After returning to Hogwarts, Sherlock needed only two evenings to catch up on every piece of work he had missed.
In the amber glow of the candlelight, his quill moved across the parchment with startling speed, and yet not a single letter was out of place. The handwriting was as clean and precise as if he had spent all afternoon on it.
This display of efficiency left Hermione, Hermione, who had built her entire reputation on industry and diligence staring with her mouth slightly open, her fingers tightening unconsciously around her copy of Tricky Magical Problems and Their Solutions.
It was only in that moment that she truly grasped the size of the gap between them.
It was the kind of gap that didn't just feel discouraging, it felt almost like standing in a different dimension.
She would never catch up. There was simply no catching up.
But Hermione pressed her lips together, and something stubborn and bright ignited in her eyes.
She would try anyway.
Because if she didn't, he would only pull further and further ahead.
For the Quidditch players of Hogwarts, life after Easter took on an unexpected lightness.
In any normal summer term, the players from every house would spend the opening weeks drenched in sweat, pushing themselves through training for the season's final, decisive match.
But this year, the Triwizard Tournament had meant the cancellation of the Quidditch Cup, and the players found themselves with a sudden, bewildering surplus of free time.
For Harry, and for all the others like him, there was a strange sense that something was missing as if they had been wound up and ready to spring, only to find there was nothing to spring toward.
"We genuinely don't know what to do with ourselves anymore..." Harry let out a long breath, his shoulders sagging, his eyes carrying the look of someone whose purpose had been quietly misplaced.
Still, he had some comfort to hold onto. Sherlock had already told him that Marvolo Gaunt's ring had been found, that Horcrux was destroyed. The news had loosened something tight in his chest and let him breathe a little easier.
"Two down, four to go," Harry said, and there was a thin thread of hope in his voice. "If we could destroy all of them..."
"There's no need to rush."
Sherlock was considerably calmer about it. His fingertips tapped lightly against the tabletop.
"The fact that Voldemort made the Gaunt ring into a Horcrux confirms we're thinking about this correctly. He collects trophies. He's drawn to objects with power and historical weight, things that feel worthy of him.
His pride, his sense of superiority, his determination to carve himself a singular place in the history of magic, all of it means he would have chosen his Horcruxes with great care, selecting only objects that felt equal to the honor he imagined he was conferring on them.
So as long as we're looking in the right direction, Dumbledore's abilities and connections should lead us to the remaining four before long." He paused. "Have you had any dreams about Voldemort lately?"
"No." Harry shook his head, then caught up with the question a few seconds later and turned to Sherlock with a puzzled expression. "Why are you asking about that?"
"Because if you haven't dreamed of him, it means his emotions haven't spiked with any great intensity recently." Sherlock's gaze sharpened.
"Barty Crouch Junior was broken out some time ago. Voldemort has had every reason to act by now. The most likely explanation is that he already has and we simply haven't noticed yet. If I were in his position, I would not have let this opportunity pass."
"What opportunity?" Harry's heart rate picked up without his permission.
"The Triwizard Tournament."
Harry went still. A cold thread of unease worked its way up his spine.
"Stay calm, Harry." Sherlock placed a hand briefly on his shoulder. "Especially now, when we're close to the end. If they intend to use the Tournament, they'll have to make a move and when they do, I'll see it coming. I won't give them the opening they need."
Harry looked at him in that steady, unhurried confidence and felt the knot in his chest loosen again, almost against his will.
They had Sherlock on their side. Whatever ally Voldemort had managed to cultivate, whoever it was working against them from the shadows, they were no match for him.
At last, the final week of May arrived.
After a Transfiguration lesson, Professor McGonagall held Sherlock and Harry back as the rest of the class filed out. She looked at her two most accomplished students with a small, composed smile.
"Holmes, Potter, I need you at the Quidditch pitch tonight at nine o'clock. Mr. Bagman and Mr. Moody will be there to tell the champions what the third task is."
