Chapter 104: Unfortunate Girl
Chapter 104: Unfortunate Girl
The wand she had been keeping in her pocket was gone. The moment she knew this, her face suddenly turned dejected. The wand she uses is specially made, and its core is the hair of her Veela grandmother.
The wand was not only her spellcasting tool but an extremely important item. Fleur noticed the hint Sherlock gave her before leaving, and she saw the goblin who had sprinkled Floo powder into the fireplace.
The wizard who was sitting at the same table with her reminded her, “I heard he said Carter Street.”
Fleur didn’t hesitate. She squeezed some Floo powder and sprinkled it into the fireplace. After saying the place name “Carter Street”, she rushed into the flames.
The flames swirled around her for a while, and she landed in a dusty fireplace. Fleur coughed, ignoring the dust on her face, and ran out of the fireplace.
She is now in a dilapidated wooden house, like a wizard’s home, but there is no sign of the goblin around. Someone upstairs in the wooden house heard the movement and walked down the stairs.
A vicious old witch glared at her, “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“A goblin stole my wand, and someone heard that he teleported to this place with Floo powder.” Fleur’s eyes were fixed on the old witch, “Did you see him?”
The old witch’s patience with her was on the verge, “Get out of my house! I’ve never seen a goblin or a pixie!”
She didn’t look like she was lying, and Fleur had already realized that she was in the wrong place at this time. Her face was pale, and she took out a few Galleons from her pocket.“Let me go home with some of your Floo powder. Take this.”
The old witch looked at her with a sneer, “Arrogant girl, no matter how much you pay me, there is no Floo powder for you. The Floo network in my fireplace will be shut down in a month, and I haven’t stored Floo’s power in a long time.”
“Can you Apparate me away until I get back to Pari-“
The old witch swung her wand and made Fleur fly out of the wooden house, and then she fell on the road outside. It was pitch-dark outside, and it was obviously a run-down street. There were no street lights on the road, only the dimly lit houses in the distance.
Fleur rubbed herself on the shoulder she had just been thrown on. Her eyes were red, and she stood up from the ground. She looked around; without her wand or her money, she didn’t know how to get out of this place.
Looking back at the house, Fleur pursed her lips. Her self-esteem would not allow her to go back and beg the old witch for her help. She suppressed the tears that were already in her eyes and walked along the street.
—-
Sherlock and Harry did not spend the night in Aspe. He drove Harry back to Toulouse and found a high-end hotel here to stay.
The hotels in the wizarding town were inferior to the Muggle hotels in terms of facilities and services, so Sherlock and Harry would not consider staying in a wizarding town at all.
After a night’s rest, Harry and Sherlock drove to fill up the gas tank and continued their journey. According to Sherlock’s plan, they will go to Switzerland next and finally go to Paris.
From Toulouse, Sherlock turned to the Mediterranean road in the east of France, heading to the next coastal city, Montpellier. After so many days of delicious food, Harry’s taste didn’t change.
At noon, they randomly found a roadside restaurant and ate a simple potato stew. He still ate at the end and didn’t forget to lick the sauce off the corner of his mouth.
“About Miss Delacour from yesterday, she said she was going to find Flamel too, isn’t she?” Harry was still thinking about her.
Sherlock rolled his eyes at him, “Flamel is an alumnus of Beauxbatons. His Sorcerer’s Stone fragments can be given to those of us at Hogwarts, but not to his school?”
Harry heard Sherlock’s words and went silent. He felt that after yesterday’s blessing from him, whether Fleur could find Flamel or not was a problem.
The journey to Montpellier is not long; it only takes three and a half hours. This city on the Mediterranean coast does not have many famous places. Sherlock and Harry took a few photos in the two squares and continued to drive north.
An unknown tune played on the car radio. Sherlock hummed to the song, and Harry played with the camera in the passenger seat, taking pictures of the roadside scenery.
“Don’t use all of the film. We don’t know where to buy more yet,” Sherlock reminded.
Harry nodded in agreement. He didn’t take any pictures at all, but he was looking at the scenery outside through the camera’s lens. They were driving through an endless field at this time, and a white figure suddenly flashed across Harry’s camera.
Harry was stunned for a moment. He hurriedly stuck his head out and looked behind him. After confirming the figure, he retracted his head and said to Sherlock in shock.
“Professor, stop! Look who’s behind us!”
Sherlock stepped on the brakes, and through the rear-view mirror, he saw a figure walking along the road step by step. He put on reverse gear and slowly drove the car to their side.
After walking all night, Fleur, who was cold and hungry, noticed the car parked beside her. After the last Muggle, who picked her up by trying to help her, was evil, Fleur gave up the idea of hitchhiking a ride.
She continued to walk forward, even if she was embarrassed. She never lowered her head with her head held high.
