"Dementors."
Though Sherlock's expression remained as calm and unreadable as the surface of a deep, still lake, the name fell from his lips like a blade of ice, plunging the rattling carriage into a silence as cold as a dungeon.
Every one of them shuddered involuntarily.
Harry most of all.
After all, every encounter with a Dementor had carved itself indelibly into his memory. Just as Remus Lupin had once said what Harry feared most was fear itself. In a certain sense, that was simply the nature of a hero.
"Compared to the Ministry of Magic, which uses them to guard Azkaban," Sherlock continued, "Voldemort can offer Dementors far more... entertainment."
"Entertainment?" Ron's eyes went wide. "Did you just say entertainment?"
"Is there a problem with that?"
His counter-question snapped everyone to attention. They exchanged a collective look of dawning understanding.
Of course there wasn't. It made perfect sense.
"That's exactly right," Hermione murmured, brow furrowed. "As long as those Dementors are willing to side with Voldemort, he'd be more than happy to let them feed on people's happiness to their hearts' content to indulge their every whim."
Voldemort would never lose any sleep over the suffering of others.
But they couldn't stand by and watch. The side of Order, of light, they couldn't allow Dementors to run rampant without consequence.
"But surely, surely Professor Dumbledore would have foreseen this already?" Ginny ventured, arms wrapped around herself, her voice careful and restrained. She didn't seem to notice the faint unease threading through her own words.
"That is precisely the problem." A short, humourless laugh escaped Sherlock's lips. "I've never once worried that Dumbledore would overlook something like this. The Ministry of Magic, however they make Scotland Yard look competent."
Silence swallowed the carriage again. Only the grinding crunch of wheels on gravel and the rhythmic beat of Thestral wings filled the air.
Sherlock's words landed like a stone thrown into still water.
They had witnessed the Ministry's bumbling incompetence time and time again, from their first year to now: from the casual dismissal of the circumstances surrounding Hannah Abbott's father, to the half-hearted pardon after Sirius Black's exoneration, to the outright denial after Voldemort's return.
Each incident was another brick in the same damning wall.
"Damn it so there's absolutely nothing we can do?" Ron could no longer contain his frustration. He slammed his fist against the seat beside him, drawing a dull thud from the cushions.
"Abandon hope. Prepare to fight."
Sherlock's voice was as even as ever, carrying a quiet but unshakeable certainty. H
e turned toward the carriage window, gaze growing distant. "Dementors are nothing like giants or werewolves. There's no chance of them becoming our allies not now, not in this state. Their hunger for joy and souls will only drive them to Voldemort's side faster. As for us unless we're willing to let Dementors feed on us without limit." He paused. "Which is impossible."
Giants, werewolves, Dementors, the weight of each subject pressed down on the already-stifling atmosphere inside the carriage. Every heart felt heavier than the last.
Ron, Ginny, and Luna raised in wizarding households felt it most intensely. Unlike Harry and Hermione, they had grown up with Voldemort's name spoken in hushed, frightened tones; the bloody legends of the Dark Lord had been seared into their earliest memories.
Sherlock's words made it unmistakably clear: the era of peace was gone for good.
In truth, they had known this since last year, when word of Voldemort's return first reached them. But thanks to Sherlock's foresight and planning, the forces of good had achieved a decisive victory at Little Hangleton shattering Voldemort's hopes of finishing Harry Potter before he could be prepared, scattering his newly-gathered followers, and striking a devastating blow against a Dark Lord who had barely drawn his first breath of renewed power.
Ironically, that very victory had bred a dangerous complacency in the wizarding world.
The Ministry had even begun quietly floating signals that the Dark Lord was a shadow of his former self, signals not quite stated aloud, but clear enough to lull many into a false sense of security.
This kind of thinking was not unusual. People who first overestimate their enemies who believe themselves hopelessly outmatched have a habit of overcorrecting the moment that enemy stumbles.
Suddenly, the foe seems beatable, contemptible even. And that underestimation sows the seeds of real disaster. When disaster inevitably arrives, the pendulum swings violently back to despair.
In other words: no clear-eyed understanding of either side's actual strength. No psychological equilibrium. A tendency to crow when things go well and to fold when they don't.
Especially for a generation who had only heard stories of Voldemort rather than lived through the last war, this kind of thinking came naturally.
Luna, with her uniquely detached way of seeing the world, was somewhat immune to it. But Ron and Ginny, in their different ways, weren't entirely free of it either.
Now, Sherlock's quiet words abandon hope, prepare to fight fell like a bucket of cold water over whatever embers of wishful thinking still smouldered within them.
"Though, there's no need for excessive worry," Sherlock added, and a rare, faint smile crossed his face, like a single shaft of light through heavy clouds.
It did something to ease the oppression in the air.
"The situation is actually much better than it might have been. If we hadn't uncovered Moody's impersonator last year or hadn't exposed Pettigrew the year before or hadn't killed the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets the year before that or hadn't stopped Voldemort from getting his hands on the Philosopher's Stone the year before that —"
He left the sentence unfinished.
But everyone already felt the chill run down their spines just imagining it.
They let themselves consider, just briefly, what any one of those failures might have meant and felt their blood run cold.
If any one of those moments had gone the wrong way, the magical world as they knew it might already be unrecognizable.
"We're still only students. Let's focus on what we're supposed to do." Hermione let out a soft sigh and pressed her fingertips to her temples, rubbing slowly.
There was a tiredness in her voice, but also something like relief. "Since Professor Dumbledore already knows everything, this is really a matter for the adults to handle."
Ron and Ginny nodded in agreement.
Harry and Luna both turned to look at Sherlock.
Harry's expression was complicated.
