After the feast, Harry went back to the hospital wing. Neville followed behind, his arms full of food, planning to feast with Ron right there by his bedside.
But Loren had barely been back in the dormitory for long when Neville came trudging in again, looking utterly miserable.
Without Loren there to smooth things over—and with his arms full of food that was obviously not suitable for a patient—Neville had been stopped at the doors of the hospital wing by Madam Pomfrey on the spot.
In the end, under Madam Pomfrey's murderous glare, Neville could only hand over the food he was carrying and a little money pouch to Harry, ask him tearfully to pass everything on to Ron, and then run back to the dormitory in floods of tears.
As for Harry, once Neville had left, he very sensibly handed all the food straight to Madam Pomfrey for "proper handling", then took Ron's Magic Notebook and Neville's money pouch back to his own bed.
"Harry's taken Ron's Magic Notebook back with him," Loren said to Neville. "I reckon by tomorrow at the latest you two will be able to video chat."
Hearing that, Neville suddenly thought of something. He glanced at Seamus, who was sitting on his bed grinning like an idiot while playing with his Magic Notebook, and asked in a low voice:
"Loren, we already have Magic Notebooks, right? So why do we have to use the new ones the school gave us?"
Loren was also fiddling with his Magic Notebook. He didn't even look up as he answered,
"These ones are custom-made for Hogwarts students. From now on, while we're at school, we have to use the school-issued ones. As for why—no need to ask."
Seeing that Loren clearly didn't want to explain any further, Neville stopped pressing. He opened the school-issued Magic Notebook and started to study it, wanting to see what was different compared to the one Loren had given him.
The following day, Hogwarts was strangely quiet. There were hardly any students to be seen in the castle at all—it felt as if term had already ended and everyone had gone home.
Only at mealtimes would a handful of students appear. Most of them came rushing in, grabbed a random pile of food off the table, and then bolted back out again towards their House common rooms.
Hermione watched the hurrying, backs-and-forths of the younger students with a puzzled expression, then turned to ask Loren what was going on.
Loren calmly ate the dishes the house-elves had so carefully prepared, and replied,
"Take a look at the rankings for Plants vs. Zombies and Angry Birds."
Hermione immediately pulled out her Magic Notebook and checked—and saw that all the high-score rankings for the free mini-games in the Games app Loren had installed now had a lot of new names on them.
Those names all had little House tags after them, and the rankings for each game were constantly shifting as students from all four Houses leapfrogged one another. The competition looked fierce.
All right. Hermione now knew exactly what was going on.
Pretty much the entire student body was completely immersed in the games and couldn't drag themselves out.
Hermione had originally been planning to go and complain to Professor McGonagall about this situation. But when she glanced up at the staff table, she saw that—for once—all of the professors were actually present.
They were chatting with bright smiles on their faces. Apart from Snape, who was still as black-faced as ever, the other professors all looked to be in an excellent mood. That alone was enough to make Hermione drop the idea of tattling.
In fact, Loren understood perfectly well why the students were so obsessed with the games. Even though it was only 1992 and video games were just starting to really take off, most witches and wizards had no access to them at all.
Only a few Muggle-borns with consoles at home had ever played video games before—and there was no way those titles could measure up to the games Loren had copied out of his own memories.
As for the professors smiling and watching from the sidelines without intervening, that was easy enough to understand too. The students were about to step with both feet into the abyss; at least let them have a bit of fun beforehand.
The little witches and wizards stayed lost in their games right up until the day exam results were officially released.
At nine o'clock that morning, Hogwarts was almost shaken to its foundations by the students' collective shrieks.
The cause of all this was the publication of the exam results: every student's marks appeared directly on their Magic Notebook.
One moment they were happily playing their games—and then, with a pop, the game screens vanished and their grade sheets popped up instead. For students who had thrown their entire hearts into gaming, how could they not go crazy?
But what really drove them mad came after that. When they hurriedly closed their grade sheets and tried to reopen their games… they found that the games wouldn't launch at all.
Panic broke out immediately.
Very soon, however, that panic subsided, because someone discovered that as long as you carefully read through your grades and the holiday notice at the end and signed your name, the games would start working again.
So everyone hurried to pull their grade sheets back up, scrolled straight to the bottom, scribbled in their names, and happily prepared to dive back into their games.
