From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

William clapped his hands in approval. "Now I can focus on developing the curse on written words and figuring out how to observe the Slytherin common room!"

"He can even get the password while notifying students of cheating. What a brilliant plan!"

-

"Thump thump thump!"

The crisp knocking sound reached Lockhart's ears, sounding particularly jarring to him since he hadn't slept well the night before—Christmas was approaching, his readers were on holiday, and he was receiving a flood of letters, keeping him busy researching and replying to them, resulting in severe sleep deprivation.

Even so, he quickly looked in the mirror and adjusted his expression, restoring his smile to the state that had been praised as the best smile.

"Please come in, Professor Lockhart will always be there to help you!"

Lockhart shouted energetically.

...

'Look at Professor Lockhart, and look at you, stealing things and then scheming against your students!'

William couldn't help but feel a little guilty. He couldn't help it; his purpose when he came wasn't pure. Although he was extremely excited when the plan was set, he naturally felt guilty when he actually came to work for the person in charge.

Although Professor Lockhart has a good reputation and loves to boast, he's even been slowly adjusting his teaching methods, which aren't his forte. Before the holidays, his reputation was already quite good—'Just this once, and a well-intentioned deception at that, really made him famous!'

William tried to convince himself.

“Excuse me, Professor Lockhart, it’s me, William.”

William knocked on the door, trying to make his smile as genuine as possible.

“Ah, Professor William,” Professor Lockhart’s signature smile appeared, “Welcome, welcome, Professor William. Would you like something to drink?”

“No need, Professor Lockhart.” William sat down in his chair, suppressing a little bit of guilt. “It’s like this, Professor Lockhart, there’s something I need to ask you for a favor.”

"You're too kind, Professor William. It's the holidays anyway, do I have anything urgent to attend to?"

'Get lost, you bastard! A reply to my letter is a thousand times more important than you!'

Despite the inner turmoil, Lockhart's smile remained unchanged.

"Well, as you know, Professor Lockhart, I'm planning a small event for Christmas and I'd like your help."

'roll!'

Subconsciously filling in the blanks in his mind, Lockhart began to think of an excuse to refuse.

“It’s a little embarrassing to say, but I was thinking of suddenly announcing to them later that they could cheat freely, as long as they didn’t get caught, and that they would lose a certain number of points if they were caught,” William carefully chose his tone, trying to emphasize Lockhart’s work, “but you know, I don’t have that kind of keen insight.”

"So, Professor Lockhart, could you be the proctor that day? I'm sure those kids will be completely outmatched by your keen observation. It would be a good lesson for them, showing them how easily cheating can be caught."

William looked at Lockhart with sincere eyes, clearly expressing his helplessness.

“Well, Professor William,” Lockhart smiled, “it is our duty as professors to educate students, and although it is difficult, I think we should accept this challenge.”

“That’s wonderful,” William said, his voice rising several decibels. “I was worried that my presence might backfire and encourage them to cheat. It’s great to have your help, Professor Lockhart!”

Chapter 194 Suddenly, I was as happy as if it were a festival.

"Thump thump thump!"

A short, firm knock sounded on the door.

William raised his head and stopped his research on low-power curses.

'Who is it?' he wondered in his mind who might be knocking on the door, without stopping his work.

William carefully put the parchment away in the drawer, then drew his wand and broke the protective spell on the office.

"Please come in!"

“Yes, Professor,” a rather familiar voice came from the doorway. As the doorknob turned, a wisp of red hair came into William’s view.

'It's Weasley again?'

After that thought flashed through his mind, William felt better—it was Percy.

"What's wrong, Percy?" William asked gently.

Putting aside his grades, Percy is hardworking, tireless, and undeterred by tedious tasks. He completes his work well and quickly. What professor would refuse such a student?

Not to mention Percy also provided two treasure chests—although William wanted to keep them to see if he could exploit a bug during the first experiment with Felix Ferulic, the chests were genuinely there.

"Professor, they're trying to cheat!"

Percy's uneasy expression made William grip his wand tightly—he was familiar with this plot.

He clearly remembers how Ginny Weasley ambushed Filch after arguing with Professor McGonagall last time, and Percy also wore that tiara!

“No rush, take your time,” William said, maintaining his smile while secretly positioning his wand for the quickest possible attack.

“Well, Professor, my two younger brothers,” Percy said with a troubled expression, “you know them. It’s a good thing you reserved places for them, but they’re planning to team up with other students to cheat.”

"Collective cheating?"

William was taken aback—he hadn't even uttered anything about cheating yet, and those two had already asked him?

Did Professor Lockhart reveal the truth during his conversation with the students?

“Yes, it was cheating by collusion,” Percy said, completely oblivious to the wand that was firmly pointed at him. “The two of them were trying to win by pooling all the books of the students together and giving them to one student.”

Percy was clearly heartbroken, which lessened William's desire to knock him out and read his memories.

"They've come to you?" William asked tentatively. "You're the top student among those who stayed on campus."

