Chapter 684 Hermione and the house elf (two in one)
Tom and Hermione are also familiar with leaving school and traveling to other corners of the UK.
Soon, the two people appeared and stood outside Grimmauld Place. From the cracked stone bricks on the ground of the square and the grass growing in the gaps in the road, it could be seen that this place did not receive daily maintenance from the city hall.
The sound of car horns coming from not far away made the place even more desolate, giving it a feeling of being abandoned by human society.
Hermione looked at the decaying environment around her and smacked her lips, "The Black family is one of the ancient pure-blood families after all. Why do they live in such a dilapidated place?"
"Maybe before they settled here, this was still a very prosperous area." Tom looked at the surrounding community and found that although it is now declining and lonely, some traces of the glory of the past can still be vaguely found. "Can you
Do you guarantee that your land will still be prosperous two centuries from now?"
"Of course, you forgot? My home is in London~" Hermione said proudly. It could be seen that she was very confident in the appreciation of her house.
Tom:6
From Tom's point of view, the land price where Granger's house is located will only rise, not fall. Unless he does some unnatural operation in the future - such as building a refugee camp nearby, it will never fall.
The price may drop.
"I'm afraid wizards are not suitable to live in a prosperous place." Tom ended the topic with these words.
In view of the strange behaviors of wizards, it is better to stay away from the Muggle community. What they do is so abnormal that all Muggles who come into contact with them will feel that something is wrong.
"So? Where to go next?" Hermione looked around, trying to find any clues about Sirius' house.
"Grimmauld Place...No. 12." Tom walked around the square and finally locked his target. Under the gaze of the two of them, a house stood out suddenly between No. 11 and No. 13 Grimmauld Place.
appeared.
From the outside, this house looks no different from other Muggle residences, except that it is more dilapidated and in disrepair. However, it is not difficult to see from the fact that even if it appeared out of thin air, it did not attract the attention of the surrounding Muggles, it is not difficult to see that this house must have been
Imbued with profound magic.
Hermione looked at the mottled exterior walls and dusty windows and remained silent for a long time.
The arrival of the Order of the Phoenix does not seem to have brought much improvement to the sanitary conditions of No. 12 Grimmauld Place, at least from the outside.
"Ahem, it just looks a little broken, but the inside has been tidied up and is habitable." A male voice sounded behind the two of them.
Tom:?!
He recognized who the owner of the voice was, but this was what surprised him.
Tom turned around with surprise and saw Sirius's handsome face.
"What's so strange? This is my home." Seeing that Tom looked like he had seen a ghost, Sirius spread his hands and didn't understand what Tom was fussing about.
"I know this is your home, but..." Tom lowered his voice, "Aren't you working undercover?"
Undercover? When Hermione heard this word, her eyes widened in surprise: Another thing she didn't know!
This was a plan carried out by Tom and Dumbledore, allowing Sirius and Lupine to take on the identities of Peter Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Jr. and infiltrate the Death Eaters. These were two people who were captured by Dumbledore.
The Death Eaters controlled by Bledo are the best candidates to impersonate...
Before the start of the insidious operation, Sirius and Lupine also received special training in Occlumency from Snape to avoid being discovered by Voldemort. It was not until their Occlumency level that even Dumbledore felt they were qualified.
, they just started executing the plan.
As for how to become Peter and Barty, it is naturally thanks to Professor Snape's selfless dedication. He has been providing polyjuice potion and wolfsbane potion to the two, and he can be called a model worker.
Sirius and Lupine did not betray everyone's trust. They completed the task extremely brilliantly. Not only did they infiltrate the Death Eaters, they also gained Voldemort's trust by helping him to resurrect. This allowed Dumbledore's plan to go smoothly.
was executed, and at the same time, intelligence about Voldemort was continuously sent back.
"I'll tell you more about it later." Tom comforted Hermione first, and then looked at Sirius: "What happened?"
What Tom couldn't figure out was why Sirius appeared here?! Shouldn't he be performing his undercover mission?
"Voldemort asked us to spread out and lurk." Sirius shrugged, "Then there was no news, so I simply went back to my hometown to stay - Lupin also lives here."
"I don't know if I should continue this undercover mission... How can I be an undercover agent if I can't even see Voldemort's noseless face?"
Tom nodded, feeling that what Sirius said made sense. But fortunately, he had opened up a new source of intelligence, and Sirius and Lupin's undercover mission could indeed come to an end for the time being. Barty and Peter's false identities,
You can keep it, maybe it can be used again.
"Anyway, Dumbledore sent me a message, saying that you wanted to know about my stupid brother, so I came outside to wait for you." After explaining a few words, Sirius took Tom's hand and looked at him.
Walk home.
"Come on, come in and sit down first. My house is quite big, and the inside is not as dilapidated as the outside..."
He led Tom and Hermione up the dirty steps to the front door of his house.
The special thing about this door is that there is no door lock on it, only a silver, "S" shaped snake. Sirius took out his wand and knocked on the snake, and there was a sound of twisting chains behind the door.
After a few seconds, the door creaked open.
"Please come in...remember to be quiet." Sirius dodged and quickly got in, followed closely by Tom, and Hermione fell at the back, her eyes full of curiosity.
Behind the door is a dark corridor. It is worth mentioning that the corridor is no longer covered with thick dust, cobwebs, and small insects wandering around.
Sirius led the two of them to the living room. Although it was daytime outside, the living room was still dark, so Sirius lit a few candles to illuminate the place.
"Sit down." He pulled out the chair and motioned for Tom and Hermione to sit down first, with a rather proud look on his face.
He and Lupine had put a lot of effort into tidying up this house! He even regretted not taking pictures of the house in its most filthy state.
