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On the evening before the end-of-year feast, Dumbledore stayed up until the clock struck twelve before going to sleep.

Hogwarts was as peaceful as ever, and the large-scale inter-house conflict that the old man had been worried about did not occur.

Aileen Kaslana kept her promise. The undercurrent of private dueling invitations among the students did not materialize as expected. Both Gryffindor and Slytherin students stayed obediently in their respective dormitories and did not go out.

Looking at the peaceful campus in the Great Hall that morning, Dumbledore was in a very good mood.

"Alright," Dumbledore said with a smile, looking at everyone, "In the past half month, I think everyone has had a lot of fun in Hogwarts' new end-of-term practical assessment. Some outstanding students have also won more rewards for themselves and their houses. As of last night, a total of two hundred and seventy-five students have successfully passed all the levels."

"I am very pleased to announce that this challenge activity has come to an end—"

"Oh, no—"

"I could have passed today..."

"Just one more time, one last time—"

A small commotion broke out in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, and those little wizards who had not yet passed couldn't help but let out a wail, with expressions of regret and frustration on their faces.

Dumbledore continued with a smile.

"Regarding the detailed breakdown of all house points for this semester, Mr. Filch will post it on the notice board outside the Great Hall later, and the corresponding reward points will be adjusted before tonight's end-of-year feast. However, I need to remind you that this does not mean the final house point result for this academic year..."

"At the beginning of this academic year, I said that the final grades of each year in the four houses will also be an important factor in determining the ownership of the House Cup. Today, the professors and I will complete all the score statistics. The house with the highest overall score in each year will win one hundred house points for themselves."

"Therefore, for the rest of the day, I suggest that you go out of the castle, take your broom and fly a couple of laps on the Quidditch pitch, or bask in the sun by the Black Lake, or ask for some iced drinks and snacks from the kitchen, and lie on the school lawn chatting with friends, relax..."

"Of course, remember not to eat too much. You may regret missing the delicious food at the end-of-year feast for an entire summer."

After saying this, Dumbledore happily clapped his hands and announced the start of breakfast as usual.

After breakfast, the students hardly left the Great Hall.

Everyone gathered at the notice board outside, waiting for Argus Filch to nail several large rolls of parchment to the wall, and then looked for their names in their respective house columns, and silently calculated whether there were any errors in the scores.

With the increase in the number of people passing each day, the old wizard naturally couldn't praise them one by one as he had done in the previous days.

At Aileen's suggestion, a more standardized and transparent scoring details table was used instead.

In fact, Hogwarts' house point system has always been very vague, and there have always been accusations of behind-the-scenes manipulation.

In view of this situation, as a fair and just Hufflepuff, Aileen naturally stood on the side of justice. Her proposal was undoubtedly approved by most of the little wizards, and Dumbledore would naturally not object.

Moreover, starting next year, Hogwarts will publish a "House Points Details Table" for each house in the past year on the school bulletin board at the end of each term, including key information such as score change time, value, people involved, and reasons.

The publication of this week's details table is a small pilot project to assess future workload and student feedback.

Given the students' poor math skills, even just these two hundred or so records are enough to take up a good deal of their time—of course, due to the increased difficulty of Ravenclaw this year, Ravenclaw will be ahead in this regard.

...

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Hogwarts faculty lounge.

The room seemed to have been slightly modified, looking at least twice as spacious as usual. The professors of various subjects at Hogwarts gathered together, separately calculating the grades of their students.

Around each of them, one or two goblins were holding paper and pens, assisting with numerical calculations.

Due to Hogwarts' generosity in lending gold galleons to Gringotts Wizarding Bank to tide them over, and the subsequent iteration of the [Hogwarts-Galleon] magical currency, the newly appointed Gringotts Goblin Queen signed a long-term cooperation with the school, willing to provide Hogwarts with the necessary manpower and financial support at any time.

However, as the statistics progressed, the professors gradually discovered a strange thing...

"Professor Snape, don't you think something is wrong?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean. In my opinion, everything is normal."

"Severus, don't get excited, Minerva is not accusing anyone."

When Albus Dumbledore opened the door to the lounge, he happened to run into Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape who were confronting each other, and around them, there was also a group of professors trying to mediate.

Tap, tap.

Dumbledore politely knocked on the door panel with his knuckles, looking at the professors in the lounge with some confusion.

"Ahem, can someone explain to me briefly, what happened?"

"Actually, it's nothing, just a misunderstanding, it will be resolved soon..."

Professor Sprout coughed lightly, putting on a smiling face.

However, before the short, chubby witch could finish speaking, Professor McGonagall's serious voice rang out in the room.

"I now have sufficient reason to suspect that Slytherin is involved in mass cheating on the final exams, multiple years, multiple subjects. This is not just my conclusion. Many of the professors present must think so too, right?"

"A despicable and ugly slander, utter nonsense! Professor McGonagall, I don't understand."

Severus Snape snorted coldly with a grimace, with a hint of cold mockery in his tone.

"Is it so difficult for you to admit that our house's students, to admit that Slytherin is better? Perhaps you have also noticed how terrible the potions brewed by Gryffindor students were in the past practical assessments."

