days at Hogwarts

Professor Marchbank stood beside the wooden table, her back hunched over, not much taller than the table. Time had left obvious marks on her body, her muscles were dry and her skin was wrinkled, but she looked energetic.

"Let me see, let me see..." Professor Marchbank flipped through the list in his hand and observed Loren approaching from above his nose-pinched glasses. His cloudy eyes were still bright, and he muttered in a loud voice, "Loren Morgan, right?"

Loren smiled politely: "Hello, Professor Marchbank."

"Hello, little one." Professor Marchbank smiled encouragingly and said in a loud old voice, "Relax and don't be nervous. I want you to take this goblet and let it do a few flips for me."

"Okay, Professor."

In practical exams, the more fancy and smoother and more natural your movements are, the higher your score will be.

Loren pointed the tip of his staff at the goblet, rehearsed in his mind for a few seconds, and then a stream of magic power was stimulated.

Some invisible ripples enveloped the glass goblet, and the hard material seemed to soften. It twisted in a very humane way, with the left and right sides of the rim imitating the feeling of hands, and the middle of the base slightly curved to simulate the feeling of feet.

Professor Marchbank's eyes lit up and he moved closer to observe it carefully.

The glass man took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, clasped his hands together in a fist salute, then stretched his body and began to dance with his limbs outstretched.

The momentum rises, the wild horses spread their manes to the left and right, the white crane spreads its wings...

The movements started slowly at the beginning and became faster and more intense later on. The glass man flipped and moved freely on the table, doing somersaults back and forth with great vigor. The movements had a unique beauty.

"what……"

Professor Marchbank laughed in surprise, wrote down a score on the list in his hand, and signaled him to stop: "Little guy who loves to show off, this reminds me of your principal."

Loren gathered his magic power, and made the goblet do a front flip back to its original position, swaying unsteadily: "Dumbledore?"

"Yes, when he took the NEWT exam, I personally supervised his Transfiguration and Charms exams. Like you, the tricks he performed with his wand were something I had never seen before..."

"Hey, can I ask Professor Dumbledore about his grades that year?"

Professor Marchbank chuckled twice and did not answer. Instead, he pointed at the test item and said, "Let's move on to the next item. I need you to use the levitation spell to make the wine glass fly around the table and land smoothly... Try to turn this poor white mouse into orange... Then the growth spell..."

"Okay, Professor..."

Loren performed magic according to the test requirements and tried his best to be original, but the requirements were too specific and detailed, leaving little room for creativity.

Some people can get excellent grades because that’s the limit of their abilities.

Some people can get excellent marks because full marks is just excellent.

Alas, is this the problem faced by excellent students?

"Okay, the practical exam is over. I wish you good luck on your next exam."

"Thank you for your blessing, Professor."

Loren nodded and politely said goodbye to the examiner whose age was unknown.

"The next group..."

……

Walking out of the hall and into the corridor outside, Loren quickly found Hermione in the crowd. Many other young wizards had not left either, and were waiting outside the door for their friends to come out to check their answers.

There were students from all colleges. Ernie from Hufflepuff finished his exams very early and was still chatting with other people outside. Whenever he met someone, he would go up to them and complain that he had misheard the side flip. He was only reminded after he had done several front and back flips. This would probably affect his scores and he might not get an excellent grade.

I don't know whether it's true or not, but it sounds like he's trying to get information about other people's mistakes.

Justin saw what his friend was planning and changed the subject, asking, "Did anything happen to your group during the exam?"

"What kind of surprises can there be in an exam?"

"I heard someone used a cloning spell on rats, and it got out of control, causing a few rats to escape."

"Who is it? It will definitely lead to serious deduction of points, right?"

"I also heard that in the group that just came out, someone was boxing with a goblet, and the examiner next to them was attracted by it."

"Really? The one who just came out...was it a boy or a girl? Which school are they from?"

The two were discussing in a low voice. Loren, who had been listening for a while, suddenly came over and whispered mysteriously, "He's a man. I heard he's quite handsome. The examiner at the time was stunned and couldn't take his eyes off him..."

Hermione hurriedly dragged the man away, her cheeks flushing a little.

Why can this person praise himself without any psychological barriers?

