From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

"What? The snakewood was burned?"

"What a joke! That thing has already been tested with all sorts of magic, and apart from the most dangerous Fiendfire, no magic can harm that snakewood..."

Principal Iphamoni paced anxiously back and forth in the tent, his face full of worry.

The oldest thing in the school is that snakewood tree; it was left by the founder to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Iphamoni lineage…

"Suppress it, suppress the news—at least suppress it completely before the third match starts. If the news of the Snakewood fire gets out, who knows what other rumors will spread..."

"Use metamorphosis to create a fake snakewood, and then claim that we have decided to build a giant greenhouse to better protect it."

"We must do everything we can to delay the news. The three-way battle must be completed successfully. We cannot allow the scandal of the snakewood fire to spread before the competition is over."

“Conduct all investigations discreetly, without attracting the attention of the newspapers,” he said firmly, turning to his professor, Gilbert. “Go back and completely suppress the matter. The news of the Snakewood fire must be delayed until after the Triwizard Tournament, until we are confirmed to participate in the next tournament, before it can reach us here.”

They traveled all this way to compete not to be anyone's supporting player, but to join the top three club. They can worry about their ranking, but they will never give up their spot.

Once news of the fire at the snakewood tree spreads, at best they'll be extorted by those three families, at worst they'll lose their chance to participate altogether. Such a price is unacceptable to Iphamoni, so they must keep it a secret, and that's all they can do.

"Okay, I'll personally meet with those students and professors who stayed on campus, then forge new snakewood and build a new greenhouse..."

Gilbert bowed to the old headmaster and hurriedly took his leave.

-

"Horoscope..."

William sat in his office, staring blankly at the book Dumbledore had given him.

Even in a book as wicked as this one, there is no description of multiple Horcruxes—according to Sirius, the locket he obtained from their house-elf Kreacher was undoubtedly a Horcrux, and had received Dumbledore's approval.

'Harry is a Horcrux, and that locket is a Horcrux, so why did the Dark Lord resurrect in Harry's body but not in Sirius's Horcrux?'

"Is it because Harry was the last Horcrux to be created?"

"Is it because the Horcruxes on Harry weren't perfectly made?"

He patiently read every word in the book, but still couldn't find the answer—creating Horcruxes was already the most evil spell, what normal wizard would think of creating multiple Horcruxes?

'Furthermore, that tiara from Ravenclaw has probably also been made into a Horcrux, otherwise Dumbledore wouldn't have studied it for so long, much less made the connection to Horcruxes…'

He sighed, deciding to put the problem aside for now and consider it again when Dumbledore went to find the Horcruxes—clearly, the Horcrux Sirius found was different from the one Dumbledore found, which meant the Dark Lord had gained another Horcrux…

'Isn't he afraid of splitting his soul and killing himself?'

William made one last complaint before focusing his attention on the thick stack of papers in front of him—it was pointless to speculate about the Dark Lord's situation without enough clues; he needed to be concerned about the fifth-grade students' exam results now.

This method of diverting attention was exceptionally effective. In less than ten minutes, he angrily pulled out another piece of parchment and wrote down the names of the few papers he had selected.

'Very good, very good…'

William looked at the names and gave a rather cruel smile.

-

"Students whose names are called, please stand up..."

"There was a little accident in the Gryffindor common room during Easter, but what I'm wondering is why so many of your papers were mostly burned..."

"If I remember correctly, the day I put out the fire, it seemed that the flames only affected a few dorm rooms. Why did everyone else's exam papers end up over there and get burned together?"

"Were they borrowed by fourth-year students? Or were they taken by students from other dormitories for reference?"

The classroom was completely silent. Hufflepuff, who was in the class with them, couldn't help but look at the Gryffindors with admiration—had the flames damaged your brains, that you would try such a thing with the professor?

"Don't forget, the OWLS exam is still a few days away!"

William turned his hand over and tapped the table with his curled fingers. "I don't want any of you to have even the slightest bit of wishful thinking. So, those of you who burned your papers today, including those who actually caused the fire, go back and complete your papers, and create another paper based on the knowledge points covered in that paper..."

"Ok?"

The students below were stunned—what did it mean to give another test paper?

"No additional content is allowed to account for more than 20 points, and offensive language is prohibited. Your papers will be used as the Slytherin exam for the next class, and every score will be tallied..."

"If their scores are too high, you'll have to clean the toilets; if their scores are too low, they'll have to clean the toilets..."

"That's settled then. You should hand in the papers you've prepared before class next week. I'll prepare the papers for the rest of the students, including Gryffindor. If their scores aren't high enough, I'll just add more homework."

"Alright, let's begin the lesson."

-

"Harry, you're back."

When Ron saw Harry, he hugged his good brother with a happy face, "I can't believe it, Dumbledore actually gave you a temporary leave when your injuries haven't fully healed yet."

"Ah."

Harry nodded, trying to look happy—he had just returned from Sirius's office and wasn't in a good mood.

Sirius's condition had only improved somewhat, but he was still sad. Although he tried his best to appear happy during his time with Harry, Harry could tell that Sirius was just pretending to avoid making him worry.

Harry had never met Sirius's brother, the one named Regulus, but he could tell that Sirius was sad for him.

'He probably doesn't have a good relationship with his brother... He's not even used to calling him "brother"...'

