Dungbombs and S-P-E-W

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It was only eight thirty in the morning, but Peeves had already succeeded in annoying and torturing enough people to give him satisfaction and fond memories for weeks to come. There was only one thing on Peeve's to do list he hadn't gotten around to. Speaking of which...Peeves cackled to himself as he glided under the crack between Filch's office door and the floor.

Once inside, Peeves began throwing doors and basically everything that wasn't of use to him on the floor, enjoying himself fully. He had just finished loitering pretty much the whole room when a cross voice outside the door interrupted his little fiasco.

"Peeves, I know you're in there!"

Needed supplies in hand, Peeves floated hastily through the opposite wall of Filch's office, leaving mayhem in his trail as usual, just as Filch opened the door and walked in.

"PEEVVEEES!"

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Five trick doors, two hallways, and four flights of stairs away in Professor Vector's class, Hermione dumped her books onto her desk and sank into her chair, pulling out the Arithmancy notes she had failed to finish last night and a fresh quill.

Trying to write as fast as she could to make up for lost time, Hermione was oblivious to Lavender and Parvarti's attempts to get her attention. Or at least, she was until Lavender, who was sitting in front of her, flicked her fingers at Hermione's moving quill, knocking it out of Hermione's grip and causing a long trail of ink to dribble across the page.

Hermione came out of her concentration immediately. "Heeyyy!"

Lavender twisted all the way around in her seat and smiled angelically at her. "Well, how else do you expect me to get your attention? I only said your name about twenty times."

Hermione sighed and privately said goodbye to any premonition of even thinking about the upcoming O.W.L exam. Lavender had obviously done that a long time ago herself.

"Are you completely daft or did you not realize I was trying to STUDY?"

"You? Study? The day of a test?" Lavender pinched herself. "Hermione cramming? I must be dreaming. "

Hermione's drew herself up in her chair with as much dignity as she could muster. "I am not cramming! I'm just looking over what I have written."

Lavender grabbed the piece of paper Hermione was trying to cover with her elbows and waved the half finished page around. "Must be in invisible ink then, 'cause it looks to me like you're missing a few notes."

"It is invisible ink-that way people won't copy off me," Hermione said hastily for the benefit of a couple of students nearby who were glancing at her curiously.

Lavender wasn't fooled a bit. "Oh, of course. How clever of you." She leaned over and cupped her hands to Hermione's ear. "You can borrow my notes to look at, if you want."

Hermione beamed at Lavender. "Thanks a million!"

Lavender had gathered her notes up and was about to pass them back to Hermione when Hermione suddenly changed her mind and bit her lip. "No. On second thought, I had better not. It's just not right.."

Lavender shrugged. "Alright, have it your way."

Hermione nodded and picked her quill back up, on automatic writing mode again; scribbling without even looking at the page. Lavender, still leaning across the back of her desk and resting her elbows on the edge of Hermione's spiral, got to the question she had been dying to ask Hermione ever since she walked through the door.

"Sooo. What's up with you and George?"

"Nothing!" Hermione whispered irritably. Lavender simply raised an eyebrow in reply. "It's true!" Hermione defended herself. "Goodness, you act like you caught us snogging in the supply closet or something."

Lavender just smiled. "I did just happen to see you guys walk to class together," she pointed out.

Hermione snorted. Really, Lavender was ridiculous. "So? I walk to class with Ron and Harry sometimes. What am I? Dating three guys at once?"

Lavender snickered. "Ron's taking me out for a butterbeer this weekend, so you had better not be."

For someone that usually spilled gossip on other people with the same regularity she found it out, it was rare for Lavender to actually have some on herself for a change. Hermione's jaw practically scraped the floor.

"WHHATTTTT?"

Hermione's voice rose out of its whisper and was followed by several "shhhss!" and students glaring at her for interrupting their concentration. Up to that point, the class had been oddly silent up as almost everyone tried to transfer information from their textbooks into their brains at a rapid pace.

"What is all this commotion?"

Professor Viktor walked through the door, carrying a stack of papers that made pretty much every student grimace. The horror otherwise known as the O.W.Ls was now upon them. Neville, prone to nervous habits, started biting his nails as Professor Viktor handed out the papers. She gave a small smile as she surveyed the gloomy faces.

"Now,now..these tests are nothing to worry about. Especially if you have been following Miss Granger's excellent example."

The Miss Granger in question was gripping the edge of her desk tightly with white knuckled and ink splattered hands, having finished her notes just in the knick of time, and was now frantically trying to recall exactly what she had written.

Hermione accepted her test paper from Professor Viktor like it was very small bomb about to explode. Gingerly gripping the couple of papers by the very edges, she set them down and looked at everything but them, waiting anxiously for the tests to get done being passed around.

"You may begin." Hermione, who had beads of sweat popping out in several spots on her forehead, took one glance at the first page of questions and gave a sigh of relief so audible, even Lavender heard it and giggled.

When the bell rang half an hour later, signaling the end of the first class, everyone who had gone in carefree and smiling was now filing out, looking traumatized. Neville's knees were shaking and he still kept on biting the odd fingernail every now and then. Hermione, on the other hand, who had gone in looking traumatized, was whistling; a few smiles away from skipping to her next class. Who would have known it was going to be so EASY?

