Chapter 141 Christmas

The flames in the office fireplace were constantly jumping.

However, after Sherlock removed the spell on the Dementor who was invited and took off the sack, the chill that penetrated people's hearts swept the whole room.

A bone-chilling cold emanated from the Dementor, and its face covered by the robe immediately absorbed hope and happiness from Sherlock who was close at hand.

This instinct of eating was the same even if they were caught now.

Sherlock didn't care about it. Compared with the straw man in the goblin headquarters, the despair spread by the Dementor seemed not a big deal.

He waved his wand and tightened the silver thread that bound the Dementor again.

It can be clearly seen that the Dementor was in great pain. The things released by the Patronus Charm were the natural enemies of these monsters.

Although the original owner was not proficient in the Patronus Charm, he used the Patronus Charm without a concrete form to conduct experiments on Dementors during his research in Azkaban.

The food that Dementors like most and need most to survive is the positive emotions of humans.

They absorb positive emotions from humans, and at the same time, they must get feedback of fear emotions afterwards.

In other words, Dementors are not just simply absorbing hope and happiness. After absorbing these emotions, the person being absorbed must also show fear and despair to satisfy them.

The reason why the Patronus Charm is the nemesis of Dementors is that those silver light threads only contain positive emotions of hope and happiness, and the summoned Patronus is a semi-solid creature condensed from positive emotions.

The Patronus will only have positive emotions, not despair, so Dementors have no way to cause any harm to it, and will be expelled by this strong positive emotion.

But it is just expulsion.

As the most evil creature in the world, the species of Dementors cannot be eliminated.

Since the discovery of this monster, there has never been a case of a Dementor's death.

Even the most powerful Patronus Charm can only drive them away or reduce their power, but there is no way to really destroy them.

Of course, these are the experiences summed up by predecessors. Sherlock plans to try it himself today to see if it is accurate.

He summoned the Patronus at the Dementor, and the silver bird flapped its wings and circled over the Dementor.

The Dementor clearly showed restlessness. It seemed to want to escape from here, but it was tied to the spot by the silver thread and could not move at all.

Under Sherlock's control, the Raven Patronus finally landed on the head of the Dementor.

The Dementor seemed to be in extreme pain. Gray smoke kept coming out of its body. In a few minutes, it became extremely weak and collapsed to the ground.

But there was no other performance afterwards. The Dementor fell to the ground, and Sherlock's Patronus stood on its head, and the black gas gradually stopped coming out.

The Dementors acted like they had lost most of their power, but they showed no signs of being killed.

Normal spells, even the Killing Curse, were ineffective against them, and physical attacks would not even touch these monsters. The only thing that could affect them was the Patronus Charm.

But the Patronus Charm could not kill them either, at most it could weaken their power and drive them away.

After verifying these things, Sherlock basically understood why the Ministry of Magic would eventually cooperate with these creatures.

Dementors, who mainly feed on human emotions, must be the mortal enemy of humans.

But this kind of creature cannot be killed, and normal means cannot cause any harm to them.

Magic like the Patronus Charm belongs to the highest level of difficulty among defensive spells, and there are very few wizards who can successfully summon a Patronus.

If a large number of Dementors are causing trouble everywhere, wizards simply do not have enough manpower to drive them away.

So the best way is to gather them together, give them enough "food" to appease them, and prevent them from causing trouble in crowded places.

The only solution is to build Azkaban into a wizard prison and send the guilty wizards there to be fed to the Dementors.

Dementors obviously don't care what kind of identity they have in the eyes of wizards.

As long as whoever provides them with enough food, they will listen to whoever, without any loyalty or credit.

Sherlock smacked his lips as he looked at the Dementors lying on the ground. At first, he thought that this creature might be completely wiped out, but now it seems that he thought too simply.

If the Patronus Charm really had a killing effect on Dementors, then the ancient wizards would not have allowed them to stay until now, and would have killed these anti-human things long ago.

After hiding the already weak Dementors invited as guests in the cabinet and sealing them with the thread of the Patronus Charm, Sherlock clapped his hands and went to the Great Hall to help Professor Flitwick decorate the Christmas decorations for tomorrow.

