "and hagrid wants us to . . . ?"

            "teach him english, yeah," said harry.

            "he's lost his mind," said ron in an almost awed voice.

            "yes," said elara irritably, sitting up. she scooted back into a spot between ron and harry. "i'm pretty sure he has. but unfortunately, he made harry, hermione, and me promise."

            "well, you're just going to have to break your promise, that's all," said ron firmly. "i mean, come on . . . we've got exams and we're about that far," he held up his hand to show thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart, "from being chucked out as it is. and anyway . . . remember norbert? remember aragog? have we ever come off better for mixing with any of hagrid's monster mates?"

            "i know, it's just that — we promised," said hermione in a small voice.

            ron smoothed his hair flat again, looking preoccupied.

            "well," he sighed, "hagrid hasn't been sacked yet, has he? he's hung on this long, maybe he'll hang on till the end of term and we won't have to go near grawp at all."

            the castle grounds were gleaming in the sunlight as though freshly painted; the cloudless sky smiled at itself in the smoothly sparkling lake, the satin-green lawns rippled occasionally in a gentle breeze: june had arrived, but to the fifth years this meant only one thing: their o.w.l.s were upon them at last.

            their teachers were no longer setting them homework; lessons were devoted to reviewing those topics their teachers thought most likely to come up in the exams. the purposeful, feverish atmosphere drove nearly everything but the o.w.l.s from elara's mind.

            hermione was not the only person acting oddly as the o.w.l.s drew steadily nearer. ernie macmillan had developed an irritating habit of interrogating people about their study habits.

            "how many hours d'you think you're doing a day?" he demanded of elara, harry, and ron as they queued outside herbology, a manic gleam in his eyes.

            "i dunno," said ron. "a few . . ."

            "more or less than eight?"

            "less, i s'pose," said ron, looking slightly alarmed.

            "i'm doing eight," said ernie, puffing out his chest. "eight or nine. i'm getting an hour in before breakfast every day. eight's my average. i can do ten on a good weekend day. i did nine and a half on monday. not so good on tuesday — only seven and a quarter. then on wednesday —"

            "ernie macmillan, you've never irritated me before and i think you're great, if you don't shut it in five seconds i will force your head into one of these pots," said elara threateningly. 

            ernie shut up after that. meanwhile draco malfoy had found a different way to induce panic.

            "of course, it's not what you know," he was heard to tell crabbe and goyle loudly outside potions a few days before the exams were to start, "it's who you know. now, father's been friendly with the head of the wizarding examinations authority for years — old griselda marchbanks — we've had her round for dinner and everything. . . ."

            "do you think that's true?" hermione whispered to elara, harry, and ron, looking frightened.

            "he's bluffing. they've never had griselda marchbanks over, ever," said elara, rolling her eyes in draco's direction.

            meanwhile a flourishing black-market trade in aids to concentration, mental agility, and wakefulness had sprung up among the fifth and seventh years. harry and ron were much tempted by the bottle of baruffio's brain elixir offered to them by ravenclaw sixth year eddie carmichael, who swore it was solely responsible for the nine "outstanding" o.w.l.s he had gained the previous summer and was offering the whole pint for a mere twelve galleons. elara declined, but ron assured harry he would reimburse him for his half the moment he left hogwarts and got a job, but before they could close the deal, hermione had confiscated the bottle from carmichael and poured the contents down a toilet.

            "hermione, we wanted to buy that!" shouted ron.

            "don't be stupid," she snarled. "you might as well take harold dingle's powdered dragon claw and have done with it."

            "dingle's got powdered dragon claw?" said ron eagerly.

            "not anymore," said hermione. "i confiscated that too. none of these things actually works you know —"

            "dragon claw does work!" said ron. "it's supposed to be incredible, really gives your brain a boost, you come over all cunning for a few hours — hermione, let me have a pinch, go on, it can't hurt —"

            "this stuff can," said hermione grimly. "i've had a look at it, and it's actually dried doxy droppings."

            this information took the edge off harry and ron's desire for brain stimulants.

            they received their examination schedules and details of the procedure for o.w.l.s during their next transfiguration lesson.

