Harry awoke with a pounding pain in his head. For once it wasn’t coming from his scar, and was muffled beneath a blanket of haze that was slowly organizing itself into unfamiliar surroundings.
He jumped slightly as a face swam into his vision. The face—well-lined but young, and rather kindly—was obviously attempting communication, and Harry made an effort to sort out the words.
“Glad to see you awake,” it was saying. “Bit of a nasty concussion, but you’ll be just fine. Can you hear me?”
Harry’s response was to sit bolt upright, which he immediately regretted, and through a renewed haze of pain he made out a clean, well-lit room, all stark lines and muted color. It reminded him a bit of the Hogwarts infirmary, though the alarmed face that swam in front of him didn’t resemble Madam Pomfrey’s in the slightest…and then hands were pushing him gently back down, and as his dazed thoughts trailed off, Harry realized that he must be in a hospital of some sort…did wizards have those?
Harry dimly recalled mention of one, and tried to work out if he was there…but his head was still throbbing, and the bright white light overhead didn’t help.
Electric lighting, he realized…Muggle hospital, then.
As Harry struggled to remember whether he should be alarmed at this, he realized the face was speaking again.
“Easy there,” it said gently. Harry turned his head slowly as his vision began to clear, and the man—a doctor?—slid into focus…short, sandy-haired, and in his mid thirties, casually dressed beneath his lab coat, the sort of person remarkable only for appearing ordinary in every way.
“What happened?” Harry croaked. The question hardly did justice to the panic flaring in his chest, though his head, which felt as though lead had been poured into his ears, prevented him from trying to sit up again.
The doctor looked uneasy.
“You, er, were in a fight,” he said. “If you can call it that—“ and Harry wondered if he were imagining the flash of fury in his eyes. “Took a blow to the head. The coward that hit you ran off with his gang. You were unconscious, and we didn’t know where your family is, so we brought you here straight off. Saint Bart’s hospital.”
For the first time Harry noticed a second man sitting quietly in a corner of the room, fixing Harry with icy blue eyes. The piercing scrutiny was eerily reminiscent of Dumbledore’s, but the resemblance ended there: dark, curling hair, nearly as wild as Harry’s own, coupled with an expression of unabashed curiosity that forcibly reminded Harry of his godfather.
This impression was only reinforced when the man spoke up.
“Don’t worry about that, we can…track them down.”
The sandy-haired man swallowed a grin, and Harry got the distinct impression that he was missing out on some joke.
“Yeah, Sherlock’s rather good at that sort of thing,” the man said cheerfully. “I haven’t introduced myself, have I? Doctor John Watson, and this is my friend Sherlock Holmes.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Harry said automatically, still rather bewildered. He realized that they were staring at him expectantly and cleared his throat. “Er…my name’s Harry. Harry Potter.”
He waited for the usual stares and gasps of recognition, but none came. Definitely Muggles.
There followed a series of increasingly pointless exercises, in which Dr. Watson waved a penlight around and told Harry to follow it with his eyes. He seemed pleased with the results, going so far as to help Harry sit up, slowly this time. Harry wondered whether it would arouse suspicion to ask about his wand—he couldn’t see how it wouldn’t—but was distracted when Dr. Watson started asking questions of his own.
“Harry,” the doctor began. “Can you tell me what happened? Why did those kids pick a fight with you?”
Harry closed his eyes, thinking back. He’d been sitting on a swing, at the park, reflecting dully over the long summer months that stretched ahead…Dudley’s gang had come around the corner and spotted him, come over for a bit of fun…Dudley, of course, had been terrified to antagonize Harry, and Harry had taken advantage of that, provoked him…
Harry grit his teeth, remembering what came next. Dudley had mocked him for crying out in his sleep… Cedric, who’s Cedric? ...and he, Harry, had nearly lost it…
The last thing he remembered was pulling his wand on Dudley and feeling fourteen years’ worth of rage pound through him, fighting with every ounce of self-control he had not to curse his cousin into a puddle of pond scum. It would be so nearly worth it…
Then a fist collided with the side of his head and everything went black.
Sherlock and John watched Harry’s expression darken, with interest and alarm, respectively. The boy opened his eyes and started, having almost forgotten their presence.
“It was my cousin,” he said dully. “Of course…”
Idiotic and frustrating beyond belief to be knocked out by Dudley , of all people…but what was he supposed to do , when he couldn’t use magic?
