Sherlock Holmes at Hogwarts.

Chapter 253 Sunshine Always Follows the Storm

Lucius Malfoy's plot ultimately failed.

When Dobby the house-elf went missing, he knew that his plan to secretly slip the diary Voldemort had entrusted to him into Hogwarts had been exposed.

However, he did not give up. After careful consideration, he took advantage of the opportunity to fight with Arthur Weasley to secretly slip his diary into Lockhart's work.

Since then, he has kept a close eye on Hogwarts.

He knew that things had succeeded when the warning appeared on Halloween Eve that the secret room had been opened!
From that moment on, he began to target Dumbledore and Weasley.

He mainly used his connections and financial resources to manipulate the Ministry of Magic and the Board of Governors.

Unfortunately, he misjudged the situation.

The members of the Board of Trustees who originally supported Dumbledore were still having a headache.

After the locked room incident, the pure-blood supporters, led by the Malfoy family, were either celebrating or extremely excited.

After all, the rumors about the Chamber of Secrets make it very clear—Slytherin's goal is to purify the school and drive out those who shouldn't be there.

The so-called "people who shouldn't be here" are Muggle-born wizards and half-blood wizards.

For these people, this is definitely a good thing.

Unfortunately, Hogwarts doesn't seem to be able to handle this situation very well.

In this situation, Dumbledore offered to leave the school temporarily, and the two sides hit it off immediately.

Lucius, unaware of the reason, assumed that Dumbledore's departure from Hogwarts was due to the pressure he was under.

Even though many people disapprove of this approach, he remains extremely popular.

His son, Draco Malfoy, followed suit and became quite arrogant at school.

However, neither the father nor the son had expected that it was a huge pit.

Especially Ma Tianlong, not content with jumping into the pit, he also had to spread the word everywhere.

His father wasn't much better.

When Sherlock and Harry successfully solved the mystery of Tom Riddle and the Chamber of Secrets, and Dumbledore reappeared before the entire school to announce this, Lucius even came over excitedly to confront them:
"Dumbledore, who sent you back? The board of directors has already suspended you from your duties!"

The result was naturally that they arrived full of enthusiasm but left disappointed.

The board's impeachment of Dumbledore was long gone.

Instead, there was evidence of Lucius coercing and bribing other directors.

Only then did Lucius realize that he had been tricked.

But it's too late to regret now; the tide has turned and the balance of power has shifted!
His current concern is how to keep his position.

the sun is always behind the storm.

The news that the Lion King and the Savior had once again saved Hogwarts spread like wildfire.

Unlike last semester, this time the entire school—including the Slytherin snakes—started cheering for the two.

Slytherin House is not entirely composed of pure-blood wizards; a large portion of its members are half-blood wizards.

The Basilisk attack has shown that Slytherin's heir is an extreme bloodline advocate who targets not only Muggle-born wizards but also half-blood wizards.

However, the situation was beyond their control, and those Slytherin half-blood wizards could only feign compliance.

Now that the incident is over, they no longer need to pretend and reveal genuine smiles.

Of course, there are clear stratifications in the understanding of the whole incident among the teachers and students of the school.

Sherlock, Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Dumbledore are the ones who know the complete truth.

Sherlock, Harry, and Hermione confront Tom Riddle, Voldemort's 16-year-old memory, in the Chamber of Secrets, and witness his control of Lockhart through his diary.

Unlike last year's Quirrell and Philosopher's Stone, this year Dumbledore successfully assumed the role of protector, gaining a deeper understanding of the whole affair thanks to his profound knowledge of the wizarding world.

However, this crucial information was not made public to the entire school.

What most teachers and students know is:
Poor Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Gilderoy Lockhart was bewitched and inadvertently opened a secret chamber, releasing the basilisk.

When explaining this matter, Dumbledore focused on Lockhart's "being manipulated" rather than Voldemort's direct intervention.

At the school banquet, he mentioned that "someone used magical items to mislead an innocent teacher," but did not mention Voldemort's name.

They didn't even reveal that Pansy Parkinson had been controlled in the past.

This approach is primarily to avoid triggering panic about Voldemort's resurgence.

After all, the entire wizarding world now generally believes that Voldemort is dead, and revealing his existence would shake public trust.

On the other hand, the entire wizarding world, led by the Ministry of Magic, has yet to accept the fact that Voldemort is still alive.

On this point, Dumbledore maintained his opinion that revealing the truth too early could lead to chaos.

His insistence led Sherlock to a new deduction—besides the known reason, Dumbledore was secretly investigating something, but he believed it was not appropriate to reveal the plan at this time.

In his speech at the school banquet, Dumbledore deliberately simplified the details of the incident, emphasizing that Sherlock and Harry displayed extraordinary courage and wisdom in protecting their classmates at the most dangerous moment.

