Sherlock Holmes at Hogwarts.

Chapter 563 Searching for Him a Thousand Times in My Dreams

The fire crackled in the fireplace, its orange-red light dancing and reflecting on the beams of the Room of Requirement.

It was the last day of the Christmas holidays, and the Gryffindor common room was packed with people—all frantically rushing to finish their homework.

In this situation, Sherlock simply called three friends and went to the Room of Requirement.

Harry and Hermione already knew about this place, but this was Ron's first time here.

They expressed great surprise that there was such a mysterious place at Hogwarts.

"My goodness, Sherlock, I never imagined there was such a wonderful place inside the castle!"

He looked around and said confidently, "Harry, Hermione, I bet you a Galleon that even Fred and George don't know this place!"

Noticing that Harry and Hermione didn't seem as excited as he was, Ron asked curiously, "Why don't you two look surprised at all?"

A question slowly arose in his mind, and he looked at Harry and Hermione with a shocked expression:
"You didn't know all along, did you?"

"how is this possible?"

Harry sensed something was off about Ron's mood and quickly said, "I'm the same as you!"

He lied.

This is a white lie.

However, in the heat of the moment, one's words become less refined.

Hermione, noticing Ron's suspicious look, slowly said:

“We are certainly amazed by the structure of this mysterious house, but I am more interested in Sherlock and Professor Dumbledore’s experience.”

"That's right!"

Harry secretly gave Hermione a thumbs up. "I'm more interested in how Sherlock solved the case than that."

Ron thought about it and realized it made sense.

After all, this was Sherlock and Dumbledore going out alone to investigate a case!
Sherlock reclined on the soft velvet sofa, taking in the whole scene of his three friends' "scheming and intrigue".

He didn't see anything wrong with telling Ron that he was the last person to know about the Room of Requirement.

Is it really necessary to argue about who came first in this kind of thing?

Even if Ron feels uncomfortable, that's his own problem; he should adjust his mindset later.

However, seeing how kind Harry and Hermione were to think of their friends, Sherlock didn't expose them anymore.

He fiddled with the magic magnifying glass in his hand and began his narration.

The story begins with their Apparition onto that country road, continues until they arrive at Little Hangleton, enter Riddle House, and finally deliver their conclusion to Dumbledore.

This is not a missing person case, but a murder case.

And the murderer has already come to light.

During this time, Harry, Hermione, and Ron sat around the coffee table, their eyes fixed on Sherlock, forgetting even to sip the foam rising from their butterbeer glasses.

After Sherlock finished recounting the entire case with Dumbledore at Riddle Manor, he lightly tapped the table with his fingertips and looked up at his three friends:

"Actually, after seeing the scene at Riddle House, I already had a clear understanding of the case."

However, after leaving the house, I still went to the local police station with Dumbledore to retrieve the case files.

After all, nothing is more important than directly obtained evidence.

Of course, the trip to the police station was worthwhile; the information I obtained there completely confirmed my deduction.

As for the tedious process of reviewing case files, there's no need to go into details here.

"I have a question."

"I have a question!"

Ron suddenly raised his hand like a schoolchild eager to answer a question in class and asked:

"Do you think the Muggle police department would give you information so easily?"
Anyway, I know that if it were the Ministry of Magic, they definitely wouldn't let you touch the case reports so easily.

“My dear Ron, have you forgotten that Dumbledore and I are both wizards?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow, a faint smile playing on his lips.

"Huh?" Ron blinked, his eyes as blank as Neville's.

Seeing this, Hermione sighed helplessly: "Sherlock means that Professor Dumbledore must have used magic."

"Oh--"

Ron suddenly realized what was happening, quickly touched his nose, and looked at Sherlock somewhat embarrassedly:
“I’d forgotten about that, Sherlock, is that really the case?”
"Did Dumbledore use magic on the police officers?"

Hermione is right.

Sherlock nodded. "In fact, that police chief named St. Covenant is a rather shrewd woman, and she was indeed quite difficult to deal with at first."

