Harry woke up at 1 AM on August 1st.
His brain had triggered a protective mechanism, luckily using unconsciousness to shield him from his birthday and dragging him into the early hours of the next day.
Anyway, he had no idea what had happened while he was unconscious.
When Harry woke up, Sherlock Cavendish and Kingsley Shacklebolt were staring at him. Harry first met their gaze in confusion, then suddenly jumped up from the chair.
"Where's that cloaked monster?! And the horse-face! Where's that horse-faced monster?!"
Sherlock Cavendish looked at him, puzzled.
"The cloaked monster was a Dementor. It's a guard from Azkaban, and it left a long time ago. As for the horse-faced monster... what's that?"
Harry gesticulated wildly with excitement, using his own face to describe it to them.
"It's a monster whose face looks exactly like a horse, with pink curly hair and a terrifying smile!"
Hearing his words, Sherlock Cavendish and Kingsley Shacklebolt exchanged glances, both seeing a look of speechlessness in the other's eyes.
"You're probably talking about Tonks. She's a natural Metamorphmagus who can change her face into any shape," Kingsley Shacklebolt mumbled. "By the way, why would she turn her face into that of a horse to scare you?"
"She's not a monster, she's a person!" Harry panted, still clearly shaken.
Sherlock Cavendish patted his shoulder comfortingly.
"Don't be so nervous, Harry. This is the Ministry of Magic, specifically the Auror Office. There's no safer place than this."
Harry slowly recovered his senses, then scratched his hair.
"Right, this is the Ministry of Magic... Wait! Why is my hair so sticky!"
He grimaced, bringing the hand that had touched his hair to his nose and sniffing it, detecting a sweet chocolate scent.
Because Tonks had been too nervous, she hadn't used the Cleaning Charm properly, leaving some cocoa residue on Harry's head.
Sherlock Cavendish almost laughed out loud at Harry's predicament. He raised his wand and said,
"Alright, Harry, you can choose one of two cleaning methods now: one is the Cleaning Charm, and the other is for me to conjure some water so you can clean yourself."
Harry grumbled,
"Just use the Cleaning Charm. Plain water probably won't get it clean at all."
Sherlock Cavendish used the Cleaning Charm to clean his hair again. It was only then that Harry realised he had been too naive.
He had actually thought Sherlock Cavendish's jinx had disappeared. The reason it had temporarily failed on the French highway that day must have been due to some other special reason.
At this time, the entire Auror Office only had a few Aurors on night duty; everyone else had gone home.
Harry only now got to know Kingsley Shacklebolt, learning that he was an Auror from the Ministry of Magic.
"Let's go. I'll take you to a good Muggle restaurant for some late-night snacks. We always loved eating there after missions."
Kingsley Shacklebolt took them to a 24-hour restaurant in London and treated them to a big meal.
Incidentally, to compensate Harry for his belated birthday, they ordered a small cake and even planned to sing "Happy Birthday" to him together, but Harry vehemently talked them out of it, claiming it would be the death of him.
Harry, who had once again successfully and safely survived, was finally sent back to Privet Drive by Sherlock Cavendish, mentally exhausted. During this time, Sherlock Cavendish also successfully interrupted a certain Professor's attempt to cast an "I wish you a good night's sleep" jinx.
But Harry's bad luck didn't seem to be over yet.
The next day, after Aunt Marge woke up and discovered Harry back at Privet Drive, she immediately began relentlessly mocking him.
Harry never talked back; he had long grown accustomed to such words, and no anger rose in his heart.
After that, he only came out of his room once during lunch, spending the rest of the time opening the birthday presents Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Rubeus Hagrid had sent him via owl the previous night.
Although Hermione was in France, she sent him a flying broomstick repair kit via owl post, which made Harry exceptionally happy.
He had always wanted to buy one in Diagon Alley but never had the chance. He hadn't expected Hermione Granger to give it to him as a birthday present.
Ron Weasley, on the other hand, sent him a local magical tool from Egypt—a Pocket Sneakoscope. According to him, this item could detect untrustworthy people nearby and would sound an alarm if any were present.(TN: I'm pretty its quite common.)
Hagrid gave Harry a book that bit people, which kept him busy for half a day trying to subdue it and stop it from rushing out of the room and causing trouble.
He had already received Sherlock Cavendish's gift the previous day: a new birdcage for Hedwig, and Hedwig seemed very pleased with it.
