Year Five, Chapter Forty Nine
Holly flew down the moonlit halls of Hogwarts the night before exams in her raven form. Ginny and Hermione followed her in their Animagus forms, whilst Ron scouted ahead under Holly's invisibility cloak. It had been much more straightforward to sneak around at Hogwarts, Holly thought, when they'd all fit under the one cloak.
Hit-Wizards patrolled the grounds and the castle itself now day and night. The raid on the castle had shocked the wizarding world more than even the attack on the Ministry. Deliberately unleashing werewolves on a school full of magical children was a new low, even for Voldemort.
Still, their animal forms and the cloak let Holly and her friends sneak past the patrols - as did Ron reading the Maruder's Map under the cloak. His animagus form could hardly be called subtle, so he was the one who'd been given the role of cloak-wearer and map-reader.
They reached the dungeons, and if anything there the patrols were even thicker on the ground. Nobody might have said anything about not trusting the Slytherins, but the Ministry suddenly seemed keen not to let them wander around at night. From the dungeons, they had to pass a warded door - one that thankfully hadn't been updated from Tom's time - and then they were able to descend into the chamber that held the control stones for the wards of Hogwarts.
They didn't look how Holly expected them to look. She knew that wards as powerful as Hogwarts's, ones that tapped into not just a leyline but a nexus of them, had to be inscribed on more than mere stone. Quartz or some other type of crystal was the classical method in the European tradition, though some cultures used special alloys of metal and others used more specific types of crystals. She had expected the wards to be a single circle of quartz standing stones, like a crystal Stonehenge.
Instead, there were nearly a dozen concentric circles of standing stones, each taller than the last. The oldest and shortest crystals were at the centre, the original wards of Hogwarts. They had long since been rendered obsolete by the advancement of magic and of muggle mathematics and science. Though they did not know about magic, there were simply so many more muggles than wizards that they often came up with theoretical breakthroughs in physics or mathematics that were also revolutionary in the wizarding world. Each circle of stones had been erected outside of the one before it, strengthening the wards and making them ever more complex.
Warding was one of the rare areas of magic where complexity was seen as a sign of a master, not of a journeyman reaching too far. Overly complex incantations or wand movements were a sign of a mediocre spellcrafter, of one whose reach had exceeded their grasp - as was the same in potions. The sign of a true master there was the elimination of steps, the distilling of a recipe into only what was needed. Not so for warding, where unlike ordinary enchantment, there was a tangible benefit to complexity.
Any given ward always had safety measures and traps to defeat any curse breaker who tried to unmake them, and understanding the whole scheme was required to take down a ward safely. Thus, the more complex the ward the harder it was to break. That was why each generation of Headmasters and teachers had built their wards over the top of what had come before, adding new defences to the old rather than starting over. It made for some of the most fiendish wards in all the world, and Holly knew that no witch or wizard, not even Voldemort, could break through them in anything less than an entire day.
"It's beautiful," Hermione said as she gazed up in awe at the circles of crystal. Even the Founder's stones were eight feet tall, and the tallest - the ones placed by Dumbledore - were twice that. Each stone was carved with thousands of runes and words, in more languages than Holly knew to exist.
"Yeah," Ron agreed, his voice soft and quiet. He traced his hands along the outermost stone, where Holly knew he'd find the crystal warm to the touch. Magic flowed through this room like no other place she'd been, even more so than the nexus in Little Hangleton that had powered Voldemort's resurrection. It was no longer a feeling in the back of her mind, a whisper at the edge of hearing. It was a roar, it was fire in her veins and a thousand songs played all at once.
"We need to get a move on, or someone will realise we've been missed. And this is something we do not want to get caught doing," Ginny hissed.
"You're right, Ginny. But after... after everything, I want to come back here," Hermione said.
"We only need to do a little bit of magic to get the trace to output a false reading. But I will need a bit of blood from each of you," Holly said as she withdrew a small knife from her robes, as well as a crystal phial.
"Really?" Ron asked.
"Remember who came up with this ritual?" Holly replied. Ron nodded.
"Right. Well, uh, go on then. Let's get it over with," Ron said as he held out his hand. Holly pricked his finger, collected a drop of blood, and then moved on. After she'd gotten a drop from all of them, including herself, she healed the tiny wounds with a simple healing charm.
Holly wandered through the many stone circles until she found the one that held the control runes for the Trace, three circles back - dating to around the statue of secrecy. She took out another phial from her robes and poured out salt into a circle around the base of the stone. She tapped it with her wand, and it started to glow softly. Her tiny ward within a ward would prevent an alarm going off, or any of the traps laid into the wards from triggering.
