Sherlock pushed open the door to the Gryffindor common room and spotted Hermione in the corner at a glance.
An open book lay on the table in front of her, but her fingers hovered above the page, unmoving. Clearly her thoughts were elsewhere. Sherlock needed only a single glance to know she'd been waiting a long while.
The common room was quieter than usual for a weekend.
The students who'd gone to Hogsmeade for the day hadn't returned yet. Only third-years and below remained—and not even all of them. Weekends came so rarely at a boarding school that plenty of students would rather sleep in than bother with breakfast.
Some sat at the long tables by the windows, reading or working through homework; others knelt on the rug playing Wizard's Chess. The air carried the faint scent of ink mixed with the fire's warmth.
But to these younger students, Sherlock Holmes was someone to be approached with caution.
Solitary. Strange. Never one to blend in. Always able to see straight through a person, his eyes carrying a coolness that warned others to keep their distance.
And the deductions that occasionally slipped from his mouth only deepened that silent awe.
So, when Sherlock walked straight toward Hermione, the few younger students nearby instinctively stepped back, widening the gap between themselves and the pair—carving out, without meaning to, a small pocket of privacy around them.
Which suited the two of them fine.
Hermione paid the younger students no mind. The moment she saw Sherlock, her eyes lit up.
As soon as he sat down beside her, she snapped the book shut and leaned in slightly.
"Did Dumbledore tell you... about the Horcruxes?"
Her eyes held a urgency, an anxiety she couldn't quite hide, and her voice had dropped low.
"Yes."
Sherlock leaned back lazily, crossing his long legs, his tone giving away little.
"But I'd rather not repeat myself once Harry and Ron get back."
"That's fine!"
Hermione's voice rose instinctively, drawing curious glances from two students playing chess nearby.
She tensed at once, pressing a hand to her lips, forcing her voice back down to a whisper, her cheeks were flushed faintly from the moment's urgency.
"Tell me first. When they're back, I'll be the one to tell them."
A small thread of joy stirred quietly in Hermione's chest, coiling around her heart like a fine vine.
She was Sherlock's first listener—and, for now, his only one.
It might sound childish, but a girl's feelings rarely bother with reason. Something that seemed like such a small thing was enough to leave her secretly pleased.
And that particular feeling eased some of the tension that had been coiled in her all along.
"Fine. If you insist..."
Sherlock gave a small nod and, without further word, recounted everything he'd learned in Dumbledore's office, concise and to the point. His account was logically clear and well-ordered, without a trace of embellishment as though he were delivering an investigation report.
"...Sorry. If it were Harry telling this, he'd make it far more vivid. I can't do that."
Sherlock's voice trailed off.
While speaking, his thoughts had drifted outside the present, lost in untangling the logic of Horcruxes and the Deathly Hallows. Only when he came back to himself did he notice that Hermione, sitting beside him, was already in tears.
Sparkling drops slid down her cheeks and fell onto her dark, crew-necked sweater, blooming into small patches she didn't seem to notice at all.
"What's wrong?" Sherlock looked genuinely surprised.
"That girl... Nagini... she's just so pitiful..."
Hermione's voice broke apart into something barely recognizable, her shoulders were trembling in small, helpless shudders.
Sherlock had no gift for storytelling, but Nagini's fate was tragic enough on its own that Hermione had felt clearly, the despair and agony of an innocent girl transformed into a monstrous serpent.
It cut her to the heart.
Outside, the sky darkened without either of them noticing.
As dinnertime approached, the younger students in the common room drifted out one by one.
By the time Sherlock finished the story, only the two of them remained.
With no one left to watch, Hermione finally stopped holding back.
She turned slightly and leaned her head against Sherlock's shoulder, muffled sobs were escaping in broken bursts.
Warm tears soaked through the cloth of his school robes, dampening his shoulder.
Sherlock's body went stiff for a moment.
But he was no longer the boy who'd once understood nothing about matters like this, so he didn't push her away. He simply let her lean on him.
He truly hadn't expected her reaction to be this strong.
