Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures - C.1028: Kreacher’s Nest

But no, she gave Evan a picture album. It was filled with drawings she had done herself, documenting the things between her and Evan.

Only then did Evan realize that Elaine’s painting was so good, it was completely professional level.

There were many pages in the picture album, with various contents and very detailed paintings.

The first page depicted the night two years ago when she and Evan first met.

Flipping through, there was also what happened between them when she went to Evan’s room during the Quidditch World Cup finals.

Evan suddenly stopped, staring at the painting blushing. Wasn’t this painting too realistic? Didn’t this girl know how to be more subtle?

He raised his head and cautiously glanced around. Harry and Ron were busy opening their presents and didn’t pay attention to him.

Evan immediately closed the album and put it in his pocket. Such a commemorative album should be handled with care and not taken out casually.

He decided to store this picture album and the items Elaine had left at his place in the deepest part, for permanent safekeeping.

There was no way to deal with it anyway, let alone show it off, so it was better to hide it.

Dobby also sent Evan a dreadful painting, which only he and Harry received.

Evan watched it for a long time, but he didn’t guess what this guy wanted to express. It was too abstract, like a gibbon with a distorted face.

In the end, Evan found his own name on the back of the drawing and realized Dobby had drawn his portrait…

In addition, there were presents from Gabrielle, some French baubles and a greeting card.

This girl actually said that she might also come to Hogwarts next year for exchange and study, because Madame Maxime said that there was such a connection between the schools.

With the current danger in Britain, why were these girls coming over one by one?

With a loud crack, Fred and George Apparated at the foot of his bed.

“Merry Christmas,” said George happily. “Don’t go downstairs for a bit.”

“Why not?” Ron asked, looking with satisfaction at the luxury broomstick maintenance set that Sirius gave him.

Sirius had collected everyone’s wishes in advance and figured out what everyone wanted most. As always, he showed that he was very rich, fulfilled all their wishes, and bought the most expensive ones. Therefore, the Christmas presents he gave this year were the most precious and satisfying.

“Mum’s crying again,” said Fred heavily. “Percy sent back his Christmas jumper.”

“Without a note,” added George. “How heartless!”

“We wanted to comfort her,” said Fred, walking over to look at Harry’s portrait given to him by Dobby. “Told her Percy’s nothing more than a humongous pile of rat droppings —”

“— didn’t work,” said George, helping himself to a Chocolate Frog. “So Dad took over. Best let him cheer her up before we go down for breakfast, I reckon.”

“What’s that supposed to be anyway?” asked Fred, squinting at Dobby’s painting. “Looks like a gibbon with two black eyes.”

“It’s Harry!” said George, pointing at the back of the picture. “Says so on the back.”

“Good likeness,” said Fred, grinning.

Harry threw his new homework diary at him; it hit the wall opposite and fell to the floor where it said happily, “If you’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s then you may do whatever you please!”

A few minutes later, they got up, dressed. On their way downstairs they met Hermione.

“Ginny’s inside writing back to Michael, and Elaine went to see her uncle,” she explained, with a smile. “Thanks for the quill, Evan, that’s just what I needed. Harry, Your book New Theory of Numerology is great. I’ve been wanting it since I saw it in the library! And that perfume is really unusual, Ron.”

“No problem,” said Ron grumpily. “Thanks for the homework planner and for suggesting Evan give me the quill.”

He gave perfume to Hermione, Ginny, and Elaine this year, and Evan suspected it was Lavender’s suggestion.

He must have consulted her on what girls would like.

Unfortunately, Hermione, Ginny, and Elaine didn’t really use such things, and only Lavender put on some perfume every day.

“What’s that in your hand?” Harry asked.

“Christmas present!” said Hermione, holding a neatly wrapped present in her hand.

“Who’s it for?”

“Kreacher!”

“It had better not be clothes!” said Ron warningly. “Even though his attitude has improved recently, you know what Sirius said, Kreacher knows too much, we can’t set him free!”

Hermione had tried to persuade Sirius to release Kreacher before, and this was the answer she got from him.

“It isn’t clothes,” said Hermione, “although if I had my way I’d certainly give him something to wear other than that filthy old rag, I really don’t understand that you call it clothes. No, it’s a patchwork quilt; I thought it would brighten up his bedroom.”

“What bedroom?” Everyone looked at her, and then they realized that they didn’t know where Kreacher lived.

“Oh, I asked the night before yesterday. Sirius says it’s not so much a bedroom, more a kind of — den,” said Hermione. “Apparently he sleeps under the boiler in that cupboard off the kitchen.”

Mr. Weasley had gone to work, and Mrs. Weasley was the only person in the basement.

She was standing at the stove and sounded as though she had a bad head cold when she wished them Merry Christmas.

What happened with Percy must have saddened her a lot, and they all averted their eyes.

Continuing down the basement stairs, they came to a dingy door in the corner opposite the pantry.

“So, this is Kreacher’s bedroom?”

“Yes,” said Hermione, now sounding a little nervous. “Er … I think we’d better knock … be polite.”

She rapped the door with her knuckles but there was no reply.

“He must be sneaking around upstairs,” Ron said, and without further ado pulled open the door.

Most of the cupboard was taken up with a very large and old-fashioned boiler, but in the foot’s space underneath the pipes Kreacher had made himself something that looked like a nest. A jumble of assorted rags and smelly old blankets were piled on the floor and the small dent in the middle of it showed where Kreacher curled up to sleep every night.

At the entrance was some leftover food for him to eat; Kreacher hadn’t thrown them away and picked them up himself. In a far corner glinted small objects and coins, which he had saved, magpielike, from Sirius’s purge of the house, things he believed should not be thrown away.

Evan noticed that there was even a photo of Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange.

It was a family photograph, with a much younger Mrs. Black, Tonks’s mother Andromeda Tonks, and Sirius and his brother Regulus, both young but already showing distinctly different traits.

The most eye-catching one was probably Bellatrix, the eldest daughter of the Black family.

She was about fourteen or fifteen years old at the time. She wore a prefect badge on her chest and looked haughtily up at them. (T.N/ Bellatrix had never been a prefect in the original.)

Next to this photograph was a picture of Bellatrix alone.

She was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight at that time, and she was completely different from the previous photo, more like what Evan had seen in Dumbledore’s Pensieve.

With shining dark hair and long eyelashes, the arrogance on her face had completely turned into madness.

No one knew what she had gone through in the past ten years, from a proud little girl to the most evil Death Eater.

It seemed she was Kreacher’s favorite photograph; he had placed it to the fore of all the others and had mended the broken glass clumsily with Spellotape.

This made Evan feel uncomfortable; because of Regulus, Kreacher now obeyed them and started resisting Voldemort.

But emotionally, he still preferred Narcissa and Bellatrix.

In his mind, they were his real mistresses, or so they were.

He couldn’t tell the difference between resisting Voldemort and obeying Bellatrix. To him, they were two different things.

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