The fifth-years' workload is steadily increasing, it being exams fairly soon. 

Yup. Those sure are some OWLs she's going to have to sit. Miranda spends a lot of time studying with Minor and Karen. If they work very hard maybe between the three of them they can take all the top marks in subjects they're taking.

They are the smartest.

Yup. Miranda's strength is still Charms; she'd be great in Defense if it weren't for her dueling problem and she's also pretty good at Transfiguration. Karen's still tops at History, though her Transfiguration has slipped since first year, and she's good in Arithmancy and Herbology too. They're both doing well in their independent studies too but those don't have associated OWLs.

Runes does. The Runes O.W.L. will be laughably easy; regrettably it's the only one that's true of. Arithmancy's interesting, and his History grades have much improved once they started covering material he could read about in other languages and none of them are bad at Potions but it's frustratingly devoid of intellectual content even at the O.W.L. level.

Karen takes to writing her dad about Potions a lot; he does potions development professionally.

He bothers Michael about Charms and Defense questions when he has them. 

And then OWLs! Wow this is kind of exhausting! Not, like, nastily so, but still!

It's a bit of a marathon. When they're all over he collapses in his dormitory and sleeps for most of a day and then recuperates with lots and lots of ice cream.

Karen's vice of choice is drinking a gallon of cocoa but similar.

Miranda's kind of wired afterwards so she eats first (muffins), then sleeps.

And then the train is there to take them home.

Miranda restrains Cricket from chasing somebody's pet toad and holds him in her lap the rest of the way home.

"What'd the toad do?"

"Mowrerow."

"- bad color scheme?" She presents Cricket's abridged phrasebook. He bats 'yes'. "Bad color scheme. He does not like the toad's color. Kitty, it can't help it."

"Mrrewnaaaaah."

"The toad is certainly less good at communicating with its owner than you are and is probably not capable of asking to be brown instead, kitty."

Minor giggles. 

Cricket's abbreviated phrasebook has an entry labeled 'pish tosh'. He bats it. Miranda snorts and scratches him behind the ears.

" - well now that exams are over we can actually learn interesting things," he says, and talks about electricity the rest of the way home.

Michael abuses Protean charms and gets little speakers that all resonate when an original one does. He shows Rebecca, and his siblings when they get home. 

Rebecca bounces on her toes with delight and kisses him. "Do you think I can do music for it too or would people care that it was a Muggle -"

"People might care but fuck them, honestly, it was your idea..."

"Well, if we're trying to make a living off it -"