"Brilliant—you can actually identify all those materials!"
Hagrid's eyes grew brighter with each item Sherlock named. "What else can you tell?"
"You've done a lot of manual labor—your calloused hands make that obvious."
"I've been Gamekeeper here for over forty years," Hagrid nodded. "That's my job, after all."
"You cook for yourself, and you genuinely enjoy it."
"Spot on."
"You have a fondness for mead."
"Right again."
"You were entrusted with retrieving a very important item from Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Shortly after you took it, someone broke in and tried to steal it. Luckily, your timing beat theirs, so the theft failed. But even now, you're still uneasy about the whole thing—even if you believe the item is safe where it is."
Hagrid sprang to his feet so suddenly that his chair clattered to the ground behind him.
But he didn't seem to notice. His wide eyes locked onto Sherlock's face like saucers, and after a long pause, it was as if a realization struck him:
"Harry told you, didn't he?!"
Harry opened his mouth to deny it, but Sherlock shook his head.
"No. This deduction was easier than the others."
He reached out and pulled a small scrap of newspaper from beneath the teapot cozy.
It was a clipping from the Daily Prophet.
The headline read: "Latest Update on Gringotts Break-In."
Hagrid fell silent.
It was Harry who broke the tension, exclaiming, "That was my birthday! Hagrid, we might have been there when it happened!"
Hagrid sighed deeply and rubbed his nose. "Mr. Holmes, Harry's right—you really are something else. Everything you said was spot on.
"But… let's not talk about that anymore. Here, try my rock cakes!"
Clearly flustered, he changed the subject with exaggerated cheer, offering the boys some food.
As Sherlock had said—Hagrid loved cooking.
Unfortunately… his cooking was catastrophic.
The rock cakes were so hard they nearly cracked Harry and Ron's teeth.
Still, out of politeness, the two tried to act like they were enjoying them.
Sherlock, however, picked one up, gave it a squeeze—and his eyes lit up.
He immediately asked if he could take some home.
Hagrid, who had been unsure why Sherlock hadn't eaten any, was overjoyed by the request and quickly packed them up.
By the time the boys left, their pockets were heavy.
"I don't get it," Ron muttered, staring in disbelief. "Sherlock, why did you take those things with you? They're impossible to chew!"
As he spoke, he grabbed one and tossed it casually at a tree.
Crunch. A branch snapped clean off.
The rock cake? Perfectly intact.
"That's because you're thinking about them the wrong way."
Sherlock tapped his temple. "You need to reframe your thinking—don't see them as food. See them as equipment. That way, they're incredibly useful."
Harry: Σ(°△°|||)︴
Ron: (lll￢ω￢)
Neither of them took him seriously—they thought Sherlock was just joking.
After all, it was just a small, silly moment.
Harry's mind had already returned to the topic that most concerned him: the Gringotts vault.
He gave Sherlock a detailed account of how Hagrid had taken something from vault 713 before helping him withdraw his money.
By now, Harry had developed the habit of going to Sherlock whenever he was uncertain.
Once he finished explaining, Sherlock nodded.
"Just as I thought—Hagrid was acting on Dumbledore's orders. Dumbledore must've believed Gringotts wasn't safe enough, so he had the item moved."
"Clearly he was right!" Ron interjected. "Any later and that thing might've been stolen!"
"No—that's just your assumption," Sherlock said bluntly, immediately pointing out the flaw in Ron's logic. "Based on Harry's experience and Hagrid's account, Gringotts is no less secure than Hogwarts.
"Even if the item had remained there, the thief might not have been able to get away with it."
As Ron opened his mouth to argue, Sherlock added, "Of course, that's only one possibility. It's also possible the thief could've breached Gringotts' defenses.
"After all, they're still at large."
"Don't you want to catch them?" Harry asked eagerly.
"Bringing criminals to justice has always been a passion of mine," Sherlock said. "But right now? That's probably impossible."
"Why? You've got the skills to do it!" Harry said, puzzled.
"Oh, my dear friend," Sherlock looked at the Boy Who Lived and, unsurprisingly, saw clear-eyed naïveté. "I appreciate your faith in me—but neither Gringotts nor the Ministry of Magic is about to let a first-year investigate a major robbery."
Harry was instantly silenced.
He'd forgotten—Sherlock was only eleven. Unless someone had personally witnessed his talent, who would take him seriously?
Even Hagrid, who trusted Harry deeply, had still tested Sherlock's skills after hearing what he could do.
Seeing Harry's downcast expression, Sherlock didn't say anything more.
In truth, if he really wanted to investigate the case, he could find a way.
With Hagrid's open nature, it wouldn't be hard to pry information from him.
And if not, there was always Dumbledore.
But right now, Sherlock was more intrigued by something else:
A whole new world.
For someone who had always placed his faith in science, magic was simply irresistible.
Besides, this was the magical world—the Ministry of Magic surely wasn't anything like Scotland Yard, right?
Sherlock shook his head, brushing aside the absurd thought.
Time passed quietly.
It had now been a full month since he arrived at Hogwarts.
Aside from classes, Sherlock spent most of his time with the professors.
Or at least, with those whose subjects he found useful.
He only paid attention to the parts of History of Magic that seemed valuable, occasionally asking Professor Binns questions.
As for Professor Quirrell's Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons—after two weeks, Sherlock stopped attending altogether.
Listening to him lecture was no different than reading the textbook.
A total waste of time.
-------
30 Advance Chapters on Patreon!
p(a)treon(.)com/HudaLin
-Remove the parenthesis to access patreon normally
Thanks for the Support!