Walk away! remonstrated his inner Hermione, matter-of-factly, but she hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen Dudley’s sneer, felt his insults roll and break against her like a surf, felt hatred pouring through her veins and needing to bleed out…
Hadn’t spent the summer confined to Privet Drive and the family he loathed, pacing past dull, familiar, respectable houses and increasingly parched lawns, listening beneath windows and uselessly petitioning his friends for news that never came…
“Your cousin?” said Sherlock intently, and Harry snapped out of his thoughts in time to notice the man’s gaze slide over his thin frame, the baggy clothes that had once belonged to Dudley. “You live with him? And an aunt and uncle, I presume?”
“Yeah, I do,” said Harry, without thinking. “How did you…”
“Probably not a good idea to encourage him,” interrupted John, shooting Sherlock a glare. “Erm, Harry, I realize it’s quite late, and you’re probably anxious to get back to your family…”
Perhaps sensing the anger that rushed through Harry at the thought of Dudley, John hurried on.
“We were wondering if you could have a quick talk with someone before we take you home.”
Harry was confused. “Talk with who?”
“Just another doctor, answer a few questions about life at home, that sort of thing…”
The doctor’s eyes lingered for a moment on his ragged T-shirt, and Harry suddenly understood.
“Oh!” he said, reddening. “No…er, no. I can’t. Sorry.”
From the look on John’s face, this was precisely the wrong thing to say.
Harry’s mind raced. Stupid of him not to realize, to mention his cousin…but then he’d hardly spent any time in the Muggle world since his eleventh birthday…Harry cursed silently. Much as he hated the Dursleys, the very last thing he needed was a load of concerned Muggles poking around Privet Drive.
“What time is it?” He was speaking too quickly, trying to distract Dr. Watson from dawning suspicion. “I’ve really got to get back, my aunt will be worried sick…”
This was stretching the truth, to say the least, and both men seemed to know it; as the man in the corner opened his mouth to say something the doctor silenced him with another glare. Could Muggles learn Legilimency? Harry wondered.
“Harry,” began John, slowly and carefully. “I promise you, nothing bad is going to come of this. We just need to know you’re being treated right at home.”
“I’ve told you,” Harry said, stilling his features with an effort. “Home is fine.”
It was laughable, ironic, frustrating beyond belief to sit there and defend the Dursleys, after the hell they’d put him through…but Dumbledore had said he was safest there, Dumbledore had his reasons…and despite the way his summer was going so far, Harry still trusted Dumbledore. He wondered dully what the headmaster would do if he knew Harry was here, head bandaged and throbbing, cornered by a couple of well-meaning Muggles…he thought wildly of Memory charms, and Disapparition, but he’d never learned them, and underage magic was the one thing he absolutely could not risk…
Harry was spared the necessity of inventing more lies when a loud ringing filled the room. He looked all around for the source of the noise, until Dr. Watson removed a small rectangular device from a jacket lying over the back of a chair. Harry felt stupid; of course, Muggles had telephones in their pockets now. Realizing that Sherlock’s eyes were on him, Harry colored again.
“Hello, what—no, he’s… are you out of your bloody mind…irregular, to say the least, there’s no way…Of course you know…fine, see you then.” John growled into the phone, and hung up.
Sherlock transferred his attention to him.
“And in what intrusive manner does my dear brother plan to interfere in our lives today?”
John turned to Harry with a sigh. “Listen, Harry. It’s unusual, I know, but would you mind staying at the hospital tonight? You’ve got a bad concussion, should be under observation for a few hours anyway, to make sure it doesn’t get worse. We can give your aunt and uncle a call, let them know…”
Much as he hated the idea of going back to the Dursleys, the thought of spending the night in a Muggle hospital made Harry distinctly uncomfortable.
Sherlock snorted. “John, stop beating around the bush. He can stay over at the flat with us, if he’d prefer. You can keep an eye on him there just as well.”
John met Harry’s eye. “I know it’s unusual…” he began.
“You know what?” said Harry, surprising himself. “I think I’d like that better.”
“Don’t blame you,” muttered Sherlock, gazing darkly at the stark walls as though they had personally done him wrong.
“Maybe you wouldn’t hate hospitals if you didn’t frequent them so often,” John told his friend conversationally.
“Maybe there’s a reason I didn’t become a bloody doctor—“
“Gunshots, knife wounds, jumping off rooftops…”
“Oh, not that again…”
Harry eased his way gingerly off the bed and attempted to follow this conversation as they traversed a maze of white hallways. Despite the bickering (or perhaps because of it), he was strongly reminded of the camaraderie between himself, Ron, and Hermione. The argument, if that’s what it was, seemed almost like a joke between the two men.
“And half of London,” said John, when Harry worked up the courage to ask. “Didn’t you hear about it in the papers? Or on the telly?”
Harry shook his head apologetically. “I don’t follow the news much.”
“Well, this git,” said John, as they were strolling out the hospital’s large double doors into a darkening street that Harry vaguely recognized as belonging to central London, a few blocks down from the Leaky Caldron, “decided it would be a good idea to jump off a building, fake his death…”
Harry couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking.
