"Wizards can't solve every problem or rather, not every wizard is capable of solving one."
Sherlock sat on the window-side sofa in the drawing room of the Holmes estate, a rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet pinched between his fingers.
He leafed through it with an air of indifference, addressing his father, who sat across from him in an armchair.
Sunlight spilled through the leaded glass windows, scattering broken light across the floor at his feet.
It was a scene entirely at odds with the cold, clinging fog on the streets of London.
"That fog over London right now isn't natural. It's Dementors."
"They're roaming everywhere, hunting for prey like famished ghosts, ready to strike anyone who crosses their path at any moment."
"And it's precisely because they've been breeding, growing more numerous by the day, that the fog keeps thickening."
"So that's what's behind this fog?"
Mr. Holmes started at the words, his teacup froze midair, the scalding tea inside was trembling and nearly spilling over. He frowned, his brows knitted into a hard line, a trace of worry crept into his voice.
"I recall you telling me before that these creatures feed on people's hope and happiness, that wherever they go, they leave nothing but despair in their wake. Can't that Ministry of yours do something about it? Are they just going to let these things run wild in your world, throwing ordinary people into panic?"
"Do something?"
Sherlock set down the paper. A cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, a flicker of contempt appeared on his grey eyes.
"My dear father, if they had the competence for it, things would never have been allowed to reach this point. I've told you before—the bureaucrats at the Ministry are arrogant and useless, their heads stuffed with procedure, no sharper than a Scotland Yard detective on a bad day.
They saw the Dementors turning long before it happened, and did nothing, too afraid of the blame it might cost them. Only after Azkaban fell and half the Death Eaters walked free did they finally come to regret it. Now they can't even hold their own world together, let alone spare the attention to look after ours."
Mr. Holmes fell silent, lifting his teacup for a slow sip. The warmth of it did nothing to loosen the worry knotted across his brow.
In the drawing room, the only sound left was the ticking of the clock, threaded through now and then by birdsong drifting in from outside.
After a moment, something seemed to occur to him, and a spark of interest lit his eyes.
"Mycroft's been busy lately too, hasn't he—is he handling this magic business as well?"
"Obviously."
The corner of Sherlock's mouth lifted, a rare smile was touching his face, one that carried something close to approval.
"I'll say this much for him—for once, he's actually done something worthwhile."
"Worthwhile?"
Mr. Holmes couldn't help his curiosity, setting down his teacup and leaning forward slightly. It was the first time he'd ever heard his younger son speak well of anything his elder son had done.
"What could he possibly have done to earn praise like that from you?"
Sherlock lifted his eyes, his tone was level but carrying a certain weight beneath it.
"He's pushing to have the Minister for Magic replaced with someone who'll actually be of use. That Minister Fudge is a lost cause—cowardly, stubborn, and far too pleased with himself.
Only someone with real resolve, real competence, and the sense to face facts as they are can bring the current situation under control quickly enough to stop things from getting worse."
"Replace the Minister for Magic?"
Mr. Holmes's eyes widened in astonishment.
"Sherlock, if I remember rightly, the Minister for Magic holds a position equivalent to our own Prime Minister! And you're telling me your brother means to have him removed?"
"That's right."
Sherlock nodded, then gave a short laugh and offered an explanation of his own accord.
"My dear father, it's nowhere near as dramatic as you're imagining. The truth is, after everything that's happened—the Azkaban breakout, the Dementors turning—that Minister was never going to be able to hold onto his post regardless.
The whole wizarding world has been calling for his resignation for some time now; the pressure of public opinion has been enormous. Mycroft is simply moving with that tide, picking out from among the candidates the one who'd be most advantageous for the situation as a whole."
Mr. Holmes blinked, then broke into a smile, as though he'd accepted the fact with remarkable speed.
"I doubt it's only Mycroft behind this, though. My dear Sherlock, surely, you've had a hand in it as well, haven't you?"
