The Final Problem - Final Act

Something Hermione had never noticed when apparating was what came first, the sound or the sight. On that occasion, the blaring alarm reached Harry and Hermione before they landed, doing so behind the desk and narrowly missing the shovelling chair. Immediately, Harry drew out his wand and advanced towards the glass door beyond which two security guards were lifeless on the floor. In turn, Hermione took her gun and examined her surroundings. Outside, on the balcony, a woman was on a chair, slumped against the duct tape with which she had been tied. There was a hole of the size of the bullet on the window, and judging by the position of the pool of blood, the projectile had tore through the woman's forehead.

"Hermione, there." Hermione looked across the room, where Harry stood in front of the TV. It showed Mycroft in one of the cells, flat on his back and still. At the bottom of the screen, red digital numbers preceded the date and time. Harry checked his wristwatch. "It's a live feed. How do we know where he is?"

"Hold on." Sitting on the chair, Hermione faced the computer. In the monitor, the security program was open, showing different rooms. Hermione chose the one with a man sitting on the floor. To his left, there was a passage to a separate room. Harry settled behind her.

"That's a lot of blood. There's no way he's alive." Pointed Harry.

"That room leads somewhere…" Hermione clicked on a series of screens. The cells had different contents but similar dispositions, with doors communicating them. "It looks like -"

"A maze." Said Harry.

Hermione shook her head. "A test. Like lab rats." She minimised the window. The desktop had only three icons - the one she had just closed, direct access to files, and another one. Clicking on it, a blueprint filled the screen. Each room had numbers assigned. Harry pressed his finger on the yellow mark over one of them. "I bet my Firebolt this is Eurus' room."

"I hope you're right. Let's go."

Harry ran to the door. Hermione reviewed the map once over, confident she could remember the way. She stood up quickly and had to brace herself on the table to fight the dizziness.

"Hermione?" She raised her hand and walked to him. "We need a card, Harry. Everything will be closed."

Harry kneeled down and snatched the card dangling from one corpse. He looked down the corridor, with his wand ready. Hermione could only see the back of his head, as his entire body covered the doorframe.

"Clear."

"Go." Ordered Hermione. They walked fast to the first flight of stairs, and down to the next level into a long hallway. A grunting noise, barely audible over the alarm, startled them. Harry grabbed Hermione by the elbow to stop her. A few meters away, a prisoner was crunched over a guard, chewing on something. In his efforts to find an alternative route, Harry moved to his right too fast, drawing the attention of the man. From his red-stained mouth hung a partially bitten thumb. Hermione's stomach churned uncomfortably. The cannibal raised up, and Hermione did the same with her gun. The man started running towards them, but she was faster. Hermione fired two shots without hesitation, one reaching his shoulder and the other piercing his nose and across his skull. Harry said nothing but made a noise of approval.

"That way. We need to get to the lift. Be careful."

Both of them advanced slowly, reviewing every corner before turning, stepping over dead guards and inmates. Finally, they arrived at the lift. The reader beeped when they swiped the card. There were no buttons, and as soon the door closed the lift silently moved down, stopped, and opened again into a corridor. It was black, with large, rounded columns flanking the sides and finishing in a small hall, with a circular door, a set of computers and a man slumped over the keyboard. Blood was dripping from the edge of the table. It had been a massacre.

"Do you feel it?" Asked Harry, breathless.

"The magic quenching here is much stronger." Harry took Hermione's hand, much to sense her magic as to touch another human being in the middle of the slaughter. As they came closer to the hall, the weight of the quenching increased. Hermione untangled from Harry, and surveyed the space. There was no reader by the door. "I think this card won't take us much further."

Harry snagged the dead guard by the collar and pushed it off the chair. Hermione sat in front of the screen, where a single empty bar sat in the middle, waiting for a release code. She reached down and took the wallet out of the guard's pocket. From all the papers and cards inside it, a bright pink sticky note had stood out, with a long string of numbers, letters and symbols written with black ink. Complexity doesn't mean security if you can't remember it. She typed it into the bar and pressed enter. The door opened without noise, and Harry went first.

"Perfect. How do we get in? I'm assuming this is bulletproof."

