After scaring away his annoying cousin Dudley, Harry stared blankly at the garden hedge in boredom.
He was a second-year student at Hogwarts, but during the summer break, he was forced to live with his aunt and uncle, who hated magic.
If he was being honest, when he had received his Hogwarts acceptance letter from Hagrid last year, he had happily thought that he was finally escaping his misery.
But he hadn't expected that once the term ended, he would have to return to this "home" that didn't offer him the slightest bit of warmth.
Today was Harry's birthday, yet he hadn't received a single birthday card so far.
During his first year at Hogwarts, he had certainly made friends. But throughout the entire summer, it was as if Ron and Hermione had completely forgotten he existed; not a single letter had arrived.
This made him incredibly depressed.
Aunt Petunia, having just heard a panicked Dudley snitching on him, was shouting in the living room, ordering Harry to prune the roses, wash the windows, clean the car, mow the lawn, and tidy the flowerbeds.
In the sweltering heat, Harry listlessly began working in the garden with his tools, while his cousin Dudley—who was as fat as a pig—gloatingly ate ice cream, loitering nearby as he watched Harry wipe the windows.
Harry didn't feel particularly sad… well, maybe he was a little.
But he had long since grown accustomed to such unfair treatment.
The scorching sun beat down, making the back of Harry's neck burn.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and suddenly spotted a young man jogging on the road outside the yard.
When he looked up, his eyes met the young man's.
To be honest, the face was very handsome—ranking in the top three among everyone Harry had ever seen—but his expression was icy, making him look like someone who rarely smiled.
Their eyes met for only a fleeting moment, as if they were just two ordinary strangers accidentally making eye contact.
Aside from muttering to himself about how someone actually had the leisure to go for a run in this weather, Harry didn't notice anything unusual.
And then, his attention was drawn to a pair of large eyes hidden behind the hedge…
This was the first time Sherlock had gone for a run along his planned route, and he happened to run into Harry Potter.
He didn't dare go up and greet the protagonist of this world, because he didn't know if Dumbledore or people from the Ministry of Magic were keeping watch near Harry's home.
The reason he wanted to take a look at Harry Potter was that after Professor McGonagall left, he discovered that his residence was only two streets away from 4 Privet Drive, where Harry Potter lived in the original story.
Harry Potter looked no different from how he remembered.
He wore a pair of large, black-rimmed glasses, had messy jet-black hair and bright green eyes, and his thin frame made him look somewhat malnourished.
It seemed his daily life was truly not great.
But whether Harry Potter was doing well or not was not for Sherlock to worry about.
He had only come to take a look at Harry to satisfy his curiosity; he had plenty of his own troubles to deal with.
Returning home, Sherlock first took a shower in the bathroom, then wiped his wet hair with a towel as he entered the wizarding study.
As soon as he entered, the portrait on the wall began shouting and cursing again.
"Why don't you just die! You disgusting half-breed! Die out there! Get out of my sight!..."
Sherlock already had a good way to deal with this noisy painting: he covered the portrait with a curtain, and the woman who had been cursing him would soon shut up.
Judging by the tone of the portrait, this woman seemed to be the mother of Sherlock's current body.
But he couldn't imagine what kind of mother would use such vicious language to curse her own son.
The original owner's family situation seemed very strange so far.
His father was a wealthy man with a title and social status in the Muggle world, while his mother was like a madwoman who did nothing but scream and shout.
According to the wizarding world's terminology, Sherlock's bloodline should be half-blood: his mother was a witch, and his father was a Muggle.
And when the old butler handed him the will that day, the phrase "promise not to have contact with those people" likely referred to wizards.
In other words, Sherlock's father also harboured a great deal of animosity toward the wizarding community.
To be honest, if all the wizards Sherlock encountered were like the original owner's mother, he wouldn't have a good impression of wizards either.
But if that were the case, how did the original owner's parents end up having him in the first place?
The matter was somewhat complicated, and with limited information, Sherlock didn't quite understand these things, nor did he have the time to figure them out.
After Professor McGonagall delivered the appointment letter for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position to him, inheriting his father's estate was definitely out of the question.
Even if he got the money, he wouldn't have the chance to spend it.
The most pressing problem he was facing now was how to deal with teaching at Hogwarts.
On the night Professor McGonagall left, Sherlock had actually thought of many excuses to avoid accepting the position.
For example, being ruthless to himself and intentionally breaking a leg.
However, while a broken bone required a long recovery time in the normal Muggle world, in the wizarding world, never mind a broken bone—even if a person was splinched, it wasn't difficult to put them back together.
Therefore, with Sherlock's current abilities, trying to avoid the job through self-harm was clearly unrealistic.
He had also considered simply running away and staging a disappearance, but he despairingly realized he couldn't even evade an owl's tracking, let alone a wizard's; running away would just be walking into a trap.
After realizing that night that he couldn't escape the professor position no matter what…
Sherlock knew there was only one path forward for him now.
And that was to obediently go and teach at Hogwarts.
Once he accepted this, he actually became more open-minded about it.
After all, according to his normal experience, he should have drowned when he fell into the river in his past life.
Being reborn into this world now was essentially an extra life.
If he could live a brilliant life, he'd be fortunate; even if he died later due to some accident, he wouldn't be losing anything.
Besides, being the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor wasn't a death sentence. If he thought about it carefully, his chances of survival were actually quite high.
So, having come to terms with it, Sherlock picked up the appointment letter again and gave a feigned contemptuous smile.
"Hmph. It's just being the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor."