The sitting room of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. In the dim light, motes of dust drifted lazily through the amber columns of lamplight.
Sherlock had just delivered his assessment of Regulus Black's substitution of the locket—in a tone so calm it sounded indifferent.
Harry's fingers tightened around the arm of the sofa without thinking.
Dumbledore's fingers, hanging at his side, made slow, absent strokes along the tip of his wand. Behind his spectacles, firelight danced in his blue eyes—yet it could not quite conceal the flicker of something complicated beneath.
Both of them felt it again: that quality in Sherlock, that near-ruthless clarity and composure.
Sherlock's back remained straight. The agony of drinking the potion earlier had left almost no visible trace.
Only a weariness in the depths of his eyes—revealed that anything was amiss.
Harry and Dumbledore both understood they had no standing to reproach him.
After all, it was not long ago that Sherlock had seized the moment and drained that terrible potion before Dumbledore could get to it.
Having endured that suffering firsthand, Sherlock could naturally understand what Regulus had gone through when he drank it.
And on another level, Sherlock hadn't been wrong.
If Regulus had managed to survive—to remain a sleeper in Voldemort's inner circle, to re-establish contact with his brother Sirius—he would have been another Professor Snape. The courage and cunning he had shown in swapping the lockets alone would have made him a figure of decisive consequence in the war.
He might even, when Peter Pettigrew's betrayal came, have had the power to turn the tide.
But most important of all: he would have been alive.
As long as a person is alive, hope remains.
Unfortunately, he was dead.
In the suffocating silence, the fire in the hearth gave a sharp crack, sending up a spark. The orange ember traced a brief arc through the air, illuminating three faces, each utterly unlike the others:
Harry's shock. Dumbledore's grief. And Sherlock's clarity—cold, almost cruel.
"Was that my brother you were discussing?"
At that moment, from deep within the hearth, came Sirius's unmistakable voice—warm, with that characteristic edge of recklessness: "Why didn't you just come back to Granger's? I played three rounds of Wizard Chess with Sherlock's father, got through two whole pots of tea, and still no sign of you—"
Before he could finish, a burst of green flame exploded in the fireplace, and Sirius stepped out through the blaze.
He raised one hand and brushed the soot from his shoulder, the gesture easy, careless—then winced mid-cough, instinctively, as the fumes from the Floo powder caught in his throat.
"Sherlock? What happened to you!"
Sirius's gaze was always sharp. The instant he made out Sherlock's face, his easy manner vanished without a trace.
He crossed the room in a single stride and dropped to a half-crouch in front of Sherlock.
His eyes swept quickly over him from head to foot; only then did his tensed shoulders relax slightly. His throat moved. He seemed to exhale.
Then, in the next breath, he shot to his feet and turned on Dumbledore, his voice was filled with accusation: "Albus. Why did they come back from this hurt?"
"Sirius, it wasn't the Professor's fault—"
Harry tried to cut in and explain, but Sirius rode straight over him.
"Harry, you don't have to defend him. What did he say before they left? As long as they do what I say, they won't get hurt. Now look at Sherlock—does it look like he got hurt because he didn't do what the headmaster said?"
"I didn't, in fact," Sherlock said, meeting Sirius's gaze with calm, even eyes.
After all, it was Dumbledore who had meant to drink the potion that brought despair flooding in—until Sherlock moved first, catching him off-guard.
But those words, spoken so quietly, stopped Sirius cold.
He opened his mouth. Whatever he'd been about to say seemed to lodge in his throat. His fingers froze in midair. He stared at Sherlock, bewildered, at a complete loss for a moment.
"You—"
While he was still fumbling for a reply, Dumbledore spoke first, and simply: "I'm sorry, Sirius. The fault was mine."
Sirius's eyes narrowed. He studied Dumbledore's face carefully, as if searching for something.
"I underestimated the difficulty of what we faced, and Sherlock was hurt as a result. Fortunately, his resilience and determination far exceeded my expectations—so with rest, he should recover fully."
"He'd better."
Sirius made a short, cold sound, his tone still edged with dissatisfaction. "And another thing—if something like this ever comes up again, don't you dare leave me behind."
Clearly, his trust in Dumbledore had taken a knock.