             "as you can see," professor mcgonagall told the class while they copied down the dates and times of their exams from the blackboard, "your o.w.l.s are spread over two successive weeks. you will sit the theory exams in the mornings and the practice in the afternoons. your practical astronomy examination will, of course, take place at night.

            "now, i must warn you that the most stringent anti-cheating charms have been applied to your examination papers. auto-answer quills are banned from the examination hall, as are remembralls, detachable cribbing cuffs, and self-correcting Ink. every year, i am afraid to say, seems to harbor at least one student who thinks that he or she can get around the wizarding examinations authority's rules. i can only hope that it is nobody in gryffindor. our new — headmistress" — professor mcgonagall pronounced the word with like she was struggling — "has asked the heads of house to tell their students that cheating will be punished most severely — because, of course, your examination results will reflect upon the headmistress's new regime at the school. . . ."

            professor mcgonagall gave a tiny sigh. elara saw the nostrils of her sharp nose flare.

            "however, that is no reason not to do your very best. you have your own futures to think about."

            "please, professor," said hermione, her hand in the air, "when will we find out our results?"

            "an owl will be sent to you some time in july," said professor mcgonagall.

            "excellent," said dean thomas in an audible whisper, "so we don't have to worry about it till the holidays. . . ."

            their first exam, theory of charms, was scheduled for monday morning.

            dinner was a subdued affair that night. elara, harry, and ron did not talk much, but ate with gusto, 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 some fact or figure. ron was just telling her that she ought to eat a decent meal or she would not sleep that night, when her fork slid from her limp fingers and landed with a loud tinkle on her plate.

            "oh, my goodness," she said faintly, staring into the entrance hall. "is that them? is that the examiners?"

            elara, harry, and ron whipped around on their bench. through the doors to the great hall they could see umbridge standing with a small group of ancient-looking witches and wizards. umbridge, elara was pleased to see, looked rather nervous.

            "shall we go and have a closer look?" said ron.

             elara, harry, and hermione nodded and they hastened toward the double doors into the entrance hall, slowing down as they stepped over the threshold to walk sedately past the examiners. elara thought professor marchbanks must be the tiny, stooped witch with a face so lined it looked as though it had been draped in cobwebs; umbridge was speaking to her very deferentially. professor marchbanks seemed to be a little deaf; she was answering umbridge very loudly considering that they were only a foot apart.

            "journey was fine, journey was fine, we've made it plenty of times before!" she said impatiently. "now, i haven't heard from dumbledore lately!" she added, peering around the hall as though hopeful he might suddenly emerge from a broom cupboard. "no idea where he is, i suppose?"

             "none at all," said umbridge, shooting a malevolent look at elara, harry, ron, and hermione, who were now dawdling around the foot of the stairs as ron pretended to do up his shoelace. "but i daresay the ministry of magic will track him down soon enough. . . ."

            "i doubt it," shouted tiny professor marchbanks, "not if dumbledore doesn't want to be found! i should know. . . . examined him personally in transfiguration and charms when he did n.e.w.t.s . . . did things with a wand i'd never seen before . . ."

            "yes . . . well . . ." said professor umbridge as elara, harry, ron, and hermione dragged their feet up the marble staircase as slowly as they dared, "let me show you to the staffroom . . . i daresay you'd like a cup of tea after your journey. . . ."

