Sherlock sat sideways on the tube seat, eyes resting on Harry's face, his tone was edged with dry amusement. "My dear Harry, I trust you still remember the lessons Professor Lockhart graced us with?"
Harry scratched the back of his head as a complicated smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Er—that's… not exactly something you can forget."
Whether it was the flashes of genuine ability Lockhart had only possessed because of Voldemort's possession, or the dramatic role-playing that preceded it—all of it had left a lasting impression.
"In one lesson, he had Neville play a werewolf."
Sherlock had barely finished the sentence before the image blazed back into Harry's mind:
Lockhart had made Neville howl like a werewolf at the top of his lungs, and then perform the expression of someone reluctant and helpless in the face of an aggressor—docile, cornered, submissive.
For Neville, it had been all too natural a role.
Lockhart had pinned him to the floor with one hand, the other pressing his wand to Neville's throat.
Neville's face had gone scarlet, tears brimming in his eyes. Between broken, halting howls, he had choked out a desperate plea: "Not there—please—you can't—"
Lockhart had been very pleased with Neville's performance. He'd awarded him thirty points on the spot.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head hard, as though trying to physically toss the memory out of his skull.
Even now, after all this time, thinking back to that scene made his chest clench. He still couldn't look at it straight.
"But what does any of that have to do with Professor Lupin?"
He opened his eyes and looked at Sherlock, baffled. "That day's practical lesson used a Boggart instead of a real werewolf. There's no connection to Professor Lupin."
"That's not what I'm referring to." Sherlock shook his head.
"The essay, then?" Harry frowned, trying to remember. "We had to write a poem about how he defeated a werewolf—but I still don't see the link—"
"No, Harry. None of that."
Sherlock smiled faintly. "I need you to think carefully about what Lockhart said during that lesson—if you can still recall."
Harry had no choice but to close his eyes again.
But the first thing that surfaced was still the image of Neville pinned to the floor, and the tearful sound of his "Not there—please—you can't—"
He shuddered involuntarily, and said with some reluctance, "Sorry, Sherlock, it's all a blur. Just tell me the answer."
"It's actually quite simple."
Hermione had noticed Harry's discomfort. She smiled and stepped in. "At the time, Lockhart said he had performed an extraordinarily complex Hominid Restoration Charm—and that afterward, the werewolf in the village of Wagga Wagga had been permanently returned to human form."
"But wasn't that just one of his lies?"
Harry looked even more confused now. "Except when he was being possessed, Lockhart didn't have a scrap of genuine talent. He made all of that up, didn't he?"
Hermione blinked, a flicker of cunning crossing her eyes. "I think you may have forgotten about the Obliviate."
"Obliviate?" Harry blinked. He really had forgotten.
"Yes. Obliviate."
Sherlock said it pensively. "The reason Lockhart's books sold so well was that the scenes he described always felt vivid and immediate—as though the reader were living them firsthand.
But every last one of those accounts was adapted from real events. They were simply not his events. They were someone else's lived experience.
Whenever he heard an adventurer recount their story, he would memorize every detail—then cast an Obliviate on them, claim the tale as his own, and publish it."
Harry straightened up sharply, his eyes lighting. "Sherlock, you mean—"
"Sherlock believes that someone in this world genuinely can perform a complex enough charm to return a werewolf permanently to human form."
Hermione picked up the thread smoothly. "Because Lockhart said in class that ever since he cast that spell, the villagers were never troubled by a werewolf again. So, the charm he described very likely does exist—he simply stole the story from whoever actually did it."
"So now that Lockhart's woken up, we can ask him who that wizard was—the one who told him the story in the first place. Is that right?"
By the time Hermione finished, Harry had understood completely. His voice surged with sudden excitement.
If they could find the wizard who actually knew the Hominid Restoration Charm—Professor Lupin's suffering might finally have an answer.
"This is still only a theory. Nothing has been confirmed yet."
Sherlock remained composed. "But I think it's worth pursuing. Even if the odds are one in ten thousand."
"Yes—we have to try!"
