"Sherlock? Sherlock?"
In the real world, Sherlock had not been gone long at all.
Only a few seconds had passed since he entered the Mind Palace and yet, because Gemma happened to be speaking to him at that very moment, she noticed something was wrong almost immediately.
When two calls of his name went unanswered, and she saw the vacant blankness in his eyes, panic surged through her.
In a flash, Gemma drew her wand and levelled it at Sherlock, ready to cast a Rennervate.
At that instant, Sherlock returned from the Mind Palace to the waking world.
He took in Gemma's expression, then glanced at the wand pointed squarely at him, and understood the situation at once. He reached out and gently pressed his fingers over her wrist.
The warmth of his touch made her pause.
She stared at him, searching his face. When she saw the clarity return to his eyes, the tension coiled in her chest began, slowly, to ease.
"I'm fine."
Seeing that Gemma still looked ready to press him further, Sherlock added: "I was working through a critical problem. I lost myself in thought for a moment."
"Sherlock, you nearly gave me a heart attack."
Among all of Sherlock's companions, Gemma was the only one who could usually be counted on for composure and quiet steadiness. She rarely lost her footing like this.
But what she had just witnessed was deeply unsettling.
He had been swaying his head from side to side in a strange, continuous motion, murmuring things she couldn't understand, words that meant nothing to her, like fragments of a dream spoken aloud.
He looked like something invisible had taken hold of him by the throat and was rocking him back and forth.
It had frightened her. It was no wonder she couldn't keep her composure.
"Sherlock, are you sure you're all right?"
Even with his reassurances, Gemma was not satisfied. She reached up with her free hand and touched his cheek gently, cupping it.
Only after she felt the steady rhythm of his breathing did the last of her worry finally settle.
"The Marauder's Map showed a visitor who shouldn't exist."
Sherlock made no move to pull away from her hand. His gaze drifted to the parchment spread open beside them, his voice calm and even as he spoke.
Gemma followed his eyes. Hers landed on the name moving steadily across the map, and her confusion deepened. "A visitor who shouldn't exist? Do you mean Mr. Crouch?"
"Yes."
"What just happened to you? That state you were in…"
She hesitated before asking, still unable to reconcile the eerie, swaying figure she had witnessed with the self-possessed young man standing before her now.
"I was simply spending some time in my Mind Palace."
Sherlock offered no further explanation, but Gemma caught a faint undercurrent in his voice all the same something tightly controlled, something significant.
Bartemius Crouch appearing at Hogwarts was clearly the last thing Sherlock had expected. And it might just be the critical turning point he had been waiting for.
She was about to ask more when Sherlock raised a hand.
"We can discuss it later. Right now, I need to confirm something."
His gaze locked onto the slowly moving name on the map, and his eyes sharpened into something almost predatory.
"I'm going to find him. Now."
He had borrowed the Marauder's Map from Harry almost as an afterthought, an insurance policy, nothing more. He had never imagined it would yield something like this.
A current of excitement, difficult to suppress, ran through him.
But the more excited Sherlock became, the more perfectly still his expression grew. His thoughts turend into clear, hard edges.
"Gemma, you should —"
"No —"
Before Sherlock could finish, Gemma stepped forward. Her eyes were steady and certain, as though she were making a vow.
"I'm coming with you."
She knew exactly what he had been about to say, go back first, or some variation of it.
But her worry for him had hardened into something else entirely: the resolve to act.
At this moment, Gemma didn't yet know the full picture. It didn't matter. She was unwilling and unable to let Sherlock face whatever this was alone. And if she was honest with herself, this was the first time she had ever had the chance to venture into danger at his side. She had no intention of letting it slip past her.
"Your past, I wasn't part of it.
Your future, I'll see it through with you, to the end."
Without a moment's hesitation, Gemma took Sherlock's hand in hers. Her sea-blue eyes met his grey ones without flinching, and she spoke each word with quiet deliberation:
"This time, you won't face it alone."
Sherlock held her gaze. He saw in it something immovable a certainty, a refusal to yield and beneath that, carefully concealed, a fear that had nothing to do with cowardice.
He ran a quick mental calculation of the risk. Then he thought of the fact that among all his companions, Gemma was by far the most capable, her magical skill, her instincts under pressure, her ability to think on her feet. She would be an asset, not a liability.
"All right. Stay alert, keep close, and don't act without my signal."
Gemma smiled in a bright, genuine smile that showed the faint dimples in her cheeks, her eyes lit with something warm and barely contained.
