Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 187 The Hogwarts Dining Table

Rice hurried down the stairs. The desserts in the prayer hall hadn't been removed yet, and if she walked fast enough, she might be able to snag a bowl of pudding.

As for the food Daphne brought, Rice didn't count on it: there wasn't a single food available for the living at the anniversary celebration, and there were four little wizards left there; the broth in their lunchboxes was probably all drunk up.

But halfway up, Rice knew it was too late, because he heard a low, rumbling noise, like muffled thunder, coming from beneath his feet. This was followed by the sound of hundreds of people climbing the stairs, signaling the end of the banquet.

Immediately afterwards, the students appeared, surging past Rice like a dense school of fish, and Rice could even faintly smell the aroma of roasted meat and roasted pumpkin.

Rice sighed inwardly and walked downstairs against the flow of people.

He was considering catching a fish from the Black Lake to grill and eat, while secretly regretting not having tried to find out the location of the kitchen from Hufflepuff back then; a few recipes might have been enough to solve the problem...

When Hogwarts Castle was established, the four founders each took charge of a portion of the construction. For example, Ravenclaw designed the library, Rice designed the Potions classroom, and so on. The responsibility of designing the kitchen and dining room fell to Helga Hufflepuff.

Ultimately, she combined the restaurant and the auditorium into one, but she hasn't revealed the location of the kitchen to the other founders yet, because she doesn't want them to interfere with the food preparation process.

……

"Eating is of utmost importance, and considering the size of the castle and the functional division of other areas, I don't think it's necessary to build a separate Great Hall. A dining hall is sufficient. Students and teachers can hold meetings in the dining hall," Hufflepuff said, pointing to a model of Hogwarts Castle.

"it is good."

"Can."

Slytherin and Ravenclaw had no objections; they thought Hufflepuff's two-in-one idea was quite good. Ravenclaw was happy that the saved space could be used to expand the library, while Slytherin was completely indifferent.

"Should we set up a long table on one side of the Great Hall and have the students line up for meals?" Gryffindors still valued food. How could someone have a healthy body if they couldn't even get enough to eat?

The Gryffindor's method of serving meals was also the most common way of portioning food in their time. The cooks in the castle would put the food in several large buckets, and then have the servants line up to receive the meals—main course, stew, soup, and if it was more plentiful, there would also be meat; if it was simpler, the stew and soup would be combined into one bucket of porridge.

"I have another idea," Hufflepuff said with a mysterious smile. "What do you think of the scene where, with a single command, platters of sumptuous food appear on the students' tables?"

"So cool!" Gryffindor was immediately captivated; in his opinion, this way of serving food was incredibly cool.

"But the requirements for the kitchen will be very high." Slytherin was considering the possibility of realizing his idea.

Ravenclaw offered her friend a great idea for improvement: "We can have the students from each house sit together for dinner, which would only require setting up four long tables and one table for the teachers, making it much easier to serve the food."

"But won't this create a divide between the colleges? It might give students the impression that the colleges are clearly separated, which goes against our original intention, doesn't it? After all, the only difference between them is due to our different 'tastes'." Helga felt a little worried about the future.

None of the other three founders said a word.

Godric didn't take the matter to heart at all. In his view, what difference did it make whether the different colleges ate separately or together? As for the possibility of creating discord, that was just Helga worrying unnecessarily.

Rowena knew perfectly well that a rift was inevitable between the four academies. Even if they were as close as family in their generation, once the four of them and the second-generation disciples they had personally raised passed away or retired, the rift between the academies would certainly emerge.

When the four decided to recruit students separately, the emergence of divisions between the four houses was inevitable, to varying degrees. With good luck, it might just result in a stereotypical label being attached to someone; with bad luck, Hogwarts would split into four.

Given the possibility of the school splitting up, whether students eat at separate tables according to their college is truly a trivial matter.

As Ravenclaw had predicted, a rift developed between the four houses, and the students tacitly agreed to only eat with students from their own house.

Salazar remained silent because he felt the students shouldn't eat at separate tables by house—he was a supporter of the Hufflepuffs! However, his reasoning was rather unique: he believed this would prevent malicious individuals from poisoning any particular house.

If all the students in a college eat at the same table, wouldn't it be easy for them to be caught in one fell swoop?

He disagreed with Hufflepuff's claim that "the only difference among the students" was something he was referring to.

Are students born into Muggle families the same as students from wizarding families? He has always opposed admitting children from Muggle families. He believes that at least one parent should be a wizard to be reliable enough; otherwise, their stance will naturally be on the side of the Muggle lord, potentially bringing disaster to the school in the future.

Unfortunately, Helga and Godric wouldn't listen to advice, and Rowena's attitude was also ambiguous.

With the support or tacit approval of the other three founders, Hufflepuff ultimately decided on the layout of Hogwarts' dining hall: four long tables for students and one table for teachers.

She also cast a magical spell on the restaurant, enabling the house-elves in the kitchen to teleport bowls of food directly from the kitchen to the long table in the restaurant.

However, this wasn't entirely due to Hufflepuff's magic; the group of house-elves they rescued from Odin's palace also played a crucial role. These magical elves possessed remarkable spatial magic abilities, allowing them to teleport food to suitable locations.

They were originally placed by Helga in the ruins of Odin's Palace to clean up the mess, but now that the castle has been built, it's time to summon them to Hogwarts to serve the school.

……

Recalling this point, Rice suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Although the elves are theoretically very good at spatial magic, wouldn't it be more convenient to prepare a room directly below the Great Hall and then set up five tables according to the layout above? The elves only need to place the food in the correct positions and then teleport straight up to deliver all kinds of dishes to the tables of the young wizards and teachers.

After recalling the layout of the castle, Rice felt like she had found the school kitchen.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

uωu

This is the second update. The next update will be at midnight tonight, so I suggest you check it tomorrow morning!

(End of this chapter)