Seeing that Hermione didn't look quite right, Ron blurted out without thinking:
"Hermione, why are your eyes so red?"
Hermione's heart clenched. She quickly raised the back of her hand and wiped at her eyes, forcing out a smile that was almost natural.
"It's nothing... I was just reading a book about ancient healing magic. It described some really terrible cases, and it got to me a bit." Her voice was still a little hoarse, thick with the remnants of tears, but she kept her tone as steady as she could.
Just then Harry walked in as well, and seeing Sherlock and Hermione, his smile widened even further.
"Hey! You two missed a brilliant afternoon!
"Honeydukes just released this new Pepper Imp that practically breathes fire—Cho and I tried one and nearly burned our tongues off—
"Hermione, what happened to your eyes?"
Like Ron, Harry had noticed something was off with his friend.
"Hermione, are you all right?" he asked with a trace of concern in his voice. "You don't look quite yourself..."
As he spoke, he glanced over at Sherlock.
He was already starting to wonder whether Sherlock had made Hermione cry.
Knowing Sherlock's personality, it wasn't out of the question.
If that really was the case, Harry wouldn't mind giving him a punch.
Ever since he and Cho had gotten together, Harry had noticed his own thinking gradually shifting.
Sherlock wasn't right about everything.
At least when it came to matters between men and women, Harry thought he had the edge.
Sherlock had always claimed that women were "a field he happened to be skilled in." At the time, Harry had thought that sounded a bit off.
But now, looking back, Sherlock hadn't been wrong at all.
Compared to Sherlock, Harry really was better at handling women.
Which was exactly why, with a girl as wonderful as Hermione, Sherlock ought to treasure her properly!
"Too much reading. I'm a bit tired."
Hermione's voice was quieter than usual as she repeated the same excuse she'd just given Ron.
Her fingers instinctively gripped the edge of the table, but the rough grain of the wood offered little comfort.
Rising to her feet, she gathered up the scattered parchment with visible haste, and said to Harry and Ron:
"I'm glad you two had fun—I need to go wash my face and get ready for dinner."
With that, her gaze passed over Harry and Ron and settled on Sherlock, carrying a look that said you understand.
Buried in that look was a trace of gratitude too deep for words, and an understanding that needed none.
Two faint glimmers flickered across her pale face, gone as quickly as sparks leaping from the hearth.
Unfortunately, Sherlock didn't understand.
"Wait, dear!"
Seeing Hermione about to leave, Lavender spoke up at once.
She gave Ron and Harry a quick, cheerful greeting, then hurried after Hermione.
"I'll come with you."
Hermione blinked, startled, then smiled faintly and nodded.
The two girls linked arms naturally, the hems of their robes were swaying with each step, the faint rustle of fabric faded as they walked side by side toward the spiral staircase leading to the girls' dormitory.
Framed by the warm glow of the fire, the two silhouettes looked especially close.
Hermione's back looked especially resolute.
Clearly, the sorrow that had flickered through her a moment ago hadn't broken her—instead, it had become fuel, making the resolve in her heart to fight the darkness burn even fiercer.
Watching this, Sherlock understood perfectly well: Hermione had already transformed her empathy for the great serpent Nagini into strength.
Sherlock's gaze swept over Harry and Ron, both still in high spirits.
The two of them were clearly still caught up in the day's cheerful trip to Hogsmeade.
Ron's coat still carried a faint whiff of Honeydukes sweets, and as he talked, his eyebrows danced with animation, gesturing enthusiastically as he described the details of some dung-bomb incident to Harry, his voice was full of excitement, completely oblivious to how flimsy Hermione's excuse had been.
It was obvious—the parchment on Hermione's desk had only a few pages turned, the ink still fresh enough that it hadn't even dried, nowhere near enough for "too much reading."
Meanwhile, the common room, once so quiet, had grown lively again with their return.
The laughter over pranks, the lingering taste of sweets—like a fresh stream, it temporarily washed away the gloom that had lingered here earlier. Neither Harry nor Ron noticed the deep contemplation in Sherlock's grey eyes.
Nagini's tragedy, the warning of the Deathly Hallows, the threat of Voldemort...
