The Case of the Missing Wizard
Chapter 1. The Boy Who Vanished

August 2, 1995

The drought and heat wave had tempers fraying and harsh words being said between loving family members all over southern England. Between family members that were less than loving, such as Harry Potter and his loathsome relations the Dursleys, the words were often more than harsh and sometimes accompanied by rough layings-on of hands. By the beginning of August, Harry Potter’s Aunt Petunia had taken to tossing him out of the house whenever she could in an effort to keep him away from the rest of the family, and Harry had to agree with her reasons. If the weather remained unrelenting, he would lay odds on an assault, or perhaps even a murder, happening in Number Four, Privet Drive before very long. While he appreciated the reprieve from endless housework, he made an effort to be home while Uncle Vernon watched the evening news, which Harry knew he did religiously because he enjoyed shouting at the telly. If Harry couldn’t be in the house, he could listen from outside the window, even if that meant sitting in the garden with only a hydrangea bush to hide him from passers-by.

Accordingly, as the hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close, Harry was sprawled on his back in the dry, powdery dirt and dying plants of the garden beneath the living room window. He listened to Uncle Vernon throwing some random abuse in his direction – he agreed with everyone else that Harry should remain in the Mushroom Club, but that was no surprise. Mrs. Figg from over on Wisteria Walk wandered by, apparently looking for one of her cats; Harry had seen the beast flitting about the neighborhood, and he wished it well in its bid for freedom – he wouldn’t want to spend all day cooped up in Mrs. Figg’s cabbage-smelling house either. He glimpsed a furry face peeking out from under Number Six’s car and winked at it conspiratorially, as if it could really understand that he was on its side and would not give it away. He sort of envied the cat – given half a chance, he’d become a cat animagus like Professor McGonagall and go live with the feral cat colony behind the Tesco instead of here. Anywhere instead of here.

The news was quite boring, as it had been for the last month, beginning with travelers stranded due to a baggage-handler’s strike, then progressing on to the drought, a random helicopter crash, a lurid celebrity divorce, and finishing with a water-skiing budgie. The tension he’d been experiencing all afternoon evaporated – another day and nothing happened – though he had to wonder why exactly nothing happened – surely Voldemort had to be up to something! But not today at least, and the relief left him feeling a little limp as he rolled over so he could get up and hopefully sneak off unseen by his Aunt and Uncle.

He had moved about two inches when a sharp, loud crack broke the silence like a firecracker going off. The cat streaked out from under the neighbor’s car and flew out of sight. A shriek (Aunt Petunia), a bellowed oath (Uncle Vernon), and the sound of breaking china (either or both of them) came from the Dursleys’ living room. Harry jumped to his feet, at the same time drawing his wand from the waistband of his jeans – an awkward place to keep it, but the best he’d been able to manage so far. At least he tried to jump to his feet. Halfway up, the top of his head collided with the frame of the open window with a loud crash. Aunt Petunia screamed even louder, and it was all Harry could do not to let his wobbly knees collapse and send him back down into the dirt. His head felt as if it had been split in two; his eyes streamed with tears and little lights swam in his vision from the impact. Nonetheless, he tried valiantly to focus on the street and spot the source of the noise. He was caught by surprise when two large hands reached through the open window and closed tightly around his throat.

“Put. It. Away!” Uncle Vernon snarled. “ Now! Before.Anyone.Sees!” He seemed to be trying to drag Harry bodily in through the window.

“Get – off – me!” Harry growled in return, trying to grab one of his uncle’s meaty fingers to pull it away from his throat. In Harry’s experience from wrestling with larger opponents (mostly Dudley), if you grabbed a finger and yanked it backwards, the rest of the hand usually came with it. However, since he stubbornly clung to the wand with his right hand and only had his left free to work with, Uncle Vernon’s fingers remained locked, and breathing was rapidly becoming an issue. Pain throbbed in Harry’s head, and his uncle yelped and released him as though he had been stung or shocked. Accidental magic? It wouldn’t be the first time, and Harry didn’t question it further. Staggering out of Uncle Vernon’s reach and almost falling over the hydrangea bush, he glanced around, trying to take in as many details as fast as possible. If Cedric’s death had accomplished nothing else, it was to teach Harry to notice things – if you didn’t notice, if you didn’t understand what you were seeing, you couldn’t react properly, and then you wound up dead.

In this case, he noticed Mrs. Number Seven peering out at them from behind her curtains, and a few other neighbors at various windows. Nothing else was moving; even the cat was out of sight.

“Lovely evening!” shouted Uncle Vernon, who had also apparently noticed Mrs. Number Seven. “Did you hear that car backfire just now? Gave Petunia and me quite a turn!”

He continued to grin in a horrible, manic way until he thought the neighbors had stopped looking; then the grin became a grimace of rage as he beckoned Harry back toward him.

Harry had more sense than to venture back into strangling range, and it was as well, since the ensuing conversation was just as ugly as he thought it was going to be. He broke it off with a final insult and stalked off up the street. It would take Uncle Vernon a few hours to calm down before he could go back to the house. Hell, it would take Harry himself a few hours to calm down. Uncle Vernon probably wouldn’t calm down for a week. Harry would definitely be paying the price for this later on, but later was later, and with any luck the world would end before then …

Harry walked on, his feet working automatically while he thought. The cracking noise had sounded like someone Apparating or Disapparating. He’d heard it several times at the Quidditch World Cup, and it was also similar to the sound Dobby the house-elf made when he vanished (though that was really more of a ‘pop’). He wheeled around and stared back down Privet Drive, but it appeared to be completely deserted again. Neither Dobby nor any wizard or witch was to be seen – not that he’d expected it, really. If it was Dobby, he was sure the little elf would hide, or possibly become invisible. He didn’t know if Dobby knew how to become invisible, but house-elves somehow did all their work without being seen. He just didn’t know. Not enough facts , dammit. How was he supposed to figure things out without enough facts to go on?

He walked on, paying only cursory attention to his route; he had walked these streets so often over the years that he knew every crack in the pavement, and his feet carried him to his favorite haunts automatically. He wasn’t completely careless, of course. Every few steps he glanced back over his shoulder, or flicked his gaze along a side street or into a neighbor’s garden. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that someone had been near him in the garden; there had been a faint odor of tobacco smoke and whiskey mixed with the smell of dried grass and earth, he was sure of it. Whoever it was was probably gone now, but why hadn’t they spoken to him when they were close? There had been plenty of opportunity. He thought about Headmaster Dumbledore’s comment to him in first year: “I don’t need a cloak to become invisible.” And Ron’s when he got the cloak: “They're really rare, and really valuable.” Rare, but not unique; his cloak obviously wasn’t the only one. Wasn’t there a ring in some Muggle storybook that made the wearer invisible? If even the Muggles thought about it, maybe wizards had other things than cloaks that could do it? And maybe there were other spells … but he wasn’t Hermione, she probably had every spell in the Standard Book of Spells memorized, and half the ones in the rest of the library at Hogwarts. He didn’t remember, he didn’t study … That is something else that will change , he thought grimly. He couldn’t depend on Hermione to remember things for him. Not when she might not be there.

The more frustrated he became, however, the less certain he was.

Perhaps it had just been a car backfire, maybe one street over. Or something breaking in a neighbor’s house. Maybe he just wanted so badly for it to be a sign of contact from the wizarding world that he was simply overreacting to a perfectly ordinary noise. After all, there was nothing in the news, either magical or Muggle. The only contacts he had in the magical world weren’t even talking to him, not properly. Ron and Hermione’s letters were full of little cryptic comments about what they knew, what they were doing, but they couldn’t tell him, no, not the person who most needed to know it. He knew they were together, and assumed it was at the Burrow. He could hardly bear to think of the pair of them having fun there when he was stuck in Privet Drive. The twins … he had given them the Tournament prize money, not a small amount … and had he heard one word from them, even a thank you note? No. Forget them. They’re unreliable. Was there anyone else? Sirius sent notes telling him to sit tight and be a good boy. A Marauder! Telling him this? What did he expect? Information, he thought. I’m isolated, even in school. I need to change that … make more friends. If not friends, at least contacts.Other houses?Other years? Slytherin would be hard, but surely not all of them could be part of Malfoy’s clique. Hufflepuff … Susan Bones had an aunt in the Ministry, he’d heard – that could be useful. And Justin Finch-Fletchley – he was down for Eton before he got his Hogwarts letter. Even thoroughly middle-class Harry knew what that meant. All sorts of connections on the Muggle side there.

Plotting and planning, his mind finally fully engaged, Harry headed toward the darkening play park, which was closed at this hour and would provide some privacy. He vaulted easily over the locked gate and crossed the parched lawn, hearing the sound of crispy grass stems breaking beneath his feet as he walked. When he reached the swings, he sank onto the only one that Dudley and his friends had not yet destroyed, wrapped the chain around one arm, and rubbed at his scar. He had not been sleeping well lately, his dreams alternating between Cedric’s death and long dark corridors, all finishing in dead ends and locked doors. From what he remembered about dream interpretation in his Divination classes, that meant he was feeling trapped and confined. No surprise there. To round off the lot, sometimes he dreamed he was trying to find the door Cedric was on the other side of, before something awful happened. He’d done a little magic Hermione recommended for bad dreams (non-Traceable, she said, because it didn’t use his wand, but he’d still spent hours terrified a Ministry notice would come the first time he tried it). It hadn’t really helped, or if it had, he didn’t want to know what the dreams he should have been having were like. Often the scar on his forehead prickled uncomfortably, but even he didn’t find that very interesting anymore. Voldemort was back, the scar was irritated, nothing new in that.

He forced his mind back to thinking, planning, organizing. Dreams would not help. Anger – at Dumbledore, at Ron and Hermione, at Sirius, at the stupid Daily Prophet , at the Minister – would not help. Not even at Voldemort, if it came down to it. Anger only got in the way. All he had to do was to look at Snape to see that. He pushed it away. Snape was a torment to be endured and then he could leave the man behind. Only three more years, he could do that standing on his head. Voldemort was a puzzle to be solved, a threat to be removed. Nobody else seemed willing or able to do it, not even Dumbledore, supposedly the greatest wizard of the age. For whatever reason – and he was sure there was a reason, and he made a mental note to find out that reason – it fell to him, a barely fifteen-year-old boy, to deal with it.

While he thought, a sultry, velvety night fell around him, the humid air full of the smell of warm, dry grass and the only sound that of the low grumble of traffic on the road beyond the park railings. He only looked up when he heard a distant rumble that was not traffic. The streetlamps from the surrounding roads were casting a misty glow, which was the only light available – there were no lights in the park, which was officially closed for the night, and the moon and stars were invisible behind clouds which had rolled in during the hours he was thinking. As he looked, sheet lightning flashed through the clouds, followed some seconds later by another rumble. A storm was coming in. It would break the heat, but it would be best for him to be in the house before it did. Aunt Petunia wouldn’t appreciate him coming in sodden and dripping all over her floors.

He’d only just stood up when he heard two sharp cracks, one after another, just the same as he had on Privet Drive. And now he knew the sounds were magical, knew it beyond a doubt, because two people were standing in the light of the streetlamp nearest the park gate. Two people who hadn’t been there a second before. Two people wearing robes. Be careful what you ask for , he told himself darkly. You might get it.

A second later he was moving, as quickly and as quietly as he could. They were in the light. He was in the darkness. Even so, he could be seen as a shape against the light sand around the swings once their eyes adjusted. But he knew this park like the back of his hand – had spent years learning all the places in it where he could hide from Dudley and his friends. He ghosted across the sand onto the dry grass, and from there into the denser shadows under a stand of trees. Slipping behind the thick trunk of an oak and keeping his own breathing as quiet as possible, he strained his hearing to listen for any words between the strangers.

“… very Muggle sort of place.” A sniff, perhaps of disapproval. Female voice . Very young. No … somebody trying to sound very young.

“Probably the idea. We’re certainly more noticeable here.” Older man. Scots accent? Hogwarts accent .

“So where is he? The address would be over that way, but the Trace …”

“In there. Somewhere.” The tall man moved toward the locked park gate, which opened soundlessly before him. The shorter woman followed after.

“Yoohoo, Mr. Potter!” came the woman’s voice in a high-pitched sing-song. There was something seriously wrong with that woman, he could tell. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

“God’s sake, Madam Umbridge. Don’t treat him like a little child. He’s fifteen. Old enough to be tetchy about that.” He spoke in a low voice, but Harry could hear every word. The tip of the man’s wand flashed into light, casting a beam about like a torch.

Harry pressed himself harder against the trunk of the tree, wishing he’d had time to get further away, time to climb the tree … he’d hidden from Dudley in trees plenty of times – no one ever bothered to look up .

“Mr. Potter!” called the man. “Please come out now! This is Auror Wainwright, Ministry Security Division, escorting Madam Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. We just want to talk to you.”

The woman cleared her throat with a “hem-hem” noise. “Quite right, Mr. Potter. Please come out. The Ministry would like to have a word with you about … about what happened after the Third Task. We need to hear your story. All of it.” Her voice was now a bit lower pitched, her tone less condescending.

Harry was wracked with indecision. On the one hand, he’d been hoping, praying, for exactly this – that someone from the Ministry would take an interest. On the other hand … he didn’t exactly trust the Ministry, either. The Minister, to be precise. Of the times he’d actually met the Minister, one had been spent sucking up to The-Boy-Who-Lived, and three had been subverting justice or ignoring unpleasant truths. Oh, and spreading unpleasant gossip – he’d almost forgotten the time he crashed the meeting in Rosmerta’s private room. Then there were the other Ministry representatives he’d met – Mr. Crouch, Mr. Bagman – really, the only decent one he’d met was Mr. Weasley. And he got the feeling that Arthur Weasley wasn’t exactly “in” with the rest of the Ministry – he’d have a better job if he was.

So. He wouldn’t trust the Ministry as far as he could throw it.

He licked his lips nervously. He knew every inch of this park; he could doubtless escape them in the dark and either slip through the gap in the fence over by the climbing frame or go over the gate on the other side of the park. But then what? There were two of them. They could Apparate. They could, apparently, track where he was. He’d never get away from them. And where would he go if he did? He had no money, nothing except his wand, and he couldn’t use that without setting the Ministry on himself again. He swore quietly under his breath, words he’d heard Dudley use but never dared speak out loud himself lest Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon hear and punish him for “degeneracy”. The Boy-Who-Lived would never use such language, either – he was practically a saint, he was. Harry really hated the Boy-Who-Lived sometimes.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped out of the shadows. “Madam Umbridge? You wanted to talk to me about Vol – about You-Know-Who?” he said, changing what he was going to say when he saw the stout woman flinch at the first syllable.

“Oh there you are! You had us so worried, young man! There’s no reason to hide, you know, we’re from the Ministry.”

“Sorry, thought you were my cousin and his friends at first. Didn’t particularly want to see them right now,” he said, lying through his teeth. As far as he was concerned, their being from the Ministry gave him every reason to hide, if he could.

“Of course. Completely understandable.Now, then. We at the Ministry understand that you experienced … a traumatic incident in connection with the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament, and we’ve given you some time to recover from it – I do hope you’re feeling a bit more stable, now?”

“I was never un stable, but thank you.”

“Well then, I was hoping you would tell me what you think happened after you took the cup at the Third Task.”

“What I think happened? Why don’t I tell you what did happen and we go from there?”

The short, round woman – who he could see now was wearing robes in an alarming shade of pink – made a moue of disagreement, but indicated with what she probably fondly thought was a regal nod that he should proceed. He gave them the short version, since he didn’t want to be standing there talking until midnight.

Madam Umbridge glanced over to Auror Wainwright, who gave her a tiny nod. She gave a sigh and turned back to Harry.

“And do you have any actual proof of any of this, Mr. Potter?”

“The fake Professor Moody – Barty Crouch, Jr. – he admitted it all in front of witnesses.”

“An escaped prisoner, more than likely insane, is not a reliable witness. By your own admission, he stayed at Hogwarts and wasn’t at this so-called ritual. And he’s been Kissed now in any event, so we can’t confirm it one way or the other.”

“Headmaster Dumbledore, Professors McGonagall and Snape – they were there, they heard him!”

“Hearsay.”

“Cedric died !”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, he did. And it’s a very good thing for you, young man, that the Ministry has ruled his death a ‘tragic accident’ during the Third Task. Otherwise you might be facing an enquiry for use of a Killing Curse, which as you know carries a lifetime sentence in Azkaban.”

“ I didn’t kill Cedric! It was Peter Pettigrew, I told you that!”

“A man who has been dead for fourteen years. Who died a hero, facing You-Know-Who’s right-hand man, and received an Order of Merlin for it.”

“ Sirius Black is innocent! ” He hadn’t intended to say that, hadn’t intended to bring Sirius into this at all, but this Umbridge woman seemed to be able to rile him up faster than Snape.

“And how do you know that? Have you seen him? Have you talked with him? You know Sirius Black is a wanted criminal, and anyone that sees him is required to report it immediately. Should we bring you up for an enquiry for that as well?”

Harry took two steps backward, and his wand was suddenly in his hand, though he didn’t recall reaching for it.

“Now, now, boy, there’s no reason for that,” said Madam Umbridge, suddenly back to cooing sickeningly at him. “It’s obvious now what’s happened, and you’re not at fault. In fact, you’re a victim . You poor thing.You poor, poor child.”

“I’m not a victim ,” Harry replied tightly. Victim , he hated the word. Yeah, things happened to him, but he wasn’t exactly helpless. He could always deal with it. He wasn’t a victim of anything. And particularly not of Sirius Black, who was one of the most brilliant things to happen to him ever. Right up there with discovering he was a wizard in the first place.

“You think not, no, but that’s because you’ve been bespelled,” said Umbridge. “The Confundus Charm, perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“Heard of it, yeah,” said Harry uneasily. A year ago Snape had claimed that Harry, Ron and Hermione had been Confunded into believing that Sirius was innocent, and Crouch had even managed to use the charm on the Goblet of Fire. Harry himself hadn’t looked it up – idiot , he berated himself, always do your research. Especially with something that’s already bit you on the arse twice! – but he could guess it was powerful if it would even work on something like the Goblet.

“Of course you have, clever boy,” said Umbridge condescendingly. “Professor Snape made a report last year, when Black escaped from Hogwarts, that he believed you and your little friends had been Confunded. That it was the only reason you would believe something so impossible. It’s obvious, now, that you have a susceptibility to it. A master of the Charm can make you believe anything, plant an idea in your head, and once it’s in there, you know, it’s impossible to get rid of. You run it around and around in your mind and keep thinking about it and adding details until you completely believe it. Auror Wainwright here is skilled with Legilimency – he could see your surface thoughts and emotions as you told us your story – and it’s obvious that you do believe it.” Now that was a scary thought.

“I can throw off the Imperius Curse. What makes you think this Confundus Charm would be any harder?”

“Because it’s insidious. You believe it because you want to believe it. Nobody can convince you otherwise. It’s obvious now that this can all be laid at the feet of Sirius Black. He’s Confunded you into believing that he’s your friend, that You-Know-Who has returned and that you, somehow, are supposed to do something about it. Oh, don’t look surprised, it’s the obvious conclusion. Don’t you see, Harry – may I call you Harry? – he’s setting you up! You’re meant to fail, because after all, you’re just a student still and Sirius Black is a powerful wizard. But you are also the Boy-Who-Lived. You have influence, even if Professor Lockhart never managed to teach you how to use it properly. If Black can use your influence to convince the public that You-Know-Who is back, then he gets his power base back – become a Dark Lord in his own right, eventually. He can become the power behind the Death Eaters, and in his own time he can either kill you, to cement that power and destroy the public’s confidence in the Ministry, or worse, convince you to become one of them. Have you any idea how awful that would be, Harry, to have the Boy-Who-Lived, a hero, become a pawn of a Dark Lord – either the old one or a new one?”

“Yeah, I know. Turned him down once already.”

“So you do see! Clever boy! That will make it so much easier to deal with this, won’t it?”

“And how do you intend to … deal with this?” Harry fought to keep his tone level, pretending to be reasonable about this – but how could he be reasonable when she was saying things like that about Sirius?! – and also managing to take one more surreptitious step backwards.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? The only answer to treating a memory that’s gotten lodged in your mind – be it ever so incorrect – is to remove it. Make you forget all about it.”

“You want to Obliviate me?!” Harry shouted. Another two steps back, nothing surreptitious or careful about it this time.

“Don’t worry, Auror Wainwright is an expert; he performs necessary Obliviations on Muggles regularly. He won’t do anything like what Professor Lockhart tried – yes, we obviously know about that, and no, that was not at all the way it’s supposed to be done.” Umbridge obviously thought her sugary-sweet tone was calming and convincing to a distraught and possibly uncooperative child.

“All I’ll do is ask you to concentrate on those specific memories, and then I’ll remove them,” said Wainwright. “It’s simple and painless and you won’t even be aware they’re gone. I can fill in the gap with something more reasonable, and after that everything will be fine.”

“Forgetting that Voldemort is back won’t stop him from trying to kill me. It’ll just make me an easier target.”

“There’s no need for this paranoia, Mr. Potter. You-Know-Who is not back and he will not try to kill you,” said Umbridge.

Harry smiled grimly. “It isn’t paranoia if they really are out to get you. And you just added yourselves to my list. Go away and leave me alone.”

Wainwright sighed. “Sorry you want to do it this way, lad. Oblivi —”

“ Protego ! Stupefy! Expelliarmus!”

The park was illuminated by multi-colored flashes of magic as both adults answered Harry’s barrage of spells. He was only buying time, though, and he knew it.

No matter how talented he was, no matter his gifts for Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry Potter was only fifteen and hadn’t even taken his O.W.L. exams yet. Though Umbridge couldn’t launch spells as fast as Harry could, Wainwright was a full-fledged Auror as well as an Obliviator, and only his desire not to hurt the young man kept him from ending the battle with a single well-placed Blasting Curse. The boy had talent, he could see that, and he thought he’d make an excellent Auror one day. Assuming he could be made to see reason.

Finally Wainwright managed to time a Disarming Spell so that he hit Potter just after Madam Umbridge’s attempted Body-Bind took down the boy’s Shield. His wand flew through the air toward Wainwright, but the older man attempted to grab it with his off hand, and had never been much for Quidditch. He missed, and the wand went flying off into the darkness, where it was invisible to eyes dazzled by spellfire.

Instinctively, Harry turned and ran. Without his wand, he was helpless. If he could get enough of a lead on them, maybe he could get away, find someplace to hide, someplace safe, and then come back to find it later. Run getaway runaway hidesaferungetaway … His magic, already keyed up to defend him, began to swirl around him. The world began to twist, the way it had that awful day Dudley and his gang chased him and he wound up on the school roof. Harry didn’t question it – the faster and further he could get away, the better, anywhere, he didn’t care.

He dove into the twist.

Auror Wainwright, feeling the buildup of magic and more than a little panicked by the thought of accidental magic of that magnitude, let loose his own magic with a roar – “ OBLIVIATE! ” – and the spell sailed into the twist of spacetime and vanished along with the boy. Simultaneously, the supercharged atmosphere produced a lightning bolt that ripped through the space where magic had left a path for it, arcing over and grounding out on the swings. Wainwright and Umbridgeboth tumbled to the ground, blinded by the light and deafened by the thunder that was too loud to be merely a noise, but hit them as a physical blow. Rain hissed to the ground around them as the storm that had threatened all evening was suddenly released.

After a time neither of them could measure, they regained their senses, shaken and shocky from their close call. Wainwright could see Madam Umbridge’s lips moving, but heard nothing. He put one hand up to his ear and felt a wetness stickier than rainwater dripping down from his earlobe. He patted about in the darkness for his wand, muttering “ Lumos ! ” as he did so. After a few tries, a dim light shone from the wand’s tip; fishing it out of a puddle, he cast a quick healing charm on himself and heaved a sigh of relief as he was able to hear her voice again, although as if from a long distance off. Annoying though it was, at that moment it was the sweetest voice he’d ever heard.

“—at was that, Wainwright? What happened?”

“That, unless I miss my guess, was a blind Apparation and possibly the worst splinching I’ve ever seen. We’ll be lucky to find bits of him large enough to identify,” Wainwright said gloomily. This was bad. Career ending bad.Splinching and Obliviating the Boy-Who-Lived?Azkaban bad.

“Where’s his wand? I saw you Disarm him.”

“ Accio wand! ” The holly wand flew out from under a bush, and this time Wainwright was able to catch it. Madam Umbridge’s wand also came out of the darkness, and she scrambled after it. He handed Potter’s wand over to her.

“Good. If he ever shows up again, he’ll be useless without this. I’ll keep it for now. I’ll also be paying a visit to his relatives. They’ll be only too happy to hand him over if he shows up there.” Madam Umbridge tucked the wand away inside her robes.

“His family? Just hand him over?”

“There are rumors – no love lost there. And just in case, I’m not so bad with a Confundus myself. They’re only Muggles, it won’t be difficult at all. After this storm has stopped, of course.” She winced as more lightning flashed above them, and pushed sodden curls out of her face. “The Boy-Who-Lived will be sorry he ever crossed my path.”

The sound of two Disapparations was lost in the roll of thunder.

Hidesaferungetaway

His feet hit hard on an asphalt roadway, and he had to keep running, windmilling his arms in an attempt to get his balance back. He hadn’t quite managed it when bright lights flashed into his eyes, blinding him. He didn’t have time to stop or to dodge out of the way. Something hard hit him in the leg, and pain surged through him as he slid upward and across hot metal. His forehead struck an unyielding surface and more pain lanced through his head. There was a screeching, squealing noise, and he slid to the side, rolling off the metal and hitting the road again. Hidesafe hidesafehidesafe … Darkness took him away.

The Case of the Missing Wizard
Chapter 2. Slaughter in Surrey

Friday, July 31, 2015

The police car drove slowly down the suburban street, not because the driver was not in a hurry to reach the destination, but because of all the other vehicles parked haphazardly across the road and the civilians wandering about and ignoring things like moving vehicles while trying to catch a glimpse of the crime scene. In the back seat of the vehicle, Sherlock Holmes fidgeted and finally uttered a hiss of frustration. “Oh, for – Let us off here. We’ll be faster walking!”

“Yes, sir.” The driver obligingly pulled over to the first empty spot at the kerb, parking at an angle and making his own addition to the obstacle course of the street. “It’s Number Four, just down there.”

“As if I couldn’t see a house completely festooned in police tape. Have you got that thing working yet, John?”

“Just about.” John Watson finished fiddling with his digital recorder/transmitter and clipped the mic to his lapel. He hit the button and a red light blinked on. “Testing, testing. Mary had a little lamb.” As he got out of the car, his phone beeped and he paused to look at it.

Your little lamb won’t go down for her nap. Xox MW

“Okay, final check says it’s working. Now let’s just hope it keeps working.” He pocketed the recorder.

“Just make sure this one doesn’t wind up at the bottom of a river,” said Sherlock dismissively. His own recorder was safely tucked in his jacket pocket, the mic clipped where no one except himself, and possibly his brother Mycroft if he were here, would notice it. “Look at this place! I think if I lived here I might have to flee screaming from the boredom.”

“Looks a nice place to me,” said John. “Safe. Today notwithstanding, anyway. Nice houses. Probably good schools. Good place to raise kids.”

Sherlock strode along the path briskly, ticking off points as he went. “Bedroom community built in the late 60’s. Only four different house plans in the entire estate, two of them mirrors of the other two. All the same brick and stucco facing. Fifty years on, there’s a few coloured front doors and Japanese maples in the gardens, and one facing changed to pebble-dashing instead of brick, but nothing really distinctive or individual on the entire street. Oh, and it’s become apparent that the construction work was shoddy and the whole place will fall down spontaneously in about twenty years. You and Mary would go mad here. Amanda might very well make it her jumping off point for taking over the world.”

“She’s got to start somewhere,” said John reasonably. “But let’s wait until she’s learned how to walk, all right?”

“This is no place to start a power play,” disagreed Sherlock. “Just think of the name. Little Whinging? Who thought that could possibly be a good name for a town?”

They were approaching the house set off by the police tape, and the crowd of looky-loos had become quite thick. Finally they managed to bull through the crowd and duck under the police tape. The immaculately maintained lawn was being ruined by police officers tramping back and forth across it. An ambulance crew was readying stretchers, but they were not in a rush. Bodies and not injured – survivors would have been removed already, but the dead do not require speed. John carefully avoided a spot where somebody had been spectacularly sick on the pavement. One of the younger police officers was looking suspiciously green and like he was only waiting to find a somewhat more private place to do it before also indulging. This is ugly . And Lestrade, done up in a blue coverall and white shoe covers, was waiting in the doorway for them. This isn’t anywhere near his jurisdiction, which means that the Surrey Constabulary is so far out of its depth that they’ve kicked it up the line and requested help from the Met. And the Met sent Lestrade, who sent a car to shanghai us, probably before he even made it to the scene himself. Wonderful!

“Got something interesting for you, Sherlock. At least an eight. Maybe a nine.” Sherlock’s eyebrows rose. Lestrade had started using his code for “interesting” cases a few years ago, and had become fairly accurate in his estimates. A nine was … well, the last nine had had snipers’ crosshairs on John’s head and Sherlock himself going off the edge of a roof at St. Bart’s. Not a good memory.

“Let’s hope it’s just an eight,” said John, apparently sharing Sherlock’s dislike for nines.

“I don’t know. This one’s got everything. Locked room – locked house, anyway – impossibly short time frame, disappearing perps, and we don’t even know what killed the victims.” He beckoned them into the entry hall of the house, where he handed John a coverall, nitrile gloves, Tyvek shoe covers and a tiny jar of menthol ointment. Sherlock got just the gloves and shoe covers – Lestrade knew there was no way the consulting detective was ever going to wear one of those coveralls or use the ointment. As it was, he looked at the shoe protection scathingly. “Trust me, if you ever want to wear those shoes again, you’re going to need those,” said Lestrade. Once the appropriate gear had been donned and menthol applied, he nodded. “Come take a look.”

The smell in the house was ripe and thick ( blood, urine, faeces, vomit and dead flesh, festering for a couple of hours in hot July weather ). Sherlock suspected he might find himself wishing he’d protected his clothing – and possibly used the ointment – after all, just this once. Fortunately it was too warm to have worn the Belstaff; he’d never have been able to get the smell out of the wool.

Flies had already discovered the bounty and were buzzing about the doors and in the house.

A flight of stairs rose to the right, with a boot cupboard underneath, and the hall opened at the end into the kitchen. An archway to the left opened into a living room, from which came the odour of death and the buzzing of the flies. In the middle of the floor was the body of an obese, aging man, who lay in a peculiarly rigid position flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. His shirt was open, and his gut was open as well; somebody had slashed him from his throat straight down his abdomen, deeply enough that his sternum was split in two and his internal organs protruded from the wound. Loops of intestine and the pink of the lungs were clearly visible. The oatmeal-coloured carpeting was saturated with blood.

Sherlock stood stock still in the archway, taking in everything he could from that vantage point. John peered into the room from Sherlock’s side. “Oh, God,” he muttered. “This … it’s worse than Afghanistan.” He drew his phone out of his pocket and took a quick picture and sent it off with a message heading reading VERY UGLY .

Lestrade stood on a clean section of carpeting between the victim and the front window of the living room.

“First victim is assumed to be Vernon Dursley, homeowner. We’ll confirm that as soon as we find his wallet, but …”

“First victim?” asked John, squirming past Sherlock and squatting to take more pictures.

“Second is over there, on the other side of the coffee table,” said Lestrade, pointing to the aforementioned piece of furniture. From John’s new position, he could see a pair of legs, clad in women’s trousers and flats and tightly bound with grey cords, protruding from behind the coffee table.

Sherlock finally moved, circling around the man’s body to look behind the table, and John followed. The woman was thin, about the man’s age, and fully dressed in brown slacks, a flowered blouse, and kitchen apron. The front of her clothing was saturated in blood, though no obvious wound could be seen. She was lying on her right side in between the sofa and the table. More of the grey cord was wound in an elaborate knotting pattern around her wrists and forearms, binding them behind her.

“Petunia Dursley, age 59, wife to Vernon. ID confirmed from her purse on the hall table,” Lestrade continued. “No cause of death yet, most likely exsanguination. Wanted you to see the bodies in place before we moved them for examination.” His voice was thick; even the veteran police officer was affected by the sight – or possibly the smell, menthol overlay notwithstanding. “We’re pretty sure this was a hit of some kind, somebody wanted to send a message…”

“Hold on, how are you so sure it was a message?” asked John.

“That,” said Sherlock, pointing at the wall next to the arch. The striped faux-Victorian wallpaper bore words written in blood - HAPPY BIRT and then half of an H. “Happy birthday – the killers were obviously interrupted while writing it. Message to someone, presumably not the victims, but connected. Most likely the son, there are pictures of him all over the place – we can track him down later. Let’s get to work.”

Sherlock’s work, as usual, went fast. He touched neither body, but moved around them like a spider, pausing and flicking out his magnifying glass when needed. John followed, taking pictures where Sherlock indicated. One of Lestrade’s men followed John, taking the exact same pictures for the police file, plus extras. If Sherlock spotted something that might be physical evidence, he shot a peremptory finger at it. A numbered place marker was put down; a matching numbered evidence bag was handed to him. He’d pocketed one too many pieces of evidence over the years, and had agreed to these procedures with Lestrade under threat of being banned from police investigations otherwise. When trace samples were taken, he was allowed to take duplicate samples for himself. It was rare when his analysis wasn’t faster and more accurate than the CID’s – mainly because his analysis wasn’t competing with a backlog of hundreds of other cases.

Once the pictures were done, John did a rapid physical examination, noting the condition of the body, state of rigor, and so forth. A forensic tech would follow, getting the additional detail required for the police report.

They started with Victim Two – Petunia Dursley – because that’s where they happened to be standing. Sherlock inspected the bindings on her hands and legs ( grey silk cord wrapped from ankles to knees and wrists to elbows, knots formed Celtic-style patterns ), fluffed her hair briefly ( grey at the roots, dyed the colour she thought her hair was when she was younger ),smelt her perfume ( Chanel knockoff ), looked under the sofa and coffee table ( no dust bunnies ), and scrutinized her earrings ( real pearls, large size but middling quality; for show, not real value ). Once pictures had been taken, Sherlock gestured, and police officers moved the sofa and coffee table to allow him to roll the woman onto her back, at least as much as the early stages of rigor would allow. The source of the pervasive odour of vomit was revealed to be a puddle beneath her, which she had fallen into at some point. Her blue eyes were wide, her lipsticked mouth open in a silent scream. The front of her blouse was lumpy and distended. Making sure that Lestrade and the tech were watching him, he delicately opened the white buttons that stood out against the taut, stained fabric.

The incision started at the right shoulder, slicing cleanly through the collarbone, and cut sharply across her chest and abdomen to just above her left hip. Lungs and bone popped out as the restraint of the clothing was removed. At the fourth button, the stomach, already distended with gas. The police photographer dropped his camera and fled for the door. Sherlock caught the camera before it hit the ground and handed it absently to Lestrade. “That’s strange. Very strange.”

“Tell me something about this that isn’t,” replied the DI.

Sherlock ran his finger beneath the band of the woman’s bra, then followed the incision down to the apron that covered her hips and thighs. He briefly checked the apron pocket – nothing there, and her slacks had no pockets – and squatted back on his haunches to give her a long, considering look before turning in place to look at the husband.

His once-over was just as fast on the big man. The shirt was conveniently open already, allowing the organs to gape out, and he tugged briefly at the victim’s belt to pull the waistband down a bit. Wound continues below the belt and waistline of the pants. He inspected the position of the hands ( held rigidly along the thighs) , the face ( mouth closed, features impassive, tears leaking from the eyes and running down toward the ears) , took a brief inhalation near the man’s face and coughed a bit ( mint toothpaste covering something sickly sweet) . He tugged at the fingers, tried and failed to move the head. Total rigor?

“John. Can you give me body temperatures? Estimate time of death?” Lestrade started to say something, then fell silent again as the forensic tech passed the probes to John.

“I’m not even sure where their livers are at the moment,” complained John, but he quickly did the tests and the tech recorded the scores. “From the body temps and current room temperature, estimated time of death would be about four hours ago, plus/minus half an hour. But post-mortem lividity –” he looked at the bruises forming on the woman’s face. “She’s got appropriate lividity for that time frame, but him – practically none. It should be clear on the backs of his arms and the back of his head by now, even with the amount of exsanguination present.”

“What could cause that?” asked Sherlock.

“Flash-freezing of the body, maybe. Extremely rapid clotting of the blood so it didn’t have time to pool. Massive dehydration. The Andromeda Strain. None of which are conditions applying here.”

“He was diabetic. Poorly controlled, in ketoacidosis. Could that have had any effect on it?”

“That’s not one of the symptoms, no.”

Sherlock pointed at a safely clean section of the floor in front of the telly. “John. Lie down on your back. Try to approximate his position.”

“Should be easy, he’s just … on his back.” John inspected the body, then lay down where indicated, flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling. Sherlock looked back and forth between him and Vernon, adjusting his position as desired. Feet together, toes pointed straight up at the ceiling, legs locked, shoulders square, arms locked alongside the body – the hands aren’t even quite touching the ground there – spine rigid, head facing directly forward, mouth tightly closed.

“Now relax. Let your muscles go limp. Play dead.”

John complied, and Sherlock carefully eyed the positions into which his hands and feet and head fell . Chest and shoulder and arm muscles relax, both hands touch the ground, one palm facing downward and the other up. Spine conforms better to the floor, head tilts to the side, jaw relaxed, mouth slightly open. Feet fall apart, rotating outwards and downwards from the heel.