            "bitch," murmured elara.

             it was an uncomfortable sort of an evening. everyone was trying to do some last-minute studying but nobody seemed to be getting very far. elara went to bed early but then lay awake for what felt like hours. she remembered her careers consultation and mcgonagall's furious declaration that she would help her become an auror if it was the last thing she did. . . . elara wished she had expressed a more achievable ambition now that exam time was here. . . . she knew that aspen was still awake, but decided not to engage in conversation, as they both needed to be well-rested.

             none of the fifth years talked very much at breakfast next day either. parvati was practicing incantations under her breath while the salt cellar in front of her twitched, hermione was rereading achievement in charming so fast that her eyes appeared blurred, and neville kept dropping his knife and fork and knocking over the marmalade.

             once breakfast was over, the fifth and seventh years milled around in the entrance hall while the other students went off to lessons. then, at half-past nine, they were called forward class by class to reenter the great hall. the four house tables had been removed and replaced instead with many tables for one, all facing the staff-table end of the hall where professor mcgonagall stood facing them. when they were all seated and quiet she said, "you may begin," and turned over an enormous hourglass on the desk beside her, on which were also spare quills, ink bottles, and rolls of parchment.

            elara turned over her paper, her mind surprisingly calm. . . . three rows to his right and four seats ahead, hermione was already scribbling. . . . elara lowered her eyes to the first question: a) give the incantation, and b) describe the wand movement required to make objects fly. . . .

            easy enough. . . .

            "well, it wasn't too bad, was it?" asked hermione anxiously in the entrance hall two hours later, still clutching the exam paper. "i'm not sure i did myself justice on cheering charms, i just ran out of time — did you put in the countercharm for hiccups? i wasn't sure whether i ought to, it felt like too much — and on question twenty-three —"

            "hermione," said elara sternly, "i love you, but you're totally projecting and being a drag."

             hermione looked to ron and harry for translation.

             "she means no more reviewing the exam after exam time, or she might throttle something," said ron knowledgely while harry nodded.

             the fifth years ate lunch with the rest of the school (the four house tables reappeared over the lunch hour) and then trooped off into the small chamber beside the great hall, where they were to wait until called for their practical examination. as small groups of students were called forward in alphabetical order, those left behind muttered incantations and practiced wand movements, occasionally poking one another in the back or eye by mistake.

            hermione's name was called. trembling, she left the chamber with anthony goldstein, gregory goyle, and daphne greengrass. students who had already been tested did not return afterward, so elara, harry, and ron had no idea how Hermione had done.

             "she'll be fine — remember she got a hundred and twelve percent on one of our charms tests?" said ron.

            ten minutes later, professor flitwick called, "parkinson, pansy — patil, padma — patil, parvati — potter, harry."

            "good luck," said elara quietly, placing a kiss on harry's cheek before he moved into the great hall.

            another ten minutes passed, and elara's name was called.

            "don't die in there," said ron.

            "i'll try not too."

            "professor tofty is free, tonks," squeaked professor flitwick, who was standing just inside the door. he pointed elara toward what looked like the very oldest and baldest examiner, who was sitting behind a small table in a far corner, a short distance from professor marchbanks, who was halfway through testing draco malfoy.

            "tonks, is it?" said professor tofty, consulting his notes and peering over his pince-nez at elara as she approached. "the lestrange girl who was adopted by andromeda?"

            out of the corner of her eye, elara distinctly saw draco throw a scathing look over at her; the wine glass draco had been levitating fell to the floor and smashed. elara could not suppress a grin. professor tofty smiled back at her encouragingly.

            "that's it," he said in his quavery old voice, "no need to be nervous. . . . now, if i could ask you to take this eggcup and make it do some cartwheels for me. . . ."

            on the whole elara thought it went extremely well; her levitation charm was certainly much better than draco's had been, and she had not mixed up the incantations for color-change and growth charms as she thought she might have. ron had caused a dinner plate to mutate into a large mushroom and had no idea how it had happened.

            there was no time to relax that night — they went straight to the common room after dinner and submerged themselves in studying for transfiguration next day. elara and harry took turns quizzing each other by the fire and applying the strange study tricks ted had owled elara earlier that morning. hermione didn't approve, but ron had a fantastic time watching harry fall over every time he got a question wrong.

             luckily she was able to remember everything she'd studied with minimal difficulty, and her practical was really interesting. she managed to vanish the whole of her iguana, whereas poor hannah abbott lost her head completely at the next table and somehow managed to multiply her ferret into a flock of flamingos, causing the examination to be halted for ten minutes while the birds were captured and carried out of the hall.

             they had their herbology exam on wednesday (other than a small bite from a fanged geranium, elara felt she had done reasonably well) and then, on thursday, defense against the dark arts. she had no problem with any of the written questions and took particular pleasure, during the practical examination, in performing all the counterjinxes and defensive spells right in front of umbridge, who was watching coolly from near the doors into the entrance hall.