Sherlock didn't answer directly. He simply lifted the glass of lemon water from the table and took a sip, a flash of slyness was passing through his eyes.
But Mr. Holmes knew his son far too well. The silence itself was answer enough.
"Seeing the two of you work together like this—that's no small thing!"
Mr. Holmes said it with real feeling, a note of relief appeared in his voice.
"Speaking of which, the new Minister for Magic ought to be that headmaster of yours—Dumbledore, isn't it? From what little contact I've had with him, he struck me as steady, wise, and carrying a certain quality that makes people trust him. He seems like exactly the right man for the post."
"He would be—even you, who can't do magic at all, can see that much. But the trouble is, he isn't willing."
Sherlock spread his hands with helplessness in his voice.
"He isn't willing? Why not?"
Mr. Holmes looked surprised all over again, his brow was furrowing once more.
"Sentiment. Family, friendship, love—that sort of thing."
Sherlock's mouth twisted slightly, plainly unconvinced by any reasoning that amounted to letting one's feelings get in the way.
"He feels the weight on his shoulders is already heavy enough, and he doesn't want to be shackled by Ministry busywork on top of it. More than that, he's afraid—afraid that power might cost him something he isn't willing to lose."
"Is that so. That really is a pity."
Mr. Holmes said it with some emoions, shaking his head gently. It was clear enough that his opinion of Dumbledore was genuinely a high one—he thought well of the wizard headmaster.
"Darling, what are you two talking about?"
Just then, Mrs. Holmes's voice drifted in from the kitchen, accompanied by the bright clink of dishes.
She came in wearing an apron, carrying a plate of freshly baked biscuits, a warm smile on her face.
Father and son exchanged a quick glance and, without a word between them, steered the conversation elsewhere.
Mr. Holmes cleared his throat and looked at Sherlock, a teasing tone creeping into his voice.
"I hear you're seeing three girls at once, up there at Hogwarts?"
"What—is that true?"
Mrs. Holmes's eyes lit up, and she crossed the room in a single bound, moving with an agility that seemed entirely at odds with being a Muggle woman who couldn't do magic at all.
She set the biscuits down on the table, pulled up a chair beside Sherlock, and seized his arm, her voice was brimming with curiosity and anticipation.
"Sherlock, I've given up on your brother, so all my hopes are riding on you now. I think all three of those girls seem lovely—what do you think?"
Sherlock: "..."
Strangely enough, it was only when discussing this particular subject with his parents—his mother especially that he ever felt even a trace of awkwardness.
With everyone else, including the three girls Mrs. Holmes was referring to—Hermione Granger, Gemma Farley, and Luna Lovegood themselves—he could talk about the matter at length without the slightest discomfort.
He owed that entirely to his dear brother Mycroft, and to Rita Skeeter, who Mycroft kept quietly under his thumb.
By now, nearly everyone in the wizarding world knew that Sherlock Holmes—the Gryffindor Lion King, the renowned boy detective—was carrying on ambiguous relationships with three exceptionally talented young women at once.
All manner of embellished reports flew about, casting him as a "dashing wizarding gentleman."
By this point, the name Holmes had grown steadily more prominent throughout the wizarding world. Beyond Dumbledore's deliberate promotion of Sherlock's exploits after Voldemort's return—using him to draw ire for Harry and pull the Death Eaters' attention away, there was another important reason, one that had to do with Hermione.
She had done the thing she'd once said she would do, long ago.
She had turned Sherlock's adventures into books, and published them.
Ever since Gilderoy Lockhart had been carried off to Japan by Takeshi, the wizarding world had been left without one of its finest magical authors.
Under those circumstances, a detective adventure story with an unusually strong sense of immersion, adapted from real events, and closely tied to the wizarding world's present crisis burst onto the scene and swiftly filled that gap.
Sherlock himself held that the study of deduction ought to be an exact science even here, in the wizarding world. It ought to be approached with a cool, objective method, not one governed by sentiment.