"Don't worry. I'll protect you."
"My dear Gemma," Sherlock said, one eyebrow arching slightly, the faintest trace of dry amusement threading through his voice, "that sort of thing is generally said by the gentleman to the lady."
"Sometimes a little change does no harm at all." She gave him a playful wink and tightened her grip on his hand.
Sherlock's step faltered for just a half-beat. Then he said nothing more.
He folded the Marauder's Map into his pocket and set off toward the castle at a brisk pace, his strides long and purposeful.
Gemma fell immediately into step beside him, their joined hands swinging slightly with the rhythm of their walk.
The night wind stirred through her hair, carrying a thread of coolness. But it did nothing to quiet the drumming of her pulse, or the tenderness coiled around her concern for the person at her side.
"Most people in this city go through their days with eyes half-shut—seeing only the glittering streets, the passing crowds, the familiar noise of the world.
But when you walk beside Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield."
Gemma had heard Sherlock say those words more than once. But it was only now, in this moment, that she truly understood them.
The cobblestones beneath her feet seemed to transform into smoke-stained ground. Unseen dangers lurked within the surrounding dark. And the person whose hand she held, he was her ally, her companion in whatever lay ahead.
In this moment, she finally understood what Hermione must have felt: that particular blend of sharpened nerves and unshakeable certainty that came from facing the unknown at Sherlock Holmes's side.
Once they stepped inside the castle, Sherlock released her hand.
Gemma's heart gave a small, startled lurch.
Then she saw him take out the Marauder's Map, and let out a quiet breath of relief.
"Third floor, near the Defense Against the Dark Arts office. He hasn't changed direction."
Sherlock scanned the map with a quick, practiced eye and gave his brief assessment.
Gemma leaned in to look, then lowered her voice. "Do we go directly?"
"Directly."
Sherlock tucked the map away and then, to Gemma's wide-eyed surprise, took her hand again of his own accord, and led her forward at a quick pace toward the location marked on the map.
The corridor's torchlight had grown dim with the encroaching evening, the wall sconces casting amber pools that stretched their shadows long across the stone floor. The air held the cold, clean scent of ancient rock and faint dust, and their footsteps carefully softened, yet still hurried echoed in the silence like heartbeats.
Gemma's pulse was high and unsteady, her palm damp against his.
With every step Sherlock took, she felt it resonate somewhere deep in her chest.
Whether Sherlock had finally understood something between them though she considered the odds of that vanishingly small or whether this was simply the pragmatic gesture of a man keeping his partner close in a dangerous situation, none of it diminished what she felt. This sense of moving forward together, of trusting and being trusted: it made her quietly, profoundly glad.
And it made her more certain than ever that she would not let him walk into this alone.
They turned a corner lined with faded, ancient tapestries, and Sherlock's hand tightened almost imperceptibly around hers. He slowed.
At the far end of the corridor ahead, a familiar figure moved with a distinctive, uneven gait.
It was Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody.
The moment Sherlock saw him, his gaze contracted sharply, pupils tightening.
He pulled out the Marauder's Map and looked again.
On the parchment, the name blazed up at him, Bartemius Crouch overlaid precisely, without deviation, on the lurching figure ahead.
At the same instant, Sherlock's Mind Palace snapped into motion. Memories of Moody cascaded through him in rapid succession: the first encounter at the Wizengamot trial, Moody's sharp eyes, his severe bearing, the air of warning that hung around him like a storm front. Dumbledore's introduction at the start of term, calling him one of the finest Aurors of his generation. His exchanges with Bagman at the Tournament careful, rule-bound, exacting.
Memory after memory was retrieved, replayed, sorted, and examined.
Very quickly, a bold conclusion crystallized in his mind.
The "Moody" standing at the end of that corridor was not Moody at all. It was Bartemius Crouch Jr. wearing a flawless disguise.
And the method? What else could it be but Polyjuice Potion?
The wooden leg struck the stone floor with its familiar, metronomic thud, thud, thud, each impact ringing out with crisp clarity in the stillness of the corridor.
If Sherlock was honest, the choice of Moody as a cover was the one thing that surprised him.
Mad-Eye Crouch's reputation was fearsome, and his physical distinctiveness was extreme, the magical eye, the scarred face, the prosthetic leg. From a purely tactical standpoint, impersonating someone so recognisable seemed like a poor decision.
And yet.