            "oh bravo!" cried professor tofty, who was examining elara again, when elara demonstrated a perfect boggart banishing spell. "very good indeed! well, i think that's all, tonks . . . unless . . ."

            he leaned forward a little.

            "i heard, from my dear friend tiberius ogden, that you can produce a patronus? for a bonus point . . . ?"

            elara raised her wand, looked directly at Umbridge, and imagined her being sacked.

            "expecto patronum!"

            a silver dragon burst from the tip of her wand. all of the examiners gasped and looked around to watch its progress and when it dissolved into silver mist, professor tofty clapped his veined and knotted hands enthusiastically.

            "excellent!" he said. "very well, tonks, you may go!"

            as elara passed umbridge beside the door their eyes met. there was a nasty smile playing around her wide, slack mouth, but elara did not care. unless she was very much mistaken (and she was not planning on saying it to anybody, in case she was), she had just achieved an "outstanding" o.w.l.

            on friday, elara, harry, and ron had a day off while hermione sat her ancient runes exam, and as they had the whole weekend in front of them, they permitted themselves a break from studying. they stretched and yawned beside the open window, through which warm summer air wafted over them as they played a desultory game of wizard chess. elara could see hagrid in the distance, teaching a class on the edge of the forest. she was trying to guess what creatures they were examining — she thought it must be unicorns, because the boys seemed to be standing back a little — when the portrait hole opened and hermione clambered in, looking thoroughly bad tempered.

            "how were the runes?" said ron, yawning and stretching.

            "i mistranslated 'ehwaz,' " said hermione furiously. "it means 'partnership,' not 'defense,' i mixed it up with 'eihwaz.' "

            "ah well," said ron lazily, "that's only one mistake, isn't it, you'll still get —"

            "oh shut up," said hermione angrily, "it could be the one mistake that makes the difference between a pass and a fail. and what's more, someone's put another niffler in umbridge's office, i don't know how they got it through that new door, but i just walked past there and Umbridge is shrieking her head off — by the sound of it, it tried to take a chunk out of her leg —"

            "good," said elara, harry, and ron together.

            "it is not good!" said hermione hotly. "she thinks it's hagrid doing it, remember? and we do not want hagrid chucked out!"

            "he's teaching at the moment, she can't blame him," said harry, gesturing out of the window.

            "oh, you're so naive sometimes, harry, you really think umbridge will wait for proof?" said hermione, who seemed determined to be in a towering temper, and she swept off toward the girls' dormitories, banging the door behind her.

            "such a lovely, sweet-tempered girl," said ron, very quietly.

            "i still don't understand how you two think i'm scarier than hermione," said elara, flipping through a book about horoscopes.

            hermione's bad mood persisted for most of the weekend, though elara, harry, and ron found it quite easy to ignore as they spent most of saturday and sunday studying for potions on monday, the exam to which elara was, surprisingly, looking forward most and which she was positive she would ace. sure enough, she breezed through the written portion of the exam.

            the afternoon practical was not terribly stressful as she had expected it to be. with snape absent from the proceedings she found that she was much more relaxed than she usually was while making potions. neville, who was sitting very near elara, also looked happier than elara had ever seen him during a potions class. when professor marchbanks said, "step away from your cauldrons, please, the examination is over," elara corked her sample flask feeling that she had achieved an 'outstanding'.

            "only four exams left," said parvati patil wearily as they headed back to gryffindor common room.