Lavender and Parvarti glanced at her enviously as they walked alongside her.

Lavender sighed. "Hermione, that's sick, just sick. You're happier over the O.W.Ls then over getting a love note? Your priorities are so twisted."

Parvarti laughed. "Yeah, if it weren't for us, you'd never find out who sent you it!" Hermione stopped in her tracks and looked at both of them. The letter had sort of taken back seat to the O.W.Ls, but she was still kind of curious as to who it was from.

"Right, Holmes and Watson. What exactly have you found out so far?"

"Well, according to the tons of people we talked to.."

Parvarti gave Lavender a painful elbow in the ribs. "Errrm, I mean according to our resources, we think it may be.."

She trailed off dramatically. Parvarti grabbed the elbow of Hermione, who was still standing like a statue in the middle of the hallway, and started pushing her down the hall forcefully to Professor Flitwick's class.

"We had better get moving. Don't want to be late to our second O.W.L exam and get points taken off, do we?," said Parvarti, pretending as if they all hadn't been talking about the mystery guy (as she and Lavender had dubbed him ) minutes before.

Hermione dug her heels into the cobblestones of the floor, sending bolts of pain through her toes and causing Parvarti to stop tugging. "Uhuh. No way. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me who wrote the letter."

Lavender acted surprised. "Oh, we just don't want to break your concentration on the O.W.Ls After all, I thought schoolwork was more important than some sappy letter."

"It is. You're right Parvarti, we had better get to class."

And with that, Hermione allowed Parvarti and Lavender to pull her down the twisting hallway and up a short set of rickety steps, not going to give the two the satisfaction of showing that she was as interested in the letter as they were.

When they got to Professor Flitwick's class, the dwarflike teacher was already handing out the exams. Lavender and Parvarti took seats next to each other as usual, smiling with some secret. Probably the fact that they knew who had given her the letter and she didn't.

Ron and Harry were also in Professor Flitwick's class, situated right next to Neville, and Hermione waved to them from across the room. Ron appeared to be slightly green around the face. Hermione thought it was just nerves, but the matter of that was soon cleared up when Harry mouthed at her, "Transfiguration class..Seamus accidentally turned him into a toad instead of a mouse."

After that, just like in Professor Vector's class, the room became eerily silent as Professor Flitwick had the tests passed out. Hermione had been hard at work on her test when the door to the classroom banged open, showing a bunch of the seventh years. Professor Flitwick had to steady himself to keep from falling off his usual stack of ten books in pure shock. ( He surprised easily...VERY easily. A lot of students were known for purposely dropping pencils off their desks when things got a bit dull just to watch Professor Flitwick topple from his stack of books. )

"Oh dear. I'm afraid we have a little mix-up of some sort. You don't come in here until after lunch and-" Professor Flitwick checked his watch-"it's only ten now." Fred and George were at the front of the gang of seventh years and it was one of them ( Hermione had no idea which, she was staring straight ahead at the teacher ) that spoke.

"Yeah, but our schedules say ten."

Professor Flitwick narrowed his eyes at the Weasley twins. "They do, do they? I warn you, this better not be another prank you two are trying to pull off."

"It's not!" said a female voice that could belong to no one else but Katie Bell. She marched up to the front of the room and handed Professor Flitwick her schedule. Looking at it, he frowned.

"Hmm...most interesting. Well, I suppose you all might as well sit down. Write five pages on the history of babbages while the fifth years finish up their tests."

The seventh years did, pulling out chairs, talking, and just generally carrying on, much to the disturbance of quite a few of the fifth years, who were at least pretending to work industriously on their O.W.Ls

Hermione tried her hardest to concentrate on the test, but it gradually became more and more impossible. George, sitting diagonally from her a few seats away, kept having his glance wander in her direction and even if he wasn't aware of it, Hermione certainly was...and she wasn't the only one.

Every time George looked her way, Parvarti and Lavender went into a fresh onslaught of barely stifled giggles and whispers, much to Hermione's intense annoyance and discomfort.

In spite of all of this, Hermione finished the test first per usual. She put her quill down, cracked her aching knuckles and turned sideways in her seat to see what time it was on the clock. Instead of the clock though, she found herself staring at George, who was blocking it with his head; bent over studying some piece of paper. Probably plans to blow up the school, thought Hermione, and for some reason, the thought brought a touch of a smile to her face instead of a McGonagall-like frown.

George, sensing her gaze, looked up and their eyes, brown and green, locked for just a split second before Hermione's eyes went scurrying back to her own paper. After class was over, everyone jostled their way out the door. They looked considerably more at ease and relaxed...there was only one exam left for most of them, so the O.W.Ls were now at least half way over.

Hermione, instead of catching up right away with Harry and Ron, stayed behind to talk with Lavender and Parvarti, who were still conversing in animated whispers. She tried to approach the subject as nonchalantly as she could.

"Erm...so guys...would you mind telling me who the letter's from now? "

"Oh that." Parvarti shrugged. "We aren't completely sure yet."

"But we'll try and find out some more," Lavender put in helpfully as Hermione stared at both of them with a murderous expression.