Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 343 Hufflepuff: I must take on apprentices, immediately!

Helga was tasked with persuading Dumbledore, while Rowena was required to work with Rice to devise the game's challenges. The large sandbox she had created out of boredom proved quite useful.

As Rowena and Rice became increasingly engrossed in their conversation, Helga could barely get a word in edgewise.

"You two can continue your conversation. I'm going upstairs first." Helga didn't want to wait around here. She understood that these kinds of things couldn't be resolved in a short time, so she decided to go back to the ground and do something practical—like finishing grading the students' assignments.

That's just the kind of down-to-earth person she is!

However, after she gradually calmed down, Helga suddenly realized a problem: the old raven and the old viper were so excited because they could send their own students to win honor for Hogwarts, and when they won first place in the future, they could also bring glory to their own house. But she couldn't send any students because her enrollment plan was still only on paper!

While everything was for Hogwarts' sake, and making Hogwarts the world's number one magic school was paramount, Helga would prefer, if possible, for a Hufflepuff student to win that honor for the school. She couldn't very well represent Hogwarts in that uncertain Teachers' Tournament, could she? Wouldn't Salazar and Rowena laugh at her to death?

Now, Helga felt a sense of urgency: she had to take on an apprentice, immediately!

Hufflepuff knew perfectly well that ordinary students had virtually no chance of winning against a successor meticulously trained by the founder. Even worse, even if he started training his successor now, he would only have one year to prepare by the time the competition started next year, and considering the characteristics of his own school's students…

Helga couldn't help but sigh.

Rowena's students have been with her for over a year, and Salazar has been rigorously focusing on his children's education since first grade, so they are really falling behind.

Back in her office, Helga didn't rush to find Dumbledore, nor did she pay attention to the unfinished assignments. Instead, she began working on the "Talent Screening Device." This device could filter out young wizards who were naturally sensitive to the flow of magic, allowing her to directly select students with exceptional talent.

Driven by immense pressure, Helga worked day and night for several days and finally finished the device before Halloween.

So, on Halloween Eve, an uninvited guest suddenly appeared in the common room of Hufflepuff School.

"Professor White, what are you doing here?" A fifth-year Hufflepuff girl exclaimed in surprise as she saw Professor White appear in the school lounge.

"Is that strange? I'm a Hufflepuff too," Helga replied with a double entendre.

"I knew it! I knew it all along—only Hufflepuff students could get in here, I should have known!" The girl's voice was filled with joy. It's truly wonderful that Professor White, a graduate of Hufflepuff, is such a teacher!

Helga was initially infected by the girl's happiness, but she soon discovered something puzzling about the girl's words.

"Wait a minute, what does it mean that only Hufflepuff students are allowed in here?"

"It means exactly what it says. No one from any other house has ever stepped into the Hufflepuff common room. For thousands of years, this place has belonged only to the Hufflepuffs!" the girl said proudly.

Hufflepuff: Oh, this...

"What about your friends from other colleges? Don't you invite them to sit in your college's lounge?" she couldn't help but ask.

A fifth-grade girl without a name: ?

"Of course not, this place belongs exclusively to Hufflepuffs!" After saying that, she looked at Helga with a suspicious gaze: "Professor, in your time, students from other houses weren't allowed to come here, were they?"

Helga did not answer her question directly.

From the girl's tone, Helga could tell that she had a very strong sense of belonging to the academy, but the problem was that this sense of belonging was a little too strong, and even showed a slight sense of rejection towards the other three academies.

"Professor," the girl said cautiously when Professor White didn't respond, "If you ask me, Hufflepuff students definitely have to find their closest friends within the house. People from other houses don't really respect us... It's just that some people from other houses show it on their faces, while others keep their thoughts to themselves..."

Helga couldn't help but sigh.

Today, delving deeper into the houses, she truly discovered details she hadn't noticed before. It was clear that, after a thousand years of development, a distinct divide had formed between the houses. It wasn't just Hufflepuff's common room; the other three houses were the same, only not as explicitly stated as Hufflepuff—Gryffindor required a password, Ravenclaw needed to solve puzzles, and Slytherin's students' high caliber made others want to stay away…

In the early days of Hogwarts, this sense of separation and alienation was not so pronounced. Students frequently mingled between houses; Hufflepuff students slept in Ravenclaw dormitories, Slytherin students were drugged in Gryffindor common rooms, and so on. But now everyone seems to have become more conservative, and the houses appear to be an invisible dividing line, separating them.

For the first time, Helga began to question whether their sorting of houses back then was the right thing to do.

"—But I don't mean everyone is like that. The Gryffindors are fine. But not bringing people from the outer houses into here is a tradition that has been upheld for nearly a thousand years, a tradition that every Hufflepuff insists on..." The female student's voice came from beside her ear, pulling Helga back to reality.

She tried to suppress her emotional turmoil and consoled herself with the current state of Slytherin House. Compared to the level of disappointment with the house, what was her own situation? Salazar was probably the one who was most devastated.

He once confidently declared that "the spirit of Slytherin may be lost, but it will never change."

"Come, child, look at this." Helga took a wooden box out of her bosom.

This box is naturally the talent testing device that Helga painstakingly created, which she calls the "Talent Box".

The girl curiously took the box and examined it: the box was made of pure wood and covered with a layer of glass. Under the glass, there was a small wooden ball in each of the four corners of the box, and the wooden balls were in four colors: red, yellow, blue, and green. In the center of the box, there were four holes, and the openings of the holes were also painted with red, yellow, blue, and green respectively.

"The rules are simple: no wands allowed. Successfully get the four balls into the holes of their corresponding colors." Helga gave an encouraging smile. "Want to give it a try?"

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.

The second update is here!

The next update will still be at midnight.

(End of this chapter)