            "only!" said hermione snappishly. "i've got arithmancy and it's probably the toughest subject there is!"

            nobody was foolish enough to snap back, so she was unable to vent her spleen on any of them and was reduced to telling off some first years for giggling too loudly in the common room.

            elara was determined to perform well in tuesday's care of magical creatures exam so as not to let hagrid down. the practical examination took place in the afternoon on the lawn on the edge of the forbidden forest, where students were required to correctly identify the knarl hidden among a dozen hedgehogs (the trick was to offer them all milk in turn: knarls, highly suspicious creatures whose quills had many magical properties, generally went berserk at what they saw as an attempt to poison them); then demonstrate correct handling of a bowtruckle, feed and clean a fire-crab without sustaining serious burns, and choose, from a wide selection of food, the diet they would give a sick unicorn.

            elara could see hagrid watching anxiously out of his cabin window. when elara's examiner, a plump little witch this time, smiled at elara and told her she could leave, elara gave hagrid a fleeting thumbs-up before heading back up to the castle.

            the Astronomy theory exam (always elara's favorite) on wednesday morning went extremely well; elara was convinced she had gotten the names of all of jupiter's moons right, thanks to the glass orb harry had gifted her for christmas. in an especially good mood after astronomy, she planted a kiss on harry's cheek as they went to divination, as the practical bit of astronomy was later that night.

            since elara knew every single one of her visions at the back of her hand, the exam went very well. she just recalled any and all visions during the crystal ball reading; she kept cool during the tea-leaf reading, saying professor marchbanks would be coming into good fortune and a little confusion, and rounded off the whole exams by reading her palm and informing her that she has the power to instill happiness in others.

            "well, we were always going to fail that one," said ron gloomily as they ascended the marble staircase. "well, 'cept lara, i'm jealous that you're a seer."

            "oh yes, because fainting three times a day is fabulous."

            when they reached the top of the astronomy tower at eleven o'clock they found a perfect night for stargazing, cloudless and still. elara wished she wasn't taking an exam and instead found herself wanting to stargaze surrounded by blankets and snacks. the grounds were bathed in silvery moonlight, and there was a slight chill in the air. each of them set up his or her telescope and, when professor marchbanks gave the word, proceeded to fill in the blank star chart he or she had been given.

            professors marchbanks and tofty strolled among them, watching as they entered the precise positions of the stars and planets they were observing. All was quiet except for the rustle of parchment, the occasional creak of a telescope as it was adjusted on its stand, and the scribbling of many quills. half an hour passed, then an hour; the little squares of reflected gold light flickering on the ground below started to vanish as lights in the castle windows were extinguished.

            as elara completed the constellation orion on her chart, however, the front doors of the castle opened directly below the parapet where she was standing, so that light spilled down the stone steps a little way across the lawn. elara glanced down as she made a slight adjustment to the position of her telescope and saw five or six elongated shadows moving over the brightly lit grass before the doors swung shut and the lawn became a sea of darkness once more.

            elara put her eye back to his telescope and refocused it, now examining venus. she looked down at his chart to enter the planet there, but something distracted her. pausing with her quill suspended over the parchment, she squinted down into the shadowy grounds and saw half a dozen figures walking over the lawn. if they had not been moving, and the moonlight had not been gilding the tops of their heads, they would have been indistinguishable from the dark ground on which they stood. even at this distance, elara had a funny feeling that she recognized the walk of the squattest among them, who seemed to be leading the group.

            oh god, she thought, what now?

            she could not think why umbridge would be taking a stroll outside past midnight, much less accompanied by five others. then somebody coughed behind her, and she remembered that she was halfway through an exam. she had quite forgotten venus's position — jamming her eye to her telescope, she found it again and was again on the point of entering it on her chart when, alert for any odd sound, she heard a distant knock that echoed through the deserted grounds, followed immediately by the muffled barking of a large dog.

            she looked up, her heart hammering. there were lights on in hagrid's windows and the people she had observed crossing the lawn were now silhouetted against them. the door opened and he distinctly saw six tiny but sharply defined figures walk over the threshold. the door closed again and there was silence.