Hermione was not listening. She came closer to the sign warning anyone against getting near it. "It's a magic trick." She muttered. Reaching with her hand, her arms went through the line on the floor delimiting the nonexistent wall. She took a step forward, and another, and then she was inside what had been Eurus' containing cell. Not wanting to waste more time, Hermione walked to the next room with Harry following her.

"Oh, God!" Hermione covered her mouth. The sight of the Governor on the screen had been disturbing, but seeing it in the flesh, with blood and brain splattered around him, was unbearable. Harry shielded her and made her look away, pulling her towards the next room. They passed several cells without paying attention to what was inside until they found Mycroft. While Harry stayed at the entrance and kept watch, Hermione rushed to him. He had a small wound at the back of his head, which had bled profusely, but his breathing and pulse were steady.

"How's he?"

"Alive. Help me, we need to go back.

The clock in Alicia's office struck another hour, and Hermione had lost count of how many they had spent playing Eurus' psychotic game. Tiredness was setting in her bones, but she could not rest, as Harry had suggested. Hermione doubted she could close her eyes without seeing the amount of corpses, the death and destruction Eurus had left in her wake. Instead, she had been pacing around the room since Sirius and Alicia had taken Mycroft to the on-site medical facility. Checking the time that had been close to half an hour ago. Harry was perched at the edge of the desk, twirling his hand between his fingers. His face surely mirrored her own, grey and sunken, with specks of blood that had transferred while carrying Mycroft. Hermione inspected her own hands. The blood she had not been able to clean was under her nails, and she wondered whose blood it was.

Her pacing stopped when she heard Sirius' voice outside. Harry stood up next to her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. The door opened, and Sirius gave way to Lady Smallwood.

"Well?" Asked Hermione. "How's he? Is he awake? What does he know?"

Sirius made a gesture with his hand for Hermione to slow down on her questioning. "He's not awake. I suggested we enervate him, but the doctor and a healer suggested it might not be the best for him."

"Sirius, they can anywhere."

"I don't think so, Hermione," Sirius said. "We are making the same mistake everyone does with Mycroft and Sherlock. We think they are heartless machines, but they are the ones ruled by their emotions the most. Why would Eurus be different?"

"What are you suggesting?" Asked Lady Smallwood.

"That she has taken them to a place relevant for them. For her. And for Sherlock, especially. She would have taken Mycroft if he were as important." Sirius turned to Alicia. "Their old home? The one she burnt down."

Alicia purses her lips. "We will need to go down to the vaults. I just know the story, not the location… Not even the name."

"Alicia, how do we get in?"

"They have biometric security. I can open the vaults, but the safe needs Mycroft's fingerprint."

Harry looked at Sirius. "Fancy a sip of Mycroft?"

The scanner by the entrance of the vaults, at chest level, recognised Alicia's iris as soon as she looked into the light. Behind the iron door, the dimly illuminated room extended beyond what they could see. Long rows of metal shelves at both sides of a central aisle left spaces for equally sturdy tables and chairs. Alicia led them along the shelves without a pause, each one of her steps punctuated with an overhead light turning on as they advanced. At some point, the shelves stopped and were replaced by rooms, with nothing to identify them but arbitrary numbers engraved in silver plaques. Then Alicia stopped in front of a door. Under the handle, a glass surface of the size of a domino piece glinted, polished and unmarred.

"The fingerprint goes both ways. We need it to get in, and we'll need it to get out. Standard procedure. So we need to be quick. One hour, you said?" She asked Harry. He nodded and took a cigarette tin out of the inner pocket of his jacket. Inside, there were six small vials. Hermione was shocked to realise she could distinguish them: a couple of antidotes, blood replenishing potion, veritaserum, ditanny, and the one Harry was taking out, polyjuice. It looked nothing like the one Hermione had brewed when she was twelve. This one had been strained and distilled, the lumps had been removed, and the result was a smooth, silver liquid. The Auror corps had better means than a student, she thought. Harry removed the cork and added a few strands of dark hair. The potion changed its colour to maroon, almost like blood. Sirius, who was wearing a dark robe in preparation, sniffed it.

"What does Mycroft smell like?" Wondered Lady Smallwood.