Right at that moment, the school forum exploded.
Previously, the forum had mostly been a place for students to show off their game scores and for rival Houses with bad blood between them to trade a few insults.
(Which, in reality, was usually just Slytherin versus literally everyone else.)
Now, all the posts were asking the same thing: why can some people still play, while others can't start their games at all?
Before long, a thread shot to the top of the forum, drawing everyone's attention. The title was:
"If You Want To Play Games, Read Your Grade Sheet and Notices Carefully."
When they opened the thread, they saw a screenshot of part of a grade sheet, with a section of text highlighted:
"Based on each student's exam results and day-to-day performance, the Study System will assign a Study Score to every student. For those whose scores are too low, certain functions will be locked in order to encourage them to improve their studies."
"Based on a student's exam results, the system will generate a personalised study schedule. Only after completing the day's study tasks will that student be able to use the other functions of their Magic Notebook."
"Depending on how well students carry out their study plans, they will earn varying amounts of Study Points. These points can be used within the Magic Notebook to unlock various new features and services."
"There are only two ways to earn Study Points:
As a current student, by completing your daily study plan;
By publishing papers on the library's essay platform. Depending on the nature and content of the paper, a corresponding number of Study Points will be awarded."
"In addition to Study Points, there is also a type of Regular Points. If you place a Galleon on your Magic Notebook and select 'Top Up', you can instantly convert Galleons into Regular Points at an exchange rate of 1:100."
"Regular Points can be freely traded between students, or exchanged back into Galleons at an exchange rate of 80:1."
"Study Points can be converted into Regular Points at a rate of 1:1, but Regular Points cannot be converted into Study Points."
Countless young witches and wizards, after reading the thread, immediately followed its instructions and opened the Study System on their Magic Notebooks to check their own Study Scores.
The vast majority of them were below 50. Most students had no clear idea what the scores actually meant; only when they noticed the 'scoring rules' link next to the number and tapped it did the following explanation appear:
"Study Scores are out of 100. They are a comprehensive assessment based on each professor's individual marks plus the student's day-to-day study behaviour as recorded by the Magic Notebook."
"0–29 points: All functions of the Magic Notebook will be locked, leaving only the Study module available, to ensure the student quickly enters full study mode."
"30–59 points: All entertainment functions and most other functions will be locked, leaving only basic communication features available. Students who wish to unlock more functions should improve their own score as soon as possible through diligent study."
"60–79 points: All functions except the entertainment functions will be available. Entertainment time can be earned daily by completing the study plan. Unused entertainment time will not carry over and will periodically be cleared."
"80–99 points: All functions except the entertainment functions will be available. Entertainment time is earned by completing the study plan. Entertainment time can be transferred once to another student in the same score bracket and may be accumulated indefinitely without being cleared."
"100 points: All functions are fully available. There is no limit on game time and no study plan will be assigned. However, this tier of score can only be activated with the approval of more than two-thirds of the teaching staff, and the Heads of House may revoke it at any time."
After reading through the scoring rules, all the students began comparing notes, because the differences between their Study Scores were enormous.
What really made them explode, though, was that a few students with excellent exam results only had Study Scores of 30—lower than many classmates whose marks were merely average. It was, in fact, the lowest tier of passing score.
Most of the students' exam marks were middling.
Only a small number had mediocre exam grades but Study Scores above 60, while those with slightly better exam results had scores above 80.
The students were not idiots. After a bit of discussion, they quickly figured out what the problem was.
Those sitting at 30 points were the organisers and answer-providers from the previous "workbook copying" scandal.
The students with scores from 40 to 59 were the ones who had copied from other people's workbooks. The exact score depended on how often they'd copied and how bad their exam results were.
The ones with 80 and above had never cheated, and their exam results weren't bad either.
As for a perfect 100, there turned out to be only one in the entire school: Loren.
On Loren's full score, no one had any complaints. Given how monstrously he'd been performing all year, it would have been a crime against nature if he hadn't gotten 100.
Everyone with a score under 50 threw themselves into "study mode", racking their brains for ways to increase their Study Scores.
Because the grade sheet clearly stated that once students with Study Scores below 60 went home for the holidays, their Magic Notebooks would require a guardian's signature before they could be used normally again.
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