Chapter 48: The Professor Is a Jinx

“The Basilisk? But its power works when a person being watched by it, they will die on the spot, not petrified?” Hearing Sherlock’s words, Professor McGonagall was puzzled.

Sherlock pointed to the camera in Dumbledore’s hands that had been completely burned out.

“The students who were attacked should not look directly into its eyes but through something. Colin saw it through the camera, and Justin, who was attacked last night, through the reflection of the puddles under his feet.”

Dumbledore looked at him in admiration, “Keen observation, Sherlock, I’m a little bit perplexed now. When you joined the Auror, why did those people say you were unsuitable to join the field department?”

He looked at the camera in his hand and said softly, “It is very likely that the creature is a Basilisk, but the question is not who the culprit is now, but who let it loose?”

The voice was a little low, and Sherlock and Professor McGonagall didn’t understand exactly what he said.

Dumbledore shook his head, “If it is really a Basilisk, then the way to defeat it is simple. The sound of a rooster is enough. I remember that Hagrid kept many chickens, which can be used as a defense preparation.”

However, things are not so simple. Hagrid’s chickens were killed by someone overnight. Obviously, the person who released the Basilisk was well prepared. With Sherlock’s reminder, Dumbledore and the school’s professors were prepared in advance.

The rooster is not a precious magical creature, and it can be bought everywhere. The known dangers are more convenient to deal with than the unknown, which also gives the professors confidence. But it was the opposite for the students.

For the sake of secrecy, they discovered that the creature that attacked the students was a basilisk, and they did not inform the students. So, the students are still afraid of the unknown danger.

All the students from Muggle families are in danger, and even Neville is scared day by day. The horror and fear in his eyes cannot be concealed.

“What are you afraid of, Neville? You are a pure-blood. The monster will not target you.” Ron comforted after seeing the expression on Neville’s face.

But his comforting words didn’t have any effect; Neville left the common room as if he were going to the library.

“Leave him alone. His character has always been like that, you know.” Harry said with a heavy heart he was not in the mood to doubt Neville’s unusual reaction now.

“Professor Forrest blessed Colin just yesterday, and something happened to Colin today. It’s definitely not a coincidence.” Hermione also looked puzzled.

“But it is absolutely impossible for Professor Forrest to be the culprit. We discussed it before. He is a half-blood. The heir of Slytherin must be a pure-blood, right?”

“It’s not necessarily.” Ron said solemnly, “Remember what I told you before? There are few families who can truly be called pure-blood. If they don’t marry Muggles, they may have already extinct. The family that Slytherin has passed down may have forgotten their ancestry. After all, the few pure-blood families in existence have never heard of anyone with the Slytherin family.”

Ron now overturned the previous evidence that proved Sherlock’s innocence. At this time, Hermione was shocked to discover that Professor Forrest was not at all less suspicious than Malfoy.

She replied, “But I still don’t believe Professor Forrest is the culprit and hates Muggle-born wizards so much. Why is he willing to answer my questions for me? Although the way he speaks is cold, and he has a very flat attitude toward people, we all know that Professor Forrest is a good person. He even fought for Mr. Weasley against Draco’s father in Diagon Alley.”

Hermione’s words weighed heavily on both Ron and Harry. When they first meet Sherlock, they don’t have a good impression of him because of his attitude. Later, they find that Sherlock is not as they thought.

Sherlock is a nice person. Even to students who are not smart enough, he never speaks harshly. The class is humorous and interesting. In order to make them interested in Defense Against the Dark Arts, he even tried to create a character from an animated cartoon series to lighten up the situation.

Nearly half a semester and getting along with them. He has made Harry and the others truly accept him. They can’t imagine that Sherlock is really the culprit who wants to ruthlessly “sterilize” the entire school.

After the silence lasted for a long time, Harry suddenly said coldly, “You said that Professor Sherlock is not a culprit, but he is simply a jinx?”

Hermione and Ron were stunned by his assumption that it was neither magical nor scientific, “Harry, I know you don’t want Professor Forrest to be a culprit, and neither do we. But you can’t make such baseless accusations like that just because he says something. It’s not good for other people, and be careful for…”

“But I’m serious!” Harry interrupted Ron’s words solemnly, and he carefully analyzed the situation from beginning to end.

“Do you remember the day when the school started, we drove a flying car to school, and we hit the beating willow and got injured?”

Ron was stunned momentarily, then nodded, “Of course, I remember that; that tree seemed to have gone mad and wanted to kill us.”

“And then we went to Madam Pomfrey for treatment and met Professor Forrest on the way back to the Gryffindor common room. Do you remember what he said to us?”

“Saying something? He didn’t want someone to skip his first class?” Ron was only impressed by this sentence because, at the time, he and Harry were talking about making excuses for not going to class tomorrow, and Sherlock caught him.

Harry shook his head, “Not that! What he said after seeing us was, ‘I thought you could land safely.'”

Ron and Hermione looked stunned, “What kind of evidence is this? Professor Forrest may have joked about it at that time, and the fact that we were injured was just a coincidence.”