Harry, Hermione, and Ron all knew of Sherlock's ability to appear and disappear mysteriously, so seeing McGonagall say nothing, they naturally pretended nothing had happened.
However, while they were worrying, another matter soon captured everyone's attention.
The dwarfs arranged by Professor Lockhart began constantly bursting into students' classrooms to deliver Valentine's cards.
These fellows showed complete disregard for whether teachers were conducting lessons or whether their behavior disrupted classroom order—they were utterly capricious.
This thoroughly annoyed all the teachers.
By afternoon, their scope of operations had even expanded from classrooms to the entire Hogwarts castle.
Very unfortunately, Harry became one of their targets.
When the Gryffindor students were going upstairs for Charms class, suddenly from behind came a shout. "Harry Potter!"
Hearing someone call his name directly, Harry instinctively sensed trouble.
The next moment, his premonition proved correct.
A large bald head suddenly burst from the crowd, charging toward Harry with lightning speed and thunderous momentum.
His purpose was to deliver a musical message to Harry.
"Oh, Sherlock, I bet you don't know how terrible the situation was..."
Recalling the scene, Harry still felt shaken.
"I originally wanted to run away, but that damned dwarf grabbed my knees and threw me heavily to the ground.
Then... then he sat on my knees and sang that entire song!"
Hearing this, Sherlock understood why the Weasley twins had been singing earlier.
"Tell me the song's contents."
"Oh, Sherlock, please, don't do this... Fine, fine, don't look at me like that. I'll tell you."
Meeting Sherlock's insistent gaze, Harry finally capitulated, reciting in a lifeless tone.
"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord."
Having finished reciting the poem, Harry sighed heavily. "Go ahead and laugh. They've already laughed at me more than once anyway."
Sherlock didn't mock Harry, but instead asked.
"This incident is the source of your embarrassment?"
"Yes, I would rather give up all the gold in Gringotts just to have vanished into thin air on the spot."
"Understandable."
"Receiving a Valentine's card in front of a group of first-years was absolutely infuriating, especially since Ginny happened to be among them..."
"Not happened to be."
"What did you say?"
"I said... not happened to be." Under Harry's puzzled gaze, Sherlock said slowly, "This poem was sent to you by Ginny Weasley."
Harry: (・ω・)`
Even the next day, walking to Hagrid's hut with Ron following Sherlock, Harry still couldn't believe that singing Valentine's card had come from Ginny.
Ron, however, was thoroughly convinced.
He felt that given his sister's level of adoration for Harry, doing such a thing wasn't strange at all.
If not for being too young, she might even do something more outrageous.
"Come on, Harry, having someone like you is a good thing."
"I don't think so..."
"For an eleven-year-old girl, this poem is actually quite good."
"Good?"
Hearing Sherlock's assessment, Harry almost wondered if he'd misheard.
"Yes, it's a concise four-line poem using basic ABAB rhyme scheme.
This rhythm is very common in romantic poetry. The first- and third-lines rhyming makes the entire poem more melodious—I imagine Ginny wanted to make it more romantic.
Regarding the poem's content, the use of 'his hair is black as a blackboard, so fine' can be traced back to the eighteenth-century Scottish peasant poet Robert Burns.
In his 'Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect,' he wrote 'O, my love's like a red, red rose.'
However, comparing your eyes to fresh pickled toads wasn't exactly a good idea."
'Wait, what?'
Harry looked at Sherlock in amazement.
I'm telling you I'm mortally embarrassed by this, and you're analyzing the poem's literary merits?
Also, why do you know eighteenth-century poets' works?
He looked aside—Ron was already nearly rolling on the ground with laughter.
Harry: (￣□￣;)
"It's common knowledge, my friend."
As if reading Harry's thoughts, Sherlock snapped his fingers.
"Harry, Hermione once believed I knew nothing about literature and philosophy. This is clearly a mistaken assessment.
Just from the cases I'm familiar with, there are countless positive examples where literature and philosophy proved useful.
For instance, by analyzing fragments of Byron poetry the killer left at the scene—note, deliberately chosen passages from 'Prometheus'—one could deduce the criminal's pathological obsession with rebelling against authority, directly pointing to his identity as an engineer expelled from academy.
Or consider the Third District clockmaker who hid fragments of sonnets among his gears. Without familiarity with the 'double meaning' sophistry in 'Macbeth,' who would have thought those misplaced rhymes corresponded to the safe's combination?
