Dumbledore's voice trailed off, guttering like a candle in the wind.
In the Pensieve, the silvery images dimmed and blurred along with it, the fragments concerning Nagini were twisting slowly in the mist like faded old photographs.
At last, the scene froze.
A pair of great reptilian eyes filled the centre of the vision, slit-pupiled, their irises a cold, molten gold.
And yet, deep within them, something human seemed to linger still—a sorrow and despair so bottomless, so silent, it struck at the heart.
"A pity. I failed.
The wizarding world's understanding of blood curses was—is—far too limited. The curse's power exceeded even my worst imaginings. Powerful enough to despair of."
Dumbledore's voice carried an exhaustion beyond words.
He settled his half-moon spectacles back onto his nose, fingers pressing lightly at the temples, and let out a heavy sigh.
A moment later, he rubbed the bridge of his nose again, wearily. The lines at the corners of his eyes seemed carved deeper by years and regret, written through with helplessness and self-reproach.
"Nagini vanished.
Even though I defeated Grindelwald in the end, she disappeared from the world."
Dumbledore's gaze drifted toward the window; his tone heavy with self-blame:
"We all assumed she had gone somewhere unknown, unseen—
That in solitude and suffering she had completed the final transformation, becoming, forever, nothing more than a serpent, with no trace of human consciousness left. Or that she had died somewhere in her agony... but I never imagined—"
He raised his head sharply. Behind the half-moon lenses, his blue eyes burned with deep grief and fury, his voice trembled faintly: "I never imagined she would fall into the hands of Tom Riddle!
That cold, merciless creature who saw everything and everyone as nothing but a tool!
It's clear now—after that night in Godric's Hollow, Voldemort made his way, by stages, into the forests of Albania.
There he found this great serpent, made powerful by the curse upon her, and perhaps consumed by a lifetime's resentment. He preyed upon her loneliness, her despair...
From that day on, Nagini became Voldemort's most devoted servant.
I believe he must have used some particular method to draw out everything she had buried within herself—all the negative emotion left over from the years of imprisonment and abuse she suffered in that circus in Indonesia.
She went from a gentle, kind-hearted girl with a sense of justice, to something else entirely—cold, cunning, bloodthirsty. A criminal.
Helping Voldemort commit one unforgivable act after another."
At this, Dumbledore's voice rose sharply, carrying a fury he could no longer suppress:
"And after that, he went further still. He turned her body into a Horcrux—a vessel to prolong his own wretched existence!"
As the words fell from Dumbledore's lips, the office sank into a long silence.
Only the faint hum of the silver instruments and the occasional rustle of Fawkes preening his feathers stirred softly in the air.
In the Pensieve, the image of those serpent eyes dissolved slowly into the silvery mist, leaving behind nothing but a cold blankness.
An invisible weight pressed down on every inch of the room.
Sherlock sat still, and in the depths of his grey eyes, the initial shock had already begun to settle, giving way to something colder—a chill that cut to the bone.
He gazed at the last traces of light lingering in the Pensieve, and understood that Dumbledore had just laid bare a truth almost too sickening to bear:
That Voldemort's true final Horcrux—the great serpent named Nagini—was not merely a magical creature corrupted by dark power.
She had once been alive. Flesh and blood. Human.
A tragic soul who had endured a curse's torment, who had longed for freedom, who had sought redemption—and who, in the end, had been swallowed whole by darkness.
"So, what we have to destroy isn't just a Horcrux."
Sherlock's voice broke the silence, low and clear:
"It's the ending of a life that's been cursed twice over."
Dumbledore nodded. A flicker of approval crossed his eyes, quickly swallowed again by heavy sorrow.
This, too, was the true reason he had asked Sherlock here today.
He had believed, once, that among all of Voldemort's Horcruxes, only Harry was special—only Harry carried a living soul within him.
He had never imagined that great serpent carried so heavy, so tragic a history of her own.
If he were honest, when he first learned the truth, he had sat in stunned silence for a very long time.
