Review

In the last week of May, the Quidditch Match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw finally came to an end. The next day, I saw a Ravenclaw student banging their head against a wall and shouting as they did so.

"I shouldn't have stayed up all night yesterday, boo-hoo! How much study time did I lose?!"

Ravenclaws were truly terrifying.

The tension of the approaching finals quickly dispelled the joy of the Quidditch Match. Everyone began crowding into the library-though, as far as I could tell, many of them simply went in to stare into space, daydream, and sleep. The common room was full of students studying, and Lily was surrounded by a sea of people. Everyone wanted to ask her questions, and Mary and I were both pushed out of the crowd.

"Come to think of it, aren't your grades pretty good too? Why doesn't anyone come to you?"

As we watched the crowd, Mary asked in some confusion.

"Probably because I'm in detention and fighting people every day, so everyone gradually forgot that my grades are pretty good too." I was happy enough about it. Explaining questions to poor students was painful, especially when it came to Potions.

To me, brewing a potion was as simple as ordering a broth for hot pot and then adding the food one thing at a time once the water boiled. But many students either tried to cook the food after adding seasonings but no water, or boiled thinly sliced meat for over ten minutes. Some went even further and threw chunks of oil into the fire. How was I supposed to explain things that were practically common sense?!

"Aaaargh! I'm not taking the exam!"

"Help! How am I supposed to transform anything successfully?"

"You're a mature wand now. It's time you solved the problem yourself!"

"I've decided to confess to the top student in our year and throw everyone off their game!"

Everyone's mental state was bizarre during exam week. To give you an idea of how tense things were, I only had to say one thing: could you imagine it? Gryffindor and Slytherin had actually managed to get through several classes together in peace!

Of course, the other, less peaceful classes were still because of James and Sirius.

In History of Magic, most people were drowsy. Even Lily said, "Professor Binns's voice is like the best lullaby. Perhaps he should open a clinic for insomnia." Still, for the sake of the exam, she was doing her best to listen.

Hearing the same material over and over made it easy to lose focus, and Professor Binns was the type of teacher who liked to lecture straight from the book. I was propping up my head and was about to fall asleep myself. Just before I drifted off, I heard a faint sound behind my chair.

"Tap, tap, tap."

"What is it?" I turned around and saw James looking at me with his head resting on his arm, his outstretched hand still on the back of my chair. I had to admit, he had a good seat. The sunlight fell right on him through the window, making it look like an excellent place to sleep.

"Can I borrow your notes?" he asked.

The request genuinely shocked me. I shook my head blankly. "I never take notes."

James was shocked too. "Then what do you look at when you revise?"

"I never revise." At times like this, I could finally appreciate the benefits of having done it all over so many times. "It's all in my head."

[Sirius's affection -1]

Sirius hadn't even shown up, but his affection had already dropped.

"Since you don't take notes either..." James slapped Sirius, who was already working on his Transfiguration homework, on the shoulder. "We can borrow Sirius's together."

"? I never take notes either." The slap made Sirius draw a long line across the paper. He looked over in annoyance and, without a word, deducted another point of affection from me.

Is there no justice? I wasn't the one who slapped him!

The three of us were whispering over here, and Remus, sitting to our right, sighed helplessly. He had no choice but to pull himself together and start taking notes.

"I'll do it."

James and Sirius were so moved that they nearly had tears in their eyes. If the timing hadn't been wrong, I felt the two of them would have wanted nothing more than to rush over and hug Remus.

"Being classmates with you lot really puts a lot of pressure on people..." I couldn't help sighing. No wonder that, apart from the time I was Peter myself, whenever I saw him in Gryffindor, he seemed not to fit in very well during the first year or two. The people around him were either model students like Lily, who were both talented and hardworking, or diligent people like Remus, or people like James and Sirius, who didn't seem to study much but were geniuses who could get high marks anyway. Anyone in his place would have wanted to hang themselves quietly in the common room.

Ah, luckily, I wasn't just a genius. I was also a genius who had done it all over so many times that I'd memorized the exam questions. I gave myself a thumbs-up.

After finally making it to the end of class, I packed up my things and prepared to leave the classroom. Then the system gave me a push.

[Final exams will arrive in one week. Please choose a revision partner]

[1. Sirius]

[2. Lily]

[3. James]

[4. Remus]

[5. Snape]

[P.S. Some revision partners revise together. For example, Lily and Snape revise together, and Remus, Sirius, and James revise together.]

Did I really need you to give me a P.S. for that...?

I chose Lily on reflex. Only after making my choice did I realize that I didn't actually need to revise at all! I should have picked James and the others and then slacked off. Was I really going to have to report to the library every day?

But then I thought about how I hadn't really needed to stick closely to many of the options the system had given me before. Perhaps this was much the same?

[Selected Lily as your final revision partner]

[Two hours will be set aside each day for you to revise with Lily]

At times like this, I really wanted to give the system an internationally friendly hand gesture.

[Today's revision session is about to begin. Please proceed to the library within five minutes]

Cursing under my breath, I grabbed my books and went to the library to find Lily. What was this system even for? It had given me plenty of freedom during the romance events before, so why was it stricter about studying than romance?

Having to go to the library when I could have been slacking off was painful enough. Even worse, I also had to face Snape, which made me want to hang myself quietly outside the Slytherin Common Room in the middle of the night.

"There are so many notes for History of Magic."

Lily took out a pile of notes she had made earlier and put them on the table, then brought out all kinds of books. After Snape did the same across from her, I could have sworn I heard the table groan.

"History is so interesting." I twirled my quill, bored out of my mind. "But Professor Binns just reads from the book. It's so boring."

"Nothing we can do about it." Lily sighed. "Honestly, even I have trouble paying attention to his lectures. I can only memorize what he says by rote."

Snape hadn't said a word during our conversation. Or rather, he hadn't spoken to me at all since our unpleasant experience that night. We had rarely spoken to begin with, so Lily hadn't noticed, but now that we were all sitting together to revise, Snape's silence was a little strange.

Seeing Lily occasionally cast puzzled glances our way, I threw a piece of candy at Snape's head while she was looking down for her quill.

[Snape's affection -1]

He looked up angrily, and I gestured toward Lily. Fortunately, Snape was quick-witted enough to understand what I meant, even as I waved my arms around wildly as though stretching noodles.

After Lily looked up, he finally picked up his notes. Since I was sitting opposite him and Lily, she couldn't see his expression, so he wore a look as heavy and stiff as if I had successfully confessed to Lily and said, "I used a simpler method to organize the key points for History of Magic."

...I really couldn't take it anymore.

Those two hours were even harder to endure than my previous imprisonment in Azkaban. As soon as the time was up, I grabbed my books and left in a hurry, without the slightest reluctance.

I swore I had never looked forward to the exams this much.

─────

[Author's note]

The final exams determine whether you can successfully advance to the next school year. If your grades are insufficient, you will have to reload and start over.

★Tip★

No matter whom you choose for final revision, you will eventually revise with the others as well, so the options essentially only provide affection bonuses;

Of course, after unlocking the deluxe package, you will skip the final exams altogether.