One week later. Hogwarts Castle.
Autumn wind rolled dead leaves against the windows along the corridor to the Great Hall, filling the air with a hollow, rattling sound.
But that chill was nothing compared to the atmosphere in front of the notice board.
Nearly half the castle's students were crammed before those enormous parchment lists, packed as tight as the Quidditch World Cup final. The air carried a distinct mixture of anticipation, dread, and quiet despair.
Today was the day the monthly exam results went up.
Ron's face had crumpled like a shriveled plum. He had a death grip on Harry's sleeve and refused to move another inch forward.
"I can't see, Harry. Can't see a thing." He muttered it to himself like a private mantra. "That's fine. That's good."
As if not seeing meant it wasn't there.
He could already picture it: the moment that pitiful Potions score reached home, his mother's Howler would go off like a red bomb in the middle of the Gryffindor common room.
Hermione was the exact opposite.
She was already cutting through the crowd like a nimble little boat, forcing her way forward with her elbows, muttering the whole time.
"That Ancient Runes translation , I should have used a more precise root word... And the Divination star chart, my Mercury angle calculation might have been just slightly off..."
Every sentence made Ron's face go a shade paler.
A top student's anxiety, Harry reflected, was the cruelest form of torture for everyone else.
Harry's own heart was lodged firmly in his throat, though for an entirely different reason.
Failing? He wasn't worried about that.
What he was worried about was the stack of "Douglas's Private Papers" he'd spent more than half a month on, grinding himself down to almost nothing to finish. If all that effort hadn't made any difference at all...
God only knew what kind of "surprise" his great-uncle would come up with as a Christmas gift.
Just thinking about that ink that read questions aloud on its own made Harry shudder.
"Found it!" Hermione let out a short, sharp cry.
Harry and Ron both jerked forward, craning their necks over the crowd.
"Ron — Potions — P. Poor." Hermione's voice was carefully measured. "Not terrible. At least it isn't D."
Ron stared at her. All the tension drained out of him at once, and his whole body seemed to deflate.
"Is there actually a difference?"
"Of course there is. With what you pulled in that practical, you should be thanking your lucky stars it wasn't a T." She was already scanning further down the list. "Harry... yours is... Merlin's beard."
Her voice shot up an entire octave. Pure, unfiltered disbelief.
Harry's stomach dropped.
That's it. It's over.
"Defence Against the Dark Arts... O... O plus?!"
"O plus?"
Harry shoved his way to the front and finally got a clear look at the list.
There it was, beside his name, in the Defence Against the Dark Arts column: a large, bold "O" , and right next to it, an equally conspicuous "+" sign. And at the very end of the entry, a flamboyant signature swept across the parchment.
, Douglas Holmes.
"I've never heard of a grade like that!" Hermione's eyes were wide. For the first time in living memory, a blind spot had appeared in her knowledge base.
"What's so strange about it?" Ron said, having recovered enough to mutter. "Hogwarts has a thousand years of history, and there's never been a Professor Holmes either."
A calm voice came from just beside them.
"Congratulations, Harry."
Cedric Diggory stood there with a genuine smile, his expression warm with real admiration. He pointed at his own result on the list. "Mine is an O , Outstanding." He paused. "The O-plus the professor gave you means you're first in the year."
A ripple ran through the crowd. Every head turned toward Harry.
It was a look that held surprise, and jealousy, and something larger underneath both of those.
The warmth hit Harry all at once, rushing through him and sweeping away every last knot of anxiety in one go. He spun around and threw his arms around Ron, who still hadn't fully caught up with what was happening, and laughed.
"I did it! Ron! I actually did it!"
Ron made a strangled noise as Harry's grip tightened, his face somewhere between asphyxiation and existential despair.
Hermione pressed two fingers to her forehead and looked away in pure, theatrical disdain.
---
Elsewhere in the castle, the atmosphere was something else entirely.
In the Charms classroom, you could have heard a pin drop.
Professor Filius Flitwick stood atop his usual stack of books, his small frame somehow projecting the weight of a mountain. He held a thick sheaf of graded papers, his face dark enough to wring water from.
"The Levitation Charm."
His voice was sharp and precise, cutting clean through the silence.
"A foundational charm. One of the first a student learns." He let the pause stretch. "But what I observed in your wand movements was not Wingardium Leviosa."
He looked slowly around the room.
"What I observed was a troll attempting to swat a buzzing fly with a small stick."
The entire class sank lower in their seats.
Professor Flitwick lifted one paper off the pile and held it up.
"This student." His tone shifted into something almost reverent. "You are truly exceptional."
Several students exchanged nervous glances.
"You not only failed to levitate the feather , you successfully invented an entirely new charm." He set the paper down with deliberate care. "The Incineration Charm. Mr. Seamus Finnigan, at minimum, must actually speak the incantation before something explodes. You, apparently, need only wave your wand."
A burst of stifled laughter came from the corner of the room.
Professor Flitwick's gaze snapped toward it. The laughter died instantly.
"And the rest of you." He turned to a second stack , the practical assessments for the Mending Charm. "I asked you to repair a broken teacup. A single, broken teacup." He took up his wand and pointed to the results, one by one. "One of you repaired a shattered teacup into a slug. One of you produced a teacup with three legs. And this, "
He pointed to the worst offender on the table.
"A hybrid of a teacup and a quill. I shall call it, generously, a leaky pen holder."
The tension in the room dissolved into something faintly absurd.
Then Professor Flitwick's voice cracked like a whip.
"Do you think magic is child's play?!"
Every trace of comedy vanished. The room went rigid.
"Do you know what Hogwarts is about to host?" He didn't wait for an answer. "The Triwizard Tournament. The finest, most powerful young witches and wizards from Europe's most elite magical schools will be standing in this very castle." He let the silence work. "And you — Hogwarts students , what exactly are you planning to bring to that?"
His gaze returned to the leaky pen holder.
"A teacup that moves on its own?"
He brought the papers down on the lectern with a sharp crack.
The whole class flinched like a flock of startled quails.
Every single one of them was desperately thinking the same thing: we're only first-years.
Professor Flitwick surveyed their reactions with quiet satisfaction. He had to hand it to Douglas , that little trick of his actually worked.
---
If Flitwick's classroom was a sudden storm, then the Potions dungeon was a silent ice cellar.
The cold, damp air pressed in from all sides, thick with a lingering bitterness that crawled into the nose and refused to leave.
Severus Snape moved through the aisles between the obsidian-screened workstations like a ghost without a body, gliding without sound.
He said nothing.
He didn't need to.
Silence was his sharpest weapon.
---
P.S. , Daily Question Answer.
Answer: C
Explanation: Article 13 of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy stipulates that any accidental Muggle sighting of magic must be reported to the Obliviator squad within 24 hours , making option C correct. Option A is incorrect: magic must not be performed in front of Muggle children under any circumstances. Option B is incorrect: what is prohibited from sale to Muggles is specifically "items capable of exposing the wizarding world" , Quidditch balls may be sold to Muggle enthusiasts, provided they are disguised as ordinary balls. Option D is incorrect: wizards marrying Muggles require no formal application, though both parties must continue to observe their secrecy obligations.
➤ Next: Shocking! A New Teaching Assistant for Defense Against the Dark Arts!
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