Cho Chang looked at Harry's stunned expression with some surprise.
"Harry, didn't you tell your family about this?"
"No…"
Harry shook his head, a little helplessly.
"They're all Muggles. They don't understand what the Triwizard Tournament means. And they hate magic…"
Although he had mended his relationship with the Dursleys, Harry still rarely brought up Hogwarts with them of his own accord—not when their attitude toward magic had always been one of polite, careful distance.
At that thought, Harry suddenly understood. His face lit up with excitement.
"I know—it must be Sirius! He's the only one I ever really get to see, and only during Hogsmeade visits. He cares so much about me being in the Tournament. It would make perfect sense for him to be invited to the school as my godfather."
At that moment, Sherlock spoke up and dismissed Harry's guess outright.
"It's the Dursleys."
"What?"
Hermione, Cho Chang, Ron, and Ginny all turned to stare at Sherlock in unison. Only Luna maintained her usual dreamy expression, remarking in a casual tone: "But aren't they your family, Harry?"
"Well, yes, but…"
Luna wasn't wrong not in the slightest but the problem was that Harry wasn't quite sure how to explain it.
"Dear Harry," Sherlock said, "I believe I mentioned this to you once, back on Privet Drive—your Aunt Petunia has always harbored, deep down, a profound longing to learn magic."
Harry nodded instinctively. Sherlock had indeed said as much, and had even deduced that Petunia had once had dealings with Dumbledore—a revelation that had shaken her visibly. She had later confirmed every detail of Sherlock's account herself.
But why was Sherlock bringing this up now?
A bold idea began to take shape in Harry's mind.
"Sadly, she is not a witch," Sherlock continued. "For many years, she carried a quiet, unspoken regret—the dream of a young girl who had wished, more than anything, to be part of the magical world.
In the past, she might have buried that dream to keep up her carefully constructed image as someone who wanted nothing to do with magic. But now she has told her husband the truth. Given all that—when Hogwarts reached out to ask whether she would like to attend as the family of a competitor, what do you think she would do?
Turn it down? Or walk openly through the doors of the school she had yearned for since girlhood?"
"Sherlock!"
Harry's eyes went wide, and the back of his throat tightened. It was Sherlock, after all, who had helped him repair his relationship with the Dursleys from outright hostility to exchanged gifts at holidays, and now, to this: them actually accepting the school's invitation to come and watch him compete.
As for whether the Dursleys had truly arrived, Harry had not a shred of doubt. If Sherlock said they were there, they were there.
Had the setting been any different, he would have thrown his arms around Sherlock on the spot.
Seeing Harry's overwhelmed expression, Hermione rose and grabbed her bag.
"Harry, I have to go—the History of Magic exam starts in ten minutes!"
Luna and Ginny, being a year below, also had exams ahead of them, and so they followed Hermione out. Ron clapped Harry firmly on the shoulder.
"See you later, mate!"
Then he strode off after the girls.
Only Cho Chang had nothing scheduled next. She stayed, keeping Harry company in the gradually emptying Great Hall as they finished the last of their breakfast.
Morning light slanted through the high windows, stretching long shadows across the stone floor.
Before long, the three Durmstrang champions rose from the Slytherin table and filed into the antechamber. Since the second task, their coordination had improved considerably—even Krum had shed his lone-wolf habits and could now hold a proper conversation with his teammates.
Shortly after, the three Beauxbatons champions rose from beside the Ravenclaw table. But rather than follow her teammates straight into the antechamber, Fleur Delacour hesitated, seemed to make up her mind, and walked directly toward Sherlock and Harry at the Gryffindor table.
"Sherlock."
She stopped in front of him, her voice careful.
"Your brother… has he come?"
Sherlock glanced at the slightly fidgety Fleur, and had to suppress a smile.
"You're really that afraid of him?"
"Yes." She nodded without hesitation, showing no embarrassment at the admission. Mycroft Holmes had given her more than enough reason to leave a lasting impression.
"I don't know for certain," Sherlock said, "but I'd expect he wouldn't miss this."
He knew Mycroft the way Mycroft knew him—two brothers who shared the same fierce curiosity about the unknown, about things that defied ordinary explanation. Magic, for instance.
And the Mycroft of today was not the university student he had once been. His position gave him power and access, and an official invitation from the wizarding world to walk openly through Hogwarts' doors was precisely the kind of opportunity he would never pass up, however busy his schedule.
Fleur drew a quiet, sharp breath. Mycroft Holmes was coming.
She turned to Sherlock with a beseeching look, her voice softening almost against her will.
"Then… may I walk in with you?"
It was transparent enough. She wanted him as a buffer between herself and Mycroft's scrutiny. After all, she hadn't just failed the surveillance mission, she had confessed everything to Sherlock directly. Facing Mycroft, the one who had commissioned it, was a deeply uncomfortable prospect.
Beside them, Cho Chang had been mildly curious when Fleur first approached. But as the conversation unfolded, her gaze began moving back and forth between Sherlock and Fleur, her surprise growing steadily.
Ever since Fleur had arrived at Hogwarts, her beauty had been an uncontested focal point—she radiated presence wherever she went. Even now, near the end of the Tournament, she remained firmly in Hogwarts' collective consciousness.
