Harry, Ron, and Hermione face down two crises in this chapter: Hagrid’s illegal dragon and impending final exams. The chapter begins about ten weeks before the end of the school year, and Hermione begins a concentrated period of preparing for final exams. It’s good to remember that Hogwarts is a parody of school, and the British exam system is a hard-to-miss target for parody. Well, so is the American exam system.