These things were like embers in the hearth not yet burned out—even with ash covering the surface, they still radiated a dangerous, very real heat beneath the lively surface. They had never truly gone away.
Sherlock rose to his feet and walked slowly to the window.
Night had fully fallen.
The deep blue sky was like a heavy velvet clot wrapping Hogwarts castle gently within it.
The castle's lights came on one by one in the deepening dusk, warm glows spilled out from window after window.
They were like faint, persistent stars standing against the boundless dark, holding their ground for a patch of light in the thick of night.
Sherlock's gaze pierced through the darkness, toward the depths of the Forbidden Forest in the distance.
Hagrid still hadn't returned.
This calm was only temporary.
Voldemort would not stop moving.
The task of finding the remaining Horcruxes could not wait.
As for the undercurrents surrounding the Deathly Hallows, they might well surge again someday, in some unexpected way.
He had a strong, nagging feeling—time was growing shorter and shorter.
The next day, following Sherlock's suggestion, Hermione withheld certain key details and told Harry and Ron what had happened. As expected, whether it was Nagini's past, or Dumbledore's own hidden history, or that tangled, unspeakable entanglement with Grindelwald, both boys were left in stunned silence for a long while.
Harry opened his mouth, then finally murmured, "It's just hard to believe."
He had seen Nagini more than once—in those unsettling dreams, and on that heart-pounding night of the Triwizard Tournament's final task. Especially that night, in Little Hangleton, where the great serpent had coiled at the feet of the newly resurrected Voldemort.
Its scales had gleamed with a cold, hard sheen in the moonlight, its eyes were chilling and vicious.
Precisely because of that, he simply couldn't reconcile that vicious, venomous serpent with a gentle, kind-hearted girl.
What unsettled Harry even more was that Nagini felt, if anything, even more savage than the Basilisk he'd faced in the Chamber of Secrets back then. By rights, the Basilisk's body was far larger than Nagini's, and it possessed the lethal power to kill with a single glance—short of fearing that one rooster, it was practically unstoppable.
But for some reason, every time he thought of Nagini's cold, slit pupils, it felt as though a cold, wet stone had lodged itself in Harry's chest, the weight of it pressing down hard.
And then there was Grindelwald.
That dark wizard, the most powerful before Voldemort, had somehow shared such a complicated past with Dumbledore.
It was the kind of thing you'd never guess no matter how hard you racked your brain.
Ron couldn't help but sigh. "I can't believe Professor Dumbledore's own sister turned out to be an Obscurial, and died at Dumbledore's own hand."
Hermione corrected him at once. "Ron, Dumbledore never said he was the one who killed Ariana. He just can't bring himself to face what happened."
"If he didn't do it, why can't he face it?" Ron shot back, his tone full of certainty.
Hermione: "..."
In that moment, Hermione found, to her surprise, that she couldn't refute Ron's point.
Judging from what Sherlock had described the day before, the guilt and fear buried in Dumbledore's heart were simply too heavy to bear. Ron, for his part, didn't press the topic further, instead shifting gears and throwing out a new question:
"So who do you reckon is more powerful—You-Know-Who or Grindelwald?"
"Now that's an interesting question."
A smile spread across Sherlock's lips as he turned his gaze to Harry. "Harry, what do you think?"
"Huh? Me?"
Harry blinked, clearly not expecting Sherlock to ask for his opinion, and couldn't help feeling a little flattered.
He thought it over for a moment before saying, somewhat uncertainly:
"Voldemort, probably? At least Grindelwald never scared people so much they were afraid to even say his name..."
The moment the words left his mouth, Ron shot him a look of pure resentment.
Mate, are you doing that on purpose?
Even after being forcibly subjected to who knew how many rounds of desensitization training by Sherlock, Harry, and Hermione, Ron still couldn't bring himself to say "Voldemort" aloud to this day.
He'd just asked about "You-Know-Who," and Harry had gone straight for "Voldemort."
But there was nothing he could do about the three of them.
All he could do was grit his teeth and bear it.
"Not necessarily."
Hermione shook her head, then said with confidence:
"Grindelwald was a genius. He studied at Durmstrang, but was later expelled for conducting dark magic experiments that went too far.
Even so, his talent was never buried.