But when Dumbledore showed her a piece of paper, she immediately became incredibly accommodating, giving us whatever we wanted.

"What's written on that piece of paper?" Harry leaned forward, his eyes full of curiosity.

"Nothing was written on it, it was just a completely blank sheet of paper."

Sherlock smiled slightly and waved his fingertips in the air. "However, when Dumbledore handed over the paper, he subtly waved his wand."

The three friends understood instantly.

The firelight from the fireplace shone directly on their faces, revealing a clear understanding in Harry's eyes, a thoughtful nod from Hermione, and an exaggerated gaping mouth from Ron.

Clearly, Dumbledore had cast a clever Confusion Charm, and the poor Director of the Covenant was fooled.

Sherlock leaned back, sinking into the soft sofa, his gaze sweeping over the three curious faces, and said in a rapid-fire voice:
"The victim, Frank Bryce, was the gardener for the Riddle family and lived alone in a dilapidated wooden house in the Riddle House courtyard."

After Frank returned from the battlefield, he worked for the Riddle family. At that time, one of his legs was so stiff that he couldn't control it, and he was particularly averse to crowds and noise.

This information was extracted from the vast amount of redundant and useless information in Muggle newspapers, and it perfectly matches my findings at Riddle House.

For example, the faint marks left by a cane rubbing against the floor, or the gray hairs in the gardener's room.

"Sherlock, could you be a little clearer?"

Ron touched his nose and asked, somewhat puzzled.

"It's very simple."

Sherlock held up his fingers and listed them one by one:

"I examined those hairs closely with a magnifying glass. There was almost no melanin in the hair follicles, and the ends were split, which are typical characteristics of elderly people's hair."

Therefore, I deduced that he was at least seventy years old, which was later confirmed when I checked the police files. He almost turned seventy-seven last year.

In addition, there was a hook at the door of his cabin with heavy rust marks from the key, indicating that the key had been hanging there for a long time and was used frequently.

Below the mark, on the wall, there is a vertical dust layer, just up to an adult's chest, worn down by years of using a cane.

All of this shows that Frank's lifestyle was already firmly established.

At this point, Sherlock paused, reached for the butterbeer on the coffee table, took a sip, and continued:

"And the footprints in the room—to be honest, those cops weren't very smart, but they actually helped me a lot."

During their investigation, they didn't enter through the back door of Riddle House. They didn't even realize that the house was the crime scene, and still believe that Frank disappeared after leaving the gardener's cottage.

But a layer of dust had accumulated on the floor between the back door of Riddle House and that room, and Frank's footprints were clearly visible:

His footprints were one-third shallower than those of an average adult, and his right footprints were always half an inch shallower than his left, indicating that he had weakness in his right leg and difficulty moving around.

Looking at the dust on the stairs, it's clear he had tiptoed up.

"It sounds pretty simple."

Harry nodded, but then frowned and asked in confusion, "But how do you know he's really hard of hearing?"

He even told Dumbledore that the boys in the village always bullied him?

"Can't you just ask the villagers?"

Ron casually chimed in, raising an eyebrow smugly.

Harry, still puzzled, shook his head: "But Sherlock said that he and Dumbledore didn't talk to anyone in the village."

Ron: "..."

Oh no, I think I was careless.

“That’s right, we didn’t communicate with the villagers, but we can infer these things from the traces at the scene.”

Sherlock explained, "There are many dents on the windows of the gardener's hut, all concentrated at the bottom, clearly caused by children throwing them."

Moreover, the grass in Riddle Palace clearly shows signs of artificial mowing and bicycle tracks.

This shows that old Frank had always taken good care of the house and yard, keeping the lawn very neat and tidy, but those boys were riding their bicycles and running over it recklessly.

"Could it really be a prank by these boys?" Ron pressed.

Harry and Hermione both looked at him with a helpless expression, but the latter seemed oblivious and even leaned forward a little.

"impossible."

Sherlock said definitively, "There are three clockwise metal scratches in the keyhole of the back door of Riddle House, with the spacing exactly the same."

