Chapter 95: Night Patrol Exposed! The First Defense Against the Dark Arts Class!

After leaving Filch, Dudley returned to the Gryffindor boys' dormitory and found that Ron was already awake.

This red - haired fellow, seeing Dudley return from outside the dormitory looking exhausted and wearing a robe instead of pajamas, guessed something. His eyes were full of wonder, and he asked with great curiosity:

"Dudley, did you go on a night patrol last night?"

"Yeah!"

Dudley casually responded, looking quite self - righteous.

"Then take me with you next time!" Ron's eyes shone even brighter, his face full of excitement. "Fred and George have always been showing off their night - patrol stories to me. I've been dying to try it."

"No... no, you can't! Ron, night patrolling... violates the school rules!"

Before Dudley could reply, Neville, who was sleepy - eyed and just getting up from his bed, stammered and timidly refuted Ron's bold idea.

Apparently, it took Neville a lot of courage to say this to refute his friend.

Ron's face immediately fell, and he said, "Just going on a night patrol once in a while isn't a big deal, right! Dudley has already done it."

"I'm a teaching assistant, Ron," Dudley said. "Although I haven't assisted in teaching yet, I have fewer restrictions than ordinary students."

"Got it, Teaching Assistant Dursley."

Kids' likes and dislikes change in a flash. Ron had just been refuted by Neville and then heard what Dudley said. He was in a bad mood, and he drawled sarcastically.

Dudley wasn't annoyed by this. He changed the subject: "However, if you secretly go on a night patrol, I won't stop you."

Hearing this, Ron's happiness returned. He said excitedly, "I knew you weren't as boring as Neville, Dudley."

Dudley didn't respond to Ron anymore. He turned to Neville, who looked a bit embarrassed behind the curtain, and said:

"Neville, what you said is right. It's a virtue to follow the correct rules. Pointing out your friend's mistakes takes courage. For this, I'll add 2 house points to Gryffindor."

As soon as he said this, Neville was stunned, and so was Ron.

Although they knew that Principal Dumbledore had given Dudley the power to add or deduct house points, it was still a huge shock to see their roommate use this power like a professor for the first time.

How can you, just a dorm - mate, legally alter our final grades?

Seamus, who was lying on the wooden bed next to them, was also woken up by Dudley's "reason" for adding points.

"Points? What points?" Seamus caught the key term and asked sleepily.

"Nothing. Get up, wash up, and get ready for class. Earn some house points for Gryffindor!"

Dudley let out a little chuckle. He roused Ron, Neville, and Seamus, but then he flopped onto the bed and dozed off right away.

There were no classes this morning, so he could still take a nap for over an hour.

Harry, who had stayed up half the night, was still asleep, snoring away on the wooden bed next to Dudley.

Ron, Neville, and Seamus glanced at each other. After checking the time, they quickly plopped back into their beds for a snooze.

...

On the second day of formal classes after the start of the semester, all the members of Harry's dormitory were late, ten minutes late.

Fortunately, Gryffindor's first class this morning was still an herbology class. The gentle Professor Sprout didn't make things too difficult for them.

She only deducted one point and let the matter drop.

Normally, as a teaching assistant and a member of all four houses, Dudley didn't need to follow the fixed class schedule. He could choose which classes to attend and even apply to teach a new course as a professor.

However, during the first week of school, he decided not to be special. He would first take all eight major courses at Hogwarts along with the Gryffindor students.

After gaining some practical experience, he would make subsequent plans and discuss with Dumbledore where to initiate the educational reform at Hogwarts.

There were three herbology classes a week, one each on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Except for the practical class in the herb greenhouse early in the morning on Monday, the classes on Tuesday and Wednesday were theoretical classes held in the castle classrooms during the first period in the morning.

Even in the theoretical classes that required reading textbooks, Professor Sprout's lectures were full of fun. She would occasionally take out a pot of magical herbs for the students to pass around and examine in class to deepen their memory.

In Dudley's opinion, Professor Sprout was undoubtedly a very competent teacher for herbology, an industrious and capable gardener.

After the herbology class, the first - year Gryffindor students excitedly rushed to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Compared with the relatively boring herbology, they were more looking forward to the Defense Against the Dark Arts, especially since this year's professor was such a beautiful and mysterious witch.

Dudley mingled with the group, wearing a calm and somewhat solemn expression.

He was about to formally face Professor Eris, who was "very normal".

He hoped she could bring him a little special surprise.

Professor Eris was a very punctual professor. Before the Gryffindor students reached the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, she had already prepared the teaching materials and was waiting there.

In this class, Gryffindor was having the class with the Hufflepuff students.

When everyone entered the classroom, they saw Professor Eris wearing a dark - red wizard's hat, fiddling with a large rectangular object covered by a red cloth.

Judging from the shape, it should be a large cage.

From inside the cage, there came the sound of hitting the iron bars from time to time, making the red cloth covering it tremble.

Most of the students were attracted by this novel thing the female professor had prepared.

However, Dudley's attention was subtly focused on the pointed wizard hat on the female professor's head.

Well, once bitten, twice shy.

Who knew if the female professor had been secretly attacked by Voldemort? Was this wizard hat similar to the garlic - scented turban around Quirrell's head?

"Looks like everyone is here. I won't take attendance! Let's start the class formally!

Please turn to page five of *Dark Forces: A Guide to Self - Protection*. Today, we're going to learn about a very remarkable dark creature."

As Dudley was thinking, a series of very pleasant female voices came from Professor Eris's lips, and the originally noisy classroom immediately fell silent.

One had to admit that this female professor was indeed quite amiable.

Her way of teaching is like coaxing kids, similar to Dudley's kindergarten teacher in his previous life.

The so - called Defense Against the Dark Arts course doesn't focus on learning counter incantations and solutions for advanced dark magic.

Instead, it's about making wizards recognize the various dark creatures in the magical world, whether they are strong or weak, and teaching them what methods and incantations to use to defend against these dark creatures.

Most of the course content focuses on how to deal with those dark creatures of average strength and obvious weaknesses.

Because for powerful magical creatures like fire dragons and thunderbirds, ordinary wizards simply can't deal with them using tricky incantations. They can only rely on a group attack or call for help from stronger wizards.

At this moment, Professor Eris is talking about a common dark creature widely distributed in Northern Europe: the red cap.