            elara felt very uneasy. she glanced around to see whether harry, ron, or hermione had noticed what she had, but professor marchbanks came walking behind her at that moment, and not wanting to appear as though she was sneaking looks at anyone else's work, she hastily bent over her star chart and pretended to be adding notes to it while really peering over the top of the parapet toward hagrid's cabin. figures were now moving across the cabin windows, temporarily blocking the light. she could feel professor marchbanks's eyes on the back of her neck and pressed her eye again to his telescope, staring up at the moon though she had marked its position an hour ago, but as professor marchbanks moved on she heard a roar from the distant cabin that echoed through the darkness right to the top of the astronomy tower. several of the people around elara ducked out from behind their telescopes and peered instead in the direction of hagrid's cabin.

            professor tofty gave another dry little cough.

            "try and concentrate, now, boys and girls," he said softly.

            most people returned to their telescopes. elara looked to her left. harry was gazing transfixed at Hagrid's.

            "ahem — twenty minutes to go," said professor tofty.

            harry jumped and returned at once to his star chart; elara looked down at her own and began to actually finish working on it.

            there was a loud BANG from the grounds. several people said "ouch!" as they poked themselves in the face with the ends of their telescopes, hastening to see what was going on below.

            hagrid's door had burst open and by the light flooding out of the cabin they saw him quite clearly, a massive figure roaring and brandishing his fists, surrounded by six people, all of whom, judging by the tiny threads of red light they were casting in his direction, seemed to be attempting to stun him.

            "no!" cried hermione.

            "my dear!" said professor tofty in a scandalized voice. "this is an examination!"

            but nobody was paying the slightest attention to their star charts anymore: jets of red light were still flying beside hagrid's cabin, yet somehow they seemed to be bouncing off him. he was still upright and still, as far as elara could see, fighting. cries and yells echoed across the grounds; a man yelled, "be reasonable, hagrid!" and hagrid roared, "reasonable be damned, yeh won' take me like this, dawlish!"

            elara could see the tiny outline of fang, attempting to defend hagrid, leaping at the wizards surrounding him until a stunning spell caught him and he fell to the ground. hagrid gave a howl of fury, lifted the culprit bodily from the ground, and threw him: the man flew what looked like ten feet and did not get up again. hermione gasped, both hands over her mouth; elara looked around at harry and ron and saw that they too were looking scared. none of them had ever seen hagrid in a real temper before. . . .

            "look!" squealed parvati, who was leaning over the parapet and pointing to the foot of the castle where the front doors seemed to have opened again; more light had spilled out onto the dark lawn and a single long black shadow was now rippling across the lawn.

            "now, really!" said professor tofty anxiously. "only sixteen minutes left, you know!"

            but nobody paid him the slightest attention: they were watching the person now sprinting toward the battle beside hagrid's cabin.

            "how dare you!" the figure shouted as she ran. "how dare you!" 

            "it's mcgonagall!" whispered hermione.

            "leave him alone! alone, i say!" said professor mcgonagall's voice through the darkness. "on what grounds are you attacking him? he has done nothing, nothing to warrant such —"

            hermione, parvati, and lavender all screamed. no fewer than four stunners had shot from the figures around the cabin toward professor mcgonagall. halfway between cabin and castle the red beams collided with her. for a moment she looked luminous, illuminated by an eerie red glow, then was lifted right off her feet, landed hard on her back, and moved no more.

            "galloping gargoyles!" shouted professor tofty, who seemed to have forgotten the exam completely. "not so much as a warning! outrageous behavior!"

            "COWARDS!" bellowed hagrid, his voice carrying clearly to the top of the tower, and several lights flickered back on inside the castle. "RUDDY COWARDS! HAVE SOME O' THAT — AN' THAT —"

            "oh my —" gasped hermione.

            "go hagrid!" cheered elara, wanting to see some revenge against the morons who attacked mcgonagall.

            hagrid took two massive swipes at his closest attackers; judging by their immediate collapse, they had been knocked cold. elara saw him double over and thought for a moment that he had finally been overcome by a spell, but on the contrary, next moment hagrid was standing again with what appeared to be a sack on his back — then elara realized that fang's limp body was draped around his shoulders.