He could use exquisite illusions to deceive large numbers of wizards, powerful spells to control public opinion, and even fought Dumbledore in a duel that lasted for hours.
That duel, mind you, is remembered as 'the greatest wizarding duel of the twentieth century'—which alone tells you how formidable he really was." Here Hermione paused, then continued under the gaze of the other three:
"On top of that, he had a clear political goal: to overturn the International Statute of Secrecy and establish wizarding rule.
He infiltrated Ministries of Magic around the world, used Obscurials as weapons, and won over public sentiment with wildly inflammatory speeches—all of it classic strategic thinking.
At the height of his power, his influence stretched across nearly all of Europe, and even spread into the Americas at one point—his power was vast enough to be genuinely terrifying.
As for Voldemort..."
Hermione furrowed her brow, thinking for a moment, her tone growing heavier as she spoke slowly:
"I think, compared to Grindelwald, he's more like a mad tyrant with no bottom line at all.
You can tell from how many Horcruxes he made—his goal was never to change the world, but to make himself into a king of the wizarding world, ruling everything forever.
He rules the Death Eaters through fear and violence. His followers are either cowards currying favour, or prisoners forced into submission.
Sure, there are people like Barty Crouch Jr. who worship him like a madman—but honestly, that's an extreme minority. I haven't seen a second one like that yet.
So when he first fell, the Death Eaters scattered like frightened chickens which just shows how fragile his leadership really was.
Harry just said Voldemort makes people too afraid to even speak his name, but that doesn't mean he's more powerful than Grindelwald—it just means he's more frightening.
Sherlock, what do you think?"
Having said her piece, Hermione turned an expectant gaze toward Sherlock.
Sherlock smiled and nodded with a flicker of admiration in his eyes.
"A very precise summary, Hermione.
And it's exactly right—Grindelwald's magical attainment, strategic vision, and leadership all far surpass Voldemort's. He was a true top-tier wizard, a match for Dumbledore in every respect.
His threat to the world stemmed more from an idealism taken to its extreme.
He genuinely believed his ideology was correct, and was willing to pay any price for it—an idealist consumed by his own ambition.
Voldemort, by contrast—his lack of any bottom line, his sheer madness, made him nothing short of a pure disaster for the wizarding world.
To put it bluntly, his existence serves no positive purpose at all.
He exists purely to destroy and annihilate, purely to satisfy his own desires and hunger for control."
At this, Sherlock turned to Ron, his tone taking on a note of teasing,
"My dear Ron, what you were really asking just now, whether you meant to or not, was who poses the greater threat.
And my answer to that is Voldemort.
Even though his methods amount to nothing but violence and intimidation, even though he lacks the strategic brilliance Grindelwald had.
It's precisely because of his madness and his lack of any bottom line that he becomes all the more unpredictable—and all the more dangerous.
And that, of course, is exactly why Voldemort earned the title of Dark Lord, while Grindelwald never did.
After all, even evil comes in different forms."
While Sherlock and Hermione were talking, Ron had been fidgeting the entire time, as if he had fleas.
Only once the two of them had finished did he force himself to overcome his fear of that name, take a deep breath, and say:
"You're right, Sherlock, but none of that matters. Because what we're facing right now is You-Know-Who, not Grindelwald."
Watching Ron like this, Sherlock laughed.
"There's no need to worry so much, my dear friend."
His tone sounded relaxed, yet carried a quiet, unshakable conviction:
"As I see it, though Voldemort and Grindelwald represent two different forms of evil, they're both ultimately headed for the same defeat.
The weakness of the ambitious is their humanity.
Even though Dumbledore never said so outright, judging by what happened afterward, there must still have been a trace of unextinguished conscience left in Grindelwald's heart—and that became his fatal flaw.
The weakness of the tyrant is his arrogance.
Voldemort places too much faith in violence, and disregards the power of love and courage—and that, too, dooms him to failure.
But either way, in the end, they can only ever lose.
Still, there's one truth I've believed from the very start.
Good will always triumph over evil."
Sherlock's gaze swept across his three friends, one by one, and he said, word by word:
"For the rest of us on the side of justice—a little more confidence wouldn't hurt."
You can read more than 40 chapters on:
patreon.com/MikeyMuse