The Admiral of Hogwarts

The first-year Ravenclaws followed a young man with short, golden hair through the noisy crowd, out of the dining hall, and up the marble staircase.

This young man was Robert Hilliard, the Ravenclaw prefect. Hugo had misremembered something; he had always thought that Penelope Clearwater should be the prefect, but in reality, Penelope was only a fourth-year student now, so she would probably become a prefect next year.

"Everyone must remember these moving staircases," Robert Hilliard said to the first-year students behind him as he climbed the stairs. "Because the castle is very large, it is easy to be late for class if you go the wrong way."

"There are a total of one hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts. Some of them are wide and large; some are narrow and small, and shaky; some lead to different places every Friday; some disappear suddenly halfway up, and you have to remember where to jump over."

"In addition, there are many doors here. If you don't politely ask them to open, or poke the right spot, they won't open for you; and some doors are not real doors at all, just solid walls that look like doors—" Just as the prefect finished instructing them and was leading the way, Hermione whispered to Hugo and Veneto beside her about what she had read in the books before.

Around them, many first-year students were also exchanging information about the castle, the school, Ravenclaw House, or the subjects they were going to study. From their discussions, Hugo also noticed that the students who were selected into Ravenclaw were at least more enthusiastic about learning, which could be seen from the content of their conversations.

After all, if they hadn't read the textbooks and a series of books in advance, at least half of the questions would have been impossible to discuss smoothly as they were now.

Because the Ravenclaw dormitory was located on a tower on the west side of the castle, the journey was not short. After seven or eight minutes, everyone climbed to the top of the tower called Ravenclaw Tower. At this time, an ancient, smooth wooden panel blocked the way, with a huge eagle-shaped bronze knocker on it.

Prefect Robert Hilliard stepped forward, grabbed the knocker, and knocked on it. The eagle's beak immediately opened, but instead of making a bird call, it said in a gentle, musical voice, "What is too much for two, but just right for one?"

"A secret," Robert Hilliard replied. Then he turned to the first-year students behind him and said, "Unlike the fixed passwords of other houses, our Ravenclaw's characteristic is the question asked by this eagle door knocker. Anyone who can answer the question correctly, regardless of which house they come from, can enter our common room. This is the open side of our house. However, only a handful of people can enter our house's common room each year."

Hugo felt that this was likely because the wizarding world as a whole was somewhat lacking in certain aspects. For example, the Carrow siblings, who were sent to teach at Hogwarts in the last year of the original story, could be said to be not too bad in terms of academic level, but they just couldn't answer the questions posed by the door knocker.

It was probably like Hermione said to Snape's challenge at the end of her first year in the original novel. Many of the greatest wizards have no logical reasoning skills at all.

Even so, Hugo still felt that those fixed passwords might be better. Because from a security point of view, this way of answering questions would always bring some uncertain danger to private places like dormitories. What if a high-IQ criminal answered the question correctly and came in to commit a crime?

Of course, this was not something Hugo needed to consider. Not to mention that there were so many magical spells in this world. Maybe the Ravenclaw common room dared to do this because Hogwarts had another method he didn't know that could guarantee everyone's safety, such as being able to distinguish whether the person outside the door was one of their own, and then ask those non-house members a question that was basically impossible to answer.

Thinking of this, Hugo shook his head, shook off the messy thoughts in his mind, and then followed everyone into the Ravenclaw common room.

After crossing the open door of the common room, a large, round room appeared in front of them, giving people a very ethereal feeling. Elegant arched windows opened in the walls, hung with blue and bronze silk.

The arched windows faced the outside of the castle, and now they could see the starry sky and large masses of dark shadows in the distance through the windows. It seemed that if it were daytime, they should be able to see the surrounding mountains and a series of beautiful scenery while standing in the common room.

The ceiling of the common room was a dome, painted with stars, and the dark blue carpet below was also covered with stars. There were tables, chairs, and bookshelves in the room. In the alcove opposite the door stood a tall white marble statue of Rowena Ravenclaw, the founder of Ravenclaw House. Next to the statue was a door leading to the student dormitories above.

"I think with your intelligence, you should have already learned a lot through various books before being assigned to our house, so I don't need to emphasize it again and waste your time resting," Robert Hilliard said after everyone had walked to the open space in front of the statue. "So everyone can rest now. Your names are on your dormitory doors, and your luggage has already been placed at the head of the bed. I wish you all a good dream tonight."

Unlike what he had imagined, Hugo did not hear the Ravenclaw prefect's welcome speech that he had seen on the official website in his previous life. But thinking about it, as Ravenclaw students who were very tolerant of outsiders and paid more attention to everyone's independence, it would not be very Ravenclaw-like to have the prefect say a lot of official platitudes. If anything, giving a welcome speech was more like something that Slytherin, a house that advocated order and hierarchy, would do.

After listening to the prefect's brief speech, the first-year students walked into the door next to the statue. Inside the door was a fork in the road, with two signs hanging on it, reading "Boys' Dormitory" and "Girls' Dormitory." After saying good night to Hermione and Veneto, Hugo walked in from the left staircase.

Soon he found his dormitory and bed, and his luggage had already been placed. Perhaps because Ravenclaw itself had few people and was more yin than yang, the boys' dormitories here were all double rooms. And Hugo's roommate was Michael Corner, a mixed-blood black-haired wizard.

If his memory was correct, this Michael Corner should be the Ravenclaw student who dated Ginny in his fourth year and then dated Cho Chang after breaking up in his fifth year. Considering that both of the above were beauties and were not short of suitors, it could be inferred that his roommate should be a master with some tricks.

But at this time, neither of them was in the mood to chat with each other. After all, after shaking all the way on the train and eating a big meal, everyone just wanted to lie on the bed and have a good sleep.

So after simply saying hello and washing up in the bathroom, Hugo climbed onto his own four-poster bed with a sky-blue flannel curtain.

The bed was very soft and comfortable, so after closing his eyes, he quickly fell asleep in the sound of the wind blowing in front of the window.