The End of First Year

*** Dumbledore's office, present

Dumbledore cut to the chase, "Have you or have you not made horcruxes."

"…"

"…"

Voldemort resisted, refusing his breath, turning blue in the face before the potion forced him into revealing to Dumbledore the answer.

"… y…e…s…"

Dumbledore's expression grew more serious.

"How many." He asked, simply.

"6 horcruxes." Voldemort said with great difficulty as he tried to fight the effects of the veritaserum.

"What are they, where are they?" Dumbledore asked, his voice growing more urgent and distraught.

Voldemort managed a shaky smile.

"That information is hidden behind secrecy spells in parseltongue that even veritaserum cannot extract from me."

Dumbledore nodded then pointed his wand at Voldemort, "Exorcizamus."

Voldemort's soul was dragged out of the body slowly.

The last thing this part of Voldemort's soul knew was pain as Dumbledore banished it to the afterworld using an intricate, grey-at-best ritual to finally put an end to Voldemort… or at least the first part of Voldemort's soul.

*** Next day, great hall

"Last night, I fought and beat Voldemort. He was in a much weakened form that gave me the inherent advantage so that minimal damage was done. Rest assured, he is not dead. He has used dark rituals that I need to counteract before he can truly be entirely sent to the afterlife. You have seen him with your own eyes, do not stick your head in the sand, and most of all, be brave, in the possibility of dark times in a few years' time, you may or may not still be in Hogwarts, but I hope you will remember my words."

Dumbledore bowed his head and stepped off his speech pedestal, going back to his throne like chair to polite but scared applause.

Hermione leaned over to Harry, "What do you think Voldemort did? Dumbledore seemed positively disgusted when he was talking about that."

"Magic is not supposed to transcend death; Voldemort probably did heinous things to gain his immortality. It did sound like Dumbledore knew what he had to do to stop Voldemort once and for all."

Hermione nodded her agreement, "He looked hopeful of his chances, so maybe Voldemort won't come back again."

Harry nodded, "We can hope. But until then, we have exams to prepare for."

*** Exam time

Both Harry and Hermione aced most of their exams.

Hermione did marginally better in the theory portions while Harry excelled in the practical but still did mostly Os in the theory too.

In Charms, they had to merely make a pineapple tap-dance across a table, which Harry did with a flick of his wand and a whispered incantation, giving the pineapple comically large legs AND arms, having it do a complicated ballet move across the desk, making Flitwick squeak in excitement.

Hermione managed the standard spell perfectly, doing the assigned dance move perfectly with her Pineapple's average-sized, regular legs.

In transfiguration, they were turning a dormouse into a snuffbox.

Harry made a golden box with the Hogwarts crest engraved on it and a 3-digit number lock on the clasp. McGonagall lauded his transfiguration and let him keep the box, saying that she didn't need to judge it further to give him an O.

Hermione too managed to create the snuffbox, it was matt-black and plain with a simple silver clasp.

In DaDA, the exam was taken by Professor Dumbledore, and almost everybody did badly, because of Quirrell's horrible, thankfully Dumbledore came to the classes rescue and made the lowest grade he assigned an acceptable.

For the exam, they had to demonstrate the regular dueling, and the regular fighting stances,(Dumbledore made sure to emphasize the difference) and then demonstrate a stinging hex, a tripping jinx and a petrificus totalus spell.

Harry had perfected the stance, and managed the spells through self-learning of basic defense techniques which he seemed to pick up extremely quickly and got a comfortable O and praise from Dumbledore.

Hermione messed up on the two stances, never having practiced those but managed the spells, having read up on the theory behind them with Harry.

From what Harry heard, only a few of the Slytherins and one Hufflepuff managed to get decent grades in DaDA apart from them.

In Herbology, neither Harry nor Hermione managed to do the practical perfectly but they did manage to follow the instructions and repot the plant without breaking any of it, which Sprout assured them was at least an EE at the start of class.

In the Herbology theory, Hermione did perfectly but Harry again did okay, perhaps a high A or a low EE, because he had neglected his Herbology studies quite a bit.

In the potions practical, they had to brew a forgetfulness potion which Harry and Hermione managed perfectly, Hermione's was a shade of blue lighter, and would provide a shorter effect than Harry's which was a sky blue colour.

Snape grudgingly marked them as Os in his book.

In the potions theory, both of them knew everything and got a perfect score, like in transfiguration and charms.

*** Later, Hogwarts

They got their marks from the exams back the next day, Harry had Os, in DaDA, Charms, transfiguration and Potions and a lone EE in Herbology.

Hermione got Os in DaDA, Charms and transfiguration and an EE in Herbology and Potions.

Both were very happy with their grades, though Hermione was a bit distraught that she got an EE in Potions and proceeded to ramble about what she did wrong in her practical that could possibly have pushed her grades down, and Harry had to stop her from speaking the entire day away.

*** Next Day

It was the last day at Hogwarts.

"The year has gone by so fast…" Harry mused to Hermione who nodded vigorously.

"Yes, I can't wait to come back!"

Harry wrinkled his nose at the idea of going back to the Dursleys.

"Yeah, so am I, let's get down to the train." Harry said, and set off at a brisk walk to the train that Hermione had to almost jog to keep up with.

"Wait up, 'Arry!" Hagrid called out, from behind him.

Harry stopped and spun around to see the friendly half-giant standing there, a bit nervously with a black photo album in his hands.

"Err, just a bit of an early birthday present…" Hagrid said, handing the album to Harry.

"… I gathered some photos of yer parents, what I had and some others." Hagrid saif.

Harry felt a rush of gratitude and hugged the half-giant… or tried to anyway, his hands wrapped awkwardly halfway around Hagrid's torso.

Hagrid hugged him back, almost crushing him to death.

"Thank you."