The bedroom carried a faint scent of cedar. In the corner stood a vintage brass floor lamp, its warm amber glow came through a white shade and cast across the wool carpet below; the dark pattern along the carpet's edge surfaced and vanished again with the shifting light.
An armchair near the window was draped with a cushion of deep emerald velvet. Sherlock sat there, his fingertips idly tracing the scrollwork along the armrest.
Hermione sat across from him on the foot of the bed with knitted blanket draped over her knees, both hands clutching its corner in a tight, anxious grip.
On the wall hung a tapestry of a detective-themed piece embroidered with magnifying glasses and aged newspapers lending the room an atmosphere of gravity.
"Good God—" Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth the moment Sherlock finished recounting their three-person ordeal inside the Horcrux cave. "That green potion you described sounds absolutely horrifying. Voldemort must have brewed it himself."
Her knuckles had gone white where she gripped the blanket. Tears welled instantly in her eyes, blurring her vision, and her voice still carried the last tremors of a shudder.
"Self-evident, my dear." Sherlock allowed a faint smile to settle at the corner of his mouth. He leaned slightly forward, elbows on his knees, fingers lightly interlaced, those sharp eyes unusually clear in the warm lamplight.
"In fact, after working through the sequence of events, I can now offer the following summary. It is an extraordinarily vicious and powerful dark potion its purpose is not to kill outright, but to destroy the drinker's mind and will until all resistance is impossible.
First: psychological torment. It plunges the drinker into extremes of fear, despair, and anguish, forcing them to relive the worst and most painful memories of their life in a waking nightmare.
Second: physical agony. Beyond the mental suffering, it inflicts a searing internal burn from personal experience, the sensation is rather like every organ catching fire at once.
Third: an unbearable thirst. The drinker is consumed by a maddening, unquenchable craving for water, one that ordinary magic cannot relieve, which is precisely why Dumbledore's Aguamenti proved useless. Without prior preparation, the only recourse is to draw water from the surrounding lake. But doing so rouses the Inferi lurking beneath the surface.
All of these effects working in concert reduce any wizard who attempts to steal the Horcrux to a state of utter physical and mental ruin leaving them as easy prey for the Inferi in the water.
"Incidentally, compared to your term 'Green Potion,' I find 'the Drink of Despair' far more fitting a name—"
Several times during Sherlock's recitation, Hermione had nearly cut in. Her lips parted; her grip on the blanket tightened. Each time, she caught the analytical gleam in his eyes and forced the words back down.
But when he paused to correct the name of the potion, she could endure it no longer. She shot to her feet, the knitted blanket sliding from her knees unheeded. "Is that the point right now? What does it matter what it's called? The question is—why did you drink it voluntarily?"
Hermione's eyes were completely filled with tears now, trembling on the edge of falling.
Afraid that Mr. and Mrs. Holmes might hear, she pressed her voice down despite the storm of anger and worry churning inside her, her tone raw with distress: "Don't you know how dangerous that was? With Professor Dumbledore right there—why did you have to be the one?"
"I believe you may have misunderstood."
Sherlock smiled gently. He reached out and guided Hermione back down onto the bed; his fingertips could feel the muscles along her wrist. "Purely on the basis of what the Drink of Despair does, I was, in fact, the most suitable person among the three of us to drink it."
"Impossible!" Hermione stared at him, unflinching as someone standing their ground in a confrontation, and said, each word slowly: "Don't try to deceive me. You said so yourself just now: you and Harry combined are no match for Professor Dumbledore."
"Dearest Hermione, there's no need to rush—"
"Am I rushing?" Her voice shot up and was swiftly pulled back down; red coloured her cheeks. "You—"
"There she goes again."
"…"
"Allow me to finish."
"Fine. Go on then."
Hermione looked at him, her jaw faintly set, arms folded across her chest.
"I have already explained the nature of the Drink of Despair. It is precisely because of that nature that I was the most suitable one to drink it."
Hermione was still furious with Sherlock for treating his own body so carelessly, but her mind remained as sharp as ever.
As she followed the thread of his reasoning, the tension eased fractionally from her posture, and the anger in her eyes gave way to something more like reluctant understanding. "You mean… that your own life holds relatively little in the way of painful memories?"
"Not exactly." Sherlock looked away; a trace of self-deprecating amusement curved his lips. "After some reflection, I would say that the period before I encountered the wizarding world when there were no cases to occupy me — was, in its own way, genuinely painful.
Like a sharp blade left to rust in a drawer. Perhaps not the most fitting analogy. But compared to either Dumbledore or Harry, those memories are utterly negligible. Furthermore, even Dumbledore a man of well over a century does not possess the strength of will that I do. To say nothing of Harry."
"And so you simply drank it. That horrifying potion."
The sharpness had drained from Hermione's voice. The tears gathered once more in her eyes, and when she spoke, there was only a soft, aching tenderness. "You just… drank it."
"Yes. Psychological suffering amplifies physical suffering—the two are inseparable. And given what lay ahead, we needed Dumbledore to be fully intact to bring us back safely. As it turned out, my reasoning was sound."
"Sherlock, you—"
She looked at him. She wanted to say something. She couldn't find anything to say.
Because he wasn't wrong. Not in the slightest. Working backward from the outcome, of the three of them Sherlock, Harry, Dumbledore—the one most suited to drink the Drink of Despair had been Sherlock.
And that was precisely why the ache in her chest felt so impossible to bear. Something was lodged there, blocking the air from moving freely.
She drew a slow, deep breath, her voice carrying a tightness she couldn't quite conceal. "But you were still hurt—"
"My dearest Hermione." His tone was quiet but certain. "From the moment I set out with Professor Dumbledore to retrieve the Horcrux, we had already accepted that danger was part of the arrangement. Hadn't we?"