“You can get up now. How did those positions feel?”

“The first was definitely unnatural. Like I was holding at attention for an inspection, but even more so, if you know what I mean. The toes-up position in particular was a bitch to hold. That has to be a conscious position – he couldn’t have held it after he was dead.”

“Whereas the second posture you took –”

“Much more natural.”

“Wouldn’t rigor explain that?” asked Lestrade. “She’s not in any sort of natural position either,” he said, indicating the woman’s body with a nod of his head.

“She was sitting on the sofa when they did whatever they did to her,” said Sherlock. “She pitched forward onto her knees between the two pieces of furniture, which then held her in that position. But they did something to her husband that held him, in that unnaturally rigid posture, on the floor as they killed him. You can tell from the angle of the cut, the pooling of the blood inside the body cavity, and the trail of his tears, that he was lying down at the moment of his death. His eyes were open, he must have seen it coming, but his face is completely impassive. He didn’t scream, despite the agony of his wound. And he did not move, despite the relaxation that would have followed his death, for at least three hours until rigor set in. He’s far too rigid for the elapsed time. There’s still some flexibility in her muscles and joints. None at all in his. Even his fatty tissue feels solid.”

“Maybe some kind of drug? We’ll be running tox screens on both of them, maybe whatever caused the lividity thing also caused this.”

“Maybe a drug,” said Sherlock. His tone said that he didn’t have much hope for it. “Whatever it is, it’s more likely to be one improbable thing causing both effects than two separate improbable things. I believe you were right, Lestrade. Definitely a nine.”

“What about the death wounds, then?” asked the Detective Inspector. “A knife, do you think? Or something bigger?”

“Bigger?” asked John.

“I was thinking a sword, maybe. Short sword, scimitar, wakizashi, something of the sort. Deep wound, single long slash, straight cut, no hesitation marks or deflection when it hit bone. Bit much for just a knife.”

“It’s obvious that whatever killed them, it wasn’t a blade,” snapped Sherlock.

“Obvious?”

“You know, I really think you enjoy making me explain sometimes. You can’t be this thick otherwise. First of all, there is no blood spatter, for either body.” He stood over the body of Vernon Dursley and looked up at the ceiling, at the nearest walls, and the carpeting, and mimed the swing of a weapon that might have caused such a wound. It was apparent to both John and Lestrade that there was, in fact, no back spatter on the wall or the carpeting outside of the pool of blood immediately surrounding the body.

Lestrade rose and turned to face the sofa where Petunia Dursley had died, obviously trying to recreate the scene for himself. “So if she was … sitting up … and the killer slashed with his right hand ....” He took one step forward to mime a slash as Sherlock had done, and his foot stepped right into the spot where the coffee table had been. “That’s not right. Whichever of them died second, if it was the same weapon, there would have been spatter from the first one’s blood on the swing into the second body, and spatter of their combined blood on the back swing. Plus here, the table would keep the killer too far away to make that kind of wound. Or make them step around and in to do a close-range slash from a different angle. Entirely different type of wound.”

Sherlock stood aside with his arms crossed and a look almost of pride on his face, like a parent watching a child tying its own shoes for the first time. “Bravo, Lestrade. We are now getting somewhere. Look at the woman. The wound goes under her undamaged and still buttoned blouse, bra, apron, trousers and pants. Same thing with her husband – the cut goes under his belt and trousers. What can cut through flesh without cutting through the clothing above it?”

“I don’t know, what?”

“I don’t know either. But it’s crucial that we find out.”

“Maybe they undressed them and then dressed them again after.”

“You can’t re-dress a dead body again that neatly, especially with that much blood leaking all over everything and organs flopping about. There would be blood smears showing it.”

“I suppose you’ve tried it,” said Lestrade.

Sherlock just gave him a Look.

“’Course you have,” muttered the DI. “How about a laser, then? Some high-tech thingy that only cuts flesh?”

“Why not suggest a sonic screwdriver or a light sabre while you’re at it?” asked Sherlock with some asperity.

John raised his eyebrows in surprise – usually Sherlock claimed to delete anything relating to pop culture as useless. But of course he would retain information on anything that might be used as a weapon.

“The only obvious weapon in the room is the victim’s shotgun,” Sherlock said, pointing at the gun, which was neatly tagged and lying in one corner where John had completely missed it. “There’s no sign he was a sportsman, which means he was paranoid enough to believe he needed it for self-defence. He’s owned the gun for years, but never actually fired it. Good thing for him, the barrel is slightly bent, and it would have blown up in his face. Whatever the murder weapon was, the killers – there were two of them, you can tell from the footmarks on the carpeting – brought it with them and took it away again. We find them, we’ll find it.” He contemplated the bodies. “The husband is disarmed without setting off the shotgun and simply left lying on the floor in the peculiarly rigid condition we’ve noted. The wife is elaborately bound with silk cord in knots that more properly belong in a BDSM club. It would have taken half an hour or more to tie those assuming she held still and cooperated; impossible if she fought. She was also left lying where she fell.”

“The killers didn’t have half an hour. They had fifteen minutes total.” Lestrade consulted his notes. “Well, sixteen if you want to be precise.”

“Sixteen?”

“I told you coming in. Locked house – everything latched and locked from the inside, deadbolt, chain on the inside. All the windows latched. Constables had to break in. Impossible timeframe – the house has an alarm system that went off at the central monitoring station at 7:15 exactly, though why it went off when the doors were apparently not opened, we have no idea. The home unit doesn’t seem to have gone off at all and there’s no sign of forced entry. The first police car arrived at 7:31. Arriving constable saw someone at the window. This was followed by two immediate sharp bangs, like firecrackers going off; constable is sure they were not gunshots. You’ll note that there are no firecracker scorch marks anywhere in here, or in the back garden. Upstairs is being checked, but so far not there either. Arriving constable either doesn’t know anything about approaching a house with possibly armed perps and/or a hostage situation, or completely forgot it in the heat of the moment. He rings the bell polite as anything, knocks on the door, looks in the window, sees Victim One, heads back to the car to report, and gets sick halfway down the front path.” He looked up from his notes. “Arriving constable is going right back to the Academy for retraining if I have anything to say about it.”

“Nobody goes in or comes out after the constable arrives, he’s sure about that. Uniformed backup spent some time surrounding and loud hailing the house and all that, then broke in the door, found both bodies, did a quick check to make sure the house was otherwise empty, and then kicked it over to the plainclothes side. Senior detective here is only a DS, he kicked it further up to the county office, who kicked it over to the Met, and that’s me.”

By the time he was done with that, Sherlock was on his feet and inspecting the bloody letters on the wall. He touched the writing on the T lightly to see how tacky it was, and took samples both for the police and for himself. Interesting. A tad Manson-esque in appearance, but not at all the same technique. Not painted on, there are no drips. The letters almost look stencilled. Odd calligraphic font, somewhat antique. “You’re going to take the whole wall panel for testing, of course?”

“’Course. And the carpeting along with the bodies. It’ll be the easiest way to move them.”

“She’d probably have a cow over it,” said Sherlock, glancing down at the woman’s body. “House-proud, the place is more like a museum than a home. Convenient for us, of course. It’ll make it easier to see what’s out of place.”

“How do you know –“

“Something else will be out of place? There always is.”

The living room was really two-thirds of a single “great room” or “open plan living area”. The other third was occupied by an ornate imitation antique dining room set, with entrances onto a kitchen and a glassed-in patio. Through the glass panels, it was obvious that the back garden was as immaculate and over-groomed as the front, and undisturbed. Sherlock took two steps into the kitchen, and pointed. “And there we have it. Something out of place.” A brown leather-look folio lay in the middle of the kitchen floor. “Strangers break into the house, the husband is waving his shotgun about, and instead of going for the phone to call the police, she grabs – that. The intruders made her drop it when they dragged her into the living room and then ignored it themselves as inconsequential. But why would she want it?” An evidence marker and two photos later, he picked the folio up and flipped through it. Clear plastic pockets containing business cards for reference, the usual – plumbers, electricians, painters, gardeners, auto mechanic, hairstylist, physician, physician, physician, solicitor – criminal defence? The last page had only one card. Sherlock read the front and back carefully, then carefully tugged it out, replacing it with yet another evidence marker. Business card cut slightly larger than normal, heavyweight paper, not standard cardstock. Offset print on the front. ‘Dolores Jane Umbridge. Senior Undersecretary to the Minister.’ Doesn’t say Minister of what, though. Definitely not a government-issue card. And on the reverse, handwritten in pink ink, with a fountain pen, no, a calligraphy pen with a non-standard nib, ‘Tear to Contact’. The card got its own evidence baggie. “Be very careful with that.”

The living room was now occupied by the gurneys which had been brought in from outside, and the body-removal people were cutting the bloodied patches of carpeting around both bodies so they could insert them, carpet and all, into body bags on the gurneys.

Not feeling it necessary to go back through the crowded room, Sherlock kicked off his soiled shoe covers and left the kitchen via the door into the front hall.

The boot cupboard was now open, and several pairs of garden wellies and a pile of cleaning supplies were just to the right of the door. The lower half of a female forensics tech protruded from the cupboard; her torso was twisted so she was facing up at the bottom of the stairs that formed the ceiling. “Inspector! I think there’s something you should see in here!” came her muffled voice from inside the cupboard itself.

Lestrade knelt beside her and tapped her on the knee. “Take a picture. I doubt the rest of us can get in there.” He was still holding the photographer’s digital camera, and passed it in to the tech along with a ruler and a sticky-backed evidence tag. There were a few flashes, and the camera reappeared at the cupboard entrance in the young woman’s hand. Lestrade looked at the pictures on the camera. “A couple more, if you would? John?” John passed her his cell phone, and the tech took a few more pictures with it. “Now just hang on there, I’ll get the other camera …”

“Oh, it’s quite cosy in here. No rush,” came a cheerful voice.

John and Sherlock examined the pictures on John’s phone, and looked at the ones on the police camera while the DI went to locate one of the film cameras. On the bottom of the third step, behind a loose veil of cobwebs, there was writing clumsily executed in blue finger paint, with a multi-coloured frame around the words. HARY’S ROOM, it said. On the right side of the frame was a small child’s handprint in red paint. Hiding it. Wanted to claim the space, but not have it be easily seen. Sophisticated thinking, for a child that young. Is the name really HARY or is it a misspelling of HARRY?

“What do you think?” asked John. “Kid taking over the cupboard as personal play space? Am I going to be finding signs saying ‘MANDY’S PLACE’ in the closet in a few years?”

“Possible. Not enough data. Do we know what the son’s name is yet?” he asked Lestrade as the DI returned.

“It’s Dudley!” came the voice from inside the cupboard. “It was on some pictures in her wallet.”

“Promote her,” Sherlock told Lestrade, pointing at the protruding legs. Then he knelt abruptly and looked closely at the floor where she was lying, and the back of the cupboard door. “And after she’s done, get someone in here with the Luminol. Floor, walls, door.

“You think the killers hid something in here, maybe?”

“No, there’s nothing fresh, but there might be something very old,” he said as he stood.

“If it’s old, would it be connected to this?”

“We can’t tell unless we check it, though, can we?” This whole thing had become most marvellously intriguing. Was the message on the wall left for Dudley, or this Hary or Harry? Harry Dursley? Harry Something Else? “Do we have anybody upstairs yet?”

“Anderson and his team,” said Lestrade.

“I can only hope they haven’t trampled all over everything important,” said Sherlock.

“At least he’s less argumentative than he used to be. Go on up, I’ll finish down here. And get started on locating Dudley and this Harry character.”

Sherlock walked slowly up the stairs, inspecting the gallery of family photos hung on the wall as he went. Mother, father, son. No sign of another child. Unless he was the one holding the camera? John followed, stepping carefully so as not to drop dust and cobwebs on the young tech who was still in the cupboard below the stairs.

The upper floor of the house had a bathroom ( nothing interesting ) and four bedrooms of various sizes. The two that faced the street were, in Sherlock’s opinion, the least likely to be of importance, so he only gave them quick glances before moving on. He pushed open the first. Guest room, even more hideous wallpaper than the rest of the house, hasn’t been used in at least three years, boring. The room across from it was already open. Master bedroom, signs of interrupted dressing, man’s wallet and keys on dresser, open shotgun case on the floor, boring.

The two rooms at the other end of the hall, overlooking the back garden, had more privacy and were more likely to contain something unusual. One of the doors was open, flashes from inside the room indicating that a photographic team had beaten him to the punch. Sherlock stood in the doorway, his eyes flicking around the room. Bedroom, practically a shrine. Furniture sized for an adult, décor says young man. Outdated computer system, neat stack of computer games, none current, school boxing trophies on the bookshelves, but no books. Posters removed from the wall but not replaced. He stepped into the room briefly and looked more closely at some framed clippings on the wall. Articles tracing the semi-professional boxing career of one Dudley Dursley, ending thirteen years ago. Closet and dresser both empty. “The son’s room. He moved out long ago, but his mother refused to accept it and has kept his room ready ever since, just as it was when he finished school and left home.”

Sherlock stepped out and John darted in to grab a few quick shots. Meanwhile, Sherlock watched the forensic technicians edging past each other out in the hall. As Anderson went past him, he reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.

“What?”

“Lestrade said to search everything top to bottom, did he not?”

“Yes, so?”

“So how many times are you going to walk past that door?”

“It’s the bathroom. We already did that.”

“No, the very odd door next to the bathroom.”

Anderson just looked puzzled; Sherlock expected that. So did John. Sherlock did not expect that .

Sherlock took one step to cross the hall and tapped his fingertips on the door in question. Solid-core door instead of the hollow-core doors used elsewhere on this floor. Five deadbolts on the outside, all locked. Doorknob installed with the lock on the outside instead of the inside. Hinges switched to the outside. Cat-flap installed by a poor craftsman at the bottom of the door. A bolt on that as well. “ This isn’t a bedroom door. This is the door to a prison cell. You really didn’t see it?”

Anderson shook his head dumbly. “Just a blank wall, I swear.”

“I didn’t see it either,” John said. “It wasn’t there.”

Sherlock removed his hand from the door.

“… and now it’s gone again,” said John.

“What’s gone?” asked Anderson.

“’Curiouser and curiouser,’”said Sherlock.

Sherlock’s fingers touched the door again, and gasps and mutters from the crowd now packing the upstairs hall proved that the door was visible to them again. He slid his fingertips gently down the painted wood, maintaining contact with it as he undid each deadbolt from top to bottom. Then he twisted the doorknob, found it locked as well, not that he was surprised by that at this point, and unlocked it. He wasn’t sure what he expected when he finally opened the door. It could be anything. Chains and shackles. A cage. Even the desiccated corpse of a prisoner ignored for fifteen years or more. He really, really hoped it wasn’t the child. Hary. Harry. Whatever its – his, most likely – name was. Cases like that were the worst, and in this case, he couldn’t even have the satisfaction of seeing the perpetrators imprisoned. Because they were already, horribly, dead, and he was supposed to be finding out who killed them.

He turned the doorknob and swung the door open. A rush of hot, stale air, scented with the odour of roasted dust and overtones of teenage male, issued from the opening. But no scent of death or rot. That was a good sign, one of the few they’d encountered so far. “John. Can you see into this room?”

“Yes.”

“The rest of you?”

There were multiple variations on “yes”.

“Good. Somebody make sure that door does not close again. Take it off the hinges, if you have to. I want John and the photographer in here. Nobody else yet.”

He took one step in and began inspecting the virgin crime scene. Crime scene? Yes, the condition of the door and the bars on the window said it was definitely a crime scene, even if the crime was committed years ago. He turned in place, noting the major items . Cheap chipboard wardrobe. Window with bars mounted into the frame. Child’s desk, corkboard mounted on the wall. Bookshelf, empty, probably liberated from a rubbish tip. Trundle bedframe with link spring support and cheap mattress. Intended for temporary use but obviously used on a daily basis over a period of time. Cheap, threadbare sheets, not matching, thin blanket, bed neatly made. Pulled away from the wall at an angle. Why?

He directed the photographer (and John) to take pictures of the bed in place, then tugged it away from the wall. Aha. A loose plank in the floor. Scratches on the floorboards around it indicate it was pried up and replaced multiple times. A hiding place, then. The only place this child could have kept anything he considered private. It’s out of place now, though. He carefully removed the board, which came up to reveal a surprisingly large space between the floor joists. Mostly empty. Crumbs, a few very old candy beans – probably a food stash, not uncommon for neglected children – a feather? No, a cut quill pen. Trimmed with a knife the old way, before metal nibs became available. Right-handed user. Black, probably from the right wing of some species of corvid. Dried ink on the tip. Feather is dried out, several years old, but not antique. Very curious.

Carefully, he placed each item in bags, getting samples, and then, remembering the writing in the cupboard downstairs, turned the board over to see if the child had put his name here, too. And froze. The bottom side of the board was covered with curious, angular symbols. Faint parallel lines drawn in pencil with the aid of a straightedge, but not a ruler – regular distances weren’t measured out, this was eyeballed. Symbols neatly drawn between the lines with black ink, using an irregularly-tipped pen. The quill? Most likely, but test the ink to be sure. “John? I need you to look at this. And bring your camera. Quickly!”

He tilted the board so John could get a clear shot. “It’s the Blind Banker all over again!” he said enthusiastically. “Though hopefully we won’t need two entire libraries to decipher these.”

John smirked at Sherlock. It was rare that he got one up on the detective, and he was going to enjoy this. “Nope. Only one book. And I have a copy of it at home.” John turned the board around so it was ‘right edge up’ in his estimation. “These are Dwarven Runes. Created by Professor J. R. R. Tolkien for his books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings . The ones they made the movies from.”

Sherlock looked blank.

“ The Hobbit , starring Daniel Radcliffe as Bilbo Baggins, Christopher Lee as Gandalf and Jeremy Irons as Smaug? The film series that made Radcliffe a star? Lee's last great role? Okay, when this is over, we’re going to spend some quality time with the DVDs.” John was a voracious reader of anything and everything, a habit he’d picked up in Afghanistan, where the few books people brought with them had been passed around and read and re-read during the long periods of boredom in between the short periods of panic. These days he had an e-book and was a regular patron of the library, or else the Watsons’ book shelves would have made Sherlock’s overflowing ones look positively austere. Of the books that he did keep in hard copy, the Tolkien books, in leather-bound editions, took pride of place and were well-thumbed. He was almost as fond of the films.

“When were these books published? And the films?”

“The book was World War Two-ish, I think. The Lord of the Rings movies were what, twelve, fifteen years ago now? And they just finished the Hobbit series last autumn.”

“So the child who lived in this room may have been familiar with the books but not the films, depending on when he left. A reader, unlike everybody else in this house.”

“Conveniently for us, there’s an appendix in the back of the Lord of the Rings that shows the Dwarven Runes and their English equivalents. They were used as an alphabetical substitution cypher in the illustrations for the books.”

“I’m not sure that’s an alphabetical substitution,” said Sherlock, contemplating the Runes, “unless it’s for a very strange language indeed. Let’s see if there are more. We need a larger sample.”

Once they started looking for them, they found the Runes and some other odd symbols all over the place, scratched ( drawn with a stylus, not inked ) into the white paint on the door frame, the window frame ( signs of significant repairs to this wall; the window frame is newer than the other woodwork in the house – additional scratches on the window frame look like some kind of animal claws – a bird? – four talons, two facing front, two to the rear – some sort of raptor – marks from several animals of different sizes, not just one ), and the inside of the bed frame. Somebody out in the hall spotted a set of Runes on the back of the door which had been removed and was leaning up against the wall; these Runes circled around a spectacular seven-circle classical labyrinth. Fingerprint powder made all the designs and claw marks easily visible, and copies were made for Sherlock as well as for the police. The printing powder also showed a smudged line running between the lines of the labyrinth from the opening at the base to the centre.

The rest of the room had its own clues, though nothing quite as intriguing as the Runes. Wardrobe empty except for one greyish gym sock belonging to an extremely overweight teenage male. A collection of biros with no ink and pencils worn down to nubs – sharpened with a knife, not a pencil sharpener – in the top desk drawer, but the other drawers empty except for dust and a few shreds of paper. Traces of white paint on the tips of the biros. The knife is not in evidence. Nothing pinned to the corkboard, although holes and gouge marks show that it was used in the past. A dozen push pins neatly arranged in the upper right corner, organized by colour. A lucky technician found a calendar from 1995 that had fallen down behind the desk. Days of the summer holidays, starting with June 22, were crossed off. The last day crossed off was August 1. The only other note on the calendar was September 1, where “Escape from Durzkaban!!!” was written in the square in blue ink, probably from one of the expired biros. Durzkaban? Unusual word, comprehensible from context, but etymology of the –kaban element unclear.

The tossing of Number Four, Privet Drive was finished as far as Sherlock and John were concerned by early afternoon, though the forensics teams would be labouring far into the night. Lestrade approached them as they left the house. “Okay, next steps. My teams are going to canvass the neighbours – maybe find out more about the missing upstairs tenant. Don’t know if it’s relevant, but if he came back …”

“After twenty years? Doubt it,” said Sherlock. “He wanted to escape, and escape he did.”

“Yes, well, maybe that message was for him – maybe trying to lure him out of whatever hole he hid in. I’ve got people checking the Registry, but maybe somebody here remembers him. The bodies have been transferred to St. Bart’s for autopsy. I was thinking you could maybe go and observe that, and start work on your samples there. Or accompany the canvassing team. Or go do something mysterious which won’t make any sense to me until later, at which point it will become obvious. Your call.” A series of beeps came from John’s pocket. “Speaking of calls…”

John checked the texts. “Okay, my wife has checked the Registry. Vernon and Petunia Dursley have one son, Dudley, born June 23, 1980, still living, not married. Vernon had a sister, Marjorie, never married, died three years ago, COD was heart failure. Petunia had a sister, Lily – she and her husband James Potter died on the same day, October 31, 1981, no cause given, oddly enough. They had a son, Harry James – Harry seems to be his full name, not a nick – born July 31, 1980. Harry Potter is a fairly common name, and Mary’s found at least six of them already, so no idea if he’s married, alive, or dead. Still checking to find the right one.”

“How the hell do you get that info before we do?” asked Lestrade.

“It’s all in the public records, and Mary started looking before your people did,” said John with a shrug. “Since today is this Harry Potter’s 35th birthday, I think we know who the ‘Happy Birthday’ message was for.”

“But were the murders intended as a gift or a threat?” mused Sherlock. “John, you go to the post-mortem. Bring the sample box. I’ll accompany the canvassers for a bit and join you there later.”

The Case of the Missing Wizard
Chapter 3. Six Impossible Things

When John arrived at St. Bart’s, the bodies of both Dursleys were laid out, still clothed and with plastic baggies over their hands, in the morgue room reserved for police investigations. The pieces of bloody carpet had been removed and bagged so they could be gone over for trace evidence, though there was just so much blood on them that it would take a real effort to find anything else.

Molly Hooper was bustling about laying out the equipment trays and preparing stacks of evidence bags and sample dishes while she waited for the arrival of the “official” police medical examiner. Regulations required two for suspected homicides, which this most definitely was. While Molly was primarily employed by St. Bart’s, she also had the necessary credentials for CID, as long as one of the police pathologists worked with her. This worked out well for everybody, since Bart’s had its own lab facilities and could get fast test results.

“Oh, John, hi!” said Molly as he pushed his way through the double doors. “Is this one of Sherlock’s, then? Silly me, of course it is. Such unusual murders, and you here … is he going to be coming along?” She glanced past John, eager to see if a tall silhouette was just outside the doors.

“He’ll be here in a bit. He’s doing some canvassing work, if you can believe it. Sent me ahead to give you a hand if you want.”

“And pick my brains and read all my notes and then tell me what I missed. I know how it works.”

“I kind of expected you’d already be elbows deep in Vernon there.”

“Be kind, John. The poor man can’t defend himself.”

“Yeah, well, from what we found at his house, he may not have been a very nice man at all.”

“Doesn’t matter. No matter how … not nice … he may have been, he didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserves this.” She gestured at the table where the body was covered with a plastic sheet – a fabric one would have been ruined in seconds and probably stuck to the body.

John felt properly chastened. Molly was one of the nicest, most mild-mannered people he knew, but she was a staunch defender of the dead. Yes, she gave Sherlock body parts to experiment with – but only from corpses that had been donated specifically for study; St. Bart’s being a teaching hospital, there were actually a fair number of those. Anybody else, no, no matter how interesting the detective might find them. And right now, she was perfectly correct. “Sorry. So what are you waiting for?”

“Dr. Patel. Even with traffic from the Yard, he should have been here half an hour ago, and I’m beginning to get wor – Oh!”

The door swung open, but the person who entered was definitely not someone who would have been named Patel. He was a short man, fair-skinned and with sandy blonde hair a shade lighter than John’s own liberally mixed with white, and about thirty years older – he was slightly stooped but still moved well, wore oval bifocals and a comfortable, casual suit. John could see himself becoming this man as he aged, assuming he didn’t get himself killed chasing after Sherlock. He’d draw the line at the bowtie, though.

“Dr. Mallard!” Molly gasped in pleased surprise. “It’s so good to see you again! I thought you’d retired.”

“No, only semi-retired, my dear. I still get to pull rank on the really interesting cases. Which is why I’m here and Dr. Patel isn’t. Will you introduce me to your handsome companion?”

“Oh, I’m sorry – Dr. Mallard, this is Dr. Watson – he does consulting with the Yard sometimes. On the, um, ‘really interesting cases’.”

“Pleased to meet you then – I’m surprised we haven’t run into each other before,” said Dr. Mallard, reaching out a hand for John to shake. “Was it Afghanistan or Iraq? I trust you’ve recovered from your injury?”

John let out a delighted laugh. “You know, you’re the second person that’s started a conversation that way. It was Afghanistan, actually, but a few years ago now. What, um, what tipped you off?”

“Oh, your hairstyle, your stance, even your clothing, the choice of colour, says ‘former military’. You’re here, and Molly said ‘Doctor’, so that means RAMC or possibly an embedded medic in the Army. You’ve got the alertness – the situational awareness – that says you were in an active theatre, possibly support for the front lines. No rear echelon hospital for you, so regular Army it was. No tan, but your skin still shows the effect of the sun – that takes a long time to leave you. Afghanistan or Iraq, a few years ago. Given your age, you’d probably still be in the service by choice – likely made Major at least by now if you were halfway competent – which means you were invalided out with a serious injury with lasting complications that affected your skills, though it wasn’t crippling – my sympathies for that, by the way. I spent some time in Afghanistan myself, and I fear my generation’s effort only made things worse for yours. There’s something about Afghanistan that means whatever we do there is the wrong thing. You seem to have adjusted since coming home. Whatever consulting work you’ve been doing, it seems to have done well for you – it’s kept you fit and active and maintained your alertness. You’re not a lazy man. Boredom would not suit you. Married, so you’re here in a professional capacity and not hitting on Dr. Hooper – or you’d better not be, anyway – she has dangerous friends.” He cocked his head, eyes twinkling. “So, how’d I do, Dr. Watson?”

“Simply marvellous. And please, call me John. No, I’m not hitting on Molly, I’ve known her for years and while she is a wonderful woman, my wife would kill me if I even thought about that. Molly and I have a mutual dangerous friend who does much the same thing as you just did – I’d like to get you together and watch you deduce each other while we just sit around in admiration.”

“Until they get bored and start deducing us,” said Molly. “That – that never ends well. For me, anyway. But you could also have just seen John’s blog – you could have got everything from that.”

“Why would I have read his blog before I met him?” asked Dr. Mallard.

“’Interesting cases’ and all.”

“Hm. Sounds like I’ll have to look at it. But for now, we do have an interesting case immediately to hand. Shall we, Molly? And Dr. Watson, I assume you’ll be observing as part of your consultancy?”

“It’s why I’m here, yes. If there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know. I’m not a forensics specialist, but I observed the state of the bodies in situ , and I’ve had more than a little practical experience with this sort of thing recently.”

“Very well. Let’s robe up and get started.”

An hour later, the three were deep in the middle of the autopsy of Vernon Dursley; he’d been photographed head to toe and then his clothing carefully cut free from his body and bagged for further examination. Sherlock had been correct – the slash wound that killed him went down several inches below his belt line, yet the belt, trousers and pants were undamaged. Dr. Mallard pursed his lips over that, but did not comment. Molly was checking the hands to see if there were skin scrapings beneath the nails (there weren’t), when suddenly there was a squelching noise and rather a nasty stink filled the room.

“What, sphincters release now ?” gasped John as Molly cranked up the ventilation. “That should have happened at TOD, not … seven hours later!” he finished, looking at his watch.

“I’ll just take samples of all that,” said Molly. “Fortunately we’re almost at the point where we can wash him off anyway.”

Shortly afterwards, the air was clear and the search of the body for trace evidence was complete. Molly took samples of the tissues which had been slashed to see if there was any damage from heat, radiation, or anything else that might indicate the wound was more than a simple cut, the body was washed, and the wash water run through a strainer to collect any trace particles they had missed.

John eyed the clock. It was nearing five, Sherlock hadn’t arrived, and the work on Petunia Dursley hadn’t even been started yet. Ordinarily there would have been a second team working on her, but somebody in authority had decided that Dr. Mallard – who had by now decided that sharing an autopsy made one friends and instructed John to call him “Ducky” – and Molly should do both of them.

“Will you be okay with putting in a little overtime, Molly?” asked Ducky. “I’d rather get at least the forensic exam done on her tonight – we can do the full medicals on both of them tomorrow. What do you think?”

“Overtime is good. I’ll just get some coffees and we can take a break before starting on her. John, will you be staying for this one?”

“I’d like to, if you don’t mind, and if you could grab me a tea while you’re going for coffee, I’d be grateful.”

“Sure. Thanks for not just assuming I’d – just thanks.”

“Yeah, that’s the tall rude berk that makes those assumptions. I’m the short polite one.”

After the break, they had changed into fresh scrubs, gowns, and gloves, when Sherlock barged in. “How are you doing with the bodies, John? Tell me you’ve got something interesting – I’ve just spent the most boring hours of my life interviewing suburbanites.”

Molly hastily introduced Sherlock to Ducky and hoped her action would not cause the world to end in the next week or so. You never knew, with Sherlock. Or Ducky, for that matter. Fortunately Sherlock seemed to be more interested in the corpses than in the pathologist. Sherlock was quite interested to hear that the odd rigidity of Vernon’s body had relaxed, and put on gloves to poke him a bit.

“Get anything interesting from the suburbanites?” John asked.

“Only one of the neighbours had lived there long enough to remember our missing person,” said Sherlock distractedly as he tested the flexibility of Vernon’s joints – not much, as he was now in full rigor, but actually better than he was earlier in the day . “Seems he was definitely a neglected child, also used as a commodity – the uncle arranged ‘odd jobs’ for him to do for neighbours, then pocketed the cash. The family didn’t need the money. He apparently just did it to be cruel. Mrs. Sheffield said she used to hire the boy to do garden work just so she could get a good meal into him occasionally. Didn’t blame him at all for running away – probably the best thing for him – she saw the uncle trying to strangle him in the front garden. He got loose and walked away before she could call the police about it. That was apparently the last time anybody ever saw him.”

“Would she recognize him if she saw him again? I know it’s been years, but –”

“No, more’s the pity,” said Sherlock, looking over to the group by Petunia’s autopsy table. “She’s gone blind – diabetes. Told me all about it ad nauseam . Got a good description of what he looked like then – short and thin, small for his age – my guess is undernourishment – dark hair, green eyes, glasses – description could fit hundreds of boys – fortunately he had a rather noticeable zigzag scar to serve as an identifying mark –”

“Yes, well, could we get on with this now, and maybe you could discuss that at the pub later?” asked Ducky. “It’s waited twenty years, I’m sure it can wait a little longer.”

Sherlock looked at Ducky evenly for a moment. “I’m sure it can.” He turned back to Vernon’s body and looked down at him. “I’m beginning to really not like you, Mr. Dursley. Probably a good thing you’re already dead.” He pulled the plastic sheet up to cover the corpulent man before crossing to the other table. “Very well, Doctor. What do you make of these very curious knots on our female victim? Found the ends of the cords yet?”

Despite much searching, none of them could find the ends of the cords binding Petunia Dursley. Ducky eventually decided, regretfully, that he would have to take a scalpel to them. “Doubtless the end will pop out the minute I cut it,” he said as he applied the surgical steel to the silken cords just between the pinioned ankles. He was wrong – the elaborately knotted cord disappeared entirely, as if it had never been. “Oh blast!”

“What the hell happened?” asked John, inspecting the places where the cords had left impressions and bruises on the woman’s bony ankles. He glanced up at Sherlock, who had gone totally still as he tried to process something completely unexpected.

“Did that just – turn into dust?” asked Molly, peering over Ducky’s shoulder. The doctor was as frozen in position as Sherlock, his scalpel still held in mid-air.

“I … don’t know,” the doctor said slowly. “Get me some tape. If there are any particles maybe we can pick them up off her skin and trousers. Don’t move too fast, we don’t want air currents to move them around.”

There were no particles to pick up with the tape, however. The four of them stared at the other cord around Petunia’s wrists, wondering if that, too, was just going to disappear.

“I wouldn’t recommend cutting that,” said John quietly. “Let’s see if we can just work it off her hands. It’s not like we have to worry about hurting her.”

In the end, they had to dislocate one of the victim’s thumbs in order to get a single loop of the cord to slide over her hand, but as John said, she wasn’t going to feel it. Once the first loop was off, the rest of it came loose enough to slide off in a single knotted mass.

Sherlock and John attempted to straighten it out and find the ends while Ducky and Molly began their work on the corpse. “Attempted” turned out to be the operative word. When they were done, they had a single long loop with no ends and one impossible knot in it. They both went over it, John with his sensitive surgeon’s fingers and Sherlock with his magnifying glass, trying to find a place where the ends might have been spliced together. They couldn’t locate one.

“This,” said Sherlock slowly, “is quite extraordinary. It can’t exist – it shouldn’t exist, rather, but it does.”

“Since it clearly does exist, there must be an explanation for it,” said John, reasonably.

“This is at least the fourth – maybe the fifth – extraordinary element in this case. Where there are so many gathered together, they must be related. But how? John, you’re the science-fiction aficionado – how would you explain this in a story?”

“Look, I like reading the stuff – I don’t know enough to write it.”

Sherlock picked up and coiled the cord, running his hands over it again with his eyes closed. “It feels … cold to the touch. Smoother than it should be. Silk is supposed to be sleek, but … I can’t feel a trace of weave in this. It looks like it’s woven, but it isn’t.”

“Maybe … in addition to being one cord, it’s all one long fibre. Twisted together, the ends fused together seamlessly, or hidden inside where we can’t see it. Holding itself together on a molecular level. And when you break its continuity – it just disintegrates from the broken point on out. Leaving … microparticles … maybe even nanoparticles too small to detect. Brownian motion would have taken the ones from the other cord all over the room by now. I just hope there’s no physical effect from inhaling them, we’ve all … God, maybe I should write this stuff.”

“So how would you make it?”

“I haven’t the foggiest. That would definitely be a ‘sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic.’”

“Excuse me,” said Ducky, “but are you seriously proposing magic as an answer to the issues at hand here?”

“No, quite the opposite,” said John. “Merely that any advanced technology can seem like magic to those who don’t understand it. Clarke’s Third Law. The minute we do figure it out, it’s no longer magic, but science. Remember how digitalis was discovered, Ducky.”

Ducky’s frown cleared. “Ah, yes! Quite.”

“I don’t know that what I just came up with is how this stuff,” John said, taking the cord away from Sherlock and beginning to twist it into a neat skein, “actually works. Probably isn’t, but it’s something to start with, anyway. But a whole bunch of disparate ‘sufficiently advanced technologies’ can only mean one thing to me.”

“Government R&D programs? High-tech espionage?” asked Sherlock.

“I was thinking more an episode of Doctor Who , but yeah, you’re probably more on the ball. Though I’m still going to start running if I see an old blue police box on the corner of Baker Street.”

“Which way?” asked Molly, giggling.

“Towards it, naturally. I think I’d make great companion material. I could get Sherlock to give me a recommendation.”

“No, no, I’d want to go too! … What? Even I get that reference.”

“Right. So we’re going to go with something high-tech?” said John. “Maybe government, but I’m not about to ask Mycroft because he’d tell us but then he’d have to kill us. I doubt it’s something the Dursleys ever even knew about, this seems to all be circling around the nephew … probably because of the parents, maybe they left some information where somebody else knows about it? Formulas, blueprints, that sort of thing? Something the boy might have been able to claim the rights to?”

“Something that was high-end thirty-four years ago would hardly be in demand now, or worth killing for. Any patents would have expired long since.”

“Maybe blackmail material, then? Something that was only slightly damaging then, but could mean the end of a highly lucrative career, respect and privilege now?”

Sherlock tapped his lips with one finger. “Interesting speculation, but that’s all it is. We should not allow ourselves to try to fit the evidence into a narrative. Rather, we should see where the evidence itself takes us. Though you might want to keep notes for your book, John. We still have to do the analysis on the samples from the house. Molly, we’ll be up in the lab.” He picked up the box and swept out with it, leaving John to drop the skein of cord into an evidence bag, leave it for Molly, and hurry after him.

It was nearing eleven when they finally made it back to Baker Street, to find Mary nodding off over a stack of books and papers on Sherlock’s desk in the sitting room. “Oh thank God! Finally, an adult! I’ve spent the entire day with a six-month-old, an owl and our landlady! Do you know how exhausting she can be?”

