After the Easter vacations, the Scottish Highlands entered the most pleasant phase of the year, with warm sunshine and a breeze that made you feel slightly tipsy, but the young wizards of 5th and 7th year were tucked up in their houses revising and constantly in and out of the library. Harry pretended that his bad mood was due to the approaching exams. His fellow Gryffindor students were already distracted by their homework.
Hermione ran to Tom's office whenever she could. They chatted, studied, ate snacks, practiced spells, and played a couple of games of wizard chess in their free time.
They often spent the afternoon together like this.
As the O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams approached, brochures, flyers and notices about various magical careers appeared in the common rooms of the Houses, and the House notice boards were filled with job offers from various companies.
Hogwarts is considered the best wizarding school in the world, with an ancient and rich history, excellent teachers, and the mighty Dumbledore as the backbone of Hogwarts. Although Ilvermorny has gained momentum in recent years, and Beauxbatons is getting richer thanks to Nicolas Flamel's support, but when it comes to the best school for magic, Hogwarts is still the best wizarding school.
With such a high level diploma, as Professor McGonagall used to say, any young wizard graduating from Hogwarts could get a decent job, as long as he or she was not at a great disadvantage in status or uneducated. Companies founded by the men and women who had graduated from Hogwarts over the centuries naturally preferred to hire their alumni, and several companies in the wizarding world, such as the Comet Trading Company, also preferred to hire at Hogwarts.
Tom, who was a full professor at Hogwarts, was also sent a packet of information about the demand for N.E.W.T. grades and the general content of the jobs.
Naturally, Hermione had seen the brochures.
"So, Hermione, what do you want to do when you graduate?"
Hermione shook her head, "It's too soon to talk about that. You see, this job in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes looks interesting." she set aside the flyer for Gringotts Wizarding Bank for a spell reader, "A spell reader requires numerology and divination, I'll have to finish my third year to judge that, but I'm not really interested in the banking industry..."
"Wow, this muggle liaison job looks really cool! It doesn't require many qualifications, they only ask for an O.W.L Muggle Studies certificate, do you think they'll send me to liaise with the Prime Minister?" Hermione seemed to have found something precious. Wizards went to great lengths to isolate themselves from the Muggle world, so a Muggle who was going to be contacted by the magical world must have found himself in a very unusual situation.
"Actually, you might consider working for the Ministry of Magic, which is where many of the best wizards go after graduating." Tom sorted through the pamphlet Hermione had thrown around and pulled out the Curse Breaker leaflet in his hand.
"The Ministry of Magic?" Hermione looked up, "What do you think it would be good for?"
"I don't know, maybe you could be the Minister of Magic!"
Hermione covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
Tom said seriously, "I even have a campaign slogan and a governing platform for you - MWGA and WU."
"MWGA? WU?"
"Make Wizard Great Again and Wizards, Unite!"
Hermione couldn't take it anymore, she burst out laughing, with no compunction for her image.
"If I were Minister of Magic, what would you like to be?"
"Make me cabinet secretary," Tom thought, "I'll set you up with a stable system of civil servants and then you won't have to worry about anything, leave it to us lowly public servants of the magical world..."
Hermione narrowed her eyes and looked at him, Tom's calculations were obvious to her. The civil servants of Britain were extraordinary creatures, and though they spoke of being humble social instruments, in reality they were the controllers of the state. As the saying goes, "a civil servant is a man of iron, but a minister is a man of water."
"If I become Minister of Magic, I'll send you to clean toilets! If you want to be Cabinet Secretary, no way!". thought Hermione viciously as she pulled out Tom's diary and tapped her wand on the little square in her schedule, which was suddenly tinted with colors.
"I think we only have a little over four weeks left until the end of term, so you should start preparing for the review."
Tom: ???
The next thing he realized was that, although he was pretending to be someone who didn't have to take exams, he would regain his identity when the mandrake matured, and then he would have to face his final exams of the second year!
If he didn't take the exam or failed it, he would have to retake it!
Unfortunately for Tom, if the Chamber of Secrets had lasted longer, his Hogwarts final exams would have been cancelled, and he wouldn't have had to worry about repeating a year, even though he would have missed most of the year. Professor McGonagall and the others had considered Tom Yodel's situation, and the professors had wanted him to repeat a year, but after Dumbledore convinced them, they had changed their minds.
As the O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams approached, a wave of anxiety was unleashed at Hogwarts, limited to fifth- and seventh-year students. While the younger students are still in the eating and drinking phase, the sixth years are in a slightly more complicated mood, somewhat akin to sophomores passing their exams. In some areas, midterms are held a few days later than exams. The mood of the sixth formers is very similar to that of the first year students who will be taking their exams on June 7 and watching the seniors enter the exam hall.
Professor McGonagall sensed this anxiety, but she had no time to waste: she has to give professional advice to the entire fifth year cohort of Gryffindor House. This is a short meeting that all fifth-year students must attend in the first week of the summer term. They will discuss their professional future with their Dean of House.
So during this time, a number of absurd things happen at Hogwarts: some young wizards become overly anxious and suffer from hysteria in class - also known as dissociative disorder or hysteria - and others are hospitalized for taking unexplained magical "brain-boosting" pills....
On the eve of exams, magic charms, cheating props and strange magic pills were offered. It was as if overnight students had become bound to the card-drawing system, drawing from it a dozen Snape's and Nicolas Flamel's, acquiring magnificent talents for potions and alchemy, and developing numerous "powerful" potions and props: memory-enhancing potions, auto-response pens, self-correcting ink.
However, most of these items had a placebo effect, and some even negative effects.