"Expensive aftershave and superiority. Bottoms up." He smiled before putting the bottle to his lips and swallowed the contents. Moments later, Sirius' lean body started to change. His limbs stretched and grew, his stomach rounded, straining against the knot of the belt. The hair receded and straightened, and under the skin of his face, it was like snakes were trying to find their way out. And then Mycroft was staring back at them.

"Let's do this." Sirius put his left thumb on the screen, and the door opened a smidge. He pushed it, and the rest went in. The walls were covered in shelves with different black boxes, all of them unmarked.

"I hate Mycroft's secrets." Complained Sirius. "Let's not waste our time. Each one takes a box."

"Sherlock?"

His sister had killed his dog. His sister had locked him there, surrounded by old photos of his and Mycroft's. His sister had kidnapped John and put him in the same place she had put Redbeard. Think, think, think!

"I'm in a well. That's where I am; I'm in the bottom of a well."

Sherlock frowned. "Why would there be a well in Sherrinford?" He raised his lantern. In between the photographs, he could see where two panels of the wall met. There was a small gap between them. His eyes followed the gap where it met the floor. There, there was also a hole. "Why is there a draught? Walls don't contract after you've painted them." Think! "Not real ones."

He left the lantern by his feet and slammed his hands hard against the wall. The wall trembled. He pushed again, and the entire wall fell outwards and to the ground outside. In front of him, a very familiar house stood proud, even burnt and abandoned.

"I'm home."

The first minutes of the search had been productive. Alicia had found what seemed to be the first box chronologically. There, an old marriage announcement for Margaret Scott and Siger Holmes placed the ceremony in the grounds of Musgrave Hall. But after that, finding relevant documentation had been complicated. Harry was checking the clock, making sure they stayed within the hour, but their time was running low. Mycroft's voice broke the rustle of pages.

"Here it is. Musgrave Hall. The story it's not about a fire, though."

Hermione, Harry and Alicia gathered around Sirius, who was holding several old clippings from a local newspaper. On the front page, there was the picture of a small child no older than six, wearing a plaid shirt and a smile with some teeth missing.

"Have you seen this child? Victor Trevor disappeared last week when playing in the woods. Any information, please refer to the local authorities. Look, on the map, there is Musgrave Hall." He pointed to the crudely drawn map of the areas covered by the search party.

"That doesn't say much about where it is." Said Hermione. "Maybe we can triangulate. Take a bunch of names. We can then narrow the search with a map." Alicia started reciting out loud villages and places she was finding in the newspapers Sirius had, waiting for Harry to write everything down.

Meanwhile, Hermione opened the next box. It was full of pictures. The photo on top was Sherlock dressed like a pirate, with a girl must have been Eurus, and at the back, a stately home which must be Musgrave Hall. In the next one, the same child from the news was standing beside them.

"Apparently the Holmes knew the kid."

"Missing children are sadly a common occurrence in small villages." Said Alicia.

Hermione thought she could probably apparate in the grounds if a picture gave her enough visual information. She continued browsing them. All the photos were dated at the back of each and had different locations, and seasons, and people, all with Mrs Holmes elegant handwriting. After the first hundred, she realised something was missing.

"Where's the dog?"

"What?" Sirius looked at the pictures in her hand.

"Redbeard, the dog. It's not in any of these pictures, and I'd imagined that…" Hermione's voice broke. In the one she had on her hand, Sherlock and Victor were dressed as pirates, each carrying a wooden sword. When she turned it, she read the inscription. 'Yellowbeard and Redbeard, summer 1985'. She felt her blood turning to ice in her veins. Eurus, what did you do? What are you going to do?

"Hermione? What is it?" Alicia asked.

"There was never a dog. Eurus did not kill a dog."

"Sherlock? There's something you need to know. Sherlock?"

Sherlock lowered his hands. In front of him, his sister was taunting him, about a problem he could not solve, about the pet he could not save, about the friend he was not going to be able to stop from drowning. John's voice sounded anguished, tortured.

"The bones I found."

"Yes? They're dog bones. That's Redbeard."

"Mycroft's has been lying to you, to both of us. Sherlock, they're not dogs' bones."