“…And wait two years to show back up on my doorstep.”
Sherlock appeared unrepentant. “The clues were there.”
“I wasn’t bloody looking for clues,” John snapped, “I was planning your funeral…”
Harry felt slightly queasy and turned away from the look in John’s eyes; light as his tone had been, the man wasn’t joking at all. There was an emptiness there that reminded Harry of nights spent waking in cold sweat to his mother’s screams and Cedric’s glassy stare from the shadows…all the hopelessness and despair and the overwhelming rush of guilt that came from watching someone’s life snuffed out before your eyes, unable to do a thing about it…
Harry shook off his thoughts, aware that both Sherlock and John were staring again; how long had he been walking in stony silence?
“Why…why would you do that?” he asked Sherlock, working to keep his voice even.
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Don’t sound so horrified, I had altruistic motives. Namely, the prevention of world domination by a criminal mastermind.”
“ What? — Not V…I mean, who? ”
Those icy blue eyes rested unwaveringly on Harry again. “James Moriarty, of course.”
John spoke up. “Sure you didn’t see anything in the news? On the Internet?”
“No…” Harry trailed off; now was probably not the best time to ask what the ‘Internet’ might be.
“That’s quite odd…” John’s voice drifted off thoughtfully as a black London cab pulled up to the curb.
“Hang on!” Harry panicked. He was rifling desperately through his pockets, cursing the fogginess in his head. How could he have forgotten…
“Hang on, we need to go back, I think I’ve left…” he broke off as Sherlock wordlessly reached into his coat and withdrew a familiar, polished wooden object.
“Thanks,” Harry said in relief mingled with apprehension; he couldn’t imagine what the Muggles would make of his wand. Let alone this particular Muggle, with the unsettlingly perceptive gaze and apparent hobby of bringing down evil crime lords.
Harry supposed he could relate to that, at least.
“Interesting…stick,” said Sherlock.
Harry muttered something about a family heirloom and leaned back against the cab seat. It reminded him, oddly, of the Hogwarts Express; despite the strange situation he supposed it was just relief at travelling somewhere new and Dursley-free.
“Harry? Harry, are you all right?”
John shook Harry’s shoulder gently. The boy was half-asleep, fallen into a daze. John shook him harder, berating himself fiercely. He never should have let Harry fall asleep, with that concussion. He had been keeping a close eye on him, hadn’t he? What had happened? It was as though his mind had been going numb for the past few minutes…
Next to him, Sherlock was rubbing angrily at his temples, practically hissing to himself. “Not now… ”
Something was definitely not right, and as soon as John became aware of the cold fear creeping through him it intensified.
Harry jolted awake.
It took him several seconds to identify the echo in the back of his head as a scream. He strained to remember where he was, what was happening. The blackness settling around him was thick, darker, somehow, than ordinary darkness…
The cab was slowing, icy tendrils creeping across the windows. It was July, Harry thought stupidly. It was midsummer. This shouldn’t be happening.
“Sherlock!” John was saying loudly. “Sherlock!”
“John…John, you feel it too?”
Then, “Harry!”
“I’m all right,” Harry tried to tell them, but the words wouldn’t leave his mouth. The whole cab was swaying dizzily around him…and as his head gave a particularly painful throb, Harry caught sight of a swirling black garment through the iced-over windshield, and his heart leapt into his throat…it was obvious, so obvious…but it wasn’t possible.
The screams were louder now, and he felt like joining in, his head ached and pain lanced through his scar and there was something he should be doing…
Lily, take Harry and run, I’ll hold him off…
“HARRY!” John shouted, shaking Harry roughly, and he knew he’d nearly collapsed again…he was confused, why were they searching the train, why wasn’t Professor Lupin fighting them off?
“FIGHT IT, HARRY, WHATEVER THIS IS, YOU’VE GOT TO FIGHT IT!”
Fight…that sounded right, Harry thought dully, yes, fight them off…
The dementors…
Harry grasped at his wand, screwing up his eyes against the cold, straining to remember...dementors…Professor Lupin had…
Happiness, that was it. Happy memories. Harry tried to recall if he had any of those; he knew the incantation, but despair and fogginess clouded his brain…what in Merlin’s name were they doing here, in Muggle London?
And then he was in the graveyard, shouting Cedric’s name to high, cold laughter…
The temperature dropped again. Harry knew that they must be surrounding the cab, which had stopped moving, the cabby frozen in horror. The light was leaving John’s eyes, and Sherlock’s, both of whom must have more than enough dreadful memories to swallow them up…but they were fighting hard…an impossible fight…
And Harry remembered other days and other impossible fights, battling to protect his friends…and Ron and Hermione swept into his mind. For a split second, the fog and pain in his head cleared; he raised his wand and bellowed,
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
As the silver stag sprang from his wandtip, Harry collapsed against the seat and knew no more.
