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 beca one of their targets.
When the Gryffindor students were going upstairs for Charms class, suddenly from behind ca a shout. "Harry Potter!"
Hearing soone call his na directly, Harry instinctively sensed trouble.
The next mont, his premonition proved correct.
A large bald head suddenly burst from the crowd, charging toward Harry with lightning speed and thunderous montum.
His purpose was to deliver a musical ssage 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 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 the song's contents."
"Oh, Sherlock, please, don't do this... Fine, fine, don't look at like that. I'll tell you."
eting 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 more than once anyway."
Sherlock didn't mock Harry, but instead asked.
"This incident is the source of your embarrassnt?"
"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 co 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 sothing more outrageous.
"Co on, Harry, having soone 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 assessnt, Harry almost wondered if he'd misheard.
"Yes, it's a concise four-line poem using basic ABAB rhy sche.
This rhythm is very common in romantic poetry. The first- and third-lines rhyming makes the entire poem more lodious—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 amazent.
I'm telling you I'm mortally embarrassed by this, and you're analyzing the poem's literary rits?
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 assessnt.
Just from the cases I'm familiar with, there are countless positive examples where literature and philosophy proved useful.
For instance, by analyzing fragnts of Byron poetry the killer left at the scene—note, deliberately chosen passages from 'Protheus'—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 fragnts of sonnets among his gears. Without familiarity with the 'double aning' sophistry in 'Macbeth,' who would have thought those misplaced rhys corresponded to the safe's combination?
If Hermione knew these things, she'd probably retract that statent.
Actually, I have so knowledge in these areas."
"Uh..."
Harry didn't know what to say anymore.
This was one downside of spending ti with Sherlock.
You had to be constantly prepared to endure so of his quirks.
At tis like this, Harry usually chose to change the subject, for example.
"Sherlock, you still haven't told 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 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 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 imdiately 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 so creature was hidden sowhere 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 sa 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 aningful expression.
"Sherlock?"
Ron felt uncomfortable under his gaze, and several thoughts flashed through his mind. His face suddenly changed. "Don't tell ..."
"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 imdiately 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 an it, but those spiders wouldn't listen to him..."
Ron said weakly.
This ti 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 sothing 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 rember you've used them so many tis in Potions class."
"Dead ones don't bother ," Ron said sowhat irritably. "I just don't like the way they crawl around."
Harry still didn't quite understand, but Sherlock said at this mont. "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 imdiately startled by Hagrid's furious expression.
Could it be that his secret ntal cursing of Hagrid's Acromantula to hurry up and die had been discovered?
When did Hagrid acquire such abilities?
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