After a quick dinner in the evening, we returned to the common room and gathered together to review the Transfiguration exam that would be held the next day. However, someone led the topic off track and the group review turned into a chattering tea party.

The topic changed from the definition and application range of the Conversion Spell to which examiner looked the youngest and how old Professor Marchbank was...

Harry and Ron huddled together and whispered about the mistakes they made during the exam. Whenever Loren and Hermione approached them, they would quickly raise their heads and chests, put on a serious expression, and use their actions to refuse them from participating in the discussion.

But the two of them didn't hold it in for long and soon couldn't help but speak out.

Harry mixed up the test items for the color-changing spell and the growth spell, and as a result, the mouse that was supposed to turn orange suddenly swelled up dramatically until it became the size of a badger, and the weeds turned a strange ginger color... However, his examiner, Professor Tofty, didn't mind because he demonstrated proficiency in both types of magic.

Ron was so nervous that he didn't hear the question clearly and turned the plate into a big mushroom, so he will probably lose some points.

……

The next morning, there was a Transfiguration exam.

The essay question did include the definition of a conversion spell, but many people were busy chatting last night. The knowledge point was right on their lips, but what popped into their minds was that Professor Tofty looked even older than Professor Marchbank because he was bald.

Several Gryffindor students regretted their actions to the core.

Professor Tofty, who was supervising the exam, was a little puzzled. These little guys were not concentrating on reading the questions and kept looking at him. Why? He was not the one who set the questions on the test and there were no answers written on his face.

It's really weird.

The practical exam in the afternoon was the same as yesterday. The young wizards crowded into the small room on the right, waiting for the professor to call them out in alphabetical order.

When it comes to memory, muscles seem to be more reliable than the brain. Some young wizards were nervous and anxious before the exam and felt unsure, but they went into the exam room with their wands and performed their magic quite smoothly.

Loren's examiner this time was a middle-aged witch. The first question was to turn a long-haired lop-eared rabbit into a crow.

This is a very typical type of living metamorphosis of medium difficulty. The main difficulty lies in the control of the wings. Generally, when mammals transform into birds, their forelimbs or hind limbs will be transformed into wings. Rabbits have well-developed hind limbs, so many people will subconsciously choose hind limbs, which means they fall into the trap set by the question setter.

Because the ears of lop-eared rabbits are more suitable for transforming into wings.

"interesting……"

Loren walked out of the exam room fifteen minutes later, feeling that he had passed the practical exam perfectly.

Leaving the examination room and walking out into the corridor, Loren saw a large group of Hufflepuffs gathered together, with the clumsy Neville comforting the sobbing Hannah Abbott in the middle.

Loren looked around and scratched his head, but unfortunately Seamus hadn't finished the exam yet, so no one was explaining what had happened.

"Stop watching!" Hermione pulled him outside. "Hannah was so nervous that she was short of oxygen. She felt dizzy during the exam and even turned her ferret into a flock of flamingos, causing the exam to be interrupted for ten minutes."

Loren exclaimed in admiration: "A single small mammal transformed into multiple large birds across species. If I were the examiner, I would definitely give her full marks. Unfortunately, I'm not..."

Hermione looked at his expression, somewhat speechless.

The Herbology exam was held on Wednesday. Everything was fine during the written test in the auditorium, but a lot of trouble occurred during the practical operation in the third greenhouse.

Harry was bitten by the fang geranium, Ron was almost entangled by the poisonous tentacles, Justin didn't wear his earmuffs properly and was knocked unconscious by the cry of the mandrake. In addition, there were the devil's snares that entangled people, the bubble pods that hurt people, the barbo tubers that sprayed foul-smelling pus, and the Chinese biting kale that ran around everywhere...

As Loren left the examination room, he glanced at Professor Sprout at the door; her expression was dark and sour.

Thursday.

The subject of the written test in the morning was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Loren flipped through it before answering the questions and found that the material for the reading questions occupied three pages of parchment. The key content was Professor Lupin's explanation of the prevention and control measures for dark magic creatures. The highest-scoring analysis questions were mostly about the principles of targeted magic. Even if one could not remember the original text in the textbook, one could still infer it based on the reading materials.

Perhaps the people who set the questions at the Wizarding Examinations Authority were also aware of the current teaching situation at Hogwarts and took the initiative to lower the difficulty.

