Upon hearing Harry's explanation, Ron immediately looked forward. In the Ravenclaw line not far away, Victor and Luna were chatting happily, and the diadem on Luna's head was also sparkling.
"Oh, I see…" Ron nodded in sudden understanding.
But just then, Hermione suddenly turned around and glared at them viciously for some reason. This scared Harry and Ron so much that they immediately pretended to be fine, lowering their heads and not daring to make a sound. This was probably the motherly crushing strike against her two foolish sons.
As the moon hung high and the stars receded, the long-awaited Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts began to play. Inside the Great Hall, the first-years of 1992 were following Professor McGonagall into the hall, ready for the solemn and grand Sorting Ceremony.
First, Dumbledore, as in previous years, read out a few important school rules, and then Professor McGonagall began to read out the names of the new students from a list.
At the Ravenclaw table, Victor was watching the nervous new wizards with great interest and marveled at how time flies. Thinking back now, his own Sorting Ceremony a year ago felt like it was just yesterday.
"Luna Lovegood!" Professor McGonagall called out Luna's name. As soon as she said it, all the young wizards in the Great Hall looked in unison at the figure who was already sitting at the Ravenclaw table. Professor McGonagall naturally noticed the students' odd behavior and also looked in the same direction. She then raised her voice by ten decibels and shouted, "Luna Lovegood?"
"Go on," Victor said with a smile, patting Luna's head lightly and gesturing toward the Sorting Hat. "No matter what, you can't skip the Sorting process."
"Okay!" Luna replied softly. Then she stood up and happily skipped toward the Sorting Hat. However, as soon as she got to the stage, there was a sudden commotion from the direction of the professors' table.
Professor Flitwick even stood up directly from his high stool and said in disbelief, "Oh, my! She's wearing Ravenclaw's diadem…"
Professor McGonagall also looked at the girl with the unique aura in front of her in shock. At the same time, the Sorting Hat, which was being held in her hand, suddenly said upon seeing the diadem, "Oh, I don't think there's any need for you to wear me. Ravenclaw!!!"
"YEAH!!!!" The young Ravenclaws immediately cheered. They had all been holding their breath! If a person who was accepted by the Ravenclaw diadem wasn't sorted into Ravenclaw House, they would definitely consider kidnapping her right after the opening ceremony. Even Merlin couldn't stop them!
After receiving the official acceptance from the Sorting Hat, Luna happily skipped back to her fellow Ravenclaws in the same way she had come. Victor took Luna's hand, helped her get over the wide wooden bench, and then congratulated her with a smile, "Welcome to Ravenclaw, Luna!"
"Thank you!" Luna smiled happily. But just then, under the influence of the diadem, she seemed to suddenly sense something different. She then reached out and touched Victor's chest.
CRUNCH!!!
A sound, as if something had just shattered, suddenly came from the Gryffindor table. Harry and Ron both looked in the direction of the sound in horror, feeling that they should probably take some measures to protect themselves right now.
Ginny tugged on her brother's sleeve and asked in a low voice, "What's wrong with Hermione?"
"Shhh…" Ron immediately covered his sister's mouth and then reminded her in a frightened whisper, "Don't make a sound. It's best not to provoke her right now, or who knows what terrible thing will happen…"
Returning to Ravenclaw…
Luna's hand was on Victor's chest, and she asked curiously, "I think I can feel a heartbeat inside."
"Oh, you found her!" Victor looked down and instantly knew what Luna was referring to. "Her name is Helena, and she's my pet, a very beautiful Swooping Evil!"
"Really?! I've never seen a magical creature like that before!" Luna's eyes were instantly filled with curiosity. "Is she a girl or a boy?"
"She's a girl," Victor replied.
"I'd like to meet her, may I?"
"Of course!" To be honest, Luna was a truly incredible witch. She was the first person who knew that Helena was a Swooping Evil and wasn't afraid. Instead, she wanted to get closer to her.
You have to remember that even Hagrid, who had a fanatical love for magical creatures, had put a cauldron on his head the first time he saw Helena.
Gradually, the feast came to an end. But Dumbledore didn't immediately let the students go back to their dorms as was the custom. Instead, he began to talk about the things to pay attention to in the new school year. This time, however, his speech seemed to be a tiny bit long…
"Good evening, students." Dumbledore began with a friendly greeting. "Tonight, we welcome a new school year and a new batch of Hogwarts first-years. Now there are a few things that I would like to announce on behalf of Hogwarts."
He then unfolded a piece of parchment that was filled with dense writing. "Please take note, students. After careful consideration by the school, the House Cup competition will be temporarily suspended this year. Instead, we will be implementing a new system of professor and head of house responsibility. The four heads of house and every subject professor will be directly responsible for their corresponding house or subject."