A sleek black car was parked at the curb when they pulled up outside a small café in a large building; Sherlock shot it a glare while John paid the shaken cab driver generously. Not that it was anything like enough to make up for…that. He shuddered. Whatever it had been.
Sherlock circled the cab and lifted out an unconscious Harry for the second time that night; John followed the tall figure in the long black coat inside and up the stairs. The door at the top of the landing had been left carelessly open, and Sherlock strolled in without a word and lowered his burden onto the sofa.
“Mycroft,” he said urgently. “Something’s happened.”
“So I gather.”
“There’s no time, Mycroft!” Sherlock snarled. “The cab…we were…drugged, or something…the driver too…”
“It wasn’t drugs,” John interrupted, bending to inspect Harry. Sherlock turned a glare on him.
“Do you have another logical explanation?”
“I don’t know about logical . There was ice forming on the windows, Sherlock, in midsummer, it’s perfectly warm now…what do you call that logically, an air conditioning malfunction?”
Mycroft’s face was rapidly losing its usual smugness and assuming the air of impending doom that Sherlock associated with drug overdoses and the Korean elections not going as planned.
“What is it, Mycroft?” he snapped. “If this is some sort of weapon…”
Harry stirred, on the sofa. “Chocolate…”
John bent closer. “Sorry?”
“Chocolate…antidote…”
The doctor straightened, face drawn. “I don’t know if it was the concussion, or whatever that was outside, but Harry’s…”
“He’s not delusional,” Mycroft interrupted. “Where’s that landlady of yours got to?”
“Sleeping, I expect—“
“Sherlock, get her. Now. Or fetch some chocolate from the kitchen, if by some miracle you have anything edible in there, but do not leave the building.”
Despite the stunning revelations that would follow, John reflected later that this was the most shocking development of the evening: Sherlock picked himself up from his armchair and followed his brother’s ludicrous instructions without a word.
Harry awoke to a sharp shriek from downstairs and the distinct impression that he was entrapped in some sort of compressed Gryffindor common room. Several fat armchairs crowded together around a coffee table, while off to one side a blaze crackled merrily in the fireplace. Every surface was covered in books, scraps of paper or bizarre equipment, some of which he vaguely recognized from his old primary school science textbook. There were also one or two bloody specimens—were those eyeballs in that jar?—that forcibly reminded him of Potions class, and he was seriously reconsidering his opinion that these two were Muggles when a tall man sitting on a chair opposite cleared his throat.
The man wore a tailored suit and an arrogant expression, and calmly swung a long black umbrella. Harry kept a nervous eye on its tip; he had never quite trusted umbrellas after the incident with Dudley’s tail…
To Harry’s surprise, the man leaned forward to greet him, holding out a hand.
“Mycroft Holmes,” he introduced, in a manner that was at once cordial and vaguely threatening. “Very pleased to meet you at last.”
“Thanks,” said Harry, pushing himself upright to grasp the man’s hand. It didn’t take Hermione Granger to figure out that this was Sherlock’s brother. Aside from the name, and a slight physical resemblance, they shared the same calculating gaze. That meant that this was the man John had spoken to on the telephone in the hospital before so abruptly changing his mind; Harry wondered if he owed him some sort of thank-you. And what did Mycroft mean, ‘at last’?
“Er, I’m Harry Potter.”
Mycroft gave a thin-lipped smile. “Yes, I know. How did my brother come to find you?”
Harry, embarrassed, resisted the urge to rub at his head; he was seriously beginning to wish he’d jinxed Dudley into jelly after all.
“We found him hurt, in a park,” said John, with a frown at Mycroft, who leaned back in his armchair. “He wasn’t carrying identification and he was unconscious, so we brought him to Bart’s straight off—I’d guess you know more than we do about the rest.”
Harry felt himself redden; he had a sudden desire to talk to the elder Holmes privately, find out what he knew of the Wizarding world, whether he could trust him…with every passing moment Harry found it more difficult to imagine how he would manage on his own.
He rubbed his hands together awkwardly, they were clammy in spite of the roaring fire…and then, with a jolt, he remembered the dementors.
Mycroft lapsed into silence, apparently weighing his words, but had just opened his mouth again when he was interrupted by a second scream downstairs.
Then silence.
Harry distinguished Sherlock’s quick tread on the stairs, followed by a couple of others, harder to place—and then the door opened, and Albus Dumbledore followed Sherlock Holmes inside 221B. The small elderly woman who trailed behind wringing her hands strongly reminded Harry of Mrs. Figg, despite the lack of cats.
