When Sherlock reached the first floor of the Black residence, the velvet curtain they'd passed earlier had been pulled open, revealing the life-sized portrait behind it.
At this moment, that portrait was screaming its head off.
One scream followed another, each louder than the last, as though she were being tortured.
In his two and a half years in the magical world, Sherlock had seen quite a few portraits.
The most unpleasant among them was Sir Cadogan, who had temporarily replaced the Fat Lady as guardian.
That fellow hadn't focused on doing his guard duty properly, but instead spent his days challenging people to duels and liked to randomly change the password.
Those constantly changing passwords had forced some students with poor memories to write them all down on scraps of paper.
He fancied himself as having knightly spirit, but in reality spoke nothing but crude language that made people frown just hearing it.
But compared to Mrs. Black before him, Sir Cadogan was like a child who just blabbered.
In the center of the massive portrait was an old lady wearing a black bonnet.
She was drooling, her eyes were rolling wildly.
Her sallow skin was stretched tight from shrieking, though traces of Sirius could still be seen in her face.
Objectively speaking, Walburga Black wasn't actually ugly.
From this huge portrait, one could even tell she might have been pretty in her youth.
Unfortunately, her current fierce and hysterical appearance completely destroyed what little aesthetic appeal remained.
All that was left for everyone present was a strong sense of discomfort and annoyance.
It would have been one thing if she were just hysterically shrieking by herself, but the key was that with her screaming, all the other portraits in the entrance hall were woken up too.
The result was that all the portraits began shrieking one after another.
The sound was so loud it could deafen someone.
The other guests had also arrived in the hall.
The Holmes couple were already stunned.
The Grangers, having witnessed this once before, were handling it slightly better.
But Mrs. Granger still clutched her husband's arm tightly, as if only this could make her feel safe.
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley rushed over without a word, working together to try to pull the curtain shut and cover Mrs. Black up again.
As the saying goes, when husband and wife are of one mind, their strength can cut through metal.
But somehow, even with both of them working together, they couldn't pull the thick curtain shut.
The result was that Mrs. Black's screams became even more piercing.
Not only that, she also waved her claw-like hands as if to scratch their faces.
"Filth! Scum! Mongrels! Freaks! Abominations! Get out of here!
How dare rubbish like you defile the house of my ancestors—"
All sorts of foul language poured endlessly from her mouth, with the other portraits joining in. If Sir Cadogan had been there, he'd only be fit to carry her shoes.
Seeing this, Sherlock couldn't help but frown.
Just as he was preparing to do something, Mrs. Weasley made a new move.
She stopped trying to pull the curtain shut and instead hurried toward the other end of the hall, drawing her wand and casting Stunning Spells on the other portraits.
The effect was instant. Now only Mrs. Black's portrait was left screaming.
But this single portrait's combat power exceeded all the other portraits combined.
Just then, Sirius hurried over.
Seeing the situation, he roared.
"Shut up, you horrible old hag, shut up!"
As he shouted, he grabbed the curtain Mrs. Weasley had dropped.
"You—you!"
When Mrs. Black saw her son, her face immediately turned pale, her eyes were widening.
She began shrieking in an even more shrill and high-pitched voice than before.
"You wastrel, shame of the House of Black, how could I have given birth to such a monster!"
"I said—SHUT—UP!" Sirius wasn't backing down, roaring back at her with equal fury.
After that, he and Mr. Weasley used tremendous effort to finally pull the curtain shut again.
Once the curtain was drawn, Mrs. Black's screams finally disappeared.
Sirius released the thick curtain, breathing slightly heavily, and turned to the dumbfounded Holmes couple and the slightly frowning Sherlock, saying.
"Excellent. Now all the guests have met my mother."
"..."
Even the eloquent Mr. Holmes didn't know what to say in this awkward situation.
The main issue was that this mother and son were truly... unspeakable.
The mother called her son "wastrel," "shame," and "monster."
The son called his mother a "horrible old hag."
Relatively speaking, the son seemed to be more polite?
Well, it was the pot calling the kettle black—neither was in any position to criticize the other.
"Um—why not take it down from the wall?" Mr. Holmes pondered for a moment and finally chose this as his conversational opening. "You seemed to have a very hard time pulling that curtain shut just now."
"Harry and I have been trying to get her down for over a week," Sirius said with a straight face. "But she seems to have cast a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of the canvas, so there's nothing we can do about it.
All we can do is try not to linger here—everyone should leave quickly. She might wake up again soon."
Everyone immediately scattered like birds and beasts.
Mrs. Black's portrait's power was simply too great.
Having satisfied his curiosity, Sherlock didn't plan to provoke her again either.
Mainly because her mental state was clearly abnormal.
Full of crude language, everything she said was just venting emotions and completely meaningless.
Otherwise, Sherlock wouldn't mind having a few words with her to see if he could extract some useful information from her.
Overall, the day at 12 Grimmauld Place was quite interesting.
Even despite the fright from Mrs. Black.
Especially for Mrs. Holmes and Mrs. Granger, they had never been to a wizarding home before, so they found everything they saw and heard extraordinarily novel.
Whether it was kitchen tools that chopped and sliced vegetables by themselves, or dishes that washed themselves with a tap of a wand, or even portraits that spoke foul language.
For the young wizards, the most ancient and mysterious Black family in the magical world held equal attraction.
Sherlock also finally met the house-elf called Kreacher.
Similar to Dobby, who wore an old pillowcase, Kreacher's entire body was wrapped only in a filthy rag.
His skin hung loose, seeming to be several times more than his body actually needed.
Although his head was bald like all house-elves, a great deal of white hair grew from those bat-like large ears.
Besides that, his eyes were bloodshot, watery and gray, and his fleshy nose was quite large.
In short, unlike the energetic Dobby and the house-elves he'd seen in the Hogwarts kitchens, Kreacher was obviously much older.
This matched Sirius's previous description of him.
However, there were some discrepancies.
When Harry brought them to the second-floor sitting room and Ron was just half a beat too slow trying to close the door, Kreacher nimbly slipped through the gap.
But after he entered the sitting room, he changed into another appearance entirely.
As if he couldn't see the people in the room at all, he walked hunched over, dragging his feet, slowly, step by step, toward the other end of the room.
Not only that, he kept muttering in a hoarse, low, bullfrog-like voice.
"I smell gutters and criminals."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow at this.
"The young master returned from Azkaban and began ruining my mistress's house with his little brat."
Sherlock looked toward the "little brat."
Harry: (=_=)
Harry had long grown accustomed to Kreacher's manner of speaking during this time.
So, noticing Sherlock's gaze, he could only shrug helplessly.
Kreacher ignored everyone and continued walking while speaking.
"Oh, my poor mistress, if she knew from beyond the grave, if she knew what kind of scum they're bringing into her home, what would she say to old Kreacher?
Ah, what a disgrace, a bunch of Mudbloods, and old and young scoundrels who degrade themselves by befriending Mudbloods.
Oh, what can poor old Kreacher do—"
"You said you can smell criminals?" Sherlock looked down at the house-elf from his height, saying with interest.
"How curious. This is the first time I've heard of a house-elf with abilities like mine."
As soon as Sherlock finished speaking, Kreacher's pale eyes suddenly widened.
Even more surprisingly, in the next moment, he actually turned his attention directly to Sherlock, and his muttering became faster than before.
"A Mudblood is talking to Kreacher?
Heh, as if he's my friend!
Oh, if Kreacher's mistress saw him with such people, what would she say—"
Before Kreacher could finish, Harry and Hermione both angrily said simultaneously.
"Don't call him a Mudblood!"
Ron, Ginny, and the Weasley twins all looked at Hermione with some surprise.
Before Sherlock arrived here, Kreacher had called Hermione a Mudblood right to her face.
At that time, Hermione hadn't gotten angry.
Even when Harry and Ron defended her, she had actively told them it was all right.
Because Kreacher's mind wasn't right, and he didn't understand what he was saying.
Ginny had immediately pointed out that Kreacher knew perfectly well what he was saying, and Hermione making excuses for him was self-deception.
But now when he called Sherlock a "Mudblood" again, her reaction was completely different from before.
Why was that?
"Heh..."
Just then, Sherlock chuckled softly and crouched down before Kreacher.
His originally interested expression disappeared, replaced by suddenly sharp eyes.
Those gray eyes, like surgical knives, cut through Kreacher's cloudy, dull exterior and pierced straight to the bottom of his eyes.
At such close range, meeting Sherlock's gaze, Kreacher instinctively flinched for some unknown reason.
But then he forcibly straightened his hunched back, and a flash of panic quickly crossed his cloudy eyes.
He desperately maintained that mad, unfocused pretense, his mumbling growing louder.
"Kreacher shouldn't speak—the filthy Mudblood is staring at Kreacher with terrible eyes—
What does he want? Could he be planning to attack Kreacher with those dirty hands—"
"Enough. Drop your clumsy farce," Sherlock's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable penetrating force that instantly drowned out Kreacher's muttering.
"When it comes to concealment, compared to the Malfoys' house-elf, you're far inferior!"
Hearing Sherlock say this, all the young wizards in the room perked up.
Those familiar with Sherlock knew that next, Sherlock was about to start.
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