“Who, the baby or Mrs. Hudson?” asked Sherlock while John gave Mary a peck on the cheek.

“Both – either! And the owl isn’t helping. I caught her trying to feed one of her treats to Amanda. Fortunately Amanda doesn’t seem to like chicken jerky.”

“She was just trying to help,” said Sherlock. “Weren’t you, girl?”

His pet, Gwenhwyfar, perched on top of the huge Victorian-style cage that took up the corner of the room, made a noise halfway in between a bark and a laugh.

“There, see? Be thankful it wasn’t a mouseball.”

Mary shuddered. Gwenhwyfar barked again and jumped down to Sherlock’s shoulder, cuffing him lightly with her damaged wing and grooming his dark curls with her beak. She would never fly freely, but the sitting room of 221B had been set up with her in mind, with a variety of perches and furniture that she could jump between and sit on when she felt like being out of her cage, which was entirely up to her – the door had a latch that she had learned how to operate with her beak. Sherlock had almost forgotten what furniture that wasn’t protected with carpet remnants looked like, given the damage her talons did. She was intelligent enough to keep from damaging his shoulder and his clothing, though.

“Anyway,” Mary said, yawning, “let me show you what I’ve got before I stagger up to bed. Pictures and transcripts are in the usual places in your dropboxes – I still need to edit but they should be readable. I made prints and did some research on those Rune things – sorry to tell you this, John, but they weren’t the runes from The Lord of the Rings .”

“Damn! Thought I finally had one right. Sure looked like them.”

“They’re actually Anglo-Saxon Runes, an alphabet derived from the Norse. Tolkien used them in The Hobbit , but came up with his own system of Dwarven Runes for the Rings books, so you were half right. They were used for general writing, but also for casting spells and such back in the day.”

“Were you able to translate any of the writings from the bedroom?”

“Some of them. The board, and the bedframe. Part of it’s actually modern English, just written in the Runes phonetically. Some of it looks like bastard Latin and a little Greek, and there are some bindrunes I’ll have to work on when I’m not so tired my eyes are crossing.”

“Bindrunes?” asked John.

“Those twisty bits that look like a whole bunch of runes jumbled on top of each other? That’s what you get when you take the different runes of a word or even a sentence and combine them into a design using the common elements. Some of them are traditional combinations, some were probably created by whoever did the inscribing. This one looks like a signature – it’s repeated at the beginning and end of every inscription: the letters H and P and an S hanging down beneath them. The inscription on the board is a statement that HPS controls the space and no one else can see it, repeated three times in English and in Latin. The bed is a statement that HPS sleeps well and has no bad dreams.”

“Just simple statements?”

“The idea is that by making a statement in the sacred letters that something is true, it then becomes true. Or something like that. John. Sleep.”

Sherlock frowned at the pages covered with inscriptions and Mary’s precise handwriting on the translations. “Go to bed, Mary. I’ll be downstairs running a few more tests; I can go over these while things percolate.”

Mary nodded and yawned again.

“Good night, Sherlock. Try to get at least an hour of sleep, all right?” said John, scooping the baby out of her day cot.

There was no response from Sherlock, but then John hadn’t expected one. He also didn’t expect Sherlock to actually sleep, not this early in so intriguing a case, but he felt he had to at least suggest it. With the tiny pink bundle that was his daughter cradled carefully in his arms and Mary trailing along behind, he headed up the stairs to get some sleep himself.

Sherlock moved the samples downstairs and set up a few simple tests, though as far as he was concerned, the most important one had been done at the hospital, when he tested the blood from the wall to find out which victim it came from and found it was a combination of both, used like paint in an airbrush. Final confirmation would, of course, have to wait for DNA tests, but those took time and were beyond his capacity to run himself. The murderers had left very little that could be used to identify them. Shoes custom made, not standard sizes, shaped to the feet. No identifying marks on the soles, but bespoke shoes cost a pretty penny – there are few cobblers that do that kind of work these days. No skin scrapings underneath the fingernails of the victims – there was no fight. No stray hairs or used tissues or cigarette butts or anything that a careless criminal might leave behind. No trace of a firecracker or weapons fire that might have caused the cracking sound heard by the police – no bullets, smoke burns or scorched spots, no scent of gunpowder. Not even traces of skin cells – either Petunia Dursley’s or the person who bound her – on the odd silken cords. There had been a few fingerprints found on the furniture and plenty in the upstairs room – those were being run through AFIS by the police, and hopefully there would be results in the morning, but he didn’t like having to rely on hope. The most interesting thing he had running now was the chromatograph analysis of the ink from the tip of the quill and the ink used to write the runes on the floorboard. He was willing to bet they were the same, and also that they were not standard inks, but he hadn’t got where he was by betting on things.

He used Mary’s charts and worked out the rest of the runic writings except for the bindrunes. As Mary had said, a combination of English and Latin and some words that sounded like Latin but were either bastard Latin or unbelievably obscure. But some of them … ‘ alohomora ’ written along the door frame just where the bolts were, running down to the doorknob. Neither Latin nor Greek. Possibly Arabic with the Al- initial syllable? And just opposite it, between the hinges – ‘ colloportus ’ . Not real Latin, but a combination of Latin roots. Something to do with doors, obviously. The fingerprint powder showed streaks indicating that a finger had been run across those words, top to bottom, many times. Very odd.

The most curious of all was the inscription that ran around the edge of the labyrinth, which had taken two sheets of paper which were then carefully taped together to match the lines of a full-sized copy. As Mary had noted, it both began and ended with the rune combination that the boy used as his own personal marker, HPS. Or perhaps it was HSP, since the S rune dangled off the shared element of the H and the P. Either way, it was puzzling, since Harry Potter’s middle name was James, not anything beginning with ‘S’. From there, it read “STRENGTH TO MY FRIENDS : CONFUSION TO MY ENEMIES : DESTRUCTION TO THE DARK LORD” in English. A bit of teenage hyperbole there, perhaps? And again, there was that smudge of fingerprint powder clinging to the design that showed the labyrinth had been traversed, more than a few times, with a fingertip.

Almost without thinking about it, he reached out with his own right index finger and placed it gently at the entrance of the labyrinth. Slowly, smoothly, he ran his fingertip through the first few rounds. Shortly, though, he began to feel a certain … resistance. As if he was pushing his finger through treacle, although for some reason the paper did not shift on the desktop beneath the force of it. It forced him to put more effort into the next few loops. The resistance increased the further he went, until at the last, he was sweating with the exertion of pushing it around the last circle. Then his fingertip slid into the centre point and all resistance ended. Sherlock jerked his finger away from the paper, panting and wondering why it had never occurred to him to simply lift his hand away at any point. Surely he could have done that. He looked closely at his fingertip. Nothing. No change there, though it tingled slightly and he could have sworn it would be blistered from the friction against the paper. Likewise there was no sign of disturbance on the labyrinth itself – no wrinkles, no tears, no smudges, though he was sure fingerprint powder would show he’d traced it.

With a low sigh, he pushed the sheet away from him. It was true he rarely slept during a case, but there was nothing more to do at this point and he was suddenly feeling fatigued. As John had said, surely an hour or two of sleep wouldn’t hurt. He stuffed all the runic transcriptions into a desk drawer and headed up the stairs to 221B. The huge yawn that overtook him halfway up confirmed that he’d made the right decision.

The Case of the Missing Wizard
Chapter 4. Into the Past

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Lestrade called while the Holmes-Watson household was still at breakfast. Dudley Dursley had been located and was fortunately immediately available – he was, in fact, currently residing in Pentonville Prison, the very institution Jim Moriarty had attempted to crack open three and a half years before. The prison break had mainly failed because the security systems there were so antiquated that Moriarty’s henchmen had succeeded in setting off the alarms but the cells had not actually opened. Thus no one had actually escaped, and Dursley was therefore available to be questioned regarding the murder of his parents – not that Lestrade actually thought he was involved, at this point, but the questions had to be asked. Lestrade offered to swing by with Sergeant Donovan and pick Sherlock and John up on his way to the prison.

Sherlock complained about having to ride in the back seat of Lestrade’s car (claimed there wasn’t enough room for his legs), but at least it wasn’t a panda. He shut up after Lestrade handed him Dursley’s records to review, which was what he’d wanted all along.

“Dursley’s record is a mile long,” said Lestrade for John’s benefit. “Juvenile record reflects the usual bullying, vandalism, and petty thefts. His adult record started with minor assaults and he eventually worked his way up to manslaughter – would have been felony murder, but he had a good barrister. He tried to make it as a professional boxer, but couldn’t keep his weight down enough even for the heavyweight classes. After his career ended, he hooked up with one of the minor mobs, did general muscle work, that sort of thing, until he beat a bartender to death with his bare hands and we caught up with him. Keeps getting in trouble and time added on to his sentence, so I doubt he’ll be on the street again any time soon.”

“How about Potter?” cut in Sherlock. “Any priors?”

“Nope, no record, no wants, no warrants. Either he’s kept his nose completely clean all these years, or he’s very good at staying under the radar. Thing is, no tax records or property ownership records either. So he’s working completely on a cash basis and probably owes a ton of back taxes – we can hold him on that, if nothing else, when we catch up with him. This is assuming he’s still alive. Curiously, his father – James Potter, no middle name – doesn’t seem to exist either, outside the bare records of birth, marriage, and death. No NHS records, no education records, no taxes, no work history, nothing. The mother had the normal birth, education and health records until she finished primary school, then she disappeared as well. We have the marriage and death records for them, but even those are just bare bones. We couldn’t find any records of grandparents or anyone on the father’s side. The mother’s side goes back a few generations until it gets lost in the mass of Evanses in Wales and Brownes and Prestons up north. Nothing unusual, though.”

“That’s an impressive run-down. I didn’t know you guys did genealogy like that,” said John.

Lestrade snickered. “Donovan got curious and plugged him into one of those ancestry sites, and that’s what came up.”

“She’s finally learning, then.” Sherlock gave back the Dursley file and assumed his ‘don’t bother me, I’m thinking’ pose for the rest of the drive.

Dudley Dursley had blond hair in a buzz cut which did nothing to hide his incipient bald spot, watery blue eyes, sloppy prison tattoos on his hands and forearms, and the build of a Russian powerlifter. His solicitor was much less memorable, but competent.

Sherlock, John and Donovan watched from the darkened observation room. Dursley and his solicitor sat on one side of the interrogation table, facing the mirror so they could see him clearly, and Lestrade sat with his back to them.

“Whatever it was, I didn’t do it,” Dursley said as the DI sat down. His smirk said he clearly thought this was a clever way of opening the conversation.

“Didn’t say you did,” said Lestrade easily. “Pretty sure you didn’t, matter of fact.”

“What, then? I’m not going to nark on anybody, so if that’s what …”

“Mr. Dursley, please. I’m not here to question you. I’m here because … I’m sorry, there’s no good way to say this … Mr. Dursley, yesterday morning your parents were found dead in their home in Little Whinging. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Dursley sat back in his chair, which groaned under his bulk. He looked stunned. “Dead?”

“Yes, sir.” Lestrade was playing the sympathetic ‘good cop’ for all he was worth.

“Both of them? At the same time?”

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

“What happened? Was it a fire? Or … did something … someone …?”

“We are currently investigating their deaths as homicides. I would like to assure you that we are doing everything we can to apprehend the perpetrator or perpetrators.” He very carefully did not ask whether Dursley might know anything about the murders. If the man made a statement, it had to be completely voluntary. The solicitor would stop him saying anything otherwise.

“What, I mean how … was it … did somebody shoot them, or …”

“No, Mr. Dursley, I’m afraid not. I can’t tell you the details, because of the investigation, you know, but …”

“It was something weird, wasn’t it? Something mad that makes no sense. Am I right?”

“Well, there were some odd things …”

Dursley’s lips twisted. “I fucking knew it. Bet you anything it was that freak. Or his freak friends.”

Bingo!

“Mr. Dursley, if you think you might know …” Lestrade said, at the same moment the solicitor tried to stop Dursley from speaking further.

Dursley shook off the solicitor’s advice. “Shut up, I’ll talk if I want to. This isn’t about me, it’s about him .” The listeners in the observation room could hear the hatred, loathing, and more than a little fear in the big man’s voice.

“Him?”

“My mother’s fucking nephew. Harry Potter. Him. ”

“Do you mind if I take some notes?” Lestrade asked, pulling out his notepad and a pen and pretending the whole session wasn’t being taped. “Thanks. So this Harry Potter … your mother’s nephew … wouldn’t that make him your cousin?”

“If you say so,” said Dursley, shrugging. “I don’t like to think he’s any relative of mine. Not a freak like that. I’m a Dursley, not a fucking Potter. ”

“Okay, so this Potter. Can you tell us what he looks like?”

“Scrawny little git. Kind of short and skinny, but he was starting to grow a bit before he left. So he might be taller now. Black hair, always sticking up in all directions. Mum tried to shave it all off once, but it grew right back. Green eyes, and wore these stupid round glasses. Mum said we had to pay for his glasses, but she got the cheapest and ugliest frames they had.” Dursley snickered at the thought. “Oh, and he had this really ugly scar, kind of zigzag, on his forehead just over his right eye. Never healed right, always looked all red and angry. Sometimes he put his hand on it like it hurt. I hope it did, anyway.”

“Do you know if your parents had any pictures of him? School pictures, that sort of thing?”

“Why would they want pictures of the freak?” asked Dursley in a scandalized tone. “Kept him home from school when Picture Day came around. He got in one of the Christmas pictures accidentally once. Mum cut that part of it off. Said she didn’t want him spoiling the memories.”

“Pity, it’ll be harder to identify him then. And how long did he live with you?”

“Mum said he came to live with us before I was two, when his parents got blown up. Guess he was about the same age as me. Think I’m a bit older, but not much – we were in the same classes in school. He left when I was fifteen.”

“Do you know his birthday?”

“No, it never mattered to me. Not like he ever got a party, or presents. I think maybe in the summer sometime.”

“Harry short for something? Harold? Henry?”

“Dunno. Just Harry as far as I know.”

“So he’d be about your age, now. How did you get along with him?”

Dursley shrugged. “Tried not to, mostly. He kept stealing my stuff, eating my food. When we went to school I made sure everybody knew what a freak he was, made sure nobody played with him or like that. Me and my friends, we taught him his place so he wouldn’t bother the normal kids. Taught him not to get better grades than me. Dad said it was all right, made the teachers stop complaining about it.” He grinned sadistically. “Potter may have been a freak, but he yelled the same as anyone else when we knocked him around. Chased him up trees, all the way up on the roof of the school, once.Taught him not to try to be friends with real people. Freaks don’t get to have friends. Shouldn’t even be allowed to live around regular people. Dad said he’d kick him out as soon as he could – send him to go live with the other freaks. But he left on his own before then.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Like I said, when I was fifteen. He disappeared. Ran away from home.Had a fight with my Dad and left. I wasn’t there that night. Didn’t even realize for a few days he hadn’t been around.”

“He take all his stuff with him? Or did your folks get rid of it?”

“Must of done. Didn’t really think about it then. Don’t care now.”

“So why do you think he might have something to do with this?”

“’Cause it’s always him. It’s always been him. Anytime something weird, something freaky happens, it’s him. He was always sneaking around, listening at windows, stealing stuff, breaking stuff. One time he even set a bloody snake on me! Twenty feet long, it was! Almost killed me!” He paused, clearly remembering things he didn’t want to think about. “He invited some of his school friends over once and they blew up the fireplace and gave me poisoned candy and laughed. He tried to blow up my Aunt Marge. He ruined a big deal for my dad’s company by attacking a client that came over for dinner. Threw a trifle dish right at her head! Waste of a good pudding, criminal if you ask me! Some of his friends tore out a window and ran off with him for the rest of the summer. We had to have people over to fix the wall.”

“Slow down a bit. Tore a window right out of the wall? Which window?”

“The one on his bedroom. Upstairs rear.”

“Why’d they do that?”

“So he could get out, right? My dad locked him in his room. So they ripped the window right out. My dad tried to stop them, and they dragged him right out the window and he fell in the bushes.”

“So they were outside the upstairs window in the back garden and managed to drag your father out through it? How’d they manage that?”

“Dunno. Freak stuff. That’s what they do.”

“This the window with bars on it?” asked Lestrade. “I’ve been to their house, you see.”

“Yeah, the one in my second bedroom. The one where he slept.”

“Your second bedroom?”

“Well it was when I was a kid. Kept my toys and stuff there. Mum and Dad moved him into it when his school letters started coming.”

“Where did he sleep before then?”

“Um, somewhere else,” Dursley said. “And after he left we just closed the room up. In case he came back. ‘Cause he always did keep coming back, up till then, anyway. They’d come part way through the summer and take him away and he stayed at that freak school for Christmas and Easter hols – but then he’d be back when school ended for the summer. Dunno why he couldn’t have stayed away then, too. Not like we wanted him back. Don’t think they wanted him either – the freaks have their own police and they sent him notices about stuff. But that summer, he was just gone, and didn’t come back the next year at all. They sent somebody to look for him – some Ministry woman talked to my Mum about it. No idea if they ever caught up with him, though.”

“Which Ministry? Education, health, what?”

“Just ‘the Ministry’, far as I know.”

“Okay. What school did he go to?”

“Some freak school, up North, I think. Called H … Ha…. Damn, I can’t even say it. Full of freaks like him – ‘s where he learned all the freak stuff. They didn’t wear normal uniforms, or have proper books – big old fashioned leather-bound things is what they had, and robes and cloaks, and they wrote with feather pens! And he kept an owl in his bedroom. What kind of freak pet is a fucking owl ?”

“Did he have a wildlife rehab license?”

“No. He was twelve , how was he going to get a wildlife wotsit license? My dad would never let him have one anyway.”

“Okay, we can add charges for possessing an illegal owl when we catch up with him. What kind of owl was it, anyway?”

“Now you’re just thinking I’m an idiot, or lying. I’m not lying. He did have an owl. Dunno what kind. It was white, and he let it fly out the window when my Mum wasn’t looking. It brought things to him sometimes. Look, this is all about when he was little. What about what he did to my parents?”

“So far you haven’t said anything about what he might have done to your parents.” Only given him a damn good reason for running away. “You said you haven’t seen him for twenty years.”

“Haven’t. Doesn’t mean he didn’t come back.”

“Okay. Going back a bit, you said he came to live with you when his parents got blown up. Do you know any more about that?”

Dursley shrugged. “Dad always said they were drunks. Probably got involved in some lowlife thing.”

Lestrade thought that was rich, coming from someone like Dursley.

“Or maybe some terrorist thing, wasn’t that happening back then? I dunno, ancient history to me. That’s what that giant guy said back before he went to the freak school the first time, anyway. Too bad they didn’t all get fucking killed, I say. World would be better off without the fucking freaks at all. It’s not like they’re regular people.”

And so it went, for an hour or more, with Dursley’s stories getting both more outlandish and more incoherent. The only thing he was sure of was that Harry Potter had disappeared twenty years ago, almost to the day. And that somehow, he was sure, Harry Potter was responsible for the deaths of his parents. Eventually his solicitor managed to stop the flow of babble and turn Dursley’s attention to the matter of his parents’ estate. Convicted felon or not, he was their only heir and would inherit everything, although it would have to be managed for him until he was released – if he ever was. Lestrade turned over a card for the Dursleys’ solicitor that he’d found in the brown folio – most likely the man had their Wills and would be able to start the process of putting the estate through probate. Then he gave Dursley and the solicitor his own cards, telling them that if anything came up or Dursley remembered anything else, to call and let him know.

Then he stepped into the next room, signalled the three occupants to come out, and they moved down the hallway to where they wouldn’t be heard. Sherlock was uncharacteristically silent, John was spitting mad, and Sally Donovan was deeply shaken.

“So. What do you all think?”

“I think that Dudley Dursley is the most repellent individual I have ever laid eyes on,” said John. “Maybe even more so than Jim Moriarty. Moriarty at least was insane. Dursley doesn’t have that excuse. It’s no great loss to the world that he probably won’t live much longer.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Congestive heart failure,” said John.

“He’ll be shanked in a stairwell,” said Sherlock simultaneously.

They looked at each other and Sherlock gave a grim little laugh.

“Either way, all that lovely money he just inherited from his parents …” John started.

“… will go to his nearest relative, the cousin that he hates, instead. Assuming he’s still alive,” finished Sherlock.

“And assuming Dursley’s not smart enough to make a Will,” put in Lestrade. “Which he probably isn’t.”

“I think … I think I will never call anyone a freak again,” muttered Donovan, glancing once at Sherlock and then turning her gaze back down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she breathed.

“The word ‘freak’ means an eccentric or nonconformist person, or something markedly unusual or irregular,” said Sherlock. “Both of which I am. The term is accurate, although it is always – always – offensive. I doubt you merely intended to be accurate. You intended to offend. You are a competent enough officer, Sergeant Donovan, and may one day head your own team. I think we will both appreciate not working together then.” He turned to glance back at the door to the interrogation room where Dursley was still meeting with his solicitor. “Dudley Dursley, and probably both of his parents, has taken his use of the word to an extreme – he fears what he doesn’t understand, and what he fear he hates and attempts to wipe out of existence. I don’t doubt that Dursley’s hatred of ‘freakishness’ by now extends to anything outside his sphere of understanding. Science, the arts, anything beyond the most brutish examples of human relationships.Such a limited view of the world. I do not believe that your view is anywhere near as limited, Sergeant Donovan. I would be sorry if it became so.”

Sally Donovan understood that her apology – such as it was – had been accepted, and that neither of them would ever mention this exchange again.

When Lestrade checked his phone after leaving Pentonville, there was an urgent text from Anderson.

Have AFIS match on Potter prints.

SH will want to know.

Bring him in soonest.

Anderson

Lestrade showed the text to Sherlock and John. “Looks like Anderson’s got something interesting.”

“Anderson? He couldn’t find his nose in front of his face. He couldn’t see a door in front of his face,” Sherlock scoffed.

“ I couldn’t see that door in front of my face,” said John. “Let’s see what he’s got, at least.”

The ride back to the Yard was mostly silent, each person in the car wrapped in their own thoughts. Anderson intercepted them as soon as they came off the elevator, handing Lestrade a file folder. Lestrade flipped it open to glance at it on the way to his office, and then came to a dead halt in the middle of the floor, Donovan almost colliding with him.

“Well, shit,” he said.

“What?” Sherlock made a grab for the file, which Lestrade jerked away from his fingertips.

“My office. Now.”

Lestrade waved Sherlock and John into the visitor’s chairs in his office and both Donovan and Anderson crowded in behind them, Anderson, surprisingly, closing the door to give them some privacy. Lestrade dropped into his chair and opened the file, perusing its contents while John and Sherlock waited with growing impatience. Finally he finished reading, closed the file and put it on his desk. There was honest confusion in his face as he looked up at Sherlock. “So when exactly were you going to tell us? I assume you had some reason, other than just having us on?”

“Tell you what?” asked Sherlock.

“This!” he said, rapping his knuckles on the file. “You had to know it would come up.”

“Perhaps if you’d let me know what it is I’m supposed to know, I could tell you why I didn’t tell you.”

“I think I actually followed that,” said John. “That frightens me.”

Lestrade pushed the file across the desk to Sherlock, who opened it, skimmed the front page, frowned, flipped through several pages of attachments, returned to the front page and reread it slowly and thoroughly, which surprised John no end; Sherlock never reread anything. Sherlock closed the file thoughtfully and put it on the desk in front of him.

“Well. That’s … unexpected.”

“Did you really not expect us to find out?”

“I … I didn’t know there was anything to find out. This is as much news to me as it is to you.” He was not used to being caught flat-footed.

“This raises more questions than it answers, but at least now we know where Harry Potter is,” said Lestrade.

“Really? Where?” asked John. After so long working with Sherlock, he knew exactly what question to ask and when to ask it to allow his friend and partner his moment for the dramatic revelation.

To his surprise, it was not Sherlock who answered.

“Two feet to your left,” said Anderson. “Sitting right next to you.”

Donovan, who had been leaning against the doorframe, jerked upright, and John abruptly sat up from his relaxed position in the chair. Lestrade simply nodded.

Sherlock opened the file again and pushed it over in front of John.

“That is the preliminary report on the fingerprints from Privet Drive,” he said in his usual ‘explaining things for the slow people in the room’ tone. “As predicted, most of the prints from the main body of the house itself belong to Vernon and Petunia Dursley. Two prints from the living room might be the killers’, or might be the next door neighbours’. Prints belonging to Dudley Dursley are on the trophies and some of the personal belongings in his room. There are prints from several other individuals from the smallest upstairs bedroom, none of which are in AFIS. The vast majority of prints from that room, and the child’s hand print from under the stairs, come from one individual whose prints do show up in AFIS.”

He pulled two exhibit pages from the file and arranged them neatly on the desk. One showed the child’s handprint from under the stairs and a set of prints presumably assembled from the mass of prints from the bedroom – only a print for the left little finger was missing – and the other a copy of an official NSY fingerprint card dated several years before. The name on the card was clearly typed.

“They are mine, including the small scar on my left index finger that shows up on the prints from the upstairs room, but not the ones from under the stairs. This confirms that I must, in fact, be Harry Potter, though I have no memory of it, nor any idea of how it might be possible.”

“How can you not know what your real name is?” asked Lestrade. “I could understand it if somebody changed it when you were a baby, but Harry Potter was fifteen when he disappeared.”

Sherlock looked evenly across the desk at Lestrade. “My legal name – the only name I remember having – is William Sherlock Scott Holmes.”

“The only name you remember –?”

“What do you know about retrograde amnesia, Inspector Lestrade?”

Lestrade was more than a bit unnerved by the eerie calm on Sherlock’s face. “Amnesia? Convenient excuse for people not remembering things when they do something stupid and get themselves hurt. Happens all the time on telly. Get hit over the head, and bang! The character doesn’t remember anything. Then they get hit again, and bang! Remember everything again.”

“It’s not as common in real life as on telly,” said John. “But it does happen. It’s a neurological condition usually connected with trauma, brain injury or illness affecting the brain – not a mental illness, but a physical one. There are varying degrees of loss, and it can be permanent. Getting hit on the head again does not restore what’s lost – in real life, it would just make matters worse by inflicting more trauma. Amnesia does also sometimes happen for psychological reasons, usually stress or PTSD, but those generally resolve themselves within a few weeks or months when the stress is relieved.”

“On August 2, 1995, just after eight o’clock in the evening, a car belonging to a couple returning home from dinner in Devon, just outside of Exeter, rounded a curve and struck a teenage boy who ran out of the dark toward them,” said Sherlock, still in a totally calm voice. “The boy slid across the bonnet of the car, struck his forehead against the windscreen hard enough to shatter it, and rolled off onto the road as the car came to a sudden halt. The boy was taken to hospital, where he was treated for a broken leg, severe concussion, and skull and facial injuries that necessitated a certain amount of reconstructive surgery. There was extensive bruising on his body from the accident, but in addition, there were bruises on his throat, indicating that a strong person with large hands had attempted to strangle him more than two but less than six hours before. His body bore other signs of moderate to severe neglect and abuse. The boy remained unconscious for three days, and even after he regained consciousness, it was several days before he was coherent. It was eventually found that he had no memory of his identity or his past. He was diagnosed with retrograde amnesia as a result of trauma to his brain when he struck the windscreen and then hit his head again on the pavement. He had no identification and no one ever reported him missing. After he recovered from his injuries enough to be released from hospital, he was going to be put into the local foster care system, but the driver of the car and his wife offered to take him into their care as a foster child. They later adopted him and gave him the name William Sherlock Scott Holmes. My first memory is of waking up in the neuro unit of Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital. No amount of therapy – and I went through a lot of therapy – ever enabled me to retrieve any memories prior to that date.”

He took a deep breath and continued. “Mrs. Sheffield of Number Seven, Privet Drive and Dudley Dursley both described Harry Potter in the same way – slim, even skinny build, recent growth spurt, black hair, green eyes, wore glasses. He had a zigzag scar over the right eye. That is a remarkably good description of what I looked like at the time of the accident – except for the scar, which may have been assumed to be part of the facial injuries from the accident. It will not have escaped your notice that I still fit that description for the most part – my hair curls when it is long, but is uncontrollable when shorter, which is why I wear it longer than is strictly fashionable. I am told that my eyes become green when I am angry or subject to other strong emotions, and I have no doubt that Harry Potter was angry or distraught most of the time. Until I was seventeen I wore glasses; I later had laser surgery to correct a rather appalling vision problem.

“The last time Mrs. Sheffield saw Harry Potter, on the evening of August 2, 1995, he was being choked or strangled by his uncle, Vernon Dursley, but he managed to break away and leave the scene. Bruises would have been left on his throat from that action; there are pictures of handprint bruises in my hospital file and the ‘John Doe’ police file that was opened at the time. Perhaps they can be matched with Dursley’s hand span.

“Finally, according to Dudley Dursley, Harry Potter owned a pet white owl. As all of you know, I also have a pet owl – a snowy owl, in fact, which I found injured and adopted shortly after I left the hospital; rehabilitating her became part of my own therapy. I now suspect she may be the same owl. Damage found on the window frame of Potter’s bedroom matches damage done to my furniture over the years by Gwenhwyfar’s talons, further backing that up. Pets are sometimes known to seek out their owners over long distances. Gwenhwyfar is more intelligent than your average dog or cat, and may have been able to find her owner, though she was injured in the process and almost died.

“I have no idea how Harry Potter managed to disappear from a suburb in Surrey just before sunset to be struck by a car in Devon, almost 200 miles away, a minimum three and a half hour drive, less than two hours later. Nevertheless, I must believe it happened, and that I am Harry Potter.” As he said the last words, something sizzled down his spine and made his skin tingle. The reaction puzzled him, but there were already so many odd things about this case that he dismissed it for the moment – he’d figure it out sooner or later, he was sure.

“So Mr. ‘I Remember Everything’ didn’t remember who he was?” said Donovan, her tone clearly disbelieving.

“That is why I became Mr. ‘I Remember Everything’,” said Sherlock flatly. “Having lost all knowledge of myself, my own history, once, I determined never to let it happen again. Curiously, I had retained part of my prior education, but it was spotty at best – you may recall my difficulties with the solar system. I had to relearn everything. Memory training was crucial to that.”

“But this ‘retrograde amnesia’ wouldn’t change being a psychopath now, would it?” Donovan asked. “According to Dursley, Harry Potter was a right little hellion.”

“For God’s sake, Donovan, give it a rest!” Lestrade growled out. “Dursley’s not exactly what I’d call a ‘reliable witness’.”

“I’ve told you before, I’m a high-functioning socio-“

“You’re not that either, Sherlock, give it up,” said John, interrupting him. “You’re neither a psychopath nor a sociopath. You pretend to be for your own reasons, but you’re not. What you are is frighteningly intelligent and bored, which is a bad combination but not pathological in any way.”

“Thought you were a medical doctor, not a shrink,” said Donovan.

“Did a psych round in training, we all did. And I did a refresher recently. Had to, with everybody flinging around psychological terms they don’t know the meanings of,” John said, glaring at her. “I’m not immune to it myself, Greg can tell you I thought I had Sherlock pegged as Asperger’s for a while, but that didn’t quite fit either. Knowing about all this makes a lot more sense. It also puts a new light on things Mycroft said when we first met.”

“He worries about me,” said Sherlock. “Because he doesn’t know who or what I was, and what might come out of my past to touch the rest of the family. At one time he honestly thought I manipulated our parents into taking me in, to take advantage of the Holmes heritage for my own purposes, but I believe he has recovered from that particular delusion. Over the years he has managed to develop something like brotherly affection, though he expresses it in odd ways. It hasn’t stopped him using my skills and abilities – using me – when he thought he needed to. Including setting me up for Moriarty – all for the good of the country, you know.”

“Yeah, so he has some paranoia and control issues going there. Those are his problems, not yours,” said John.

“You didn’t know about any of this, though? His best friend?” Donovan asked.

“Personal history and not my business, until all this came up. Last I heard, people are entitled to private lives. He doesn’t know what happened to me when I was fifteen, and if he does I’ll thank him not to say it,” John said loudly, stilling Sherlock, who had just taken a breath to speak. “I doubt you’d want your teenage years spilled all over, either. None of this is any of our business except in how it’s connected to the Dursley matter.”

“Right. The Dursleys,” said Lestrade, who appeared grateful for the chance to turn the conversation back to the case. “Who apparently abused their nephew verbally and emotionally, neglected his physical requirements, treated him as a house slave, and allowed their son to abuse him physically. Who didn’t bother to report to anyone that the child for whom they were responsible had run away. And who were killed yesterday morning by a person or persons unknown, either attempting to leave a message for this child – now an adult – or working on his behalf.”

Sherlock’s calm face became totally impassive. Like stone.

“Are we back to that again?” asked John angrily. “Because you know where that kind of thinking got us the last time.”

“Different situation entirely,” said Lestrade. “And for the record, I don’t believe it for a second. That man” – he jerked his thumb at Sherlock – “would not arrange for the murder of two individuals, no matter how repellent, twenty years after getting away from them. Especially since he doesn’t even seem to remember them. There are doctors’ statements to verify that, Sherlock? Hospital records, maybe? We’ll have to talk to your parents, too.”

“Of course. I was also written up in a few psychological journals. Shall I get you copies of the articles as well?” Sherlock snapped.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” said Lestrade, letting Sherlock’s anger roll off him. “Get it on record, there won’t be a problem. We’ll get copies of the ‘John Doe’ records from Devon. As far as I’m concerned, that covers that. But that still leaves open the thought that somebody might have done this on his behalf but without his knowledge , okay? Like they thought they were doing him a favour.”

“It also leaves open the question of whether they were really trying to attract the attention of Harry Potter – or of Sherlock Holmes,” Sherlock said slowly. “If they somehow knew he and I were one and the same. Which in turn means they know more about me than I knew about myself until just now. And that concept is very disturbing.”

“So we dig. That’s what we do best. Sherlock, I gotta apologize up front, because it looks like we’ll be digging out some nasty stuff. It may – probably will – hurt you.”

“Better to know than not to. At least I know my own birthday now. I’m a year older than I thought – we had to guess, you see, and I was a bit on the short side then. And my birth parents’ names. That already makes it worth it. Give me a copy of the Dursley interview when it’s transcribed. We can try to find out exactly how much truth, if any, is in that mass of fairy tales. You work it your way, I’ll work it mine. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Sherlock stood up to leave and brushed past Donovan without comment but paused in front of Anderson. “This is the first time you have solved a major aspect of a case before I could. Congratulations. Don’t get used to it.”

The Case of the Missing Wizard
Chapter 5. Special Crimes Unit

A late lunch was barely over when Lestrade called again. He was blunt and didn’t waste time on preliminaries. “Sherlock.Bad news. We’re being pulled off the Dursley case.”

“What do you mean, ‘off’? By whom?” Sherlock put it on speaker for John and Mary’s benefit.

“Well, it seems it’s been kicked a couple steps higher than us. Special Crimes Unit is taking it over. They’ve already collected the bodies; my people are packing up all our files, notes, samples and evidence for them.” Lestrade’s voice sounded bitter. “I know I promised to work with you on this, but it’s out of my hands. Maybe, if we’re very good boys, they’ll let us know how it worked out. But I wouldn’t count on it.”

“No, that’s fine; I’ll keep working it from my end. I have copies of all the evidence, and—”

“Sherlock, I’m sorry. When I say ‘off’, I mean all the way off. And you too, not just the Yard. Look, they already knew you were involved, and they’re coming to pick up your stuff, too. Probably make you delete your files while they’re at it – and if you don’t do a total deletion voluntarily, they’ll arrange for a nasty accident to happen to your hard drive. SCU really don’t like civilians involved.”

“How can I not be involved at this point?” Sherlock paused and took a deep breath. “Did you tell them about my … connection to the situation?”

“No. They didn’t ask, and I figured that was up to you to do if you wanted. I even pulled the fingerprint card and Anderson’s written report out of the file. I’ll have him rewrite it without reference to you before we turn it over. That’s the best I can do to protect you. Personally, I don’t trust SCU as far as I can throw them – none of us do – but they’re the top investigative unit in the country – specialize in the really weird cases – and if they want the case, they get it. End of story.”

“I’ve never heard of them before, and some of our cases have been plenty weird.”

“You generally solve things so fast they don’t have time to get in on it. And they pick and choose the things they do go after – everything from confidence scams and fortune-teller fraud all the way up to arson, murder and terrorist attacks. If the Baskerville thing had been a Yard case, they’d have been all over it in a heartbeat. And we might or might not have seen Henry Knight ever again.”

“This isn’t a police group, then. Who is it really? MI5? I wouldn’t be surprised, this sounds like something Mycroft might pull …”

“It’s not MI5. We know them, and this isn’t them. Look, just box your stuff up for them and let it go. I’d really hate to see you disappear along with the files. You can expect two DIs to show up at your place probably in fifteen minutes or so. They just left here, so it’ll take them at least that long to get there. Male is named Thomas, female is Granger. He’s tall and black, she’s short and white with her hair in a bun. She did most of the talking. This pair is at least pretending to be polite, not like the last couple of times SCU grabbed a case from me. Cooperate with them, and we can all bitch about it at the pub Friday night. I am sorry." There was real regret in Lestrade’s voice as he rang off.

A stunned silence filled the sitting room for a moment.

“What do they think they—” sputtered John.