“Professor!”
Harry didn’t know what to say, how to explain, and all his half-formed sentences were swallowed in a flood of questions…what was Dumbledore doing here, how had he known, where had the dementors come from, what news was there of Voldemort…
Before he could voice any of these questions, Dumbledore raised a hand, and without looking over, instructed, “In a moment, Harry. Sit down.”
Harry realized that he was on his feet and his head was throbbing again, but he didn’t move. Mycroft Holmes had also risen and was treating Dumbledore to the same scrutiny he had given Harry. John, however, sat heavily in his armchair and looked as bewildered as Harry felt.
“Albus Dumbledore,” said the headmaster cordially, extending a hand to the elder Holmes brother, who took it. “Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is a student of mine.”
“Mycroft Holmes, very pleased to meet you.”
Mycroft was the only one who didn’t appear stunned at Dumbledore’s long silver beard or fantastic title. Perhaps it was simply Harry’s imagination, but Dumbledore didn’t look at all as though Mycroft’s name was unknown to him, either. The headmaster merely gave a nod, however, before turning to the others.
“I had the pleasure of making your brother’s acquaintance downstairs, as well as the lovely Mrs. Hudson—delighted to see you’ve returned to the land of the living, by the way, Mr. Holmes…Excellent, excellent…and this, I presume, is Dr. Watson?”
John half-rose from his chair and emitted a sort of strangled noise that sounded like “hello”. Harry could not blame him. Dumbledore was wearing florid magenta robes and a matching pointed hat, and his silver beard and hair grew well past his waist; he could not have made a greater contrast to the Holmes brothers in their well-cut dark suits, or to John in his simple beige jumper.
“You both have my deepest thanks for your excellent care of Harry.”
Doctor Watson remained frozen while Sherlock waved a hand in almost careless acknowledgement. Harry, however, started at the mention of his name; for a few moments his brain had been suspended, frozen at the absurdity of the scene in front of him. Now he felt ashamed that he, Harry, had ended up here, and Dumbledore had had to come fetch him…
“Professor…” he stuttered. “I don’t know how…”
“Quite all right, Harry,” interrupted Dumbledore. “Fortuitous meetings with strangers are among the great joys in life.”
Stepping carefully around the coffee table as he spoke, Dumbledore quickly examined Harry, checking his eyes for focus.
“Dementors, of course, we’ll deal with that in a minute…but also…concussion?”
He addressed the last part of this question to John, who cleared his throat quickly. “Er, yes…I treated it at the surgery, nothing left to do but wait for it to heal, I’m afraid…”
“Again, Doctor, my deepest thanks.”
Dumbledore waved his wand in a complicated pattern before Harry’s eyes, and he felt his head clear immediately. He was still shivering, however, involuntarily mirrored by John and even Sherlock in his heavy coat.
“It appears I ought to Summon some of Honeyduke’s finest—“ Dumbledore started to murmur, and then caught himself as the elderly woman stepped forward, clutching a package of chocolate biscuits. “Ah, Mrs. Hudson, excellent. I think a few biscuits and a spot of tea would do these three a world of good, don’t you?”
“Okay, who are you.”
Sherlock’s deep voice broke the silence as Mrs. Hudson bustled off, the question dropping flatly into the air and hanging there.
Dumbledore cleared his throat. “As I said…”
“I know who you said you are, but what are you,” Sherlock interrupted. The tall man was pacing the room, slowly, taking in Dumbledore’s odd appearance and shooting occasional glances at Harry.
“Academic, obvious authority figure, that fits with headmaster, and could account for your appearance, but it’s more than that…few sane human beings wear that frankly alarming shade of magenta without good reason, and you are not a man who does anything without good reason. No family, at least not one you’re close to, but you don’t live alone…of course.
“Putting aside the question of magic for now…” Sherlock spoke without a trace of skepticism. “It’s a distraction, all of it. The clothes, the hat…an elaborate disguise in plain sight. You wish to appear a foolish, eccentric old man, though anyone with half a brain can see you’re nothing of the kind.”
“Not everyone is as perceptive as you are, Mr. Holmes,” said Dumbledore lightly. “Though I must insist that you also attribute my fashion choices to an unmatched sense of style.”
Mycroft spoke up quickly. “Sherlock, if you’re quite finished swooping around like an overgrown bat, perhaps the gentleman can finish explaining.”
Harry stifled a snort. “Sorry,” he mumbled when everyone looked at him, though Dumbledore, from the twinkle in his eyes, knew precisely what he was thinking.
Sherlock spun to face his brother, accusing. “You knew.”