"At the end of the school year, the school will grade the four heads of house and every subject professor. The grading criteria will come from the overall performance of the four houses and the overall grades of the students in each subject. The head of the best-performing house will receive the Head of House of the Year award, and the professor whose subject grades are ranked first will receive the Professor of the Year award."
That's right. Upon hearing this, any wizard would feel that this system was very familiar. In fact, this new system that Dumbledore had just announced was actually based on Victor's suggestions.
Its purpose was to improve the vicious competition among Hogwarts students and instead make the four heads of house and the school's professors compete fiercely among themselves.
And now, the naive young wizards had yet to realize the seriousness of the situation. In fact, if Victor wanted to cause trouble, he definitely wouldn't stop at just this.
Sure enough, Dumbledore continued. "Starting this semester, the school will be adjusting the class time of each class from the original 30 minutes to 45 minutes, and changing History of Magic to World Magical History and Political Ethics."
"The professor for World Magical History and Political Ethics will be our school ghost, Ms. Helena Ravenclaw. Professor Cuthbert Binns will be the associate professor for this new subject, and his main job will be to write the new textbooks."
Upon hearing this, the young wizards finally started to have a reaction. They thought, It's one thing to make the professors work harder, but why are we being forced to work harder too?! Also, if Professor Binns isn't teaching, then the only class where we can sleep won't exist anymore?! But that wasn't all…
Dumbledore continued, "To test everyone's academic performance, starting this semester, the school has decided to hold two centralized exams, a midterm and a final, in each semester. The exam scores will have a huge impact on the year-end evaluations."
"At the same time, at the end of the school year, each subject professor will grade each house's overall performance for the year, and each head of house will grade the overall performance of the other three houses."
"The house's overall performance will include students' grades, Quidditch scores, the number of students who violated school rules during the year, and so on. So here, I hope that all students can encourage each other and have an excellent performance in the new school year."
After he finished speaking, there was a dead silence in the Great Hall. At this moment, the young wizards could only feel their scalps tingling and their backs getting cold. Because upon hearing all of this, they now knew that they were the ones who would suffer the most!
If this new system were truly implemented, then for all Hogwarts students, this castle would be nothing short of a living hell… You have to remember that besides a few oddballs, which of these heads of house and professors was easy to deal with?!
You have to remember that last semester, because Ravenclaw was practicing flying magic like crazy, the workload of many wizards had more than doubled. So it was easy to imagine what methods the school's professors would use to torture them in order to get that year-end honor.
The young wizards looked at the professors' table with cold sweat on their foreheads, only to see that in another space… a lion roared, an eagle brandished its claws, a snake showed its venomous fangs, and a badger was unafraid of death.
The opening feast hadn't even ended yet, and the four heads of house were already secretly fighting among themselves. Snape, in particular, had a look in his eyes as if he wanted to immediately kill the other three heads of house. The young wizards were so scared that their faces turned pale and they yelled in their hearts, Mum, I want to go home!!!
And just as the young wizards felt a dark cloud hanging over them, Dumbledore began to announce the unfortunate person who had been given the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for the year. "Now that I've finished with the new school system, I have another thing to announce."
"Our famous novelist, a Third Class Order of Merlin, Gilderoy Lockhart, will be our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for this school year. Also, Professor Silvanus Kettleburn, who has been our Care of Magical Creatures professor, has submitted his resignation and retired this year. Our gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid, will be taking his place. I am done. Thank you, everyone!"
Finally, Dumbledore finished reading the messy content on the parchment and slowly sat down.
At this moment, Victor looked at Lockhart, who was waving awkwardly at the professors' table, and couldn't help but get a headache. Because he knew the original plot, he knew very well that Gilderoy Lockhart was nothing more than a fraud who was a master of the Obliviate charm.
Although he admitted that this guy's novels were indeed very well-written and that he himself quite enjoyed reading them, it still couldn't hide the ironclad fact. The old bee was always wary of the curse that Voldemort had placed on the Defense Against the Dark Arts professorship, and every year he hired incompetent professors, which led to the Hogwarts students having nothing but theory in this class and no practical experience.
He had to find a way to solve this problem. He couldn't care less about the other houses, but he absolutely couldn't let this fraud mislead the young Ravenclaws. So after much thought, Victor decided that he himself would teach the young Ravenclaws Defense Against the Dark Arts this school year!
But come to think of it, why were two consecutive Defense Against the Dark Arts professors Ravenclaw graduates, and both of them were such eccentric people…
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