He will still need this Dementor later, so he can't let it go back for now.

On Christmas Day, the next day, Sherlock woke up early and found a small pile of gifts at the head of his bed.

He stared at the gifts for a while, thinking about what he received last year, it seemed that only half of the gifts in this pile were piled up so high now.

Of course, Sherlock gave out a lot of gifts, unlike last year when he only gave Dumbledore a Christmas card.

However, the Christmas greetings on the gifts he gave out were not written by him.

Because a week ago when he was preparing the gifts, Harry happened to be in the office. When he saw Sherlock writing the names of the people who wished him well on the cards one by one, including Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, Dumbledore, and Professor McGonagall, he was scared and his face turned pale.

Harry hesitated and told him that he could actually do it for him and help him write these greetings.

Sherlock naturally didn't agree to him at first, but seeing Harry begging and almost crying, he finally compromised and let Harry write the greeting cards on the gifts for him.

When Harry was writing the greeting card on Sherlock's desk, he felt extremely fortunate and proud.

He felt like a hero, saving Mr. Weasley and other people who would have been in dire straits on Christmas.

The first thing to do when getting up on Christmas is to open the gifts.

Professor McGonagall sent him another knitted hat, but this time it was pure black.

Mrs. Weasley sent him a pair of woolen trousers, and Kingsley sent him a volume of ancient defensive magic, which looked very precious.

Others included a complete set of wand care tools sent by Fleur in France, and a brand new shorthand quill pen sent by Silk.

To be honest, Sherlock was quite surprised to receive Silk's gift. He had never thought that with Silk's personality, he would give gifts to people at Christmas.

Fleur was the same. He didn't expect that it would be almost half a year later, and the little girl in France still remembered him.

The most important thing was that he didn't actually prepare gifts for these two people.

This made Sherlock, who was still used to courtesy and reciprocity, feel a little embarrassed. He always felt like a big villain who didn't understand the ways of the world.

But Christmas had already begun, and there was naturally no way for him to make up for such a mistake. He could only wait until next Christmas to double the compensation.

After opening the gifts, Sherlock went to the auditorium for breakfast. He also had to help Professor Flitwick add some ribbons to the auditorium that was not decorated yesterday.

In the morning, he did not return to the office, but chatted with Professor McGonagall about some teaching matters in the teacher's lounge.

The Christmas atmosphere in the castle this year was obviously much quieter than last year, because there were few students staying in school, and there were no more than 20 single professors who had settled in the school all year round.

But the atmosphere at lunch was still lively. The joy of Christmas made Harry forget about Black for a short time. Besides, this morning he received a Christmas gift of a new flying broom "Firebolt" from someone unknown.

At the table, under Dumbledore's strong recommendation, Snape reluctantly pulled open a magic firecracker, and a big witch hat popped out of it and fell on his head.

He pushed the hat to Dumbledore with a sullen face, and Dumbledore immediately put it on his head happily.

There was obviously one less person at the table today, Lupin did not come.

Sybill Trelawney, the professor of divination, discovered this, and Dumbledore covered it up with the excuse that he was sick again.

In fact, these few days happened to be the days when the full moon appeared in mid-December. Lupin should have drunk the wolfsbane potion prepared by Snape and found a place to transform.

After the Christmas banquet, Sherlock returned to his office to continue a series of magic experiments on the Dementor.

When the night enveloped the entire Hogwarts and the moonlight shone into the house through the glass, he stuffed the Dementor, who was tortured half to death by him, back into the cabinet, and then took out the locket on his neck to observe it in the moonlight.

It seems to be newer than before.

The changes in this locket are subtle, but after so many days, it can be clearly found that it is somewhat different from when it first appeared on Sherlock.

Although the overall color is still dark gold, the spots on the surface that look like rust have disappeared, as if it has been refurbished.

Such changes are enough to confirm what Dumbledore said.

This locket is slowly repairing itself, and it is unknown what will happen when it is repaired.

Sherlock hopes that it will be like Dumbledore said, when it can be opened, that is, when it can be taken off his neck.

Judging from its current self-repair speed, this day is estimated to be not long.