Harry nodded firmly, his clenched fist pressing down against his knee.
Watching him, Sherlock couldn't help but smile.
He had once told Dumbledore that he would find a way to deal with the soul fragment Voldemort had left inside Harry. And now Harry was saying those same words—we have to try—for Lupin's sake.
In that one way, at least, the two of them were remarkably alike.
"Why isn't Ron here?" Harry asked then. "He'd want to be part of this—did you not tell him?"
"The facts aren't clear enough yet. There's no need to bring more people."
Sherlock said it evenly, glancing at Harry. "Originally I only meant to bring you. Hermione was an accident."
A beat of silence.
Hermione's smile froze on her face. The corner of her mouth twitched. She shot Sherlock a look.
Harry stared at Sherlock with an expression of pure, undisguised admiration.
You absolute legend. You really just said that to her face.
The atmosphere in the carriage turned briefly uncomfortable. Harry glanced at Hermione's stiff profile, then at Sherlock's perfectly untroubled expression, and decided the most sensible course of action was to stare very hard at his own shoelaces, as though they had done something remarkable.
Fortunately, the train pulled into the station. Sherlock rose first and stepped onto the escalator. Hermione took a slow breath and quickened her pace to join him, falling into step at his side.
Harry, who had been about to ask a few more questions, had no choice but to hurry after them, trailing a step behind.
By the time they emerged from the tube station onto the broad streets of central London, the three of them could walk abreast at last.
It was a wide, busy thoroughfare. Shops lined both sides in tight rows, and the pavement churned with people—footsteps, vendors' calls, and a dozen other sounds layering into a hum that made the head swim.
"St. Mungo's is here?"
Harry stared at the press of Muggle crowds, visibly taken aback.
Sherlock gave a short, quiet laugh. "A recurring flaw of the wizarding world."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"Because finding a good address for a hospital isn't easy."
Hermione answered before Sherlock could. "Diagon Alley is far too small to accommodate a major hospital. And they couldn't build it underground like the Ministry—hospitals need ventilation and sunlight; an underground environment is unsanitary and bad for recovery. So, they settled on this location. The logic being that patients can come and go among the Muggle crowds without drawing attention."
Harry stared at her for a moment.
He was starting to understand why Sherlock had laughed.
Before he could think further, the crowd abruptly surged. A wave of shoppers came pouring out of a nearby electronics store, arms full of carrier bags, nearly sweeping Harry and Sherlock apart.
Harry stumbled, shooting a hand out to grab the nearest lamppost.
He was about to warn Hermione—but glanced over to find she had already wrapped both hands tightly around Sherlock's arm, her body angled slightly into him, letting the crowd break around them.
Harry quietly looked away and studied the clouds.
"We're here."
Sherlock stopped and pointed ahead.
Before them stood a three-storey red-brick department store, its fascia sign flaking, the words Purge & Dowse, Ltd. still just legible beneath the peeling paint.
Compared to the polished storefronts flanking it on either side, this building looked thoroughly derelict.
A thin layer of dust had settled on the front steps. The glass door bore two faded CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT signs, their corners curled with age—they had clearly been hanging there for years. The display window was worse.
Several cracked plastic mannequins stood at odd angles, some missing half their wigs, exposing bald pates; others had lost a forearm, the stump propped carelessly against the glass. Their clothes were museum-pieces—styles from at least a decade ago—coated in dust, stained with marks that no one had bothered to explain.
A woman passing with three large bags of snacks slowed as she noticed the three of them standing there, and murmured to her companion, "That place looks like it's never once been open—and I've lived round here for years."
She threw them a curious look before moving on.
Once she was gone, Sherlock led Harry and Hermione to the far right of the window display, where one mannequin stood out from the rest—emphatically so.
Her false eyelashes dangled at a precarious angle from one eyelid, half-detached. She wore a garish green nylon dress, its hem streaked with a brownish stain, the whole ensemble managing to look both cheap and faintly absurd.
