The OWLs ran from the fifth to the twenty-fourth of June.
He had sat examinations before — the end-of-year assessments, the informal evaluations McGonagall had run in third year, the supplementary sessions with the Ministry board. He understood the rhythm of formal assessment, the specific quality of a room organized for the purpose, the particular silence that examination conditions produced. None of that was new.
What was new was the specific quality of these examinations — the weight of five years of preparation arriving at the moment the weight was supposed to arrive, the particular feeling of someone who had been building toward a thing and was now inside it.
He sat the first paper at nine o'clock on Wednesday morning in the Great Hall, which had been cleared of its house tables and filled instead with individual desks in the specific configuration of the Wizarding Examinations Authority, each desk separated from the next by enough space to prevent both collaboration and the anxiety of proximity. The ceiling showed a clear May morning. He noted this and then stopped noticing it and picked up his quill.
Astronomy and Care of Magical Creatures theory in the morning and afternoon, the practical on Friday with care in the morning and Astronomy at midnight— the telescope work, the star charts, the sequential identification task that required sustained precise attention at an hour when sustained precise attention was difficult. He did it correctly. The difficulty was part of the exercise and the training had, as it turned out, included this kind of difficulty without him specifically planning it to.
The Theory of Charms was Monday morning. The Transfiguration theory was in the afternoon, back to back, which was the specific cruelty of the examination schedule that had been discussed during the study sessions with the quality of people who had noticed and could not do anything about it. He sat both without difficulty. The Charms theory had one question on the underlying mechanism of the Protean Charm that was more interesting than the other questions and which he answered last and at length. The Transfiguration theory required him to diagram the theoretical framework of human Transfiguration for the first time in a formal context — he had been working through the theory since fourth year and the diagram came out correctly, the annotations precise.
Wednesday was practical examinations for charms and transfiguration.
The Charms practical was in the morning — individual assessments in the smaller examination room off the corridor, each student called in sequence, the examiner a small witch with a clipboard who had the quality of someone who had been running practical assessments for long enough that nothing produced in them surprised her. He performed the required spells with the flat accuracy of someone for whom the requirement was below the level of his current work. The examiner made notes. Her expression did not change, which was consistent, but she asked him to repeat one casting at a different target distance, which was not something she asked every student. He repeated it. She made a longer note.
The Transfiguration practical was in the afternoon. He transformed the assigned objects — a hedgehog into a pincushion, then reverse, then a more complex sequence involving non-living material — and finished early, which the examiner permitted without comment. McGonagall was not in the room, which was standard practice for her own students, but he saw her in the corridor afterwards with the specific expression she wore when something had gone as expected and the expectation had been correctly set.
She said nothing.
He said nothing.
They walked in the same direction for half a corridor and then went separate ways, which was sufficient.
Friday was Defense Against the Dark Arts.
He had been waiting for this paper with a quality that was not anxiety and was not eagerness exactly but was the particular attention of someone who had been working in this subject at a serious level for four years and was curious to see what formal assessment made of it. The written paper was two hours and covered the theory of dark creature identification, the mechanism of protective enchantments, the principles of counter-curse work, and a long-form question on the ethics of defensive magic that was the most interesting thing in the paper and which he was fairly certain had not been in the standard examination paper in previous years. He wrote on the ethics question for forty minutes, drawing on the ward theory work and the Tuesday sessions and the specific conversations with Dumbledore about the distinction between defensive and offensive intent. He was thorough. He was honest about the places where the theory was unresolved.
The practical Defense examination was in the afternoon.
The dueling component was assessed in pairs — Gryffindor students paired with students from other houses, the standard competitive format but with the WEA examiner observing rather than the Hogwarts staff. His partner was a Hufflepuff who had been in the Defense Association since November, which was an outcome he had not arranged but which was, he noted, equitable to both of them. The Hufflepuff knew what he was capable of because she had seen it. He knew what she was capable of because he had trained her. They went at each other with the mutual quality of people who respected the exercise and were not going to waste it.