Harry couldn't imagine what kind of relationship it was. Theoretically, he and Dudley were brothers, but they never called each other brothers—Sirius probably did too, which made it feel too distant for him to call Regulus, but he wasn't used to calling him his brother. He could only use a slightly affectionate but not quite brotherly name for that kid as a substitute.

Sirius seemed happy during his recovery time, but when it was time for him to leave, he looked reluctant to part but didn't know how to say it—unfortunately, he couldn't. Although Harry had written to Dumbledore beforehand to discuss whether he could stay a few more days, Dumbledore refused…

"Harry? Harry?"

Ron waved his arm in front of him, and Harry snapped out of his daze—but he couldn't tell Ron about his distress; that would be too disrespectful to Sirius… not to mention there were things he and Dumbledore had promised not to tell anyone.

"what happened?"

"Transfiguration homework, Harry, please!"

Ron pushed the textbook towards them—Professor McGonagall had recently started teaching them some Transfiguration applications that could be used for escape and firefighting because of the fire in the common room. Although it was fun to learn, it made the homework much more difficult.

"Hmm...I need to check my textbooks. Where's your notebook, Ron?"

-

As time passed, the aftermath of the Gryffindor common room fire began to fade.

The fifth-graders started crying and screaming, and the professors began to take drastic measures. Professor William, who was always ruthless, was one of them, but the other professors also started stuffing all sorts of random things into the homework.

"I'm going to die, I'm going to die..."

After the Transfiguration class ended, as the students hurriedly put down their textbooks and homework and headed to the History of Magic classroom, Professor Binns appeared in the classroom in a posture that hadn't changed in who knows how many years.

but…

As the students looked relaxed, ready to catch up on their sleep during the class, Professor Binns said something they had never heard before.

"Well... it's not good to change the course content without permission, but this year is indeed very special... after all, there is a three-way competition this year."

"I occasionally overhear professors in the faculty lounge saying that this year's students' grades seem to have been greatly affected by the competition..."

This phrase sounded strangely familiar to the students—every professor had been talking about similar topics lately, then using the excuse of OWLS to teach them a lesson through class content and assignments, or rather, to give them a beating…

Unfortunately, this year's students have a remarkable talent for predicting their own misfortunes.

"I tried to create an exam paper in my spare time while compiling the school history, modeled after the OWLS exams of recent years... or perhaps the last ten years or so?"

“Because this is the first time I’ve done something like this…” Professor Binns, who is always very confident in his course content and does not allow anyone to question it, even hesitated a little. “So, the difficulty of the test may not be well controlled… However, I have also prepared some review notes for you to copy, which I hope will help your grades.”

...

"That's it, that's it! You have no idea how terrifying fifth grade is. Even Professor Binns started trying to get us notes! Do you know how devastated we were when we were copying those review notes off the blackboard?"

In the father-in-law's lounge, a fifth-grader, who had finally finished his test paper, took a break and complained to the fourth-graders around him. Before they could respond, he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and buried his head in another test paper, starting a new round of review.

The fourth-year students, whose dormitories were still not repaired, could only sigh and suppress their pent-up frustration.

'If word got out about how Potter was treated, the fifth graders would probably go crazy…'

But in the end, he said nothing, silently finished his homework, and once again envied Harry Potter in his heart.

There was no other way; as the final match of the Triwizard Tournament drew ever closer, the professors began to use various underhanded methods to help Harry.

First, there was Professor McGonagall, the headmistress of Gryffindor, who was always strict—she gave Harry the same treatment she usually received when the team was close to the finals, exempting him from all his classwork and occasionally using the time after regular class time to talk about extension magic that would leave most of the students in the room confused…

Of the students present, only Granger, Potter, and a few others with exceptional talent in this course could comprehend the professor's teachings after much contemplation…

Professor Flitwick's favoritism wasn't much different; while he didn't exempt Potter from his homework, he would occasionally teach his students spells that most people wouldn't understand during training...

The other professors followed suit, offering Potter all sorts of extra-curricular spells—this was the most infuriating part, since every professor had explained it, and they didn't even require students to complete exercises before listening, yet most people still couldn't understand…

But none of that is outrageous enough…

The most outrageous one is Professor Snape.

He even mocked Gryffindor only twice in a single class, and one of those times it wasn't Harry but Neville!

Even the points deducted were reduced by more than half—which made every Gryffindor who heard the news skeptical, but it was indeed the real deal!

-

"Good afternoon, Potter. What's training today?"

The four of them were already quite used to training according to the projects Harry had proposed.

Although no one was initially willing to admit it, Harry's questions were often the most pointed, and he was able to offer solutions to most of them.

This is outrageous, but everyone's used to it.

Moreover, now is not the time to consider those details—Harry wasn't the only one receiving special treatment; everyone in their grade received various preferential treatments. Fortunately, most of them were Quidditch players, so they could barely adapt.

Such preferential treatment did not come out of thin air, and everyone present had no intention of letting down the professor and students.

Now, they are just one step away from victory, and each of them is under tremendous pressure, with their training time being extended every day.

Harry didn't even have much time left for dates. The four of them spent all their time in an empty classroom, except for classes. This classroom was not occupied by any professors or students, and they consciously kept a close eye on them when people from other schools passed by to prevent anyone from causing trouble.

The days passed by little by little in this monotonous training, and then came to a standstill.

"There's very little time left in the competition—we're about to have our final showdown: the maze!!!"

A month before the game, training was suddenly interrupted, and all the warriors were called over and informed of this news.

This time, the competition is really coming.

Chapter 488 The Exam That Was Overshadowed