“Thank you for your compliment, Professor,” Percy quickly expressed his gratitude. “I clearly refused them, and then I came to you—”

“I understand,” William said with a smile, pressing his left hand down. “But I’ve already anticipated that some people might join forces with us, and I’ll reiterate this to them today.”

He shrugged at Percy. "Believe me, without a wand, even five books will make you feel like turning the pages is a pretty painful thing."

-

"Ron, your vacation time must have been cursed by magic!"

Harry grumbled this in front of the fireplace in the common room.

“We still have time before dinner, let’s read a little longer.” Ron glanced at the time and buried his head in his book again.

Not long ago, Professor William made a slight supplementary explanation during dinner: although books could be brought to the exam, they could not be flipped through with a wand. The other students did not realize the problem at first, but the prankster twins went back and actually tested it, and then announced that they had given up their plan.

'A failed plan. No one can possibly read all those books. Without magic, finding even one book out of a large quantity becomes an insurmountable challenge!'

After conducting an experiment using their hands to search through the books, the two spoke to their friends who still held onto hope.

This rekindled the enthusiasm of the students who had vaguely heard the rumors—concentrating the reading list would reduce efficiency, so wouldn't that be an opportunity for them?

This is why Ron and Harry are studying so hard. Even if they can't remember everything, as long as they've roughly looked at it once and brought the book with them, maybe they'll be right.

The two of them browsed through the books for a while longer before running quickly from the lounge to the auditorium—they wanted to finish dinner early so they could read some more in the lounge!

There were quite a few wizards who shared the same idea. In the corridor, the running students saw each other and ran towards the Great Hall without even saying hello.

When they arrived at the auditorium, they found it unusually quiet.

The temperature in the Great Hall, much higher than outdoors, caused Harry's glasses to fog up. He took them off, trying to figure out what was wrong with his surroundings.

"Ron," Harry called out to Ron behind him, panting, "Are we late?"

“No,” Ron’s tone was a little detached, causing Harry to turn around. He noticed that Ron’s gaze wasn’t on him at all, but rather fixed on the center of the Great Hall.

"sky!"

The people running behind him exclaimed in admiration—which angered Harry, who couldn't see anything without his glasses.

"You two, hurry up," Hermione's voice came, tapping Harry's glasses with her wand and whispering a spell that dispelled the white mist. "Dinner's almost ready—good heavens!"

Hermione's surprised voice rang out.

Harry quickly put on his glasses and looked in the direction his companion was staring.

A golden ball danced in the air, attracting everyone's attention and making it seem like it should be the focus of everyone's gaze, the thing that people cared about most.

Harry observed carefully and finally recognized what the golden thing was—it was a large potion bottle containing only a tiny bit of the potion.

The amount of potion, barely covering the bottom of the bottle, was pitifully small, yet its dazzling appearance made it impossible to comprehend why there was so little of it.

'It shines brighter than gold,' Harry thought, and the name of the potion naturally came to mind: the prize that had been making headlines at Hogwarts these past few days, the star of the show, Felix Felicis.

'That's how it should be.'

Harry couldn't help but think that the agony he had been suffering from flipping through books these past few days had suddenly vanished.

-

'If this isn't meant for long-term preservation, it's definitely better to store it in a large bottle,' William thought, glancing at the Felix Felicis he had released into the air.

This is finally not an Azkaban trick—leaving enough space for the potion to move makes customers clearly aware of how good the potion is. Of course, if possible, the bottle should also be fancy to easily arouse customers' desire to buy.

'Professor Snape would never understand this,' William muttered to himself, though he felt a bit sour inside. Although he had never seen a potion signed by Professor Snape in the potions market, as far as he knew, the top masters in the industry didn't care about fancy techniques; they would just fill an empty bottle, sign it, and that was it…

'Sooner or later, the potions I make will be sold with autographs, the uglier the bottles the better, and the signature will be the messiest kind!'

William silently nodded and swore, then brought over a potato.

The students from Hufflepuff didn't invite him over today—to be precise, because of the exam problems he caused, those kids are currently studying so hard they don't even have time to cook.

'Is this considered digging your own grave?'

William finished the last bite of bread and stood up.

He waved to the bottle of Felix Felicis and caught it steadily. "I heard everyone has been very busy lately, which is good."

None of the students below responded; everyone's attention was focused on Felix Felicis.

“I guess you all really want one,” William said, placing the bottle on the table and spreading his hands toward all the students. “To be honest, I like it too, but this is all I can offer, which obviously can’t satisfy all the students’ needs.”

"As you can see, the prizes are ready. I wonder how everyone's studying has been going..."

He reached out and tapped the potion, causing it to splash up in a golden spray. "Christmas exams are a bit too serious—I'm going to make them a little more fun."

'What's he up to now?'

On the Gryffindor desk, Hermione suddenly felt something was wrong. She had been studying hard these past few days and was very confident of getting first place.

"Well, to make it clear that this is an entertaining exam, I've decided to make an exception and lower the penalty for cheating. You can use any method other than the magic wand to cheat, but you will get caught. Each time you are caught and your name is recorded, one point will be deducted from your final score."

The students were stunned—it was the first time they had ever heard a professor advocate cheating.