Chapter One: N.E.W.T.s

"But -"

"No!"

"Wait"

"Hermione! You are not staying up all night studying!" Ron said.

"I can't get less than a O on our exams or I won't get in to the Poison Ivy league colleges!"

"O, Shut up!" Ron slammed Advanced Magical History shut.

"You'll definitely get an O!" Harry added. "You've been studying day & night for the past three weeks!"

"We missed the ENTIRE school year!"

"Hermione!" Ron said, exasperated, "you'll do worse on the exams if you stay up all night! You'll be exhausted!"

"Fine." Hermione trudged up the stairs to the girl's dormitory and slammed the door, waking more than a few seventh-year Gryffindor girls.

"Let's go upstairs too, Ron." Harry motioned for Ron to follow him, but the tall redhead had discovered that Hermione had taken her book upstairs with her. So before Harry could warn Ron. he started racing up the stairs to the girl's dorms.

Hey, he thought as he ran, I swear these stairs are way slipperier than the ones…. "AARGH!"

Ron slid down the newly formed slide headfirst and landed with his leg bent the wrong way.

"Hurts", Ron mumbled when Harry felt his leg.

"Okay, boy. Let's get you to Madam Pomfrey's", Harry soothed Ron as he walked down the hall, Ron in his arms.

According to Pomfrey, Ron had one of the worst broken legs she had ever seen, so he would have to stay the night.

"Will I miss the exams?" Ron asked nervously. There were no retake days - if he missed the exams, he would have to redo his 7th year at Hogwarts.

"No, dear. You'll be just fine in the morning", Madam Pomfrey said. "Well, technically it is morning". She looked at the clock, which said 12:23 AM.

"But you know what I mean. Now, run along, Harry. It's a big day tomorrow"

The morning came, with Hermione bumping around trying to find her way to the dining hall with her head in Arithmancy N.E.W.T. Prep, Ron being released from Madam Pomfrey's - "She's magic, that one". "I already knew that!" "Oh, yeah." - ,and Harry trying to get Hermione out of her book at breakfast, finally resorting to confiscating it and all of her other books and denying her entrance to the library.

The first thing that Professor McGonagall had the seventh years do before their Transfiguration exams was fill out their college forms, on which you put your first through tenth choices of colleges and majors. Hermione, being Hermione, picked the ten most prestigious colleges in the country, and put every major except Defense Against The Dark Arts in the top spot, and the latter in the second.

"Is that not against the rules?", Harry asked.

"Nope!", Hermione confirmed. "I read all about it!"

"Of course you did", Ron muttered.

The second thing McGonagall did was give them a lecture that lasted about 10 minutes about how dreadfully important these exams were and how she hoped they'd studied. Then she passed out the written exam.

Verb added for transfiguring a non-vertebrae to a vertebrae.

This is easy, Harry thought. We learned this back in fifth year!

Unfortunately, the questions got harder and harder, and by the last question, Hermione was the only one not scratching her head.

Next came the physical exam, which was like the written one in that it got harder and harder. They started out turning cats into mice, but the exam culminated with the trick McGonagall had shown them back in their fifth year - turning her desk into a lion and back again.

The next few exams followed the same pattern, except for the D.A.D.A. exam, which was being supervised by Hagrid. Suffice it to say, that was an interesting experience.