On the last day of the school year, the entire Great Hall had been decorated in Gryffindor red and gold.
A huge banner bearing the Gryffindor lion hung on the wall behind the High Table.
No one was surprised by the result. Gryffindor had simply had too great an advantage.
After winning the Quidditch Cup, Gryffindor had earned a large number of points.
And there had been no major incidents of rule-breaking by Gryffindors that year—or, more accurately, no rule-breakers had been caught.
Although Professor Snape had done his best to take points from Gryffindor, he had given Harley far too many points.
In a sense, the points Harley had earned for Gryffindor in Potions Class alone made up for all the points the other first-years had lost in that class over the entire year.
On top of that, Harley and Hermione had been point-scoring machines in their other classes, too, and were beloved by the other professors. Unlike Professor Snape, the other professors weren't stingy with points.
So Gryffindor naturally came out on top, beating second-place Slytherin by fifty-five points.
At the end-of-year feast, Professor Dumbledore gave a brief speech congratulating Gryffindor on winning the House Cup.
When Professor Dumbledore announced the result, Professor McGonagall's face lit up with a smile.
After all, Slytherin had won the House Cup six years in a row, and Professor Snape had spent six whole years sneering at the other Heads of House.
The Heads of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were also very pleased with the result. They hadn't won the House Cup themselves, but keeping Slytherin from winning was good enough.
It wasn't that they were deliberately ganging up on Slytherin. Professor Snape's talent for snide remarks was simply too formidable.
So far, no one had escaped those remarks except Harley. Even Professor