"From today, you are the new head of the Black family," the old woman said. After uttering these words, the expression in her eyes disappeared, and madness once again overtook her gaze.
"Beggar, family shame, the bastard I sired!" she exclaimed with wide-open eyes, loudly.
At the same time, Sirius felt like he was establishing a mysterious connection with the ancestral mansion.
"From now on, I am the head of the Black family..." Ignoring the screams from his mother's portrait, Sirius muttered to himself, "Ha, I don't need her recognition; I was always the heir to the Blacks..."
"If the young sir desires, Kreacher can close the curtains and allow the old mistress to rest in peace," resonated a hoarse, deep voice like a frog's.
This voice startled Harry, who lowered his head to seek its source, only to discover it came from a house-elf. The house-elf looked very old, with skin that appeared several times larger than its body needed, and the excess skin hung loosely on both sides. It was nearly naked, wearing only a dirty rag around its waist. It had a bald head like all house-elves, but tufts of white hair protruded from its two large bat-like ears.
Harry studied its face closely and noticed that its eyes were watery and cloudy, filled with bloodshot veins. Its fleshy nose was pig-like in size, but its expression was not as friendly; one could even say it was hostile.
"Kreacher? I didn't expect you to still be alive," Sirius said in surprise. When he fled home, Kreacher was already very old, so seeing Kreacher still alive was a big shock.
Kreacher bowed shakily before Sirius, nearly hitting the dirty mat with his nose. As he bowed, he muttered something under his breath, "Cursed ungrateful bastard, he has wounded her heart too much..."
Perhaps he thought he was only saying it in his mind, but he said it aloud, despite the roars of Walburga Black trying to drown him out; both Harry and Sirius could hear him clearly.
Sirius's face suddenly changed.
"Enough, close the curtains immediately!" he said sternly.
Kreacher bowed again to Sirius and snapped his fingers, and the curtains in front of Walburga Black's portrait closed. The old woman's scream vanished, leaving only an echo of silence.
Sirius took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. At that moment, Kreacher was nowhere to be seen.
"Follow me," Sirius said as he led Harry for a walk around the house and finally chose a room that wasn't as dirty and deteriorated to sleep in.
"I'm sorry, Harry, for making you stay in such a place on Christmas Eve..." Sirius felt guilty and remorseful, realizing he hadn't considered the cleanliness of his own house. Something he never had to think about as he was always a privileged young man who didn't have to clean up after himself. Hogwarts had no cleaning activities like deep cleaning because there were hundreds of house-elves to maintain the school's daily cleanliness. And when Sirius became an adult, he was sent to Azkaban, where no one would ask him to clean his room...
So he never had that awareness. Only when he returned home today did he realize that the entire house was practically uninhabitable. His own house-elf had become senile and was acting erratically, so he couldn't trust him to clean.
Do it himself? Forget it. Staying in a hotel seemed much better, and it wouldn't cost much.
"It doesn't matter. It's still much better than the Dursleys' place," Harry replied with a smile, casually shaking the bed sheets and causing several mice to scurry away.
Harry, Sirius: ...
"That Dursley family really lacks hygiene manners," Sirius said with a complicated expression. He genuinely believed the Dursleys were very dirty. If Vernon and Petunia heard him say that, even though Sirius was a wizard, they would probably pick a fight with him.
"Let's forget about it. Follow me." After seeing the mice lurking on the bed, Sirius completely abandoned the idea of spending the night there and took Harry to a hotel on Diagon Alley.
...
On Christmas morning, Tom unsurprisingly overslept. He was eventually awakened by a pillow thrown by Hermione.
"Hermione?" Tom struggled to sit up, his head buzzing. He looked around, but Mr. Granger had already disappeared. In his place were a bunch of packages.
As expected, I drank too much! And Mr. Granger didn't even wake me up! Tom thought to himself.
Then, suddenly, he shivered and covered his body with the blanket. "Hermione, get out of here! I'm not dressed yet!"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Do you really think I care? Look, Christmas gifts, take them!"
She tossed something onto Tom's bed and walked out of the room.
Alright, I really didn't expect Tom, who usually appears modest, to be so... well-endowed. Hermione recalled what she had just seen and blushed as she quickly walked away.
Tom quickly dressed, freeing himself from the embrace of the blanket, and began to unwrap his Christmas gifts one by one.
What he was looking forward to the most was the gift Hermione had given him. He unwrapped the gift wrap, and a blue woolen scarf appeared before his eyes.
Tom took the scarf in his hands and caressed it, feeling that it should be wool. After confirming the material, he carefully examined the appearance of the scarf and noticed that it looked good from a distance, but up close, it was woven somewhat irregularly, and the stitches weren't very tight. Considering the craftsmanship, it was undoubtedly hand-knitted by Hermione.
Inside the scarf, there was also a small card with elegant handwriting that said, "Don't say it's poorly knitted."
Tom grinned foolishly and then buried his nose in the scarf, taking a deep breath, feeling a fragrance accompanying a few strands of wool entering his nose, making it itch in both his nose and heart.
Impatiently, he put on the scarf and tested it. Although it looked average, when he wrapped it around himself, it was extremely warm.
"Hehehe, it's very comfortable," he murmured. At that moment, he noticed that inside the package Hermione had sent, there was another box. Tom opened the box and found it filled with perfectly arranged chocolates.