It had only just occurred to him without ever quite realizing it was happening that they had collectively saved the world four times already.
This is really getting to be a lot, he thought.
Then again, as Hermione had said, it really was time to let the grown-ups carry more of the weight.
Despite everything Sherlock had said, no one spoke much for the rest of the journey. They each leaned against their windows and watched the long procession of carriages winding ahead and behind them, jolting and creaking along the uneven path.
The carriages passed slowly through the gates leading to the school grounds tall stone pillars on either side, each crowned with a carved winged boar. In the dim moonlight, the tusks gleamed with a cold, grey sheen.
Hogwarts rose ahead of them through the darkness, its outline sharpening with every turn of the wheels: towers climbing toward the sky, black and immense against the night. Here and there, a window blazed orange like the slow blink of a giant's eye, startling in the surrounding quiet.
At last, the carriages drew to a rattling stop at the foot of the stone steps leading up to the oak front doors.
Sherlock was the first to move.
One by one, they climbed down from the carriage, merged into the stream of students, mounted the steps, and passed through into the castle.
The entrance hall was warm with torchlight, the flames along the walls casted everything in a shifting amber glow that chased away the night's cold. Voices and laughter echoed off the ceiling, filling the wide space with noise and life.
They crossed the flagstone floor toward the two great oak doors on the right the ones leading into the Great Hall, where the Welcoming Feast was held every year.
Luna gave them a small, cheerful wave and turned away toward the Ravenclaw table.
Harry's gaze instinctively followed her until he found Cho Chang at the Ravenclaw bench. She saw him looking and broke into a bright smile, lifting her hand in a little wave.
When they reached the Gryffindor table, a cluster of fourth-years spotted Ginny and immediately called out to her, waving and gesturing enthusiastically for her to come sit with them. Ginny was warm, vivid, and well-liked throughout the house.
But she just smiled and shook her head, declining.
Sherlock, Harry, Hermione, and Ron found four adjacent seats in the middle of the long table and settled in. Ginny slid in beside Hermione a moment later.
Almost as soon as they had sat down, a translucent shape drifted toward them.
Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost, materialized in his usual medieval attire, his head connected to his neck by only the thinnest remaining strip of skin, wobbling gently with each movement.
He wore a welcoming smile. "Hello, hello! How are you all? Good summer?"
"Passable," Ron said, with the air of someone mentally counting down to dinner. He patted his stomach with an expression of anticipation. "I feel like I could eat an entire Thestral right now. Can the feast just start already?"
"You say something like that every year, young Weasley." Nearly Headless Nick shook his nearly severed head with gentle amusement. "Though I believe last year you said you could eat an entire Hippogriff."
"Thank you for keeping track," Ron said flatly, rolling his eyes. "It's not like you understand—you're dead. You can't even taste food."
"That was quite rude of you!"
"You were rude to me first!"
While Ron and Nearly Headless Nick bickered, Neville approached from across the hall. His steps were hesitant; his hands were twisting the hem of his robes.
"Um—c-could I... sit here?"
He glanced around with an anxious, half-shrinking look, his voice barely finding its footing.
"Oh, stop mumbling and get over here!" Ron reached out and grabbed Neville by the arm, pulling him firmly into the seat beside him.
Once Neville was settled, Ron took a better look at him and paused.
Neville's face was flushed a deep, uncomfortable red. His eyes darted away from everything around him.
"Neville—you all right? You look terrible."
"I, it's—it's nothing—"
Neville hunched lower, his voice shrinking to a murmur.
"Ron," Harry said suddenly, nudging his friend with his elbow, voice low. "I think... everyone's staring at Neville."
Harry had noticed partly because he knew the feeling all too well himself.
From the moment he had first stepped into the wizarding world, those looks had never really left him: curious, searching, sometimes tinged with a kind of awe.
Every time he arrived somewhere new and people recognized him as Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, it began all over again, the startled double-takes, the eyes inevitably drawn to the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
He remembered his first year at Hogwarts especially. Students had lined up outside classrooms just to get a glimpse of him, craning and stretching on their tiptoes.
People he'd walked past in the corridor would stop dead, then turn back to stare, as if he were some rare and baffling specimen. It had only begun to settle down in his second year, when at least the older students had grown accustomed enough to stop gawking though each September brought a fresh cohort of first-years and the whole cycle started again.
This year would be no different.
Except Professor Flitwick was nowhere yet at the staff table, which meant the first-years hadn't crossed the lake and entered the castle yet.
So if it wasn't new students: why were returning students staring at Neville Longbottom the same way they'd always stared at Harry?
"No need to look so puzzled, my dear Harry," Sherlock said, reading him effortlessly as always. He let his gaze sweep once across the Great Hall. "Just listen. The answer is already in the air."
He hadn't lowered his voice at all. The others heard him clearly.
They took the cue, fell quiet, and listened.
The hall was still a bright buzz of noise—teachers hadn't yet called for order, and students across all four tables were happily swapping stories from the summer.
But threading through all of it, distinct as a current in a river, came a very particular kind of chatter. Snippets of debate, active and half-arguing, in the unmistakable manner of young people with strong opinions.
The subject: the new Gryffindor prefects.
Pieced together, the whispers went something like this:
Obviously it'll be Holmes—Dumbledore himself called him the Lion King!
Don't forget Harry Potter—the only one who's ever stopped You-Know-Who. That has to count for something.
Ron Weasley's always with them, he's not a bad shout either.
Wait—Neville Longbottom? Who on earth is Neville Longbottom?
It was obvious.
Word of Neville Longbottom's appointment as prefect had spread well beyond Gryffindor and now the rest of the school was trying to work out how this particular name, previously unknown to most of them, had beaten out a house full of stars for the honour.
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