Chapter 121: Filch's Intelligence Gathering Results!

Harry and Hermione successfully transformed matchsticks into metal needles with patterns and normal eyelets, earning points from Professor McGonagall.

Poor old Dudley worked hard throughout the whole class but only received a few words of oral praise from Professor McGonagall.

So far, Dudley had already noticed that, apart from Professor Sprout in herbology class, the professors of the other courses had no desire to give him extra points. Maybe they regarded him as a colleague.

Or perhaps they thought that giving him points would be equivalent to giving points to all four houses, which wouldn't affect the year - end House Award rankings at all, so they simply didn't do it.

As for the reason why Professor Sprout gave him points, Dudley privately thought that it was to make the overall performance of Hufflepuff House, which she led, look better.

After all, although there were students of Hufflepuff House with excellent inborn endowments and strength, in terms of personality, they were just too easy - going.

They didn't usually answer questions to seek the limelight very often, so they had fewer opportunities to get extra points. As a result, Hufflepuff House had been ranked among the bottom one or two positions in the House Award for years.

Professor Sprout saw it and was worried, but with her gentle personality, she wouldn't be overly anxious.

As Dudley was thinking about these things, he walked towards the Great Hall with Harry and the others. It was lunchtime, time to have lunch!

In addition, there were still some things that he had to keep an eye on the progress and make some arrangements.

On the way, Ron handed Dudley his old and shabby wand with the hair showing, which he got from his brother Charlie.

There was still half of this week's class time left, and there were no classes that required the use of wands.

After reaching the first - floor Great Hall, Dudley saw Dumbledore who had also come for lunch. They exchanged a casual glance, and Dudley immediately understood that Peeves' transformation operation had been successfully completed, and he had officially started his surveillance job.

Although Dudley didn't yet know how the old man had transformed Peeves, he had an idea.

After that, he and his companions casually had a so - so lunch.

He didn't even touch the fried wild bull steak on the table. The wild bull hadn't been castrated, and it smelled so fishy that he thought the house - elves' food magic hadn't been used properly. He had to give it a bad review. It was a waste of the ingredients he had kindly provided.

During the noon break, Dudley went to the area near the school infirmary and released Filch from his surveillance of Eris.

This old man was quite dedicated. He didn't even go to the Great Hall for lunch. He and Mrs. Norris were huddled in a secluded corner, sharing the charred grilled fish.

Dudley asked and found out that Mrs. Norris got the fish herself from the gentle giant squid at the Black Lake. After she fetched it back, Filch used the Fiendfyre spell to roast it. Throughout the whole process, Filch never left the area near the school infirmary.

"You don't need to keep an eye on that woman for now. Just pay attention to her during her daily activities."

"Yes! Teaching Assistant, sir!"

"By the way, how's the information I asked you to gather coming along?"

"All in this big notebook, Teaching Assistant, sir. Please take a look!"

Dudley cast the Muffliato spell and asked Filch about the progress of his work.

Hearing this, Filch immediately took out a big notebook from his robe pocket and handed it to Dudley.

Dudley took it and carefully flipped through it. He found that Filch not only recorded what had happened this week but also wrote down all the events he remembered from the past few years from memory, filling many pages.

"Teaching Assistant, sir, discrimination against Muggle-born students by pure-blood students happens quite often. There are usually two or three such incidents every week.

However, the conflicts between houses are relatively less common.

Generally, it's the conflict between the students of Slytherin and Gryffindor. There are usually some frictions in class, which will turn into casting evil spells on each other and playing rather malicious pranks after class.

Moreover, these incidents occur regularly. When Gryffindor students are severely deducted house points for violating school rules, Slytherin students often can't resist mocking them, leading to more large-scale house conflict incidents.

Near the end of the school year, Gryffindor's house points often lag behind other houses. In particular, they can't stand Slytherin, which is far ahead in house points, and this also leads to an increase in friction and conflict incidents.

As for Ravenclaw House, they are generally addicted to learning and reading. They are rather arrogant and usually don't cause trouble, thinking it's a waste of time.

But sometimes, there are incidents of isolation and cold-violence within their house. Many students will isolate a classmate who is introverted, unsociable, and behaves strangely.

This situation also exists in other houses, but it's not as obvious as in Ravenclaw House.

Finally, Hufflepuff House is the most worry-free. The students in this house respect school rules the most, but they are often the ones who suffer the most in campus conflict incidents.

When students from other houses insult them or cast evil spells on them, they don't even think about fighting back. Instead, they first go to the professors to seek justice.

Of course, Hufflepuff students will sometimes explode, especially when others insult their house or mention food."

Filch introduced the situation of each house at Hogwarts to Dudley like counting precious treasures, which made Dudley nod frequently.

"The fight between the reckless brave students and the sarcastic ambitious students is easy to understand. It's only natural that honest people don't explode until their bottom line is touched.

As for the smart people, those smart people with a narrow vision will always resist and isolate the truly talented who keep silent, so as to achieve their fragile psychological balance.

This kind of isolation cold-violence generally doesn't happen in Slytherin because the students in Slytherin are all real relatives with a built-in social hierarchy and belong to the pure-blood interest group;

It generally doesn't happen in Gryffindor because the reckless don't understand cold-violence at all, and it will soon turn into hot-violence;

It generally doesn't happen in Hufflepuff because honest people are usually introverted. Their emotions are restrained in normal communication, so there is no such thing as cold-violence at all because their normal state of getting along is already similar to cold-violence."

Dudley was analyzing and sighing as he flipped through the big notebook's records.

After that, he turned to the part about Snape's daily insults and corporal punishment of students.

"Whoa! There are actually quite a few! But he yells more than he hits. That Old Bat (referring to Snape) still has a bit of self-control, though not much."

He's a half - blood wizard, but he's so bent on protecting the pure - blood wizards in Slytherin and so targeted at Gryffindor. It seems he really loathes the Marauders to the bone and takes it out on others.

What I hate most about him is that every wrong has its doer. If you can't find the right target for revenge and drag innocent people into it, what kind of a man are you!"

Dudley cursed Snape vehemently.

Then, he closed the big notebook and returned it to Filch, giving new instructions: "Go back and tidy it up. Bring me a copy at dinner tomorrow evening."

"Yes! Teaching Assistant, sir!"