Half past two in the afternoon.

The waiting room is on the right side of the auditorium.

After hearing his name, Loren walked into the auditorium, and according to Professor Grindelwald's assignment, he came before Professor Marchbank and gave a demonstration according to the test questions.

The difficulty of the test questions gradually increases, from how to deal with the dark magic creature Boggart to how to deal with the bite of the magical animal Murtra Rat...

"Oh, this is a very novel approach. It seems to be very effective. Perhaps this should be included in the revised textbooks next year..."

Professor Marchbank said happily, leaning forward a little. "Excellent performance! Well, I think that's all the normal test questions. Morgan, show us your Patronus. It'll give you extra points."

Loren was not surprised, as other people in the auditorium had already begun to summon patronuses, some of which took shape, while others only had silver light.

"[Calling God to Guard]"

He turned his wand and spewed out wisps of silver mist, which gathered into a killer whale the size of a table. It swam around the two of them a few times, then turned into a ball of silver mist and disappeared.

"This is……"

Looking at the body shape that was inconsistent with that of a normal killer whale, Grindelwald's eyes changed slightly, as if he found it very interesting. He looked at Loren deeply, then looked away thoughtfully.

Professor Marchbank pushed up his glasses and smiled amiably, "Great! When Tiberus told us that Hogwarts had a Patronus class, I thought he was joking. I didn't expect so many students to have mastered it!"

"This is all thanks to the Ministry of Magic."

"Ok?"

"If they hadn't sent Dementors into the school, there wouldn't be so many students learning the Patronus Charm."

"Oh, those annoying guys..."

Professor Marchbank smiled and said, "This also proves that the teaching level of Hogwarts is improving. Looking back a hundred years ago, only Dumbledore could release a Patronus in the examination room. It was a phoenix! Oh, I still remember the scene at that time..."

Loren listened quietly to the old man telling stories about the past. Dumbledore was still a student at that time, and the feeling was a little subtle.

……

Friday afternoon.

In the empty courtyard, the little wizards sat lazily under the shade of the trees, feeling the summer breeze blowing lightly through the treetops, and the sound of the leaves swaying slightly was a sleep-inducing sound.

Loren squeezed Hermione's shoulders and listened to her mumbling about today's exam.

Today's exam subject was ancient runes. Only Hermione went to take the exam mumblingly and complainingly. Loren did not choose this subject. After sending her to the exam room, he stayed under the tree in the courtyard and had a comfortable sleep. When he woke up, the exam was over.

"I translated a word wrong. It means cooperation instead of defense, and I confused it with another word," Hermione said angrily.

"That's a really big mistake!" Loren pretended to be surprised. "I mean, this mistake is worth at least 50 points, right? It's directly related to passing or failing, and it's related to an OWL certificate. What do you think?"

"Shut up!"

Hermione was so angry that she laughed and couldn't help but gently bumped his head against his.

This person's way of comforting was a little irritating, but it was very effective. The annoyance in my heart disappeared without a trace in an instant.

"Exams, exams, the whole week is full of exams. My head is dizzy. Don't think about them after the exams. Have a good rest and relax on the weekend." Loren pressed her underdeveloped trapezius muscles, which were soft and bouncy and felt great.

"No, I have an exam next week, I have to seize the last bit of time to review!"

"Tsk, you!"

Loren shook her shoulders violently, loosening her tense muscles harshly, and then was countered, grabbing Destiny by the scruff of the neck.

This weekend inserted between exams was still full of anxiety. Most of the time, the little wizards were reviewing and preparing for next week's exam subjects. Some students said that they had failed the previous exams and chose to give up, but secretly hid in abandoned classrooms to memorize their lessons, and even scared a few ghosts.

Monday, Potions exam.

The reading test covered content related to Polyjuice Potion. The practical test in the afternoon was easier than expected. Professor Slughorn was not like Professor Snape. His kind gaze when patrolling the exam was not oppressive. Even Neville successfully completed the preparation of the potion.

Tuesday, Care of Magical Creatures exam.

The practical test in the afternoon was conducted on the grass at the edge of the forbidden forest. Students had to accurately identify the hedgehog hidden among a dozen hedgehogs, appease the angry Bowtruckle, and try to feed the fire crab without getting burned...