If Hermione knew these things, she'd probably retract that statement.
Actually, I have some knowledge in these areas."
"Uh..."
Harry didn't know what to say anymore.
This was one downside of spending time with Sherlock.
You had to be constantly prepared to endure some of his quirks.
At times like this, Harry usually chose to change the subject, for example.
"Sherlock, you still haven't told me why we're going to see Hagrid. Surely it's not because you've run out of rock cakes?"
"My dear Harry, you're more humorous than I imagined.
In fact, Hagrid gave me quite a few rock cakes this Christmas.
At least for the foreseeable future, we won't need to ask him for more."
"Then why are we going to see him?"
"The Chamber of Secrets."
"What?"
Harry froze, and Ron stopped laughing, looking at Sherlock in surprise.
"For the Chamber of Secrets."
Sherlock stopped walking and looked at both of them. "Dumbledore told me that fifty years ago, Hagrid was expelled for opening the Chamber of Secrets."
Both Harry and Ron were stunned.
After a brief silence, however, Ron immediately said.
"I knew it!
Hagrid has a soft spot for enormous monsters. Last year he tried to hatch and raise a dragon in his hut.
And that three-headed dog he called Fluffy—I still can't forget it.
So, if teenage Hagrid heard that some creature was hidden somewhere in the castle, he'd definitely try everything possible to see it."
Ron grew more excited as he spoke, expressing his views enthusiastically.
"Hagrid probably thought keeping that monster imprisoned for so long was wrong, that it should be given a chance to stretch its legs.
Bloody hell! The way you put it, I can already imagine thirteen-year-old Hagrid trying to put a leash and collar on that monster."
"Even so, Hagrid would never deliberately harm anyone!"
"Calm down, Harry."
Ron patted Harry's shoulder. "I think the same way. Hagrid certainly wouldn't intentionally hurt anyone. He released the Chamber monster by accident, right, Sherlock?"
Seeing Ron's confident gaze directed at him, Sherlock looked at him with a meaningful expression.
"Sherlock?"
Ron felt uncomfortable under his gaze, and several thoughts flashed through his mind. His face suddenly changed. "Don't tell me..."
"Ron, if I'm not mistaken, you greatly dislike or rather, fear, spiders?"
"How did you know?" Ron blurted out.
"Because..."
"I know, it's observation," Ron said quickly upon seeing Sherlock frown. "Please continue..."
Sherlock nodded with satisfaction. "In fact, the pet Hagrid kept fifty years ago was an Acromantula."
"Hiss—!"
Ron immediately drew a sharp breath.
"If that's really the case..."
"Ron, what are you saying?"
Hearing Ron's words, Harry said unhappily, "Even if that's true, Hagrid certainly didn't do it on purpose!"
"Uh... I think if that's really the case, maybe Hagrid didn't mean it, but those spiders wouldn't listen to him..."
Ron said weakly.
This time Harry didn't argue.
Because he vaguely felt Ron might be right.
Think about how he called that terrifying three-headed dog Fluffy and thought it was docile and obedient...
Harry shook his head, quickly banishing the thought.
"So... that's why you brought us to question Hagrid, right?"
Harry looked at Sherlock hopefully, then asked without waiting for an answer, "But... Sherlock, why didn't you bring Hermione?"
"I sent her to do something else. We don't need so many people to visit Hagrid."
"That's true," Ron agreed. "As long as we get him started, he'll tell us everything he knows."
As he spoke, he secretly prayed in his heart for Hagrid's spider to hurry up and die.
Harry. "..."
When the three were almost at Hagrid's hut door, Harry couldn't help asking.
"Ron, why are you afraid of spiders? I remember you've used them so many times in Potions class."
"Dead ones don't bother me," Ron said somewhat irritably. "I just don't like the way they crawl around."
Harry still didn't quite understand, but Sherlock said at this moment. "Such things are usually related to childhood experiences."
Ron nodded with lingering fear. "Exactly. When I was three years old..."
Just then, Hagrid suddenly threw open his door with force.
Ron was immediately startled by Hagrid's furious expression.
Could it be that his secret mental cursing of Hagrid's Acromantula to hurry up and die had been discovered?
When did Hagrid acquire such abilities?
You can read more than 40 chapters on:
patreon.com/MikeyMuse