"Seven days! You've been out gallivanting for a full week! You disobedient child! You've been gone for so long, and when you finally came home, you didn't even come to greet me right away! Instead, you were just loitering around the house! You unfilial son! You bloody ingrate!"
The shrill female voice continued to curse, yet no one ever stepped out from the room beyond the door.
Sherlock quickly recovered from his shock.
From the woman's tone alone, he could roughly guess who she was—most likely the original body owner's mother. But the way she spoke to her son was far from affectionate. Every insult she spat out was vicious and degrading.
Even stranger, although her rage was obvious, she showed no sign of leaving the room.
Instead, she simply kept hurling abuse at Sherlock from inside.
"Why did I give birth to you in the first place? You bastard! It's because of you that your father abandoned me! You jinx! You haven't been back for seven days! Hurry up and come in and clean me up!"
Her vile words made Sherlock frown.
He wasn't stupid. By now, he had noticed something was wrong.
The woman's nonstop shouting, the door with no doorknob, and the strange atmosphere throughout the house—it all felt deeply unsettling.
Staring at the warm light spilling out from the room, Sherlock hesitated for only a moment. He decided not to answer the voice. Instead, he would go in and see for himself.
He stepped toward the handleless door on tiptoe. The curses continued without pause. Sherlock drew in a slow breath, steadied his nerves, then pushed the door fully open and walked inside.
The room beyond wasn't large.
It was about the size of an ordinary bedroom—perhaps twenty or thirty square meters.
A row of wooden bookshelves lined one side of the room, packed with thick volumes, making it obvious this was a study.
The room wasn't lit by any chandelier. Instead, five candles floated in the air, providing the only illumination.
To Sherlock's astonishment, the candles weren't sitting on any surface at all. They were supported by candlesticks and hovering quietly in midair—completely defying Newton's law of universal gravitation.
Once inside, he finally saw the source of the shrill voice.
It wasn't a living person.
It was a photograph hanging on the wall directly opposite the door.
The woman in the picture had disheveled hair and a wild, unhinged expression. Her eyes bulged as she glared outward, her face twisted with rage as she continued to curse.
"What's with that look?! You won't even call me 'Mother' when you see me?!..."
Not a single word sank in. Sherlock's scientific beliefs—ones he had held onto for more than twenty years—were being violently challenged by what he was seeing.
Stunned, he stepped closer to the photograph and touched the frame, confirming that it was nothing more than ordinary paper. It wasn't an electronic screen playing a prerecorded video.
If time travel could be explained as a scientific phenomenon humanity had yet to understand, then floating candles and a paper photograph that could speak could only be explained by something else entirely.
The paranormal.
Or magic.
Only then did Sherlock belatedly realize—
The world I've traveled to probably isn't just late twentieth-century Britain.
The problem wasn't only the room.
It wasn't only him.
The world itself was the biggest problem.
Just as Sherlock stood there, lost in thought, the teacup on the desk beneath the photograph suddenly hopped neatly to the side of the teapot. The teapot lifted into the air as if it were alive and poured steaming tea into the cup.
At the same time, the chair in front of the desk scooted toward him with a little bounce, as though inviting him to sit.
The furniture in the study moved with eerie purpose, serving him without a single command.
Then, one of the floating candles drifted toward the bookshelf. As the light passed over the spines, Sherlock finally made out the titles of the heavy volumes packed inside.
"Resisting the Darkness: Cutting-Edge Defensive Magic."
"The Complete Encyclopedia of Dangerous Magical Creatures."
"Maintaining Your Wand."
"The Practical Application of Transfiguration."
"Defeating Evil: Defensive Spells."
"Close Your Mind."
Sherlock's gaze swept over the titles until it landed on the book placed at the very top of the shelf.
His pupils contracted sharply.
Because the title read:
"Hogwarts: A History."
Hogwarts!
Terms like defensive magic and dark magic were unfamiliar enough that Sherlock might have dismissed them as strange fantasy jargon.
But Hogwarts was different.
Almost anyone would recognize that name.
It belonged to the world of Harry Potter—the story of a boy who survived impossible odds, and of his friends who fought against the Dark Lord Voldemort.
Hogwarts was the heart of the entire series: the wizarding school where Harry studied magic for seven years.
Because Sherlock had been an orphan in his previous life, he hadn't read the series as a child, despite it being one of the most famous book franchises in history.
But in high school, while trying to improve his English, his teacher had lent him the original English version of the first Harry Potter book to read in his spare time.
He never bought the rest of the series, but later—after entering university—he learned the rough plot through film clips and book reviews on YouTube.
So he wasn't completely ignorant of the story that shaped this world.
Still, he didn't know it in detail—only the broad direction of events.
Most importantly, this was the last thing Sherlock had expected.
He had assumed he'd transmigrated into an ordinary world.
A world where he was simply a rich second-generation heir, about to inherit wealth and titles, living a life of comfort and financial freedom.
But instead…
He was a wizard.
The realization left his mind reeling.
And then, another detail struck him.
The letter I received outside the house—the one with the "H" surrounded by a lion, a snake, an eagle, and a badger…
That's the Hogwarts crest!
Sherlock had been holding the letter the entire time, but only now did he fully understand what it was.
He stared at the dark green ink spelling out his name and address, his throat tightening as he swallowed.
If I remember correctly, Hogwarts only admits students who are at least eleven years old.
And my driver's license clearly says I was born in 1972.
That means in 1992, I'm already twenty years old.
So this can't be an admission letter.
Then what is it?
No more guessing.
To get answers, Sherlock tore open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of parchment inside.