“It doesn’t matter what they think,” snapped Sherlock. “We’re going to have company, we’d best get ready. Mary, if you would – Damn!” The front doorbell, the one that was located under the shiny new Holmes & Watson Investigations plate, rang shrilly. Sherlock flipped open his laptop and called up the video from the security camera over the door. Two people, black male, white female, she’s pushing the doorbell button again. " Coptic Patriarchs ! Now!”

Mary snatched up the baby and headed for the door and the stairs up to the Watsons’ suite at top speed. In seconds, she and Amanda would be locked in the nursery, which was set up as a safe room with a duplicate security panel.

Sherlock picked up Gwenhwyfar, who was napping on the back of the sofa. “Gwenhwyfar! Up! Still!” With a boost and a flap, she reached the top of her habitat and immediately became so still that she could pass for a stuffed owl. Given some of the other items of décor in the sitting room, she fit right in. Then he headed into his bedroom to make some swift preparations.

Meanwhile, John sat at Sherlock’s desk, waiting a moment until the flash of a light indicated that Mary and Amanda were safe upstairs. An adjoining light meant that Mrs. Hudson’s security door had also been locked. Then he turned on the intercom, answering calmly, as if he didn’t suspect anything was wrong. “Holmes & Watson Investigations, may I help you?”

“Hello? May I speak to Mr. Holmes, if he’s available? It’s about a case.” The woman’s voice was rich and pleasant, her accent educated and refined but not overly posh, with just a trace of something Scots to it.

“One moment, please.” He switched off the intercom and watched the two on the video for a second before turning to Sherlock as he came out of his bedroom. Granger was facing the door, waiting patiently for a response, while Thomas looked casually up and down the street. “They’re very calm. If I didn’t already know they weren’t clients, I’d suspect, because they’re not nervous enough.”

“Good. Here’s your bud,” Sherlock said, passing John an earbud and mic set. He was already wearing one himself. “Get them down into the office. We’ll see what else we can shake loose.” They’d played this many times – friendly, unassuming John lured interviewees into a false sense of security, and then Sherlock came in and took them apart.

John buzzed the two visitors into the cramped foyer, and then headed down the stairs, leaving the door to 221B open just a bit, as was their custom. Sherlock watched on the video as John opened the inner door, greeted their “guests” and turned to lead them to the official “office” of Holmes & Watson, which was in the basement suite of 221C.

The video fuzzed out in a burst of static. So did the feed from the earbud.

A moment later, both returned as if nothing had happened, the video showing the second of the visitors passing through the outer door. Sherlock heard John’s familiar tread on the stairs coming up, followed by two other sets of footsteps. One light and fast, the other about my weight, taking the steps two at a time. Both wearing boots. The door swung open, and John, smiling as if nothing was wrong, escorted the pair into the sitting room.

“… And here we are. Sherlock, this is Her …”

“ Vatican cameos! ”

John was too well trained not to respond to that, and immediately flung himself to the front and left, grunting softly as he hit the injured shoulder, but rolling out safely behind his chair.

Sherlock rose to face the visitors, John’s pistol pointing squarely at them.

The woman froze; the man, just behind her, made an abortive movement with his right hand but stilled as Sherlock twitched the barrel of the pistol a fraction in his direction.

“Sherlock, what the hell! They’re clients! ” John gasped.

“What’s the status, John?”

“I, um, what?”

“ Coptic patriarchs , John. Do you remember that?”

“Er, yes, but I don’t … holy shit! ” John’s brain finally caught up. He glared at the two. “ What the fuck did you do to me?! ”

“I’m truly sorry, Dr. Watson,” said the woman, “but it is very important that we speak with Mr. Holmes. It’s a matter of the greatest—“

“Anybody going to die in the next five minutes?”

“No, but—“

“Fifteen?”

“No—“

“World ending in half an hour?”

“Might take a little longer than that,” she answered seriously.

“Then you could have waited just a bit while we did the preliminaries and then Mr. Holmes would have talked to you. Without you getting his partner well and truly ticked-off by hypnotizing me!” John was in full Captain Watson mode, getting just close enough to the woman to be in her face without being in Sherlock’s line of fire. “Did you think we wouldn’t notice ? You do know who you’re consulting with, right? Or does the Special Crimes Unit, whoever they are, just not believe in common courtesy?!”

The woman flushed with embarrassment and looked down. Her companion slipped in between her and John.

“I beg your pardon, Dr. Watson, but since I’m the one who, er, hypnotized you, I think you should yell at me instead.”

“Oh, good,” said John, just before he blurred into action. Less than two seconds later, the taller man lay on the floor, clutching a painfully wrenched arm and bleeding from the nose. “Because you, I can hit,” said John, as if nothing had interrupted his sentence. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Miss Granger. Don’t.” Sherlock’s gaze was fixed on the female DI; confident in John’s ability to handle the other man, he hadn’t been distracted by the altercation. The woman had taken a step towards John and DI Whatever-His-Name-Was Thomas, reaching with her right hand for something in her left sleeve. Too small to be a gun. Wooden handle. A knife? “Shooting police officers really isn’t my favourite thing to do. Too much paperwork.” He clicked the ‘K’ deliberately, partly to annoy her and partly to signal John to get the hell out of the way. He was still too close. Not that there was any place within the confines of the sitting room that was far enough away.

Her hand fell away from the handle of the possibly-knife.

John patted the groaning Thomas down briskly – he’d learned a few things watching Lestrade’s group over the years – and relieved him of what looked like a wooden stick about nine inches long that was mounted in a spring-loaded holster on his right wrist, and a leather folder from his right jacket pocket. The stick was a smooth, dark brown wooden shaft tapering to a rounded end, with a carved double spiral around the thicker end which afforded an excellent grip. A very unusual weapon; he wasn’t sure exactly how one would wield it effectively, since it had no point and was not heavy enough to bludgeon an opponent. He left the man groaning on the floor and moved to Sherlock’s side, flipping open the folder for inspection. “Warrant card. DI Dean Thomas, Special Crimes Unit, CID.”

Sherlock glanced down at it, actually did a double-take, and grabbed it out of John’s hand. Gold badge, purple enamel lettering. Dean Thomas, Auror. DMLE. Not a warrant card. Why did John think it was? What was an Auror? DMLE was no official group he’d ever heard of, and he’d heard of them all. Even the ones he wasn’t supposed to.“Miss Granger. Or is it Auror Granger?”

She drew in a single, almost gasping breath, and then steadied herself, facing Sherlock and his pistol down fearlessly. “Auror Hermione Granger, yes.”

“Your weapon, please. From your left sleeve. Draw it with your thumb and forefinger only. Give it to John. Do not point it at him.”

She did so, following his instructions exactly. It was another stick, not a knife, made of lighter-coloured wood than Thomas’s, with a carved vine, stained green but showing the signs of long wear, serving as the grip.

“Now the one in your right boot top.”

John looked at her right leg. It was a very shapely leg, one he would be happy to look at any time, but it was definitely not wearing a boot. It was wearing a sheer stocking and a black pump at the foot end. Yet, the woman bent down slightly (flashing a bit of cleavage in the process – he was married, not dead, and he noticed these things), slid her hand along her calf just below her knee, and drew out another stick from somewhere he couldn’t quite see. This one was black, with a knobbly textured grip, and had noticeably more wear than the other. It joined the first two in John’s hand.

“Auror Granger, please help your partner up, he’s only lightly damaged. John, please escort our guests down to the office where this conversation should have been in the first place. I’ll just lock your sticks up in the safe and join you. I won’t damage them, but I don’t think you should be having them at the moment.”

John knew quite well that they didn’t have a safe, but what Sherlock wanted hidden stayed hidden. They exchanged the sticks for the gun, and John took the chance of tucking it back under his jumper where it belonged. He’d be able to get it out fast enough if needed.

By the time Sherlock joined them in 221C, Thomas and Granger were seated on the sofa with Thomas holding an ice pack on his nose and Granger holding one on his elbow, and John was in his own chair, having metamorphosed from the dangerous Captain Watson back to kindly, amiable Dr. Watson. His legs were crossed and he had a stenographic pad resting on his knee, ready to take notes. It really was an amazing transformation. Only Sherlock could tell that he was still fuming and ready to deal with either opponent at an instant’s notice.

Sherlock dropped himself into his own chair – there were no desks here, it was designed to make clients feel at home, and also to allow for freedom of movement if things went pear-shaped – and smiled brightly at the two Aurors.

“So! Perhaps we could start by asking you why someone from a society of magic-users living hidden alongside our own would decide to murder two perfectly average, though repellent, non-magical individuals in such a way as to reveal their society’s existence.”

John dropped his notepad.

Coolly, Sherlock continued, “And what does it have to do with a twenty-year old missing person case? Why you are trying to claim the case is obvious – you must be from some kind of magical law enforcement agency, trying to get things under your own aegis so us non-magical people won’t find out – you’re a little late on that, by the by. And, last but not least, what exactly did you do to my partner, and can you undo it immediately?”

Thomas leaned forward and dropped his head between his hands. “Oh God, we are so screwed. ‘Go to Azkaban. Go directly to Azkaban, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 Galleons.’”

Granger, however, seemed pleased. “Wonderful, Mr. Holmes. I had not expected you to get it so quickly. I anticipated at least a half hour of explanations.”

“Are you insane?” John sputtered at Sherlock. “ Magic? ”

“You quoted Clarke’s Third Law just last night.”

“Yeah, but that was about technology looking like magic, not actually ....”

“You forgot the reverse: any sufficiently developed magic resembles technology. I could add the whole horse/zebra analogy, but that would be beating a dead … zebra at this point. So, since we can accept the existence of some sort of magical society as a given—“

“No we bloody well can’t! Sherlock, this is totally mad –“

“’I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw,’” quoted Sherlock. “And when it’s from the east I can tell a witch from a Jedi.”

Thomas groaned, his face still buried in his hands. “So, so dead.”

“Just look at them, John! Really look! It’s all there.”

“Perhaps you should walk him through it, Mr. Holmes. I confess, I’m interested to know where we slipped up, so we can avoid it next time.”

“To start, you should avoid getting across town in far less time than would be required by even the fastest taxi. Second, your clothing is rather inappropriate.”

“What’s wrong with their clothing?” asked John. “Looks perfectly fine to me.”

Sherlock looked puzzled for a moment, and then his face cleared. “Ah! It’s the bedroom door again! Let’s do comparisons. John, could you describe our guests’ clothing, accessories, that sort of thing?”

“You know I never do well at these things, but all right.” John took a deep breath and focused on the two people sitting on the couch. “Starting with Mr. … Thomas, was it? Very sharply dressed, black designer suit, white shirt, dark red tie with gold stripes, black socks and dress shoes.Gold cufflinks. I also know he’s got a wrist holster under his right sleeve, the jacket is tailored both to hide it and to allow easy access. A few wrinkles where I roughed him up a bit. Okay, um, Miss … yes, Miss Granger, no wedding ring, black skirt suit – seems to be the equivalent of Mr. Thomas’s, so maybe a uniform, but very high quality if it is. No tie, blouse worn with top button open. Sheer stockings, black pump with about a one inch heel. Black leather shoulder bag.” John wasn’t about to mention the very nice legs, not with his wife listening in to the conversation. “Both very professional overall, well groomed, overdressed for police officers, but not out of the realm of possibility if they really wanted to impress their audience. Sort of a Men in Black vibe.” He glanced over at Sherlock again. “How’d I do?”

“Very well, John, you’re getting quite good at this. That would be fine. If that was what they were actually wearing.”

The slight, ever so superior smile Auror Granger had been wearing suddenly disappeared.

“Miss Granger has had an active morning and her hair is coming a bit loose, she’s worn off most of her lipstick and not refreshed it – there are distinct marks where she’s been chewing on her lower lip. Her manicure was recent but there are a few chips missing – she’s been working with her hands. Her clothing, now that’s most interesting, her suit jacket and skirt are old-fashioned in style, not terribly well fitted nor suited to her figure, and the skirt has pleats that make it look more like a school uniform skirt than anything else, made of rough-textured dark red wool. Gold buttons, with an identical scratch mark on each one, evidence that they are all copies of one original button. No stockings, the skin on her legs is pale, not habitually exposed to light, so she’s used to wearing either trousers or a much longer skirt. Her bag is blue with beads and sequins adorning it – quite worn, out of date, and not at all coordinated with anything else she’s wearing. Brown boots, reaching to just below the knee, the right one with a built-in sheath for the stick you relieved her of earlier. The boots are custom made, heavy, shaped to the foot, half-inch heel at most. They’re working boots showing signs of wear and water stains; months old at least, possibly as much as a year. They don’t match the suit at all.”

He changed his gaze to look over the male Auror. “You looked at Mr. Thomas’s identification, and saw a warrant card for a Detective Inspector, something you are quite familiar with. I saw a gold badge from an unfamiliar agency, with an unfamiliar title. Mr. Thomas’s suit is black and better cut, but of similar fabric to Miss Granger’s; the gold buttons, however, do not have the scratch on them. The tie is years old and has seen heavy use; it must be a favourite. His shoes are also boots, black leather, ankle height but otherwise similar to Miss Granger’s, custom made, and have likewise seen heavy wear. The soles are heavily scuffed. I surmise that each of them was originally wearing another garment, which they have modified to appear like normal clothing, but Miss Granger in particular has not followed fashion trends, possibly since she left school. Which is the truth? It benefits them more to be seen as posh, put together, and impressive. Therefore what you are seeing is what they want you to see, and somehow they have a means of making you see it.”

“Why don’t you see it, then?” asked John, trying not to sound peeved about it.

“That’s a very good question. Possibly whatever effect Miss Granger and Mr. Thomas are using simply encourages people to see what they expect to see; thus you fill in the inadequacies in their garments. It may be akin to the Baskerville effect – it would be interesting to see if someone else would provide the same description unprompted, or if they would fill in details differently. However, I have no such expectations; I simply observe what is there,” said Sherlock, before addressing Miss Granger again.

“To continue: existence of a separate police force implies a whole society, with some sort of governmental authority. The need to get this case away from the Yard so fast implies that your society, or at least the government, feels the need for secrecy and wants to remain hidden. Inspector Lestrade informed us that your group has taken cases away from the Yard before, therefore there are continual contacts between your society and ours which you feel it necessary to manage by hiding them. The need for such policing also tells us that there are some individuals who either disagree or just don’t care to maintain this secrecy. The Dursley murders are a case in point.”

Sherlock steepled his fingers and looked at Granger coolly. “And I believe it is at this point that I must ask you what your intentions are. I already know far more about you and your society than you are comfortable with, more than your government would like. Inspector Lestrade implied that people who are involved with some of the cases your unit has taken over have disappeared; I believe he was warning me, however obliquely, not to talk with you at all if possible. Unfortunately curiosity is one of my major flaws, one that will probably prove fatal one day. But not today, if I can help it. I’m sure you can take away our paper files and the physical evidence, but I doubt you can wipe the Yard’s electronic files or ours. Even if you wipe our laptops the whole thing, including a recording of this conversation, will download again from the cloud in just a few hours.”

Mary, in the upstairs office, whispered a soft “righto” through the earbud to confirm that she would set it up immediately, if she hadn’t already. She had full access to everything from the safe room and knew how to protect the data.

“And if we don’t actively deal with it within a certain period, or if we turn up mysteriously dead or simply disappear, it might just go to some people that you really don’t want your society revealed to, I think. The British government might be a bit distressed to find out there’s an entire Ministry that doesn’t answer to it and that they have no control over.”

“Ooh, nice. On it,” came through the bud.

Mycroft might have his uses after all. Or not, given the tiny smile that appeared briefly at the corner of Granger’s mouth before disappearing again.

Granger and Thomas looked at each other and had one of those conversations that Sherlock and John sometimes had, conducted all in tiny flicks of an eyelid, a raised eyebrow, a twitch of a lip and a barely perceptible nod. Then she took a deep breath and sat upright, her bearing almost military, despite the best efforts of the sofa to draw her back into its cushions (a major reason why they’d bought that sofa – it was difficult for most people to get out of in a hurry).

“I will admit that I have conflicting sets of intentions here, Mr. Holmes – the professional and the personal. Professionally, as you have gathered, our objective is to retrieve any and all information and evidence you have regarding the Dursley murders and get you to delete it from your hard drives. We would then leave you alone, and gradually you would find yourself paying less and less attention to the matter. Within a week, you would barely remember the event except to be annoyed at us for taking a moderately interesting case away from you.”

John snorted. The idea of Sherlock ever forgetting something like that was ludicrous.

“That’s what our orders are, at any rate. I don’t intend to follow those orders.” Despite her formal bearing, she was wringing her hands together, betraying anxiety.

“You have correctly deduced the existence and secrecy of our society. You probably understand why it was necessary for us to withdraw several centuries ago.”

“The witch hunts of the medieval and Renaissance periods. The overwhelming fear of magic, of a power unknowable and unusable by normal people.”

She nodded. “For millennia, our people lived in societies intertwined with yours. We were healers, advisers, protectors of tribes and villages and kingdoms. And occasionally villains and criminals, of course. You probably know some of our names. Imhotep. Moses. Asclepius. Daedalus. Circe. Ptolemy. And the most famous of all, Merlin.Real people, not myths. A thousand years or so ago, however, things started changing. Magic and science and religion all became different things, and magic was driven into the shadows. The rope and the flame awaited those of us who did not hide what we were.”

“But that was centuries ago,” said John. “Surely in the years since….”

“Do you know when the last trial under the British Witchcraft Act of 1735 was held, Dr. Watson? It was during World War II. Admittedly it was under the clauses about practicing witchcraft fraudulently, but the fact remains that the Act, all clauses of it, was still in force at that time. It was only repealed in 1951. In some areas of Africa, fear of sorcery is still a valid defence for murder. But hiding is becoming less practicable now.”

“Electronic records,” Sherlock said. “Your people don’t show up on them. You didn’t have the paper records that were integrated into the system. The few records that exist would be bare-bones – anybody looking for detail would realize immediately that there’s a problem with them, as we did. I would be willing to wager, for example, that any records of your existence only go up to the age of eleven in detail – assuming that they’re there at all.”

“You’d lose that wager, Mr. Holmes. Both Dean and I were born into the non-magical world and we’ve made an effort to remain in contact with it – including something resembling accurate records. It is hard, though, and many of us don’t go to the effort.”

“Ah. There’s always something.” He continued to consider the matter. “It’s not just a matter of this one case, either – so much of our world’s work is electronic these days that you have no access to it. Possibly electronics don’t play nicely with magic – our cameras went to static when you hypnotized John. But you can’t hide completely. I would imagine the increasing prevalence of CCTV cameras in urban areas in the last decade or so would have had the same effect on the magical people as it has on the criminal classes, driving them off the main streets and into back alleys and less prosperous neighbourhoods and rural areas, if they do not want to call attention to it. Private security cameras, even more so. And if you’ve been isolated all this time … most of you don’t know … what to hide … from.”

Sherlock paused for a moment and got that blank look that John always associated with him accessing random facts somewhere in his Mind Palace and coming up with answers nobody expected. Sort of like adding two plus two and getting ‘fish’. Sure enough, it ended with a look of surprise and elation coming across the taller man’s face. “Oh! Oh! I think I’ve just solved three of Lestrade’s cold cases! Or close enough, I knew the why and the who, now I know the how, but proving it in court might be tricky. Doesn’t matter, that’s not my problem. Miss Granger, would you happen to be free next Saturday? I can get access to the Yard’s cold case files; we might be able to turn up something interesting!”

Her formal posture relaxed and she giggled, actually giggled, tucking one of her escaped curls behind her ear. “That sounds, it might be fun, yes.”

John was less than pleased. “Sherlock, did you just ask her on a date? To go look at cold case files?”

“No, that’s not … um, maybe. Yes?” He looked startled, as though he hadn’t been aware of how his request might be construed.

John rubbed his forehead wearily. “Sherlock, maybe you’re just distracted by the promise of something new and shiny, but may I remind you that we are here specifically because Miss Granger and Mr. Thomas are trying to, oh, take a major case away from us . I don’t think Greg would appreciate your giving her access to more!”

“I don’t think that’s a problem now, John. Because we’re going to have to work together on this, and frankly they need us more than we need them. I don’t doubt that the Dursley murder can only be solved with information they have, but that’s a minor puzzle. The missing upstairs tenant is more important. He’s the key to everything. But I don’t understand how.”

“It’ll take a long time to explain, Mr. Holmes. And right now I don’t have the time to do that, not fully. An hour or so at most. I promise I will explain everything when I can. But now … you’re right, we need you more than you need us. I would like to see you read in as a consultant to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, just the way you work with the police. We can start with just the one case. Harry Potter is a very important person to us, and you’re right, we lost him and can’t find him. If you could help us find him, it would go a long way to bringing our society out of the 19th Century and into the 21st. Even if you don’t take it as a consultancy with the D.M.L.E., I’d like you to consider taking it with me as a private client.” She fished into her pocket and pulled out a small black leather pouch, which she flipped to Sherlock. “I believe you need a retainer. This should do to start.”

Sherlock snatched the pouch out of mid-air automatically. He opened the drawstrings and slid a coin out onto his palm. There were several more in the pouch. Antique. Spanish.Gold. He raised an eyebrow at Granger.

“They’re real, Mr. Holmes. And legally acquired. If you can’t figure out how to exchange them for cash or sell them for their value as antiquities, you’re clearly not the man I think you are.” She leaned forward intently. “Harry Potter was my first and best friend in the magical world. He saved my life, and I supported him for four years. I thought I would always be beside him, but I failed, and he disappeared. I don’t know if he left voluntarily or if something … someone …” She choked a bit; clearly, even after twenty years, the loss of her friend hurt. “I want you to find him, Mr. Holmes. If there’s anybody who can, it’s you. And if … when … you find him …. The Ministry wants him back. They want to be able to use him. I just want to know if he’s happy, if he’s having a good life. If he is, that’s fine. You don’t even have to contact him. Let him be, he deserves to live in peace. And if he’s not … if he’s dead, I want to know that too. Closure, they call it.” And then she looked up, with an almost savage look that he’d seen once or twice on John’s face. “But I’ll also need to know whether to send him an honour guard.”

Sherlock leaned back in his chair and considered the request. He could, if he chose, end it right now – the shortest case on record. Take her money, reveal his identity, and send her away. But then he would never get his own answers.

“All right, Miss Granger. I’ll take your case – and the consultancy – on two conditions. First, your version of the case takes primacy. Your Ministry will be informed when I find Mr. Potter if, and only if, he agrees to it. Second, I really must insist that whatever it was you did to my partner be undone immediately.”

“About fucking time you got to that,” muttered John, glaring at Auror Thomas again.

“Okay, that. Dean, that was S.O.P.?”

“ Confundus minor , non-verbal, singular intent.”

“Fine, then. Dr. Watson, you were subjected to a minor Confusing Charm. Its purpose was to encourage you to bring us directly to Mr. Holmes without delay. That was the only thing it would do, and it ended as soon as you did so. There will be no lasting effects from that charm.”

“Is there any way for me to check that?”

“There are no neurological or behavioural effects once the intended purpose has been achieved. There’s nothing that will show up on your medical tests. We could take you to one of our Healers and let them take a look at you – they could tell you if there are any ongoing charms or spells on you. Their Healers’ Oaths would require them to tell you the truth and keep the information confidential from anyone else unless you let them share it. An Oath, by the way, is self-enforcing and exacts a high price if violated, so you can depend on it to be accurate.”

John ground his teeth together. “Okay, I’m going to consider myself compromised until we can arrange that, and any decision I make until then can’t be trusted.” He reached under his jumper with his left hand and carefully removed the gun, holding it between thumb and forefinger and passing it to Sherlock. “Don’t give that back to me until we know it’s not going to be a problem. Use it on me if you have to,” he finished grimly. “Now you,” he pointed at Thomas – “you tell me why you did that to me.”

Granger looked at her partner as if she wasn’t exactly happy with him, either. “Yes, please do tell Dr. Watson. I thought we had agreed that I was to take lead on this.”

Thomas had the grace to wince. “I was anxious – and sloppy. Protocols for contact with non-magicals state that such contact is to be kept as short as possible and discreet use of magic is permissible to ease the way. I – we’d had some difficulty with the people at the morgue and the Yard, and I thought – I wanted to make it – I’m sorry, Hermione. Dr. Watson. I was thinking like a wizard instead of a civilian. It won’t happen again.” He smiled ruefully. “The paperwork she’s going to make me fill out will ensure I remember that.”

“Thinking like a wizard?” asked John.

Granger answered. “It’s an unfortunate side-effect of having magic that some wizards treat it as an easy answer to everything – they tend to use it for everything and anything, instead of thinking a situation through and finding a more appropriate solution. Dean and I were both raised in the non-magical world, and tend to look for a non-magical solution first – or at least I thought he did. We’ve both slipped up over the years.”

“Are you likely to do it again?”

“Not without our wands – those ‘sticks’ you confiscated, Mr. Holmes. Any delicate magic requires a wand to focus it.”

He noted that she had not actually answered the question. “How about indelicate magic?”

“We’re not children, Dr. Watson. We’re both well past the stage of having accidental magic happen except in the most life-threatening situations. I don’t anticipate anything like that happening here – and if it did, the result would be more likely to blow up the room than to perform a fiddly little memory alteration.”

Sherlock fidgeted lightly with the gun in his lap. “Then perhaps Auror Thomas wouldn’t mind handing over the holdout wand he still has in a sheath along his left calf, where he can reach it when he’s sitting with his legs crossed casually, as he is now. Handle first, please. I promise not to damage it.”

Thomas grimaced but complied. Sherlock took it gently and looked at it closely. This wand was dark wood with a knobbed handle and cross-hatched carvings going about half-way up the shaft; like Granger’s second wand, it showed more wear than the first one they’d relieved him of.

“So you just wave this?” he said, giving it a tentative swish through the air.

“ No! ” yelped Thomas, ducking.

It was obvious Granger didn’t care for random waves of a wand in her general direction either. “There’s a bit more to it than that, Mr. Holmes, and it won’t work for you at all since you’re non-magical, but we’d still appreciate it if you’d just put that down.”

Sherlock did so, carefully putting the wand in the drawer of the table in between his and John’s chairs, and tucking the gun in beside it. “There, now we can all feel safer. By the way, how can you be so sure I’m non-magical?”

Granger chuckled. “You’ve been investigated, Mr. Holmes. Twice by the DMLE, that’s the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, first when you started working with the Yard and again when Dr. Watson joined you – and yes, Dr. Watson has been investigated as well – and once by the Unspeakables, a special investigative division, after your remarkable return from the dead. There are parties in the Ministry who are convinced you would not be able to do what you do without being a rather skilled Legilimens or a Dark Wizard. Each investigation, however, has come up negative. You are 100% non-magical.”

“Nice to know I can keep even your lot guessing.” Though he had no idea how that was possible. If he was Harry Potter, and Potter was a wizard, then why couldn’t the wizards tell? “John, may we accept that your concerns about the validity of magic have been answered? You wouldn’t be this upset about it if you didn’t believe it on some level.”

“We can always demonstrate something for you once you’ve given our wands back, if you like – we wouldn’t cast anything on you, of course, just some simple flashy transfigurations or charms, the way the teachers at our school convinced our parents that magic was real.”

“Yes – no, I don’t know!” John said with frustration. “Can we just get on to the case now?”

“I think that would be best,” said Sherlock, shifting gears with his usual rapidity. “The Dursleys would seem to be unlikely targets for a magical murder.”

“I haven’t seen the bodies or the evidence myself yet – the Yard is still packing it up so we were going to get into it later, after talking to you. But I have it on good authority that the methods were magical, and so therefore must the motives be.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Magical people hate, love, are greedy, feel slighted or jealous and want revenge, do they not?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then most of the motives for murder are the same – only the methods differ depending on what’s available. This case, however, is not a simple murder, and I agree with you that the motives most likely are specific to your community. Would it be helpful if we showed you our pictures of the scene and the autopsy?”

“It might save quite a bit of time, yes.”

“Good. Let us begin.”

The Case of the Missing Wizard
Chapter 6. This Changes Everything

Sherlock escorted Granger and Thomas into the other room of 221C, with John following – disarmed or not, he wasn’t about to allow either of them behind his back. He was nervous enough about the fact that they were behind Sherlock’s back. What had once been a grungy basement room with a fireplace and nasty wallpaper had been converted into a joint computer room and laboratory. One wall had been covered with corkboard, where Sherlock had pinned up murder scene and autopsy photos, along with a floor plan of Number Four Privet Drive. Extra pins were scattered randomly across the cork.

The extremely graphic murder photos drew the attention, of course. “Oh, what a mess.” Granger reached out to remove one of the pictures from the cork, and then looked over to Sherlock for permission.

“Be my guest.”

She removed the pictures, repinning them in an order which suited her. “Interesting. Dean, what do you think?” she said, passing one of the pictures of Petunia Dursley’s gaping chest injuries to her partner.

“Christ. Dolohov?”

“Looks like it. Typical unsophisticated butchery,” Granger sniffed with distaste.

“The knots?” Thomas pulled another picture, this one showing the elaborate bondage knots on Petunia Dursley’s arms, off the corkboard.

“Not his style. Too elegant, too involved. I’m thinking Malfoy.”

“Senior or Junior?”

“Senior, of course. Junior would never have the nerve for something like this. Far too icky. It would require him to go into Muggle territory. He might get something on himself.” She snickered, and Thomas joined in with a chuckle.

“So that’s the who, now the why …”

“I’m sorry, the who?” Sherlock asked with irritation. He wasn’t usually on the wrong side of a conversation like this.

“The killers. These injuries are the signature style of Antonin Dolohov, a long-time member of a terrorist group called the Death Eaters. Slashing spell, affects only living flesh. Originally intended for butchering animals for meat, he modified it so it doesn’t go all the way through the victim’s body, only part way. Causes more pain and distress that way.”

“You’ve seen this before?”

Granger turned to him and unbuttoned the next button on her blouse to just above her bra, then pushed her jacket and the top of her blouse to the side. An ugly, puckered purple scar ran from her shoulder diagonally across her chest, disappearing beneath the bra and blouse. “You might say I’m familiar with it.”

John sucked in his breath. “May I?” She nodded, and he stepped in close enough to examine the wound closely, holding the picture of Petunia Dursley up for comparison. “She probably bled out in just a few seconds. No time for medical aid to save her, even if they’d been right there in the room with a surgical team when it happened. How did you survive this?”

“Fortunately for me, he’d been hit with a Tongue-Tangling Jinx a moment before. Couldn’t speak clearly, so the spell wasn’t as effective as it should have been and didn’t go anywhere near as deep. Otherwise …” she tapped the picture. “It did quite enough damage to be going on with, though. Curse wounds never heal quite properly. I was on potions for weeks, and still have problems breathing from time to time.”

“It didn’t cut through the collarbone?” asked John. “Looks like it should have gone right through.”

“Oh, it did. I had to have it removed and regrown in order to keep the use of my arm. Several ribs, too, one at a time. Not an experience I’d recommend. I had a lot more sympathy for Harry after that.” At John’s puzzled look, she reached out and touched his right arm at the elbow. “When he was twelve, an incompetent teacher accidentally removed all the bones in his lower arm and hand. Radius, ulna, carpals, metacarpals, phalanges,” she said, running her index finger down to the tip of his middle finger. “All had to be regrown overnight, at one time, so the muscles could reattach properly. He said it hurt a bit, but he was fine. After this,” she said, shrugging her shoulder and buttoning up her blouse again, “I have a bit better idea of what ‘hurt a bit’ and ‘fine’ mean for Harry. His pain tolerance must be nothing short of phenomenal.”

“You can just regrow shattered bone overnight?” He was awed, and a bit envious. If something like that had been available in Afghanistan, he might still have a surgical career.

“A good Healer can, yes. I don’t have the training for anything more than simple first aid.” She turned and caught Sherlock looking at his own right hand and wiggling his fingers with a very curious expression on his face, and grinned. “Yeah, that’s roughly the reaction everybody has when I tell that story.” She pinned the picture of Petunia back up on the corkboard and idly began pulling the random pins and sticking them in rows in an empty space.

“Now for the knotwork, that’s a bit more guesswork, but I suspect that’s the work of one Lucius Malfoy, an associate of Dolohov’s. He’s known to favour elaborate bondage and that knotwork looks like his style. Can’t prove it right now, though. We’d have to hunt down one of his sexual partners to verify, and it’s unlikely they’d tell us much. Or find somebody he tied up for non-sexual purposes, but most of those are dead.”

“You couldn’t just compare the knots from old cases?”

“I’ve already heard about the adventure of the knots at the mortuary last night, Dr. Watson. Conjured rope disappears if it’s cut, and even if it’s not cut it’s only temporary – the sample you were so careful to keep will have gone back to the aether by now. Sorry. We have pictures at our office in a few old cases, but the ropes had gone by the time we found the bodies, and all we have are bruise patterns to go by.”

“In my experience,” Sherlock said slowly, “a bondage enthusiast wouldn’t display their handiwork on a casual murder – only one where there was some emotional link. They wouldn’t waste it on the unworthy. Could this Malfoy have had some personal interest in the Dursleys?”

“Oh, I doubt it. They’d have been little better than vermin to him. The Binding Charms used have highly personalized results – they’re identifying markers. Very few other people would have similar styles. For example, my Binding Charm is much more utilitarian, and Dean’s can be mistaken for handcuffs.”

“In any event,” said Thomas, “identifying the murderer is only part of the job – finding and capturing him will be the rest of it. And that’s all going to have to be done on our side.”

“Great. A nine to a zero in five minutes,” Sherlock said disgustedly.

“There was a reason we were taking this case away,” said Granger in an excessively reasonable tone. “You weren’t ever going to be able to solve this the Muggle way.”

“Muggle? That’s the second time you’ve used the term.”

“Non-magical, I mean. Sorry. No offense meant.”

“So what was the motive, then?” asked John, curiously. “If it wasn’t one of the standard ones, I mean. You said this Dolohov is a terrorist?”

She nodded. “The Death Eaters are a Pureblood terrorist group. Purebloods are –“

“Understandable from context. Continue.”

“They’re reactionaries that want to overthrow the social order and change it to a mythical ‘golden age’ of Pureblood supremacy that never actually existed, with them in charge and everybody else ground under their heels. Ideally this would involve the subjugation of the non-magical world as well as the wizarding one, although some are holding out for complete extermination of non-magical people. Yes, I know, they have no idea how many of you there are or what technology can do – their idea of your culture is firmly rooted in the 16th Century. They’re led by one of the most powerful wizards of this century, who calls himself Lord Voldemort, and his followers call him the Dark Lord. Most everybody else is afraid to even say his name, and just call him You-Know-Who.”

“Sounds like every cheesy fantasy novel ever written,” commented John. “And I’ve read quite a few of them. So let me guess, you’ve got a prophesized hero, raised in adversity and obscurity, who’s the only person who can kill this Dark Lord and then claim the throne and the hand of his True Love in marriage … Oh, my God, you do, don’t you?”

“Got it in one, Dr. Watson. Harry Potter, born as the seventh month dies, marked by the Dark Lord as his equal, and so on and so forth. Well, maybe not the throne – the Ministry would strongly object to that, although the odds are good that Harry could eventually become Minister – and definitely not the True Love part, although a lot of women my age and younger seem to think so. And of course because people believe that only Harry can defeat the Dark Lord, nobody else will even try.”

“You don’t honestly believe a fairy tale like—“

“ I don’t. I wouldn’t be doing what I am if I believed it. Divination in general is a very woolly discipline, and I know there are hundreds of ways of interpreting any given prophecy. Harry’s name isn’t even mentioned specifically, for example, so it might relate to someone else. But there is a kernel of truth in most fairy tales, especially in our world. The Ministry believes it, and someone in the Ministry leaked it to the damned press, and they had it on the front page. And quite frankly, people will believe anything if it means somebody else has to do the work for them. This is why the Ministry wants him back; why I think they’ll do anything, even if it’s hiring a Muggle detective, to find him. This is why I want to warn him – because he doesn’t know – he disappeared before the prophecy became public.”

“Twenty years on, he’s still that well-known?”

“It gets worse every year, actually. Books, ‘Where is He Now?’ speculative articles, retrospectives on the day he defeated Voldemort the first time, and so on. He’s a hero in our world. He’s probably the most powerful wizard of our generation, took down the darkest of Dark Lords when he was just a baby, did it again when he was eleven, saved the entire school from a monster when he was twelve, won the TriWizard Tournament at fourteen …”

“Try to imagine a cross between Prince William, Paul McCartney, and Jesus for popularity,” put in Thomas. “It was rock-star level. During the good times, anyway. Bad times, he got the worst press you can imagine. All the girls wanted him and kept flirting at him, but he pretended he didn’t notice.”

“Well, actually,” said Granger, “he really didn’t notice. He was just clueless about girls. Clueless about a lot of social stuff, really. He didn’t notice I was a girl until Fourth Year.”

“Yeah, he told me once that when he did something dumb I should just pretend he was raised by wolves,” said Thomas.

“Mm, knowing what I know about the Dursleys, that was an insult to wolves,” commented Sherlock. “You knew him as well, Mr. Thomas? Were you friends?”

“We shared a dorm room for four years. But we weren’t close. Harry had Hermione and Ron, and didn’t seem to need any more than that. He wasn’t a bad sort, though. Lots of blokes would have thrown their weight around, what with being a hero and a star athlete and all the birds flocking around besides. And he was dangerous to boot, so we didn’t even have the traditional teenage male one-upmanship ritual of beating him up under the Quidditch stands – he was way out of our league. Only the stupid ones like Malfoy kept baiting him, and even they kept it short of throwing hexes most of the time. But he was just so, so nice and so quiet that we couldn’t even resent him for it.” He shrugged. “He was just Harry, you know? But that was before he turned the entire social order upside down by disappearing.”

