Chapter 51
When it came to academics, the students of the other three houses really couldn't compare to Ravenclaw.
The Hufflepuffs quickly accepted reality and chose a very calm approach to studying — if they couldn't keep up, then they wouldn't try to keep up. As long as they didn't come dead last, it was fine.
The Slytherins and Gryffindors, however, resorted to rather extreme measures.
Starting from the second week, the little snakes far surpassed their Gryffindors in both the completion of assignments and their performance in class; but they soon discovered that no matter how desperately they studied, they still couldn't outdo the "bookworms" of Ravenclaw.
So from the weekend of the second week onward, incidents of Ravenclaw students being hit with nasty jinxes and carried off to the hospital wing began happening with alarming frequency — a very direct and efficient way to drastically reduce their study efficiency.
In response, Professor McGonagall completely lost it!
During that week's Transfiguration class, she solemnly warned all the Slytherin students that any further attacks on students from other houses would not be tolerated. Anyone caught would be given detention — without exception!
Her warning, however, fell on deaf ears; because, while most Slytherins did indeed stop after the first week, it wasn't just Slytherins who were carrying out attacks!
Although the number of incidents did decrease, they certainly didn't stop.
Snape even got a pointed remark from McGonagall: "Please, as Head of House, keep your students under better control," which left him absolutely fuming.
He was already on bad terms with her because of the Duelling Club — even though he and Lucian had jointly organized it, Professor McGonagall still said she would "observe the situation for a while."
What exactly she wanted to observe, she never made clear.
In the third week, a Gryffindor student was caught red-handed casting a curse at a Ravenclaw student. The news spread like wildfire across all four houses. It was said that McGonagall's expression at that moment went far beyond mere anger — she directly deducted a massive 30 points from her own house, dropping Gryffindor from first place in the House Cup all the way down to second.
Well, now things were truly lively.
The Slytherins, who finally realized the truth and understood that they had been taking the blame all this time, immediately stopped targeting Ravenclaw. Instead, they turned their full attention to open warfare with the Gryffindors. Every day, students from both houses were sent to the hospital wing — and then quickly discharged.
This was all thanks to Lucian, who had taught them two extremely practical and efficient spells like the Shield Charm and the Binding Spell.
Now, aside from the first-years, practically no student was unable to skillfully use these two spells. Trying to attack others with clumsy dark jinxes had become completely unrealistic.
Every student knew the various applications of the Shield Charm and could easily create barriers to block incoming spells.
Even so, Madam Pomfrey finally snapped.
She went straight to Professor McGonagall to complain, leaving McGonagall furious beyond belief. From then on, during her free time between classes, she personally patrolled every corner of the castle. Anyone caught fighting was given a full month of detention!
But the problems just kept coming.
First, the Ravenclaws got angry too.
Slytherins had always been despicable — fine, they could grit their teeth and endure being targeted by them. But now even you big-browed, thick-necked Gryffindors want to play these dirty tricks?
If you want to fight, then come! Who's afraid of whom?!
It's worth noting that Ravenclaws had always been the most diligent at learning everything Lucian taught. Every class, they got to practice against the dark creatures Lucian conjured up for them, greatly making up for their previous lack of real combat experience.
They hadn't really fought back before simply because they didn't want to bother, still stuck in their usual law-abiding mindset, but once they changed their perspective, and especially after Lucian casually mentioned during one lesson "Actually, dueling other wizards is also an excellent way to learn. You can put what you've studied into real-life practice — you'll improve much faster that way."
And just like that — starting from the third week of November, the whole of Hogwarts turned into a complete madhouse.
Even Hermione and Cedric, who were secretly brewing Polyjuice Potion, were forced to deal with several attacking students just to protect their project. They barely had time left to worry about the basilisk situation.
Students no longer went anywhere alone. Even in the corridors, they moved with extreme caution — especially around corners.
And when night fell? Pure pandemonium!
Somehow the rumor had spread that Filch had recently lost all interest in patrolling and rarely bothered with catching night wanderers anymore. He would usually just make one quick round of the castle and then leave.
"Grudges" spread rapidly among the student body. By the end of the month, only two places in Hogwarts remained truly safe, places where professors were present, and the Great Hall.
The common rooms?
Ever since the Weasley twins led a group of more than a dozen Gryffindors in a raid on the Slytherin common room last week, even those had stopped being safe.
To this day, no one knows how the Gryffindors had managed to get the password.
Snape was livid about the whole affair. Looking at his useless house, he gnashed his teeth in fury, wishing he could just teach them combat techniques right there in Potions class.
Unfortunately, his teaching skills in that area were truly terrible — and he couldn't possibly teach only one house. Whenever he tried to slip in some relevant knowledge, there were always Gryffindors listening in together, and they listened very attentively.
Amid all this chaos, the Chamber of Secrets incident seemed to have been forgotten. No more student attacks occurred.
After Professor McGonagall had handed out detentions to more than a dozen students, she helplessly realized something: if things continued developing this way, she might not even have enough professors left to supervise and punish all these naughty children.
She had no choice but to dust off Snape's earlier suggestion and put it back on the agenda — establish a Duelling Club, and give these energy-overloaded little monsters a proper, legitimate outlet.
By the time the end-of-month exams rolled around, many students had already stopped caring so much about grades.
The three houses were fighting tooth and nail, and almost every student from fourth year and below had inevitably gotten involved.
When December arrived and the first rays of winter sunlight streamed into the castle, the three houses received a shocking result.
Among all seven years, the house with the highest average grades was surprisingly — the ever-peaceful Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw came in second as usual.
Gryffindor took third, and Slytherin came dead last — during this period they had constantly been ganged up on two-against-one by both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, and suffered greatly for it.
After all, to the Ravenclaws, while Gryffindor had indeed played dirty against them, compared to that, the Slytherins were still far more detestable.
So they first joined forces to deal with the Slytherins, then turned to settle their "internal disputes" afterward.
In the abandoned girls' bathroom on the second floor of the castle, Hermione tiredly and carefully divided the finished Polyjuice Potion into three small bottles.
This month, just keeping the potion a secret had exhausted both her and Cedric completely. The original brewing schedule had been delayed significantly.
As for Harry and Ron — they had long since gone completely mad fighting with Malfoy and had no attention left for anything else.
But now… Would this carefully brewed Polyjuice Potion still have a chance to be used?
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Throw some POWERSTONES.
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