"I... I can help you with the exam questions..." she said sheepishly.
Tom sketched a wicked grin, "Then say after me: I want your exam. Say it and I'll give you the exam."
"I... want your...exam!"
When she finished, she looked at Tom, only to find him looking at her with a smirk, Hermione was a little exasperated, "You're teasing me again! I..."
"Yes, it's great fun to play tricks on Granger!" admitted Tom frankly.
The reason Hermione was so squeamish was essentially because it was a foolproof trap to get an exam from a professor. As a good student trying to follow school rules, such behavior was too "depraved" in her own eyes.
But Tom gave the exams to Hermione before she could pull out her wand and give him a curse.
After such a "competition", Tom regained the lead in the competition between the two: before Hermione took advantage of his weakness and was "abused" madly, now he took the opportunity to recover.
With paper in hand, Hermione was like a cat on a full stomach, ignoring Tom and concentrating on her exam. It didn't take her long to finish the questions. When she finished the exam, Hermione kicked Tom and handed it to him.
"Let's see your grade," Tom said as he took the exam from Hermione's hand with the ink still on it, scanned it and was a little surprised to see that Hermione got a perfect grade.
"That's good!" exclaimed Tom, the exam was still twenty questions of indeterminate choice, it wasn't hard to pick the right answer, the hard part was picking them all.
"That's it!" Hermione took the papers happily, as if she had achieved something great.
The sun streamed in through the window and shone on her exam paper, making the surface of the dried ink glisten.
...
The classroom was filled with the rustle of quills on the exam.
The ink on the exam shone brightly. Percy put down the pen, relieved.
"That's a lot of questions today." He thought to himself. Sunlight streamed in through the classroom window and hit his modest desk, the same one used for the O.W.L. exam, which Tom had copied almost exactly for the sake of authenticity. From space to time, from parchment to pen, it was exactly the same.
Percy glanced at his own exam to make sure he hadn't made any low-level mistakes. There were still a few questions he wasn't sure about, but he was careful to leave them blank and not make up a single option. Tom had said that there might be a change in the format of the exam this year, and that the Magic Examination Board had changed the format of the questions to include multiple choice questions that deduct points. It's best to skip questions you don't know.
After reading his own exam, Percy looked at Wood, who was sitting near him. Wood, red-faced, was writing furiously, the only thing stopping him was dipping his quill in the ink.
Clang! With a crisp sound, Wood's face instantly turned ashen.
"Exam time, candidates, put down your quills and stop answering questions." Tom tapped the hourglass on the table, emitting a crisp sound.
The young wizards stopped their quills and folded up their exam papers and placed it on the corner of the table.
With a wave of his wand, Tom deftly used the Levitating Charm to collect the exams from the young wizards' classroom.
Tom pulled out his enhanced automatic marking machine, slipped in the exam scrolls, and the alchemy machine quickly graded the exams. During the waiting period for the results to come out, the atmosphere in the classroom was even more tense than it had been during the test
Cassandra narrowed her eyes, noticing that the professor's alchemy machine seemed to have become more advanced, now capable of marking short answer questions!
Naturally, not to mention Tom's growing skill in alchemy, the machine had been manipulated by Dumbledore. Not to mention that it worked quite well.... Although it sometimes made the mistake of artificially slowing down, it was still incredibly efficient at correcting assignments.
The principle is not too difficult: just type in some keywords for the short answer questions before the test, and then type in the standard answers, which the machine will refer to in order to grade the exams and give the final score. It's not as accurate, but at least it's fast. Also, in a mock exam, the score is just a reference. It's a matter of adjusting and getting used to the test.
Tom handed out the corrected scrolls, along with the reference answers.
"Correct them yourselves, and if you don't understand something, discuss it amongst yourselves."
At these words, there was a murmur in the classroom.
"Ah! I shouldn't have taken so long!" cried Wood, holding his head, looking extremely annoyed, "I didn't have time to read the last big question!"
Percy glanced at the exam, the questions were not graded in difficulty, the last one on the other hand was easy.
"Ah, just give me five minutes!". Wood noticed the same thing.
"If you had flipped through the exam when you received it, you wouldn't have made such a low-level mistake," said Cassandra, sitting diagonally across from Wood, in an arrogant tone. Wood's voice was loud enough to be heard throughout the classroom, and Cassandra, who was sitting diagonally across from him, could hear it perfectly.
"Of course, I can sympathize with your lack of perspective."
As condescending as ever, but rightly so, Wood could only lower his head and sulk.
After nearly half an hour of discussion, the young wizards solved their problems internally with the help of the referenced answers.
"Very well, that concludes this mock exam. There are only a few days left until the O.W.L., so I wish you all the best of luck with the exams." Tom bowed to the students, and the students applauded as well.
You can all have different careers, some of you want to go to the Ministry of Magic, some of you can become a Quidditch player, some students can go on to inherit the family business," Tom paused, sweeping his eyes over Cassandra, "And, of course, some of you can open a magic store..."
"Whatever you choose to be, I hope that the skills I have taught you this academic year will help you, and I hope more than anything that you will develop the ability to think independently and learn on your own throughout the year."
A student burst out laughing, "Professor, that sounds like a valedictory speech!".
The classroom was filled with happiness. As far as the students were concerned, Professor Lockhart was doing a great job, so how could he not teach next year? And the curse? Professor Lockhart's best skill was breaking curses!
"Indeed, at the end of this academic year, I will be resigning my position in Defense Against the Dark Arts."
The class was silent for a moment.
"Professor, is it because of the curse?" Said the boy who had just spoken bitterly, for the young wizards at Hogwarts, a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was like opening a lottery. This time, they had gotten a slightly more reliable teacher, but they were still leaving after a year of teaching!
How could they accept him?!