Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Places/Hufflepuff House

General Overview
Hufflepuff House is one of the four Houses in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Students are Sorted into Houses by the Sorting Hat upon their initial arrival at Hogwarts based on their character. While students remain at Hogwarts, they each represent their House; a tally of House points is kept, with good behaviour and good marks adding to that total, misbehaviour and bad marks subtracting from it. The House Cup is awarded each year to the House with the greatest tally of House points.

Extended Description
Housemistress: Professor Professor Pomona Sprout

Founder: Helga Hufflepuff

Coat of Arms: black badger, yellow

Ghost: The Fat Friar

Characteristics: "Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil."

Location of common room: unknown, but down the main hall downstairs, cellar-like in appearance and thought to be near the kitchens.

We never visit the Hufflepuff common room in the 7-book series, so all discussion of its physical layout and appearance must be speculation.

Analysis
It is uncertain how many students are actually in each House. We only ever hear of, at most, five boys and five girls in each year, but the author has stated in an interview that the average class size (all residents of one House for one year) is about thirty. Thus we must assume a population of 210 per house, fifteen boys and fifteen girls each year.

One gets the impression from things said in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that House honours, notably the House cup and the Quidditch cup, are generally held by either Gryffindor house or Slytherin house, with Ravenclaw house occasionally winning an upset victory. Hufflepuff seldom if ever receives any glory, and that House's members are overjoyed when one of their own, Cedric Diggory, is chosen as one of the Champions in the Triwizard Tournament.

According to the author, the Hufflepuff common room is accessed behind a still-life painting near the kitchens, as Helga Hufflepuff, the founder of the house, was extremely gifted in food-related spells. Rowling describes the room as "a very cozy and welcoming place, as dissimilar as possible from Snape’s dungeon. Lots of yellow hangings, fat armchairs, and little underground tunnels leading to the dormitories, all of which have perfectly round doors, like barrel tops." This would likely simulate the interior of a badger's home, or "sett", badgers being burrowing creatures.