After the others left, Douglas compiled all the results, graded them, and finally handed them to Professor McGonagall, sorted by year.
When Professor McGonagall mailed the students their shopping lists for next term, she would send their overall report cards along with them.
In previous years, only O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. results had been mailed to students, but since report cards had been sent out at the end of the first term, the overall response had been quite good.
Quite a few parents had even written to Hogwarts to say how good this approach was, though some had also written to question the professors after seeing their children's grades.
There was no doubting how readily parents in the Wizarding World accepted this sort of thing. They had kept up the practice of pulling the ladder up behind them for hundreds, even thousands of years. For instance, almost no young witches or wizards knew how they would be sorted before starting school. What remarkable unspoken agreement.
The next morning, Douglas went to see Silvanus Kettleburn, the Care of Magical Creatures professor, at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Since Professor Kettleburn was planning to retire, Douglas had prepared a gift.
When he arrived at the forest hut, he was surprised to find Headmaster Dumbledore there as well.
Seeing the case in Douglas's hand, Dumbledore smiled and said to Professor Kettleburn, who was trying to walk:
"Silvanus, it seems our Douglas has prepared a gift for you too."
Seeing the set of enchanted wooden prosthetic limbs on Professor Kettleburn, Douglas looked rather embarrassed. What was he supposed to do when he had brought the same gift as his boss?
He bit the bullet and said:
"Professor, I've prepared a gift for you, but... it might be a little too similar to Professor Dumbledore's."