Hearing his Potions professor's haughty grumbling, Loren rolled his eyes. If you don't like it, put it down—why so many complaints?
For the sake of Hogwarts students' lovely academic lives, Loren simply handed Professor Snape a magical notebook.
Snape eyed the thing, a bit puzzled, but accepted and opened it, finding a blank notebook inside. His mouth immediately started dripping venom. "My dear student still remembers to bring his teacher a Christmas present—even if it's just a blank notebook. I'm… touched. Even though Christmas was ages ago."
Loren glanced at the carefully kept bottle of Polyjuice Potion on the desk and shot back without backing down. Snape, hearing that, casually slid the bottle into a drawer, lowered his head, and studied the notebook in silence.
Seeing him yield, Loren didn't twist the knife. He began explaining how to bind the magical notebook and how to use it to speed-grade the workbooks.
Snape quickly grasped its virtues and was about to warn Loren about a couple of points when Loren cut in, "It's a joint product of the Longbottom and Weasley families. It'll officially go on sale this month."
Snape let the matter drop, pointed at the door, and wordlessly dismissed him. With Snape's tsundere personality, not refusing was as good as agreeing.
With that tough nut cracked, the rest were easy: gift each professor a bound set of workbooks and a magical notebook—done. Everyone who received the pair was delighted, save two who had bones to pick with Loren.
Professor McGonagall chided him for not bringing such a marvelous tool earlier; she could have saved mountains of time instead of spending nearly every spare hour reviewing submitted papers. Because of all that reviewing, she had only managed to watch Gryffindor's Quidditch matches this year and missed the other Houses entirely—that was the main reason for her complaint. Still, it wasn't too late. Even now, she received many papers forwarded by Transfiguration Today. Fewer than at the start, but enough to devour most of her free time.
Professor Flitwick was the second. He wasn't blaming Loren for compiling workbooks and adding to students' workload; he blamed him for not compiling them sooner. Fifth- and seventh-years were about to sit their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s—springing this now was late. Defense Against the Dark Arts, with its one-teacher-per-year curse, had taught students precious little for ages; the pass rate kept sinking, and it pained Flitwick. After taking a DADA workbook and a fresh magical notebook from Loren, he hurried off—clearly to speak with Dumbledore about it.
What could Flitwick say, really? The annual consumable has no rights.
With goals achieved, Loren returned to his dorm in high spirits, pulled out his own notebook, and—with Rona's help—peeked at the message streams flowing through the professors' magical notebooks. Not voyeurism; he was tracking the rollout and gathering user-experience data for improvements.
He discovered the professors adapted fast; group chats sprang up at once. An amusing pattern appeared: any group that included Snape soon spawned a second group—without Snape. The discovery left Loren blinking, struck by the déjà vu of girls' dorms where five people somehow have ten chats.
Once Dumbledore joined the chats as well, the workbook plan was effectively set. Loren stopped caring about their private social lives.
George and Fred, after finishing a print run of workbooks and broomsweeping the backlog, delivered sets to every class head at top speed. They also pulled the House prefects together overnight and spun them the origin story—politely beautified. They certainly didn't admit that the upper-years had pestered Loren to the brink, forcing him to crank out workbooks. Instead they said the Lion King was worried about students' grasp of fundamentals: if you can bluff through finals, your O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s will be a disaster. For the students' bright future, he had painstakingly compiled workbooks for every year so everyone could drill, patch gaps, and improve.
Someone who didn't get it piped up: "If the Lion King is so worried about students' learning, everyone should go ask him questions—don't let his efforts go to waste."
Two prefects even nodded along, thinking it made sense: we should all go consult the Lion King more. The others glared. How could anyone be that dense? Didn't he hear the subtext?
Seeing it was Percy speaking—and that the nodding few were Hufflepuff's fifth- and sixth-year prefects—everyone turned their eyes to George and Fred at the head of the room, as if to say, "Your idiot brother…"
The twins looked at their elder brother, helpless. They'd always known he was rule-bound; they hadn't realized he was this literal. How would he survive at the Ministry someday, where people had layers upon layers of schemes?
Percy still didn't see anything wrong. Why were they all staring at his two brothers, and why were the twins' faces so strange?
At last, Ravenclaw's seventh-year prefect spoke. "Our House doesn't mind more avenues for knowledge. But for the good of the whole student body, keep your own Houses in check. Upper-years already drown under professors' papers; add these workbooks, and free time vanishes. If people keep running to the Lion King with easy questions, he'll conclude the homework isn't enough and raise the load. Then we're truly finished."
When he finished, the other prefects exchanged looks and nodded together. Consensus reached, they filed out. The two Hufflepuff prefects who'd agreed with Percy were hauled away by their own Housemates.
That left Percy and the twins staring at each other. The other Gryffindor prefects didn't bother intervening.
Seeing Percy still hadn't twigged, George and Fred took him by the arms and hauled him from the empty classroom. All the way down the corridor, Percy kept flapping his mouth: "Why can't people ask Loren questions? He's nice—like family. If everyone goes to him, he'll build more relationships. It helps his future!"
The twins traded a look. Was he worldly naive—or just naive?
"Lions walk alone. Dogs run in packs," one said. "Loren is a proud Lion King. His followers will gather on their own, not because he forces it."
Seeing Percy still baffled, they put it plainer. "Dear brother—you don't want summer homework, do you?"
"Picture it: a long holiday and you can't go out with friends. Locked at home, churning through test papers."
Their duet finally cooled Percy down. Self-interest clarified his thoughts. Imagining his entire summer shut indoors with endless worksheets and no fun made him shudder. Once Percy had seen the light, the twins clapped his shoulders and left, while he stood frozen in place, face shifting through colors, spooked by whatever terrible scenarios he had just pictured.
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Loren（罗伦）— non-canon OC in this fanfic
Severus Snape（斯内普教授）— canon
Polyjuice Potion（复方药剂）— canon
magical notebook（魔法笔记本）— non-canon tool in this fanfic
workbook / teacher pack（练习册 / 台订版）— non-canon materials in this fanfic
Minerva McGonagall（麦格教授 / 米奈娃·麦格）— canon
Transfiguration Today（"今日变形术"）— canon magazine
Filius Flitwick（弗利维教授）— canon
Defense Against the Dark Arts / DADA（黑魔法防御课）— canon subject
Albus Dumbledore（邓布利多）— canon
prefects（级长们）— canon role
Percy Weasley（帕西·韦斯莱;文中异体"咱西/西"）— canon
George Weasley（乔治·韦斯莱;文中异体"乔氵台/乔氵台"）— canon
Fred Weasley（弗雷德·韦斯莱;文中异体"弗富德/富德"）— canon
Hufflepuff（赫奇帕奇;文中异体"赫奇咱奇"）— canon House
Ravenclaw（拉文克劳）— canon House
Lion King（狮子王,指罗伦的绰号）— non-canon epithet in this fanfic
Rona（罗娜）— non-canon helper/system in this fanfic