From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

He turned his back and stormed off.

However, around noon, these energetic children somehow persuaded the cafeteria to prepare a refreshing soup for them.

"They're incredibly thorough—"

Adams looked at the soup and complained, "Seriously, we're in a greenhouse! And those kids are helping other colleges ruin their own gardens!"

“There must have been Hufflepuff students involved, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to sneak into the kitchen and persuade so many house-elves!”

William could only respond with a wry smile.

Honestly, this year's students are incredibly hands-on—the previous year's kids weren't this troublesome. I wonder if the twins influenced the group of kids around them to become like this.

"What will happen when they get to sixth grade...?"

Inside the cafeteria, William began to ponder deeply.

It's not the scarcity that's the problem, but the inequality. He hadn't given sixth graders too much homework before, and this year was no exception. But judging from this year's trend, these kids who were driven crazy by the test papers will be...

'If we don't restrict it, Professor Binns will have a ton of extra students helping him next year…'

'We need to find something worthwhile for these twins, the ringleaders, to strive for!'

Without the brothers' knowledge, William began to plan their careers...

To shoot a man, shoot his horse first; to capture a thief, capture his king first. Although it's not appropriate for a professor to be so cautious with such students, the twins have repeatedly proven through their actions that they deserve to be treated this way.

-

Fred had no idea that outside the exam hall, their dear professor, after their series of actions, was not worried about the student's grades like other professors, but instead began to plan how to deal with him.

To be precise, he had no mind for anything else right now; he was only thinking about the exam itself.

Will the questions be difficult? Will they test unfamiliar knowledge? (Regarding previous questions...)

The more he gave, the more afraid he became of losing; the more he struggled, the more afraid he became of failing. His heart pounded, and he was even afraid to open his eyes to look at the questions.

Fortunately, the overwhelming amount of practice questions helped him calm down, and he began to look down at the first question.

Eh?

That's...that's it?

Fred's eyes widened as he examined the question again, trying to find any possible traps—Professor William loved to do this, slightly changing the conditions of the question to make the answer an unbelievable different one.

But no, the answer seemed to be right there, as if it would be written out by itself with just a slight lift of the quill pen.

'Impossible, absolutely impossible!'

Fred glanced at the question and began to examine the next one. Hmm, this one is a bit difficult, but not that bad.

But could it be a trap?

For example, professors like to set a difficulty level in the exam questions, then the difficulty increases dramatically towards the end, making it really hard for students…

Adhering to the good habit of carefully reviewing the questions, he scanned through each one, preparing to select the most difficult one and skip it—an excellent quality cultivated through repeated practice. After Cedric, who had the best grades, was unable to complete the paper due to a middle question and thus failed, everyone learned not to get stuck on a single question.

In particular, Professor William would deliberately make the later questions extremely easy, which made the act of killing oneself by crashing into a wall seem even more foolish.

but…

why?

Why are there no particularly difficult questions?

Fred was puzzled for a moment, then immediately realized what was going on and started working on the questions quickly—after being tormented by all sorts of strange and unusual tests, no one would be bothered by the test itself anymore.

"Time's up!"

Two hours passed quickly. While Fred was still patiently checking to see if there were any traps he hadn't noticed, the exam was already over. Because various anti-cheating spells had been cast on the exam papers, the group of them were taken away from the exam room.

"Today's topic..."

Fred looked at his brother thoughtfully.

"Yeah, it seems like we stayed up all night for nothing..."

The two, sporting dark circles under their eyes from staying up all night, clapped their hands and started asking the others—sure enough, everyone said the questions were a bit difficult, but could be solved with a little effort.

"The question didn't actually contain any of those conditions that imposed a bunch of restrictions..."

"Yes, it's just that question twenty-three was a bit too obscure..."

"... "

"Alright, the exams are all over. Why are you still arguing? There's another exam this afternoon. Didn't the professor say not to discuss the questions after the exam?"

"It's rare for me to do well on a test..."

The interrupted students complained, "Let's eat! Didn't the Hufflepuff students say they were going to surprise us at lunchtime?"

-

"The soup was good at noon today, Bellica. How did your exams go this morning?"

Professor Machiban asked about the scores in a low voice. Although the official marking would take place after returning to the examination authority for open and fair peer marking, and the verified scores would be announced after a series of procedures, the general scores could be judged at a glance when the papers were collected.

"Their foundation is even more solid than that of last year's students, and they answered the questions very well."

