From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

As the two left, almost jumping for joy, Lupin couldn't help but sigh.

The professors also gossip in their private conversations, talking about which student is particularly mischievous, what embarrassing things so-and-so did today, and even which year's students were spotted on a date, which often becomes the topic of conversation in the common room.

As the Gryffindor brothers, the twins' solitary confinement and the reasons for it account for roughly one-fifth of the professors' conversations, making them the most famous.

It's you who's unbelievable, isn't it...?

William silently suppressed his urge to complain. "Don't you know who among the people in the faculty lounge has the least right to talk about troublemakers?"

"Next person!"

To maintain harmonious relationships with his colleagues, he could only shout like this.

After the other two students went to take the test, he turned around and took the opportunity to change the subject.

"I need to go and tell the kitchen to prepare lunch. Professor Lu Ping, you can keep an eye on things here for a while."

"Okay, go ahead and get back to work, Professor William."

After briefly informing Professor McGonagall, William left the area to return to the castle and instruct the elves to prepare lunch in the form of sandwiches and send them over.

The weather is nice today, and walking around is a waste of time—the fifth-grade assessment takes a long time, and he also plans to make sure they don't waste their afternoon study time.

-

The castle was empty because the students and professors were all outside watching the spectacle; even the portraits looked listless.

"Ah, Professor William."

"Hello, Mr. Knight."

William returned the greeting. This knight, who had suddenly greeted him, had provided him with a lot of help when he first came to the school. The farthest he had ever taken William was across dozens of paintings to get him to his destination, leaving him exhausted.

Is Quidditch playing today?

"No, it was a big exam, so everyone went out."

"Well, that explains why no one's come back after all this time—Peeves' going crazy. He's been wandering around the castle all morning, and even sneaked off to the Quidditch pitch, but he couldn't find anyone. He's sulking in the second-floor hallway now."

"It's only a morning; there are plenty of places to have fun."

William wasn't too concerned about Peeves' physical and mental health—the school hardly kept anyone during summer vacation, so was Peeves just waiting around?

“Today is very different, Professor.”

The knight said solemnly.

"Alright, I'll inform the kitchen and take a look. Thank you, Mr. Knight."

William nodded, thanked the knight for providing the information, and then strode towards the kitchen—he still had to check if anything had happened; the Dark Lord hadn't caused any trouble this year, and he was quite worried.

-

"Hello, Professor William!"

The elves spotted William immediately after he entered the kitchen under the Ironclad Curse.

“Lunch at school is canceled today. I need the kitchen to provide us with enough sandwiches for our picnic,” William’s voice was slightly distorted by the Bubble Head Charm, but the elves didn’t comment.

"Of course, Professor, we'll go prepare right away!"

Do we need to prepare alcoholic beverages?

"Don't prepare any alcohol, they have exams this afternoon." William shook his head. "By the way, bring three agile elves who are good at Apparition, they can help me with some things later."

His request was quickly granted; the professors had considerable authority at Hogwarts.

Looking at the three slightly robust elves who had been chosen, William felt much relieved. After leaving the kitchen with the three of them, he immediately gave them his instructions.

"If anything unusual happens later, just use a Sleeping Charm on them, then Apparate back to the kitchen."

He knew very well how powerful the house-elf was, and to put it bluntly, he seriously doubted whether Adams could even defeat a house-elf…

After reiterating the crucial point that it was essential to ensure each of them understood the spell before running away, William led the three Super Adams warriors up to the second floor.

"Don't walk in front of me, and don't try to stop them. If I get attacked, you all fight back together, then run away. First, go back to the kitchen to inform the other Pokémon, then go to the Forbidden Forest to inform Professor McGonagall."

If it really is related to the Dark Lord, the elves' magic would be good enough to only delay him temporarily; expecting them to kill the Dark Lord would be absurd.

He would at most test the waters; if he could win, he would deal with it; if not, he would simply rely on the terrain to escape and then immediately issue an alarm.

Whether or not Dumbledore can be found is another matter. There are so many capable professors at the school; he's not going to be crazy enough to go after one of them alone.

"It should be this way. Get ready to cast spells and escape."

At the corner of the corridor, William whispered, then used his Transfiguration ability to mirror the corridor wall.

Through the mirror-like wall, he could clearly see what was happening over there: in the empty corridor, Peeves was lying on the floor, looking even somewhat sad…

This is an extremely rare sight—you see, Peeves is the most active guy in the whole school. He's either playing pranks or on his way to play pranks all day long, and even ghosts are having a hard time with him.

'Nothing seems amiss.'

Braving the thick iron armor spells, William cautiously approached this creature that should theoretically be called an elf.

However, the lying-down Pippi seemed to have noticed nothing. It neither mocked nor jumped up, but instead sang a song with strange pronunciation.