“How could a teenager do that?” asked John. “He was what, fifteen at the time he vanished?”

“Well, it was obvious he was going to have the pick of the witches; all but the most conservative families were trying to match him with one of their daughters. Famous, rich, powerful, all that. And then, of course, he just up and disappears. Completely vanishes. Things start going to Hell in a handbasket, You-Know-Who comes back and keeps coming back no matter how many times he’s taken down, and the rumours … oh, the rumours! Harry’s in secret training with the Ministry, he’s run away with the gypsies, he’s gone back in time to study with Merlin, he’s raising an army of DaoineSidhe to fight You-Know-Who … and teenage girls being what they are, they’re all convinced that when he does come back – riding on a dragon, with the Sword of Gryffindor in his hand and the Crown of Ravenclaw on his head – he will, of course, marry his Destined Bride. And every one of them is convinced that will be her. It was not a good time to be trying to get a date, let me tell you. And in a lot of ways, it still isn’t.”

“But he didn’t come back, right? So what happened then?”

“Witches are nothing if not stubborn. The longer he was gone, the more fantastic the stories got, and the more convinced the girls became that they were going to be his … his soulmate, or some such rubbish. So instead of dating and getting betrothed and getting married, a good third of the witches our age, and three or four years on either side, a lot of them Purebloods, are still holding out for him to come back. Every one of them is convinced that they’re going to be The Woman for Harry Potter. Yeah, some got over it – I don’t think Hermione here was ever into it in the first place…”

“Of course not. I knew him too well. Hard to believe someone’s a destined prince when you’ve spent four years correcting his homework.”

“Most of us guys, of course, weren’t exactly willing to wait around for His Highness to come back from Camelot or wherever he’s been hiding out. A lot of us wound up married to non-magicals – my wife’s a non-magical, we’ve got two magical sons and the first one starts Hogwarts next year. Even some of the Purebloods wound up marrying Halfbloods or Muggleborns or foreign-born witches because the Pureblood British girls are waiting for Prince Charming. So the number of Purebloods born in this generation is lower than it ever has been. And eventually, all those women are going to realize that they can’t hold out forever, and even if Harry does come back, he’s only going to marry one of them, unless the Ministry tries to do something stupid like put him out to stud.”

“Could … could they do that?” asked John in shock.

“I’m sure some of them would like to try, but I don’t think there would be much left of the Ministry after Harry got done with it. Hell, he may already be married for all we know. So they’re going to be looking for husbands, only now they’re going to have to marry non-magicals too, because most of the wizards are already married.”

“And they’re going to, what, have fewer children because they’re older now?” asked John.

“Exactly,” said Granger. “In a normal situation, most of those women would already have children, and maybe more in the future – and we need them to have more, the Wizarding population in Britain has decreased sharply due to two successive Dark Lords and there aren’t enough Muggleborns to make up the difference. Even if Harry shows up with a wife and two point five children next week and they all realize they’re out of luck and they have to find husbands and start having children now , they’re only going to have one or two, and most of those children won’t be Purebloods, either. Net result, in one generation the Purebloods lose their stranglehold on political, social and economic power in the wizarding world. They see it coming. They can’t stop it. But they’ll do anything to try. And that is why the Dursleys died.”

“I don’t think I follow,” said John.

“It’s a call-out. Harry’s only non-magical relatives have been murdered by Death Eaters. He has to respond, either to avenge his blood kin, or at least respond to the threat to his own honour. They’re actually counting on him not answering. If he doesn’t, the press is likely to turn on him again; the current administration is shaky at best, and if it falls, the next Minister is likely to be a Pureblood with ties to the Death Eaters. If that happens, all of us are at risk – divorce is next to unknown, but a widow or widower can remarry – and non-magical, Muggleborn and Halfblood spouses and children would be in danger. At the very least, we’d lose all the social gains we’ve made in the last twenty years, and the economic costs would be ...” She shuddered.

“What if Potter did respond to the call-out?” asked Sherlock.

“That depends on what he actually has been doing in the last twenty years. He would be expected to mount a challenge to Voldemort. If he’s been training, that’s one thing – he might actually have a chance to win, and then it’s hero time again. If he hasn’t – he only had four years of magical education, to stand against a Dark Wizard with seventy years of experience. What do you think would happen, Mr. Holmes?”

“He’d lose. Obviously.” And it was obvious. As confident as Sherlock was in his own abilities, he was well aware that if taken outside those narrow parameters, he was as vulnerable as the next man. Serbia had proved that. All this was very, very far outside of his parameters.

“Mm-hm. Voldemort has to kill him personally in order to claim victory under the prophecy, and he’s frustrated and insane enough to make it spectacularly ugly and painful. The Ministry would fall completely, and Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters would institute their version of ‘magical cleansing’. That means I’m dead, Dean and his wife and sons are dead, and everybody Harry ever knew is dead, regardless of blood status. Then they strike against the Muggle government as well. They won’t win, of course, but our existence would no longer be secret, and things could get very ugly, very fast, world-wide, with irreparable damage done to both our cultures.”

“So what has this Voldemort been doing for the past twenty years? It seems an awfully long time for a megalomaniac to just lie low.”

“Oh, he hasn’t been doing nothing. He’s been defeated – supposedly killed – several times, as a matter of fact. There was when Harry did it when he was a baby, of course, and then two times after he started school. Those times it was at least kept out of the press, though there were rumours. But after Harry disappeared, he came back for real, and nobody could deny it. His followers almost managed to take over the Ministry, but the headmaster of our school took Voldemort down in one-on-one combat at the cost of his own life. I was a witness to that – it was the single most spectacular display of combat magic in centuries.

“The Death Eaters were quiet for a while after that – it was a very bad time politically for them – but they’ve been making inroads again recently. Voldemort has been rumoured to have returned four times in the last ten years. Twice the rumours were right, and twice it was a fake. Each time he’s come back, the cost in lives to put him down has been higher. Two years ago, there was a sudden upturn in terroristic attacks and claims that Voldemort has returned yet again. We can’t verify that, because we lost our best agent on the inside shortly before that. There have been a number of incidents with his signature style, but no survivors to say whether or not it was him. Most of us in the DMLE think it is. The Ministry is refusing to comment officially either way, and the civilians are getting nervous. Everybody wants to find Harry Potter – they think he’s the only one that can put Voldemort down for good.”

“Why are you only now looking for Potter, then?” Sherlock asked.

“I haven’t been idle,” Granger said, bristling. “Remember that I was only fifteen myself and had three years of schooling left to go when Harry went missing. I wasn’t allowed to take part in the search for him at that time. I did what I could, which wasn’t much. When I left school, I joined the Aurors specifically so I could help find him. That was another three years of training. I’ve been working on it ever since, in both worlds. Dolores Umbridge, the person who was responsible for his disappearance, was caught fairly rapidly once someone thought to trace his wand – she’d kept it as a bargaining chip in case he ever showed up again instead of destroying it, so the trace led right to her. She’s in prison now for misuse of authority and a whole bunch of technicalities which boil down to ‘threatening the Boy-Who-Lived’, but even she doesn’t know where he went or where he’s been since. I’m sure he’s not anywhere in the wizarding world, therefore he must be living on the Muggle side. There aren’t any public records for Harry, so he must be going under a different name. I checked police and hospital records for unknowns and found a few likely John Does, but no exact matches, and by the time I was looking, all the fosterage records were sealed. I know what he was like, I could guess what he might want to be when he grew up, and I’ve checked colleges and universities and schools that list their graduates – looking for pictures since I’ve no idea what name he’s using now. I don’t have the computer skills necessary to get into anything really secure. Every time I think I’ve found a lead, it just … disappears like smoke. Slips away. I don’t even know if he’s still in the country. Part of me hopes he is, and part of me hopes he made a clean escape.”

“But your Ministry has you out and about as attractive bait. Or are you working for these Death Eaters, trying to get Potter to respond to the call-out?”

“Hardly, Mr. Holmes. I’m Number Two on their hit list, right after Harry. Muggleborn witch, did better than any of their precious Pureblood flowers in school, more powerful than most, climbing the ranks at the Ministry based on talent instead of family connections – I’m everything they’re most afraid of. The Ministry’s interests and my own coincide at the moment, so I’d say I’m using them rather than them using me.”

“What do you think Mr. Potter might have become?” Sherlock asked, curiously. He wondered what Harry Potter might have been like – the many doctors he had seen as a teenager had told him that while his basic personality traits would have remained despite the trauma he had suffered, the way he expressed them might have changed drastically. “What were his strengths and weaknesses?”

“He would have wanted something active. Something that would help people.Probably something with some risk to it. But not just physical, give him a problem and he wouldn’t rest until he solved it, even if it took months. He was an athlete, might have gone pro, but that wouldn’t have been enough to keep him interested in the long run. He wasn’t academically oriented, though I think he was more intelligent than he thought he was. I think he had been discouraged from doing well in school, and that’s a hard habit to break. He got on well enough with most people, but only got really close to one or two. He had a temper, hated bullies and would go out of his way to help people who were bullied, even if he didn’t particularly like them. He consistently put other people’s needs ahead of his own. I could easily see him joining the police, or being a firefighter or a paramedic – even a detective like you, Mr. Holmes.”

And for just one second, he saw her look clearly at him and saw her see him . But then her eyes seemed to unfocus for a moment as if she was seeing something else.

“A pilot. He loved to fly, more than anything else. A pilot.Possibly the military, although the regimentation … maybe not so much. He wasn’t good with authority figures. But he’d have loved flying a jet, or a helicopter. Hang gliding.Parachuting.Anything that got him into the air. He would never … he would never have stayed bound to the earth.”

“Flying?” Sherlock was surprised. That was about the only thing he’d never even thought about doing. Not outside of dreams, anyway. He had flying dreams occasionally, and falling nightmares more often (no surprise there) but assumed everyone did. “He was barely fifteen. He couldn’t have had a pilot’s license. What did he fly?”

Granger’s mind was miles away, her smile tender and unguarded. “A broom, Mr. Holmes. He flew on a broom. On the back of a hippogryph. I don’t doubt he’d have flown a pegasus, a thestral, a dragon if he could get it to cooperate. Whatever he could get into the air. But he was poetry in the air on a broomstick, did things instinctively that took professionals years of training.”

“I see. … No, I don’t see,” said Sherlock. “I thought it was witches who flew on broomsticks.”

“Nope. Well, we do, but wizards do, too. It’s a standard method of transportation, like driving an automobile. Pretty much all of us are taught how in school, though some are better than others. Harry and I are probably on opposite ends of the scale; heights give me the willies and I’m really not happy on a broom. Harry was pure native talent.”

Sherlock crossed to the desk and opened a drawer, pulling out the papers he’d stuffed there the night before. “We found these in the house in Little Whinging. I presume they’re your friend’s work. What can you tell me about them?”

She sat at the desk and leafed through the pages, ending with the labyrinth. “That … that boy! He did this? Really?”

“I can’t imagine anybody else who would have inscribed it on the back of the bedroom door. He traced the labyrinth with his finger. Regularly. You can see the smudges left by his fingertips.”

“Damn Ron Weasley! Damn him!” She drew in a long, shuddering breath in an attempt to regain her lost composure.

“Hermione, we shouldn’t speak ill of…” Thomas started to say.

“I’ll speak ill of whomever I damn well please! Ron Weasley was a lazy git who expected everything in life to be handed to him on a platter!” she retorted. Then she looked up at Sherlock and John’s confused faces. “In third year, we were allowed to take electives in addition to the core subjects. Ron … Ron took the easiest courses, and Harry went along with him since they were best friends and he didn’t want to do anything that might separate them or show Ron up. I took a somewhat harder course load.”

“Don’t let her fool you,” snorted Thomas. “She took all the courses. For a year at least.”

“Yes, well, a couple of them turned out to be useless so I dropped them. The point is that Ron discouraged him from taking anything challenging or really useful. This … one of the courses I stayed with was Ancient Runes – the magic of letters, symbols, ancient languages …”

“Yeah, we’d pretty much got that.” John was still mildly miffed that they weren’t Tolkien’s Dwarven Runes.

“The thing is that Harry didn’t take it. But he did a lot of experimenting with different kinds of magic during Fourth Year, when he really needed a little bit of everything for the Triwizard Tournament. So I taught him the basics – how to scribe the designs, how to charge them, things like that – and he swiped a basic guide to the Runes from the school library and took it home that summer. But nothing – nothing in that should have prepared him to do this .” She waved the page with the labyrinth on it at them. “ This is N.E.W.T. level work. That he worked out from four practical lessons and a pilfered beginner’s book. The boy was either brilliant or the luckiest maniac in the history of magic – or maybe both. Can you imagine what he could have done if he'd actually taken the class? And then he … no, he couldn’t have …” She shuffled through the papers to find the other rune patterns from the door and window frames. “Yes, yes he did. He hooked no less than eight spells and bindrunes into it … maybe more than that … and … ‘ strength to my friends’, oh the idiot, but …”

She put her finger on the centre of the labyrinth and began to run it outwards. A faint glow started building around her fingertip, increasing with every loop she traced. A feedback noise started to build in John and Sherlock’s earbuds, and by the time she was halfway through they had to remove them hastily to get rid of the ear-piercing squeal. When she finished, the labyrinth seemed to almost spit her finger out the opening, and a brilliant ball of light was clinging to her finger. “ Lumos! ” she shouted, and the light expanded to fill the entire room, making everyone shade their eyes from the brilliance. “ Nox ! ” The light went out. “Sorry, that was the simplest spell I could think of to get rid of the charge. But the sink is still active, which means ….”

Her face turned pale, and she went boneless, practically slithering out of the chair onto the floor. “Oh my God. It means he’s still alive! ” And then she was giggling and crying both at the same time. Thomas crouched down and tried to comfort her, but it was obvious that hugging his working partner was not something he did on a regular basis.

Once she’d got herself calmed down enough so that all she was dealing with was the occasional hiccup, she looked up through teary lashes and remarkably non-smeared makeup at the three men. “You have no idea what he’s done, do you? I mean, I don’t expect you two to, but Dean … He built a personalized magic sink … accessible by others through Wizard space! ”

Her partner still looked clueless.

“How do you manage to be a wizard for twenty-five years and not know how monumental this is? Oh God, we have got to find him. This changes everything! ” The page was crumpled between her desperately clutching hands. Her pupils were totally blown.

Thomas sighed, rising to his feet. He went to the outer office and retrieved his partner’s bag, which she had left on the sofa. Opening the zipper, he stared inside. “Merlin save me from women’s bags,” he muttered. He reached his arm in all the way up to the shoulder, groping for something inside.

Something in John’s mind shut off for a moment. When he came to himself again, he was sitting on the floor as well, with Sherlock attempting to press his head down between his knees. He hadn’t been out long; Thomas’s arm was still reaching into the bag where it could not possibly fit. John started hyperventilating.

Thomas pulled his arm out, holding two small bottles of mauve liquid. He tossed one to Sherlock, who caught it and looked at the hand-written label.

“Calming Draught?”

“Safe for Muggles, Hermione made it herself. I think both of them could use it right now.” He broke the wax seal on the vial he still held, pulled the stopper, tilted Hermione’s head back, and poured the potion down her throat.

She swallowed, coughed, and relaxed. “Thanks, I needed that.”

Sherlock shrugged and followed Thomas’s example; John struggled a bit but he simply held the doctor’s lips together until he swallowed.

“You know, Sherlock,” said John in an incredibly reasonable tone once Sherlock released his grip on John’s head, “it’s really not a good idea to give medications to someone without knowing what’s in them. I’m probably going to be very upset with you when whatever that was wears off. But I suppose talking to you about experimenting with unknown drugs is kind of useless, isn’t it?”

“Most likely. Feeling better?”

“Much, ta. We could really have done with some of that stuff at Baskerville.”

“Mm. Or that might have been one of the most memorable drug interactions ever.”

Both men helped their partners up off the floor.

“As designated asker of stupid questions, what was that about?” asked John, pointing at the now hopelessly crumpled sheet in Granger’s hands.

“He did something impossible. Even by our standards, impossible.”

“Not impossible. If it was done, it’s merely improbable,” said Sherlock. “And frankly, who is more likely to discover something new? Someone who believes it can’t be done? Or someone who doesn’t know it’s impossible?” He cocked his head at her. “I suggest you try to unlearn your own ideas on what he did, or you may not be able to reproduce it.”

“May I take this?” she asked, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in the copy she’d mangled.

“Of course. If you’d like, I can print out another copy for you. As many as you’d like.”

She almost squeaked in surprise. “Of course, how silly of me. This can’t be an original. I’m so used to thinking … where is the original? How many generations away is this copy?”

“The original is on the back of a door that I believe the Yard took as evidence,” said Sherlock as he called the image up and sent it to the printer. “You may get it from them, or it might still be at the house in Little Whinging awaiting transfer to the Yard. A copy was made with fingerprint powder” – and he carefully did not mention that that copy was in fact in the evidence box tucked under the desk near her feet – “and that was scanned into the computer and then I printed it out. So three steps from the original.”

“Three steps. One of them electronic. And it still works. My God,” she breathed.

Sherlock handed her the copies. “It’s obvious that I need to know a lot more about your friend, and about your world, in order to deal with this properly. I’ll start work on our side of it immediately, but I hope we can get a proper briefing on your side of it soon. I’ll definitely need pictures of him as a child, if you have them.”

She nodded briskly. “I’ll call a department meeting tomorrow morning – taking advantage of the weekend to stack the attendance in my favour, I should be able to get consultants’ credentials for you and Dr. and Mrs. Watson immediately. If she’s going to be in on this, of course. I assume she’s been listening in.”

“Of course.”

“Good. Then I’ll stop by tomorrow with those, and perhaps we could make a trip to a Healer so Dr. Watson can be checked if he still wants to.”

“I want to.”

“Dr. Mallard would be best since he’s already involved, don’t you think? Or does he deal only with pathology?”

“No, he … you know, I’m not even going to ask how you knew about that,” Granger said, cutting Sherlock off before he could spill the series of observations that had led him to that conclusion. “I’ll see if he’s available.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding!” said John. “Ducky? Who else now? Is Donovan a witch? Greg a sorcerer? Was Moriarty some kind of necromancer, then?” He was aware on some level that he was echoing his ‘is everybody I know a psychopath?’ rant of the year before, but couldn’t be arsed to care at this point – and at least he was simply asking the question instead of yelling at somebody, thanks to the Calming Draught.

“No, no and thank God, no!” said Granger. “I can only imagine the havoc your Moriarty would have created if he’d had magic. One Dark Lord at a time, please!”

“Mm. One might hope that two would take each other out, but the universe is rarely so cooperative.”

“Actually that’s exactly the way it works. First one takes the other down, and then the survivor goes after the Light,” she said. “If there’s nothing else, Mr. Holmes …”

“I think at this point we should be on a first-name basis, since we’re likely to be working together for some time. Please, call me Sherlock.”

John boggled. Sherlock, inviting informality? Sherlock , who’d been calling Greg ‘Lestrade’ for more years than John had known him and refused to remember the DI’s given name? Maybe the ‘attractive bait’ was working after all.

“Hermione, then. And Dean.And, Dr. Watson?”

Be damned if he was going to be the only one standing on formality. “John, of course.”

There were handshakes all around. Dean spoke seriously to John as they shook. “Sorry we got off on the wrong foot. I’ve learned my lesson, and it won’t happen again. To anyone.”

“Then it’s worth it. I look forward to getting to know you better.”

A few minutes later, the magic-users had been reunited with their wands and they went off to see if the evidence boxes from the Yard were ready for pick-up yet, while rather pointedly not mentioning taking Sherlock’s boxes or computer files.

After what Sherlock and John considered a safe period of time had passed, they released the security doors on the nursery and Mary came down. John performed his calming and centring ‘making of tea’ ritual and set mugs out for all three of them before clearing his throat and asking the question of the hour: “What the hell do we do now?”

The Case of the Missing Wizard
Chapter 7. Welcome to Diagon Alley

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Twenty-four hours later, Hermione Granger and Dean Thomas were back at the front door of 221 Baker Street. This time they were both in casual dress, and Sherlock and John confirmed that they were both seeing the same thing before they brought them in. The only thing that wasn’t the same was Hermione’s bag, which to John now looked more like a comfortably slouchy canvas bag than the beaded purse which still didn’t match her outfit. They were buzzed in and this time waited to be escorted down to 221C.

Mary joined them, and introductions were made all around. Hermione didn’t waste any time getting down to business, reaching into her bag and pulling out three silver disk pendants, two strung on leather cords and one on a silver chain. She gave Mary the one on the chain and the other two to the men. “You can change the cords out for chains or something else if you prefer; it’s the pendant that matters.”

Sherlock looked his over carefully. It looked and felt like real silver, just over 1 inch in diameter, and had an elaborate knot design on one side. If one looked carefully, the letters S.C.U. were worked into the design, but someone looking at it casually would probably miss it. The other side was blank and mirror-shiny.

“Now we personalize them. Hold the pendant in your dominant hand, make a fist around it, that’s right … inscribere signum! ” She tapped Sherlock’s fingers briskly with the vine-carved wand, and he felt something cold tingle through his hand. “Go ahead and look now.”

He opened his fist and looked at the pendant. The knotwork side was unchanged, but the smooth side now bore an image, marked out in delicate lines. The fact that it was the labyrinth, complete with tiny encircling runes, didn’t surprise him. It did, however, surprise Hermione.

“Well, that’s … odd. I hope it means you’re going to be successful. Maybe you were always meant to be on this case from the beginning. Perhaps there’s some other connection. Or maybe it’s just magic doing what it wants. Let’s see what else we get. John?”

John’s symbol turned out to be a Rod of Asclepius (one serpent, not two, no wings – John was pleased that the symbol was correct) crossed with a sword. Not surprising, given his occupation(s). Mary’s was more unusual: a closed book, with a double-bladed axe laid across it. Hermione frowned a bit at that, but did not comment.

“These are your identification for the magical world,” she said. “I put them on necklaces because that’s the best way not to lose them. You can just tuck them under your shirt if you don’t want them seen. You’ll be using these instead of a wand if you need to get into – or even find – Diagon Alley or the Ministry or any other magical places. If you’re ready, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

A short cab ride took them to Charing Cross Road. John looked about, mystified. “But this is just … normal. It’s right in the middle of London. We could have taken the Tube here.”

“I told you, once the wizarding community and the non-magical community were intertwined. And it’s really impossible to separate them now. We’re here because everybody was here, back in the day. Our centre of government, our largest hospital, and our main shopping district are all within walking distance of here. This is the tricky part. Do you see the grotty little pub sandwiched in between those two clothing shops?”

“The Leaky Cauldron. I’ve seen it. Never been in it,” said Sherlock.

“I’m impressed. Most people never even notice it.”

“Noticing things is my line of work,” Sherlock said dryly.

“True. In any event, most non-magical people won’t even notice it, or if they do, tourists will assume it’s a local place and locals assume it’s a tourist trap, and they won’t go in. You won’t have to worry about that effect as long as you’re wearing your pendants. Now, see the colour of the potion in the cauldron?”

“Yeah, it’s red,” said John.

“That means both of the CCTV cameras covering this section of the street are pointed this way. There, it just turned yellow, one of the cameras is turned away … and green, now neither camera is covering it.” She strode confidently over to the door and pushed it open, ushering the others through. Dean brought up the rear and the group moved out of the way so several patrons could exit the pub. She turned and pointed to a candle burning with a green flame in a sconce above the door. “Same thing going out. If you don’t want to be seen going out, wait until the candle flame is green before you open the door.”

“Why all the precautions?” asked John.

“Most of the time it doesn’t matter. But there are times this pub gets far too much traffic for what it looks like. And, ah, persons of interest to the ‘British government’ might not wish to be seen ducking in and out too often. There are a number of other places with similar issues. We’ll pick up guide books for all of you showing the major locations you’ll have to know and the instructions for getting in without being noticed.”

“I’m going to have to learn London all over again, aren’t I?” Sherlock complained.

“Somehow I think you’ll be up to the challenge,” she said, smiling. “Consider yourself lucky; the guide books are new – twenty years ago, we had to learn all this on the fly. Now, this is the official beginning of it. Welcome to wizarding London!” she said, with an expansive gesture that took in the entire pub.

John and Mary both gawked, and John at least was sure that Sherlock would have really liked to gawk but felt it beneath his dignity. The room was large, much larger than they would have guessed from the narrow street frontage, and filled with life. A long bar took up one side, there were large and small tables and a few shadowed nooks for privacy, and a large staircase indicated that there was more space upstairs, where there should have been a law office by John’s reckoning. The tables were filled with people eating, drinking and chatting – some people wearing clothing of a style that had been antique centuries ago, others as stylish as Sherlock, most somewhere in between. A tray bearing plates of sandwiches, home-made crisps and glasses of beer went sailing past them without benefit of a waitress to carry it, landing on a table on the far side of the room. The air was redolent with the odours of good cooking, good beer, and centuries of patronage. While they were looking around, the small fire in the large fireplace suddenly flared up brilliant green, and a woman walked out through it, followed by several children. The flames died back down to their previous state and the family settled down at one of the tables, apparently ready to enjoy a casual luncheon.

“The Leaky has been located on this spot since 1500 or so,” said Hermione, raising her voice a little to be heard over the cheerful din. “As a matter of fact, the street had to be routed around it when the area was renovated in the early 1900’s. It’s the major interface between the wizarding and Muggle worlds. If you like, we can sit down for a bit on our way out of the Alley. It’ll be less crowded then. Follow me, please.”

She escorted the little group to the back of the pub and out through the door into a small, grimy courtyard complete with overflowing waste bins and some weeds. Crossing to the far wall, she pulled out her wand. “This is the official entrance to Diagon Alley. We use our wands to gain entrance; you can use your pendants the same way.” She tapped the tip of her wand three times on one of the bricks, and it wiggled and flipped and revealed a small hole. The adjoining bricks also flipped away, and the hole got bigger, and shortly there was an archway which revealed a cobbled street that twisted between old-fashioned buildings and turned out of sight. Crowds of shoppers moved from one store to the next, most of them accompanied by one or more children. The place looked like a scene out of a Shakespearean drama with a bunch of extras anachronistically clad in modern clothing.

Mary clapped her hands in delight while John just looked about and breathed “oh my God” several times in succession. Sherlock was trying to pretend he wasn’t trying to look at everything at once and failing miserably; there was so much new and unusual that even (or perhaps especially) the preternaturally observant detective was having difficulties.

“Oh, right, the school letters just came out yesterday,” Dean said.

“I planned on it. Nobody will take notice of a few extra non-magicals more or less in this mob,” Hermione said. She plunged into the mass of people, and willy-nilly they followed.

“How do you fit this all here?” Sherlock asked. “There’s no space for it all.” He was comparing his mental map of London with his estimate of the space needed for just the part of the Alley he could see, and it just wasn’t possible.

“Magic, Sherlock,” Hermione replied with a grin. “As I understand it, space is flexible, and we just borrow some that isn’t being used for anything else. The bits that get squeezed out of black holes, maybe. Dr. Hawking could probably tell you. We can do the same thing with mass and some forms of energy. Time is trickier and more likely to cause problems, so most people don’t try.”

“But you have?”

“A bit. Here and there. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

For someone as attuned to his senses, as used to seeing and categorizing everything as Sherlock, Diagon Alley was a special kind of hell. The only reason he was able to pick out the unusual detail he did in his observations was because it was framed against a background of the normal. As he’d told Lestrade, it was the things out of place that attracted the attention: the cut of the suit, the corgi hair on the suit, not the fact that the suit itself existed. Here there was nothing normal. The buildings were strangely proportioned; nothing was in straight lines or right angles and even the window glass was not flat – many of the windows were old-fashioned hand-blown glass which distorted reflections. The street itself was cobbled and the footing uneven. Though there were still other streets like that in London, they were far from common. The people on the street wore clothing in peculiar mixes of antique styles and unusual colour combinations and fabrics and spoke with accents he couldn’t quite place ( population isolated for generations, linguistic drift, right ). There were stores selling cauldrons ( collapsible and self-stirring? ), astronomical equipment ( brass telescopes, and is that an orrery? ), a pet store ( no, a specialty owl store, the pet store is further down the street – he wondered briefly if Gwenhwyfar had originally come from that very store). There was even an old-fashioned apothecary, and here he was diverted by the supplies of animal and plant parts in open bins – specimens of creatures and herbs that he’d never heard of before, oh the experiments he could do! He practically had to be dragged out with the promise that they would return after John had seen the Healer , that was what they were there for!

By the time they reached the Healer’s clinic or surgery or whatever they called it, Sherlock had a pounding headache and could barely stand on his own, and it was quite obvious that it wasn’t John that was going to be seeing the Healer first – it took John and Dean both to carry him up the winding stairs to the second-story office flat.

Dr. Mallard was waiting for them, clad in normal clothes but wearing a doctor’s coat in a hideous shade of green over it. “Auror Granger, good to – Good heavens, what happened to him?”

“Don’t know, he just collapsed on the way in. It was faster to bring him here than St. Mungo’s.”

“Get him into the examination room; we’ll see if we can set him to rights.”

The whole group of them crowded into the exam room, with nobody complaining about patient privacy. They sat Sherlock down on a cot which then levitated to a reasonable examination height with a swish and flick of the wand Ducky produced from a pocket designed for it in his jacket. John found himself checking one of Sherlock’s dilated pupils while Ducky examined the other. Pulse-taking and other basic examination procedures seemed to be the same in both worlds, but then Ducky waved the wand again and coloured lights started flashing around Sherlock, which made both John and Sherlock wince.

“Hm. Interesting.”

“What’s wrong?” Hermione asked anxiously.

“Sensory overload, causing a migraine, which in turn increases sensitivity to sensory input, which makes the overload and then the migraine worse. I thought he was a Muggle?”

“He is, yes.”

“This looks like a magical syndrome – Noumenal Headache. Most common among Muggleborn children on their first exposure to the wizarding world, but also seen in adults who’ve spent a lot of time in the Muggle world or a weak wizard brought inside the aura of a very powerful one. Sudden change in the amount of magical energy temporarily unbalances the mana flow, causing pressure in … well, that’s all technical, but the point is, he shouldn’t be reacting this way if he’s a normal Muggle.”

“He’s Sherlock Holmes – he doesn’t do normal,” muttered John. “Never has done. Oh, God.” This last as Sherlock leaned over the edge of the cot and vomited on the floor and John’s shoes. Fortunately there wasn’t much, as Sherlock hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before.

Ducky Vanished the mess with a single flick of the wand, but that just made Sherlock groan again.

“Yes. Definitely Noumenal.” Another flick, a flash of light, a groan.

“Could you stop doing that and just give him the medication?” John was now getting a headache as well, probably from the tension, and his temper was getting even shorter than it normally was.

“There’s a small problem. The potion is poisonous for Muggles. Lethal, in fact. So we need to find out exactly what he is before we can treat him.”

“Just give me the damn potion!” Sherlock moaned. “Death can’t be worse than this!”

“Drama queen!” John snorted.

“No, he is truly that miserable. But let’s try something first,” said Ducky. He left the examination room briefly and came back holding a small black velvet bag in his hand. “Hold out your dominant hand, Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock complied, flopping his right hand out limply. Ducky opened the flap on the bag and rolled a translucent black stone, the size of a large marble, out into his palm. The stone promptly turned purple and faint flickers of gold, silver and red appeared, vanished, appeared weakly, and vanished again. Then the stone turned grey and opaque, with a few hints of purple.

Ducky’s face became thunderous. “That … is … obscene! ” he growled.

“What is?”

“Somebody … and whoever it was will be going to Azkaban for the rest of their life if I have anything to say about it … somebody took a wizarding baby and bound his magic to suppress it so deeply he doesn’t even register as a squib. He’s lucky it didn’t kill him as a child. Or break free and destroy everything around him. Who could have done this? Is his family even partly magical?”

“He’s adopted,” said John shortly. “Non-magical family.” He didn’t tell Ducky the details. Let them think it was an infant adoption.

“Ah. He’d be in his mid-thirties? There was a lot of unrest back then, at the end of the first war,” said Ducky with a sigh. “Somebody probably thought that was best for him, regardless of what side of the war they were on. Better off Muggle than dead …. We had so many orphaned ‘Muggleborns’ showing up then … Well, at least that means I can treat him properly now. His physiology is still magical, anyway.”

And indeed, the administration of a cloudy green potion that Sherlock claimed tasted like peppermint sweat socks got him back on his feet in less than five minutes. He still felt a little shaky, but Ducky prescribed a trip to the ice cream parlour to get his energy levels back in line. “Make sure it’s something with chocolate; it’s a strong general restorative after experiencing a magical shock.”

“So Sherlock really is a wizard? Why couldn’t the Unspeakables tell?” asked Hermione.

“The binding would have hidden all traces of his magic. It isn’t so much that he is a wizard as that he will be a wizard when the binding spell finishes coming off, you see. He’s somewhere in between right now. Something like that doesn’t come off all at once; it would be too much of a shock. There are stages for release. At least three, and sometimes as many as thirteen, depending on the spell used. I’ll send him home with a couple of extra doses of potion, just in case. He shouldn’t need more than that.”

“Why is this happening now? Is it because we brought him into the Alley?”

“No, I’d say it may have been fraying for a long time, but the release happened a few days to a few weeks ago, perhaps. I know he was involved with the Dursley case, perhaps there was something at the murder scene that might have done it – a booby trap or something like that. Or he may have accidentally stumbled across an incantation or password to trigger the release – these spells usually have something of the sort.”

“Oh. Oh!” Hermione got exactly the same look on her face as Sherlock did when pieces of a puzzle came together. “The labyrinth! Sherlock, did you touch that at all? Did you run it?”

“I ran it with my finger once, like you did.”

“Feel anything unusual when you did it?”

“It took a lot of effort. I was exhausted after. Couldn’t stop once I started, though.”

“That’s it! You accessed the magic sink too! You used Harry’s magic to start breaking the binding – that’s why you have his labyrinth on your pendant! Because it’s reading his magic, not yours!”

“So does that mean that Sherlock can find Harry by the magical Law of Association?” asked Mary.

“I’m sorry, magical what now?”

“’Two things, once connected, remain connected even if they’re separated.’” Mary recited.

“Where did you get that?”

“Um, I found it on the internet.”

“Oh, oh, the non-magical understanding of … well, no, that may work for quantum physics and particle things, but not for magic, not really. Good thought, though,” said Hermione.

“Oh. Just thought it might help.”

John cleared his throat and gave his crestfallen wife a hug. “Welcome to my world.”

A chair from the waiting room was floated in so Sherlock could get off the table and sit for a bit, and Ducky turned to John. “Now I understand that you were put under a Lesser Confunding Charm yesterday and want to make sure there are no lasting effects?”

“Exactly.”

“All right, I’ll do a quick Revealing Charm – that will tell us if there are any ongoing magical effects on you at all; I don’t expect there will be, from something as simple as that, but you never can tell what else there might be.”

“Oh, Dean and Sherlock made me take one of those Calming things yesterday, will that make a difference?”

“Standard Calming Draught?” Ducky asked Dean.

“Muggle-safe version, yeah,” the tall Auror answered.

“That will have cleared your system by now. Sit up on the table, please. Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” muttered John. The way he steeled himself, it was more like he was preparing himself to be shot again than to have a diagnostic spell cast on him.

“ Specialis Revelio! ” cast Ducky, and John winced as a white aura flashed around him briefly.

“No spell traces, but how are you feeling?”

“I’ve just got a touch of a headache myself, is all.”

Ducky frowned. “Do me a favour, John.” He picked up the velvet bag from where he’d put it on the instrument table. “Dominant hand, please.”

John held out his left hand, which for once actually was trembling, and Ducky let the stone spill out into his palm. The black crystal developed a hint of red sparkle in the centre.

“So what does this mean? Is there a spell, or what?”

“Would you put that stone in Miss Granger’s hand, John?”

John obligingly tipped the stone into Hermione’s hand. It burst into brilliant, scintillating blue-white light filled with specks and sparks of gold and silver and rainbow colours. Ducky held out his own hand and Hermione tipped the stone into his palm. The light dimmed somewhat, became filled with greens and reds and golds. He passed it to Dean, and the light dimmed again, just a tiny bit – the colours changing to a deep blood red with sparks of black and silver. Dean looked at Ducky, who nodded, then he held out his hand to Mary, who hesitantly held out her palm. Dean tipped the stone into it. The light went away completely – the stone was dark and opaque and drab. It didn’t even have the purple crystals that Sherlock’s did. Sadly, she tipped it back into John’s hand. Once again, it became black with the red sparkle.

“It means, John, that once upon a time, somewhere in your family history, there was a wizard or a witch. Possibly more than one. But just as magic can spring up in entirely Muggle families, as in Miss Granger’s family, it can spontaneously vanish from a magical line – sometimes completely, sometimes leaving just a trace. You have magic, John. Not enough to cast spells, you’re not a wizard. More what we’d call a squib. Looks like you’ve got a bit of Noumenal Headache yourself – a dose of paracetamol and some chocolate wouldn’t hurt, but don’t try taking Mr. Holmes’ potion. You don’t have enough magic to tolerate it.”

Mary and Hermione simultaneously produced bottles of headache medication out of their bags, and John dry swallowed the pills. Hopefully that would start to have an effect soon. Chocolate would have to wait.

