From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

"Professor, we're all here!"

Those who stayed behind were definitely staying on campus for Christmas, so they answered without hesitation.

"We're having a big event on Christmas Day!"

William announced loudly, "Since you might not like the content of the event, I'm announcing the prize in advance—the mystery gift that was rejected this time!"

"A small bottle of Felix Felicis! Enough for eight hours!"

William shouted out the reward—to be precise, it was a third of a bottle. As a former apothecary, it wasn't unreasonable for him to have a lot of potion containers in his luggage, was it?

In the morning, when he couldn't find a good way to deal with the mountain of documents, he almost couldn't resist drinking it.

He then discovered that carrying a 24-hour supply of Felix Felicis was like carrying a hammer; he felt like smashing everything in sight.

His potion-making skills are currently at a very delicate stage. If he works a little harder, he will be able to master the details of the potion when he takes Felix Felicis for the first time. Therefore, he will definitely not drink Felix Felicis at this time.

Since he could come up with the prescription in one go anyway, he simply divided the bottle into three parts. One part was used as a reward to lure students out to participate in the activity, and the other two parts were kept to see what other uses they could be.

When the difficult problem was solved, he was so happy that he wanted to use it as a reward (he had planned to replace the previous one with something else), but he was refused!

'If I don't show it off, you'll have no idea what you're missing out on!'

The students below were stunned, but the older students quickly reacted and started whispering to each other.

Soon, everyone found out what the prize was—and everyone was as happy as if Christmas were today.

The two children who had borrowed the forbidden book immediately looked pleased, which pleased William greatly.

"Well, to make the event more fun and to give everyone a chance to win, I'll announce the event rules in advance."

"To ensure fairness, an exam will be held that day!"

William announced with a smile.

Many students were immediately discouraged, but William quickly announced supplementary regulations.

"It's an open-book exam. You can bring any books into the exam room and consult reference materials to answer questions before the exam ends."

"Of course, the number of questions is exceptionally large, so students with good grades might have a slight advantage?" William revealed a little. "But students who bring the right books might have an even greater advantage?"

“It’s hard to say, it’s hard to say,” William shook his head, making an uncertain expression.

'With an open-book exam and Felix Felicis, I refuse to believe anyone can just laze around in the break room!'

Chapter 193 Go Cheat, Kids!

Harry walked out of the dormitory carrying a stack of books, followed by Ron, who was also carrying a thick stack of books. The two stood at the dormitory door, looking at the students huddled together in the warmest spot by the fireplace in the common room. They looked at each other and were dumbfounded.

"Ron, is this really a holiday?"

"Maybe I'm still sleepy," Ron said uncertainly. "It's only eight o'clock, why are there so many people?"

But the students huddled together had already spotted them.

"Come on, start studying! You guys overslept!"

The twins' cheerful voices brought Harry back to reality, and their plan from yesterday to get up early and find a good spot to study had completely fallen through.

The two exchanged another glance and walked toward the fireplace—the weather at Hogwarts in December was not friendly, and the dormitory was not a good place to study compared to the fireplace in the common room.

With the library closed for the holidays, there's nowhere more cozy than the fireplace in the lounge.

The two had barely sat down when Fred leaned over and said, "We have a pretty great plan, wanna give it a try?"

Harry glanced at Ron instinctively. Ron flinched, then feigned toughness, "What plan? Don't tell me it's a prank. Professor William really will put you in detention!"

"How could it be a prank?"

George raised an eyebrow. "My dear brother, we are among the few students in the whole school who have had their detention waived by the professors. We are much more adept at manipulating the rules than you think."

"Cheating on exams is a serious violation of the rules."

“We never said we cheated,” Fred retorted with a laugh. “It’s an open-book exam, you can bring any materials you want, but how many books can each of us bring?”

“You can carry a lot with the Levitation Charm,” Ron countered, “as long as you have enough books.”

Fred clapped his hands. “Correct, my dear brother. So the key is having enough books—the library is closed, and buying books on short notice is too expensive. How many do you have?”

He glanced at the books Ron was holding. "Just the ones you have, or maybe add some others?"

“We don’t have many books, but all of us in Gryffindor can pool our resources and provide them to one person,” George chimed in. “Professor William says that bringing the right books increases the chances of winning, but if we choose one person to bring all the right books, wouldn’t we be guaranteed to win?”

“But there are also good students—” Harry instinctively wanted to say Hermione’s name, then realized he meant twins.

You mean Hermione?

Harry immediately understood Fred's plan—they would unite everyone to provide the books, and then Hermione would take the books to the exam, thus ensuring that the bottle of Felix Felicis promised by the professor would end up in their hands.

“Yes, just like you think,” Fred said with a smile, patting Harry on the shoulder. “If things go well, we’ll take half, and the three of you can discuss how to handle the other half of the potion—you know, we’re not just getting our hands on books from current students, we can also get our hands on the collections of other people we know.”

“But Hermione could have had it anyway.” Harry instinctively wanted to help her refuse.

"Open-book exam? Don't be silly, Harry. Like the professor said, everyone has a chance. How many books can Hermione get her hands on by herself?"

-

"So you two agreed?"

At lunchtime, Hermione, with dark circles under her eyes, finally appeared. She casually picked up her food and looked sleepy as she spoke to the two of them.

"Four hours of Felix Felicis, half the dose, George and his team will have to contact a lot of people to get the books out."

“No,” Hermione shook her head firmly. “An exam is an exam. It’s unacceptable to team up to cheat, even if it’s an open-book exam.”