In this context, the vast majority of people consider Sherlock and Harry to be heroes in their fight against the Slytherin heirs.

Ultimately, Sherlock and Harry received the "Special Contribution Award for the School" for thwarting the Chamber of Secrets crisis and rescuing their teachers and classmates.

Harry felt extremely embarrassed. This time in the Chamber of Secrets, he did even less than when he faced Voldemort directly last time.

Aside from opening the door by crawling, he remained an observer throughout.

This inevitably gave him the feeling once again that "I and Chamberlain combined for 102 points."

However, neither Sherlock nor Dumbledore thought so.

"Climbing the language is a very crucial part of the whole thing, my friend."

"If it weren't for you, I probably still wouldn't have imagined that the monster in the secret room would be a basilisk."

"Sherlock is right, Harry."

In fact, this time I was just like you, standing by and doing nothing—if I weren't so useless, I'd want to award myself a medal.

In short, after the announcement, Sherlock and Harry received even more adoration than in the previous school year.

After all, everything that happened in the room where the magic stone was kept was based on Ron's account.

This time, the students were attacked and even petrified, and it really happened right before their eyes.

On the day the news was announced, the tall Ernie McMillan rushed over from Hufflepuff's table, and in his excitement, he tripped and fell on the way.

He gripped Harry tightly with his short, chubby hands, apologizing endlessly, saying he shouldn't have doubted him in the first place.

"In fact, if I had known about your relationship with Miss Zhang earlier, I wouldn't have suspected you back then—now that I know, you would never have attacked Qiu Zhang."

"Ahem... Well, it's okay, but my relationship with Qiu isn't what you think."

"Don't get me wrong, Potter, I didn't mean anything by it. I just wanted to say that you and she are good friends."

Compared to the magnanimous Harry, Ron was not so quick to forgive Ernie.

He said sarcastically, "Heh, you're quite clever."

Ernie knew Ron was mocking him, but he just kept touching the back of his cheek and grinning foolishly.

Seeing his expression, Ron lost his temper.

Not far away, Hermione was surrounded by a group of people who were asking her for details about the Chamber of Secrets incident.

"I do not know anything."

Hermione was thoroughly annoyed by this and had to repeat the same thing over and over again:

"I passed out at the time, and when I came to, I found that I had been rescued by Sherlock and Harry."

She said this partly to cooperate with Dumbledore and to temporarily prevent the news that Voldemort was still alive.

On the other hand, he was eager to escape the crowd and reunite with Sherlock.

Didn't you see that Gemma Farley is already chatting with Sherlock?

Although she couldn't hear what the two were saying because of the distance, it was precisely for this reason that Hermione felt an intense, itchy sensation, as if a cat's claws were scratching at her heart.

I really want to know what she was saying to Sherlock!

"Congratulations, Sherlock, I knew you could solve the puzzle."

Gemma looked at the boy, three years her junior, with her deep blue eyes, and showed him no lack of praise:

"Thanks to your efforts, Hogwarts students no longer have to worry about being attacked by basilisks."

Sherlock was not very satisfied with his performance: "It was still too slow. If I could have been more decisive, I could have resolved this matter much faster."

"You've done very well compared to fifty years ago."

Gemma said softly, “The students who were attacked were just petrified. They will recover as soon as the mandrake matures. You and Harry are true heroes.”

"Don't turn people into heroes, my friend. Heroes don't exist, and even if they did, they wouldn't include me."

"Sherlock, aren't you being a little too hard on yourself? I think sometimes you don't have to be like that."

“Dear Gemma, for a precision instrument that requires accurate calibration, any leniency towards the gears is a betrayal of the overall operation.”

You see, those bastards who operate within the case won't stop just because your breathing slows down. What I need isn't the reassurance of 'it doesn't have to be this way,' but the discipline to ensure every cell is in optimal hunting condition.

A hunting dog that slacks off in its pursuit of the truth will eventually only find itself biting its own tail in the maze.

"Sherlock, if I hadn't taken a course on Muggle Studies, I probably wouldn't have understood your strange analogy."

"That's common sense, my friend."

Every time I listen to you speak, it's like solving another riddle.

Since the threat of the Chamber of Secrets was eliminated, Hogwarts has returned to its former liveliness.

Just like when Quirrell briefly left last school year, Potions professor Snape began to also teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.

This is good news for anyone who really wants to learn something.

Although Snape was rude, short-tempered, and had a terrible teaching attitude, he was genuinely talented and truly wanted to teach his students something new.

It can only be said that everything is afraid of comparison.

Lockhart could indeed teach them something, but after enduring a lesson mostly filled with expressive recitations and immersive role-playing, even the sharp-tongued old bat seemed quite handsome.

(End of this chapter)