To him, Nagini's fate was merely one piece on a vast, dark chessboard—a single node in a chain of deductions.
He hadn't expected it to stir such deep empathy in Hermione.
Though, he supposed, this only confirmed once again what a kind-hearted girl she was.
Just a bit too sentimental, perhaps.
After a long while, Hermione's emotions gradually settled.
She lifted her head and wiped hard at the tear-tracks on her face with the back of her hand.
Her eyes, red and swollen, now held a determination unlike anything before, fixed steadily on Sherlock.
"Sherlock. We have to defeat Voldemort."
"For everyone he's hurt!"
"Isn't that self-evident?" Sherlock looked at her. "This criminal must be brought to justice."
"Sorry—I've gotten your robes wet."
Only then did Hermione notice. Her cheeks flushed pink, and she quickly drew her wand, murmuring a soft "Scourgify."
The damp patch on Sherlock's shoulder vanished instantly, the fabric restored to dry and even.
That done, she drew a deep breath, steadying her voice still thick with congestion and asked: "What do you think about the Deathly Hallows?"
Her eyes were still red from crying, tiny undried tears still clinging to her lashes.
But the sorrow in them had been replaced by something harder, more resolute.
The will to fight the darkness.
Sherlock's gaze drifted from her tear-streaked cheeks to the fire leaping in the hearth.
The orange firelight casted shadows across his face. He pressed his palms together, resting his chin against them out of habit, and said in his usual cool, level voice:
"The Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, the Cloak of Invisibility—or, more precisely, a single symbol."
Before the words had fully left his mouth, he raised his wand and slowly traced the symbol representing the Deathly Hallows in the air.
A vertical line for the Elder Wand. A circle for the Resurrection Stone. A triangle for the Cloak.
The three merged perfectly into one shape—an ancient, mysterious mark.
(the symbol of the Deathly Hallows)
"To me, this symbol—these three Hallows together—function more like bait.
Greed for power. An obsession with the dead. A hollow pursuit of the title 'Master of Death.'
They appeal to the most fragile part of human nature—the part most easily corroded by darkness.
Which is how even a genius like Grindelwald could be driven half mad by them.
Even Dumbledore very nearly made a fatal mistake, unable to resist the temptation."
"Fortunate, then, that you were there beside him."
Hermione said this with evident relief, then asked:
"So, you're saying... whoever possesses them—especially someone who doesn't understand the cost—can easily be led astray by them?"
"Obviously, my friend."
Sherlock said it with certainty, lowering the hand propping up his chin and leaning forward slightly.
"As it stands, Voldemort has no idea the ring from the Gaunt family is set with the Resurrection Stone.
Of course, knowing him, what he values most is undoubtedly the Elder Wand.
His interest in the Resurrection Stone falls far short of that—he sees it merely as a piece of the Hallows, entirely overlooking its true meaning: the power to summon the shades of the dead.
Which is understandable enough, given that he's never mourned anyone in his life. He cares only for his own immortality."
Hermione fell silent for a moment, brow furrowing slightly, clearly turning Sherlock's words over carefully.
After a while, she spoke slowly, a note of hesitation in her voice.
"Now that we have all three Hallows complete... does that mean...?"
"Does it mean we hold a decisive advantage over the forces of evil?"
Sherlock let out a light laugh, cutting her off with a shake of his head.
There wasn't a trace of real amusement in that laugh—only a faint note of mockery.
"Hermione. What decides the outcome of a war has always been people.
The Hallows matter, certainly—the Elder Wand is a sceptre steeped in blood, the Resurrection Stone a lure born of despair—
But only people can truly wield the power within them."
He paused, his tone softening somewhat.
"The Cloak might be the exception.
Ignotus Peverell used it to protect his family. Harry uses it to protect his friends and himself.
So, what it represents is an entirely different kind of power—shelter, and restraint.
Like the youngest brother at the end of the tale, who in the end chose to make peace with Death, accepting it calmly, without fear.
Only by not fearing death can one ever overcome it."