            "get him, get him!" screamed umbridge, but her remaining helper seemed highly reluctant to go within reach of hagrid's fists. indeed, he was backing away so fast he tripped over one of his unconscious colleagues and fell over. hagrid had turned and begun to run with fang still hung around his neck; umbridge sent one last stunning spell after him but it missed, and hagrid, running full-pelt toward the distant gates, disappeared into the darkness.

            there was a long minute's quivering silence, everybody gazing openmouthed into the grounds. then professor tofty's voice said feebly, "um . . . five minutes to go, everybody . . ."

            since she had already finished her chart, elara was desperate for the end of the exam. when it came at last she, harry, ron, and hermione forced their telescopes haphazardly back into their holders and dashed back down the spiral staircase. none of the students were going to bed — they were all talking loudly and excitedly at the foot of the stairs about what they had witnessed.

            "that evil woman!" gasped hermione, who seemed to be having difficulty talking due to rage. "trying to sneak up on hagrid in the dead of night!"

            "she clearly wanted to avoid another scene like trelawney's," said ernie macmillan sagely, squeezing over to join them.

            "hagrid did well, didn't he?" said ron, who looked more alarmed than impressed. "how come all the spells bounced off him?"

            "it'll be his giant blood," said hermione shakily. "it's very hard to stun a giant, they're like trolls, really tough. . . . but poor professor mcgonagall. . . . four stunners straight in the chest, and she's not exactly young, is she?"

            "i mean, how cowardly and pathetic do you have to be to shoot four stunners at anybody without warning?" said elara quite angrily, "mcgonagall made no threat to them. i swear to god, if i ever see them, they'll go straight to st. mungo's for — "

            "all right," said harry, grabbing elara's hand and squeezing it. "i think a calming draught would do you some good."

            "i'll be back, i've got some sketchy shit to take care of — "

            elara made attempts to remove herself from harry's grip, but he refused to let her go.

            "nope," said harry, struggling to yank elara back towards the dormitories. "i know you're the 'fight' of 'fight or flight', but you need to go to sleep."

            "i'm — not — going — "

            "elara lestrange tonks, girl wonder," harry tried, and elara shook her head and kept trying to pull herself away, "light of my life, embodiment of spite... darling?"

            elara stopped yanking.

            "out of all of those, you choose darling?"

            "no," said elara, her voice distant, "well, maybe some, but i feel a 'fainting spell' coming."

            it was nearly four in the morning when elara awoke. harry was next to her, wide awake. she felt badly about him staying, but he insisted he was fine.

            their final exam, history of magic, was not to take place until that afternoon. elara would very much have liked to go back to bed after breakfast, but she had been counting on the morning for a spot of last-minute studying, so instead she sat with her head in her hands by the common room window, trying hard not to doze off as she read through some of the notes stacked three-and-a-half feet high that hermione had lent her.

            the fifth years entered the great hall at two o'clock and took their places in front of their overturned examination papers. elara, surprisingly, felt exhausted. she just wanted this to be over so that she could go and take her special sleep potion, and knock out for a day or two.

            "turn over your papers," said professor marchbanks from the front of the hall, flicking over the giant hourglass. "you may begin. . . ." 

            elara stared fixedly at the first question. it was several seconds before it occurred to her that she had not taken in a word of it; there was a wasp buzzing distractingly against one of the high windows. slowly, tortuously, she began to write an answer. her brain was moving slowly than normal.

            it took awhile to realize she was falling into another vision. these visions that progress very slowly were usually really important, but she powered through anyways.

            she was finding it very difficult to remember names and kept confusing dates. she simply skipped question four: in your opinion, did wand legislation contribute to, or lead to better control of, goblin riots of the eighteenth century? thinking that she would go back to it if she had time at the end. she had a stab at question five: how was the statute of secrecy breached in 1749 and what measures were introduced to prevent a recurrence? but had a nagging suspicion that she had missed several important points. she had a feeling vampires had come into the story somewhere. . . .

