The Missing Head of House

If you told a Hufflepuff a secret without asking them to keep it, that secret would soon spread throughout Hogwarts and might even make its way beyond the school.

Rumours always travelled quickly wherever there were lots of girls. Professor Minerva McGonagall had originally been Dumbledore's assistant, later taking on Care of Magical Creatures as well. Only after Dumbledore became headmaster did she become Gryffindor's Head of House and Transfiguration teacher. Care of Magical Creatures was currently taught by Silvanus Kettleburn.

"My brother said Dumbledore has been trying to get Hagrid to take the position, but the Ministry of Magic keeps refusing," Susan said as they headed for the dungeons after class, sharing her gossip without forgetting to add her own opinion. "They call him a brutal giant. I say the Ministry is only doing it because they're afraid Dumbledore will control all of Hogwarts. Who at Hogwarts gets along better with the creatures in the Forbidden Forest than Hagrid?"

"Where is our Head of House?" Mary asked.

"Him? Maybe he forgot when term started." Susan swept back her short hair like a boy. "He was in the same year as Newt, and he likes travelling everywhere too. Sometimes Professor Grubbly-Plank lets her daughter fill in for him. She's about our age and very easygoing."

"What are you doing, Pomona?" Jane could not help asking when she noticed her strange behaviour.

"Praying." Pomona pressed her palms together.

"Praying for what?"

"That someone does not show up in Potions."

The girls looked at one another. After class, most students travelled the corridors in groups made up of their dormmates. If Pomona had not left so early, she should have been with Mary and the others. Instead, she had ended up alone and nearly been stopped by some Slytherins and Ravenclaws looking for trouble.

First-years had a period of protection. Otherwise, she would already have been taught a lesson by Ravenclaw upper-years. Likewise, if a little Ravenclaw eagle was caught by a Hufflepuff older girl, they would get taught a lesson too. Want to know why? Ask the Gryffindor and Slytherin boys why they could not stand the sight of one another.

Boys were forbidden from getting into group fights, so Quidditch had become another kind of battlefield. The Slytherin girls bullying a Hufflepuff girl had enraged all the Hufflepuff boys. Hufflepuff, however, would not openly pick a fight and risk losing points like Gryffindor would. They intended to teach Slytherin a lesson and settle the score on the Quidditch pitch.

The score did not matter. What mattered was beating enough people into the hospital wing. If their Head of House had been around, the boys would not have been so impulsive. Unfortunately, Dorian was absent. Heaven knew whether he could return before the violence escalated.

Witches had once been hunted during the Middle Ages, and Pomona did not think Muggles were helpless weaklings who needed wizards' sympathy. Leaving magic aside and considering only the art of political manoeuvring, wizards were not necessarily Muggles' equals. Wizards and Muggles were equally intelligent when it came to plotting against people, and even cunning Slytherins might not be a match for Muggle politicians. Some believed that, apart from the witch hunts, there had also been a war between wizards and Muggles in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Muggles had won, and afterwards began restricting wizards through the Ministry of Magic. If a wizard wanted to bring a dangerous magical creature into the Muggle world, they had to report it to the Muggle Prime Minister. Newt had caused so much trouble precisely because he had failed to file a report.

"I'm really sorry." Eddie Watt's face was flushed red as he stumbled down from Gryffindor Tower, surrounded by the boys from his dormitory.

"Don't worry. Everyone gets too much stomach acid sometimes," one of his roommates comforted him, though Pomona felt it was a well-meant lie.

Eddie Watt was going to become a laughingstock. Until some other "interesting incident" occurred, he would be the talk of Hogwarts. A Muggle-born had actually vomited after seeing an Animagus. Luckily, Eddie had been sorted into Hufflepuff, and people were still willing to walk with him. In any other House, they would already have stayed far away from him. As for Slytherin, perhaps it was not too late for him to drop out now.

"I bet those ravens will spread what happened to Watt until everyone in the school knows," Susan said furiously. The ravens she meant were naturally the Ravenclaw students.

"Maybe worse. Don't forget, they write the History of Magic too," Mary added absent-mindedly, fanning the flames.

That was the advantage of power. Whenever you wanted to distort a fact, there would always be a group of "clever people" eager to help.

To be fair, Ravenclaw also had Muggle-born students. Like Eddie Watt, it was their first time seeing an Animagus transformation, yet none of them had vomited. But Pomona was now a Hufflepuff girl, and Ravenclaw girls would not thank her for speaking up for their justice. So Pomona did not stop her roommates' malicious slander.

"Have you noticed? Most of the professors working at Hogwarts are unmarried. At least, none have a child attending the school with them like Professor Grubbly-Plank does. Hogwarts is enormous. There are definitely enough rooms for the professors to house their families. Yet even Professor Slughorn lives alone at the school. Was this a rule that began with Dumbledore, or has it always been this way?" Jane gently changed the subject.

"After being lonely for too long, people place their feelings in other things. Those ladies who keep cats are like that. Maybe Dumbledore hopes the teachers will care for the students of all four Houses as if they were their own children," Mary said with a smile.

"Oh, I certainly would not love Ravenclaw's ravens as I love my own daughter. Isn't that right, Medusa?" Susan immediately cut in. A tabby cat lay in her arms, and she held it as though it were a baby.

It was a simple principle: the knowledge and experience discovered by those who came before needed to be passed down by those who came after. That was what schools were for, linking the past to the future. Without students attending school, teachers alone were useless. The Hufflepuff girls believed that bearing and raising children was absolutely vital to the survival of wizards, especially in an era that kept producing mad dictators who wanted wizards to rule over Muggles or wipe them out. How many Muggles were there in the world—one billion, or two? The worldwide wizarding population could not possibly exceed a few million. What gave a minority the right to rule a majority? Wands might be powerful, but Muggle bullets and bombs were just as deadly.

A family was bound to consist of a man and a woman, while clever people often found it difficult to trust others.

Even if children were born, knowledge would still not be renewed without wise teachers and people brave enough to expand its boundaries. Humanity would stagnate as well. Ravenclaw represented the element of air, floating above the earth in pure freedom. Their focus when viewing things differed from Hufflepuff's. That conflict could not be reconciled, which was why the girls of the two Houses were natural enemies.

Taking class with Slytherin was not much better than taking class with Ravenclaw. It was no short walk from Gryffindor Tower to the dungeons. Slytherin's first class had been Flying Class with Gryffindor, and their common room was near the Potions classroom. They had even had time to return their brooms to their common room. By the time Hufflepuff reached the dungeons, the Slytherin first-years were already seated "elegantly." What adjective could describe the scene? It was like badgers barging into a snake nest—one side would have to die for the other to live!

"Get to your seats!" a Slytherin upper-year standing at the lectern shouted at the Hufflepuffs, a book in his hand.

"Where is the professor?" Mary hurriedly found a seat. Pomona looked around but did not see Severus Snape.

Her prayer being answered did not make her happy. Expressionless, she placed Magical Drafts and Potions and her quill on the desk.

"Can't you see? He's our teacher." Pomona gestured for Mary to look at the impatient-looking Slytherin upper-year. "We are not qualified to receive Professor Slughorn's personal instruction."

Mary's little face fell, and anger swelled through her whole body.

"The school doesn't pay him a salary so he can slack off."

"Of course he isn't slacking off. I suppose he is teaching the students he favours right now." Pomona felt somewhat listless. That pot-bellied professor was truly biased.

"Who?" Mary asked.

"You'll find out soon enough." As soon as Pomona finished speaking, the classroom rapidly fell silent, and the new lesson began.