Because of how long ago it all was, whenever he thought back to Nagini as she once had been—still human—he could not help but think, too, of that long-buried entanglement with Grindelwald. Of that summer, so full of ambition and regret.
Given how things stood now, it seemed only a matter of time before the resurgent Voldemort ignited a second wizarding war.
And if they could not win that war, then Voldemort would very likely become a second Grindelwald.
Perhaps worse. More brutal. More terrible. Capable of plunging the entire wizarding world into an abyss from which there would be no return.
To defeat Voldemort utterly, every one of his Horcruxes would have to be destroyed.
Nagini most of all—the one he prized above the others, the one he kept always close at hand.
To strike her down would be, without question, a devastating blow to Voldemort himself.
And rather than let that once-kind, once-beautiful girl go on existing in this cursed, controlled, degraded form—better, perhaps, to grant her a long-overdue end.
For her, it might be a kind of release.
A final act of mercy for a soul who, even at the edge of life, had never been able to break free of the curse upon her—who had become, in the end, nothing more than a tool for another's evil.
On that count alone, the moral weight of hunting down Nagini already far exceeded that of destroying a diary, or a ring.
Dumbledore drew a deep breath at the thought, his chest rising and falling slightly, as though steeling himself for something enormous. Then he spoke:
"Sherlock. Besides Nagini... there's something else."
Before Dumbledore could finish, Sherlock cut in:
"That tangled, complicated relationship between you and Grindelwald?"
Dumbledore: "..."
He blinked, caught off guard, then shook his head, resigned.
Dumbledore no longer bothered wondering how Sherlock had come to know of it.
Given the young man's powers of observation, he had likely worked it all out the moment Dumbledore's manner shifted at the mere mention of Grindelwald's name.
Or perhaps even earlier than that.
Fortunately, he had already intended to speak with Sherlock honestly about it today—so the how no longer mattered.
Dumbledore drew another deep breath, and the emotion churning in his chest slowly settled.
He seemed to be considering where to begin—how to tell a story that had lain buried for more than half a century.
At last, he raised his wand. A glass of lemonade, faintly steaming, appeared out of thin air on the desk and slid smoothly across the polished surface toward Sherlock.
He set his wand down carelessly on the table and said:
"No sugar in this one. Let's start with my family."
Sherlock nodded and reached out to take the glass.
He took a sip—the tartness spreading sharp across his tongue. No sugar, indeed.
Just like the state of Dumbledore's heart in this moment. Tinged with a bitterness that would not fade.
Since Dumbledore meant to tell his own story now, Sherlock sat up straighter once more, settling back into that same attentive, listening posture as before.
"I am a half-blood wizard. Nor am I an only child—I have a younger brother, Aberforth, and a younger sister, Ariana.
"Our family lived, originally, in Mould-on-the-Wold. A quiet little village.
My sister, Ariana Dumbledore, was a sweet child. Very kind.
But when she was six years old, a nightmare descended upon us—she was attacked by three Muggle boys.
Those Muggle boys had never seen magic before. When they witnessed the magic Ariana displayed, unintentionally, they were terrified. And in their terror, they turned on her with vicious cruelty.
Because of what those three boys did to her, both her spirit and her mind were wounded.
Devastatingly. Irreparably.
She grew timid, oversensitive. She refused ever again to use magic.
But she couldn't rid herself of the magic growing within her, and in the end...
That suppressed magic turned inside, and she became, like Credence Barebone, an Obscurial.
Whenever she lost control of her emotions, the Obscurus within her would erupt—magic bursting from her, uncontrolled, wreaking terrible destruction.
Our father was devastated. He couldn't bear what had happened to his daughter, and so he went to settle the score with those three Muggle boys himself.
He attacked them in a rage. Beat them badly.
To protect Ariana—to keep her secret from reaching the Ministry of Magic—my father took the entire blame upon himself. He was sentenced, in the end, to life in Azkaban. He died there."
At this point in the telling, Dumbledore's voice filled with an unending sorrow, the lines at the corners of his eyes seeming to deepen once more:
"After that, our family could no longer go on living in Mould-on-the-Wold.