Hermione found herself genuinely surprised.
The old Sherlock even from a year ago would never have said something like this. It wasn't quite comfort; at most it qualified as an explanation. But the Sherlock of first year wouldn't have offered even that much.
She allowed herself to be persuaded.
The shadow over her heart, however, refused to lift.
She thought suddenly of what Gemma had told her before graduating.
"He's a genius, Hermione, but he's also the person least capable of valuing that genius in himself."
"He needs someone around him like you—clear-eyed, rational, and firm enough when it counts."
"Someone who can hold him back when necessary. Remind him. Give him a good punch if that's what it takes to knock some sense into him."
Gemma's words had come true.
But he had already done what he'd done. What use was a punch now?
With that thought, Hermione decided she needed to see Gemma. The two of them had to talk properly, at length about Sherlock.
The following morning.
Sherlock had been ordered by his parents to stay home. Hermione, cheeks flushed, had stayed as well to look after him.
The night before, after Dumbledore's departure, Mrs. Holmes had pointed this out with gentle directness. Then she had taken Hermione's hands in both of hers and asked again, with earnest eyes.
Hermione's cheeks had burned as though held over a flame. She had said yes.
Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, meanwhile, had gone with Sirius to Diagon Alley, where the Weasley family was waiting for them and for Harry.
"Er—Uncle and Aunt probably won't be back until evening."
Hermione stood in the doorway of the bedroom, fingers twisting the hem of her cardigan, her discomfort was appearing plainly across her face.
It wasn't as though she hadn't spent time alone with Sherlock in this room before she'd done so often enough during her stay here. But then, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes had at least been somewhere in the house. Now it was just the two of them, and the air between them carried a faint, unmistakable charge of awkwardness.
"Yes, I know."
After a full night's sleep, Sherlock's colour had improved considerably, though he still lacked his usual vibrant energy. "I also know that for at least the remainder of the time before term starts, I won't be permitted to go anywhere."
"You look rather put out about it."
Hermione stepped closer and peered at him carefully. Satisfied that he seemed well enough, she let out a breath of relief.
"Naturally." Sherlock pressed his fingertips together, settled both elbows on the armrests, and regarded the middle distance with an expression of thorough listlessness.
"I am a man of action rather than reflection—when there is nothing to do, I grow restless and out of sorts. Give me problems. Give me work. Give me the most impenetrable cipher or the most labyrinthine analysis, and I am in my element. Without that, without some form of intellectual stimulus—I cannot be comfortable."
He paused, a flicker of resignation crossing his face. "I find monotony genuinely intolerable. I live for mental exhilaration. It is why I chose this particular profession or rather, why I invented it, since I am the only person in the world who practices it."
"You mean there are no other private detectives?" Hermione settled onto the edge of the bed as she had the night before, elbow propped on the mattress. "That can't be right—I've read any number of stories about private investigators."
"More precisely: I am the only consulting detective. The final court of appeal." A note of pride entered Sherlock's voice as he settled back in the chair.
"In fact, for the past year, whenever the inspectors at Scotland Yard find themselves at a loss, they come to me for guidance—which, I can assure you, is a not infrequent occurrence.
I review the evidence, contribute the opinion of a specialist. I take no credit afterward; my name does not appear anywhere. The work itself is sufficient reward—the satisfaction of directing my peculiar faculties toward something worthy of them."
His expression shifted. "However—Father and Mother informed Mycroft about my need to rest." He made a dismissive sound. "Which means that even when they are at a standstill, no one will be coming to consult me. This holiday has become thoroughly dull."
"It's only a week until term starts. Surely you can manage that."
"A week with nothing to do feels like an eternity to me, even if it sounds trivial to you."
"But you have me here with you, don't you?"
The words were out before Hermione could stop them. She heard them a beat too late and felt her face warm immediately but there was nothing to be done. Words, once spoken, cannot be recalled.
Under Sherlock's curious, questioning gaze, she hurried on: "Do you still remember what I told you before? I've written up the full account of your first-year investigation into the Philosopher's Stone—it's finished. I even gave it a title: A Study in Scarlet."
The gambit worked.
Sherlock first nodded, then frowned, then shook his head with evident dissatisfaction.
"I skimmed it once. I'm afraid I can't say I was impressed. The science of detection is or ought to be—an exact discipline, approached with the same dispassion one brings to any rigorous inquiry. You've draped it in the conventions of romantic fiction. The effect is rather like embedding a love story inside a geometric proof."
Hermione laughed outright at that, the laughter brightening her eyes into crescents, small dimples appearing at the corners of her mouth. "But the events themselves did read like a novel—I could hardly distort the facts."
"Certain facts can be omitted. The essential point—the only point worth conveying is the method: how I proceeded from observed effects to their causes, and through careful analysis and deduction arrived at the solution."
"I'm not changing a word," said Hermione, with cheerful stubbornness.
The conversation turned, gradually, to Sirius and his brother.
Hermione could not help but grieve over Regulus's sacrifice.
"A righteous sacrifice is indeed noble," Sherlock said. "But sacrifice is not always necessary. I will say what I have said before: brave, commendable— and very foolish."
"But—"
Before Hermione could complete the thought, the clear sound of a doorbell rang through from the sitting room.
"Someone's at the door!" She sprang up from the chair at once, eyes bright. "I'll get it!"
"A guest you invited, I take it." Sherlock didn't look up, his fingers resuming their absent drumming on the armrest.
"You—how did you know?" Hermione's feet stopped. Her cheeks went slightly pink; her eyes slid away from his.
"My dear Hermione, I don't merely know that she is a guest you invited—I also know precisely who she is."
Hermione: (/ω\)
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