After quietly observing for a period, Alan silently left the scene.
For the remaining two months of his fourth year, after finishing his daily tasks, Alan set aside time to cast a Disillusionment Charm and monitor the activities of the students in Slytherin. This allowed him to re-evaluate his own House, and he filled his notepad with a large number of names and corresponding character assessments.
Sometimes he acted like a phantom stalker, silently trailing Slytherin students to observe their daily lives, the people they interacted with, and the nature of their conversations. During this period, he witnessed many scenes he found fascinating.
For example, he watched the entire progression of two couples falling in love. He also observed certain reclusive young Slytherins who would attend classes, go to the library to read, return to the common room to do homework, and then go to sleep—all without uttering a single word the entire day. Alan found that level of isolation almost unbelievable.
He even watched an entire internal card and board game tournament held by a group of lively young Slytherins. Their competitive spirit was astounding, though their actual skill level was terrible.
At the same time, there was a combative faction engaging in pranks with other Houses. Most of these were pure-blood students, but a few half-bloods were mixed in. This involved hexing students from other Houses, being hexed in return, two private duels, and a large-scale brawl with Gryffindor. The outcomes were rarely favorable; very few managed to escape without being caught. Because of this, Slytherin was docked over a hundred points again, and Alan witnessed Snape reprimanding them with a livid expression.
He discovered that Slytherin wasn't just targeting Gryffindor; they had friction with every House. More accurately, it wasn't a conflict between the Houses themselves, but rather a web of personal animosities between specific students.
However, a core group of Slytherins had more frequent run-ins with the Gryffindors, which led to a general toxicity between the two groups. When a Gryffindor student decided to prank a Slytherin who hadn't even been part of the original conflict, the cycle of retaliation would escalate, forcing neutral students to join the fray until the situation snowballed. After being caught, they would quiet down for a week before starting up again.
He even witnessed two young wizards who had arrived at Hogwarts as best friends on the same boat, only to be sorted into Slytherin and Gryffindor and become enemies due to the pressure of the inter-house rivalry.
The "cold violence" within the House was endless. The greatest divide remained between the pure-blood and half-blood students, a rift largely fueled by Alan's deliberate actions the previous year. However, the tension hadn't eased with the departure of Yaxley and Travers; instead, their mutual antagonism had hardened into a total lack of trust.
Further divisions appeared within those factions. The pure-blood split stemmed from differing ideologies; some didn't like causing trouble and complained that the more aggressive students were dragging the House's reputation through the mud. Among the half-bloods, the split was more about personality. Slytherin was unique; due to the abundance of space in the dungeons, almost everyone had a single room, which naturally limited social interaction. Extroverts and introverts rarely crossed paths in a meaningful way.
Coupled with the selfish "every man for himself" atmosphere and a natural tendency toward self-protection, the students grew increasingly distant.
The total number of students at Hogwarts generally ranged between 400 and 800, but the war with the Dark Lord had caused a dip in the population as families fled to Europe. In Alan's year, the student body hovered around 400. Even after the Dark Lord's disappearance, the numbers hadn't immediately bounced back. However, starting this school year, the intake showed a significant increase, proving that Minister Badenough's measures were successfully convincing families to return to Britain.
Slytherin historically had the fewest students, currently just over a hundred. This allowed for the luxury of single dormitories. If the House grew to 200, they would be forced into multi-person rooms. Consequently, aside from students in the same year who shared classes, it was difficult for anyone to find friends. The cliques were strictly divided by grade, bloodline, and temperament.
Alan summarized why Slytherin had reached this state.
First, there was a total lack of leadership to unite the students. This wasn't surprising; Alan himself had removed three Prefects the year before. Yaxley, the primary leader, had gone astray and fled. Wilkes and Milly were not leadership material; under Alan's shadow, they had become as timid as quails, avoiding their duties and school-wide activities altogether. Without Prefects to enforce standards, the students became exceptionally lax.
Second, there were no channels for communication. Older students, jaded by the previous "Pure-Blood Committee" management, had lost trust in anyone outside their immediate circle. They had no desire to mentor the younger years. Without that guidance, the younger students huddled together in small, isolated groups for warmth.
This created a vicious cycle of indifference. If a conflict arose within a group, no outsider would step in to mediate. Alan recently noticed that a group of first-years who always played together had an argument, and the group immediately fractured into two smaller sets that now completely ignore one another.