“Oh, don’t look like that,” he added, addressing John’s incredulous expression. “You were in the cab, you saw what Harry did. You were the one who said it wasn’t logical.”
“Yeah, a big bright light is one thing, but…magic?”
“Not just a light.”
This was the bit John wasn’t ready to think about yet. “Okay, I admit it looked a little like…”
Dumbledore was following this conversation in visible amusement. “Harry has a remarkably strong Patronus.”
“Guardian,” Sherlock translated immediately, glancing between Dumbledore and his brother. “Okay, explain.”
Mycroft sighed, looking weary, and Harry wondered suddenly how many times he’d imagined this conversation; Sherlock did not strike him as someone from whom it was easy to keep secrets. For that matter, Harry was still trying to work out how Mycroft himself knew about magic…if he were a wizard, or if there were another wizard in the family, surely his brother would be equally aware? Mycroft addressed his confusion.
“Frequently,” he began, “I refer to myself as a civil servant serving in a minor capacity in the British government. Though this is true in a technical sense, Sherlock will tell you—“
“He is the British government,” interrupted Sherlock impatiently. “Of course that’s how you know about this…this…”
“What?” snapped John, feeling rather left out.
“It isn’t a few magic tricks they’re hiding, John. It’s an entire world…a magical world, whatever that may mean. I’ve…almost suspected, a few times.”
If someone had told John a year ago that Sherlock Holmes the consulting detective and leading world logician would be matter-of-factly introducing him to magical worlds, his response would have been immediate and unflattering. Of course, if someone had told him a year ago that Sherlock bloody Holmes had survived his jump off Bart’s rooftop…
Sherlock had learned not to leap off tall buildings; John had learned to reserve judgment. Slowly, he thought wryly, both were growing as human beings. Which apparently included learning about magical worlds.
So John sat back and listened and attempted to suspend his disbelief for as long as he could, or until it grew into actual belief…which it did, when Mrs. Hudson brought in tea and chocolate biscuits. John bit into one and felt himself revive immediately; he hadn’t realized, until the warmth spread through him, how much the…thing…in the cab was still affecting him. John voiced his marvel in one word.
“Chocolate.”
“It’s an antidote,” Harry nodded. “The things that were trying to attack us—me—outside the cab, they’re called dementors. They sort of…feed on joy, and destroy it. The thing I don’t understand, Professor, is why they came after us. What were dementors doing in the middle of Muggle London?”
Professor Dumbledore gazed levelly at Harry. “Can you think of no one who would try to attack you?”
“Voldemort,” said Harry immediately. “That’s what I thought. I suppose I hoped…I mean…”
“If there is anything I have learned over the course of my career, it is that coincidences are generally not,” interjected Mycroft. “The universe is…”
“Rarely so lazy,” finished Sherlock, with half a glance at his brother.
“Precisely.”
“But what’s Voldemort up to?” Harry insisted. It was a wonderful relief that the need for secrecy had gone out the window, that he was free to demand answers from the man who’d ignored his pleas for information all summer. “Is he gathering followers? Has there been any news? There was nothing in the Prophet …”
“Lord Voldemort has been lying low since his resurrection,” said Dumbledore. “There has been very little news of any sort regarding his return. Which, of course, suits his purposes completely.”
“What do you mean?”
“Harry,” said Dumbledore carefully. “Have you been receiving the Daily Prophet?”
“Yes,” said Harry instantly. “That’s the one news source I actually…” he cut off, bitterness welling up again.
And why shouldn’t he be angry, when the man sitting calmly across the coffee table had cut him off so entirely from the Wizarding world, from his home? Dumbledore made us swear…
Dumbledore accurately interpreted Harry’s silence.
“You are, of course, angry with me.”
“No, I…” Harry broke off again. “Yeah. Yeah I am.”
The understanding on Dumbledore’s face somehow made it all worse. Harry felt his last shred of restraint evaporate.
“You left me in that hellhole for an entire summer…not a scrap of news, nothing, you even ordered my friends not to tell me anything! Voldemort is on the loose and trying to kill me again…I’ve been cooped up like a dog in a kennel, scrounging for Muggle newspapers because the bloody Daily Prophet can’t be bothered to print the truth, and you don’t even…angry about covers it, yeah.”
“Harry…”
But Harry was shouting now, all his pent-up rage bursting forth, forgetting the Muggles sitting frozen and listening to every word. This was nothing like provoking Dudley, this was better , he was pouring his frustration into the man who claimed to care, should have cared but hadn’t…
“I spent the last year fighting dragons and sphinxes and every other foul thing the Ministry could cook up, which was a walk in the park compared to being tortured by Voldemort, watching him murder Cedric and knowing I was next, and still it takes a dementor attack before you even attempt to communicate with me…”
“Harry, I appreciate what…”
“And you know what? I’m glad it did. Otherwise I’d still be holed up at Privet drive, because it obviously takes an attempt on my life for you to acknowledge my existence.”