The two of them agreed and made their way to the Entrance Hall at half past eight, where they met Cedric coming down from the Hufflepuff common room. The three set off together down the stone steps into the night. The sky was thickly overcast, not a star to be seen through the heavy clouds, and the evening breeze carried just enough of a chill to make itself felt against their cloaks.
"Sherlock, what do you think it'll be?" Cedric asked, unable to keep the curiosity out of his voice. "The third task, I mean."
"Not enough information to say," Sherlock replied, his voice very clear in the quiet dark.
"Some people think underground tunnels..." Cedric offered.
"That would be Miss Delacour's theory," Sherlock said, without turning around.
Cedric stopped walking. "How did you know that?"
"Because she mentioned the underground tunnels to me as well. She seems fairly convinced we'll be searching for treasure." Sherlock's tone was completely neutral.
Cedric stared at him. It was true that Fleur Delacour had sought him out after the Yule Ball, she had, since then, been rather friendlier toward him than he'd expected. But listening to Sherlock, he had the odd impression that Sherlock somehow knew her better than he did.
He was still turning this over in his mind when a bright voice sounded behind them.
"Hello, you three!"
They all turned. Fleur Delacour was walking toward them with Philie Raven and Loui Lefan from Beauxbatons. A thin strip of moonlight had found its way through a gap in the clouds, just enough to catch the outline of Fleur's face. She was smiling, and it was she who had called out.
"Holmes. How have you been?"
She came straight to Sherlock, tilting her head slightly, her smile warm and easy.
"The same as always," Sherlock said, with a small nod.
Behind Fleur, the quieter Philie and Loui each greeted Sherlock in turn, with an unmistakable warmth in their expressions.
Cedric's confusion deepened. When had Sherlock become so easy with the Beauxbatons girls?
Harry, for his part, was not the least bit surprised. He knew why. Sherlock had shared the secret of the golden egg's clue with Fleur, and that help had made all the difference for Beauxbatons in the second task, they had not come last because of it. The gratitude was genuine.
Harry also knew something Cedric didn't: that Fleur's presence at Hogwarts had not been entirely accidental. Mycroft had arranged it, specifically to keep a quiet eye on Sherlock. Whether Mycroft had anticipated what would actually happen was another question because by now, Fleur had quite clearly thrown in her lot with Sherlock, and by extension with Hogwarts.
"Do you still think the last task will involve tunnels?" Cedric asked Fleur, his voice carefully casual.
Fleur nodded, with perfect confidence. "I do. I think they'll send us to find treasure."
"Honestly, that would be a relief," Harry said, already doing the mental arithmetic: borrow Hagrid's Niffler, let it do all the work. Simple.
"Well, we're about to find out either way," Philie said cheerfully, glancing at Sherlock. "What does the great detective think?"
"Not enough information to say," Sherlock said again, exactly as before.
The six of them walked on together, talking easily, following the dark slope of the lawns toward the Quidditch pitch. The night grass was damp underfoot, and the wet soaked into the edges of their shoes.
When they passed through the gap in the stands and out onto the pitch itself, Cedric came to a sudden, abrupt stop. His expression had gone tight with something between shock and indignation.
"What on earth have they done to it?"
Harry's eyes went wide as well.
The flat, open expanse of the Quidditch pitch was almost unrecognizable. It was threaded through with dozens of long, low walls, dense and intricate, branching and doubling back on themselves in every direction, like a vast web of stone that had been thrown across the ground and left to sprawl where it landed. The field had been carved into fragments.
Harry understood at once why Cedric was angry.
This pitch meant something. Every practice session, every match, every nerve-shredded hour of preparation, all of it was woven into this ground. To see it cut up and rearranged like a jigsaw puzzle was like watching something personal be handled carelessly by a stranger.
"Are those walls?" Loui crouched down beside the nearest one, running his fingers along the rough surface with open curiosity. He wasn't a Hogwarts student, so the territorial feeling was entirely absent, he just found it interesting.
Sherlock stood still for a moment and let his gaze move slowly over the tangle of low walls. He also, without being obvious about it, watched the faces of the people around him. Something shifted in his expression, very slightly, a flicker of recognition and he filed away whatever he had worked out.