"Although Dumbledore regards this place as the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, there are usually no people here..." Sirius began to chat with Tom...
"A guest is coming?" The stairs not far away creaked, and a familiar person appeared.
"Professor Lupin!" Hermione stood up in surprise. She had a good impression of this Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and she was filled with joy after seeing him again after a long absence.
"It turns out to be Miss Granger and Yodel...wait, don't you need to go to class?" Lupine first said hello to Tom and Hermione, and then suddenly realized that the holiday at Hogwarts hasn't started yet.
These two people shouldn't be here.
"We asked for leave." Hermione briefly and comprehensively described the purpose of the two people's visit.
"Regulus..." Lupine turned his attention to Sirius. When he was a student, he had often heard his old friends complain about his somewhat dim-witted brother.
"Just a fool, I didn't expect you to be interested in him." Sirius said with pretended disdain, but Tom still heard something different from his tone.
"He is two years younger than me. He has been a pure-blood since he was a child..." Sirius began to tell the people present about his brother's life.
At the end, he sighed, "As for the ending, I don't think there are many possibilities. He was killed by Voldemort. Or he was killed under Voldemort's instructions. I am more inclined to the latter, because Regulus
He shouldn't be important enough for Voldemort to kill him personally. After his death, from what I understand, he was already in deep trouble, and then he was afraid of what others wanted him to do, so he wanted to quit - his temper
You have always been so weak... Alas, you can't hand in a resignation letter to Voldemort and be done with it. Either you will work for the rest of your life, or you will die."
After telling his brother's story, the living room fell into a long silence. Finally, it was Sirius himself who broke the suffocating atmosphere.
"Come on, I'll take you to his bedroom. Maybe you can find some clues -"
At this moment, a low, hoarse voice sounded near the living room door: "The disgusting smell, another stranger stepped into the noble and pure Black Mansion...another prodigal friend...this
There was actually a Mudblood inside this time..."
"Kreacher!" Sirius's expression turned ferocious. He banged the table and roared towards the door: "Shut your stinky mouth, and do you dare to say that word again?"
It wasn't until it made a sound that Tom realized that an extremely old house elf was standing outside the living room, eavesdropping on the conversation in the living room.
It remained silent until Regulus' story was finished.
After hearing Sirius's scolding, Kreacher immediately put his legs together, bowed tremblingly, and said some submissive words, but it was obvious that these words were duplicitous.
Because when it lowered its head, it muttered: "My poor old master, if he saw the current situation of the mansion, he would be so angry that he would go crazy. But the incompetent old Kreacher couldn't stop him, it
What else can we do?”
"Don't take it too seriously. He's always talking crazy." Sirius didn't bother to talk to Kreacher. He apologized to Hermione in an apologetic tone. The word "mudblood" is the most vicious word for marrow wizards.
The humiliation...
Hermione didn't take it to heart, she was observing Kreacher carefully. This was the first time she had observed house elves at such a close range. In the past, she had only heard of their existence, but had never seen them.
Kreacher's face is full of wrinkles, and a lot of white hair has grown out of his two big bat-like ears, which makes him look very old. His exposed skin is loose and full of wrinkles, and the wrinkles are filled with mud.
, just seeing it will give people goosebumps. Like other house elves, Kreacher has no clothes. He wears a dirty rag around his waist. This is the only thing on his body that can barely be called "clothes"
"something.
"It's okay, it's just a matter of hearing and seeing. Don't blame it. It's called Kreacher, right?" Hermione generously forgave Kreacher for his rudeness. Compared with these, she was more concerned about Kreacher's condition.
Hermione looked at Kreacher with eyes full of sympathy.
"Has it been working in your house since it was born?" Considering that Sirius was also a member of the Order of the Phoenix, Hermione did not use an unpleasant word, but used the neutral word "work".
"Well, yes." Sirius nodded, and Kreacher on the side also murmured: "Kreacher has served the great Black family for generations..."
"Then how old is it?" Hermione looked at Kreacher's old appearance with a look of dismay.
"How do I know?" Sirius rolled his eyes, "It was working in the house when I was born."
After hearing Sirius's answer, the sympathy in Hermione's eyes almost overflowed.
"So it has no holidays, no pay, no allowances and no guarantees, right?" she said in a trembling voice.
Before Sirius could respond, Kreacher raised his head and glared at Hermione with angry eyes, as if she had just tarnished his character with her words.
"Kreacher does not need wages," it said through gritted teeth, "Kreacher has never been lazy in serving his master!"
Hermione was stunned. She didn't expect that she would be angered by Kreacher.
Tom sighed beside him. He knew that something like this would happen. How could a kind-hearted girl like Hermione not feel sympathy for Kreacher after seeing him? It's just that she lacked common sense and didn't know how to raise children at home.
The world view of elves...
"House elves are ashamed of their wages, and there are no such things as holidays." Tom said in a low voice.
Hermione's face turned pale, this was worse than the worst-case scenario she had expected!
"Then... naturally there is no talk of retirement?" Hermione sighed.
Sirius said nothing and just asked Hermione to follow him.
"Don't go." Tom stood up and blocked Hermione's way. He had already guessed what Sirius wanted to show Hermione.
Tom thought it would be best for Hermione not to look at that thing.
"Don't stop me, Tom." Hermione pushed Tom aside firmly, and then followed Sirius to a wall.
There seemed to be a lot of things taped to the wall, but the light was too dark for Hermione to see clearly.
"Lumos." Sirius illuminated the wall decoration.
The moment she saw the "decoration" on the wall clearly, Hermione felt as if her heart had been pinched, and the last trace of blood on her face faded.
On the wall is a row of house-elf heads!
"When they can no longer do the work, my dear aunt will cut off their heads and stick them here." Sirius said expressionlessly.