After seeing off Hannah Abbott, Hermione sat across from Sherlock, staring directly at him.
"What is it, my friend?"
"Detective Sherlock, please tell me where I should look for Ministry security system vulnerabilities?"
"That... well..." Sherlock shook his head lightly. "I've already discovered some from the Ministry's case report."
"What?" Hermione looked at Sherlock incredulously.
"Unfortunately, even knowing these vulnerabilities, I have no way to exploit them—after all, this is the magical world. If I were twenty now... actually, seventeen should be sufficient."
Hermione: |(*′口`)
'What, listening to your tone, do you want to pull off some big heist at the Ministry?'
"But what I truly didn't expect was that the magical world also has its own Scotland Yard."
If it were Harry and Ron, they might not understand this statement's meaning. But Hermione did.
"It seems you're quite dissatisfied with Scotland Yard."
"Ah! Actually, they do have certain action capabilities and basic investigative skills. When handling routine cases, they can methodically conduct clue collection, witness interviews, and such work.
Unfortunately, many detectives there have rather rigid thinking, often following established case-solving patterns, lacking innovative thinking and bold reasoning hypotheses. Particularly when facing complex criminal cases, Scotland Yard's response speed and strategies often fall short.
For example, the burglary case before school started—they overlooked key clues, causing the case investigation to reach an impasse."
Hearing Sherlock mercilessly point out Scotland Yard's flaws, Hermione didn't know what to say for a moment. She had sometimes heard her parents and other family elders complain about Scotland Yard's low efficiency, but no one had ever been able to clearly identify the problems like Sherlock.
"What I didn't expect was that the Ministry is no better. Actually, this case is very simple, just like the previous problems I've helped others solve.
Because I have this ability to analyze things using intuition, they provide me with all the evidence, and I try to guide them onto the right track.
In fact, all criminal behavior has very similar aspects. If you can know the detailed particulars of a thousand cases inside and out, yet cannot explain the thousand and first case, that would be strange.
If I encounter complex cases, I'm afraid I'd still need to travel around and personally investigate.
This case's main difficulty lies in having too many clues—extremely important clues were obscured by completely irrelevant traces.
Actually, the information provided in the Ministry's report alone was sufficient for deduction, as long as one could select the necessary parts and string them together in order.
But the Ministry turned a blind eye to those clues hidden beneath the surface. In fact, the Ministry gave me the impression of just wanting to close cases quickly."
At this point, Sherlock frowned deeply.
"As for who the real culprit is, they don't care. So even though I've provided the correct approach, I'm afraid Mrs. Abbott will still need considerable effort to resolve this matter.
However, since she was able to bring out the Ministry's investigation report, plus Professor Sprout's help, I believe this matter will ultimately reach a fair conclusion."
Here, Sherlock paused.
"Oh, and thank you for reminding me of that young lady's name earlier."
"Ah?"
'Good grief, so if I hadn't called out Hannah Abbott's name at the beginning, you wouldn't even have known?'
But thinking about it, that made sense. This guy had said before that his brain was like a hard drive, never storing information he considered useless. Not remembering classmates' names wasn't a first or second occurrence.
Hermione even somewhat suspected that if Ron didn't share a dormitory with Sherlock, the latter might not even remember the former's name.
Time flows like fine sand through fingers, always slipping away unnoticed. In the process of learning magical knowledge, morning training with Harry, teaching Hermione to fly, and helping classmates solve problems, Sherlock had been at Hogwarts for nearly four months.
This also meant... Christmas was coming.
Like Halloween, this originally religious holiday had evolved over time into a public holiday throughout the world. On this day, everyone would exchange gifts and hold feasts. To add atmosphere, Christmas trees, stockings, hats, wreaths, and other holiday-specific decorations would make their sparkling debut.
It could be said to be quite lively.
For Hogwarts' young witches and wizards, this holiday was more important than Halloween. On one hand, its arrival meant the end of the first term. The entire school would welcome a full two weeks of vacation, not returning until New Year's Day of the following year.
On the other hand, children were all hopefully waiting for a red-hatted, white-bearded old man to appear and deliver gifts to their hands.
Of course, in the magical world, owls actually fulfilled this responsibility. But this didn't affect the children's beautiful wishes.
The school had also prepared early, having all students register whether they wanted to stay at school for the holidays.
The vast majority of students chose to go home. This was normal—after all, in these full seven years of school life, there were only two opportunities each year to return home.
Of course, there were exceptions.
"I really feel sorry for those people," Malfoy said sarcastically during a Potions class. "They have to spend Christmas at other people's houses because their own families don't want them."
Despite repeatedly hitting walls, Malfoy still took every opportunity to antagonize Harry. Of course, because of Sherlock, he didn't dare be too aggressive, only causing trouble subtly.
By now, he had discovered a fact: if he only took some not-too-excessive verbal advantages, Sherlock wouldn't bother with him.
This discovery excited him immensely, so naturally he wouldn't pass up such opportunities.
However, this time, not only did Sherlock ignore him, even Harry couldn't be bothered to respond. Because Harry originally didn't want to return to Privet Drive to spend Christmas with the Dursleys.
So even though Malfoy deliberately looked at Harry while speaking, with Crabbe and Goyle snickering nearby, Harry wasn't upset at all—he even found it somewhat amusing.
This made Malfoy even more gloomy, feeling as if he'd punched cotton.
On the contrary, for Harry, this might very well be the best Christmas he'd ever spend in his life.
Actually, when Professor McGonagall initially came to register students staying for the holidays, he had originally intended to sign up.
"Sherlock, I won't go home for Christmas..."
"No, you're going home."
"Home?" Harry said in surprise. "Sherlock, you know my family situation..."
"My home," Sherlock said calmly. "My parents want to meet my friend."
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