"Hello there, everyone!"
The cheerful voice cut through the quiet. Ludo Bagman was standing in the middle of the pitch, waving enthusiastically. Beside him stood the three Durmstrang champions: Viktor Krum, Toby Torsen, and Lucas Poliakov. Bagman was dressed in bright robes and was practically bouncing on the spot with the energy of someone who had been keeping a secret and could barely stand it.
"Come on over!"
Sherlock stepped forward without a word and picked his way steadily over the walls. Harry and Cedric exchanged a glance and quickly followed. The Beauxbatons trio fell slightly behind, but caught up soon enough.
"Well? What do you make of it?"
Bagman spread his arms wide as Sherlock climbed over the last wall and came to a stop in front of him. His voice was brimming with pride. "Coming along nicely, isn't it? Give it another month and Hagrid will have these things twenty feet tall!"
Sherlock and the three Beauxbatons champions regarded the walls with identical expressions of calm neutrality.
Harry and Cedric were still frowning.
Bagman read the room immediately. "Don't worry, don't worry, the moment the Tournament task is over, your Quidditch pitch will be put back exactly as it was! Now then. I suspect you can all guess why you're here?"
Eight heads shook in unison. Everyone except Sherlock.
Sherlock glanced at the group, exhaled quietly, and said nothing. The answer was obvious enough that commenting on it felt like a waste of breath.
A brief, slightly awkward silence stretched across the pitch.
Then Krum's voice rumbled out, low and blunt: "Is it a maze?"
"It's a maze!" Bagman seized on this like a man who had been thrown a rope. He let out a relieved breath and launched into his announcement at full speed. "The third task is a maze! Rather straightforward compared to the first two, wouldn't you say? The Triwizard Cup will be placed in the very center of it, and the first champion to touch it wins full marks!"
"That sounds simple enough," Fleur said at once, and then immediately frowned. "But if only one person can win full marks, doesn't that mean the other two come away with nothing? In which case, what was the point of the first two tasks?"
The others nodded around her, the same thought written across their faces.
She had a point. If a single champion could reach the Cup first and claim full marks, then the order in which everyone else finished became irrelevant. And the gap between Hogwarts, currently in first place, and Durmstrang in third was not vast, nothing close to fifty points.
If Durmstrang happened to reach the Cup first, every advantage Hogwarts and Beauxbatons had built over the previous two tasks would be wiped away in one stroke.
"Oh, they'll still matter."
Heavy footsteps announced the arrival of Alastor Moody, who came around the far side of the hedge walls and walked toward them. His magical eye was doing its usual restless circuit of the assembled group, pausing on each face in turn.
He had evidently been deeper in the maze checking something over, which was why nobody had noticed him until now. He looked at Fleur and said, without particular warmth, "The champion with the most points will enter the maze first."
"Exactly!" Bagman was back to bouncing. "Based on the current standings, Hogwarts goes in first, then Beauxbatons... and then Durmstrang last."
The champions nodded, some of the resistance was going out of their expressions. It was a reasonable rule. The prior tasks still counted for something after all.
"What's inside the maze?" Cedric asked, and his wariness was plain. "It's not just... finding our way through, is it?"
"Hardly." Bagman grinned, with a gleam that suggested he was rather enjoying this part. "You've got Hagrid to thank, he's provided the organisers with rather a spectacular assortment of creatures..."
At that, the corner of Sherlock's mouth moved. Very slightly. Barely perceptibly.
"Holmes." Moody's magical eye snapped to him immediately, fixing on him with an unblinking intensity. "What are you smiling about?"
"Something that pleases me," Sherlock said, his expression unchanged.
"And what would that be?" Moody pressed, leaning fractionally forward, the pressure of his attention considerable.
"That I'll finally have a use for the Blast-Ended Skrewt."
The words came out in the same unhurried tone as everything else Sherlock said. But they made several of the people standing around him pause, just for a moment, with the expression of someone trying to decide whether they had heard correctly.
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