With extraordinary comprehension, I built a floating city at Hogwarts.

Page 216

After leaving the Hogwarts area, Levin followed Black Apparition and arrived directly at the Black family’s old residence—Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

At this time, this place had not yet become the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and was hidden away, so Levin could see its exterior directly.

This old house is completely inconsistent with its actual status.

It has dirty walls and gloomy windows.

They climbed the dilapidated stone steps and found that the black paint on the old house's door had peeled off and was covered with scratches.

The silver door knocker is shaped like a coiled snake.

There was no keyhole in the door and no mailbox.

Black drew his wand—he'd just bought it yesterday—and knocked on the door.

Levin heard a lot of loud metallic clanging sounds, as well as the rattling of chains.

The door creaked open.

The two stepped across the threshold and entered the almost completely dark foyer.

Levin smelled a damp, grayish odor, along with a sweet, rotten smell.

This place feels like an abandoned, empty house.

Then he heard a rustling sound, and then a row of old-fashioned gas lamps on the wall lit up, casting a shimmering, unreal light that illuminated the peeling wallpaper and worn carpet in the long, gloomy hallway.

A spiderweb-shaped chandelier flickered overhead, and portraits, blackened by the passage of time, hung crookedly on the wall.

The chandelier and the candlestick on the wobbly table next to it were both made in the shape of a large snake.

Just as Levin was looking around at the dilapidated old house, a loud explosion rang out, and a disheveled house-elf appeared before them.

It was Kreacher, the house-elf of the Black family.

Apart from a dirty, tattered cloth wrapped around his waist, like the kind of loincloth men in tropical countries use to cover their bodies, he was almost completely naked.

He looked very old, with skin that seemed to be several times more than his body actually needed. Although his head was bald like all house-elves, his two large, bat-like ears were covered with a clump of white hair.

His eyes were bloodshot, watery and grayish, and his fleshy nose was very large, almost like a pig's nose.

"Ah, it's the young master!" Kreacher's light-colored eyes suddenly widened.

But his gaze toward Sirius was filled with a deep-seated, unforgettable hatred.

Kreacher immediately bowed deeply, so low it was almost comical, his large, pig-like nose flattened on the ground.

Then, in a soft but clear voice, she said, "The young master is a despicable, ungrateful scoundrel who broke his mother's heart—oh, my poor mistress, she swore she would disown him, and now he's back, and they say he's a murderer—"

Levin suppressed a laugh and looked at Blake.

He could almost see the veins throbbing on Blake's forehead.

“My mother has no heart, Kreacher,” Sirius said irritably. “She lives entirely on resentment.”

“No matter what the young master says,” he muttered indignantly, “the young master isn’t even worthy of wiping his mother’s shoes. Oh, my poor mistress, what will she say if she sees him? How much she hates him! How disappointing he is—”

Kreacher bowed again as he spoke.

"Get up," Sirius said impatiently. "Alright, what do you want to do?"

“I am guarding the mistress’s house,” the elf repeated, “and Kreacher has served the noble Black family his entire life.”

The elf straightened up, gave them a vicious look, and appeared...

However, they probably couldn't hear him, because he continued rambling on.

"That spendthrift son even brought back a little brat, whose name Kreacher doesn't know. What's he doing here? Kreacher has no idea."

"Alright, are you relieved now? You can leave, Kreacher," Sirius said coldly.

The little elf stared at Black in disbelief, seemingly afraid to disobey a direct command.

However, as he dragged himself out, he let out a deafening wail: "He came back from Azkaban and started bossing Kreacher around, and he even brought back a little brat."

"Kreacher must protect this family. Kreacher will never let the young master and that brat destroy this family—" Kreacher, who had already disappeared around the corner, was still wailing.

“Shut up, Kreacher! If you keep howling, I’m really going to kill someone!” Sirius shouted irritably.

He grabbed an umbrella stand and threw it in Kreacher's direction as if in frustration.

"Oh no, I forgot—"

Before Blake could finish speaking, he was drowned out by a terrible, deafening, and chilling scream.

The two velvet curtains, riddled with wormholes, suddenly parted, no longer restrained by the umbrella stand.

But there was no door behind it.

For a moment, Levin thought it was a window, behind which an old woman in a black hat was screaming desperately, each scream more intense than the last, as if she were being tortured.

