My Hogwarts has a serious problem.

Chapter 413, Section 410: Voluntary

"You must be kidding, who would get up that early in winter?"

Ron questioned.

Tom wasn't as tall as them, and he was quite thin, but looking up at them gave him a sense of superiority.

"Waking up at 5 o'clock? Would I lie about that? Have you ever seen Hogwarts at 4 o'clock in the morning?"

Everyone at Hogwarts knows that Student Council President Lynn Bellocch has been waking up at this time every day since he first entered Hogwarts and going to the Black Lake to practice spells.

Ron was speechless after Tom confronted him, because what she said was the truth.

Before leaving, Tom left behind his last words.

"Why do you think others are better than you? Just because they spend less than eight hours a day eating, drinking, playing, and studying?"

Watching Tom's departing figure, Ron and Harry both felt a sense of shame rising within them.

They were actually lectured by a little girl who was two years younger than them.

But after grabbing a few bites of food from the table, they quickly forgot about their shame.

If those two could become good students with just a few words, then so many parents wouldn't need to beat their unruly children.

After a day of classes, in the afternoon, Harry and Ron, as usual, rode their flying broomsticks and started having fun on the Quidditch pitch.

They took turns riding on the fire crossbows, shouting excitedly as the cold wind blew through the air above the castle.

Less than ten minutes later, Professor McGonagall stormed out of the castle in a rage.

"You two! Fine, you can play around by yourselves, but stop yelling and disturbing the other students' studies!"

Immediately, Harry and Ron, like two wilted eggplants, flew down from the sky and returned to the castle, looking utterly dejected.

In the hallway, a disciplinary committee member on duty gave me a disapproving look and reminded me to keep my voice down so as not to disturb others.

The two ended up bored in the lounge, playing Wizard Chess and watching the students returning from evening self-study discuss their homework.

Even in Gryffindor, some students attend self-study sessions, given the considerable exam pressure they face in their fifth year.

Even if they were naughty kids before, by this point they know it will be too late if they don't start learning.

Hermione didn't nag them about their studies. She reminded them to wear warm clothes so they wouldn't catch a cold when they went out to ride flying broomsticks, and then carried a large stack of parchment back to the girls' dormitory.

Although she stopped nagging, Harry and Ron felt uneasy, as if something was missing.

They didn't sleep well all night, and both of them woke up with dark circles under their eyes in the morning. Finally, at 7:30, they were able to have a slightly warm breakfast in the auditorium.

However, the real suffering awaited them was yet to come.

At the start of the morning Charms class, Professor Flitwick called out the names of Harry Ron and several other Gryffindor students.

"Why didn't you hand in your homework from yesterday's evening self-study session?"

Harry looked at him blankly.

"We don't have evening self-study sessions."

"Does not attending evening self-study mean you don't have to do your homework? This is homework assigned to all third-grade students, and even students who don't attend evening self-study still have to complete it."

Professor Flitwick was, after all, a mild-mannered professor. He wasn't particularly angry about Harry and the others not doing their homework, because he knew it was just an unintentional mistake.

"There's not much homework. You all need to hand in your completed assignments to my office before dark today. Also, a friendly reminder: don't forget to do your homework tonight. Even if there's no spell class tomorrow, I'll still collect it to grade."

Harry and Ron were completely dumbfounded.

Do you have to do homework even if you don't attend evening self-study?

What difference does it make whether they sign a voluntary agreement or not?

Every day, don't we still have to spend a large portion of our playtime doing this homework?

Having never experienced being forced into a situation before, Harry and Ron finally began to understand what it meant to be forced into a situation.

Later, when Professor Flitwick explained the new spells and let them try them on their own, Harry and his friends performed quite poorly.

They hadn't attended morning reading sessions; the spell pronunciation they were going to learn today had already been practiced by Professor Flitwick for the entire morning yesterday morning by students who did attend morning reading sessions.

Professor Flitwick could only shake his head and sigh at their poor performance, and specifically corrected their pronunciation.

Harry and Ron finished their morning Charms class in low spirits. On their way to breakfast with Hermione, Harry, who had been keeping his head down, suddenly asked...

"Can I still fill out the application form now?"

Hermione's lips curled into a secret, pleased smile.

"Of course, you can just get the forms from the executive committee."

"I'll go to the student council and get one after I finish eating," Harry said sullenly.

"I'll go with you," Ron added.

Hermione looked at them with a smile.

"Please don't force yourselves; is this voluntary?"

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance, both seeing the look of unbearable sorrow in each other's eyes, and replied listlessly.

"Yes, we did it voluntarily."

After giving instructions about morning and evening self-study sessions, Lin En didn't pay much attention to them anymore.

As the student council president, he certainly wouldn't do everything himself, nor was it necessary for him to.

Having been exposed to exam-oriented education for twelve years in her previous life, Lynn naturally knew how to get students to "voluntarily" accept these behaviors that were equivalent to extra classes and tutoring.

Or perhaps his methods were relatively mild; there are far more people who are truly willing to act unreasonably, but he disdains to use some of the most egregious methods.

Things at school are back on track, so he doesn't need to worry about them too much.

What's giving Lynn a headache right now is still the Death Eaters.

Yesterday, Tom sent him a message saying that Peter had reported that the black stone ring at Gaunt's old house had gone missing.

They interrogated the Muggles who lived nearby, who said that no one had ever entered the old house, but last year someone saw a thick snake crawl in.

Lynn's memory of some parts of the original plot had become hazy, but he still clearly remembered the locations of Voldemort's Horcruxes.

The ring in Gaunt's old house is not only Voldemort's Horcrux, but before it became a Horcrux, it was also one of the three most famous Deathly Hallows, alongside Harry's Invisibility Cloak and Dumbledore's Elder Wand—the Resurrection Stone.

Even after Voldemort was resurrected in the original story, he never moved the ring hidden in Gaunt's old house.

But Peter and his friends wouldn't dare lie to Tom.

In other words, the resurrection stone is indeed missing.

Uh... someone actually dropped the book because of the morning and evening study sessions? Wasn't that plot already written in the synopsis? If you don't like it, why keep reading it now?

I don't quite understand.

(End of this chapter)