"Wait," said Sirius. "Eurus killed a boy?"

"Killed, left to die… Your pick." Answered Hermione. She took the box and dumped its contents on the table. She started choosing those with a clear view of the house, or the grounds. "It makes sense now. Eurus killed Sherlock's best friend, and Mycroft hid it all and locked her away. Now, she was the one leaving Mycrfot locked if it weren't for us, and she's going to kill Sherlock's best friend again. Maybe in the same place, she did it the first time."

"But he was never found, Hermione."

"I know, Alicia!" Yelled her. "I don't know why he wasn't found. But Eurus was four, she couldn't have gone far."

"It doesn't matter." Said Sirius. "We just need to know where Musgrave is, so we can get them safely back. And Alicia, if what Hermione says is remotely close to the truth-"

"I don't know anything about a little boy being killed!"

"I'm not accusing you! But if it's true, we are going to need to prepare a dispositive. And have doctors on call. Let's go up and look for the place."

Hermione discretely pocketed a picture of Musgrave on a sunny day, where every brick and flower could be seen. It was made from a distance. That should provide her with enough cover to not be seen by Eurus.

"Victor," whispered Sherlock, his voice shaking. "Victor Trevor."

He remembered. Memories kept coming. They were on the beach, playing. Eurus was with them, but never playing with them.

"We played pirates. I was Yellowbeard, and he was ... "Sherlock's eyes filled with tears. Victor's face was now crystal clear in his mind. "... he was Redbeard."

"You were inseparable. But I wanted to play too."

"Oh. Oh God... What did you do?"

"I need the loo. Be back in a second."

Hermione left the strategy room and turned right instead of left and when she thought she was far away enough, sprinted to the apparition point. After entering, she barred the door. Outside, someone was trying to enter the room.

"Hermione!" It was Harry. Even after all this time, he still knew her. "You can't go alone."

Harry's cries died out as her body moved from one place to the other. She felt cold. She wasn't dressed for nighttime in the countryside. From where she was, she could see some lights inside the house, and one structure built in front of the house. At her back, the woods started. When she was sure the trees would hide part of the light, she took her wand out.

"Lumos."

Hermione had no direction and no way of knowing where John was. She did not know how Victor had died. Eurus might have pushed him over a hill, bludgeoned with a rock, asphyxiated… The hairs at the back of her neck stood up. There was someone with her. With her free hand, she took her gun and waited. Behind the bushes, a small shadow hid.

"Hello?"

A silhouette shone under the moon. Then she saw the shadow was not behind the bush but inside it, mingled with the branches in a way a solid object could not.

"Victor?" The ghost seemed to nod. Her heart twisted inside her chest, and she fought the impulse of reaching for her stomach. "Hello, darling. I'm a friend of Yellowbeard, you know him, right?" The boy came out and smiled, bobbing his head up and down. He was wearing a thick plaid jacket, and his hair was plastered against his skull. "I need your help, I need to know where you are, can you help me?" The ghost nodded again. Hermione went to him. Victor tried to hold her hand, and when he could not do it, he started walking, crestfallen. They walked for at least ten minutes. As they got closer, she could hear John's cries amplified by the rock walls. Hidden behind some overgrown trees, there was the outline of a well. Hermione ran, yelling John's name.

"Hermione? Oh, God, Hermione."

"Here." She made a flip with her wand and a nearby branch transformed into a rope. She securely tied it around a tree and threw it into the well.

"I'm shackled." Hermione pointed somewhere around John's feet and threw a series of spells, aiming to open the locks. John grasped the rope and started climbing. She then looked back, but Victor had left. She barely had time to think, as John reached the top and hugged her, cold and wet and terrified as he was.

In the distance, police sirens, and helicopters broke the silence. Someone was running towards them, and Hermione retook her gun. At the other side of the clear, Sherlock appeared.

Epilogue: Our Baker street boys

Hermione sat in an old outside settee at the back of the Holmes country house. The sun was shining high, warming her skin. It was still cold, but London had made her appreciate nature more and more in the past months. The quietness. The solitude. The place smelled like fresh bread and lilies and happiness. It was Rosie's birthday, after all. She took her notebook and fountain pen and started writing.