The song wasn't long, but it played on an endless loop. Pipi Ghost would repeat it almost every three minutes, but William just couldn't understand it.

It's alright, he has already memorized this memory. After confirming it's safe, he will copy the memory and obtain the original song without any loss. He can then release it again through the Pensieve.

After confirming that there were no other abnormalities, William left with the elf—let Peeves sing over there, as long as it has nothing to do with the Dark Lord. The castle is over a thousand years old, and there are plenty of ghosts around, so he wouldn't be surprised if something happened.

We can explore the story behind the song later, but the important thing now is the exam.

-

"Why did it take you so long, Professor William?"

"Something strange is happening. Peeves is singing over there."

William spread his hands. "A song I can't understand at all."

“Maybe it’s some new prank,” Lupin laughed. “It always comes up with some weird and wonderful pranks—what is it?”

Lupin's tone rose considerably, and his attention shifted.

A golden sphere, twice the size of the Quake, glittered in the sunlight. It was the stone sphere that Lupin had transformed into—to make the students who got full marks look even more glorious, they discussed it and added this little magic to the stone sphere, so that it could undergo another transformation when it flew high enough.

Everyone at Hufflepuff House had stood up. They had been eagerly awaiting the result ever since the student went in for the test, and now, without a doubt, what they had been waiting for had happened.

"Cedric! Cedric!"

As the largest house, the Hufflepuffs' cheers were overwhelmingly loud, and as the prefect of the fifth year, he was familiar to every Hufflepuff student.

Cedric, riding a broomstick, controlled the stone ball with his wand and then gracefully landed in front of William and his friends' table—he was a full member of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and his flying skills were exceptional.

“Congratulations,” William clapped and stood up. He knew his student very well. The student had completed the test very carefully and performed very well in class. He was a standard top student who was both talented and easy to manage.

"Without a doubt," William's voice boomed once more, echoing throughout the arena, "Cedric Diggory, Hufflepuff, perfect score!"

He pointed his wand at the stone ball, making it float in the air. With a gentle tap, the stone ball exploded in mid-air, transforming into a rain of golden confetti.

It's not that he was biased; the twins simply didn't bring the materials over. There's still a difference between a perfect score and a perfect score.

“Congratulations, here’s the bonus.” William took the bag of gallons from Lupin. “As well, you don’t need to hand in your homework—frankly, it’s a shame, your paper looks very nice.”

The child smiled shyly, unsure how to respond—of course, the professor's comment was rather inappropriate; how could one possibly answer that?

Fortunately, William realized his mistake and patted Cedric on the shoulder, saying, "Well done, you can go and rest now."

Cedric then jogged away with a sigh of relief—he really enjoyed the class, but there was just too much homework…

The new perfect score immediately ignited the enthusiasm of all fifth graders. Galen was a minor issue; how much time would it save fifth graders from not having to hand in an assignment? The professor himself had said that those who could get a perfect score basically didn't need to worry about their OWLS grades.

Before lunch was served, although no more perfect scores were achieved, four students had already completed all the levels while riding brooms. They rightfully received cheers but did not receive any rewards.

By the time the last fifth-grader, a Ravenclaw, flew down on a broomstick, it was nearly noon.

“The morning assessment is over, everyone can have lunch now,” William stood up. “Those baskets contain the lunches. We have about forty minutes to rest.”

"Perhaps you can find out some information about the exam during this time?"

He wasn't worried about leaks because the difficulty levels varied across grades.

-

"Harry, do you think we're confident?"

Ron was munching on his sandwich when these lunches suddenly appeared next to the audience, only to be discovered when people got hungry—house-elves don't like to be in front of people.

"I'm not sure..."

Harry hesitated before answering. There were three different levels of difficulty for each of the three grades, and he wasn't sure how many traps there would be in the third-year exams.

"We only need to face one giant."

Ron grinned. "As long as we get through the previous checkpoints quickly enough, that's fine."

Having taken down such a big guy in first grade, he's now bursting with energy.

That's the difficult part... the earlier levels...

Harry wasn't sure, so he turned to Hermione. "What do you think, Hermione?"

"Huh? What did you say?"

Hermione seemed a little distracted.

"Are you sure everything's okay?"

“No problem, I’m fine.” Hermione hesitated for a moment before answering firmly.

She'll get a perfect score, she's sure of it.

Side Story 1: From Hogwarts to Azkaban (1)

"Alright, fifth graders, you can leave now. I think you need to rest more."

Professor William's voice rang out from the front, and Herbert, sitting in the Slytherin group, suddenly felt something indescribable rising in his heart.

rest?

The word sounded so unfamiliar to him—ever since he entered fifth grade, every professor and classmate had been talking about the so-called OWLs year, and the word "rest" hadn't crossed his mind for a long time.

When it appeared abruptly, it even overwhelmed Herbert's inner regret.