"Watcher, do not tell of my deeds. Watcher, do not speak my name. Watcher, do not whisper of my magic," Holly recited whilst tapping her wand against a particular cluster of runes at a specific beat. She had to recite the incantation to the rhythm, according to the complex arithmetic calculations Riddle had made more than fifty years ago. Then, as she finished speaking, she poured the blood onto the cluster of runes. It glowed for just a moment, and then the blood turned to steam and wafted away.
"It's done," Holly said as she cleared away and vanished the salt. The Trace would no longer be able to detect them.
For something they had been preparing for all year - and been nagged about by teachers for the past several - nobody seemed all that worried about O.W.L.s in particular. Perhaps because everybody was already so worried that exam stress didn't register, Holly thought. She certainly wasn't worried about them, although her situation - having the soul fragment of a dark lord leaching knowledge into her brain - probably counted as some form of academic dishonesty.
If being made into a Horcrux as a baby didn't earn one a little leeway with that, though, Holly didn't think anything would.
The school was more heavily locked down than ever. Students were escorted to and from classes in groups, like when the Heir of Slytherin had terrorised the school in Holly's second year. Magical Patrolwizards kept up a constant patrol around the school grounds and Hogsmeade. Several teams of hitwizards were stationed in the castle and surrounds - one near each dormitory and one at the train station.
Holly had only barely managed to hold one last DA lesson before the exams started up and the term ended early. She and Ron had used the Map as well as a couple of clever distractions, courtesy of the twins, to sneak the DA to the Seventh-floor corridor.
"It feels wrong to be excited for charms this morning," Hermione said at breakfast on the first day of O.W.L.s. Holly smiled at her slightly, then cast Snape's anti-eavesdropping charm.
"I'm fairly certain Dumbledore would've wanted people to still be excited about learning, Hermione," Holly said.
"Oh, I know, but a part of me wants to - well, isn't it a bit silly to delay everything to take some exams?" Hermione asked.
"Leaving early is only going to draw attention," Ron replied, and Holly nodded.
"He's right. Better to vanish into the crowd at Platform Nine & Three-Quarters than to cause a scene vanishing from the castle," Holly said.
"But we could be out there helping already," Hermione said.
"The Order is doing what they need to. Headquarters is still secure, but we don't know if it will stay that way. They're setting up safehouses across the country and getting ready," Holly said.
"I know how to cast the Fidelius charm as well as any of them," Hermione said as she crossed her arms. Then she uncrossed them with a sigh.
"Well, I suppose it makes sense..." she continued.
"But making sense doesn't make it feel better," Holly finished for her. Ginny gave Hermione a pat on the back.
Professor McGonagall stood up from her seat at the centre of the high table and tapped her wand against the Headmistress's lectern. The entire great hall fell silent, and the few remaining scraps of breakfast vanished into thin air.
"Today marks the beginning of End-of-Year exams for all students. Fifth and Seventh years, please check the schedules being distributed now. You will remain either in the Great or Entrance Halls as noted on your schedules, with lunch being served on site. Everyone else will eat in their common rooms to allow us to fit all O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s within a two-week period," she said with a strong and steady tone.
"I know that for many of you, the last thing you have on your mind is exams or schoolwork. I know that you are worried about the future for reasons entirely unrelated to what job you will qualify for or if you will be accepted into further study. I do not think I need to give my usual speech imploring you not to cheat or slack off. All I ask of you, in these times, is to remember what we have taught you here at Hogwarts - for I dread that you will need it, soon enough," McGonagall finished. There was dead silence in the Great Hall.
"Fifth years, remain here for Theory fo Charms. Everyone else, your teachers and the Patrolwitches will lead you where you need to go," Mcgonagall said and tapped her wand against the lectern once more. The empty plates and dry goblets vanished and, as people got up off the benches, the tables began to float in the air and re-arrange themselves.
A group of elderly proctors from the Wizarding Examination Authority shuffled into the Great hall as the other students left and took up their places at the high table, where desks and chairs replaced the long tables and benches on which meals were served. All at once, the exams appeared on the desks, face down, along with quills and ink. Holly could smell the anti-tampering charms covering every inch of them all - a sour stink that reminded her of her Uncle during the height of summer or the smell that she dimly recalled had wafted from the older boys's dorms.
Still, they weren't going to get rid of them for her, so she sat down and dutifully turned over the sheet of parchment when instructed. The exam seemed to slide away from her brain as her quill scratched across the parchment with barely any conscious input from her. A few questions had changed with the times, but at the O.W.L. this was basically the same exam Tom had sat more than fifty years ago.
Ptolemy was still mostly right about the basic theory of magic, even if he had been thoroughly discredited on the details in the last few decades. Hermione had once told Holly about something similar in Muggle schools, where students were taught a version of physics that had since been disproved but was still right most of the time.
