Return of Salazar Slytherin

Rhys hurried down the stairs, hoping that the desserts in the Great Hall hadn't been cleared away yet.

If he moved quickly, he might still snag a bowl of pudding.

As for the food Daphne had brought, Rhys wasn't holding out hope.

There was nothing edible for the living at the Deathday Party, and there were four young wizards left behind at the scene. The meat soup in the lunchbox was probably already gone.

Halfway down, Rhys realized he was too late.

A deep, rumbling murmur rose from below, resembling distant thunder. It was followed by the sound of hundreds of footsteps ascending the stairs—signs that the feast had ended.

Moments later, the students appeared, flowing past Rhys like a dense school of fish. He could faintly catch the aroma of roasted meat and pumpkin in the air.

Sighing inwardly, Rhys pushed his way against the crowd to head downstairs.

He considered fishing in the Black Lake to roast something for dinner and silently regretted not figuring out the kitchen's location from the Hufflepuffs back in the day. Surely, a few recipes could have solved his hunger problem...

When Hogwarts Castle was being built, each of the four founders was responsible for designing specific areas. For instance, Rowena Ravenclaw designed the library, while Rhys handled the Potions classroom.

The responsibility of designing the kitchen and dining area, however, fell to Helga Hufflepuff.

In the end, she combined the dining area and the Great Hall into one and kept the kitchen's location a secret from the other founders. She didn't want them interfering with the meal preparation process.

...

"Meals are of utmost importance. Considering the castle's size and the functional division of other areas, I see no need to build a separate Great Hall. A dining room is sufficient. Both students and teachers can hold assemblies there," Hufflepuff explained, pointing at the model of Hogwarts Castle.

"Alright."

"Sounds good."

Slytherin and Ravenclaw had no objections. They both found Hufflepuff's two-in-one approach rather clever. Ravenclaw was delighted at the prospect of using the saved space to expand the library, while Slytherin simply didn't care one way or the other.

"Are we going to set up a long table on one side of the hall and have the students line up to get their food?" Gryffindor, ever mindful of meals, asked. To him, a person couldn't build a strong body without eating properly.

The serving-line method Gryffindor proposed was the most common meal distribution practice of their era.

In castles, cooks would prepare food in large tubs, and servants would queue up to serve themselves: staples, stews, and soups. If the meal was lavish, there might even be meat. For simpler fare, stews and soups were combined into a single bucket of mush.

"I have another idea," Hufflepuff said with a mysterious smile. "What if, with a single command, plates of sumptuous food magically appeared on the students' tables? What do you think of that scene?"

"That would be awesome!"

Gryffindor was instantly excited. In his eyes, this serving method was the epitome of cool.

"But it would place high demands on the kitchen," Slytherin remarked, focusing on the feasibility of the idea.

Ravenclaw chimed in with a practical suggestion for her friend: "We could have students sit with their respective houses. That way, we'd only need to set up four long tables and one for the teachers, which would significantly reduce the complexity of serving."

"But wouldn't this lead to divisions between the houses? It might psychologically suggest to students that the houses are fundamentally separate, which goes against our intentions, doesn't it? After all, the only differences between them are just due to our personal 'preferences.'"

Helga voiced her concerns about the future.

The other three founders remained silent.

Godric didn't give the matter much thought. To him, whether the houses ate separately or together made no difference. As for potential divisions, he dismissed Helga's worry as overthinking.

Rowena, however, was fully aware that divisions between the four houses were inevitable.

Even if their generation remained united, once the four founders and the second generation of students they personally taught were gone or retired, divisions between the houses were bound to emerge.

When the founders decided to split admissions by house, the creation of inter-house divisions became a foregone conclusion, whether shallow or deep. With good fortune, it might just result in stereotypes and labels; with bad luck, Hogwarts could split into four separate factions.

Compared to the possibility of the school fracturing, whether students sat by house for meals was a trivial issue.

As Rowena had predicted, divisions eventually formed among the four houses, and students naturally chose to dine exclusively with members of their own house.

Salazar, on the other hand, remained silent because he agreed with Helga. He believed students shouldn't sit by house for meals—but for a unique reason. In his view, mixing houses during meals could prevent someone from targeting an entire house with poison.

If every member of a house sat at the same table, wouldn't that make them an easy target for mass poisoning?

As for Helga's claim about "students' only difference," Salazar did not agree.

Were Muggle-born students the same as those from wizarding families?

He had always opposed admitting children from Muggle families into Hogwarts. In his view, at least one of a student's parents needed to be a wizard to ensure loyalty; otherwise, their natural allegiance would lie with Muggle lords, which could one day bring disaster to the school.

Unfortunately, Helga and Godric wouldn't listen to reason, and Rowena's stance was ambiguous.

With the support or acquiescence of the other three founders, the Hogwarts dining hall was ultimately designed by Helga to include four long student tables and one for the staff.

She also enchanted the dining hall with ingenious magic, allowing the house-elves in the kitchen to transport dish after dish directly to the long tables.

However, this was not solely due to Helga's magic. The house-elves, a remarkable group the four founders had rescued from Odin's palace, played an essential role.

These magical creatures had an extraordinary talent for spatial magic, enabling them to transport food to its proper place.

Initially, Helga had stationed the elves at the ruins of Odin's palace to clean up the aftermath. But now that the castle was complete, it was time to summon them to Hogwarts to serve the school.

...

As Rhys recalled this, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

While it was true that the elves were adept at spatial magic, wouldn't it make more sense—logically and practically—to place a room directly beneath the Great Hall and arrange five tables in alignment with the ones above?

Then the elves would only need to place the food correctly before transporting it straight upward, ensuring each dish landed perfectly on the tables above.

Pondering the layout of the castle, Rhys felt he might have just figured out where the Hogwarts kitchen was located!

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