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Chapter 189: 12 Grimmauld Place
🕑 Added 2018-08-01 06:47:24 +0000 UTCEvan, Harry, and Hermione wore their robe as fast as possible. Evan also deliberately wrapped Hermione's scarf around his neck.
They went to Hogsmeade with Sirius Black in the lead.
Before leaving the castle, they met Professor McGonagall. Although she agreed to let the three of them leave Hogwarts for Christmas, but from her serious face and wrinkled brow one could see that she did not agree at all with Sirius.
Evan, Harry, and Hermione were very happy that they didn’t have to stay in the ward.
Standing on the empty, snowy streets of Hogsmeade, Sirius told them that he would take the three of them to Diagon Alley, where Lupin was.
Tonight, everyone will be there for Christmas, a perfect Christmas.
Then, after the Christmas holiday, he would send them back to Hogwarts.
"How do we go to Diagon Alley? Will we be using the Floo Network?" Harry asked Sirius.
"No, I have already booked the Knight Bus. However, before going to Diagon Alley, we have to go to an unpleasant place, which is not connected to the Floo Network." Sirius did not consider it. "We are going there to get Evan and Hermione’s Christmas presents. Although I don't really want to go back in there, there is really no better place than that."
"An unpleasant place?" Evan froze. "Where there’s a Christmas present for me and Hermione?!"
He didn't know which place Sirius meant, nor did he know what he was about to give him, just as he was about to ask, the Knight Bus appeared in the thin air, rushing over.
The four hurried to dodge, and the Knight Bus stopped at the place where they were just standing, with a deafening voice.
The conductor, Stan Shunpike, jumped onto the sidewalk and greeted him with enthusiasm.
"Merry Christmas, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Knight Bus, just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go..."
Shunpike suddenly stopped, and he first saw Harry.
"Look at who we met, isn’t this Neville? How are you doing?"
"Neville?" Sirius repeated it in a strange way, "This is Harry Potter!"
"Harry Potter?!" Stan paused, and then became excited and cried happily. "I knew that I had already seen this scar.”
Stan looked excited, but Harry was embarrassed.
A few months ago, he took a ride on the Knight Bus from the Muggle Streets to Diagon Alley. He inflated his aunt, left the Dursleys alone and helpless, and then he met Evan, and saw Sirius for the first time.
"Why didn’t you tell us that you were Harry Potter, Neville?" Said Stan, his face smiling at Harry, "Yes, what about your strange little black cat?"
It was Evan’s turn to be embarrassed. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like if Stan knew that he was the black cat at the time.
"Let's get on the bus, it's too cold outside, I'm freezing!"
"Of course, come up." Stan stepped back, then he looked up and saw Sirius, "God, you are Sirius Black, I just saw your photo on the “Daily Prophet “.”
Stan‘s eyes moved from Sirius to Evan and Hermione, and his face became more and more excited. He shouted, "You are Evan Mason, you are Hermione Granger! I saw you on the newspaper as well…"
The four of them took the bus. Perhaps because it was Christmas today, there was no one else on the car except for the conductor.
They sat down on the bed of the brass column, and Shunpike took out the newspaper he had recently collected. The entirety of the paper was dedicated to the incident of Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew.
Evan saw photos of himself and Harry, Hermione, and Ron. The photos were taken when Fudge gave them a special contribution award last year. The following was a detailed introduction to the story of the four of them.
Shunpike kept telling them that he never knew about any of this, and asked the four people to sign him autographs. In this environment, Evan could not ask Sirius, where they were going.
More than an hour later, the knight bus docked in the middle of a small square with long awnings.
Evan walked out of the bus, and the houses around the square had a dirty appearance and did not seem to welcome visitors. Some of the houses had broken windows, and they were lifeless. The paint peeled off from many doors, and a lot of rubbish piled up on the front steps.
"Where are we?"
"Grimmauld Square!" Sirius's expression became serious, with mixed feelings of nostalgia and disgust on his face.
Grimmauld Square?!
Evan’s heart moved; this was the place where the ancestral home of the Black family is.
Black led them three along a deserted street full of pungent smells, stopping in front of a house with a door sign on the outside, which was 12 Grimmauld Place.
Unlike all the ordinary houses in the surrounding area, No. 12 Grimmauld Place was very grand and noble, but it was also dilapidated, like a ghost house.
The black paint on the door had been ruined and scratched, and the silver door handle had been twisted into a serpentine shape. It had no keyholes or mailboxes.
Sirius pulled out his wand and tapped the door once. Evan heard many loud, metallic clicks and what sounded like the clatter of a chain. A few seconds later, the door creaked open.
"Get in quick!" Sirius said in a whisper. "But don't go far inside, and don't touch anything."
Evan, Harry, and Hermione were nervous and walked into the almost total darkness of the hall. They could smell damp, dust, and a sweetish, rotting smell.
The place had the feeling of a derelict building. Harry stood in front, and Evan and Hermione looked over his shoulders.
Inside the foyer, where the sun shines, there was gorgeous, precious aristocratic decoration, but it was covered with dust. This house gave a strange feeling, as if they had entered a room of a dying man.
"Where are we Sirius?" Evan heard Harry talking; he was smashed by thick dust and coughed fiercely.
"My parents' house, the Black family's mansion!" Sirius followed, with a hint of disdain in his tone. "But now it belongs to me."
He gently waved his wand. They heard a soft hissing noise and then old-fashioned gas lamps sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long, gloomy hallway, where a cobwebby chandelier glimmered overhead and age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls.
