The Hogwarts Emerald

Chapter 329 Uninvited Guest

Although she has raised pets for several years, Ada has never studied pet behavioral psychology and does not know the meaning of the various sounds made by cats and dogs. But Ada knows that there must be something wrong when something is abnormal.

To verify her guess, Ada returned to Crookshanks, and the big cat really stopped meowing. Crookshanks lay on his back in front of Ada, revealing his soft belly, as if he was being cute to Ada.

Ada stood up again and left Crookshanks' sight, and Crookshanks made a "gurgling" sound again. After a few times of this, the big cat followed Ada wherever she went, and would rub Ada's calves affectionately.

In the Twilight Cottage, Ada was fighting a battle of wits and courage with a cat. If this matter were to get out, Ada would be finished. Looking at Crookshanks who was monitoring her, Ada showed a cunning smile.

No matter how cunning the hunter is, he can never beat a good fox! No, that's the opposite.

In any case, Ada was certain that the cat was still the same cat, and the reason why it was so affectionate to her and asked her to play with it was just to prevent her from walking around in the room.

Knowing that he was the master of this place, Crookshanks didn't mind going into the secret passage in front of him, but he seemed to be worried about him walking around the room.

Of course, these thoughts may be Ada's own one-man show, and Crookshanks may not be as smart as Ada imagined. The big cat went into the secret passage and ran into the cabin simply because it was too cold outside.

Ada kicked Crookshanks away from her feet with a light kick. She wanted to search her house carefully. She didn't want to find the dead body of a mouse or a bird in some corner of the room.

After searching the room carefully inside and out, Ada did not find any dead animals, but her worries did not decrease at all, but increased instead.

There was no food in the room, but Ada found something that didn't belong there. She found a black animal hair in the carpet downstairs! It was a very smelly hair!
Ada pulled the innocent-looking Garlon over and compared it carefully. She found that the black animal hair did not belong to Garlon.

The color of the Kanon is off-white, which is not consistent with the color. Secondly, the Kanon is a Labrador, and although it also sheds, the Labrador's hair is not as long as this one.

By the same token, this black hair does not belong to Crookshanks.

The reason why Ada pulled Garlon over for verification was just to confirm that her pet had not undergone any mutation. After all, this is a magical world and everything is possible.

There is only one way for animals to enter the hut, and that is the secret passage under the Whomping Willow. Because the entrance and exit of Hogsmeade were sealed by Ada with magic, animals cannot enter or exit.

In previous winters, Ada had never found any traces of animals in the cabin. How could the sudden appearance of black hair not make people feel strange?
Although the real situation might be similar to Crookshanks, and he was brought here by Garlon, it is always better to be cautious. It is also a good opportunity for Ada to test out the new spells she has learned.

"Footprints appear!" Ada whispered.

A light golden mist spurted out from the tip of the yew wand and soon covered every corner of the room.

This is a very useful spell. Aurors can use this spell to track down dark wizards or criminals, and Ada can also use footprints to infer whether there are any uninvited guests breaking into the cottage.

In the hands of some people who are proficient in this spell, this spell can also directly show what happened here in recent days. It's just that Ada can't do this now, otherwise she would be able to directly identify the real murderer.

The golden mist gradually dissipated, revealing many golden, glowing footprints on the ground. By the size and shape of the footprints, you can tell which ones are Ada's, which ones are Fred and George's, and which ones belong to the house-elf Winnie. There are three types of animal footprints, namely those from Garlon, Crookshanks, and the last one should be the owner of the animal hair, the uninvited guest of Twilight Cottage.

Ada stared at Garlon fiercely, and the off-white Labrador was frightened and huddled up, making pitiful whimpers. It looked really pitiful, but Ada still wanted to grab Garlon and beat him up. It was you who led the enemy here?

In the end, Ada couldn't bear to do it and spared Garlon's life for the time being.

The other footprints gradually disappeared, leaving only the paw prints of the uninvited guest still glowing. This paw print looked more like a canine, but it looked much larger than that of an average canine.

Judging from the size of the canine based on the claw marks alone, Ada felt that it shouldn't be a problem to defeat five Galleons.

Following the line of paw prints, Ada tried to infer the canine's activity trajectory. From the entrance of the secret passage, the footprints it left were pitifully few, as if it was carefully hiding its whereabouts. If it weren't for the lost hair, Ada might not have discovered this uninvited guest at all.

But what is a little strange is that one of these cautious paw prints leads to the bathroom! This should not happen and it is unreasonable.

The bathroom was originally the toilet in the Shrieking Shack, but it has been out of service for a long time due to disrepair. The current bathroom was rebuilt using magic at the original location after Ada transformed it into the Twilight Shack.

The forced separation of wet and dry areas made this bathroom a little cramped. Ada had just checked here, but she didn't find anything unexpected. But with this set of paw prints, everything became different.

The slightly dense paw prints prove that the canine stayed under the shower for quite some time, and the paw prints at the shower switch further prove that it had turned on the shower.

A canine that loves hot baths, what the hell?

With a wave of her hand, the magic was removed, and all the footprints disappeared. Ada returned upstairs and sat next to the warm fireplace. Now Ada was really confused. On the one hand, she was confused by this canine, and on the other hand, she felt very angry.

An unknown animal ran into your house without permission, leaving behind a trail of footprints and a strand of hair. The suspect also took a comfortable hot shower in your house and finally left in a swagger.

It's too much!
Ada pulled Garlon over again, and while wondering who this canine was, she rubbed Garlon's face. Garlon looked at his elder brother for help, but Crookshanks had long since avoided Ada. A woman with low pressure is not to be messed with.

Under normal circumstances, Ada might not care so much about this illegally intruding canine, and might not hate Garlon so much. However, Ada had just recently begun to suspect that Sirius Black was an illegal Animagus, and her house was occupied by a canine.

This is too much of a coincidence. What, in addition to breaking into the Gryffindor common room, Sirius Black has also learned to steal?

The most important thing is that neither Garlon nor Crookshanks seemed to have any hostility towards the intruder. The intruder was also very inconsistent with the habits of animals. He did not leave any marks of enclosure, but instead took a hot bath in an anthropomorphic way.

The animal hair on the floor shows that Winnie the house-elf has not had time to clean the room, but there are no obvious water stains on the walls. A canine animal chooses to air dry naturally instead of shaking its hair after taking a bath, which is not only unscientific, but also very unmagical!

Could this illegally intruding canine be Sirius Black?
A big question mark appeared in Ada's mind.

(End of this chapter)