At the mention of Harry, something flickered in Hermione's eyes—a complicated tangle of emotion beneath her red, swollen eyelids.
Worry. A pang of tenderness. And a thread of inner conflict.
She hesitated for a moment before asking quietly:
"So... are we going to tell Harry about the Deathly Hallows?
"They were his ancestor's, after all, and..."
"Not necessary. Not yet."
Sherlock's answer came clean and unhesitating, without a trace of ambiguousness.
"On this point, Dumbledore and I are of one mind—Harry already carries too much.
Voldemort's targeting of him. The weight of the prophecy. And, ah... the O.W.L.s on top of it all.
Dumbledore didn't even let him take up the position of prefect, for that very reason.
If he learns now that the Resurrection Stone exists—that he could see the shades of his parents—it would only add to his suffering, become one more distraction.
You know as well as I do that even Dumbledore nearly lost his life to that very obsession.
So, what Harry most needs to focus on right now is what's within his control—his studies, his Occlumency training, the destruction of the Horcruxes.
An unnecessary temptation would only become another burden."
Sherlock understood Harry all too well.
Ever since first year, watching him before the Mirror of Erised, Sherlock had known exactly how deep his longing for his parents ran.
He understood, better than most, how badly that longing—once stirred by the Resurrection Stone—could disrupt him.
Not everyone in this world could master themselves the way Sherlock could.
Some people, if anything, couldn't even manage to be responsible for themselves.
And then there was the most critical issue of all—the fragment of Voldemort's soul lodged within Harry's own body.
Should his emotions swing too violently, there was no telling what danger might follow.
Hermione fell quiet at his words.
She lowered her head, gaze settling on her hands folded in her lap, her fingers were curling slightly.
She understood Sherlock's logic completely—agreed with it, even, from the bottom of her heart.
But somewhere deep down, she still felt a pang of sorrow for Harry.
Because yet another heavy truth about his own life had, for now, been kept from him.
"This truth doesn't require any decision from him right now, so telling him or not makes little practical difference."
Sherlock read her thoughts with unerring precision and added, his tone carrying an unusual subtle trace of reassurance.
"When the time comes that he does need to decide, I'll tell him myself.
I've never believed in dumping everything on someone all at once, holding nothing back.
Nor do I believe in burdening someone with pain ahead of the moment they actually need to choose.
The choice has always been his to make. I'm only filtering out what serves no purpose at this stage."
"Sherlock, I understand—"
Just then, a burst of noisy footsteps, cheerful laughter, and the light scuffle of jostling suddenly spilled into the common room, breaking the heavy stillness at once.
"Merlin's beard!
Zonko's new Dungbombs are brilliant!
Lavender nearly chucked one right at Crabbe's head!"
Ron's booming voice rang out first, filling the room.
His red hair stuck up in every direction, like a bird's nest tossed by the wind.
His face glowed with excitement; a faint smear of chocolate was still visible at the corner of his mouth.
Beside him, equally beaming, walked Lavender Brown.
Her blonde hair was done up in two playful braids, her cheeks were flushed pink as she giggled, leaning close to Ron.
The two kept bumping shoulders, appearing noticeably more familiar with each other than before they'd left.
"And then what? Crabbe actually got hit?"
Harry's voice followed close behind, warm with relaxed laughter.
He walked in behind them, his already-untidy black hair was windblown into further disarray, an unmistakable contentment was all across his face.
Clearly, his Hogsmeade outing with Cho Chang had gone rather well.
"So close! So close!"
Ron flailed his arms, gesturing wildly, nearly clipping his elbow on the doorframe.
"If Goyle's clumsy self hadn't tripped him, Crabbe's face would've ended up the exact colour of a Dungbomb!
Hey—Sherlock! Hermione!"
Only then did he notice the two of them sitting by the fireplace.
The instant his eyes landed on Hermione's visibly red, swollen eyes, his excited gestures froze mid-air, and the grin faded from his face.
Ron himself couldn't have said why, but almost without thinking, he shot Sherlock a suspicious, searching look.
Could it be...
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