A crisp round of applause rang out across the dueling grounds.
After forcing Orlando to concede, George and Fred turned toward the sound and saw Leonard sitting on a small chair—no one knew who had brought it—clapping enthusiastically.
"Nicely done," Leonard said as he stood up, looking thoroughly satisfied.
Orlando froze the moment he saw Leonard. Hearing that voice, realization hit him all at once. Wasn't this the same voice that had been stirring the crowd up earlier?
So this was all your doing?
As for George and Fred, the two of them were even more annoyed. They had gone all out dealing with so many people and had nearly been overwhelmed in the end.
If not for their ability to adapt on the fly, plus years of instinctive coordination, the two of them would probably have been knocked flat already.
"Leonard! We want to duel you!" Fred shouted, buoyed by the confidence he'd gained from defeating so many classmates.
"Duel me? The two of you? Right now?" Leonard asked in return.
Those three questions in a row instantly shattered Fred's confidence. He hesitated, glanced at George, and asked weakly, "S-So… are we fighting or not?"
George slapped a hand to his forehead, utterly speechless.
With that one question, whatever momentum they had built was gone.
"Forget it!" George said, walking toward Leonard. Then he suddenly turned around and fired a Stunning Spell at Orlando.
Orlando, who had still been wondering whether he should call someone to carry all the unconscious students to the hospital wing, went flying with a loud crack.
Before blacking out, he shot George a dazed look.
What kind of lunatic is this?
The dueling grounds were littered with unconscious students, looking more like a mass casualty scene than anything else.
Yet the instigators, George and Fred, were beaming, their expressions disturbingly cheerful, like deranged killers fresh off a spree.
"Hehehe, so what do you think, Leonard? Fred and I count as graduated now, right?" George said excitedly, rubbing his hands together. "When can we go hunt Acromantulas?"
"Any time," Leonard replied. "Just be careful not to go too deep into their territory. At your current level, getting surrounded would still be very dangerous."
As he spoke, Leonard handed George a slip of paper. "This has that person's name and address on it. Use an owl to contact him when you trade. If you need anything, just write to him directly. He'll help you prepare it."
George and Fred now had enough ability to protect themselves. Letting them hunt Acromantulas to earn money for materials was reasonable.
Leonard was still looking forward to seeing the complete version of their Portable Swamp, the kind that could permanently alter terrain.
"That's perfect!" Looking at the hard-won "source of income" in their hands, George and Fred hugged each other excitedly, as if they'd just seized hold of their future.
Watching how happy the twins were, a sudden wicked urge bubbled up in Leonard's mind.
"George. Fred," Leonard called softly.
"Hm?" Hearing his voice, the two paused their celebration and looked over, puzzled.
"This might be a bit sudden, but I really can't help asking," Leonard said, wearing a troublemaking smile. "Exams are in two weeks. Have you two been studying lately?"
The expressions on George and Fred's faces froze solid.
Even with a new way to make money, they still had to admit that the first thing they needed to deal with was studying…
Otherwise, going home for the summer would definitely not end well.
But before they could even worry about exams, there was another problem waiting for them.
Easter holiday homework.
With exams approaching, the amount of homework had exploded, and the two of them had been so absorbed in training that they hadn't written a single assignment.
Even copying would take time.
Just thinking about it filled George and Fred with despair.
...
The Easter holiday passed, and two weeks slipped by in the blink of an eye.
Early summer crept closer. The forests around Hogwarts grew ever more lush, the temperature still pleasant, plants growing wildly and brimming with life.
Inside Hogwarts Castle, however, the students who should have been full of youthful energy looked like wilted plants starved of water.
The reason was simple.
Final exams had arrived.
Although the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Quirrell, had died suddenly, the exam for the subject was not canceled.
There was no practical exam, but the school took out last year's Defense Against the Dark Arts written paper and made this year's students sit it.
That completely caught everyone off guard.
After Quirrell's death, many students had said Defense Against the Dark Arts was basically pointless. On top of that, hearing there would be no exam this year, a lot of them had simply stopped reading the textbook.
No one expected the school to pull something like this and hand out last year's exam instead.
In the exam hall, the students' resentment was almost tangible. More than a few wondered whether Hogwarts had some personal grudge against them.
But there was nothing they could do about it. They were students, after all, and could only comply.
Leonard, on the other hand, didn't really mind. The Defense Against the Dark Arts written exam wasn't particularly difficult. It mostly asked about common dark creatures, their usual habitats, activity ranges, and survival habits.
All of it came straight from the textbooks. Anyone who had actually read them would be fine.
The professors were also worried that making the questions too hard would be unfair to students who hadn't finished the course.
...
By comparison, the truly difficult written exams were Potions and Herbology.
For first-year Potions, the written portion mainly focused on the sources of potion ingredients or the differences between potions referred to by certain terms.
Much like the questions Snape asked Harry Potter in his very first class in the original story.
There were also fill-in-the-blank and short-answer questions, such as when to add specific ingredients to a particular potion.
Then there were History of Magic and Astronomy, which were entirely written exams as well. These were a breeze for Leonard. All it took was memorization.
Honestly, the exams themselves weren't that hard to begin with. The written portion wasn't especially important either, accounting for only thirty percent of the total grade.
For wizards, practical ability was what really mattered.
Still, even before the practical exams began, plenty of students were already on the verge of collapse from the written tests alone.
After finishing the final written exam in History of Magic, Ernie, Justin, and Leonard walked out of the exam hall together.
Ernie and Justin still looked completely dazed.
"Bloody hell, that History of Magic exam was brutal," Ernie complained. "I always mix up Uric the Oddball and that villain Morik, and of course that's exactly what they tested."
"Same," Justin said worriedly. "I just hope I don't score below an E this time."
"Isn't that normal?" Leonard said with a laugh. "Exams always test what you didn't memorize, and what you did memorize never comes up."
Ernie and Justin: …
Damn. That actually makes way too much sense.