"But why do I hear so many students complaining that it's because you always make things difficult for our house's students in class?"

Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyes and retorted sharply.

"People always like to attribute their lack of effort and incompetence to the difficulties of others. That's not surprising."

Snape shrugged indifferently and said in a calm tone, pointing to the papers around him.

"Because they are indeed the worst performing batch, and the papers in this room once again prove this point. As for your confusion, don't forget that Slytherin has won the House Cup for six consecutive years, which means that from the second year to the sixth year, they are indeed more outstanding than other students in this school—"

"Do you really think that no one knows about your biased behavior in class?"

"Oh, but if I remember correctly, that's mainly because we perform well in Quidditch... As for deducting points, I have to be grateful that our house's students are rarely put in detention, and rarely late or do other bad things."

"Unfortunately, mass cheating is the worst thing."

Speaking of Quidditch, Professor McGonagall seemed to have been pricked by a needle, suddenly pursing her lips tightly, as if she had just drunk a cup of extremely strong black coffee, with an extremely serious expression, and repeated again.

"For a student, this is undoubtedly the worst thing, cheating—"

"So, we're back to the original question, right?"

Snape let out a sneer, but there was no hint of a smile in his voice, and asked coldly.

"So... may I ask, esteemed Professor McGonagall, what is your evidence?"

"Students of an entire house involved in mass cheating, Minerva, this accusation is quite serious."

After listening for a while, Dumbledore frowned heavily, and the confusion on his face became even greater.

It shouldn't be!

What the hell is going on?!

Moreover, based on Dumbledore's understanding of Professor McGonagall, and his trust in the students of Hogwarts, if there really was a large-scale mass cheating situation, there's no reason why so many professors wouldn't have noticed it during the exams!

You know, even in previous years when Slytherin won first place continuously, there had never been such a dispute, and judging from the atmosphere in the faculty lounge, there seemed to be many mysteries in this matter—the silence of those professors who did not join the argument in itself represents an ambiguous statement.

"Evidence, the evidence is in these papers. All the Slytherin papers!"

Professor McGonagall tapped on the large stack of parchment in front of her, "Fortunately, there are goblins from Gringotts, otherwise I almost didn't notice the strange things in these answers! In this year's written exams, Slytherin students performed really well! Almost everyone got outstanding! The most important thing is..."

After a slight pause, Professor McGonagall's tone contained a strong hint of sarcasm.

"All the important and difficult content, these children answered quite accurately, as if they had copied it from the book in advance. On the contrary, some basic and simple knowledge has errors—not just in Transfiguration, almost all subjects have exactly the same situation, isn't that obvious enough?!"

"That can only show that our house's children are a bit too ambitious. I will remind them of this later."

Snape replied expressionlessly, "This is normal. Smart little guys will always intentionally or unintentionally ignore some basic knowledge. Even so, you can't erase the fact that Slytherin is comprehensively leading in all grades."

"Comprehensively... leading? Hmm... so what's the result?"

Dumbledore was slightly stunned, turned his head to look at Professor Flitwick beside him, and asked in a low voice.

Compared to the two professors who were confronting each other, he wanted to hear the opinions of the bystanders first.

"From the first grade to the sixth grade, Slytherin is the first in overall grades. Even this year's Hufflepuff first grade and Gryffindor first grade are still a small distance behind Slytherin in average scores."

"That's nothing... wait, that is to say, if according to this year's rules..."

Dumbledore's face was stunned at first, and then he immediately realized the problem.

Professor Flitwick, whose feet were floating in the air, spread his hands helplessly and replied somewhat unwillingly.

"That's right, if according to this year's comprehensive evaluation rules, Slytherin will get an extra five hundred points, directly surpassing all the houses and locking in this year's House Cup in advance—a seven-peat, it's outrageous."

"So Minerva, besides suspecting because of the abnormal grades, do you have any other evidence?"

Dumbledore pondered for a while, then turned to look at Professor McGonagall not far away.

Professor McGonagall shook her head, answering with a solemn expression.

"We just discovered this problem just now since this time is limited, but..."

"...Alright, I understand, let's stop arguing for now."

Dumbledore's eyes flickered, he suddenly remembered something, and waved his hand tiredly, interrupting McGonagall's words.

"In the absence of conclusive evidence of cheating, I tend to agree with Severus's point of view. The children's grades should be considered valid—if the reason is found out later, and it is true, then we will deal with it."

"The average score of the first in five entire grades, hey, what a great achievement..."

If Dumbledore remembered correctly, since the end of this year's Quidditch match, Aileen had temporarily moved to the Slytherin dormitory to avoid Little Malfoy and others from being ostracized and bullied in the house.

From then on, that white-haired ball of fluff seemed to have been living in Slytherin to review her lessons.

Of course, apart from the first-year courses, those higher-grade courses that she applied to take exceptionally were mostly seeking help from those Slytherin kids. It is said that she was almost spoiled into a real little devil in Slytherin.

And Aileen's final grades were all... full marks!

Dumbledore shook his head with a wry smile, he had almost guessed part of the truth.

"Hey, this child, almost shot herself in the foot..."