“Miss Delacour?”
It wasn’t until a familiar voice in the car called her name that she froze in place and looked inside the car in surprise.
Sherlock and Harry both looked at her with puzzled expressions, not understanding why they had seen her in the wizarding town last night, and now she appeared next to a road below Montpellier.
Fleur looked at Sherlock, who had reminded her that something was stolen yesterday, expressing the meaning of asking for help in her words, but her tone was stiff.
“Can you help me take me home?”
Sherlock motioned her to get in the car. Fleur opened the door and sat in.
As soon as she got into the car, Harry asked, “How did you end up here?”
“My wand was stolen at the bar. The goblin who stole the wand escaped through the fireplace, so I followed, and I ended up chasing the wrong place and ended up here.”
After Harry heard what happened to her, he couldn’t help but turn his head and glance at Sherlock.
“What are you looking at me for?”
“Nothing. I just feel that you look good now, Professor.”
“Okay, thank you for your compliment. But no matter how flattering you are, I won’t let you off easily from your class after school starts.”
Fleur quietly pinched a corner of her robe in the back row, “Can you help me Apparate to Paris? My dad will pay you.”
Sherlock saw Fleur’s desperate look through the mirror, shrugged, and said, “I’m sorry, I haven’t been to Paris. Apparition can’t be done if I haven’t gone there, so I can’t help you with that.”
Fleur’s face suddenly darkened again. She had just finished fifth grade and started her sixth grade, and the Ministry of Magic required students to Apparate to be at least 17 years old. Fleur couldn’t Apparate at this time.
Harry saw that Fleur was in a low mood now and glanced at Sherlock. Sherlock also saw what he was thinking, sighed helplessly, and said, “If you have no other things to do, you can come with us. Our final destination is Paris anyway, and we can send you home later.”
Hearing Sherlock’s words, Fleur’s emotion improved a lot, and she said something softly, “Thank you.”
“No worries!” Harry waved his hand.
Sherlock took out the map again, and their plan to continue traveling to Switzerland was not feasible. It was about 800 kilometers from Montpellier to Paris, and it would take them at least 8 hours. He didn’t intend to rush over in such a hurry, and it was not his obligation to help Fleur.
After determining the route, they hit the road again, during which Sherlock also asked about the wizard who had entered the bar with Fleur.
“I remember you still have a partner. Why doesn’t he catch the thief with you?”
Fleur shook her head, “Jonathan and I only met in the town. He said that he would also go to Paris to find Mr. Flamel, and we would go together for a moment.”
Sherlock heard the implication in her words, “How many wizards have visited Flamel recently?”
“Flamel has lived for so long and has many friends in the wizarding world. I heard that he sent a lot of invitation letters this time so that his friends can let the young and promising wizard get some interesting stuff from him.”
After Harry heard it, he couldn’t help but complain to Sherlock, “It turns out that a lot of people can get it. I thought it was just the two of us, Professor.”
Fleur had heard Harry mention Sherlock’s name more than once, and this time, she finally couldn’t help but ask, “Why does he call you a professor?”
Harry didn’t answer this time. Sherlock couldn’t help laughing at Harry’s look.
“Because I’m his professor. Let me introduce myself. My name is Sherlock Forrest, and I’m a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. This is my student, Harry Potter.”
After Fleur heard their names, she was stunned. Not only was she shocked that Sherlock became a professor at Hogwarts at such a young age, but she also knew what the name Harry Potter meant.
Although the Delacour family does not insist on pure-blood ideas, they are still a family of wizards with a long history in the French wizarding world. Voldemort’s influence in the wizarding world was certainly not limited to the British wizarding world but also to some other places.
Fleur naturally knows who Harry Potter is.
“You are the Harry Potter who managed to withstand You-Know-Who!”
Harry was very used to this and replied, “I was young at the time, and I didn’t know anything, so I don’t feel like taking credit for surviving his attack.”
He knew that the reason why he survived had nothing to do with him but because of his mother’s love for him.
Sherlock couldn’t help but smile when he heard Harry’s answer. Even though countless people in the wizarding world praised his “great achievements,” he doesn’t feel like he achieved them.
“What about you? You seem to be only a few years older than me. Why did you become a professor at Hogwarts?” Fleur turned her gaze to Sherlock.
Before Sherlock could speak, Harry began to brag to her, “Professor Forrest is an amazing wizard. After graduating from Hogwarts, he was hired by the Auror Command of the Ministry of Magic.”
“Later, he quit there to study a lot of magic at home for a year and wrote two books. Last year, Professor Dumbledore hired him as a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, becoming the students’s favorite professor in the castle. Even when the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets was released, he defeated it and solved the problem entirely so that Hogwarts wouldn’t be shut down.”