Because Mad-Eye's reputation was fearsome, and because his physical distinctiveness was so extreme, once you had successfully become him, almost no one would think to question you. To suspect "Moody" of being an imposter would require a leap that most minds simply wouldn't make.
It was reverse logic, deliberately exploiting the blind spots in others' thinking.
Without the Marauder's Map, even Sherlock might not have looked in this direction.
Of course, Sherlock also believed that sooner or later, given enough time, his own powers of observation would have seen through the disguise.
But by then, the imposter's plan would almost certainly already be in motion.
Which made the Marauder's Map, quite simply, a miraculous thing.
In his third year, it had helped him drag Peter Pettigrew out of twelve years of hiding. Now, in his fourth, it had done it again exposing Bartemius Crouch Jr., lurking inside the very walls of the school.
Prongs. Padfoot. Moony. Wormtail.
Sherlock was certain that none of them not even Wormtail himself could ever have imagined that their little act of mischief would produce something so extraordinary, so genuinely, consequentially useful.
And Wormtail in particular: the map he helped create had ultimately exposed him. There was a certain grim poetry in that.
But back to the matter at hand.
Now that Sherlock had confirmed Moody was compromised, he studied the figure with renewed and careful attention.
The false Moody was wearing his signature travelling cloak, its edges worn and frayed, the darker inner lining showing through. His face was a relief map of old damage: scars running in every direction, one deep and ragged line scoring a path from forehead to jaw, making his features look not so much ruined as recast into something alien.
And the magical eye, most striking of all was spinning in its socket with its characteristic, feverish restlessness.
From outward appearances alone, the disguise was flawless.
Polyjuice Potion. The conclusion was clear.
In almost the same instant, Sherlock knew exactly what he intended to do.
He did not turn back. He did not stop.
He tightened his grip on Gemma's hand, maintained his pace, and continued forward.
His expression was perfectly natural precisely that of a student who had simply, by chance, run into a teacher he recognized.
In a few moments, the false Moody heard the footsteps approaching and turned slowly to face them.
Sherlock met his gaze without hesitation, and spoke first.
"Professor Moody. Good evening."
"Good evening, Holmes."
Catching the easy greeting and glancing at the joined hands a smile spread across Moody's scarred face.
It was, without overstating it, one of the least pleasant smiles Sherlock had ever seen. Those deep-cut scars pulled and distorted as his mouth curved upward, twisting what was meant to be warmth into something that looked more like a grimace.
"You've done very well in the first two tasks. Exceptionally well."
The false Moody offered Sherlock an approving word first, his tone carrying what sounded, remarkably, like genuine admiration before turning his attention to Gemma.
His gaze settled on her for a moment, both the ordinary eye and the magical one focusing on her face in turn.
"You're Sebastian Farley's daughter, aren't you?"
"Yes, Professor Moody."
The instant Sherlock had opened his mouth, Gemma had understood his intent perfectly.
Feigned coincidence. Sound out the target.
Now, hearing "Moody" speak her father's name, she responded naturally, her expression betraying nothing.
The false Moody could not have imagined not for a moment that his cover, maintained through nearly an entire school year, had already unraveled at the very last stretch.
He pressed on, maintaining his Moody persona with ease.
"Some years ago, your father helped me out of a rather difficult situation, a genuinely dangerous set of circumstances… I've always been grateful to him for that."
Gemma kept playing her part.
She let a small, carefully calibrated expression of puzzlement cross her face.
"I'm sorry, I don't believe he ever mentioned that to me."
"Of course not. That's not the sort of thing he'd tell his children."
The false Moody gave a short, rough sound that might have been a laugh, then shifted his attention sharply, his gaze dropping to their joined hands once more.
"Now then. Would either of you care to tell me what brings you both out here at this hour, hand in hand, no less?"
Had Sherlock not seen the name Bartemius Crouch written plainly across this man on the Marauder's Map, even he might have been taken in.
The imposter's craft was extraordinary. Not only had he reproduced Moody's appearance and voice, but he had captured his manner of speaking, his habitual gestures, the particular way he carried himself, all with unsettling fidelity.
The trouble was that most of what Sherlock knew about Moody had come second-hand. Their only real direct contact had been at the Wizengamot hearing, brief, formal, and too limited to have given Sherlock a reliable baseline.
That was precisely the opening the imposter had exploited.
In any other circumstances, he might have been discovered far sooner.
Even so, a few exchanged sentences had already been enough for Sherlock to confirm one additional fact:
The fake Moody had noticed them some time ago. He had been watching their approach well before they spoke.
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