The Muggles' fear and rejection of us, the Ministry's ongoing investigation—the village was no longer safe.
My mother took the three of us children and moved to Godric's Hollow.
Like Mould-on-the-Wold, Godric's Hollow was home to a good many wizarding families.
But my mother, after everything that had happened to my father, to my sister, had become extraordinarily cautious.
She refused to associate with most of our neighbours, choosing instead to bear every hardship alone. Bathilda was the sole exception."
"Bathilda?"
Sherlock caught the name at once.
"Just so. Bathilda Bagshot—the author of A History of Magic. A learned woman. Kind-hearted."
A trace of bitterness crossed Dumbledore's face: "From that time on, Aberforth and I never spoke of our father, or our sister, when we were out in the world.
We were afraid of being pointed at, whispered about. Afraid our sister's secret would come to light. And more than anything, afraid of losing someone we loved all over again.
Later, I went off to Hogwarts."
Dumbledore's gaze softened, as though he were recalling happier days at school:
"At school, I was much as you and Harry are now—I showed a talent well beyond my years.
I was made Prefect. Head Boy. Forgive me, again, my lack of modesty but in those days, I was considered the most brilliant student the school had seen in living memory. Everyone had the highest hopes for me.
After I left school, I had planned, as tradition dictated, to travel abroad with my friend Elphias Doge—to see something of the wider wizarding world, and pursue my own ambitions.
But on the very night before we were meant to leave, terrible news arrived from home."
At this, Dumbledore closed his eyes slowly, his long lashes casting shadows beneath them, as if resisting the memory of that painful time:
"Ariana's magic surged out of control once more. And this time... my mother was killed, by accident, by the very magic her daughter could not contain.
I know—I know that my mother gave her life, in the end, for her daughter's sake, without regret.
And I hated it, Sherlock. All of it. I hated it at the time."
Dumbledore's telling was frank to the point of coldness, as though he were recounting someone else's story entirely.
His gaze now drifted past the top of Sherlock's head, out toward the black night beyond the window, his eyes swirling with complicated feeling:
"I know I was gifted. I know I was exceptional. I could have had a brilliant future ahead of me.
I wanted to run. I wanted to distinguish myself, to shine, to break free of my family's burdens and chase my own dreams.
Of course—I loved them. I loved my parents. My brother, my sister.
But I was also selfish, Sherlock." His voice carried a note of self-mockery. "Far more selfish than you could ever imagine.
So, after my mother's death, when the duty of caring for a disabled sister and a headstrong younger brother fell to me, I returned to the village consumed by resentment and grief.
I believed myself trapped. Wasting away my life in some tiny, forgettable village!
And then—needless to say—he arrived..."
Dumbledore's voice caught, weighted with something like fate itself.
When his eyes met Sherlock's again, there was not a ripple to be found in those grey depths.
Sherlock knew, of course, exactly who "he" meant: Gellert Grindelwald—the man who had changed the entire course of Dumbledore's life.
And, indeed, Dumbledore went on. His voice carried a tangle of emotion impossible to fully untangle—nostalgia, regret, and a deep, abiding pain:
"Grindelwald.
You cannot begin to imagine how his ideas captivated me. Inspired me.
Muggles subdued. We wizards, finally free to hold our heads high. A new world, ruled by wizards—that was exactly the future I longed for, back then.
Grindelwald and I—we were to be the glorious young leaders of that revolution.
Of course, I had my reservations. A moment's hesitation, here and there."
His fingers tightened around the arm of his chair, knuckles turning white:
"But I soothed my own conscience with empty words. Told myself it was all for the greater good—that whatever harm we caused along the way would be repaid a hundredfold by the good it would bring the wizarding world.
Did I know, somewhere deep down, what kind of man Gellert Grindelwald truly was?
I believe I did. I understood his ambition. I understood his cruelty. And still I chose to look away.
Because if our plan succeeded, every dream I had would come true."
Dumbledore fell silent for a long moment, as though gathering his strength.
At last, he spoke the words that made Sherlock's whole mind snap to sudden attention:
"And at the very heart of our plan—were the Deathly Hallows."
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