Sherlock Holmes at Hogwarts.

Chapter 368 I Smell the Criminal

When Sherlock arrived at the first floor of Black's old house, the velvet curtain they had passed earlier had been lifted, revealing the life-size portrait behind it.

At this very moment, the portrait is screaming desperately.

Her cries grew louder and louder, as if she were being severely tortured.

In the two and a half years he'd spent in the wizarding world, Sherlock had seen quite a few portraits.

The most unpleasant of all was the fact that Sir Cadogan temporarily took over as a guard in place of the Fat Lady.

That guy didn't think about doing his job properly as a guard; instead, he was always provoking people to duel with him and liked to change passwords randomly.

The password changed every day, so some students with poor memories wrote all the passwords down on small pieces of paper.

He boasted of his chivalrous spirit, but in reality, he used vulgar language that made people frown upon hearing it.

But compared to Lady Black before him, Sir Cadogan was like a baby who hadn't been weaned yet.

The huge portrait features an old woman wearing a black hat at its center.

She was drooling, and her eyes were darting around.

His sallow skin was taut from the scream, and you could still see a resemblance to Sirius Black in his appearance.

Objectively speaking, Mrs. Walbuga Black was not actually ugly.

Judging from this huge portrait, she may even have been a beauty in her youth.

Unfortunately, her current grotesque and hysterical appearance has completely ruined what little beauty she possessed to begin with.

All that remained for everyone present was a strong sense of displeasure and annoyance.

It was one thing for her to scream hysterically by herself, but the real problem was that her screams also woke up the other portraits in the foyer.

The result was that all the portraits began to scream in unison.

The sound was so loud it was deafening.

At this time, the other guests also arrived at the lobby.

The Holmes couple were stunned.

Having already witnessed it once, the Grangers behaved slightly better than the others.

But Mrs. Granger still clung tightly to her husband's arm, as if only in this way could she feel safe.

Without a word, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley rushed over and together tried to draw the curtains to cover Mrs. Black again.

As the saying goes, when husband and wife are of one mind, their strength can break even metal.

But for some reason, even though the couple worked together, they couldn't pull the thick curtain up.

As a result, Mrs. Black's screams became increasingly shrill.

Not only that, she also waved her claw-like hands as if to scratch their faces.

"You beast! You slut! You bastard! You freak! You ugly monster! Get out of here!"
How dare you bastards defile my ancestral home!

A torrent of vulgarities poured from her mouth, and the other portraits followed suit. If Sir Cadogan were here, he would only be fit to carry her shoes.

Upon seeing this, Sherlock frowned.

Just as they were about to do something, Mrs. Weasley made a new move.

Instead of trying to draw the curtains, she turned and hurried toward the other end of the hall, drawing her wand and casting a Stunning Charm on the other portraits.

The effect was immediate, and as a result, only Mrs. Blake's portrait remained, still screaming.

Yet the power of this one painting surpasses that of all the other portraits combined.

Just then, Sirius Black arrived in a hurry.

Upon seeing this, he angrily rebuked:
"Shut up, you horrible old witch, shut up!"

As he roared, he grabbed the curtain that Mrs. Weasley had just dropped.

“You—you!”

When Mrs. Black saw her son, her face turned pale and her eyes widened.

She screamed in a voice even more piercing and higher than before:

"You good-for-nothing, a disgrace to the Black family! How could I have given birth to such a bastard!"

"I already told you—shut up!"

Sirius Black, not to be outdone, roared back in response.

Next, he and Mr. Weasley worked with great difficulty and finally managed to pull the curtains back up.

Once the curtains were drawn, Mrs. Black's screams finally stopped.

Sirius Black lowered the thick curtains, slightly out of breath, and turned to the dumbfounded Holmes and his wife, and the slightly furrowed Sherlock Holmes, saying:
“Very good, now all the guests have met my mother.”

"..."

Even the eloquent Sherlock Holmes was at a loss for words when faced with this predicament.

The main problem is that this mother and son are just too... speechless.

The mother called her son a "spendthrift," a "disgrace," and a "bastard."

The son calls his mother a "terrible old witch".

Relatively speaking, it seems the son was more polite?
Forget it, it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black; let's not judge each other.

"Um...why don't you take it off the wall?"

After pondering for a while, Mr. Holmes finally chose to start the conversation from this point: "I noticed that you seemed to have put in a lot of effort to pull that up."

"For the past week or so, Harry and I have been trying to get her down."

Sirius said with a stern face, "But she seems to have cast a permanent adhesive spell behind the canvas, so we can't do anything about her."

All we can do is try not to linger here—everyone, let's leave quickly, she might wake up again soon.

Upon hearing this, everyone scattered like birds and beasts.

The portrait of Mrs. Black was simply too intimidating. Having satisfied his curiosity, Sherlock decided not to provoke her any further.

The main issue is that the other person's mental state is clearly not right.