Harry closed his eyes and stalked to the fireplace; he could no longer bear to watch the calm with which Dumbledore accepted his tirade…deep down, he knew he should feel ashamed, it was beyond disrespect to bellow at the headmaster, who after all, was here to help him…
But why didn’t he come sooner? asked the tiny voice he could no longer repress.
“ Harry. Your anger is in every way understandable, but you must believe that I acted for the best. There are still certain things I do not understand regarding your connection with Voldemort. I returned you to your aunt and uncle’s because it was there that you were safest.”
John Watson had been listening to this exchange with growing horror. Now he broke in, indignation stamped across his features.
“ Safest? We found him lying unconscious on a street corner!”
Harry turned away to hide the blush creeping up his face.
“Just Dudley,” he mumbled to Dumbledore’s unasked question. “I was…trying…not to curse him.”
A shadow of shock crossed Dumbledore’s face for the first time, and Harry felt a savage stab of triumph…so he hadn’t realized, had he, how badly Harry’s relationship with his ‘family’ had deteriorated?
The headmaster’s features smoothed out again the next instant, and Harry was left wondering if he had imagined it.
“One does wonder,” put in Mycroft smoothly. “As you appear to be in some sort of caretaker capacity…”
“Don’t dance around it, Mycroft,” interrupted Sherlock, altogether unimpressed by the scene. “Underfed, clear signs of neglect bordering on abuse, family tension likely caused by fear of his magical abilities. Dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, obviously suffering from moderate to severe untreated post-traumatic stress disorder, and apparently in considerable danger from a madman. I think our friend here is the one to explain why the boy was returned to an abusive home, and why we found him on that street corner.”
“If I had not left him to his aunt and uncle’s care, I think it is more likely you would have found him in a morgue.”
The silence following this calmly delivered statement was uncomfortable even by Sherlock’s standards.
“Do you understand now, Harry?”
Harry nodded and stretched back against the sofa, all at once exhausted and wondering whether his head was going to start pounding again. It finally made sense, why Dumbledore insisted on returning him to the Dursleys every summer…
A small flare of panic welled up in him at the thought.
“Professor,” he asked desperately, hearing the plea in his own voice. “Does this mean I have to…”
“No, Harry, I think it would be unwise to return you to your aunt and uncle’s, given the circumstances. I had intended, in any case…this merely speeds things up a little. You shall return with me this evening, to the secure location at which your friends are currently staying…”
Harry’s heart leapt. “Ron and Hermione?”
“Among others. I will drop by Privet Drive later, to fetch your school things and have a few words with your aunt and uncle.”
Though Dumbledore’s tone was matter-of-fact, Harry felt a chill run down his spine. For some reason the image of Dumbledore as he had appeared in the false Moody’s Foe Glass, wand outstretched and radiating raw power, sprang to his mind.
John straightened, opening his mouth, but Albus forestalled him. “I shall not require assistance.”
“Won’t you?”
Harry jumped when Sherlock spoke. For the past five minutes the detective had been staring into space, utterly lost in thought.
“You say these tensions…this Lord Voldemort…will bring about war.”
“Yes.”
“Upon both our worlds.”
“Undoubtedly. It has already begun.”
“With what?”
“I don’t follow,” said Dumbledore politely.
Sherlock straightened with a jerky motion. “With what has it begun? The boy said he was searching the news. Our news. For what? Disappearances, deaths?”
“Something of that sort, yes. That’s how it was…last time.”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at Harry.
“Thirteen…no…fourteen years ago?”
Dumbledore looked amused. “It seems almost redundant to explain anything to you, Mr. Holmes, but yes. Fourteen years ago—you judged by Harry’s age, I presume?—was the culmination of Voldemort’s reign of terror, and also his downfall.”
“But it began before that,” said Sherlock to himself. “Disappearances, yes…a string of them, beginning almost two decades ago…Mycroft practically forced me not to investigate…”
“You were practically in primary school yourself,” said Mycroft irritably.
“…just as he’s been dragging me away from certain cases ever since… sacrebleu , I’ve been an idiot…”
Cursing in a wide variety of languages that Harry had never heard, Sherlock strode across the room and pulled a large, untidy volume from the bookshelf. Leaning forward, Harry could see that it was a scrapbook of some sort, bound in green leather and filled with an array of yellowing newspaper clippings.
“Prewett, McKinnon…Potter.” the detective’s gaze snapped onto Harry for an instant, before he cocked an eyebrow at Dumbledore. “Casualties of war?”
Dumbledore nodded. John watched as a shadow seemed to pass over his face.