"Then let's see what happens in the afternoon exams—I'm already quite eager for these fifth-year students to enter the wizarding world. The students' grades in previous years have been really poor, and some people have even questioned whether our grading rules are too harsh. But does giving them high scores mean they've passed?"

Professor Marchban grumbled, "Wizards who can't even beat other wizards with wands, and then they expect us to teach them Defense—well, let's call it Self-Defense now. What a weird name that little William came up with. Wizards who can't beat wizards from other countries have the nerve to ask us for certificates? Are they going to go out and embarrass themselves with those certificates?"

"I'm going to be an examiner for the fifth grade this afternoon. I want to see the level of this year's students for myself."

Professor Machiban complained and spoke willfully, but none of the examiners objected.

-

"George Weasley! Your examiner is Professor Marchban!"

William stood at the door announcing the menu and assigning the students to their assigned areas. Lupin stood beside him, helping out while learning—yes, he was there to learn how to administer exams, as he was a newcomer among the school's self-defense professors.

Age is age, and teaching experience is teaching experience. Even if a new professor is added, and the school plans to set up a self-defense office, the office director will be William, not Lupin. Even the Gryffindor headmaster, who has always favored Lupin, would not hesitate to let William take the position.

"Tell me, what was Professor Marchban thinking? Why would she personally preside over the fifth-grade exams? She usually oversees the seventh-grade exams, and most of the time she's just a figurehead—"

William couldn't help but be curious. When Dumbledore was studying, this professor had already made her name known throughout the wizarding world. If Harry Potter were to take the exam, the old man might watch with great interest for the entire time. But this year's fifth and seventh graders, even the best of them, Percy, William didn't think they were good enough to attract the attention of this examiner.

"I don't know either... Professor William."

Lupin was completely lost; he had been away from Hogwarts for too long and knew absolutely nothing about it.

"All right…"

William shook his head, thought for a moment, and put down the list.

"Aren't you going to make some adjustments, Professor William?"

Lupin whispered a suggestion. Although he wouldn't do it himself, his experience in the magical world told him that adjusting the list and sending the more outstanding children to Professor Machiban might improve the assessment results.

That's the Order of Merlin, after all.

"If it were you, would you make the adjustments, Professor Lupin?"

William leaned against the wall and stretched—after all, the students couldn't see the middle.

"I probably won't."

"Me too, Professor Lupin."

William smiled and shrugged.

-

"They're from the Weasley family—well, your redheads are quite distinctive, they're very memorable."

Professor Marchban looked at George. "Don't be too nervous. We're just having a practical exam."

Unfortunately, the exam was not as simple as Professor Machiban had described.

With a single shapeshifting spell, the elderly professor created an endless array of adversaries for George—even though it was just a rope, the shapeshifting technique mimicked dozens of common dangerous scenarios and creatures.

Because the imitations were so realistic, George even suspected that the creatures originally existed and had simply been transformed into ropes when dealing with them…

"call…"

He was panting heavily when he used the Exorcism Curse to kill his opponent again. The Iron Armor Curse and the Bubble Head Curse combined on his body made him look like a snowman.

"That was fantastic!"

Professor Marchban finally stopped waving his wand and gave him a fairly good evaluation.

"But why do you sometimes have the urge to throw something?"

She pointed out George's problem incisively—sometimes when dealing with danger, his hand, which wasn't holding his wand, would unconsciously reach into his pocket, but he would quickly stop himself.

"that…"

George hesitated for a moment, then decided to answer honestly, "Actually, I was planning to throw a frisbee or a dung ball to attract my opponent's attention."

"Flying disc? Dung ball?"

Professor Machiban paused for a moment, then chuckled. "Why not, child? It seems you've had some training in this area."

"The professor confiscated them, as he suspected that carrying those props was a form of cheating."

"Yes, there is one part that you came up with yourself?"

"Fred and I, my brother, came up with it together. When the professor found out, he confiscated our frisbees and dung balls before the exam."

"You always carry it with you?"

"Yes, Professor Marchban."

"Can we use something else to simulate the combat style you've come up with?"

...

"That's how it is. The dung ball will explode, but we won't be affected by the Bubble Head Curse..."

George happily demonstrated and then described the advantages they thought they could gain from it.

"It seems like it's more than that, isn't it?"

Professor Machiban asked questions as he watched.

"In our plan, we were also supposed to bring some newly invented gadgets to block our vision, but we were stopped before we could even finish the research. The professor thought our foundation was too weak and that we would have to pass several exams with high scores before we could continue."