HP: She married Malfoy after becoming an exchange student.

As final exams approach, Hogwarts begins to exhibit a tense and serious learning atmosphere.

Everywhere you look, young wizards are engrossed in their studies, and some of the bolder ones even go to ask Snape for help. The library is even more popular, with seats being extremely hard to come by.

Elias laid out his book of magical potions and elixirs on a smooth pebble, his pen gliding across the pages, leaving neat handwriting.

Draco frowned as he stared at the parchment in front of him, his quill pen hovering in mid-air, a drop of ink spreading out as a small black dot on the paper.

"Where exactly is wrong with the formula for this shrinking potion?" he muttered, tapping the "daisy root" on the page with his knuckles. "I clearly followed the instructions and added chopped wolfsbane."

Elias turned his head to the side, and the sunlight fell precisely on his eyelashes, casting a soft shadow.

"Wolfsbane needs to be dried for seven days," he pointed to the line of text. "Freshness will neutralize the magic of daisy root. Look here—" He pushed his notebook over, on which dosages and treatment methods were marked in different colors of ink. "It's like mixing paint; if the proportions are even slightly wrong, the colors will all be messed up."

Draco's gaze lingered on that page of the notebook for a moment, then quickly shifted away. "Understood," he said, but still moved the parchment closer to Elias.

Pansy at the next table was dozing off while reading "The History of Magic," her chin resting on her crossed arms, her curly hair hanging down to cover half her face.

Goyle suddenly exclaimed "Ah!" startling her awake—his quill pen had broken, and ink had splattered onto Crabbe's bread. Crabbe didn't look up, but slowly stuffed the ink-stained bread into his mouth, chewed a couple of times, and mumbled, "Sweet."

Pansy rubbed her eyes, glanced at Elias's arithmetic divination notes filled with formulas, and pouted: "Reinhardt, you can even understand this stuff? I don't think Professor Binns himself remembers it clearly."

She casually flipped through a page of her book, and half a dried clover fell out with a clatter—she'd picked it up yesterday at the herbalist's shed; it's said to bring good luck.

Goyle nodded vigorously beside him, his wand falling to the ground with a "thud," landing right at Elias's feet. Elias bent down to pick it up and handed it to Goyle, noticing that the book of standard spells he had spread out was covered with crooked little figures, each holding a blown-up wand.

"Did you draw this?" Elias asked.

Goyle's face turned bright red, and Crabbe answered for him, "He wanted to draw Potter after his spell failed."

Draco chuckled, about to say something, when he saw Elias turn back and pick up his quill again: "Can I borrow your Transfiguration notes? Professor McGonagall said the key point is to imagine the skeletal structure of objects."

He pushed another notebook over, on which were drawn in pencil, showing a simple breakdown of how a match turns into a needle, the lines clear as if measured with a ruler.

As Draco opened his notebook, he heard Hermione's hushed voice from across the table: "Harry, you can't tap the cauldron with your wand, you have to do it like this—" She tapped her wand lightly, and the empty ink bottle on the table shrank slightly, turning into a small teacup.

Harry exclaimed "Wow!" while Ron sighed beside him, "I can't even bend a spoon. Maybe I should ask Hedwig to bring me some quills for cheating."

"Foolish Weasley," Draco muttered sarcastically, only to be nudged by Elias with his elbow.

"Look here," Elias pointed to the section on transformation theory, "focus your attention and imagine it shrinking, like crumpling a piece of paper into a ball."

He picked up Draco's wand, his fingertips lightly touching the back of Draco's hand, guiding him to draw a smaller symbol in the air. "Want to try?"

Draco's hand stiffened slightly, but the tip of his wand did indeed emit a faint silver light. Crabbe, who was at the next table, had just stuffed a pie into his mouth when he saw this and mumbled to Goyle, "Better than us." Goyle nodded vigorously, dropping bread crumbs all over the table.