Dumbledore reached up and adjusted his spectacles. A faint, remorseful smile touched the corners of his mouth.
He understood Sirius's feelings. If the roles had been reversed, he suspected he would have felt exactly the same.
"Now I understand why you didn't come straight back," Sirius said, his voice shifting.
If Dumbledore's account was to be believed, Sherlock had already been resting for some time. Going straight to Granger's the moment they returned, in the state Sherlock had been in—it would have given the Holmeses a terrible fright. And Hermione, who had been worried every minute since Sherlock and Harry had left with Dumbledore, would have been beside herself.
Sirius's gaze moved back to Sherlock. His brow was still drawn. His voice, though, had softened. "Is that what you wanted too, Sherlock?"
"Yes."
"Fine. As long as you're happy about it." Sirius let his hands fall open, shoulders dropping, some of the tension going out of him. "So, were you talking about my brother just now?"
Sherlock said nothing. He closed his eyes, very slightly, and let himself rest against the back of the sofa.
Harry and Dumbledore exchanged a look.
Harry's fingers curled, without thinking, around the hem of his robe. Dumbledore gave a small, slow shake of his head. Neither of them seemed to know where to begin.
Sirius caught the shift in atmosphere at once.
He stepped forward, eyes sharpening, hands closing into loose fists at his sides. "What is it? Is there something here you can't tell me?"
At that moment, footsteps came thumping down the stairs—accompanied by Kreacher's voice, hoarse as the scrape of rusted metal: "Found it! Master Harry, I found it!"
Kreacher appeared at the top of the staircase, his small body almost buckled under the weight of the box he clutched to his chest. He gripped it with both hands, knuckles pale with effort, and scurried down the stairs with a faint shuffling sound on the floor.
But when he looked up and saw Sirius, he stopped dead—then immediately bent into a deep bow. "Master has returned."
Sirius waved a dismissive hand, impatience plain in every line of him. "All right, never mind all that. What's this? Harry, what is that?"
Harry took the box from Kreacher. His fingers met the cold surface of it, and without thinking, he held his breath.
He set it gently on the table. Every eye in the room fixed on it.
It was roughly the size of an egg. A lavish letter S was inlaid across its face, formed from dozens of tiny green gemstones that caught the dim light and threw back a dull, secretive gleam—like a serpent lying in wait.
"Is it the one?" Harry's voice was unsteady. He looked up at Sherlock, his expression caught between hope and dread.
"Yes."
Sherlock rose slowly and reached out to touch the locket with one finger.
The instant his fingertip grazed the cold metal surface, he frowned.
A faint pulse—subtle, but malicious—radiated from inside the locket, as though something lived within it: a slow, stubborn heartbeat of darkness.
A Horcrux. Of course it would work on the mind.
Sirius had caught up with them by now. "Is this really—"
"Slytherin's locket." Sherlock's answer was direct. "A relic left behind by one of Hogwarts' four founders. Now a vessel for a fragment of Voldemort's soul."
Sirius drew a sharp breath through his teeth.
The look he turned on the locket was immediate and layered—fear, fury, and a thread of disbelief all tangled together.
After Voldemort's return, Dumbledore had made the decision to bring more people into the knowledge of the Horcruxes. Sirius had been among them.
But this was the first time he had ever stood in front of a real one.
The two that had already been destroyed—Tom Riddle's diary, Marvolo Gaunt's ring—he knew only from Harry's accounts.
"Was that why you went out today? For this?"
Sirius's voice came out rougher than usual. He glanced back at Sherlock, his gaze lingering on the paleness of Sherlock's face, a tender touch was in the tension around his eyes.
"Yes." Sherlock inclined his head. His fingertip still rested on the locket's surface, reading the faint malice there. "We had already failed, as it happens. It was your brother who turned the tide for us."
Hearing Sherlock bring up Regulus so directly, Sirius stared at him. His eyes had gone wide. "That—what does he have to do with any of this? Regulus has long since—"
"Everything." Sherlock straightened. His movements were a little slow—his body was still not fully itself. "Harry has a gift for telling a story. Let him walk you through it."
Harry startled slightly as Sherlock rose. "Sherlock, are you—are you leaving?"
