Chapter Text
Everyone had a breather for about a month, and then the true exam studying crunch began. O.W.L.’s were suddenly days away, and even though the tempting outdoors called, even Sarah Jane was on edge, even though she had nothing major to worry about, much less dread, being Head Girl meant sharing people’s burdens.
She sat with Rose, and helped her go over the flash cards she’d made for History of Magic, and the potion ingredients list for any possible brews she might be tested on.
When Rose finally returned to her dormitory the night before her first O.W.L. she was exhausted. She considered herself lucky, Martha’s first exam would be at eight a.m. Rose had the luxury of going in after breakfast.
The first subject Rose was tested on was Defense Against the Dark Arts. She prided herself on the fact she’d managed to practice and study without too much stress for the exam.
The only spell that really gave her pause was the Patronus charm.
She stood frozen still, trying to recall what Sarah Jane had said.
(“Think of something happy, don’t worry about being nervous.”)
Immediately the afternoon in the library, that one in particular over the holiday, when she’d asked the Doctor to read to her from the Gallifreyan book of Astronomy, popped into her mind’s eye, and she smiled dreamily,
“Expecto Patronum!”
A stream of white smoke shot out of her wand, before it took a recognizable shape, it was a wolf! It ran about the exam room for a couple turns and then looked back at her before vanishing into thin air.
“Very good Miss Tyler!”
She tried to keep from skipping back to the Great Hall, but more likely than not, failed. She couldn’t really remember.
Before she knew it, she was at dinner, and Jack was pulling her into a bear hug, declaring her a future Auror, if her marks kept up.
She shook her head, and looked at the ground, feeling a blush heat her cheeks,
“It was just a lucky thing. You know I’m not going to ace anything else, especially since I have Potions and Astronomy tomorrow.”
Jack shrugged,
“So you won’t ace potions, who cares? But Astronomy? I know you like that subject, don’t lie to me.”
Rose caught Mickey’s curious gaze from down the table, and she managed a tentative smile,
“Okay yeah. Don’t think about saving me a corner office or anything at the Ministry now.”
Jack leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, surprising the whole table,
“Don’t make threats you don’t intend to follow through on.”
***
For the fifth year O.W.L. exam, the Doctor had set up a fairly standard formula. A complicated star chart that would need drawings of constellations here, with the name provided, or the drawing present, but no name.
It didn’t allow for cheating, and had only a small section for observations. The telescope provided for the exam was merely an afterthought. If one didn’t know what each planet looked like or was called, there would be no points given.
The Doctor felt the tower actually raise in temperature the instant he caught the scent of Rose Tyler’s perfume.
Then again, he reminded himself, maybe it was simply how she always smelled, with intent or not.
She gave him a small wave the second she spotted him, and he tried not to look guilty as he merely smiled in return.
He’d not been exactly avoiding her, but he also hadn’t sought her out after that day in the library. She’d turned in her essay on time, naturally, but the content had surprised him. She’d written a short piece of fiction about what could have happened to the moon, and not provided an actually scientific theory.
In her story, a man who traveled in space and time had come across nearly two dozen other ‘missing’ worlds, and discovered they were being stolen by his archenemy, to create the ultimate weapon, with the intent to destroy the universe.
He found it extremely inspired, and had given her top marks. There were other aspects of the story, like the theme of lost love and the reunion of two soul mates separated by a split in between worlds that spoke to him, they sounded so heartfelt he almost wondered if she could have completely thought it up on her own.
Not that he doubted her integrity; he just thought that someone like her, with her youth and naïveté could have never yet experienced such tragic loss of love.
Perhaps she, like him, had a great imagination, sometimes one that seemed just too fantastical for their world. Even a magical world.
He stood back and watched her as she worked, carefully labeling each present collection of stars, and then happily moving to draw the named ones.
He couldn’t help but notice a particular doodle she would trace as she finished each star. It was off to the side, on her extra paper, so it couldn’t interfere with the actual graded part of the exam, but he swore he knew it.
He stepped closer, until he was standing right beside where she sat, absorbed in her work, and he leaned down bringing a hand up to point to the margin,
“What is that?”
Rose jumped, startled, and she felt her quill fall from her fingers.
The Doctor could have cursed himself, how had he been so careless?
She was working, and now he’d disturbed her.
“Don’t worry about the time limit. Let me get that for you.”
He knelt down to retrieve her quill, and before he stood back up, he made the drastic mistake of looking up at her.
His eyes glanced over her trainer clad feet to slide up her legs, noting that her robes seemed a bit shorter than most, and he saw she was wearing an underskirt that seemed to be a bright pink.
Surely his cheeks were bursting into flame with the force of his blush?
He stood quickly and thrust her quill onto her desk, before retreating several steps away, a notably safe distance,
“Please, continue.”
Rose, for her part, was patting herself on the back for not moving an inch. She’d not intended to drop her quill, but when she had, and the Doctor had gone after it, she’d barely restrained herself from squealing. She saw the way his bright blue eyes widened as they took in the sight of her relatively bare legs, and she could almost swear she knew the instant he caught sight of her skirt. She watched as he swallowed hard, and resumed standing, his cheeks turning almost an imperceptible shade of pink.
Not nearly as fierce as her skirt’s color, but still an odd sight to see.
“Thank you Professor.”
She could have bit her tongue. Since when did she call him that?
Why had he decided to scare her half to death in the first place? She could only thank heavens that he had lifted the time requirement, quite an unorthodox thing to do in the first place, but then it had been his fault.
She looked back down at her paper, and she realized with a sigh that she’d gotten an ink blot where the next planet to be drawn should go.
She was moments from raising her hand, when she heard the Doctor come up behind her again.
“Erm, is there any way I could be allowed to use my wand to remove this? I know wands are forbidden for non-demonstrative exams but I accidentally got-“
The Doctor brushed past her and paused right in front of her desk, falling to his knees, and Rose gulped.
“No. As you said, they’re forbidden. But I can help.”
The tone of his voice had dropped an octave or so below what it usually was, and it sent shivers down her spine. He reached into his robes and pulled something silver out. It was shorter than a wand, and a bit stockier, with a blue light on the end, that when he flicked a switch, lit up with a pulsing sound.
He held it over her paper, and she watched, astonished, as the ink seemed to fade away, like a stain being removed with bleach.
Rose gaped at him as he withdrew the object, and replaced it inside his robes.
“What was that?”
The Doctor smiled mysteriously,
“Just what I use instead of a wand. Setting 23-J, excellent at removing stains from a pen or quill.”
Rose would have asked more questions, but the Doctor gestured to her parchment, and she remembered she was taking an exam, not simply attending another lesson.