Pansy rolled her eyes and tucked the clover back into the book: "Malfoy, if you still can't learn it, you might as well have Reinhardt take the exam for you."

Draco was about to retort when Elias suddenly smiled, sunlight sliding through his silver hair and falling on the open pages of his book.

"He learns very quickly," Elias said, "he just hasn't figured out the trick yet."

Draco swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue. As he gripped his wand tightly again, he noticed that the ink stain on his fingertip had somehow smeared onto Elias's sleeve, resembling a small, black flower.

……

Time flies when you're studying diligently.

As the library bell struck three, Elias closed "Potions and Magical Elixirs" and took a dark brown leather notebook from his bag.

The cover is embossed with the Reinhardt family crest. On the open pages, there are several lines of neat handwriting written in dark green ink, interspersed with some accounts of the magic industry, records of family member communications, and even a few estimates of the harvest from a certain magical herb plantation.

He had just marked a date on the edge of his notebook when Hermione's curious gaze shot over from across the room. Her quill paused on *The History of Magic*, her brow furrowing slightly. "That's... the family records?"

Her voice was low, but filled with barely concealed surprise, "You look like you have a lot of things to deal with, yet you still have the energy to look at this?"

Theodore Nott walked around from behind the bookshelf, glanced at the notebook, and paused in pushing up his glasses. "The Reinhardt family's businesses involve a lot of magical herbs and ancient books, right? My father mentioned that managing these requires extremely careful planning."

His gaze towards Elias held a hint of inquiry. "Trying this up right before final exams?"

Elias ran his fingertip over an account record and explained softly, "It's a minor issue. Take a look when you have some free time."

Hermione appeared out of nowhere, holding a thick review notebook. Each point was marked with a different colored key mark, so densely packed that there was hardly any blank space. Elias glanced at it and said, "Your notes are very detailed."

Hermione blushed slightly and quickly gathered her notes back together: "I was just afraid of missing any points on the test... Unlike you, it seems like you don't have to worry about the exam at all, and you still have the energy to care about these things."

She glanced at Draco's still-editing shrinking potion formula, then quickly turned back. "Malfoy, the dosage of wolfsbane is wrong. It should be one-third of an ounce, not half an ounce."

Draco paused, pen in hand, about to sharply cross out the mistake, when he heard Elias chuckle and point at Harry and Ron, who were winking at each other across the table: "I'll teach Draco what's wrong, Miss Granger. Perhaps your friends need your help more?"

Sunlight streamed through the high window, falling on Elias's hand and illuminating the six-pointed star emblem on the notebook cover, which shimmered faintly.

Hermione glanced at Elias, then at Malfoy who was smirking, and decided it was best to leave.

After seeing off the Gryffindor who had interrupted, Elias withdrew his gaze.

Draco, standing beside him, had a smile on his face, covering his mouth as if laughing about something. His potion notebook lay open on the table, his quill nowhere to be seen, and he radiated happiness. Elias simply called out to him:

"Draco".

Draco… Draco sat up straight instantly. Elias had been tutoring him lately, and although his tone was no different from usual, Draco felt that Elias exuded an aura of awe, which was essentially similar to Professor Snape.

"Draco, take another look at the dosage chart I marked yesterday. It can't be wrong." Elias had barely finished speaking when the platinum head let out a wail, as if someone had pulled off his tail.

Pansy leaned closer to look at Elias's account book, frowned, and shrank back. "It's all numbers and names. It's so boring. Elias, aren't you afraid of getting distracted during the exam?"

Goyle and Crabbe nodded vigorously beside them. On the graffiti-covered "Standard Spells" in front of them, there was another little figure with Ron's red hair, being chased by a blown wand along with a little figure symbolizing Harry.

As dusk settled into the library, Mrs. Pince walked down the main staircase, and the young wizards immediately fell silent, even their turning of the pages becoming quieter. When Elias closed his notebook, he discovered that Draco had neatly copied down the shrinking potion recipe.