Sherlock leaned close to the glass, his gaze settling on the mannequin. "We're here to visit Gilderoy Lockhart," he said, his voice flat.
In the next instant, the rigid figure moved.
Its head dipped slightly—a small nod. Its stiff fingers drew together and gave a slow beckoning wave, as if gesturing them inside.
"Come on."
Sherlock said nothing more. He reached out, took Harry and Hermione each by the wrist, and walked them straight through the glass.
Passing through it was nothing like pushing through the barrier at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. There was none of that dense, pressing resistance. Instead, it felt like stepping through a curtain of cool water—a brief, fleeting dampness against the skin.
Then they were through, and the warmth returned instantly. Not a trace of moisture remained.
The dilapidated mannequin and the dusty window were gone. In their place was a cramped, noisy waiting room.
Rows of worn wooden chairs lined the walls—their legs slightly unsteady—packed with witches and wizards in robes of every colour. Some looked more or less normal, heads bowed over back-issues of Witch Weekly, the cover models' hair yellowed with age. Others presented far more striking conditions:
One man's nose had become a long, swaying trunk, swinging gently of its own accord. A woman had grown a small extra hand from her chest, which was currently clutching at her collar like a fretful child. A small boy had ears shaped like bat wings, and every time they fluttered, a light breeze gusted through the room.
The noise was no better than the street outside. At the center of the front row, a sweating witch was fanning herself vigorously with a copy of the Daily Prophet—but every time she fanned, a sharp blast of steam-whistle shrieked from her mouth, white vapour curling from the corners of her lips, as though she were about to boil over.
In the corner, a disheveled wizard made a deep, resonant clang with every movement, his head jerking involuntarily to the side each time, so that he'd resorted to gripping both ears with both hands in a desperate attempt to hold it steady.
An elderly woman with a cat's face sat weeping and muttering, "My cat turned into a slipper—my cat turned into a slipper—" clutching a slipper embroidered with a cat's face to her chest, her grief entirely inconsolable.
Green-robed Healers moved among the waiting patients. Some carried clipboards, leaning over to ask questions while their quills scratched across parchment in rapid strokes. Others pushed trolleys with potion bottles in a dozen shades, each one tagged with a hasty, barely readable label.
Every Healer wore the same silver badge on their chest—a wand crossed with a bone, forming a cross: the emblem of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
"Are those the doctors?" Harry murmured, drifting closer to Sherlock, watching a green-robed Healer weave past.
Sherlock nodded. "Yes."
"They're called Healers here," Hermione added, already scanning the room. "Similar duties to Muggle doctors, but entirely different methods." She spotted something across the hall. "I think we need to check in over there—to confirm which ward Lockhart's in."
The moment they stepped inside a hospital, even a magical one, Hermione was in her element.
She navigated the crowded room with practiced ease, steering Harry and Sherlock to a desk marked ENQUIRIES, where a plump, blonde witch sat receiving visitors.
The wall behind her was papered in notices and announcements: Clean cauldrons prevent potions turning poisonous. Antidotes must be approved by a qualified Healer before use.
The queue was already a decent length, each face carrying its own particular shade of anxiety or exhaustion.
While they waited, the three of them witnessed a succession of scenes that would have seemed entirely impossible an hour ago:
A young wizard in blue robes was hopping on one foot. His other foot had swollen to the size of a pumpkin, and small teeth were visibly writhing beneath the surface of his shoe. "I told them—it was my brother's idea of a joke!" he was insisting to a Healer beside him. "He gave me shoes that were alive, and they bit straight through!"
An elderly man with an ear trumpet was turned away after being informed that his visit was pointless—the patient he'd come to see had become entirely convinced he was a teapot, and was not receiving guests.
A small girl with pigtails had grown a pair of enormous feathered wings from her back. They were vivid pink, and every time they beat, the gust nearly knocked her father off his feet. The girl herself only giggled, utterly unbothered.
Scene by strange scene, the queue moved forward, accompanied by the waiting-room's chorus of the bizarre. The blonde witch called out, "Next—" at slow intervals, and at last, it was their turn.
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