This was made by Frank using an old key that he had worn for twenty years.

If the boys wanted to break in, they would either have to use a crowbar, which would leave irregular dents.
They could have just smashed the window, but there wasn't even a loose pane of glass at the scene. Why would they have used a key to open the door?
Furthermore, there's no way they could possibly get the keys to Riddle House.

"You said before that the dust on the stairs proved he tiptoed upstairs?" Hermione asked again.

"Correct."

Sherlock nodded. "The dust on the stone steps is thick, but there is a shallow depression in the middle, where the dust particles are particularly fine."

This is something Frank developed from walking in the same spot for a long time, indicating that he was already used to walking this way.

The sunken ash contained bits of wood from the tip of his cane, proving that he was using a cane and moving very quietly, afraid of being discovered by the people inside the house.

He paused, then suddenly turned to look at Harry, his gaze sharpening in that instant:
"Finally, and most importantly—Harry's dream."

"My dream?" Harry repeated instinctively.

“That’s right. Your description of that room in your dream is almost exactly the same as the room layout I saw in Riddle Mansion.”

Hermione immediately pressed, "Sherlock, did that come to your mind as soon as you saw that house?"

“To be precise, I thought of it before I even entered the room,” Sherlock replied.

"So, Voldemort really is back?"

Hermione's body trembled slightly, and her hands unconsciously clenched the hem of her skirt. "It's less than two hundred miles from where Harry lives."

“That’s right, just like Dumbledore said, that magic allowed you to connect with Voldemort’s mind through the scar.”

Sherlock looked at Harry, his tone becoming more serious:

"I think his deduction is correct. As long as your scars start to hurt, it's either because Voldemort is very close to you or because he has developed a strong desire for revenge."

This was already evident when we confronted Quirrell in first grade.

Upon hearing this, Hermione and Ron both turned to look at Harry, their eyes filled with worry.

Harry's mood also darkened.

His fingers unconsciously touched the scar on his forehead.

Sherlock was right, except for the time last summer when he was awakened by the pain of his scar.

The most recent ones were all in first grade.

At the time, he believed it was caused by Snape.

Sherlock, however, astutely pointed out the blind spot: Quirrell was sitting right next to Snape.

Later events proved Sherlock's deduction to be correct.

Voldemort was stuck to Quirrell's head.

He was observing Harry through Quirrell at the time.

The confrontations with Quirrell and Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest and the Philosopher's Stone room caused his scars to ache to an extreme degree, making it impossible for him to concentrate on anything else.

So now it can be confirmed that this scar allows him to see real events through Voldemort's perspective, and that the scenes in his dreams are all real.

Sherlock continued:
"In this way, all the clues are connected."

there is only one truth:
The victim, Frank, woke up at night because of leg pain and wanted to fill a hot water bottle to warm his knees, but he saw a light coming from Riddle House.

He was dutiful and assumed it was just the boys playing a prank, so he took the keys and went over with his cane.

He tiptoed upstairs, only to run into Voldemort and his allies, and was ultimately silenced.

The police files, the evidence at the scene, and Harry's dream—the three corroborate each other—confirm that this is definitely a murder, not a disappearance.

The three friends looked at each other in bewilderment.

The discussion about this case has now come to an end.

However, the impact of this incident has not ended.

On the first day of the new term, Harry went to class carrying his books, parchment, and quill as usual, but also carrying a heavy burden in his heart.

Voldemort's power is growing, he has new allies, and in some unknown place, he will soon make a comeback...

The truth was like a heavy golden egg, making him unable to muster any energy in the days leading up to the start of the school term.

Harry was in low spirits, and Hermione and Ron noticed it and were very worried.

Both of them started trying their best to make him happy.

Hermione found Cho Chang, and Ron found Ginny.

Even with two school beauties offering gentle comfort and almost giving him whatever he wanted, Harry still couldn't shake off his troubles.

Until Sherlock found him.

(End of this chapter)