Umbras ? Harry Potter

chapter seventeen

Ciara stopped in her tracks, her eyes narrowing. "What? No, that can't be right."

"I'm afraid it is," Harry said quietly. "We tried to go see him, but they wouldn't let us anywhere near. Buckbeak's practically been sentenced, and the execution's set."

Ciara's face tightened, clearly upset by the news. "I can't believe this. Buckbeak doesn't deserve that. He didn't do anything wrong."

"I know," Hermione muttered, shaking her head. "It's unfair, but there's not much anyone can do at this point."

After a hasty lunch, it was straight back upstairs for the Charms exam. Hermione had been right; Professor Flitwick tested them on Cheering Charms. Harry slightly overdid his charm, and Ron, who was partnering him, ended up in fits of hysterical laughter. He had to be led away to a quiet room for an hour before he could try it himself.

Meanwhile, Ciara, who was partnered with Hermione, breezed through the charm with ease. She gave Hermione a playful glance as she finished the spell perfectly on her first try. "See? Told you I'd make it look easy," Ciara said, a teasing smile on her lips.

Hermione raised an eyebrow, a little impressed but also slightly flustered. "I swear, sometimes I wonder if you're even human."

Ciara laughed, giving her a wink. "What can I say? Charms just comes naturally to me."

Hagrid presided over the Care of Magical Creatures exam the following morning with a very preoccupied air indeed; his heart didn't seem to be in it at all. He had provided a large tub of fresh flobberworms for the class, and told them that to pass the test, their flobberworm had to still be alive at the end of one hour. As flobberworms flourished best if left to their own devices, it was the easiest exam any of them had ever taken, and also gave Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ciara plenty of opportunity to speak to Hagrid.

"Beaky's gettin' a bit depressed," Hagrid told them, bending low on the pretense of checking that Harry's flobberworm was still alive. "Bin cooped up too long. But still . . . we'll know day after tomorrow — one way or the other —"

They had Potions that afternoon, and for most of the class, it was a disaster. Cauldrons boiled over and ingredients were mixed wrong, but Ciara breezed through the lesson. She finished her potion with time to spare and as Snape passed by her table, he glanced at her cauldron, and for a brief moment, gave a slight nod. It wasn't much, but to Ciara, it was a rare acknowledgment—and that was enough to make her day.

Then came Astronomy at midnight, up on the tallest tower; History of Magic on Wednesday morning, and Wednesday afternoon meant Herbology, in the greenhouses under a baking-hot sun; then back to the common room once more, with sunburnt necks, thinking longingly of this time next day, when it would all be over.

Their second to last exam, on Thursday morning, was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Professor Lupin had compiled the most unusual exam any of them had ever taken: a sort of obstacle course outside in the sun, where they had to wade across a deep paddling pool containing a grindylow, cross a series of potholes full of Red Caps, squish their way across a patch of marsh while ignoring misleading directions from a hinkypunk, then climb into an old trunk and battle with a new boggart.

"Excellent, Harry," Lupin muttered as Harry climbed out of the trunk, grinning. "Full marks."

Flushed with his success, Harry hung around to watch Ron, Hermione and Ciara.

Ciara hadn't had the chance to face the boggart in class, so she wasn't sure what to expect. When she reached the old trunk and the boggart began to shift. What she saw in front of her she wasn't expecting. It was her.

"I'm scared of myself?" she muttered, staring at the image of herself. She raised her wand, ready to deal with it. But as she did, the boggart morphed, and now she was standing beside the Malfoy family, her own figure beside her.