But Harry couldn't stay in his room all day; at dinner, he had to come out and eat with Aunt Petunia's family and the annoying Aunt Marge.
During the meal, Aunt Marge, having had some alcohol, became increasingly offensive in her remarks.
She directly began insulting Harry's parents.
"You see, it's always like this with dogs. If there's something wrong with the mother dog, there must be something wrong with the puppies!"
The wine bottle in Aunt Marge's hand suddenly exploded.
Petunia Dursley and Vernon Dursley were startled. They knew what had happened. Vernon Dursley's face turned pale, and he kept trying to change the subject while also signalling Harry to return to his room.
Dudley Dursley stood with his mouth agape, staring blankly at everything.
Harry's hands were trembling uncontrollably. He kept his head down, trying his best not to let anyone at the table see his expression.
He had to endure it, not only because underage Wizards couldn't use magic outside school, but also because he needed Aunt Petunia to sign the parental consent form allowing him to visit Hogsmeade during his third year.
He had to patiently endure these insults—insults directed at him and his parents!
It wasn't until Aunt Marge scornfully called his father a worthless, good-for-nothing, lazy beggar that Harry could no longer pretend he hadn't heard anything.
He argued fiercely with Aunt Marge, and then the magic within his body could no longer be controlled, turning her into a balloon that floated to the ceiling.
Privet Drive descended into complete chaos, and the furious rage in Harry's heart could no longer be suppressed.
He rushed back to his room, packed all his belongings into his trunk, intending to escape from there.
Vernon Dursley stopped him.
"You're not leaving!" he roared. "Fix this!"
Harry, in a fit of recklessness, pulled out his wand and pointed it at Vernon Dursley. He said, breathing heavily,
"She deserved it! You'd better stay away from me too!"
For once, Harry dared to push past the obstructing Vernon Dursley, carrying his trunk and Hedwig's cage as he walked alone into the dark, quiet street.
Filled with unspent anger, he ran to Sherlock's doorstep, but no matter how many times he rang the doorbell or shouted Sherlock's name, no one answered.
Sherlock wasn't home that night.
Harry could only continue dragging his trunk, walking aimlessly down the street.
Until a magical bus pulled up in front of him...
Sherlock had stayed home all day, but he had specifically chosen the night to go out and find a deserted open space to test the effects of some area-of-effect, high-power spells under the Floating Wand Casting System.
Of course, he wouldn't conduct such experiments at home, and during the day it would be easy for Muggles to discover him, so he specifically chose this time for his experiments.
Two wands floated flexibly around him. The farthest distance Sherlock could control them was about ten metres.
Any farther, and the Control Magic would directly lose its effect, causing the wands to fall to the ground.
But a distance of ten metres was already enough for him to make many special attempts.
Spreading the wands out and floating them to their maximum distance, Sherlock chanted the spell.
"Reducto."
"Boom!"
A huge explosion sounded across the open ground, and an orange-yellow fire illuminated an area several dozen metres wide, also lighting up Sherlock's face.
A normally weakened Blasting Curse would not have been able to unleash such power.
But for spells like this, quantity equalled quality. The combined power of two Blasting Curses produced enough force to equal a normally cast one.
And if he could control more wands later, the continuous bombardment of such magic would certainly be a very artistic sight.
After conducting a series of tests in the wilderness, Sherlock returned home in the middle of the night.
For the rest of August, he resumed his homebody lifestyle.
His main activity was studying various Defence Against the Dark Arts books in his study. His theoretical level in Defence Against the Dark Arts had basically reached that of the Original Owner.
Especially after studying the two books written by the Original Owner, combined with some notes and materials left behind during their creation, he had now completely mastered them.
If, last semester, he still had to rely on constantly creating and solving test papers to barely cope with the upper-year Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, he could now conduct much deeper theoretical explanations.
He also no longer had to feel intimidated by advanced magical theory.
Of course, whether or not to change the teaching approach for upper-year students would depend on the results of the Wizarding examinations after school started.
If the exam-oriented teaching method also showed good results in those examinations, then Sherlock would not plan to change his teaching style. He would only add some interesting elements to the existing lessons to make the study of Defence Against the Dark Arts more lively and engaging.
Thus, August passed quickly.
On the thirty-first of August, Sherlock prepared to set off for Diagon Alley.
To Ollivanders, to collect the fifty wands for which he had previously paid a deposit.