And yet Hermione had packed the books with heavy detail and emotional colouring, layering sentiment over what had originally been a rigorous process of reasoning.
To Sherlock's mind, it was rather like slipping a love story into the middle of a geometric proof—he found it more exasperating than anything.
Still, the first story Hermione wrote under the novel title A Study in Scarlet—was a runaway success the moment it was published. Wizards had never once imagined that a person could work out what was in another's heart, and what they had lived through, purely through observation and reasoning, without using any magic at all. And given that A Study in Scarlet was so closely tied to the very Voldemort now stirring up trouble, it drew the interest of nearly every wizard alive. It was this, more than anything, that sent the reputation of the wizarding world's boy detective soaring.
Miss Granger, riding that success, pressed on and followed A Study in Scarlet with a new work: The Hound of the Baskervilles. She'd originally meant to open with The Sign of Four, but the Marauder's Map figured in it far too heavily—too much private business that simply couldn't be made public, so she switched subjects instead.
The new story picked up directly where the first had left off, telling the story of the Philosopher's Stone through to its end. It, too, met with resounding praise, and sold even better than the first.
Buoyed by the reception, Hermione had now set to work on a third story: The Greek Interpreter.
It was for this reason that the name Sherlock Holmes had, for a time, actually eclipsed that of Harry Potter.
After Voldemort's return, Harry Potter had briefly been treated by the wizarding world as its "Chosen One." Whatever else one made of it, this business had objectively done some good—it had drawn a good deal of Death Eater attention away from Harry, letting him grow up in relative safety.
Meanwhile, in the town of Cokeworth, on Spinner's End.
The lane ran along the town's riverbank, its blocks were made up of a row of shabby terraced brick houses.
The street was narrow, paved in uneven cobblestones, running alongside the murky river all the way to a derelict flour mill's towering chimney in the distance. The chimney had long since stopped smoking; only its black, hulking silhouette remained, cutting a bleak shape against the overcast sky.
This was where Severus Snape's house stood.
The sitting room had the feel of a dim, padded cell. Bookshelves lined several of the walls, crammed full of books, most of them old volumes bound in black or brown leather, giving off a faint smell of decay.
An iron chandelier, fitted with lit candles, hung down from the ceiling, casting a dim, wavering ring of light that just barely lit one corner of the room. Crowded within that ring of light sat a worn, threadbare black leather sofa, an equally shabby armchair, and a wobbling wooden table.
Scattered across the table were several empty bottles and a litter of loose papers. The whole place was steeped in an air of bleak desolation, as though no one ever really lived there.
And in fact, no one did.
Ever since Severus Snape had inherited the house from his parents, he only ever came back to stay here occasionally, during the Hogwarts holidays.
At that moment, two people sat on the sofa in the sitting room—a man and a woman.
The man wore a black robe of impeccable cut, with his trademark pale blond hair and a pale, pallid face—Lucius Malfoy. The woman beside him had hair a shade darker than his, a faint, barely visible anxiety threading through her melancholy blue eyes—his wife, Narcissa Malfoy.
Behind them stood a tall woman with darker skin and heavy-lidded eyes, black hair hanging loose and unkempt about her shoulders, her gaze fierce and half-mad—Narcissa's sister, Bellatrix Lestrange, freshly broken out of Azkaban.
In the armchair across from the sofa sat the master of the house, Severus Snape. His face had the sallow, waxen look of old parchment, his hair was lying greasy against his scalp, his black robes were trailing down to hide his feet entirely.
"He's nothing but an underage wizard, all of sixteen years old."
Contempt coloured Snape's voice.
"Deduction, the great detective, seeing straight into people's hearts—you can't possibly believe that nonsense, can you, Bellatrix?"
"Snape, it was this so-called 'underage wizard, not yet sixteen' of yours who ruined the Dark Lord's plans last year!"
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