It's just a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Chapter 142 Christmas

The fire in the office fireplace was flickering.

However, after Sherlock canceled the curse on the invited dementor and took off the sack, the coldness that penetrated the heart swept the entire room.

A kind of bone-chilling cold emanated from the dementor, its face covered by the robe, and then ingested hope and happiness for Sherlock who was close at hand.

This is their instinct to eat, even if they are caught now.

Sherlock didn't care about this. Compared with the straw man in the Goblin Command, the desperation spread by the dementor was nothing to worry about.

With a wave of his wand, he tightened the silver thread that bound the dementor a little more.

It can be clearly seen that the dementors are in great pain, and the things released by the Patronus Curse are the natural enemies of these monsters.

Although the original owner was not proficient in the Patronus Charm, during his research in Azkaban, he specially used the non-concrete Patronus Charm to conduct experiments on dementors.

The dementor's favorite and most necessary food for survival is the positive emotions of human beings.

They suck the positive emotions of human beings, and at the same time must get the feedback of fear emotions afterwards.

In other words, dementors are not simply sucking hope and happiness. After sucking these emotions away, the sucked person will have to show fear and despair to satisfy them.

The reason why the Patronus Charm is the nemesis of dementors is because those silver threads of light only contain positive emotions of hope and happiness, and the summoned Patronus is a semi-corporeal creature condensed by positive emotions.

The Patronus can only have positive emotions, not despair, so the Dementors can't do any harm to it, and will be expelled by this strong positive emotion.

But it's just expulsion.

As the most evil creature in the world, the dementor is a species that cannot be eliminated.

Since the discovery of this monster, there has never been a case of death of a dementor.

Even the most powerful patron saint spell can only drive them away or reduce their power, but there is no way to truly destroy them.

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

He aimed at the dementor and summoned the Patronus, and the silver bird hovered over the dementor with its wings spread.

The dementor clearly showed restlessness. It seemed to escape from here, but it was tightly bound in place by the silver thread, unable to move half a step at all.

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

The dementor seemed to be in extreme pain, gray smoke was constantly coming out of it, and within a few minutes it became extremely weak and collapsed on the ground.

But there was no other performance after that, the dementor fell limply on the ground, Sherlock's Patronus stood on top of its head, and the black air gradually stopped coming out.

Dementors behave at best as if they have lost most of their power without showing any signs of being killed.

Normal spells, even the Killing Curse, are ineffective against them. Physical attacks won't even touch these monsters. The only thing that can affect them is the Patronus Charm.

But the Patronus Charm can't kill them, at most it weakens their power and drives them away.

After verifying these things, Sherlock can basically understand why the Ministry of Magic finally cooperated with these creatures.

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

But this kind of creature has no way to be killed, and normal means can't cause any harm to them.

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

If a large number of dementors were in trouble everywhere, the wizard simply didn't have enough manpower to drive them out.

So the best way is just to gather them together and give them enough "food" to appease them so that they don't make trouble in crowded places.

There is no way to build Azkaban into a wizard prison and send those guilty wizards there to feed the dementors.

The dementor obviously didn't care what kind of identity it was in the eyes of the wizard.

As long as whoever provides them with enough food, they will obey him, without any loyalty or credit at all.

Sherlock looked at the dementor slumped on the ground and smacked his lips. At first, he thought that there was a possibility of this creature being completely wiped out, but now it seems that he thought things too simply.

If the Patronus Charm is really lethal to dementors, then the ancient wizards would not let them stay until now, and would have driven out these anti-human things long ago.

After hiding the weakened Dementor who was invited as a guest in the cabinet, and sealed it with the silk thread of the Patronus Charm, Sherlock clapped his hands and went to the auditorium to help Professor Flitwick arrange Christmas decorations for tomorrow. went.

This dementor is still useful in the future, and it is not possible to let it go back for the time being.

On Christmas Day the next day, Sherlock woke up early and found a small pile of presents piled up beside his bed.

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

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

However, none of the Christmas greetings on the presents he sent was written by himself.

Because when he was preparing the presents a week ago, Harry happened to be in the office. When he saw Sherlock write the names of the congratulators on each greeting card, there were Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, and Dumbledore. Lido, when Professor McGonagall, his face turned pale with fright.

Harry dawdled and told him that he could actually do it for him and write these blessings for him.

Naturally, Sherlock didn't agree to him at first, but seeing Harry's begging and almost crying, he finally compromised and let Harry write the greeting card on the gift instead of him.

When Harry was writing a greeting card on Sherlock's desk, he was extremely grateful and proud.

He felt like a hero, saving Mr. Weasley, who would have been in trouble at Christmas, all back.

The first thing we do when we wake up at Christmas is, of course, the time to unwrap presents.

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

Mrs. Weasley had sent him a pair of woolen trousers, and Kingsley had sent him a tome of ancient defensive magic, which still looked precious.

Others include a complete set of wand care kits from Fleur in France, and a brand new shorthand quill from Silke.

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

The same goes for Furong, he didn't expect that half a year had passed, and that little girl in France still remembered him.

The most important thing is that he didn't actually prepare gifts for the two of them.

This made Sherlock, who was still used to reciprocating politeness in his bones, feel a little embarrassed, and always felt like a big villain with no understanding of the world.

But Christmas has already started, and he naturally has no way to make up for such a mistake, he can only wait until next year's Christmas to make up for it twice.

After unpacking the presents, Sherlock went to the auditorium for breakfast, and he also helped Professor Flitwick add some ribbons to the auditorium that was not decorated yesterday.

He didn't go back to the office in the morning, but chatted with Professor McGonagall about some teaching matters in the teachers' lounge.

The Christmas atmosphere in this year's castle is obviously much colder than last year's, because there are very few students staying in the school, plus the single professors who make their homes in the school all the year round, there are not twenty people in total.

But the atmosphere at lunch was still active, and the joy of Christmas made Harry forget about Black for a short time. Moreover, this morning he received a Christmas gift of a new type of flying broom "Firebolt" from someone who did not know it.

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

He pulled his face and pushed the hat to Dumbledore, who immediately put it on his head cheerfully.

There was obviously one less person at the table today, and Lupine didn't come over.

Divination professor Sybill Trelawney found out about it, and Dumbledore covered it up with the excuse that he was sick again.

In fact, these days happened to be the days when the full moon appeared in mid-December. Lupine must have drank the wolfsbane potion that Snape had prepared for him, and went looking for a place to transform.

The Christmas banquet was over, and Sherlock returned to his office to continue a series of magical experiments on the dementor.

When the night covered Hogwarts and the moonlight shone through the glass into the room, he put the half-dead dementor he had tortured back into the cabinet, and then took out the pendant hanging around his neck. Locket observed by moonlight.

Found that it seems to be a little newer than before.

The change of this locket is insignificant, but after so many days, it can be clearly found that it is somewhat different from when it first appeared on Sherlock.

Although the whole is still dark golden, the rust-like spots on the surface have disappeared, as if it has been refurbished.

Such a change is enough to confirm Dumbledore's words.

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

Sherlock hoped that it would best be like Dumbledore said, when it could be opened, that is, when it could be taken off his neck.

Judging from its current self-healing speed, it is estimated that this day will not be long.

(End of this chapter)