Harry's exam results were less than ideal—so were most students', to the professors' surprise. It made no sense. They had talked big about making finals harder, but in practice didn't raise the bar that much; the written papers all pulled problem types straight from the workbooks, just with different numbers. As for the practicals, they were only a shade tougher than first planned. Take Professor McGonagall: she simply used the Transfiguration grading tiers she'd discussed with Loren as the term test—each year was required to reach the matching tier. The others were similar, all within what they believed was reasonable.
In truth, the students' practicals were fine—barely clearing the professors' standards and justifying the curriculum reform. But the written scores were a train wreck.
During the term, professors had used magical notebooks to spot-check completion of workbooks and saw clean pages full of correct answers; expectations rose. Reality? Everyone "knew the drill": homework around the world is one big copy-fest, and Hogwarts' young witches and wizards were no exception. Every House and every year had a few top students who always finished first. Then one told ten, ten told a hundred, and answers spread across all four Houses.
This year, with finals approaching, a few older Slytherins led the way, teaming up with strong Ravenclaw students to "provide solutions" for every year. Because it was trial season near term's end, they charged each student just one small fee to "experience" the service; starting next year, it would be one Galleon per year. If you paid a little extra, they'd even do the work for you. One Slytherin produced a self-writing quill that could mimic someone else's handwriting, so professors wouldn't catch on from the script alone. Students exhausted by stacks of test papers saw such convenient services and didn't hesitate to spend pocket money. The results on the final written exams were… predictable.
Right now, Loren was using Rona's abilities to eavesdrop on the Heads of House holding a page-call inside the magical notebooks. Since he'd given the notebooks to the professors, most had come to love communicating there, which also kept Loren well supplied with information.
In the Heads' video chat, Severus Snape spoke first, stiff and severe. "We should not adopt Loren's suggestion. These workbooks cannot make brainless trolls learn anything. Perhaps I really should advise Dumbledore to restore the Middle Ages' harsher punishments. They might 'work' on students."
The other three Heads ignored the venom and began discussing on their own. Professor McGonagall spoke first, serious as stone. "There's nothing wrong with Loren's workbooks. You've all read them, or you wouldn't have approved them. Students did the exercises—every time I checked via the magical notebook, their answers were decent with few errors. Why do they fall apart on exams?"
"I think I know where the problem lies," said Professor Flitwick. "Please examine the images I just sent—see any differences?"
They were snapshots of third-year Charms workbook pages; the notebook auto-archives graded pages for later review. The three Heads fell silent and started scrolling. Honestly, even Loren had to rub his temples—if you're going to copy an answer key, at least don't make it identical in every way. Then again, these were British students encountering this kind of drill work for the first time; fair enough.
Professor McGonagall was so angry she nearly trembled. "How dare they—how dare they!"
Snape uploaded a few images of his own, each annotated with the student's name and House. The first was a Ravenclaw's page where a word had been erased and rewritten—originally "stir," but after smudging it looked like "stlro." He highlighted the spot. The following images—different students from different Houses—had the exact same oddity in the exact same place.
Smart people don't need much. The four Heads came to the same conclusion: there was an organized group providing "solutions" across Houses. With that hypothesis, they began checking more. Before, they had let the magical notebooks confirm completion and rarely scanned content. Now, even a rough look showed widespread copying—nearly every House had many students whose work was straight lifted. Even Ravenclaw wasn't exempt. It made Flitwick's face burn. People always said Ravenclaws loved studying; who knew they were about the same as the rest? His one solace: Ravenclaw had the fewest cheaters of the four.
Gryffindor's cheating tally was high, but when McGonagall found Harry hadn't copied, she let out a long breath. At least one of Gryffindor's two flagship names wasn't tainted. Credit to Hermione's tutoring and Neville's persistence—without them, Harry would have slipped onto the copy-train long ago.
The four shared a bitter smile; even the ever-sniping Snape fell quiet. Slytherin's numbers weren't lower than Gryffindor's.
"I think we must do something," said Professor Sprout first, skipping the nitty-gritty of punishing students; there were so many involved that going scorched-earth would create a mess. "Otherwise our reform will be ruined by these answer-peddlers."
She had a point; all nodded. But a concrete plan didn't come easily.
In the end, McGonagall offered an idea. "What if every student had a magical notebook, and we assigned homework only inside it? Would that help?"
"No," Flitwick shook his head. "It won't stop copying; it might even make it easier."
"I have some cooperation with the Longbottom family behind the notebooks," McGonagall continued. "Perhaps we can commission a student-edition notebook, with restrictions added?"
Snape cut in. "Just contact Loren. We're his teachers. We know the notebook is his work. No need to tiptoe around him."
Seeing the others agreed, McGonagall didn't argue. She pinged Loren through the notebook immediately.
Loren had been quietly watching the discussion when her call popped up; after a brief delay, he accepted. The four Heads' portraits filled the page. Snape drew breath to spray venom, but Flitwick held up a hand to stop him. "Loren, we need your help."
Flitwick briskly described the cheating ring and McGonagall's idea. Loren had known all this already, but put on the face of a first-time listener. After a moment's thought, he offered a solution:
"I can produce a run of magical notebooks specifically for Hogwarts students. The notebooks are already bound one-to-one, but I can add a dedicated anti-copy function: no cross-notebook copy/paste or mirroring, and flagged handwriting analysis. I can also provide personalized homework. If you load learning standards and topic banks into the notebooks in advance, they'll generate different sets for different students. The same engine can make on-the-fly quizzes with unique papers per student, so you can monitor learning at any time. I'll open teacher backends for you to assign work and track each student's progress."
Having been drenched in rain in a previous life, he knew how to hold an umbrella for the next batch.
The professors' mouths hung open. They'd planned to ask him for a single limiter feature; Loren had just flipped the whole table so there would be no chance to copy in the first place.
"How soon can you deliver what you described?" McGonagall asked, excited.
"The notebooks exist; it's just feature tweaks. I can get them into your hands tomorrow," Loren said after a beat.
"Good. Finish the functions and deliver them to our offices tomorrow," Flitwick said.
"Done. I'll have George and Fred bring them over," Loren replied, then ended the call and summoned the twins to brief them.
After he disconnected, the Heads sat in silence for a while. Finally, Professor Sprout spoke up. "Everyone, regarding punishment for the cheaters—I have a suggestion."
TN: Only 20 chapters left.
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