"Beast! Slut! You filthy and sinful bastard! Mongrel, freak, ugly monster, get out of here! How dare you defile my ancestral home—"

Then Levin realized that it was just a life-size portrait, but he had never seen such a realistic and unsettling portrait in his life.

In the foyer behind them, the other portraits were awakened and began to scream, the sound deafening.

"Shut up, you horrible old witch, shut up!" Blake rushed forward and grabbed the curtain.

The old lady's face turned deathly pale.

"You—you!" Her eyes widened as soon as she saw Sirius Black, and she shouted angrily, "You good-for-nothing, a disgrace to the family, the bastard I gave birth to!"

"I told you to shut up!" Sirius roared, and with great effort, he finally managed to pull the curtains back up.

Levin pointed his wand at the umbrella stand in the distance, "Umbrella stand, fly here."

The umbrella stand flew straight at him.

Levin caught the umbrella stand; it was really heavy!

Caught off guard, Levin almost dropped his grip.

This umbrella stand is actually made from the leg bone of a troll.

He pressed the umbrella stand against the curtain, and the old woman's screams ceased.

But the surrounding portraits continued to scream.

Levin cast a stun spell on the other portraits with his wand, and a lingering silence filled the room.

"Well done!" Slightly out of breath, Sirius Black brushed aside his long, dark hair that was obscuring his eyes and turned to look at Levin.

“Levin,” he said sternly, “now you have met my mother.”

Levin didn't know what expression to make, so he pretended to be clueless and said, "Yours?"

“Yes, my dear mother,” Sirius said. “She kicked me out of the Black family.”

"Why did she hang the portrait here?" Levin asked.

"Perhaps she's like Kreacher, guarding the oldest and noblest Black family or something. I've always wanted to get her down, but she seems to have cast a permanent seal on the canvas behind her portrait. Maybe I should go to Knockturn Alley and find some magic potion to break the spell."

Levin noticed that Sirius's tone was very stiff and cold.

But through psychic perception, Levin understood that this was not the case.

The more indifferent Sirius appears on the surface, the more deeply wounded he is inside.

Just like the old woman on this tapestry, Levin turned his head, his gaze seemingly able to penetrate the curtains and see the portrait inside.

She clearly wanted to see her son as soon as possible, but she couldn't help but use cursing instead of showing her concern.

This family is really awkward.

Sirius walked to the other end of the room, where a tattered, dirty tapestry covered the entire wall.

Levin followed and examined him closely.

The tapestry looks very old, the colors have faded, and it seems that foxes have chewed several parts of it.

However, the gold thread embroidered on it still glittered, and Levin could clearly see a sprawling family tree that could be traced back to the Middle Ages.

Several large characters were embroidered on the top of the tapestry:

The oldest and noble Black family

Forever pure

“You’re not on top,” Levin said, glancing at the bottom line of the family tree.

"It used to be up there," Sirius said, pointing to a small, charred hole in the tapestry, like a cigarette burn mark.

“After I ran away from home, my dear old mother destroyed me—Kreacher loved to whisper this story.”

"You ran away from home?"

“I was about sixteen years old that year,” Sirius said. “I’d had enough.”

"Where did you go?" Levin asked, staring at him.

Sirius Black suddenly fell silent, and after a long while, he said, "The James family."

Levin looked up, pretending to suddenly become interested in the tapestry.

However, in his previous life, he came from an ordinary family in the Dragon Kingdom.

In this life, I was an orphan from the very beginning.

Regardless of his past or present life, he could never understand the mentality of such a large family.

Perhaps in the distant future, one of his unworthy descendants will write his name on such a tapestry and take pride in it.

But he always felt that rather than upholding the family's glory, he should create his own brilliance.

He scanned the tapestry, noticing familiar names on it.

For example, Malfoy's mother Narcissa, and Tonks' mother Andromeda.

However, her spot was just a small, burnt round spot.

“I hate them all,” Blake muttered to himself, as if recalling or confiding, “My parents, obsessed with pure blood, believed that being a member of the Blake family meant being born noble… My foolish brother, too weak-willed, actually believed them… That was him.”

Sirius Black held up one finger and pointed to the name at the very bottom of the family tree:

Regulus Black.

There is a death date following the birth date (approximately fifteen years ago).