            she looked ahead for a question she could definitely answer and her eyes alighted upon number ten.

            describe the circumstances that led to the formation of the international confederation of wizards and explain why the warlocks of liechtenstein refused to join.

            i know this, elara thought, though her brain felt torpid and slack. she could visualize a heading, in hermione's handwriting: the formation of the international confederation of wizards. . . she had read these notes only this morning. . . .

            she began to write, looking up now and again to check the large hourglass on the desk beside professor marchbanks. she was sitting right behind parvati patil, whose long dark hair fell below the back of her chair. once or twice elara found herself staring at the tiny golden lights that glistened in it when parvati moved her head very slightly and had to give his own head a little shake to clear it.

            . . . the first supreme mugwump of the international confederation of wizards was pierre bonaccord, but his appointment was contested by the wizarding community of liechtenstein, because —

            all around elara quills were scratching on parchment like scurrying, burrowing rats. the sun was very hot on the back of his head. what was it that bonaccord had done to offend the wizards of liechtenstein? harry had a feeling it had something to do with trolls. . . . she gazed blankly at the back of parvati's head again. if elara could only perform legilimency and open a window in the back of her head and see what it was about trolls that had caused the breach between pierre bonaccord and liechtenstein. . . .

            elara closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands, so that the glowing red of her eyelids grew dark and cool. bonaccord had wanted to stop troll-hunting and give the trolls rights . . . but liechtenstein was having problems with a tribe of particularly vicious mountain trolls. . . . that was it. . . .

            she opened his eyes; they stung and watered at the sight of the blazing-white parchment. slowly she wrote two lines about the trolls then read through what she had done so far. it did not seem very informative or detailed, yet she was sure hermione's notes on the confederation had gone on for pages and pages. . . .

            elara closed her eyes again, trying to see them, trying to remember. . . . the confederation had met for the first time in france, yes, she had written that already. . . .

            goblins had tried to attend and been ousted. . . . she had written that too. . . .

            and nobody from liechtenstein had wanted to come . . .

            think, she told herself, her face in her hands, while all around her quills scratched out never-ending answers and the sand trickled through the hourglass at the front. . . .

            she was walking along the cool, dark corridor to the department of mysteries again, walking with a firm and purposeful tread, breaking occasionally into a run, determined to reach her destination at last. . . . the black door swung open for him as usual, and here she was in the circular room with its many doors. . . .

            the soft siren call, egging her to go forward.

            straight across the stone floor and through the second door . . . patches of dancing light on the walls and floor and that odd mechanical clicking, but no time to explore, she must hurry. . . .

            the call grew louder, now hesitant.

            she jogged the last few feet to the third door, which swung open just like the others. . . .

            the call begged her not go further.

            once again she was in the cathedral-sized room full of shelves and glass spheres. . . . her heart was beating very fast now. . . . she was going to get there this time. . . . when she reached number ninety-seven she turned left and hurried along the aisle between two rows. . . .

            the calls were deafening. they begged her to stop. they foretold of danger, death, and destruction.

            but the scene shifted as she came to rest in two particular glass spheres... there was an old, stone arch with a grey veil flowing ominously inside it, not attached to anything. sirius was in the middle of laughing when a green burst of light hit him on the chest.

            screaming. sirens. louder and louder.

            someone screamed as the brightness of sirius's usual jovial features softened a little. his body arched towards the ominously flowing grey veil. he began drifting through it. he was gone.

            elara heard loud cackling. someone had killed sirius. sirius was going to die.

            but somebody else screamed and this time it was far away. elara felt herself soaring. she hit the ground and awoke, covered in sweat, her chest on fire, as the great hall erupted all around her.

            the sirens kept going. an almost familiar voice joined the fray.

            "you have awakened. go."

* * *

AUTHORS NOTE

— y'all i am so sorry i have not updated
in like a week :(((( finals were cancelled
and i was like "oh shit" and i had to
bust my ass to get my grades up

— yeah next few chapters are the shitshow tm

written: february 27, 2020
published: may 6, 2020