My dearest Mary,

I don't know why I'm writing to you, knowing that you'd never read this. Maybe, because it feels like when we shared secrets, and we knew they were safe with each other. Maybe, I miss you more every day, and not less. Maybe, I'm feeling guilty Rosie is going to spend her first birthday surrounded by her godmothers but not you.

But it is what it is.

Today, I've found myself remembering you without wanting to cry my eyes out, but wishing with every fibre of my being for you to be here, just for a moment. Margaret and Siger have decided to spoil Rosie, and they have made a huge deal out of it. The house is full of purple because she is her mother's daughter, and she loves anything remotely close to mauve. And unicorns. She likes all the classics.

Life has changed. Massively, dramatically, forever. In a lot of aspects, it has evolved. In some others, like the space you left behind, it has stopped. Sometimes we take three steps forwards, sometimes we fall down the rabbit hole. I guess it's normal. We've all got trauma to last us several lifetimes. Some days I am just amazed by the fact that we are all alive.

Not all. You're not.

Life is not the same without you. It's worse, it will always be worse. I can't help but feel that with you, nothing of what happened these last months would have happened. We'd be living a lie, though. When I was younger, I wanted to know everything. Now I'm having problems deciding whether ignorance is a blessing or not. We've added you, and Eurus, to the set of scars we collectively have. We can never forget.

You'd be surprised to know John is taking fewer cases these days and has some kind of routine. He still follows Sherlock into whatever stupid plan he concocts, but with less adrenaline-seeking intentions and more sense of justice. His whole life revolves around Rosie. He's found a new therapist who is not rubbish and not a psychopath. He's doing better. He says he'll never be whole, and I'm inclined to agree.

Sherlock is recovering without drugs this time. He's a bit less the Sherlock everyone knew and a bit more the Sherlock we saw and loved. He's changed, but he hasn't. He was robbed of so much he can't really change who he is, but he's getting to know himself again. It's beautiful. He's still not getting dressed for less than a four, but now he's polite about it.

Eurus is still a sore subject. Sherlock visits, as does Mycroft. No matter what anyone says, their ability to love sometimes takes my breath away. There's nothing we can do to fix their heartbreak. Our job is to support and protect. Sherlock has stopped wondering what-ifs, and Mycroft has started forgiving Rudy and himself. Maybe that's the best we can aim for.

Life is changing, and it will never be like any other. You said it once, we are not civilians. We are who we are. We are those things and experiences and people who have shaped us, for better or for worse. Our lives would forever be entangled with the unimaginable, with the weird and dangerous. That's the life we chose, and it's the kind of decision you apparently can't take back. But we can mitigate its effects. And I think we've finally understood, we're not alone. We are an unconventional family, but a family, after all. A family with a piece missing, but new pieces every day.

Our Baker Street boys will never be safe, Mary. You and I, we never were. But maybe now we have a chance to be happy, whatever form happiness takes. And for people like ourselves, it should be enough.

Until we see each other again.

Love,

Hermione

Hermione closed the notebook as she heard a door opening. Sherlock leaned against the frame, two mugs of his mother's ginger tea in his hands, and smiled.

All was well.

THE END

That's it, this is the end! I am going to leave to your imagination what happened with Hermione and Sherlock, the baby, Harry and everyone else. The end is open because the characters would take a different avenue for each one of us, and that's beautiful.

Funny story: Until season 4 aired, I never knew where this fic was going. And although there are a lot of things in season 4 I don't like, it gave me direction. As soon as I heard the sentence "you look funny frown up" I knew Eurus was going to be a sear, and that was going to be the link I had been missing between Mycroft and Sirius.

I am onto a new adventure after this fic: I am starting Rebellion, what I hope would be a canon-compliant account of the event leading to Robert's rebellion in A song of ice and fire. It's going to be very political (and to be honest, I do it because I want to write Joanna Lannister's POV). Also, I will try and translate this pic to Spanish, my mother tinge. And hopefully, an original book of writings will be out during 2020, so a lot of exciting things!

We will read each other soon!

And please, stay safe, do not go out if not necessary, wash your hands and take care of each other!