“Once you get those books, you’ll be number one, and no one will think you’re cheating, Hermione!”

Ron tried his best to persuade him.

"That would be cheating. I would have been number one even without cheating."

Hermione answered proudly, "I spent the whole night organizing the books I've read. Although this was an open-book exam that doesn't deserve to be called an exam, I still got first place."

"Don't be silly, this is an exam with upperclassmen involved. If that professor sets a slightly more difficult question, no one will be able to find the answer in the book. Whoever is lucky enough to find the answer in the book will be number one!"

Harry sensed something was wrong and quickly tried to mediate, but unfortunately, he failed—their disagreement about cheating was too strong, especially with Hermione still clearly grumpy from waking up, which made the argument even more intense.

-

"Felix Felicis, Christmas Exam!"

Lockhart slammed his fist on the table in anger—Professor William had once again become the focus of the entire school.

The words inexplicably appeared on the open diary on the table: "Huh? Our legend, jealous of this? Because of a small bottle of Felix Felicis?"

The mockery in the diary immediately made his eyes red. He grabbed his IDE quill and began to write on it, "A small bottle of Felix Felicis? Felix Felicis is real—it's much more real than searching through the library for clues left by Slytherin!"

“Oh,” large characters appeared on the diary, “So, our Professor Lockhart didn’t even have that much patience. He only spent a few days sneaking into the library and reading. This little difficulty has stumped the legend?”

"No way, no way? Is becoming a legend really that simple?"

“I don’t find it difficult at all!” Lockhart wrote heavily in his diary. “Those books are easy for me to read on ordinary days, but now I have to break the library’s guard spells and sneak in to read them—what a clever thing to do. Is that why Dumbledore abandoned you?”

Lockhart, who wrote down his true thoughts in a moment of emotional outburst, only realized what he had written after he finished.

But it was too late, and fancy handwriting began to appear in the diary.

"A penniless, worthless clown, a thief of honor, mocking someone as great as me?"

"Use your stupid brain to think about it. When Dumbledore was around, was it really appropriate for you to search for traces left by Slytherin? Do you think Dumbledore wouldn't have discovered the evidence before you did?"

……

The relentless, fifteen-minute-long barrage of insults left Lockhart completely stunned, to the point that he even forgot he could close his diary.

After quite a while, the diary seemed to have had enough of its rant, and finally it lazily typed out the last few lines.

"Think it over carefully. We don't have time to be jealous of your limited brains. Your legendary story has already begun in a spectacular fashion."

With a combination of suppression and attack, Lockhart's slightly inflated ego was firmly suppressed, and he began to seriously plan the specific beginning of his legendary story—no matter how harshly the diary was criticized, it was still just a book, and in the coming period of time, it would be the key to his becoming a legend and obtaining the Order of Merlin, First Class.

'I'll destroy the medal once I get it. I'm not as merciful as Dumbledore, leaving opportunities for those who come after me!'

Such a thought surfaced, but Lockhart immediately suppressed it with Occlumency, a spell he was unfamiliar with—his forte was memory magic, so he had also dabbled in many spells to defend against memory magic.

-

"There shouldn't be any other loopholes left, only Professor Lockhart's problem remains."

William was in his office, looking at the completed exam paper, pondering how to keep Lockhart under control.

'Felix Felicis plus an open-book exam isn't enough to guarantee success? Who would give up a free reward?'

He patted the exam paper, thinking about Professor Lockhart's weakness—undoubtedly, Professor Lockhart was fond of fame.

'Reputation, huh? How can I make Professor Lockhart feel that this event will really help him become famous? Or, in other words, will his reputation just grow by constantly keeping an eye on the students?'

William started conjuring up some crazy ideas in his head.

"Have it!"

"Let the students cheat! Let Lockhart proctor the exam, and then let Lockhart expose their cheating tricks—cheating on Christmas doesn't require a trip to Azkaban!"

"It also serves as a reminder to those guys that if they can get caught cheating on even a regular exam, they'll be even more likely to get caught cheating on the OWLs exam, which is much stricter."

William was calculating his own scheme.

"The multiple uses of Felix Felicis have fueled the students' fighting spirit, making them more inclined to cheat. Professor Lockhart's ability to easily catch people cheating will enhance his prestige among the students."

“And once students realize that cheating on exams is easy to detect, everyone will be on edge for a long time to come—no,” William shook his head, trying to convince himself not to be too optimistic, “it’s impossible for everyone to be on edge. I’ll have to thank Merlin if this lasts for a year.”

"But no matter what, if it can really prevent this year's children from ending up in Azkaban because of cheating, it would definitely be a good thing."

"Actually, I should have done it, but Professor Lockhart is probably more suitable. After all, he's a great adventurer; catching cheaters would be a piece of cake for him."

"We've come up with an excuse: to make the exam seem more rigorous, and to avoid me being subjective, we've asked Professor Lockhart to proctor it!"

“Hmm, the only thing left is when to tell them they are allowed to cheat.” William pondered. “We can’t give them too much time, or they might have some brilliant plan. But we can’t give them too little time either, or they won’t be able to prepare anything.”

"One night is fine. Those who want to cheat can play all night, and those who don't should just read the book. I can walk around Professor Snape's office in one night. I can't say that's too short, can I?"

“Besides, if a student works hard all night to cheat and then gets caught easily, the memory will be much more vivid.” William put down the straw in his hand and made his final decision.

The next step is to invite Professor Lockhart into the scheme and notify the students of their permission to cheat.

"Perfect!"