Sherlock snapped the book shut. “I’ll need information, of course. Familiarity with your world. I suspect that Mycroft can provide much of the data I require…”
“Sherlock,” interrupted Mycroft, his expression granite. “This is beyond you…”
“Obviously not,” Sherlock hissed, gesturing out the window where the cab had driven away. “I succumbed to blindness once, Mycroft, I will not do it again voluntarily! I very much doubt that all of these ,” gesturing at the book, “were ‘wizards’!”
Mycroft passed a hand over his eyes. “You are asking me to bring you into a war against forces you can’t imagine…”
The soldier found his voice.
“War doesn’t remain on a single front, Mycroft.”
Sherlock turned his head with approving sharpness, but John wasn’t looking at him at all. His eyes held a hint of sadness, of remembering, and they were fixed on Harry. Who at that moment huddled on the sofa in an old dressing gown of Sherlock’s, looking very small, very young, and very much unlike the champion of a looming war.
Very much, in fact, as Sherlock must have looked twenty years ago, fighting to exercise his gifts, to solve elusive disappearances, to save lives…
“I agree with Sherlock.” John gestured at Dumbledore and Harry. “Their war is also ours.”
Sherlock straightened his suit jacket and met Albus’ eye. “I know more of crime than any other person in the country, likely the world. I have eyes and ears all over this city, and contacts in police agencies on every continent. I will find your anomalies, your patterns, your impossibilities. If necessary, I will hunt them down.”
“A wolf among sheep,” interjected Mycroft wearily. “Or is it the other way round?” Sherlock ignored him.
Dumbledore nodded and turned to Mycroft. “I think, Mr. Holmes, that the services you have henceforth performed can be more effectively managed by two.” He lowered his voice. “I also believe we are more alike than you know. I too have a younger and more reckless brother to shield from harm...But you know as well as I what this war may cost us in the end. I will give them every protection, but safety for any person—involved or not—is an illusion.”
The elder Holmes sighed. He had known this was coming for a long time. It was foolish, at the cost of other lives, to keep Sherlock from the front lines in this war…and yet a part of him, the proud seven-year-old cradling a dark-haired baby in his arms, wished he could. Mycroft gave a curt nod.
He broke his silence only long enough to wish the two wizards a courteous goodbye. The scrawny, dark-haired teenager gave an awkward nod, standing, and the silver-haired warlock raised a hand in farewell. Then there was a faint “pop”, and he was alone in the Baker Street flat with an extremely startled— and stubborn, and infuriatingly childish —crime solving duo.
“Sherlock. Dr. Watson.” Mycroft rose to his feet. “I will be in touch within the next week to fill you in on the particulars of your task. If either of you take idiotic risks at any point…” his eyes lingered on Sherlock, “I will use the magical means at my disposal to wipe your memories of this event. Good evening.”
And umbrella in hand, the British Government swept out of the flat.
John turned to his best friend.
“Well, that was quite an evening. Cup of tea?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Are you all right?”
Sherlock’s shoulders stiffened slightly even as he let his violin arm fall limp.
“Perfectly.” His voice held no trace of emotion.
“From all that I have heard, an encounter with dementors is extremely unpleasant, even in the…best of circumstances.”
“Unpleasant hardly covers it, now that I have to put up with you two days in a row. What if the government should fall between now and teatime?” Disinterest edged out the accustomed bitterness in Sherlock’s tone. He sounded almost…tired.
“Where is John?”
“Out.”
“And how is he?”
“Coping.”
“Better than you.”
“Baseless speculation.”
“You’re playing Beethoven. You hate Beethoven.”
Sherlock turned, heaving an unconscious sigh. “Why are you here?”
“I so enjoyed our little reunion last night, I thought we really must do it more often.”
“Now that gives me chills.”
“Have you had any more chocolate?”
“John practically shoved it down my throat.”
“And?”
“It will pass. It always passes.” Sherlock played a few quick, angry measures with sharp jerks of his elbow, then lost interest and meandered into slower chords. Mycroft listened to the hollow melody waver through the room until Sherlock realized what he was doing and stopped.
“Are you hoping for a cup of tea? If the kitchen contains anything edible, it’s in the top cupboard. Do me a favor and tell John I ate the biscuits, he’s been badgering me for days.”
“It isn’t weakness, you know.”
Sherlock’s expression didn’t change, but the bow skittered over the strings again.
He turned back to the mantle and Mycroft waited, leaning on his umbrella. This time silence filtered through the room as the two men stood stock still, each lost in his own thoughts.
Long minutes later, the polished horsehair bow gestured toward a black leather armchair. Cushions squawked a slight protest as the umbrella rested against the chair, and the violin came to life again.