At least, Holly thought, her classes weren't just the exact same questions from fifty years ago. This was like chalk raking across a blackboard for hours on end.
The Charms practical that afternoon was a little better. Holly had always enjoyed Charms, and the chance to show off all she had learnt of that wonderful subject was strangely calming. It had always seemed the most magical of all the classes Hogwarts offered to her - making teapots dance and statues sing.
All of her exams seemed to fade into a blur - a mindless repetition of facts she felt she had learnt decades ago. She felt strangely bitter about the whole thing. Before she had first heard the whispers, she would have leapt at the chance to simply already know the answers to tests, to pick up spells in moments.
Now that such wonders were her reality, she felt as if she had cheapened the whole thing. She felt no sense of accomplishment when she received a good grade - whereas before the whispers; before she had tapped into the shard of Voldermort's soul trapped in her scar, she'd felt amazing whenever she saw an 'O' on her homework - as rare as it was.
There were still some things she could be proud of. She could be proud of the magic she had learnt with Dumbledore - truly learnt. He had taught her alchemy and conjuration, and it was only now that he was gone that Holly truly realised just how lucky she'd been to have such instruction. The best conjurer in the world - probably the best to have ever lived - had personally taught her the art.
The last O.W.L. was the Defence Practical, and as Holly waited just outside the Great Hall with the rest of the Fifth Years, she smiled as she saw how confident her students from the DA were. That was something else she could be proud of. She had taught them not only the fence of hex and shield but also the Patronus charm. Almost all of them had managed to conjure a corporeal Patronus in that last lesson - a feat she did not think any prior teacher of Defence could claim.
"Miss Potter?" the Ministry official - a woman who looked like she'd only just passed her own O.W.L.s, with a pimply face and robes that were too large for her - asked. Holly got up from her seat and made her way into the Great Hall. All of the long tables and benches had disappeared, and where the high table usually stood were several desks and comfortable chairs. Several examiners, who all looked as if they counted their age in three digits, sat behind them. A number of much younger-looking magical patrol witches and wizards stood to one side of the Great Hall.
"This does feel somewhat superfluous. I'm sure you know more on the matter than any of us, Miss Poter," Professor Tofty, one of the Ministry examiners, said.
"I'm sure you could teach me a thing or two, sir," Holly said.
"And they say the youth have no manners. Well, let's get started - Goldstein's 7th for your spellchain, if you please," Tofty said as he conjured a number of targets with a lazy wave of his wand.
Holly had not practised specific spellchains for the exam, because when Sirius had started seriously training her to duel, he had skipped over the static chains entirely in favour of building up Holly's skill at swiftly moving from one spell to another. Most witches and wizards were taught spell chains in DADA classes or self-defence seminars, and they were useful for that audience. Thus even most professional duelists had some they relied on, but Holly had taken an unusual path to her duelling skill. She had first been self-taught, then tutored intensively one-on-one.
What she had memorised were the specific spells in each chain, and with her skill at flowing from one spell to the next without wasted movement or resetting to a guard, she was able to flawlessly perform Goldstein's 7th, one of the most common modern duelling spell chains.
The duels were similarly unexciting. Holly had disarmed, stunned, or bound each Magical Patrolwich in the first exchange whilst not even needing to shield herself. They seemed in good spirits about it, and Holly tried to be nice to them. She was sure that O.W.L. duty was not exactly a popular assignment.
After that, Tofty levitated a trunk out into the cleared are ain the centre of the Hall where the duels had taken place. From the way it rattled, Holly was fairly certain what the creature practical portion of the exam was going to be.
"Are you ready, Miss Potter?" he asked and Holly nodded in reply. With a wave of his wand, Tofty opened the trunk.
Out sprang a creature that stunk of salt and rot, draped in wet, ripped grey cloth and shadow. The dementor touched Holly's emotions, but it was nothing compared to the real thing - the boggart in front of her was a far less powerful spirit than a true dementor.
Holly was halfway through drawing her wand when Tofty called out for her to wait.
"Miss Potter, please hold off on your no-doubt perfect Riddikulus charm for a moment. I've seen this from a few students who claimed to be tutored by you today - could you demonstrate your patronus for us with an actual target?": he asked. Holly gritted her teeth but nodded. Muted as it might be, the effect of the boggart was not pleasant.
"Expecto Patronum!" she shouted. The silver doe that leapt forth from her wand was so bright that every examiner was forced to shield their eyes. The boggart was swiftly trampled back into the trunk, which Tofty slammed shut.
"My word. A true corporeal patronus under pressure. Astounding, Miss Potter," Tofty said as Holly's silver doe nuzzled at her.
She smiled at him and at the doe. This spell, she knew, was one she had learnt without any help at all from the Horcrux within her scar.
