The last week of school was all about one thing: the exam results.
The written exams were rather easy.The practical exams were just as unimpressive, showing that the Hogwarts curriculum had pretty low standards.
Charms' practical was to make a pineapple tap dance; for potions, it was to brew a forgetfulness potion. As for Transfiguration, which was a little interesting but not complicated, it was to turn a mouse into a snuffbox.
'Nothing to think hard for,' he snickered, thinking of the exams.
When the lists were finally posted on the bulletin boards in the main hallway, nobody was surprised to see who was at the top. It was pretty much a given. Arthur's name was way ahead of everyone else, so far ahead that it didn't even seem fair. He was in a league of his own, and the gap between him and the rest of the class was huge.
Right behind the top spot, Hermione Granger was standing, her eyes fixed intently on the parchment, as if staring straight through it.
Second place.
Hermione's hands clenched into fists at her sides, her knuckles turning white. She stared at the name above hers: Arthur Pendergast. just a cold, solitary name that mocked her hundreds of hours of frantic studying.
"How am I behind that robot?" she thought, her internal monologue a tempest of sheer, unadulterated irritation.
She couldn't help but sneak glances at Arthur, who was leaning against the stone pillars, looking like he owned the place. His face was a picture of calm, like he was reading a book about something as boring as the weather. He didn't seem to care about the exam results, like they were just a formality or something. He just stood there, lost in his book, like the rest of the world was just background noise. No excitement, no joy, just a quiet confidence that was kind of annoying.
Hermione gritted her teeth, her frustration boiling over. She knew exactly why she had lost the top spot. It wasn't just Arthur's unnatural genius; it was the massive, gaping sinkholes in her revision schedule. And she knew exactly who to blame.
She shot a vicious, sidelong glare at Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, who were currently celebrating passing Herbology with scraping grades. These two idiots, she seethed internally. If they hadn't dragged her into a midnight duel with Malfoy, if they hadn't forced her to help smuggle a Norwegian Ridgeback up an astronomy tower, and if she hadn't spent the last week agonizing over the stone and Snape ... she would have had forty more hours of dedicated revision. Forty hours that could have closed the gap between her and the 'robot' who only ever seemed to talk about logic.
...
The Great Hall was all decked out in Ravenclaw's colors, blue and bronze, on the night of the Leaving Feast. They were way ahead of everyone else, with their hourglass filled to the brim with sapphires. Slytherin was right behind them in second place, which was pretty impressive considering their reputation for being ambitious and clever.
On the other hand, Gryffindor was struggling, and it was all because of Potter and his friends breaking the rules all the time. They were so far behind that statistically, they didn't even have a tiny chance of catching up to win the House Cup. It was basically impossible for them to even think about it. The numbers just weren't in their favor, and it seemed like their luck had run out.
Arthur sat at the Ravenclaw table, his plate loaded with a precisely calculated ratio of proteins and carbohydrates. He did not cheer with his housemates. He simply watched the High Table, his golden eyes fixed on Albus Dumbledore.
The headmaster got up, and the room became quiet. He smiled in his usual friendly way, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses. Then, he started showing his obvious favorites.Dumbledore spoke up, his voice loud and clear for all the students to hear, "I have a few last-minute points to dish out."
Dumbledore started giving out points, and Arthur's expression turned icy. Ronald Weasley got fifty points for beating someone at chess. Hermione Granger got fifty points for being logical and calm. Harry Potter got sixty points for being really brave. And Neville Longbottom got ten points for standing up to his friends, which was a pretty big deal. It seemed like Dumbledore was just making up these points as he went along.
The Great Hall erupted. The blue and bronze banners shimmered and dissolved, replaced by the garish red and gold of Gryffindor. The lions roared, celebrating a victory that had been handed to them outside the parameters of the academic system.
Arthur wasn't caught off guard. He had figured out that Dumbledore would likely step in, with a ninety-four percent chance of it happening. This was because of a major weakness in the headmaster's approach—he prioritized a good story over what was truly deserved and heroism over finding the most efficient solution.
Arthur on the other hand, believed in doing things his own way, rather than relying on a system that didn't always make sense, and it merely solidified Arthur's resolve that he would never rely on the rules of others.