He speaks vulgar and crude language, and his words are all about venting his emotions and are meaningless.

Otherwise, Sherlock wouldn't mind chatting with her for a bit to see if he could extract some useful information from her.

Overall, it was a very interesting day at Grimaldo Place 12.

Even though she was startled by Mrs. Black.

Mrs. Holmes and Mrs. Granger, in particular, had never been to a wizarding family before, so they found everything they saw and heard to be very novel.

Whether it's kitchen utensils that can chop vegetables and meat by themselves, or dishes and chopsticks that will wash themselves by tapping them with a magic wand, or even portraits filled with vulgar language.

For young wizards, the Black family, the oldest and most mysterious family in the magical world, is equally fascinating.

Sherlock finally met the house-elf named Kreacher.

Similar to Dobby, who was wearing an old pillowcase, it was only covered by a dirty rag.

Its skin was loose and saggy, seemingly several times more than its body actually needed.

Although its head was bald like all house-elves, a large clump of white fur grew in its two large, bat-like ears.

In addition, its eyes were bloodshot, watery and grayish, and its fleshy nose was also very large.

In short, Kreacher was noticeably much older than the energetic Dobby and the house-elves he had seen in the Hogwarts kitchens.

This matches Sirius Black's previous description of it.

However, there are also some inconsistencies.

When Harry led them to the second-floor living room, Ron was a fraction of a second too slow to close the door, and Kreacher took advantage of that moment to nimbly slip in.

But once it entered the living room, it transformed into something else entirely.

As if it couldn't see the people in the living room, it hunched over, dragged its feet, and slowly, step by step, walked towards the other end of the room.

Not only that, it kept muttering softly in a hoarse, deep voice like a bullfrog:

"I smelled the stench of sewers and criminals."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow upon hearing this.

“After the young master returned from Azkaban, he and his little brats began to wreak havoc on my mistress’s house.”

Sherlock looked at the little cub.

Harry: ┑(￣Д￣)┍

Harry had long since gotten used to Kreacher's way of putting it.

So when he noticed Sherlock's gaze, he could only helplessly shrug.

Kreacher ignored everyone and continued walking as he spoke:
"Oh, my poor mistress, if she knew what kind of scum they had brought into her house, what would she say to old Kreacher?"

Sigh, what a disgrace! A bunch of mud-blooded people, and old and young scoundrels who are willing to befriend mud-blooded people and degenerate into their own depravity.

Oh, poor old Kreacher, what could he do...?

"You say you can smell criminals?"

Sherlock looked down at the house-elf and said with great interest:
"That's interesting. This is the first time I've heard of a house-elves having the same abilities as me."

No sooner had Sherlock finished speaking than Kreacher's light-colored eyes suddenly widened.

Even more surprisingly, in the next moment, it turned its attention directly to Sherlock, and even its muttering became faster than before:
"Wow, a Mudblood is actually talking to Kreacher?"
Hey, it's like he's my friend!
Oh, what would Kreacher's mistress say if she saw him with such a man?

Sherlock himself didn't say anything, but Harry and Hermione, already very angry, said at the same time:

"Don't call him a mud-blood!"

Ron, Ginny, and the Weasley twins all looked at Hermione with some surprise.

Before Sherlock arrived, Kreacher had told Hermione that she was a Mudblood.

Hermione wasn't angry at that time.

Even when Harry and Ron defended her, she took the initiative to tell them it was okay.

Because Kreacher is mentally unstable, he doesn't understand what he's saying.

At that moment, Ginny pointed out that Kreacher knew exactly what he was saying, and that Hermione's excuses were just self-deception.

But now, when it called Sherlock a "Mudblood" again, her reaction was completely different from before.

Why is this?

"Ha ha……"

Just then, Sherlock chuckled softly and slowly knelt down in front of Kreacher.

His previously interested expression vanished, replaced by a sudden sharpness in his eyes.

The gray eyes, like scalpels, dissected Kreacher's murky and dull exterior, piercing straight to its core.

For some reason, Kreacher instinctively flinched when he made eye contact with Sherlock at such close range.

But then he forced himself to straighten his hunched back, a flicker of panic quickly passing through his cloudy eyes.

It struggled to maintain that deranged, unfocused facade, its incoherent muttering growing louder:
“Kreacher shouldn’t have spoken… The lowly Mudblood is staring at Kreacher with terrifying eyes…”

What is he planning to do? Could he be planning to attack Kreacher with those filthy hands...?

"Enough, stop with your clumsy farce."

Sherlock's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable penetrating power, instantly overshadowing Kreacher's ramblings.

"You're trying to hide it too, but compared to that little elf from the Malfoy family, you're nowhere near as good!"

Upon hearing Sherlock's words, the young wizards in the room all perked up.

Those familiar with Sherlock knew that he was about to begin his performance.

(End of this chapter)