Chapter 243: Straw
Chapter 243: Straw
Silke had been overseeing Fidelius for nearly a decade. Even in the German Ministry of Magic, it would be hard to find a wizard more familiar with the habits of a Straw Golem.
"The nightmares are a way for it to regain its strength, and they are most effective in crowded places. This behavior doesn't have an immediate impact on people, but it gradually saps their energy. Over time, it can cause serious problems."
Professor Mcgonagall furrowed her brow.
"It's hiding in Hogwarts. Do you have any way to find it?"
Silke spoke with a serious expression.
"That's part of its goal. Using such methods to regain strength is secondary; what it really wants is for us to seek it out. Only in a suitable environment can its powers be fully utilized, giving it the chance for revenge. Therefore, it won't hide in a place where we can't find it, or it will reveal itself to us."
Her words made the professors in the common room fall into deep thought.
Soon, Sherlock looked up at Professor Mcgonagall and asked.
"Harry and his friends were the first to experience the nightmares, right?"
"Yes, on Friday night, Harry, Ron, and Hermione all had the nightmare. At first, they didn't pay much attention to it, but when the same problem appeared in their dormitory the next night, they came to me."
"Let's call Harry and his friends over first. As the source of the infection, they might have encountered something related to the Straw Golem."
With the help of the portraits in the common room, Harry and his two friends, who had just finished lunch in the Great Hall, were quickly brought to the common room.
Faced with a group of professors, they appeared visibly nervous.
Professor Sprout spoke to them kindly to calm them down, and Professor Flitwick, worried they might not have eaten enough, gave each of them a cream cake.
Naturally, Sherlock was the one to question them. He didn't appear overly strict or stern, keeping the conversation as casual as a regular classroom Q&A.
"On Friday, did you encounter anything strange? Or see anything unusual?"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged glances before Harry spoke up.
"After Potions class, as we were about to go up the stairs, I felt something in the empty classroom next to us watching us. But when we went inside, we found nothing. After having the nightmare that night, we suspected there might be something wrong with that place, so we checked again, but still found nothing."
Sherlock sensed the importance of this clue and emphasized it.
"You're sure there was nothing in that classroom?"
Harry thought for a moment, then suddenly remembered something.
"In the middle of the classroom, on one of the desks! We found a straw. Ron, Hermione, and I thought it might have been blown in by the wind, so we didn't pay much attention and threw it away."
The atmosphere in the common room suddenly grew tense. Not only did Sherlock sense a problem, but the other professors also realized that the straw Harry mentioned was likely significant.
"Where did you throw it?"
Harry remembered this clearly.
"In the trash can of that empty classroom!"
Sherlock stood up from his chair, nodded to Professor Mcgonagall, and patted Harry on the shoulder.
"Good job, Harry, for reporting this to the professor promptly. If you had tried to hide it and deal with it on your own, only to speak up a couple of days later, the consequences would have been much more serious."
Harry felt quite embarrassed by Sherlock's praise. He always felt that such praise was essentially a backhanded compliment, suggesting he used to be reckless.
Although, he did admit to being quite reckless in the past.
After learning the exact location of the classroom, Harry and his two friends were allowed to leave. They still had classes in the afternoon, and there wasn't much they could do to help anyway.
Only Sherlock, Silke, and Professor Mcgonagall went to investigate the classroom. The other professors had classes in the afternoon, and despite the Gryffindor students not having slept well last night, Hogwarts wasn't about to cancel classes.
The classroom Harry mentioned wasn't hard to find; it was right next to the stairs leading to the castle dungeon.
It was an abandoned Charms classroom, one that hadn't been used by students or teachers for decades. Even Professor Mcgonagall had no clear memory of it.
They pushed the door open and began to inspect the entire classroom. Surprisingly, Silke, who was blindfolded, was the one who could see the clearest.
"It was here, and it stayed for a while."
Apart from Silke, who could sense its presence through her unique abilities, neither Sherlock nor Professor Mcgonagall found anything out of the ordinary.
However, they soon found the classroom's trash bin, but it didn't contain the straw Harry had mentioned he had thrown there.
"The house-elves clean the regularly used classrooms every evening. The empty ones are cleaned once a week. It's likely this classroom has already been cleaned."
Professor Mcgonagall looked at the empty bin thoughtfully.
They didn't linger in the empty classroom and headed straight to the Hogwarts kitchen, which was also the house-elves' base of operations.
The kitchen entrance was located in the corridor where the Hufflepuff common room's entrance was. By tickling the pear in the fruit painting on the wall, a door handle would appear, allowing them to open the kitchen door.
Many house-elves were responsible for the castle's food and cleanliness, bustling about in a kitchen as large as the Great Hall, with perhaps a hundred of them.
When they saw Professor Mcgonagall enter with Sherlock and Silke, all the house-elves stopped their work. Each one timidly tugged at the rags they wore and stared at them with their large, not-so-cute eyes.
One house-elf stepped forward to greet them.
"Professor Mcgonagall, is there something you need us to do?"
Professor Mcgonagall easily called out the name of the house-elf, who looked no different from the others and was indistinguishable by gender.
"Abby, I want to know who has been responsible for cleaning the dungeon classrooms recently."
As soon as she asked, almost all the house-elves turned their gaze in one direction.
(End of Chapter)
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