“My great-grandmother on my father’s father’s side. Emma, her name was,” John said slowly. “They said she was a hedge-witch. She was a midwife. Sold potions to break fevers, relieve the pain of childbirth, cure the dropsy, drive off illness, ease the dying. Her son – my grandfather Hamish – became a doctor. Said she taught him more than university ever did. I became a doctor because of his example. And now … it was magic?”

“No, it was medicine. Two days ago, you reminded me of the origins of digitalis – possibly that very potion your ancestress used for ‘dropsy’ – edema caused by congestive heart failure. John, I’m a healer in both worlds. I’m a half-blood – half-and-half, actually. I went to Hogwarts, though I have records that say Eton, learned my magic, did three years of Healer training, and then returned to the Muggle world to study and trained at the University of Edinburgh. I’ve straddled the line between worlds since then. It hasn’t always been easy, but that was my calling. As it is yours, and it doesn’t matter what methods we use or what names we call ourselves.”

“But if I can’t use it … what good is it?”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t use it. I suspect you have been, all your life. I didn’t ask about your medical history when you came here; that was an oversight because we were dealing with your friend’s emergency. Now I’ll ask you, though, how many times were you ill as a child?”

“Not at all. Not even the chicken pox, and everybody gets that. I got perfect attendance marks in school, except for the year I broke my leg playing rugby and was out for a week.”

“And how well did that injury, and other injuries you’ve had, heal?”

“Ah, remarkably well, actually. And fast. Until, well, Afghanistan.”

“I read your blog yesterday. Fascinating, actually. How many times have you been injured, hit on the head, drugged, in the course of your adventures? Including the ones you didn’t write about?”

“Don’t forget the smoke inhalation,” added Mary, helpfully.

“No, can’t forget that, certainly. Far too many times.”

“And how much neurological damage would you say you display as a result of cumulative trauma? Joint pain, lung damage, liver issues? You know how it works, in a patient with your medical history, what would you expect?”

“Oh, um …” John chewed on his lower lip for a moment while he thought about it. “You know, I’m surprised I’m not a basket case by now.”

“Some would say you are a basket case – you hang around with me,” put in Sherlock.

“True enough. The only real long-term damage I’ve got is the shoulder. You know, and the nerve damage in that arm.”

“I suspect that what magic you have is going to keeping you alive and repairing damage as it’s incurred – you’ve been keeping it very busy. It’s not instant – it just helps you heal a bit faster and a bit more thoroughly than you would have otherwise. It’s also boosting your immune system, and I expect extending your life span, assuming you don’t do anything stupid or immediately fatal. You’re probably in the sweet spot where you have enough magic to protect you from Muggle illnesses, but not enough to make you vulnerable to magical ones. Will you let me do a check for you?”

“Just … like a checkup? Sure, if we have time.”

“It’ll just take a few moments.”

He rolled a sheet of fine white paper out on the examination table and asked John to lie down on it, face up. Then he cast some spells, murmuring softly in what sounded like Greek, and the paper glowed momentarily. The process was repeated on another sheet with John lying face down. He didn’t even have to take his shirt off. Both papers were whisked off the table and stuck to the wall – each showed a ghostly shadow outline of John’s body, with a few markings in various colours.

John studied the papers carefully. The most noticeable marks were a grouping of red lines radiating from a circular mark on his left shoulder, front and back. Two red rectangular patches crossed the network of fine lines where his shoulder blade lay under the scarred skin and muscle. There were also some pink marks on his right femur – a line going through the bone and a mottled area above and below the line – and a blue shadow inside his skull. That one drew his attention, and his mouth went just a little bit dry.

“As I thought. John, you are in remarkable physical condition, given your activities.”

Sherlock had to agree; he suspected his own record, if he had Ducky do this, would be far from pretty.

“You’re not showing any signs of the degenerative conditions from aging common to Muggles,” Ducky continued, “and you’ve healed well from your various injuries. May I see your shoulder?”

John unbuttoned and stripped his shirt off, trying to ignore his audience; Mary and Sherlock had both seen the scars, but he barely knew Dean and Hermione. Neither of them gasped or flinched or looked horrified – obviously both of them had seen injuries of the sort and Hermione bore a scar that was worse than his, if he was honest.

Ducky performed a quick and very thorough evaluation of his shoulder, palpating the scars on both sides, testing the flexibility of the joint and the strength of the arm and hand, comparing it to the right. He cast something over the shoulder – and wasn’t it amazing how fast John had adapted to that, his paranoia was almost gone – and a feeling of warmth filled the shoulder and crept down the arm to his fingers. When he tested again, the left arm was perceptibly stronger than it had been. Ducky then raised his wand to the side of John’s head.

John startled, and raised his hand to fend it away. Ducky waited for a moment, and John lowered his hand and nodded, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t see Ducky running the tip of his wand close to John’s skull. After a moment, the older doctor said “Done” softly and stepped away when John opened his eyes again. He gestured for John to put his shirt back on.

“You realise how lucky you were, do you not? An inch or two either way …”

“I could have bled out from the subclavian artery or the lung and never made it back to base, or had a shattered joint, yes.”

“Not to mention the sequelae. The real reason you were sent home.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock looked up abruptly. “I thought the limp, the tremor …”

“Not enough to get me discharged,” John said harshly. “The army could have used me as a GP or an administrator if I couldn’t work as a surgeon. They need doctors and wouldn’t be stupid enough to cashier a good one just because of a simple tremor.”

“The PTSD?”

“If they discharged everybody with PTSD, they’d have no army left. There are plenty of non-combat positions available and plenty of military therapists to help you deal. They only discharge you if you’re basically non-functional. No, it was the, ah, opportunistic infections afterward. Staph. aureus is a nasty little bugger. It’s on the skin and on the bullet, gets into the bloodstream, finds a weak point … two days later you’re dead or dying of a massive infection somewhere completely different from the original wound.”

“Osteomyelitis in the femur, settling where the previous break was. Successfully treated, but caused quite a bit of pain at the time,” said Ducky.

Sherlock’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Yeah, the infection was resolved by the time I met you and the pain was mostly in my head, but the original cause was real. The limp failed me for fitness for service in the field, but again, they could have worked around that, assigning me to a military hospital here at home, for example.” He tapped his index finger on the blue mark inside the ghostly outline of his skull. “That right there is why they kicked me out.”

“A brain abscess causing a seizure or seizures,” said Ducky. “Quite serious at the time, I imagine. You’ve been under continued observation ever since, am I right? Especially with your penchant for further injuries?”

“Yes.” John sighed. “Even one seizure disqualifies you from serving in any role for ten years. Even the Reserves. I was seizing off and on for over a week. No way in hell they’d let me stay.”

“But it’s been years since you had a seizure, hasn’t it?”

“Not since they resolved the infections and released me from hospital. It’s been five years, they even let me drive now. Although if I ever have another, my driving days are over permanently.”

“No cognitive, sensory or behavioural after-effects?”

“Some synaesthesia at first, but that was gone in a few months.”

“Well, then I believe I have good news for you. Your magic has been essentially prioritising and dealing with the most crucial injuries first. The brain injury was most important to resolve, and so it has. I doubt if it would even show on a Muggle brain scan now, aside from a very faint shadow. Another year and likely even that will be gone. As you can see, there are no other marks indicating brain injury, so you’ve been resolving concussion damage, if any, as you go. You needn’t fear developing epilepsy or any other seizure disorder in the future – not from this, anyway.”

John let out a long, shuddering breath and his shoulders relaxed – he hadn’t really been aware how much tension he was carrying with him. Mary gave him a warm hug.

“That leaves the shoulder. Quite frankly, the reason you’re still having difficulties with it is because of the original treatment. There were places the bone had to be pinned and plated, surgical staples inserted, and so on – these little red bits on the scan. Those are no longer needed and your body is trying to find ways to get rid of them. Hence inflammation, irritation of the nerves, muscular weakness, and so forth.”

“So if all that were removed?”

“You could heal naturally. Perhaps a quarter dose of Skele-gro to fill in the chips and cracks in the scapula and strengthen the femur. We can reduce the amount of scar tissue, which is what’s really limiting your range of motion, but keep just enough for cosmetic purposes – can’t have people wondering why such an injury would disappear completely, can we? Muscle density and endurance would have to be gained back with exercise and use, of course, but I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t get full use of the arm and hand back.”

“I could be a surgeon again?”

“You could now. It’s only your own insecurity that’s holding you back. I’m sure they’ll make you recertify, but that won’t be a problem if you’re motivated.”

“Motivated? You bet your arse I’m motivated! What would it take? How long would I be out of action?”

Ducky looked towards Hermione, who nodded. “A squib would normally come very low on the list for elective treatment, but the DMLE can authorize our consultants jumping the queue,” she said.

“I’ll contact St. Mungo’s tomorrow morning, then,” said Ducky. “With luck I can get you in tomorrow afternoon; Tuesday at the latest. The procedure is simple and should take less than an hour. The Skele-gro will require an overnight for observation, and you’ll be out the next morning with a plan for therapy and exercise. The rest will be up to you.”

“One day?” John asked, unbelieving.

“The great advantage to magic is its efficiency,” said Ducky, with a smile. “We have an interface with the NHS for those who live in the Muggle world, so we’ll just backdate some records to make it look like you’ve been participating in a program of minor surgery and therapy for some months, and nobody will ever question it. Come along, we’ll get the paperwork started.” Ducky shrank the two diagnostic pages down to a standard stationery size and took the group to his office, which looked much like any other doctor’s office except for the use of real wood everywhere. He opened up standard NHS folders for John and Sherlock, with notations about John’s prospective surgery and a diagnosis of “Migraine Headache” and treatment notes for Sherlock.

“I don’t want special treatment …” said John.

“You’re going to be working as a consultant on a vitally important project with the Ministry,” said Hermione. “It’s in the interests of the DMLE to make sure all its employees and consultants are in tip-top shape. I’m sure Yard personnel get first billing, too.”

“Yeah, but we don’t.”

“You should. Really, this is something you’re entitled to anyway, as newly-discovered members of the magical community. Which reminds me, we should take you down to the Ministry and register you – possibly we could track down your great-grandmother and see if she comes from any of the recognized family lines, or just leave it as a squib line of unknown origin. There are plenty of those. Sherlock, once your magic is fully unbound we can do the same for you – just by looking at you, I’d say there’s a chance you descend from the House of Black, but there are a few other Houses you could have been born to as well. We can check the Blacks, anyway, I have a connection there. Or we could list you as an undiscovered Muggleborn if you prefer that. Start the House of Holmes. There are advantages either way. You will have to get a wand and at least basic training – it would be very dangerous to have someone with an adult’s magical capabilities and no control.”

“Blowing up the office and so forth?”

“Precisely.”

“Assuming this consultancy works out,” said Ducky, “there’s something else you might consider, John. I’m already past the mandatory retirement age for the Yard, and there’s only so far I can stretch ‘semi-retirement’ to keep my hand in. I’m going to have to move into the wizarding world entirely soon. The DMLE doesn’t have anyone else in place to do my job. Given your skills, it wouldn’t take much to get you in place to do what I do – which is to report any obviously magical homicides to the DMLE so they can be addressed properly. It would be part-time but steady work and more interesting than working in a surgery doing flu shots. That might get you and your partner some interesting cases, as well. It turns out you’ve run across one or two of ours already.”

“Which ones?” Sherlock asked eagerly.

“That ‘werewolf’ case last summer, for example.”

“Animal mutilator obsessed with the werewolf mythos, killed three large dogs on successive full moons,” Sherlock rattled off. “The Yard was concerned he’d escalate to human beings, but it just stopped.”

“Real werewolf. Sixteen year old boy, attacked while on holiday in Germany, traumatized and ashamed and unable to deal with what had happened to him. We tracked him down and got him a mentor and put him into a treatment program. He’s going into his seventh year at Hogwarts next month.”

Sherlock blinked. Werewolf treatment programs? More things to find out about. “That’s good to know.”

Dean spoke up unexpectedly. “It’d be good to have a Muggle doctor in the know for our families, too, in case of emergencies. Turns out you’ve already done my family a good turn, John. I know you do good work.”

“Really? How?”

“Bainbridge,” said Sherlock suddenly. “Private Stephen Bainbridge. There’s a distinct resemblance.”

Dean smiled. “My younger half-brother. We both take after Mum. John saved his life when he was stabbed by a stalker last summer,” he explained to Ducky and Hermione. “I thought it might have been him yesterday, but I called Steve up last night to verify before I said anything.”

“He recovered well, then?”

“Minor damage to one kidney, but complete recovery otherwise. So thanks on behalf of our whole family. I know you don’t have a practice of your own, but I think if you did set one up, the Muggle family network would send you a lot of patients.”

Hermione nodded. “My dad got a lot of patients that way too, before he and Mum retired. They’re dentists,” she added.

“I’ll … we’ll consider it, thank you,” said John. “Um, one last thing while I’m thinking about it, Ducky … Mary and I have a daughter. She’s seven months old. Is it possible that she’s, ah …”

“Magical? It’s too early to tell now, but if she is, it should show between the ages of two and four – trust me, you’ll recognize it when you see it. If it doesn’t show, then bring her in when she’s about five and we’ll check to see if she’s a squib or a Muggle. We won’t be able to tell the difference until then. The same goes for any additional children you have, of course.”

“I … we’re not quite ready to think about that, just yet.”

“Of course. Something to consider, though. There are subsidies for Muggle and squib parents of wizarding children nowadays. To cover additional costs, schooling, damage to the house, that sort of thing.”

“We’ll keep that in mind. You’ll let me know about the hospital, then?”

“As soon as I have a firm time.”

Mobile numbers were exchanged all around, and soon they were back on the (incredibly crowded) street.

“Next stop?” asked John.

“Book store. I want to get you those guidebooks.”

“Would they have any of the books on Harry Potter you mentioned?” asked Sherlock.

“Of course they do. Best sellers, most of them, even though they’re pure fiction. I’ll pick up a couple of the more reliable ones for you.”

“I’ll pay for my own…”

“Expense account,” she said, waving it off. “You’ll need the background information. The current editions of Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Modern Magical History , at the very least. Harry Potter: The Early Years is rubbish but will show you what people are thinking, and of course there’s the definitive Harry at Hogwarts: Four Years a Hero .”

“Definitive?”

“I wrote it myself. As far as I know, I’m the only author of a Harry Potter book who ever even met him. Well, except Rita Skeeter, but she’s a hack. The publisher picked the title, though. Somehow they didn’t think Safe as Houses: An Analysis of Extraordinary Survival Strategies at Hogwarts would sell very well.”

“I can’t imagine why not,” said Sherlock.

“Think we could get that autographed?” asked John with a laugh.

“You know, I think you probably could,” Hermione replied, smirking.

The book store was packed with parents and children buying stacks of textbooks and supplementary reading materials; the shrieking and yelling drove them out again as fast as they could grab their books and leave. Sherlock was appalled by a garish ‘Harry Potter Birthday SALE!!!’ display featuring books and a variety of memorabilia and souvenir trash. Hermione just nodded at it and commented, “You see what we meant?”

The ice-cream parlour just down the street was called Fortescue’s. The ice cream Hermione ordered for Sherlock and John (and Mary, once she caught wind of it) was called Medicinal Chocolate. It was rich and dark and bitter and had only the minimal cream in it necessary to qualify as “ice cream”. It was wonderful, and the warm darkness of it spread through their bodies and drove off the last lingering traces of their headaches. John had two bowls of it. Sherlock had three.

While the last of the ice cream was being scraped out of the dishes, Hermione asked, “What do you think about meeting some of the other people who knew Harry?”

“More schoolmates?”

“Some. But I had in mind some of the adults who knew him then. His godfather, in particular.”

“His godfather? There’s more family, then?”

“Not on the Muggle side – maybe some distant cousins, but not close enough to matter. On the wizarding side – well, James Potter was a Pureblood, and that means everybody is related to everybody else through very complex interlocking family trees – even the Dark and Light sides cross. Harry’s godfather was James Potter’s best friend – and also second cousin, but from families on either side of the political divide. Sirius’s family was traditionally Dark, but he deserted and allied with James, who was on the Light side. Though both of them were pretty Grey actually, if you ask me. Sirius was supposed to take care of Harry if anything happened to James and Lily.”

“So why didn’t he? How did Harry wind up at the Dursleys?”

“It’s a long story. Short version: Sirius was wrongly accused of colluding with You-Know-Who, betraying Harry’s parents and multiple murders, unjustly imprisoned without trial for twelve years, escaped from the inescapable prison, and spent seven years in hiding before his name was finally cleared. It’s a little hard to take custody of your godson when all that’s going on.”

“I can see that, yes. But even though he was in hiding, he still knew Harry? And has he been involved in the search for him as well?”

“They were only in contact a few times during third and fourth years that I know of. But those few times were significant for Harry. And for Sirius – he loved – loves – him deeply. I told him about the labyrinth, what it means, last night. He broke down crying – something he hasn’t done since just after Harry vanished. As for searching for him, Sirius hasn’t been able to help directly. He doesn’t have Muggle world contacts. What he’s been doing, is heading up the fight against You-Know-Who.”

“You mean Vol-” Sherlock started to say.

Hermione shushed him fiercely. “No! Don’t say it in public. In private is fine, but too many people … it could attract the wrong sort of attention.”

“Followers? In the crowd?” Sherlock glanced around.

“Possibly, but it’s more everybody else. It could start a panic. I told you yesterday, people are so afraid of him, they’re afraid of the name itself.”

“Ah. Sheep.”

“Magical thinking.” Hermione shrugged. “It’s understandable, in context. This has been going on for a generation, now. It’s marked all of us. Even if it were to end tomorrow, given the lifespans of wizards, it may take centuries for the impact to fade.”

“Centuries?”

“Magic again, Sherlock. It supports us, sustains us. The more powerful you are, the longer you’re likely to live – accidents and acts of malice excepted.” She nodded across the table at John, who was giggling with Mary over the moving pictures in one of the guide books. “Your friend – all other things being equal, as a Squib he’s likely to be healthy and active into his 90’s. Then one day he’ll just – stop. As a wizard, you can expect to reach a century at least based on what the crystal showed today, but probably more depending on your final power level. Right now you’re low end, but we don’t know how much more will be unlocked.”

“I saw how bright the crystal was when you held it. Was that a relative measure of your – power level?”

She nodded. “Yes. It’s generally considered rude to ask about it, sort of like talking about money is, or used to be at any rate, in the Muggle world. But you need to know, and you’d ask anyway, rude be damned – I know your reputation.”

“Nice to know I’ve been thoroughly researched.” Though apparently not thoroughly enough.

“I always do my research, Mr. Holmes,” she said archly. “I’m famous for it. The crystal gives you a rough, but visible, estimate of power level, and the colours in it give a hint as to what your particular talents and specialties are likely to be.”

“You had a lot of colours in yours.”

“I’m pretty good at just about everything. A Jill of all trades, mistress of none. And the brightness shows that I’m well above average in power,” she said, blushing a bit. “That makes me very, very dangerous. My expected life span could be up around 150, but I probably won’t make a century, because I threaten too many other people.”

“You’re very matter-of-fact about it.”

“Logic, Sherlock. I’m just being realistic. A century is more than a non-magical can usually expect, so anything over that will be gravy. Over and above that, we’re at war. I’m a very high-risk target. Even if I was just a housewife, I’d be in danger. So, quite likely, will you be. Until it’s over, none of us can predict our lifespans anyway.”

“Given the way my life has gone, I never expected to make it much past thirty in the first place,” Sherlock commented. “I was about that when I met John, and I haven’t been able to recalculate since then. Too many variables.” Time to change the subject while not changing the subject. “How about Harry Potter? You’ve said he was powerful. Was he ever tested with that crystal?”

“The crystal hadn’t been invented yet when he disappeared, and I don’t know what its upper limits are. Empirical study of magic is in its infancy, you see – it’s still more an art form than a science. Most people assume Harry’s power level because of his defeat of You-Know-Who when he was a baby. When we were in school, I witnessed a few events that indicated just how powerful he could be when he was pressed, and that was before he’d come into his full ability, which should have happened when he turned seventeen, plus or minus a few months. Details are in my book. What I saw placed Harry, at thirteen, already on an equal level with You-Know-Who and the Headmaster of our school, Albus Dumbledore, who were held to be the strongest alive at that time. Dumbledore’s dead now, so that leaves You-Know-Who and Harry, whatever level he topped out at. If we tested him with the crystal, I’d expect him to either blow it up or blind everybody in the room. As for his expected lifespan – who knows? Two centuries? More?”

She looked down to her empty bowl of ice cream and circled the rim with one delicate finger, scooping up a trace of chocolate sauce to lick it off her fingertip. “And that … is another reason we have retreated. Why we don’t keep contact with the non-magical world. It’s one thing for the Purebloods – their families, friends, are likely to live as long as they do. For us, for the Muggleborn, to outlive our siblings, our friends – it’s one reason we start separating in school, when we’re just children, we can accept it … by the time we’re adults we’ve already pretty much completed the withdrawal process. Harry … Harry hasn’t. If he’s made any kind of a life for himself, if he chooses to stay in the non-magical world, he’ll watch it age and die around him.”

She raised her gaze to meet Sherlock’s, and there were tears sparkling in her lashes. “As will you, most likely. You’re likely to outlive Mary, John, maybe even their children. I have to say – when Ducky gave you that crystal – I was sorry for the results. You didn’t ask for this, I mean, nobody does, but – to find magic as a child, to gain this whole new world, that’s amazing. Brilliant. And you don’t notice that the old world doesn’t have a place for you any more as you gradually grow into the new one. As an adult … I can’t even imagine the trauma.”

Sherlock reached across the table and patted her hand awkwardly. “And yet people move from culture to culture all the time and most manage to adapt. I dare say I’ll manage well enough. Certainly better now that I’ve been forewarned.”

Sherlock forced them to stop at the apothecary before they left the Alley, leaving with a supply of basic potions ingredients to play with and a book of simple formulas. Hermione assured John that none of them were poisonous, though she couldn’t guarantee that there wouldn’t be the occasional explosion if Sherlock started combining random items. John shuddered and started calculating how much it would cost to reinforce the ceiling of the basement lab. Not to mention fireproofing everything.

The Leaky Cauldron was still as crowded as it had been before, and their treat at Fortescue’s had dulled their appetites, so they re-entered the non-magical world reluctantly. Even after only one afternoon’s excursion, their perceptions had changed so much that it was John who looked both ways up and down the street and then huffed: “Boring.”

“Where to now? The godfather?” Sherlock asked Hermione. “Would he be expecting us?”

“I told him we might come. And there will be people showing up for dinner anyway – it’s the Anniversary tonight, and Sirius doesn’t like to be alone for that. Are you all right with that?”

“I don’t know. I keep feeling like I’ve fallen down the rabbit-hole, and I’m just waiting for the sudden stop at the end,” he said.

The Case of the Missing Wizard
Chapter 8. Through the Looking Glass

The cab pulled up at the entrance to a residential square in Islington. It was typical of terraced housing in the area, with a small green commons surrounded by identical row houses in the Georgian style. It showed signs of the various ups and downs the area had suffered over the years, but in general it appeared to be on an upswing; the houses were in good shape and the commons done up as a pleasant little park.

Sherlock stepped out of the cab, stood just enough out of the way for everyone else to get out without bumping into him, and gave the street a critical once-over. “I’ve been here before.”

“Of course you have,” Hermione sighed.

“I don’t recognize it,” said John. “Was this when …?”

“No, it was before you and I met,” said Sherlock, pacing slowly down the pavement. “It was when I was just getting started with the Met. Cases were few and far between, and I needed to keep myself from getting seriously bored. So I basically memorized London. Started with the streets, of course – I could qualify to be a cabbie if I wanted.”

“Probably better than most of them. As long as you don’t branch out into serial killing,” said John, remembering their first case together.

“That’s been done. Anyway, once I’d got the streets down, I walked them all. Studied them all. Noticed the anomalies. Did you know, for example, that there are precisely thirty-seven missing houses in London?”

“Like Leinster Gardens?” asked Mary, shivering. She really didn’t like to think about what had happened and almost happened there, although things had worked out in the end.

“Well no, Leinster Gardens has house numbers and fake house fronts but there’s a physical gap where the houses themselves are missing. These missing houses are just … not there. Gaps in the sequence where there’s no reason for there to be a gap, but no actual gap between houses. A street with eight houses on one side and seven identical houses and a missing number on the other side. And nobody notices that it takes forty paces to walk from the north end of the street to the south, but forty-four from south to north, only on the side with the missing number.”

“Nobody?” asked John.

“Nobody except obsessive-compulsive consulting detectives. So much is written off as anomalies caused by houses destroyed in the war, burned and rebuilt, reconstruction and remodelling, and so forth … and of course there are some of those, I had to account for all of that, too. These thirty-seven are the ones that can’t be explained that way. I was planning to write a monograph on the subject. Then I got onto an intriguing case involving jewellery thefts committed by trained monkeys and somehow never got around to it.” He spun on his heel to face Hermione while still walking in the same direction, only now backwards. “Do I have your people to thank for that, Miss Granger?”

“Indirectly,” she said. “If one or more of these missing houses had charms or spells on them to make them unnoticeable, and you were noticing them regardless, it’s quite impressive. The cumulative effect of the charms would, however, have added up, and when you were distracted by something else, they took effect to make sure you never returned to that line of investigation. But no one actually tried to cast something on you specifically. And I promise we didn’t have anything to do with the monkeys.”

“And that brings us here,” Sherlock said, stopping suddenly and pivoting to face two of the houses. “Number 12, Grimmauld Place.”

John and Mary looked from the door of one house, which had a shining brass number 11 on it, to the next, which had the number 13.

“All right,” said John slowly, “I’m not going to be stupid and ignore everything you’ve just said and say ‘But Sherlock, there’s no house here!’ Even though I very much want to, and there is, in fact, no house here. And I want even more to leave this street and never come back – where are you going, Mary?”

Mary had acquired a blank look on her face and had turned to go back to the main road, leaving the rest of the group behind.

John grabbed her hand and Sherlock darted around to block her path.

“John, what are you doing? We need to go home now, Amanda needs us!”

“And that’s exactly how a Muggle-Repelling Charm works. Let’s deal with this right now,” said Hermione, fishing in her beaded bag/canvas tote. Instead of pulling out a wand or similar magic device, she produced a plain leather wallet, and pulled a strip of folded paper out of it. “Mary, read what’s written here. Hold your pendant in your hand, that might make it easier.”

“Out loud?”

“No, you won’t be able to. Just read it to yourself. Memorize it.”

Trembling, Mary did as she was instructed. She looked up from the paper at the two houses, gasped in shock, and turned to bury her face in John’s shoulder.

Hermione carefully removed the slip from Mary’s clenched fist and gave it to Sherlock, who held it where both he and John could read it. The handwriting was old-fashioned but clear. The Family Seat of the Ancient and Noble House of Black may be found at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

Sherlock looked up expectantly, and sure enough, a door, followed by stone front steps, walls and windows, appeared, shouldering its way into existence between numbers Eleven and Thirteen. It looked mostly like the other houses on the street, clean and well-kept, except that the polished silver door knocker was made in the shape of a snake twisted into a knot, and there was no keyhole or letterbox.

Hermione tucked her wallet and the slip of paper back into her bag. “This way, please,” she said briskly, leading them up to the front door. She drew her wand and tapped it on the door, announcing her name. There was a brief pause, then a series of metallic clicks and clanks and the clatter of a chain. The door swung open soundlessly on well-oiled hinges and closed behind them when they stepped through, relocking itself with the appropriate noises. “Sorry about the sound effects,” Hermione said in an embarrassed tone. “They’re a bit old-fashioned, but they were built into the original locks and we can’t get rid of them without rejiggering the entire protection scheme.”

“No, it’s fine,” Sherlock assured her. “Very … atmospheric.”

It seemed like they had stepped back a century in time. As they looked around, old-fashioned gas lights on the walls and a sparkling chandelier overhead lit up to illuminate the entry in which they stood. The space would have been more appropriate to one of the Grand Old Houses of London than to a simple row house. For one thing, there was an entrance to a large parlour with a huge fireplace located in what should have been the house next door. The House of Black also apparently borrowed space from black holes. On the opposite side from the parlour was a formal sitting room; straight ahead was an elaborate grand staircase flanked by a hallway leading back into the more private rooms of the house. A few large portraits hung on the walls. The carpet was a deep, lush green, and the wallpaper bore a soft, abstract pattern of pale green and silver swirls on cream. The colour scheme was carried on into the other rooms visible.

Sherlock didn’t know exactly what he had expected of a magical house, but this wasn’t it. His rooms in Baker Street were more unusual than this. There were a few outré touches, of course. The spindles on the staircase were entwined with carved wooden serpents, and one of them had been brightly painted with red and gold and black stripes to resemble a coral snake. There was an umbrella stand made from the preserved foot of some large humanoid creature with greyish skin and thick toenails. And the figures in the portraits on the walls were moving, shifting in their frames to get a better look at them.

“If you wanted atmosphere,” said Hermione, “You should have seen what this place looked like twenty years ago. It was a total dump. Cobwebs, peeling wallpaper, things with far too many legs scuttling about in the walls, you name it. Classic haunted house style. Smelt bad, too.” She sighed happily as she looked around. “We put a lot of work into renovating it.”

“We?”

“Well, Sirius mostly, and Remus since they were living here, but a lot of us visited and did our bit. It took years. I think Charlie did that,” she said, pointing at the painted spindle. “Said there was far too much Slytherin in the place, even in pastels. So he brightened it up a bit.”

The sound of footsteps on the staircase drew their attention, as two men descended from the upper floors. “Hermione, good to see you again! And who is this you’ve brought to the beautiful House of Black? Tourists? Interior decorators looking for DIY tips?” The man barked a brief laugh at his own joke.

“I told you we’d be coming, or were you so deep in your work that you didn’t hear me?” Hermione said fondly. “Sirius, Remus, I’d like to introduce Sherlock Holmes, Doctor John Watson, and his wife Mary Watson, the investigators that the Ministry let me hire. Sherlock, John and Mary, this is Sirius Black, Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, and Remus Lupin, the Steward to the House of Black.”

Sherlock gave the two men his customary quick once-over. The first of the two, obviously the social superior but also good friend of the other, was tall, about Sherlock’s own height, and thin. His features were sharp and aristocratic, handsome if one was given to subjective descriptions. He had black hair shot with strands of silver, worn about shoulder-length but tied back in a tail held with a black ribbon; his skin was fair and his eyes were deep grey. Sherlock would have guessed him to be in his mid- to late forties, but from what Hermione had said earlier, wizards might age at a different rate, so he might well be older than that. His clothing was a mix of magical and non-magical style, Sherlock supposed: black shoes and trousers, a shirt of such a deep blood red that it was almost purple, and a black velvet robe, open down the front and about knee-length, with gold gryphons embroidered on it. He guessed the robe was the magical equivalent of a suit jacket, appropriate for greeting visitors. Aside from the age difference, Sherlock thought this man might almost be a magical mirror version of himself.

The second man was taller than the first by about an inch, but stood slightly stooped, either by age or infirmity. Judging by his face, he was about the same age as his companion, though his features bore the signs of chronic illness, but his hair was pure white. From the colours of his eyebrows and moustache, it had originally been light brown. His eyes were warm brown with flecks of gold. His clothing was non-magical in style but old-fashioned; something John’s father or grandfather might easily have worn, but not so out of date as to attract attention on the street. It might even be considered ‘retro’. He held himself almost the way John had when they first met, the stiffness of an old injury affecting his posture, and was obviously tired. He had a single deep red scratch running down the right side of his face, his throat, and underneath his collar. It was a day or two old, and Sherlock wondered why he hadn’t had it treated, given the efficiency of magical medicine. John would have been all over it if Sherlock had acquired an injury like that. This man was not a magical mirror John – that would be Ducky Mallard – but he obviously filled that role.

There were apparently at least two dogs, quite large, with which the men associated frequently, since traces of a fine black and coarser brown hair clung to their clothing. There was no sign of dog hair on the carpet, so the animals were most likely not allowed in the house.

The man introduced as Sirius Black stepped forward, holding his hand out to Sherlock. “Welcome to the House of Black,” he said formally. “I hope your work will be successful.” After they’d shaken hands, he shook off the air of formality like a dog shaking off the rain. “And now that the boring introductions are over, you can call us Sirius and Remus. Please come upstairs so we can get to know each other a little before the mob starts arriving.”

“You called the Order?” Hermione asked.

“Of course. Everyone wanted to meet the man who’s going to find Harry. And put in their two knuts on where you should look, of course.” He barked another quick laugh. “So I want to get in my two knuts first.”

Sirius led them up the stairs and into an exquisitely appointed drawing room. It was flooded with light from large windows overlooking the street, though Sherlock did not recall such windows existing on the exterior of the building. Magic was going to make observing and deducing a lot more difficult; a great number of things had just moved from the “impossible and therefore eliminated” category of his favourite maxim to “improbable and therefore possibly true”. He was sure there were rules. He just had to learn them.

The wall opposite the entrance to the room was covered floor to ceiling and side to side with an elaborate tapestry which was undoubtedly older than the house was by several hundred years at least. It was handwoven linen, with golden embroidery in swirling lines and lettering that formed an elaborate family tree. At the top were the words THE NOBLE AND MOST ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK , and below it: Toujours Pur executed in elaborate stitching.

The wall opposite the windows was occupied by a large fireplace flanked by two ornate, antique glass-fronted cabinets displaying the sort of valuable bric-a-brac a very old family collects. Above the fireplace was a display of heraldic achievement: the escutcheon displayed arms sable with chevron argent, two five-pointed stars argent above and a sword argent beneath; the supporters were hounds, and the motto on the banner below also read Toujours Pur . There was no coronet, helm or crest; apparently the Black family hadn’t moved in the most exalted of circles, assuming the arms were legitimate at all.

The centre of the room was occupied by a collection of chairs and a sofa, with a low table bearing a silver tea set. Fragrant steam rose from the pot. There was plenty of space for everybody to get comfortable, once Mary got over her diffidence about sitting on something that looked like a priceless antique. “Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Watson,” said Sirius, flinging himself carelessly into a chair. “What’s furniture for, if not to be used?”

Hermione acted as hostess, distributing tea and exquisite little cakes as desired. Sirius and Sherlock exchanged measuring looks while the niceties were dealt with. Remus Lupin eyed both of them speculatively over his cup of tea.

“So,” said Sherlock, breaking the silence. “You can give me information about Harry Potter?”

“For what it’s worth. Most of what I have is from after he joined the wizarding world. His school books. His photo album. A clippings file from when he went missing. Search reports on all the places where he wasn’t. I don’t know much about where he would have gone among the Muggles. But if you need anything I have, it’s yours. Information, money for bribes … if you need anybody turned into a frog. Name it.”

Sherlock had the distinct feeling he wasn’t joking.

“You have to understand, Harry is … Harry’s father was my best friend in school. The two of us … we were like brothers. Closer than that, maybe. We would have killed for each other. We would have died for each other. Either way would have been okay. So when James married Lily, I was his Best Man, and when Harry was born, they named me his Godfather. I knew I was never going to have a son of my own already by then and I’d been disowned by my own family – or so I believed at the time – so Harry was all I was ever going to have. I made him my Heir. James agreed … We were blood-bound, the whole nine yards. How anybody could have believed I’d hurt that boy … I loved him.”

“At the age of twenty, you were already convinced you’d never have children.”

“Well … let’s just say Lily and I shared the same tastes. I understand some things are the same in both worlds, Mr. Holmes.”

“And James knew.”

“Of course he did. We shared living quarters for seven years. We all knew everything about each other. I thought we did, anyway, until Peter … But nothing was ever going to come of it, we also both knew that. And there was Lily, of course. That was a love match if I ever saw one. He was happy, and I was content with that. And when they asked me if I wanted to be blood-bound with Harry after he was born … that was more than I ever dreamed of.”

“What’s blood-binding?” asked Hermione. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have, necessarily. It’s a Pureblood thing. A form of adoption. For dynastic purposes, mostly, when a line is dying out, or the only option for someone like me – it didn’t mean his parents gave him up, or anything like that. More like I became a third parent to him. So we did the blood-bond, which meant everything I owned would eventually go to him, even if my cousins objected. I didn’t know then that eventually all this,” he said, waving his hand to indicate the house and everything it represented, “would come to me. When we were in our twenties, we were young and poor and fighting for our lives and trying to make it a better world for our boy … It was fantastic, really.”

“ Dum vivimus, vivamus, ” murmured John.

“Yes, exactly!” replied Sirius with a wide grin. “We crammed all the living we could into every day. We had a year, and then that damned Prophecy … Have you seen that, yet? We’ll have to do that before you go … James and Lily took Harry into hiding, and for a while they made it, but they were betrayed. We were all betrayed.” His good humour evaporated as quickly as it had come. “After that, I think I had less than a few hours with Harry in total. A few letters. I was hoping for so much more, I wanted to give him a home, maybe try to be a father even if I couldn’t be his real father. He was angry at me at the end because I couldn’t take him away from the Dursleys. I didn’t know how bad it was for him there, none of us did, but I should have. I should have, and I failed the one person who meant the most to me. Can you understand that, Mr. Holmes?” He stared at Sherlock, his grey eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

“Yes, Mr. Black. I understand that perfectly.”

“If he’s stayed away all this time, it’s unlikely he’ll ever forgive me, but that doesn’t matter. I just want to know if he’s well, if he’s safe. Help him any way I can, even if it’s only to protect him from a distance. With my magic or with my life, I swear it.”