He won in the specific way that training rather than raw power won — not by overpowering her but by being faster at reading the exchange, by the specific quality of someone who had drilled the pattern recognition until it was instinct. She went down on the third exchange. She had the expression, getting up, of someone who was satisfied with how she had performed rather than disappointed by the outcome.
The examiner's notes had been going continuously throughout. He did not watch them.
The casting-under-duress component was last: a timed sequence under coordinated pressure from two examiners simultaneously, designed to assess not accuracy — though accuracy was marked — but the specific quality of someone performing correctly when the conditions were not ideal. He had run this scenario in the Defense Association sessions since January. He went through it with the same quality he went through it in sessions, which was the quality of someone who had done it enough times that the pressure was simply part of the work.
When it was over the examiner looked at her clipboard and said, without expression: 'Thank you, Mr. Weasley.'
He went to dinner.
Monday and Wednesday were Potions and Herbology. He sat both with the methodical attention they required — Potions practical first, the assigned preparation completed correctly and on time, the identify and treat question in the theory section handled with the clinical precision of someone who had been building toward Healing OWL-level work all year anyway. Herbology was Neville's territory and he moved through it with the specific care of someone working in a subject he respected at its own level rather than the level he was operating at in others.
Friday was the most difficult subjects. Ancient runes in the morning with Arithmancy in the afternoon. Seeing he was OWLs level since third year in these subjects the results didn't even need to be thought about.
Monday again was the final day: The History of Magic paper was two hours. He had expected two hours and received two hours and used them in the specific way he used allotted time, which was to complete the work and then review it rather than to sprint to the end and sit. The questions were on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century, the founding of the International Confederation of Wizards, the significance of the 1692 International Statute of Secrecy, and — the final question, the one worth the most marks, the one the examiner would be reading most carefully — a comparative analysis of the Ministry's handling of the 1899 Hags' Rights case and the 1947 Werewolf Registry Act. He wrote on this last question for thirty-five minutes. He had read the primary sources on both cases in third year, not for this examination but because they were relevant to the Ministry structure work and had been sitting in the dark-covered notebooks in the section on institutional patterns. He did not need the notes. He had the notes in his head.
He reviewed what he had written. He made three amendments. He put his quill down with four minutes remaining and sat with his hands on the desk and looked at the ceiling and thought about nothing in particular.
Astronomy and Care of Magical Creatures in the morning, the Astronomy practical at midnight on night — the telescope work, the star charts, the sequential identification task that required sustained precise attention at an hour when sustained precise attention was difficult. He did it correctly. The difficulty was part of the exercise and the training had, as it turned out, included this kind of difficulty without him specifically planning it to.
When Care of Magical Creatures was done at noon on Wednesday, he put his quill down for the last time and looked at the examination room ceiling and thought about the first dark-covered notebook and second year and what five years of working toward something felt like at the moment the working was over.
He sat with this for a moment.
Then he went to find the others.
They were outside, on the lawn by the lake — Harry and Hermione and Neville and Luna, in the specific arrangement of people who had been through the same week and had independently arrived at the same piece of grass as the correct place to be. The lake was doing its warm May afternoon work. The grounds had the quality of a school at the end of something, the particular release of a pressure that had been building since September.
Hermione had her revision notes.
'You can put those away,' Harry said.
'I know,' she said. She was looking at them with the quality of someone performing the specific inventory of a period of work that was complete — not revising, just confirming the shape of it.
'How was Defense?' Neville asked.
'Good,' Ron said. He sat down on the grass. The sun was warm. The lake was bright. June was coming. 'All of it was good.'
He meant the examinations. He meant the week. He meant the five years of preparation that the week had been built from.
Hermione put her notes away.
They sat by the lake in the May afternoon, and the examinations were behind them, and June was ahead, and for one hour in the warm end of the afternoon none of that was required to be anything other than what it was.