"The rest of this is in good hands without me. I think I can go home now." Sherlock turned to Dumbledore, his expression carrying a question—and, beneath it, a exhaustion. "Don't you think, Professor?"
Dumbledore understood at once.
Now that the real locket had been recovered, the work of destroying it—that was a matter for him, Harry, and Sirius. He alone would have been sufficient, if he were honest.
Sherlock asking to leave now meant one thing: he had reached his limit.
Dumbledore nodded; his tone gentle. "Of course. I'll take you—it's past time I explained things to your parents as well."
Sherlock didn't refuse.
The truth was, there was another reason he didn't want to stay.
He knew Sirius too well.
A man born into the Black family, that most ardently blood-purist of houses, and yet possessed of every Gryffindor instinct—fiery, impulsive, never one to measure his reactions. Sirius's response was totally predictable.
Once he heard the truth about Regulus, this impetuous man—part black dog, all untamed grief—would lose hold of himself completely. He might slam his fist into the table in rage. He might demand answers with reddened eyes.
Whatever it would look like, it would be fierce and uncontained—and Sherlock, right now, had no reserves left for it.
By the time Sherlock and Dumbledore stood at the hearth and the green flames rose to wrap around them, Sirius was still standing where he was, watching their backs with an expression that held more than he would ever say aloud.
When the two of them stepped out of the fireplace and into the sitting room of the Holmes house on King's Road, Mrs. Holmes was on her feet the moment she saw him—Sherlock, white-faced and unsteady, walking out of the green fire.
She was across the room before he'd fully found his footing, hands closing around his arm. Her voice was close to breaking with worry. "Sherlock! What's wrong? Why do you look like that?"
Mr. Holmes's brow drew tight. He reached out and pressed his palm briefly to Sherlock's forehead, searching his son's face with alarm.
Hermione had started forward too, but seeing both the Senior Holmeses already at his side, she held herself back.
The worry on her face was no less than theirs.
Dumbledore offered the Holmeses his sincere apologies—he had underestimated what lay ahead, he said, and Sherlock had paid for that.
The couple had been shaken at first, seeing Sherlock like this. But when they understood that there would be no hospital stay—only rest at home, for a time—they let out the breath they'd been holding.
As for Hermione, she was visibly more wound up than either of them.
She knew what Sherlock had gone out to do today.
Even without Dumbledore spelling out what had happened, she understood clearly enough. Whatever defences Voldemort had built around a Horcrux—they would not be simple. They would not be kind.
"You're not coming to Diagon Alley tomorrow." Hermione drew a slow breath and set her jaw, her voice took on the decisive, no-nonsense tone she could summon with remarkable efficiency. "Harry and I will go and pick up everything you need. You are staying here and resting."
"Miss Granger is quite right," Dumbledore agreed, with a small nod. "Until term begins, you ought to remain home and focus on recovering. No excursions."
Sherlock's expression immediately turned sour.
He was not a person built for stillness. Being confined to the house—being confined anywhere—was among the things he hated most. He'd had a taste of it before, in the summer of 1991, when a bad illness had kept him indoors and the streets of London had gone quiet of anything worth his attention.
It had been nearly unbearable. If the owl from Hogwarts hadn't arrived when it did, carrying the letter of acceptance, he honestly wasn't sure what extremity he might have driven himself to in the search for stimulation.
After some gentle back-and-forth, Dumbledore declined the Holmeses' invitation to stay for dinner.
As he made his way to the door and was nearly out of it, he caught the drift of voices from the sitting room—Mrs. Holmes speaking, and Hermione answering.
"Hermione, make a list of everything you and Sherlock need from Diagon Alley and give it to me."
"Oh, but—why do you need it, Mrs. Holmes?"
"Because you're staying here tomorrow to look after Sherlock. Your uncle and I will go and get everything."
"But I couldn't possibly—" Hermione's voice was a mixture of surprise and embarrassment.
Dumbledore paused at the threshold.
He gave a shake of his head, and let a small, warm smile find its way onto his face.
How good it is to be young, he thought. To be looked after. To have people who worry over you.
That kind of warmth—it could stand against any darkness.
He turned and walked away as the sun sank toward the horizon, leaving all that tenderness and light behind him.
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