“You’re that sure that I’m going to find him?”

“I trust Hermione’s judgment. She assures me Harry’s alive. And she’s shown me the reports on you. If anyone can track down someone who disappeared twenty years ago, it’s you.”

“Miss Granger’s confidence is appreciated.”

She smiled at him over her cup. “Anybody that can figure out where the Unplottable Houses are deserves my confidence.”

“Really?” Sirius said with surprise.

“Really. Thirty-seven out of the forty-one,” she said. “And now that I’ve said ‘forty-one’, he’s not going to rest until he’s found the four he missed.”

Sherlock could not deny that – he was already trying to figure out where the ones he’d missed would most likely be hiding.

“There are people who’d want him killed for that, so best keep it quiet,” said Sirius.

“Killed – for houses?” sputtered John.

“Killed because Muggles aren’t supposed to know wizard secrets,” said Sirius. “Some of those houses are owned by the wizarding elite, and now Sherlock can find them. Hell, my parents would have been howling for his head for finding this place.”

“Then it’s a good thing that I’m not exactly non-magical,” said Sherlock. “And killing me wouldn’t help at all in any event,” said Sherlock calmly, as if he discussed his own death with others on a regular basis. Although he did exactly that far too frequently for comfort. “There are Missing House enthusiasts all over the world, trading information about the Missing Houses in every major city. I’m told there’s an entire street in New York City that’s only visible on alternate Tuesdays. I’ve been thinking about going to see it someday.”

“So much for the Secrecy Statutes,” said Remus.

“‘Not exactly non-magical’?” asked Sirius.

“We found out today that Sherlock’s actually a wizard,” Hermione told him. “He had his magic bound when he was a child, that’s why no one knew. And John’s a Squib, so Mary’s an allowed family member under the Statutes. I’ll admit I’m worried about these enthusiasts, but we can deal with that later.”

“A bound wizard. That’s … that’s awful. Something can be done about that, can’t it?”

“Dr. Mallard said the bindings are coming off naturally. Once it’s done, we can register him as a newly discovered Muggleborn, or try to find out if he’s related to one of the known families. I’m sure he is, but proving it is something else.”

“That would explain that, then,” said Remus. “I’m pretty sure he’s a Black.”

“That’s what I thought, but I couldn’t be sure. You can tell?” Hermione asked eagerly.

Remus laid a finger alongside his nose. “We’re still close enough to the full that I haven’t lost the nose yet. There’s something else, too, I can’t quite place it, but definitely a Black. Sirius, look at Sherlock … really look … I think you can see it too. The hair, the shape of the eyes … a bit of the mouth, too. What woman do we know who had eyes and a mouth like that?”

“Bella … her eyes were darker, but …” Sirius breathed out. “And Rod would explain the cheekbones. But then the binding … no, the Ministry wouldn’t have done that. Would they? No, what am I saying, of course they would.”

Sherlock resisted the urge to squirm a bit under their scrutiny. Is this how it feels for other people when I deduce them? No wonder they get upset.

“They would what?” asked John.

“My cousin, Bellatrix Black, married one Rodolphus Lestrange, and both of them became Death Eaters. She was pretty much the worst of a bad lot – she bought into You-Know-Who’s ideology totally. She was captured after his fall while torturing a pair of Aurors into insanity trying to get information. There’s been a persistent rumour that she was pregnant at the time, though she was actually proud of what she did and wouldn’t have tried to plead her belly to avoid Azkaban. But she wasn’t sent to Azkaban immediately after trial, and this would explain why. The last thing the Ministry would have wanted was for there to be a male heir to the Lestrange Family, but they wouldn’t kill an innocent baby. Not even Crouch would have done that. It would have been too dangerous to just put him in an orphanage and treat him as a Muggleborn – that’s how You-Know-Who got his start, after all. But if they bound his magic so he’d never be more than a Muggle and then dumped him … Merlin, that’s ugly.”

“Beyond ugly,” agreed Remus. “But if all that’s true, then he could lay claim to the Lestrange estate, and he’d be, what, second in line for Black after Harry? Teddy wouldn’t mind being pushed back to third, I think.”

“There will have to be some research done, of course, but if this turns out to be the truth, I’ll be happy to welcome you to the family, Sherlock. If it is true, unfortunately, it means your mother was batshit crazy and your father wasn’t much better, but I won’t hold that against you. We’re all a little mad here.”

“Yes, perhaps we can deal with that later? I really would like to look over the evidence regarding Harry Potter before we’re invaded by dinner guests,” Sherlock said. The unexpected resemblance between himself and some of Sirius’ family members was interesting, but not exactly important at the moment.

“Of course, of course. Terribly sorry, I’ve been distractible ever since Azkaban. Where would you like to begin?”

“There have been multiple references to a Prophecy. Do you have a copy I could read?”

“Better than that, I’ll show you. We have a preserved copy of the original.”

“A video recording? From thirty years ago?”

“More like thirty-five, and it’s not video. It’s something better. Come on!” Sirius leapt energetically to his feet and led the way out of the room and up another flight of stairs. “I set up a bedroom for Harry here when I thought he would be coming to live with me. When his things were retrieved from Privet Drive the Christmas after he went missing, I unpacked them and put them away here.” He opened the door to a large bedroom, decorated in opulent scarlet and red fabrics and furnishings against cream walls. The bed was a four-poster with red and gold brocade curtains, the wardrobe was oak, and a matching glass-fronted bookcase stood next to an oak desk with an upholstered chair. Offsetting the antique furnishings were what appeared to be framed sports posters and personal photographs on the walls. The images on the posters and photos, however, were moving, just like the pictures in the books they had bought earlier.

“He was gone six months before you went to get his belongings?” Sherlock asked Hermione.

“How did you know I –”

“Pushpins,” Sherlock said shortly. “The pins on his corkboard were arranged the same way you rearranged the ones in our office. Habit, I’d guess.”

Hermione simply nodded. “The room had some pretty heavy protections on it,” she said. “But you knew that. It turned out it was only accessible by Apparition – and then only by people who had been there and Harry knew and trusted. Even the Headmaster couldn’t get in, which if I’d thought about it at the time … anyway, Fred and George and Ron Weasley were the only ones who ever were actually in Harry’s room, and of course they were all at Hogwarts and it’s impossible to Apparate from there, so we had to wait until Christmas break to do it. With everything else that was going on then, we almost didn’t get to do it at all, and Ron didn’t want to go so Fred brought me side-along. Harry trusted me enough to get through; George was trying to side-along an Auror and they got bounced hard.”

“What exactly is Apparition?” asked John, who was used to asking questions so Sherlock wouldn’t have to.

“Allow me to demonstrate, it may be easier than explaining,” Hermione said. She got up and moved to one corner of the room. “John, if you would watch me, Sherlock, you watch that corner over there. Mary, take your pick.” She made a step forward with a graceful twirl and vanished, reappearing in the corner diagonally across the room next to the bookcase to finish her twirl. A loud CRACK! accompanied her translocation.

“Teleportation! Amazing!” said John.

“We call it Apparition. The term predates the coining of the word ‘teleportation’ by centuries,” said Hermione, primly. “Most wizarding homes have spells in place to prevent people from Apparating into them directly unless you’re known and trusted, for obvious reasons. Good manners – and personal safety – require a person to Apparate in at a distance and then approach on foot so that you can be seen.”

“As you did when you came to visit us in Baker Street,” said Sherlock.

“Yes; there’s an alley down the way that isn’t covered by CCTV cameras, so we just Apparated there. We could very easily have Apparated into your office directly today, but that would have been rude.”

“And probably would have got at least one of you shot,” said John.

“Both,” said Mary, calmly.

“Yes, well. You see why it isn’t done. Though we should probably put some charms on your flat and office just in case. We didn’t think the Dursleys would permit us to come in, so we waited until they were out of the house and then Apparated into Harry’s room directly so they would never know we’d been there.” She paused to think for a moment. “I’m fairly sure nobody ever taught Harry about anti-Apparition jinxes, so that means he made them up on his own. And he made one the Aurors and Dumbledore couldn’t get through. That is beyond impressive. I really wish I had his notes.”

“I may be able to help you there,” Sherlock mused, looking over the bookcase. “Sirius, may I?”

“Of course.” Sirius tapped the bookcase with his wand, and the glass door opened.

Sherlock leaned down and removed a notebook from one of the lower shelves. Without opening it or even looking at the front cover, he handed it to Hermione. “I believe this is what you’re looking for.”

Hermione looked rather dubiously at the front of the book, which proclaimed itself to be Dudley Dursley’s maths notes, but then flipped it open to look inside at a random page. She uttered an undignified squeak and clutched the book to her chest. “This is it exactly! Thank you, you saved me so much time!” She was practically vibrating with eagerness to start reviewing the notebook.

Sirius gaped at her, and then at Sherlock. “How did you know that was there? How did you know what it was ? You didn’t even look at it!”

John laughed whole-heartedly. “This is Sherlock Holmes. It’s what he does . It’s why you wanted him in the first place. Go ahead, show them how it works.”

Hermione looked up from the notebook, smiling, her cheeks pink. “Oh do, please. It really has to be seen to be believed!”

Sherlock sighed. He wasn’t at all sure how to take this. It was one thing when everybody (except John) doubted and he had to prove it. This felt more like being part of a dog-and-pony show, and he wasn’t sure if he was the dog or the one-trick pony. Still, Sirius and Remus probably needed convincing. Once he started, as usual, he was swept away on the tide of his deductions. “It was obvious from the nature of the rune layouts that there would have to be preliminary designs and scratch work made, probably in a workbook of some kind. The desk contained clues to show how the runes had been made – bits of wrapping tissue and pencils worn down to the nub to make home-made transfer paper, and a pen with no ink used as a stylus to mark them in the paint. Possibly the scratch work was destroyed afterwards, but I thought it unlikely – people usually like to keep that sort of work for future reference. Therefore it was most likely removed by whoever cleaned out the rooms afterwards – including the compulsive pushpin organizer. She also accidentally dropped the calendar behind the desk. You really should have retrieved that, by the way.”

Hermione shrugged. “It was just a calendar, and we were in a rush.”

“Still. It provided me with the exact dates of Harry’s residence in that room up to the day of his disappearance, a sample of his handwriting, and an indication that he expected to leave the Dursley’s residence on 1 September – all of which indicated that he attended a boarding school, where they had some sort of antiquities or fantasy-fiction enthusiast’s club that taught things like how to cut quills, make oak-gall ink, and write spells in Tolkien’s runes, as evidenced by his hiding space. At least that’s what I believed at the time. It was only later that it became apparent that he expected the spells to actually work. I assume ‘ alohomora ’ and ‘ colloportus ’ are important given their prominence on the frame of the door.”

Hermione started to answer, but Sherlock held his hand up to forestall her. “Later. Dudley Dursley told us that Harry would be picked up suddenly during the summer, so he probably kept his things packed to leave at a moment’s notice. So his notebook was already packed along with his other school books, and Hermione never saw it and wouldn’t have known to look for it since she hadn’t noticed the runes or realized their significance.”

“That room was filled with runes,” John said. “You didn’t see them?”

“ We didn’t notice them until I found that first set and we started looking for them,” Sherlock reminded him. “Most of them just looked like random scratches in the paint at first.” Though he was beginning to think now that they never would have found any of them if it hadn’t been him looking for them.

“That’s not an excuse; I should have been looking,” Hermione said gloomily.

“You were just a student, not an Auror yet,” said Sherlock. “You’d only just taught him the basics. You had no reason to believe he’d have been able to do anything that extensive, am I correct?”

“You’re correct, but still … it hurts to know I’d underestimated him so badly.”

“None of us knew,” said Dean. “We were all in the same classes, Hermione, and there just wasn’t any indication he was that good. Decent in Charms, struggled with Transfiguration, and Potions we won’t talk about. Except in Defense, of course, there he was brilliant.”

“That’s what should have told me I was underestimating him,” Hermione insisted. “Defense was the all-round class that brought everything else together. There’s no way he should have done that well at Defense without being better at everything else than he was letting on. Even Potions.”

“In any event, it was Hermione and Fred and George Weasley who retrieved Harry’s belongings, but Sirius who unpacked them and put them in the case here. He also didn’t know there was anything unusual among them. Look at the arrangement of the books on the shelves: textbooks, organized by subject, on the top two shelves. Miscellaneous books, presumably not textbooks but acquired as gifts or because of personal interests, on the next shelf. One gap here, where the runes book was put originally before Hermione retrieved it and returned it to the school library. The next two shelves down are filled with binders, all the same type and colour and fairly expensive, organizing class notes, again by subject and year.”

“I gave him those,” said Hermione. “Harry and Ron both had atrocious stacks of loose notes, and it was amazing that they managed to find anything at all sometimes. I punched holes in my parchment sheets and put them in binders to keep things organized. When I went home for Christmas break the first year, I bought binder sets for both of them. Harry used his, Ron didn’t. So after that I just bought a set for Harry at the beginning of every year. Ron teased him about giving in to my nagging, but I think Harry really appreciated it.”

“I’m sure he did. He wouldn’t have kept up with the system otherwise.” It wasn’t just a reassurance. It was the same system that he had automatically used in school and still used to organize notes on various subjects, both on paper and in his Mind Palace. He wondered just how much of Harry had been retained on an unconscious level.

“So the random items, journals and logs and project notes that didn’t fit any of the categories, went on the bottom shelf. Harry didn’t have a spare binder that last summer, and no money with which to acquire one, so he took a notebook discarded by Dudley, removed Dudley’s notes – not many, given by the scant number of pages torn out – and used that for his runes workbook. It’s a standard spiral bound notebook, doesn’t match anything else in the shelf, and stuck out like a sore thumb. The tissue paper was neatly folded and stuck in the back, but the edges are clearly visible. It couldn’t be anything else.”

Sirius nodded. “That was … amazing. Now I know you’ll find him. Well. Shall we look at the Prophecy now?”

He sat down at the desk and opened a lower drawer, from which he removed a stone bowl with a cover, both heavily decorated with runes incised into the stone.

Sherlock recognized some of them as bindrunes, but there were also Greek letters and Egyptian hieroglyphs worked in, and things he didn’t recognize at all. Clearly the art of runic engraving went far beyond what Harry had learned.

Sirius placed the bowl squarely in the centre of the desk and removed the lid. The bowl was about half full with a swirling whitish-silver substance that might have been liquid or might have been clouds trapped inside. A silvery light shone from the substance.

“This is a Pensieve,” Sirius said. “It’s a device for displaying or reviewing preserved memories. This one belonged to Professor Dumbledore; he gave it and a library of memories to me shortly before his death. It’s been vital to our efforts since.”

“You can preserve memories directly?” Sherlock was frankly astounded – he had never expected something like that to make it from the ‘impossible’ to ‘improbable’ category. John was simply nodding – maybe this was a concept he’d run across in his fiction.

“How does it work?”

“First you take a memory – here, I’ll show you one from this afternoon, so you can tell it’s not a fake.” Sirius drew his wand from his sleeve and touched the tip to his temple. When he drew it away, there was a silvery gossamer strand clinging to it. “And then we put it in the Pensieve, so.” He dropped it into the bowl, where it merged with the silvery fluid. “And before you ask, yes, I can get it out again, and no, it’s not gone from my mind – it’s just a copy. And now we can display it.” He prodded the silvery substance with the tip of his wand.

A ghostly silver staircase rose from the liquid, with two people standing at the top landing and five at the bottom. The view was from the top of the stairs, looking down. Hermione’s voice came faintly at first, but then the volume increased as Sirius poked the silver liquid again.

“You should have seen what this place looked like twenty years ago. It was a total dump. Cobwebs, peeling wallpaper, things with too many legs scuttling about in the walls, you name it. Classic haunted house style. Smelt bad, too. We put a lot of work into renovating it.”

“We?”

“Well, Sirius mostly, and Remus since they were living here, but a lot of us visited and did our bit. It took years. I think Charlie did that. Said there was far too much Slytherin in the place, even in pastels. So he brightened it up a bit.”

The two figures at the top of the stair started their descent. “Hermione, good to see you again! And who is this you’ve brought to the beautiful House of Black? Tourists? Interior decorators looking for DIY tips?”

“I told you we’d be coming, or were you so deep in your work that you didn’t hear me? Sirius, Remus, I’d like to introduce Sherlock Holmes, Doctor John Watson, and his wife Mary Watson, the investigators that the Ministry let me hire. Sherlock, John and Mary, this is Sirius Black, Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, and Remus Lupin, the Steward to the House of Black.”

The little figure of Sirius stepped forward, holding its hand out to the little Sherlock. “Welcome to the House of Black. I hope your work will be successful. And now that the boring introductions are over, you can call us Sirius and Remus. Please come upstairs so we can get to know each other a little before the mob starts arriving.” The figures and the silver staircase sank into the bowl and dissolved.

“There, see how it works? If you like, Hermione could show you one where I wasn’t present, but you were.”

“No, no, maybe later. This is remarkable. It’s like a shared Mind Palace. Can anyone work this? Could you, for example, display a memory of mine where none of you were present? Or one of John’s, or Mary’s?”

Hermione chewed her lip. “I don’t know. I don’t believe it’s ever been tested with squibs or non-magicals.”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” said John. “Far too many wands near my head today for comfort.”

“And Mary’s too important to us to use as a guinea pig,” said Sherlock. “Though the experiment should be done eventually. What about me?”

“I’d say you’re even more important. But we’re going to have to know if we can use it with you sooner or later, so let’s give it a try. Why don’t you switch places with Sirius, and I’ll try to pull a memory. Close your eyes, and think of something you can remember clearly – maybe something important that John and Mary can verify? Just a few seconds worth, bring it to the front of your mind, and … there!”

Hermione’s wand tip touched his temple, and then Sherlock felt a distinctly odd pulling sensation. He opened his eyes in time to see a glowing filament of memory drop into the bowl.

“That must have been a strong one. It was very bright.”

“There were several I could have used, but this one … had the least blood in it.”

“And I’m sure we all appreciate that. Let’s see it, then.” She poked the surface of the cloud with her wand.

Instead of a tiny silver display, a whole room burst into presence around them, filled with light and colour and music. Sirius, Remus and Dean whipped out their wands and turned to face what might have been an unexpected attack. Instead, it was the reception hall at John and Mary’s wedding. The happy couple in their wedding clothes had just finished a dip, and everyone around them clapped and cheered, while Sherlock, in his formal suit, stood on a low stage with his violin and drew out the last note of the waltz he had written just for them. The group of wizards stood in the clear space on the dance floor between the stage and the bridal couple.

“Oh. My. God,” Hermione breathed out, trying to look around herself in all directions at once.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen?” asked Mary.

“No, it’s not!” replied Sirius, raising his voice to be heard over the cheering crowd. “This is what happens when you go into the memory, not when it displays!”

Nobody in the crowd seemed to notice the seven new arrivals. John raised a finger and poked at his formally-clad doppelganger, only to find himself shifted away slightly before making contact.

Dean stopped his hand before he could try again. “You can’t move or touch anything in a memory. If you try, it just moves you further away from it, and enough of that can make you dizzy. It’s different if you move around on your own.”

Up on the stage, memory-Sherlock put down the instrument and took up a buttonhole flower that was lying on the music stand and flung it out into the audience. A pretty, dark-haired young woman in a lilac bridesmaid dress caught it. Memory-John, meanwhile, had pulled Mary upright again and waved his thanks to Sherlock.

Sherlock stepped over to the microphone on the stage near him. “ Ladies and gentlemen, just, er, one last thing before the evening begins properly. Apologies for earlier. A crisis arose and was dealt with.” He drew in a breath. “More importantly, however, today we saw two people make vows. I’ve never made a vow in my life, and after tonight I never will again. So, here in front of you all, my first and last vow. Mary and John: whatever it takes, whatever happens, from now on I swear I will always be there, always, for all three of you.” He hesitated and stuttered. “Er, I’m sorry, I mean, I mean two of you. All two of you. Both of you, in fact. I’ve just miscounted.”

Memory-John and Mary exchanged slightly worried looks, while the real John and Mary burst out laughing.

Memory-Sherlock continued. “ Anyway, it’s time for dancing.” He spoke over his shoulder to the DJ behind him on the stage. “Play the music again, please, thank you.”

And the ballroom disappeared, leaving the group standing in Harry’s bedroom again. Remus, still on alert, was threatening the four-poster bed while Sirius brandished his wand at the bookcase. They recovered and put their wands away when they realized there was no actual threat.

“Was that … not good?” asked Sherlock. “I was trying to remember that as clearly as possible.”

“You did that and then some,” said Hermione. “And thank you very much for not remembering anything with blood.”

“You said something important that John and Mary could identify. Many of the important memories with all three of us are far less pleasant than that one. Though I hadn’t been aware of just how … awkward that whole thing was.”

“Yeah, you spent that whole day being the King of Awkward,” said John. “I really should have known what was going to happen when I asked you to be my Best Man.”

“Yes, you should have,” agreed Mary. “But you’ve got to admit, it was probably the least boring Best Man speech in history.”

“And we’re going to have to give you a little lesson on the subject of vows later, Sherlock,” said Sirius. “They may not mean much to Muggles, but for a wizard … That was very dangerous, what you did. We don’t make vows often, and it’s not just a cultural thing. They’re binding. Even unto death, sometimes. Or beyond. Good thing you didn’t repeat that ‘ always ’ a third time or it could bring you back as a ghost. Or worse.”

“There’s worse?” asked John.

“Yes, and don’t ask, or we’ll be here all night,” said Sirius. He returned to the desk and used his wand to fish the glowing thread of Sherlock’s memory out of the bowl. “Let me just put this back where it belongs ….”

Sherlock allowed him to touch his temple with the wand, and felt a sort of slithery sensation inside his head as the thread returned to its proper place.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the main event … although regrettably less spectacular than the opening act … the Prophecy!”

He opened the top drawer of the desk, which was full of small vials similar to the ones Hermione had put potions in. Each was full of silvery fluid, like the Pensieve. Gossamer threads snaked about inside the vials. Sirius selected one from the front row and poured it into the stone bowl, then poked it.

A woman’s figure rose out of it, draped in gypsy-like shawls, wearing a multitude of bracelets and rings. She had glasses that magnified her eyes to enormous size. Her jaw worked spastically for a moment, and then she spoke in harsh, hoarse tones.

“ THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES ... BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES ... AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT ... AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES ... THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES ... ”

The figure sank back into the silver mass and vanished.

“Need me to show it again?” asked Sirius. “Or we could go directly into the memory for more detail.”

“No, that will be quite sufficient,” said Sherlock slowly. “That was … extraordinary. And worryingly unclear. You say everybody believes this is about Harry Potter and Voldemort?”

“You see what I mean about divination being a very woolly discipline,” said Hermione. “No specificity at all, and it can only be fully understood in retrospect, which doesn’t help us much here and now. The prophecy was delivered by Sibyl Trelawney during her job interview for the Divinations post at Hogwarts, to Headmaster Dumbledore, whose memory this is. Dumbledore believed it related to either of two babies who were in utero at the time with due dates at the end of July, Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom. Neville was born on the 30th of July, Harry the next day on the 31st. Over a year later, Harry was ‘marked’ by Voldemort when they met for the first time. Voldemort’s body was destroyed and Harry was left with a curse scar on his forehead.”

“But that wasn’t enough to satisfy the Prophecy.”

“No, that just established the opening conditions. Dumbledore, and most everybody else, believed that the prophecy means only Harry can kill Voldemort for good, which is why he keeps coming back. By the same token, only Voldemort can kill Harry for good, which is why everyone believes he’s still alive. Only when the two of them meet again, at full power, will one of them finally kill the other. Although it could also be a mutual take-out, I suppose. I think that’s what Dumbledore was expecting, actually. But he anticipated having some time to teach Harry the more advanced combat magics once he’d come to full power. Nobody foresaw a situation like this. Dumbledore dead, Harry missing and probably untrained, and Voldemort coming back again and again to spread terror.”

“Asking this Trelawney woman for details hasn’t helped?”

“She doesn’t even remember she gave the Prophecy in the first place. This,” she said, gesturing at the bottle where Sirius had replaced the memory, “is all we have to go on. Well, that and you.”

“And me,” Sherlock agreed sourly. There were a lot of things about his life that were now becoming clearer, and he was not happy about any of it. Except for the not being dead part; he was quite happy with that. He looked at the racks of shimmering memories. “Is there anything in those that might help?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. You can look at anything you think might be useful, of course. Some of those are memories that Dumbledore left for Harry to see; I’ve looked at them, they’re all about Voldemort as a student and a young man. A Dark Lord in training, if you will. Those of us who know how to extract memories can give you relevant ones that you can review whenever you want. We’ve also been using the Pensieve as an espionage tool. They’re ridiculously rare and expensive, and we don’t think You-Know-Who has one, so this one gave us a real tactical advantage. Made it much easier to get reports from our inside agent. He could send us the exact details of Death Eater activities just by giving us memories of what went on, at least as far as he was involved. If he saw documents, he just read them and then saved those memories. Of course we had to be careful what we did with them so as not to give him away.”

“An embedded Enigma, complete with your own Coventry problem. Elegant. But you’ve lost the agent now?”

Hermione nodded sadly. “We lost Severus two years ago. He never came back from his last meeting, so of course we don’t know what happened. The majority of those vials are his memories – I’ve seen most of those too, but I might have missed something, and of course it’s all out of date now. And there’s one set of memories that he left in a sealed vial that only Harry can open. No idea what’s in there, because he’s dead and his portrait can’t tell us.”

“I never liked Severus,” said Sirius, “but I wouldn’t wish a death so horrible that it traumatizes a portrait on anyone.”

“How does a portrait talk? After a person is dead? I’m not getting it,” said John.

“Is it similar to the moving pictures in the books?” asked Sherlock.

“Sort of. The pictures are basically a recording of a short period of time, with limited interaction – sort of like a computer gif, if you could interact with it. They keep recycling through the same image and don’t retain any memory of their interactions. A portrait is more of an echo of a person; their memory and personality, but not their soul. They’re fully interactive and retain memories from those interactions. How much is retained from the subject largely depends on the strength of will of the person depicted, and the skill of the portrait artist. We hired the best artist currently practicing, and Severus certainly had strength of will, but the most his portrait does is blink. If he was a living person, I’d say he was in a coma.”

“Is his portrait here? Could we see it?” asked John.

“Idea?” said Sherlock.

“Maybe. Don’t want to get hopes up if I’m wrong.”

“Of course, he’s in the portrait gallery – we were hoping being with others would wake him up, even if only to yell at them for being dunderheads.”

The portrait gallery was on the same floor as the drawing room with the tapestry. They could hear the chatter of portraits talking to each other as they approached; it had much the same sound as a cocktail party in full swing. Most of the portraits fell silent as they entered, craning their necks or in some cases moving to adjacent frames to get a better look at the strangers. Hermione led them over to a portrait that had a single figure in it, apparently resting.

Severus Snape had not been an attractive man in life, and the portrait artist had not flattered him – the less the portrait was true to the subject, the greater the chance it would not wake. He looked somewhat older than Sirius, possibly in his mid-fifties, judging by the frown lines on his sallow face and streaks of white in his ebony hair. His nose was hawk-like and his lips thin and pinched. His clothing was black except for a few touches of green on the cuffs and lapels of his robe.

John observed him as if he were a patient – he looked like he was asleep, but his breathing was irregular and the tips of his fingers twitched occasionally. His eyes were definitely blinking irregularly. Fast, fast slow fast fast, fast slow slow fast, slow slow … “Oh God,” John whispered, and whisked his pen and notebook out of his jacket pocket. He wrote down the series of blinks as dots and dashes until the sequence started to repeat.

“What’s … oh no,” said Hermione, pressing her hand to her mouth as she recognized the code, and the sequence.

John decoded it rapidly, ripped off the page and handed it to Sirius.

E L P M E S O S

S O S H E L P M E S O S

S O S

“He’s in there. God help him, he’s in there.”

The Case of the Missing Wizard
Chapter 9. The Order of the Phoenix

Chapter 9. The Order of the Phoenix

“What is this?” Sirius asked in confusion, looking at the dots and dashes and letters.

“Morse Code. Used by American soldiers captured by the enemy to pass along information in propaganda films or tapings made by the enemy back in the day. They don’t train people for it specifically any more, but some of the ones in Afghanistan still learn it just in case. And so do some of our officers, particularly the ones that might have value as hostages or for ransom. Doctors are very valuable,” he said grimly. “S O S is the universal distress signal. I don’t know how or why he learned Morse, but this poor bastard has been calling for help for two years. So how do I get through to him?”

“Usually we just talk to portraits,” Remus answered. “Just like people.”

“Oi! Snivellus! Wakey wakey, eggs ‘n bakey!” Sirius shouted at the portrait.

There was no response.

“I don’t think that’s going to work. If he could hear you, it would have been obvious already,” said John. “How about touch? Do portraits respond to touch from outside, or would some other portrait have to go in?”

“Who’d want to touch him?” muttered Sirius. “Get grease all over…”

“Mr. Black!” snapped John, turning to face him. “I don’t care what your problems with this man are. I don’t care whether you like him or not. Right now he is suffering, has suffered something you yourself said you wouldn’t wish on him, and all you can do is snipe at him. Now either say something helpful or shut up! ” He snap turned back to face the portrait.

Sirius’s wand snapped into his hand without his seeming to will it consciously, only to have Sherlock’s hand instantly close over his, forcing the wand to point down to the floor. “Black. If you want our help, we will help, to the best of our ability. Don’t try to stop John from doing what he does best, just because you have a childhood grudge. I do warn you, if that wand points anywhere in his direction without an explanation and his permission, that’s the last you will see of any of us.”

Remus stepped forward to intervene, only to come face to face with a small pistol Mary whipped out of her jacket pocket. “Don’t,” she said, her face cold and emotionless.

Sherlock didn’t take his eyes off Sirius, but his next words were clearly for Remus. “It’s lead, not silver, Lupin. I don’t know if it would be fatal at this stage, but uncomfortable at the very least, I’m sure. Please don’t make the situation worse.” With a twist of his wrist, he made Sirius’s fingers go limp and removed the wand from the older man’s grip. A tiny silver spark shot from the end of the wand as he took it. Well. That’s interesting.

Remus held his hands up to show he was not holding his wand, and stepped back. Mary kept her gun trained on him unwaveringly.

Hermione and Dean glanced at each other and didn’t get involved. Let them learn the hard way not to underestimate the Holmes/Watson/Watson team. For that matter, they hadn’t seen Mary in action before. That was an … interesting … development. Naturally John would marry someone just as competent as he is , Hermione thought. She deliberately did not consider just how a woman might get those particular skills.

John ignored what was going on behind him, stepping close to the portrait and examining it carefully. He could see the brushstrokes, and had no idea how they moved when Snape’s hand twitched or his chest moved on inhalation. The rhythmic blinking continued, unaffected by the noise of the room. John pulled his emergency penlight out of his jacket pocket and flashed it across the painted eyes. There was still no response.

Hesitantly, he reached up and placed his fingers on the back of the painted hand. It felt like paint on canvas, but the hand jerked and the entire body became tense. Waiting. So the portrait could feel. John carefully tapped out a message of his own on the back of Snape’s hand. It was short, simple and to the point. Y E S, he spelled out. Y E S. We hear you. We’re here. We’ve got you.

The response was instant; every muscle of Snape’s body relaxed as he went completely limp, and John instinctively reached to support the fainting man before he realized he wasn’t going to fall out of his portrait. He managed to quell his next reaction, which was to reach up to take the pulse at the throat.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” said Hermione. She stepped closer to look over the portrait, ignoring the standoff between the non-painted people.

“To be expected, actually. Think of him as a prisoner of war – he might have been held and interrogated for some time prior to his death. If what happened to him then carried over to his portrait … He’s been trapped, under continual stress, possibly in pain, trying to send a message and always failing … then suddenly, contact! Someone’s heard him. Someone’s there. There are normally two reactions – one is to strike out – ‘why did it take you so long to hear me?’ – and the other is to relax or even faint – ‘thank God someone else is here, I can let go now.’”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Yep. Both reactions at different times, and I’ve been on the receiving end, too.” For just a moment, he remembered his knees failing to support him in a darkened pool, the feel of Sherlock’s throat between his hands on a restaurant floor, the punch he took from an American soldier in Afghanistan before the man broke down sobbing on his shoulder. “So now we need to let him recover and see if he can do more than blink when he regains consciousness.”

Snape had been painted in a chair which looked desperately uncomfortable even for sitting, much less slumping in a faint. Nevertheless, his features were much more relaxed, the harsh lines smoothing out and making him look years younger. Still not handsome, he’d never be handsome, not with that hawk-like nose, but he was definitely a striking man.

“All right, you,” said John, turning to the inhabitant of the next portrait over, “I know you can move from frame to frame. Can you get in there with him? Help him into a more comfortable position?”

“I can try,” said the portrait. “Let me see if I can get through … there!” he said, appearing in the frame behind Snape’s chair and leaving his own frame blank. “What should I do now?”

“How much do you feel? I mean, I can see you’re both breathing, but are you really? Or does it just look like you are? Is there a heartbeat, can you take his pulse?”

“I can try it. As long as he’s not awake. He didn’t like being touched when he was alive, I can’t imagine that’s changed.” The other man pressed his fingers gingerly to Snape’s throat. “It feels like a pulse, but I don’t know if it’s real … it could just be simulated … maybe we could get a portrait of a Healer in?”

“If there’s one that can be trusted, yeah. For now, is there any way to swap furniture around? Get him a more comfortable chair? Or take him to a picture that’s got a couch in it?”

John felt incredibly strange even thinking about any of this, but a patient was a patient. He would treat it like trying to give direction over a computer connection, and have a screaming fit later, he promised himself.

Shortly a picture containing a chaise longue was brought up from the parlour on the ground floor and Snape transferred into it, Mary’s gun was returned to her pocket, and Sirius had reclaimed his wand after apologizing and agreeing to Sherlock’s terms. A portrait in a Victorian nurse’s uniform agreed to sit with Snape and notify Sirius if he regained consciousness. Or started blinking again. Or did anything except sleep.

“I promise, we’ll let you know instantly he wakes up!” Sirius assured them, eager to get back in their good graces.

“You’ll need my mobile number, then,” John started to say.

“I don’t use a phone, but Hermione’s got your number, right? So I’ll drop a message to her and have her call you. Phones don’t work too well here.”

“Magic screws up the electronics, right!” said John.

“Sometimes. Here, it would just suck the battery empty in nothing flat. If you need to make a call, go out on the front step, into the back garden or on one of the balconies. They’re safe. And speaking of calling … people should be arriving shortly. You will be staying for dinner, won’t you? I hope I haven’t put you off that with my idiocy. Hermione said you had a baby? Do you have to call whoever’s watching him? Her?”

“Her name’s Amanda, yeah, our landlady’s been playing grandma for the day,” said Mary. “It would be a good idea to call in. Are we staying?” she asked, glancing at Sherlock.

He nodded shortly.

“Okay, then … the nearest place?”

“I’ll show you to the balcony, Mary,” said Hermione. “And then we can freshen up before going downstairs to dinner? Wouldn’t want you to get lost in this house.”

Sirius stiffened as he apparently heard something no one else could. “Ah, excuse me. People at the Floo. Dean, could you and Remus bring Sherlock and John downstairs the slow way? Thanks.” He stepped, turned, and vanished.

Hermione flicked her wand. “ Tempus .” Bright green digits appeared and floated in the air for a moment. “That’ll be Molly then, she’s always early. But she’ll be leading the horde, and we’re going to be inundated with Weasleys in a few minutes.”

“Weasleys? Related to the infamous Ron?” asked Sherlock.

“Oh, he was a git, but the rest of them are all talented, worthwhile people. If it wasn’t for the hair, I’d almost wonder if he was actually related to the rest of the family. Um, please don’t mention that last to his mother … he only died a few months ago – trust him to have a stupid Quidditch accident – and she’s still seeing him through rose-coloured glasses. Mary, shall we?”

Mary glanced over at John and Sherlock, both of whom nodded minutely, and let herself be led off by Hermione.

“Dean, can you take John? I’d like to talk to Sherlock for a moment,” said Remus.

Another brief look between John and Sherlock, a nod from Sherlock.

“Splitting us up for a reason?” Sherlock asked Remus as Dean led John out of the gallery.

“No, no … I just wanted to ask … I mean you obviously know …”

“That you’re a werewolf? Yes, obviously. Your sense of smell is heightened beyond the human range just after a full moon, traces of coarse fur cling to your clothing, you have an old wound that affects your movement and a new one that you’re letting heal naturally instead of using magic on it, and I take your name, Remus Lupin, to be some sort of pseudonym related to your condition. I did make an assumption about the silver, but your reaction confirmed it. Yesterday I didn’t know werewolves existed, but now I do. I also know they’re not nearly the hazard depicted in popular culture, and that your people have therapies for the condition, though presumably not a cure. I hadn’t expected to meet one quite so soon, though.”

“Actually Remus Lupin is my real name – my grandfather was French, and Latin names are common in our culture. Though I can see where you came to that conclusion.”

“Ah. There’s always something.”

“I can see where you might have thought … anyway, I just wanted to assure you that I’m no danger to you or your friends.”

“You would not have married or had children if it wasn’t controlled, am I correct? You married into Sirius’s family and have at least one son.”

“I married a cousin of his; we have two sons and a daughter. More than I ever hoped I’d have, really. I never thought I’d find someone who’d look past …” He shrugged. “There’s a bit of a stigma to it in our community, you see.”

“Still?”