Yet here she was, and it was becoming clear that she and the Holmes family shared a connection of far greater depth than anyone might have guessed.
Cho's curiosity sharpened considerably.
"Of course," Sherlock said.
They were all heading to the antechamber anyway. If Fleur wanted to walk in alongside him, there was no reason to object. He understood her small scheme perfectly, she hoped he might soften the edge of Mycroft's gaze.
What she didn't know was that Mycroft already knew the mission had failed. During the Easter holiday, the two brothers had exchanged not a single word on the subject—yet Sherlock had seen it in him nonetheless.
And Mycroft, in turn, had read Sherlock's behavior and understood that Sherlock knew. That Sherlock knew that he knew.
Brothers. Unspoken understanding.
When Sherlock and Harry finished breakfast and rose from the table, the antechamber door opened a crack. Cedric poked his head through and waved them over urgently.
"Sherlock, Harry—come on, they're waiting for you!"
"Let's go."
Sherlock stood. Fleur rose beside him. Harry said a quick goodbye to Cho, and the three of them crossed the now nearly empty hall together and approached the heavy antechamber door.
Cedric stood at the entrance with a pair of composed, warm-faced middle-aged parents, clearly his own. A single glance told Sherlock as much, and told him further that Cedric's father worked at the Ministry of Magic alongside Arthur Weasley.
Inside, the room opened before them. Viktor Krum stood in one corner, speaking rapidly in Bulgarian with a dark-haired, hawk-nosed man and a gentle-faced woman, his parents.
Facing them, his expression was softer than anyone at Hogwarts had ever seen it. The other two Durmstrang champions were each gathered with their own families in low, animated conversation; Sherlock caught Swedish in one cluster, Danish in the other.
The two male Beauxbatons champions formed their own circle with their relatives, conversing in French, as expected.
Among the gathered wizards, two figures stood conspicuously out of place—stiff, uncertain, ill at ease. They were the Dursleys: Petunia and Vernon, Harry's aunt and uncle.
Just as Sherlock had deduced, they had come.
Petunia wore her best outfit, a suit that was neat but slightly behind in fashion. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, her gaze active with sharp, barely contained curiosity as she took in everything around her with careful, wondering eyes.
Sherlock caught something else in that gaze too: an unguarded, unmistakable longing.
Vernon stood beside her, stomach leading, face faintly flushed, manufacturing the air of a man in command.
But his eyes gave him away—wary, unsettled, visibly uncomfortable.
Whatever else could be said of him, his love for Petunia was genuine. Despite everything in him that flinched from magic, when Petunia had wanted to come, he had come with her.
Not far from them stood a tall, handsome man with a relaxed posture, arms folded, leaning casually against the wall with an amused smile playing at his lips. He was watching the Dursleys' awkwardness with unconcealed entertainment.
Sirius Black—Harry's godfather.
Though all three had been invited as Harry's family, there was clearly no warmth between Sirius and the Dursleys. He had never forgiven them for what Harry had endured growing up and had only held back from saying so, or more, because Harry had asked him to.
After taking in the room, Sherlock's gaze finally settled on a woman standing near the fireplace.
The moment he saw her, one thing became immediately, absolutely certain: even Ron let alone Harry would have known at a glance who she was. Because she was, in every way that mattered, Fleur, but more so.
Her silver hair caught the light with a deeper luster. Her figure was fuller, more graceful. And there was something in her bearing, a natural magnetism, a maturity that made her more captivating than the slightly tense Fleur standing at Sherlock's side.
Sherlock noticed that nearly every man in the room had, at one point or another, let their gaze drift toward her, involuntarily, unavoidably. Even his own father, Tarquin, was no exception.
Though unlike the others, Tanner had a reason to look: Madame Delacour was engaged in cheerful conversation with the elder Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, in accented but fluid English.
In her hand she held a small girl's—a child of perhaps seven or eight.
If Madame Delacour was Fleur grown and perfected, this child was Fleur in miniature. She had the same floor-length silver hair, shimmering with a moonlit sheen, and wide, clear blue eyes full of stars, blinking with curiosity at everything around her.
This was Gabrielle—Fleur's little sister, eight years her junior, who had come along to Hogwarts for the occasion. Sherlock and Harry had crossed paths with her more than once before.
Having taken in his parents and Madame Delacour, Sherlock's gaze came to rest at last on the tall figure standing before the fireplace.
His insufferable brother—Mycroft Holmes.
Mycroft had come without his signature black umbrella this time. He stood with his back to the room, studying a portrait on the wall with quiet, absorbed interest. The painting contained Violet—the stout lady's closest friend who seemed equally fascinated by her distinguished Muggle visitor, watching him in return with a gaze that mixed astonishment with careful scrutiny.
As if he had eyes in the back of his head, the very moment Sherlock's attention landed on him, Mycroft turned.
"Surprised?" he said, his gaze finding Sherlock's.
"We came to watch your competition."
Then his eyes moved slowly, deliberately to Fleur, who was standing at Sherlock's side.
She flinched, just slightly.
Mycroft's words drew the attention of the elder Holmes couple. When they turned and caught sight of Sherlock and Fleur, their faces brightened at once.
"Wonderful—Fleur came in with Sherlock!" his father called out warmly. "You two, come over here!"
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