“Always, I’m afraid. Unless they find a cure, or a countercurse, or something. Control is difficult and voluntary, and if an accident makes you miss just one dose ... No, I just wanted to assure you, and Mrs. Watson, that I’m no danger to you. Until the next full moon, anyway.”

“Understood. But you should probably be aware that Mrs. Watson may be a danger to you for some time. She doesn’t take even the vaguest of threats to her husband lightly. And the next time there very probably will be silver bullets.”

“Point taken. I’ll warn Sirius too, shall I?”

“It might be for the best.”

As they descended the elegant staircase to the ground floor, Sherlock heard a woman’s voice, with a familiar Devon accent, saying, “… missed her Portkey from Cleveland so she’ll have to take the International Floo directly here, sorry for the inconvenience…”

“No inconvenience at all, Molly. I’ll just take a few precautions …” The unknown-hominin-foot umbrella stand floated from its place in the foyer into the parlour with the fireplace. “That should do it.”

“Thank you, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. Now let me just get these tarts down to the kitchen … no, I know I didn’t need to bring anything, I just thought we might like a little sweet for later …” The owner of the voice, a short, plump woman whose hair had obviously once been brilliant red but which was now faded and streaked with grey, stepped out of the parlour just as Remus and Sherlock reached the foot of the stairs. She headed past them to the back of the house, three large platters of fruit tarts floating along after her, with a vague “Oh hello Remus, Harry …”

There was a pause, and then a shriek and a crash as all three platters hit the floor.

The woman pelted back around the base of the staircase and caught Sherlock at the entrance to the parlour, grabbed him by the upper arms, and practically slammed him up against the doorframe. “Oh heavens, Harry!? Where have you been, you…”

“I’m sorry, madam, but you have clearly mistaken me …” Sherlock started at the same time Sirius said, “Molly, no, that’s not … I’m sorry, Molly, that’s not Harry.”

“But it …” the woman looked up at Sherlock with brown eyes swimming with tears. “No, it isn’t. Oh my. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” She let go of his arms and patted his sleeves of his suit where she’d held him. “I thought … just for a second … ohh …”

Before she could totally collapse, two women swooped on her and caught her up in their arms, muttering, “Mum … Mum, it’s okay, let’s go sit down for a bit, all right,” and glaring at Sherlock like it was his fault their – mother-in-law? – yes, both of them are Afro-Caribbean, obviously no blood relation, therefore beloved mother-in-law – was in this condition. And really, in some way, it probably was. They helped her across the hall into the other parlour, from which Sherlock could hear her sniffles as she tried to pull herself together.

He started to follow her, but Sirius put his hand on his arm and shook his head. “Best not. The girls will calm her down.”

“I didn’t expect that. Do I really look like…?” He knew he did, of course, but the question would be expected from a Sherlock who had no idea he was Harry Potter.

Sirius looked at him critically. “Probably. It’s hard to tell, you know, how he would have grown up exactly, but … It was probably the hair. And the eyes, a little, yours have gone all green. Think you might definitely be a Black ….”

“My eyes are heterochromic. Different colours show depending on the lighting, my clothing, my mood …”

“Maybe that’s how the Muggles explain it,” Sirius said knowingly. “You should probably talk to Dora when she gets here.”

“Dora?”

“My cousin. Remus’s wife. First full metamorph in the family in ages. Funny how getting a little Muggle blood in the family can wake up an old family gift … not that you’d get many of the Purebloods admitting that. James hoped Lily might do the same for his line.” He grinned wryly. “It’s even possible she did, but we’ll never know what it was. It could have been anything, and some things aren’t discussed in polite company. Or even impolite. Now let’s get you introduced around.”

There were three red-headed men and two platinum-haired women (plus John and Dean, who were chatting with the younger of the blondes) in the parlour, waiting patiently to be introduced. Well, mostly patiently – the ginger twins were practically vibrating with eagerness, and Sirius led him over to them.

Sherlock looked at them warily – he wasn’t used to people actually wanting to meet him. Identical twins but mirrored parts in their hair, is that natural or do they do it intentionally? Late thirties, early forties, deep laugh lines, plentiful freckles. He keyed their freckle patterns for later identification. Clothing … do all the wizards do bespoke? Maybe it’s less expensive on this side … excellent quality, sturdy, but not new … chemical stains, acid burns, scorch marks … resembles how some of my suits get after experiments. Stains and burn marks on their hands, too. Monogrammed cufflinks and signet rings, F and G. Both married, the husbands of the ladies comforting their mother. Both with bands of black fabric sewn around the upper right sleeve of their jackets. Mourning bands? A rather out-dated custom in our time, but preserved in this culture. Interesting.

“Sherlock, these are Fred and George Weasley, owners of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, and also the Weapons and Armour Masters for the Order of the Phoenix. Fred, George, Sherlock Holmes, the detective Hermione hired.”

“Sherlock, is it? Fred Weasley,” said the one with the F cufflinks and ring, shaking Sherlock’s hand vigorously. “My counterpart here is George. Very pleased to meet you, very pleased indeed.”

“Pleased to meet you as well,” wait for the tell … there it was! “… George. And Fred,” he said, turning to shake the hand of the twin wearing the G.

The twins were delighted. “Well done, well done! Things certainly won’t be dull with you around!”

“We’re going to go across and see if the girls have calmed Mum down. If they haven’t yet, maybe we can get her to yell at us.”

“That always makes her feel better.”

“We look forward to getting down to business with you later, yeah?”

With another pair of identical grins, they strolled out. John looked up from his conversation to give Sherlock a mock glare. Apparently he hadn’t passed the twins’ test.

“Nicely done,” said Sirius. “They won’t make it so easy next time.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Sherlock. “I’ve got them memorized by their freckles and the scars on their hands now. By the end of the night, I’ll have differences in their voices down, too. They’ll never be able to confuse me.”

“Ooh, don’t tell them that. I’ll make book with the others on how long it takes them to give up.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t tell either,” said the other red-haired man, who had stayed in the room after his brothers left. “Bill Weasley. Current Head, Merlin help me, of the little circus I call a family. This is my wife, Fleur, and her sister, Gabrielle Delacour.”

Bill, in contrast to his stocky younger brothers, was a tall, slim man, wearing his hair long and tied back in a ponytail. Heavy freckling on his face and hands showed that he had, at some time in the past, worked extensively in the sun, but his skin now was about as tanned as your average Englishman, which was to say, not very. His clothing was an interesting combination of Regency buck and 20th Century casual, with a linen shirt complete with ruffled cravat and a discreet touch of lace at the cuffs, a blue suit jacket, and buff trousers tucked into heavy leather boots. A sapphire earring sparkled in his left earlobe. His wife was about six months pregnant, slim and petite and stunningly beautiful despite the three ragged scars that ran across her left cheek and down onto her chin; somehow she managed to make them seem like beauty marks. She wore a simple blue velvet gown, a silver lace shawl across her shoulders, and her hair in an elaborate updo; in contrast to the elegance of her dress, a wolf’s fang earring dangled from her left ear. Her sister, who was in her mid- to late twenties, wore jeans and a flowing blue-flowered shirt, and could have been a fashion model trying to go incognito. Bill wore a black band on his right sleeve, Fleur on her left, and Gabrielle not at all.

Gabrielle was engaged in animated conversation with John; she seemed to be flirting, John was smiling warmly and doing a little flirting back – best not to let Mary see that, John! You’ll be on the couch for a week!

Sherlock shook Bill Weasley’s offered hand and took Fleur’s – she offered it in the classic style, knuckles up, but since she did not move it toward him once he took it, he did not presume to kiss it but merely bowed slightly over it. Once he released her fingers, she nodded approvingly at him, and a certain tension in Bill’s shoulders relaxed. He mentally thanked Mummy belatedly for drumming the rules of etiquette into him despite how archaic and useless they’d seemed at the time – in twenty years, they’d only been important twice, and this was the first time they’d seemed remotely natural.

“Mr. Weasley. Mrs. Weasley. Pleased to meet you.”

“Bill, please. And Fleur. Ceremony doesn’t stand a chance around this place, nor should it.” Bill smiled welcomingly at Sherlock.

“Sherlock, is it?” asked Fleur. “You are ’ermione’s friend? She ’as spoken of you many times.” She spoke with a light French accent – her English had been learned as an adult and she spoke it well, but one never lost the traces of their childhood tongue.

“Surely not. We met for the first time yesterday, on a professional matter. She was trying to take a case away from me. Not the most auspicious of meetings.”

“Per’aps so, but she ’as been waiting for an opportunity for some time. Your reputation intrigues ’er.”

“Does it now?”

“She is a most intelligent woman. The cleverest witch of her generation, it ’as been said. She is wasted as an Auror, of course, but at least they ’ave the sense to give her some independence. But no wizard can keep up with ’er. Per’aps now…” Fleur eyed him speculatively.

“Stop the matchmaking,” Bill said severely. “We don’t want to chase him out of the house this early.”

“Oh, but Bill, you forget, I am veela. Matchmaking is what we do! When we’re not demolishing werewolves, of course,” she said, touching her fingers first to the scars on her face and then to the earring.

“Relationships aren’t exactly my area,” Sherlock said. “I consider myself married to my work.”

“Of course. But would you per’aps … consider cheating on it?” Fleur asked impishly.

Sherlock refrained from rolling his eyes impatiently. Matchmaking friends was about the last thing he needed about now – it wasn’t anything new, of course, but he had no idea why people insisted on doing it or why women kept insisting on being introduced to him. Fortunately they all went away after a short time, but it would be a complication to what was already a complex situation. Especially since Hermione seemed to have had a teenage crush on his prior self, no matter how loath she was to admit it.

Of course as fate would have it, that was the exact moment when Hermione and Mary, both looking immensely improved by whatever it was women did when they ‘freshened up’, entered the parlour.

Hermione’s gaze immediately settled on Sherlock. Everybody else looked at her. Then followed her gaze to Sherlock, and then looked back to her with varying degrees of speculation. Only Mary had no idea what was going on.

Hermione’s cheeks flushed and she crossed her arms across her chest. “What did you say, Fleur?”

Fleur smiled at Sherlock. “Did I not say she was intelligent?”

Hermione flung her hands up in disgust. “Matchmaking. Argh!” She turned and stomped out of the room and across the hall to the other parlour.

Mary hurried over to John’s side, where he circled her waist with his arm, introduced her hurriedly to Gabrielle and then whispered into her ear to fill her in.

Gabrielle, for her part, lifted an eyebrow at John’s cavalier abandonment of her charms, and retreated to her sister’s side.

“Sorry about that,” Sirius murmured to Sherlock. “I keep forgetting how she is sometimes. Wants to make sure everybody finds their ‘mates’.” He did the air quotes surreptitiously where Fleur wouldn’t see. “I think it’s a veela matriarch thing – Gabrielle isn’t anywhere near as bad. She’s still holding out for Harry herself, I think.”

“The hero’s mystique?” If he was going to become part of this world in earnest, that was going to become seriously bothersome. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was going to do about it.

“She actually has some justification – he saved her when she was only eight. There’s a legitimate debt there, and it may mean something special to veela, I don’t know. They’re only semi-human, after all, and they’re all female. They have their own ways that we mere men aren’t meant to know.”

Before the discussion could continue further, the small fire in the large fireplace suddenly turned green and roared up to fill the opening. “Ah, it’s the Hogwarts contingent,” said Sirius, as people began to step out of the flames, shaking soot and ash off their clothing as they stepped onto the outsized hearth. Sherlock recognized this as the means people had arrived at the Leaky Cauldron earlier, but he was fascinated to see it up close. It almost looked like the flames themselves were spinning and coalescing into the solid body of the traveller. The first person through was huge; so huge he had to bend at the waist to step out of the fireplace. He stood well over eight feet tall, wide-chested to match, and boasted long bushy curls and a beard of steel-grey. His hands and feet were large even in proportion to the rest of him. He stomped his booted feet on the flagstones in front of the hearth to dislodge a small cloud of soot from his fuzzy-looking suit. “Sirius. Remus. Evenin’, all.” He nodded to everyone and stepped away from the hearth to exchange greetings with Bill.

“Hagrid.” Sirius nodded in response to the giant’s greeting. “Rubeus Hagrid. Professor of Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts. Rescued Harry when his parents’ house was blown up,” he whispered to Sherlock. “I was on my way, but he got there first.”

Sherlock nodded, slowly. This was surely the ‘giant guy’ to whom Dudley Dursley had referred. If he was in a position to rescue Harry when he was a toddler, and came into contact with the Dursleys years later, he must have access to precious background information.

The flames hadn’t completely died down again when they flared up a second time. The man who came through this time looked small only in comparison to the prior giant; he didn’t have to duck to get out of the fireplace without bumping his head, but only by an inch. His clothing was pure Wizard – short black cloak over a red tunic embroidered in gold, black belt with a large carnelian set in a gold bezel on the buckle, well-worn wand sheath hanging from the belt containing a shaft of cherrywood angled to be drawn cross-body by the left hand, although the sheath was originally designed to be drawn by the right and has been redesigned, sturdy black trousers and short black boots. He looked like he might have come from one of the useless Renaissance Faires John went to occasionally, except that all of his clothing was intended to be worn regularly, not once or twice as a costume.

Hermione had referred to the Wizarding world’s conflict as a “war”, but Sherlock had seen little overt sign of it so far – this man was the first, looking like he’d been chewed up, spat out, and set fire to afterwards. The right side of his face had been extensively burned, and he wore a leather patch over that eye that covered the area from above the eyebrow to half-way down the cheekbone. Judging by the way his dark hair fell, he didn’t have much of an ear on that side, either. He wore a black leather glove on his right hand, probably covering similar injuries to his hand, which meant most of his right arm and possibly the side of his torso was damaged as well. There was stiffness to his movements which reminded Sherlock forcibly of John’s former commanding officer, Major James Sholto, who had taken similarly devastating damage in Afghanistan, and he heard John take in a hiss of breath in shock and recognition. Unlike Sholto, however, this man was smiling and had much more relaxed and upbeat body language – that might have had something to do with the attractive blonde woman in pale blue robes who emerged from the flames next and immediately went to her – husband, yes – her husband’s left side and smiled up at him. It might also have had something to do with the rich green aroma reminiscent of Mrs. Hudson’s ‘herbal supplements’, a scent very familiar to Sherlock, which clung to the man’s clothing.

“Neville!” Sirius greeted him with real pleasure and enthusiasm. “Glad you could make it! Wasn’t sure you would, your prime growing season and all.”

“Oh, he would have made it if I’d had to drag him out of the greenhouse by his feet,” said the blonde. “He missed his own birthday party last week, and I’m not going to let him get away with something like that twice in a row.”

“If you ever do have to drag him out, take pictures. I’d love to see that,” said Sirius.

Sherlock agreed that it would be a sight, especially since Neville’s wife was petite and perhaps half his mass. There would have to be magic involved, of course.

“Wouldn’t mind seeing it myself,” agreed the tall man. “Not that I’m anxious to experience it – Hannah’s got a mean Summoning Charm.”

He had a pronounced Lancashire accent, though with that touch of Scots that Sherlock was coming to associate with people educated at their school and the vowel shift that seemed to be common to Wizards generally.

Sirius held out his left hand for Neville to shake in greeting, and drew him in closer to Sherlock.

“So who’s this? The Order recruiting Muggles now?” The line was very reminiscent of something Sally Donovan once said to John, but with more good will (wouldn’t take much, it being Sally).

“Not recruiting, no,” said Sirius. “This is Sherlock Holmes, an investigator Hermione hired to try to find Harry. Sherlock, Neville Longbottom, Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts, and his wife Hannah, Healer at St. Mungo’s Hospital and on-call Healer for Hogwarts.”

“Neville Longbottom?” Sherlock said with some surprise. “That wouldn’t be –?”

“Yeah, Neville Longbottom, backup Boy-Who-Lived, vanquisher of Voldemort the, what was it, fifth? sixth? time. For all the good it did us.” He flexed the fingers of his gloved right hand in a gesture John sometimes did with his left when the tremors were particularly annoying.

“—Longbottom of Longbottom Leaf?” Sherlock continued as if he hadn’t noticed an interruption.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, that would be me,” he said, a wide smile spreading over his face. “Surprised you know it.”

“Me, too,” said John, inserting himself neatly into the conversation. “I thought you didn’t know those books, Sherlock.”

“What books? I’m talking about the weed. Longbottom Leaf is the best brand. Stuff got me through uni with my sanity intact, and actually saved my life a couple of times. Sometimes it was the only painkiller I could use when I was hunting down Moriarty’s organization. You know how idiosyncratic my reactions to drugs are. I couldn’t afford to disable myself. Surprised you don’t know about it, actually.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a doctor. We usually prescribe things that are a bit more legal.”

“You were also in the Army. In Afghanistan.”

“Doctor, again. I never moved in those circles. And in Afghanistan the problem was the harder drugs, not … Still, Longbottom Leaf ?”

“What else should we call it?” asked Neville reasonably. “It’s our family name and brand. It’s in the books because of us; the Professor was a good friend and a customer of my grandfather’s back in the day. I mean, everybody was, before the Muggles started getting weird about it.”

“But pipeweed was tobacco.”

Neville grinned at him. “Ah, no. The Third Age of Middle-Earth was supposed to be before the Americas were discovered, yeah? And tobacco is native to the New World. No way would it have been available then. The Professor was a stickler for things like that. But pipes, now, pipes and smoking bowls in Europe and Africa way predate that. So what do you think they were smoking? And, cannabis is, like, actually useful for potions and fibres and so on. It’s a major part of our economy. But tobacco’s just a killer. The nicotine is useful, but too easy to abuse, and the rest of the plant is loaded with poisons.”

“No arguments there,” said John.

Sherlock pointedly ignored the turn the conversation had taken. He didn’t consider his use of nicotine patches to focus his thought processes ‘abuse’, but he knew John did.

“Wait, was Tolkien a wizard too?” John suddenly yelped.

“No, just a Muggle friend of Granddad’s, though I’ve always thought he knew more than he let on. If he did, he certainly never let it slip.”

“Just don’t tell me you have a bunch of short, furry-footed people growing the stuff for you, and we’ll call it good.”

“Okay, then, I won’t. And I also won’t invite you out to the greenhouses, okay? Wouldn’t want to blow your mind or anything.”

While Neville was casually demolishing all of John’s illusions, the flames disgorged two more people, an older woman in a floor-length green robe topped by a tartan shawl, wearing an actual pointy witch hat – the first Sherlock had seen up close. She wore square glasses and carried a walking stick, which she used to steady herself when she first spun out of the fire but which seemed more of an accessory than a necessity afterwards.

She was followed by a younger woman with ash-brown hair pulled back into a bun that Sherlock realized strongly resembled the older woman’s in style – were they possibly related? She was dressed all in black – the classic ‘widow’s weeds’, modern in style but Victorian in concept – and therefore was undoubtedly the spouse of the late Ronald Weasley. He wondered if she was going to condemn herself to a lifetime of wearing purple, the way Mrs. Hudson had.

The younger woman didn’t pay attention to the strangers in the room, but ran up to Bill Weasley. “I got it! I got the job!”

“As if there was any doubt,” the older man replied. “Hogwarts couldn’t have a better Divinations teacher than Lavender Weasley. You start on the first, of course?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “That gives me a month to get my classroom set up; I can’t use the North Tower because Sybil is haunting it pretty violently. She really didn’t like the Board of Governors saying they wouldn’t allow any more ghosts to teach. Can’t say I blame them, I just wish they’d finally exorcise Binns … So I have to pick a new room and do all the staging for it, I have to sell that great barn Ron bought in Ottery St. Catchpole and get a more reasonable cottage in Hogsmeade and get Timmy transferred from Muggle primary school to the Wizarding one … It’s going to be so busy, I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done.”

“Busy is good, you know you need it. And you know the family will be there for you. Plus you can get your sons off their arses to help you move house, isn’t that what kids are for?”

She giggled. “Oh, they’re going to be so embarrassed that their old Mum is going to be teaching at their school now. At least none of them have signed up for my class.”

“Old?” said Fleur. “Thirty-five is not old .”

“It is when you’re thirteen,” Lavender said.

“Thank you for giving Lavender the position, Headmistress,” said Bill, turning to the older woman. “The Weasley Family really appreciates –”

“Tosh, Bill, she was easily the best for the position. I look forward to her being with us for many years to come. Now shall we give the good news to the others?”

The Weasley party headed across the hall, and the Headmistress nodded pleasantly at Sherlock and John as they passed, but did not interrupt the conversation with Neville, who was now discussing herbal medicine with John, Mary and Hannah.

“How many are we still waiting for?” asked Sherlock. “It looks like you have quite a full house already.”

“Mm, should only be three more. And I’m really only concerned about Ginny. International Floo can be rough. Dora and Shack can just come in whenever they … ah, here we go!”

The flames in the fireplace roared up again, but this time they were bright purple, with little red sparks mixed in. They spun and whirled into the form of a young woman, who staggered dizzily out of the fireplace and fell to her knees. She gagged helplessly for a moment, and the umbrella stand slid over to her so she could vomit into it. Hannah Longbottom bent over her to hold her long red plait out of the way and rubbed her back until she was finished. “Gah! I … fucking … hate International Floo! Wish I could take a plane the way Muggles do … oh God …” She dry heaved for a moment more, then sat back on the floor. She drew a wand from her sleeve and cast a spell into her own mouth while Neville did something to the contents of the umbrella stand, dissipating the smell instantly.

Hannah fished a potion out of a previously unnoticed belt pouch (which flickered and promptly became invisible again once she’d finished) and gave it to the redhead, who quaffed it unhesitatingly. “Ta, you’re a lifesaver! I’m not too late, am I?” She looked up and suddenly became aware of the others in the room. “Oh my God, new people. I don’t suppose you’ll forget that just happened?” She scrambled to her feet and blushed heavily while introductions were made.

Ginevra Weasley was an attractive woman, short and full-figured and maybe a year or two younger than Sherlock, with chocolate brown eyes that were unusual for someone with her hair colour. She was dressed in casual non-magical style clothing – jeans, boots, leather jacket, Bugs Bunny t-shirt – and carried a backpack, but there was, most disturbingly, a hand crossbow dangling from her belt on one side and a quiver of bolts for it on the other, with a bandolier of sharpened wooden tent pegs crossing her chest.

Her greetings to John and Mary were welcoming but casual, but she gave Sherlock just as thorough a look-over as he was giving her. It wasn’t sexual, just frankly assessing. Finally she relaxed into a mildly flirtatious stance. “Well. I’ll definitely have to thank Hermione for bringing you in. We’ve needed some new blood. It’s time to stop all this waiting and get things moving again, if you understand me.”

“I thought you couldn’t really do anything until you got Potter back.”

“And what good will it do Harry if we’re not ready to help when he does come back? If all we’ve done is collect rumours and have dinner parties when he needs us to be ready to fight? The Order let him down before – left him to stand alone when he needed them most. Well, that’s not going to happen this time, Mr. Holmes. Not if Ginny Weasley has anything to say about it,” she said fiercely. She shifted her backpack on her shoulder. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go up and get rid of this soot and change for dinner. My usual room ready, Sirius?”

“As always, Ginny. It’s good to see you home again.”

“Maybe for good this time.”

“Don’t make promises. You know you love what you do.”

“True. Hunting’s good. But there are plenty of others, and I’m more useful here … and maybe now there’s some … incentive.” She gave Sherlock a saucy wink and whirled off upstairs with a clatter of weapons.

The fire flashed green a final time at the same moment the locks and chains noises sounded from the front door. Sirius stepped out to the foyer to greet the arrival there while Remus caught the person who tumbled less than gracefully out of the Floo.

She was of medium height, wearing a dark red wool short robe over a black tunic and trousers – obviously the uniform Hermione and Dean had been working from the previous day – with an enamelled badge clipped to her belt. She had a heart-shaped face and black hair and was basically average in appearance – until her husband took her in his arms and kissed her soundly and her hair suddenly turned bright red and started curling madly.

John coughed and looked away, but Sherlock watched with unabashed interest. This must be Dora, and he could see why Sirius wanted him to talk to her, if this was the Black family gift. Sherlock regretted the fiction for a moment, and wished he really was a Black. This talent would be so incredibly useful for the Work – as Dora no doubt found it for her duties as an Auror. Whatever talent the Potter line had – if indeed it had been awakened by his Muggleborn mother – had either been bound with the rest of his magic ( likely ) or was just so totally esoteric and useless that he’d never come across the circumstances to make it work ( less likely, but still possible ).

Remus was in the process of introducing his wife to Sherlock and the Watsons when Sirius returned with the person he’d met at the door – and both Sherlock and the new guest froze.

“Sirius, what’s he–”

“Sirius, he’s an agent–”

They both stopped in mid-sentence. The stranger half-drew a wand from the sleeve of his ( Savile Row, expensive but not bespoke, non-magical ) suit while both John and Mary stepped away from Sherlock ( out of the line of fire ) and went for their guns. Sirius quickly stepped into the middle of the group so he would be in everyone’s line of fire. “Okay, weapons down, people. We’re all friends here. Sherlock, problem?”

Sherlock pointed at the large black man in the expensive suit. “ That is Kingsley Shacklebolt,” he spat. “He’s one of the Home Office’s top data analysts. If he’s here, the government knows everything you’re doing. Your hidden buildings, your infiltration of Scotland Yard, your secret war, everything. Probably feeding it to MI5, too. That’s a bigger leak than my just knowing about the houses.”

“And you know this because ...?”

“He answers directly to my brother, who coordinates the various security agencies for the Home Office. At least that’s what Mycroft says he does this week. We worked together on the Moriarty matter.” He glared at the other man. “I find myself wondering, now, why my brother decided to throw me off a roof instead of having you turn Jim into a pebble and dropping him in the middle of the Thames.”

“Because he doesn’t know,” said Shacklebolt. “I work very hard to make sure he doesn’t know. And if he does find out, it will be my job to Obliviate him so hard his brain will turn into custard. Just like I should be Obliviating you and your friends right now,” he said grimly.

“New information, Shack,” said Sirius. He pointed at Sherlock, John and Mary in sequence. “Wizard. Squib. Allowed spouse.”

Sherlock pulled his medallion on its cord out from under his shirt. “Ministry credentials. So no doing anything to anybody, all right? Although I’m sure my brother could only be improved by turning his brain to custard. He’s already so fond of it …”

“And just when did we find all this out?” asked Shacklebolt. “I’ve been watching you as long as I’ve been watching him . I signed off on you being a Muggle, for Merlin’s sake! How did I miss it?”

“Really new information,” said Sirius. “Short version: somebody bound his magic, but he may be a cousin of mine. Go ask Hermione, she’s got the background.” He gave Shacklebolt a small shove in the general direction of the other parlour.

“Sorry about that, didn’t know you two had met,” he said to Sherlock. “Kingsley’s been the Ministry’s inside man in the Muggle government for years. Mostly he keeps them from finding out about us. But if things get messy and they have to know, he’s the point man to connect them.”

“And turn people’s brains to custard afterwards?”

“Not really – it would be too late to do anything but damage control at that point. We’ve run scenarios on it. Hope it doesn’t happen. Shack’s also the only Wizard we know who knows more about computers than Hermione. We’re lucky to have him onside.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I don’t trust him unreservedly.”

“I’d be surprised if you trusted any of us. You’re not known for taking other people’s word for things, and we’ve dropped an awful lot on you today.” He clapped Sherlock on the shoulder companionably. “And I don’t know about you, but after that, I need a drink. My parents laid down a very nice elf-made wine in their cellar, which is about the only thing I have to thank them for, or I’ve got some Old Ogden’s if you’d care for something a little stronger …”

He tapped his wand on the fireplace to close the Floo now that everyone had arrived, and drew the group across the hall to socialize.

The parlour was large, but the number of people in it made it crowded and noisy, exactly the sort of environment Sherlock most hated. And of course everybody wanted to talk to him, while all he wanted to do was circulate and listen in on conversations; you learned more that way, he always thought. Fortunately John and Mary both knew how to intercept and distract people, and both of them were better conversationalists than Sherlock was, so all Sherlock had to do was pull the relevant data out of all of the surrounding fluff.

Thus he got the details of Ron Weasley’s recent death (killed by a rogue Bludger that got loose in the equipment room of a sports team he worked for – none of this made sense yet to Sherlock, but he was sure it would soon), Ginny Weasley’s transit delays (ran into an unexpected nest of demons – demons?!? – on her way to the Portkey site and it took longer than normal to finish them off), the absence of Remus’s son Teddy (he’d turned down attending an adults-only dinner in favour of “helping” Bill and Fleur Weasley’s oldest daughter, Dominique, watch the pack of younger children belonging to the various attendees, which Molly Weasley fondly predicted would involve lots of snogging in the apple orchard and the complete demolition of her living room by the unattended little ones), and Kingsley Shacklebolt’s work headaches (suddenly acquired when certain people disappeared into areas they should not have even been able to see, and why didn’t Hermione inform him of this little excursion in advance?).

While John and Mary worked the room, Sherlock himself contemplated the large photograph of Harry Potter which had been placed on an easel in one corner of the room. A stand before it bore an album of photographs. Aside from the lack of flowers or a wreath, the whole thing looked disturbingly like a memorial display at a funeral. He flipped through the album looking at random pages and then turned his attention to the photograph. It was one of the moving wizarding ones, and started off showing a group of four young people. One of them was obviously Fleur Weasley when she was a young woman, in her late teens – before she had acquired the scars marking her cheek. The other two were male, also in their late teens, and Sherlock had no context which might indicate who they were. The fourth individual was Harry, who was obviously much younger than the other three and much less assured in front of the camera. The older three were properly posed and facing the camera for what was obviously a publicity shot of some sort, while Harry stood awkwardly and was looking somewhere off to the side as if for reassurance. The shot zoomed in on Harry until the young man was the only one in the frame; then he reacted as if someone spoke to him from off-camera and he suddenly relaxed and smiled, a brilliant grin animating his face. Then the shot ended and the picture returned to the original view before starting its cycle again.

It was the first time Sherlock saw what Harry Potter had actually looked like. It puzzled him. As he had told Lestrade’s team, the general description of Harry Potter also fitted him nicely. But now, on looking at the face of the boy, he could imagine the face of the man he would have become, and it was definitely not his own face. Not with any amount of reconstructive surgery. The eyes, yes, they both had vaguely almond-shaped eyes, slightly tilted, but Harry’s were an intense shade of green that Sherlock’s had never come close to – brilliant emerald compared to pale jade. That was as far as it went. The face in general was rounder, the hair straighter, the lips thinner – and there hadn’t been any work done anywhere near his mouth (except for that early case where he’d had his lip ripped a bit, and he knew if John had been there he wouldn’t even have a scar from that). The hair was straight and flyaway, darker than Sherlock’s, and not curly at all. The skin tone, the cheekbones, the jawline, all different. It was no wonder Hermione hadn’t been able to identify him.

Only the fingerprints, those impossible fingerprints, could prove to him that he hadn’t been mistaken back in Lestrade’s office. The fingerprints and that scar, the lurid red lightning-bolt scar that peeped through Harry’s fringe, and which Sherlock had seen his own brow before the surgery was done to remove it.

“I remember that,” said Fleur, coming up from behind Sherlock to look at the picture. “’E was so nervous, and so young, and nobody ‘ad prepared ’im for anything that was going on. I am ashamed to admit we did not treat ’im well. We did not understand that ’e did not want to be there, that ’e ’ad been forced. We saw this – this ‘ leetle boy ’ pushing ’imself into a grownup tournament and some’ow being allowed, because ’e was the Boy-Who-Lived and was privileged over the rest of us. We thought ’e was arrogant enough to think ’e could take us on and win, when ’e was three years behind us.”

She reached out to touch the photo, which froze in mid-cycle at the moment when the wide grin broke out over Harry’s face. “We did not know ’ow frightened ’e was. And ’e would ’ave died before ’e admitted it.”

She removed her fingertips from the photo, which started cycling again. “We were the arrogant ones, Mr. ’Olmes. We thought we could ’andle what the Tournament would throw at us. We were too stupid, too proud to be afraid. Until we saw the dragons in the First Task; ’e was the one who made sure Cedric knew and was prepared – it did not occur to the rest of us. Until I failed utterly in the Second Task; that ‘ leetle boy ’ saved my sister from the depths of the lake. Until the Third Task; Viktor and I fell, and Cedric and ’Arry were kidnapped and only ’Arry returned, bringing back Cedric’s body.” She sighed heavily. “And when ’e needed ’elp most, ’e was alone. ’E should never ’ave been alone. There should ’ave been someone there … there was supposed to be someone there, but ’e left … greedy, stupid little man! And stupid, stupid Dumbledore for trusting him …”

She paused to get her breathing under control again. “I was not part of the Order then. I was barely eighteen, I ’ad returned to my family ’ome in Provence to recover from the Tournament.”

“You were injured badly?”

“Not in the body, no. My ’eart, my soul – yes. I ’ad been so proud, so confident, so sure . I was Fleur Delacour, and I was the best of the best and the future was mine to seize. And that ‘leetle boy’ showed me just ’ow wrong I was, and what it really meant to be the best. So when word came that ’e was missing, that ’e ’ad been lost some’ow, I came back to ’elp find ’im. And ’ere I’ve stayed ever since. It ’elps that you Englishmen are so devastatingly ’andsome,” she said, glancing over at her husband and blushing slightly.

Bill Weasley was chatting with Lavender but also keeping an eye on his wife. He lifted his wine glass in a toast to her when he met her gaze.

“He doesn’t trust a strange man talking to you?”

“ Non , ’e’s protecting you from me. I am veela, and until I get to know you a little better … it can be dangerous.”

“I don’t understand,” Sherlock said, looking down at her with a puzzled expression.

“Ah, per’aps if we talked where it is less crowded? I’m sure a man like you already ’as lots of ideas … on ’ow to find ’Arry.” She licked her lips suggestively, and her face almost seemed to glow – or maybe it was the rest of the room becoming dim and quiet around them. He could see why Bill had married her – she was easily the most attractive woman in the country – maybe even the continent – scars notwithstanding. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her, right there, that he had already solved the case, that Harry Potter was standing right in front of her. That he was ready and willing to save the world for her, to make her proud of him.

And then he blinked. Where the hell did that come from? Her hand was resting on his sleeve. When had she put it there? He blinked again, and stepped back. Her hand fell away from his sleeve, and the light and sound from the rest of the room came roaring back.

She smiled quietly and nodded. “Very good, Mr. ’Olmes. I do not think you ’ave anything to fear from me.” She picked up a wine glass from a tray that floated by, nodded to him over it, and returned to her husband’s side.

Hermione eeled through the crowd to Sherlock, glaring at Fleur’s back. “Are you all right? What was she thinking?!”

“I think it was a test. One I passed. Nothing to be concerned about.” To distract her, he looked down at the album. “While you’re here, could you explain to me why Harry appears in two distinct sets of these pictures? Were there two groups of friends who didn’t like each other?”

“What do you…? Oh, I see what you mean. That first group is Harry’s father, James, when he was in school. Harry looks exactly like his father, except for having his mother’s eyes. The pictures of Harry and the rest of us start about here …”

After the dinner was over and they took a taxi home, the three of them sat in the Baker Street sitting room in their accustomed places, Sherlock’s contemporary leather chair and John’s beloved and ancient red armchair by the fire, and Mary’s rocking chair by the window. Mary draped her knitting across her lap but was not actually knitting, John poured himself a scotch but was not actually drinking, and Sherlock … Sherlock was off in his Mind Palace somewhere and probably was actually thinking, though there was no external sign of him doing anything besides breathing.

Perhaps an hour passed this way.

Sherlock blinked and inhaled deeply and shifted as if to get out of his chair.

“No,” said John.

“What d’you mean, no?”

“I mean, no. Whatever little plan or idea you just got in your head to ditch me and Mary somehow and run off to deal with this Voldemort character, you can forget it. Delete it. You’re not going to get away with that this time.”

“I have no idea what you mean. I’m just going to get some tea …”

John snorted. “As if you’ve ever made tea anytime I was in the flat and could make it for you. Look, I’m not as observant as you and I may not think as fast as you, but after all this time I’m a pretty good judge of Sherlock Holmes’ facial expressions – even the micro ones that leak through when you think you’ve gone all impassive. Like now.” He knocked back his drink and considered pouring another before deciding against it. “What’s more, while you were discussing Death Eater tactics with Sirius and Dora up at the head end of the table tonight, I was down at the other end with Hermione hearing allll about how Harry Potter handled things. And truth to tell, you haven’t changed all that much. It may not take you an entire year to solve a case now – the Irene Adler mess notwithstanding – but at the end of it there’s still too much running off by yourself instead of calling in Lestrade, or Dimmock, or whoever’s job it is to actually arrest the bad guys that week. And that winds up with you spending far too much quality time at the local A&E.”

“John, you don’t understand. This could be dangerous –”

“Last time you told me that, you were trying to recruit me. Now it’s supposed to scare me off?”

“You have a wife and child to consider now–”

“And what sort of man would I be if I didn’t do what I could to protect them?”

“If things go wrong and you can’t come back–”

“This is why she has godparents who have agreed to stand guardian for her. Greg and Molly know the sort of thing we get involved in.”

“But this case is–”

“For God’s sake, it’s NOT a CASE! ” John would have shouted except he didn’t want to risk waking the baby. “We know who did the murder and why. Even Hermione’s case isn’t a case – you’re the solution to it. Taking down Voldemort is not a case. It’s a goddamn hit. ” And then he suddenly shut up, too.

“I was wondering when you two were going to realize that,” said Mary calmly.