Dear Mr Holmes, the strange letter reads. We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Oh. thinks Sherlock, disdainfully. Someone's idea of a joke, obviously. Magic doesn't exist, and as far as I'm aware Mummy and Daddy are content with my current school and haven't made me apply for any scholarships for other schools.

Except what was the point in going to such elaborate measures for a prank? Sherlock hadn't any friends who would care enough to go to such efforts to do such a thing, and neither would his enemies. Why go to all the bother for an aloof, unattached kid? Perhaps-

"Oh! Oh, Sherlock! Is that what I think it is?"

Sherlock pauses. That… was not the sound of absolute horror he'd been expecting. Rather the opposite, in fact. Curious. Was Mummy in on this likely prank too?

"Mummy…" he says, peeking out from underneath the sofa, dark curls falling all over his face. "Would you happen to know why on earth there's an owl in our kitchen, or why I've just found a letter on parchment addressed to me?"

She beams. "Why, didn't you read it? It's your acceptance letter to Hogwarts! The owl's only a messenger, darling."

Sherlock slowly looks up at her in disbelief. "Ignoring the growing possibility you've gone completely mad, why would a school use an owl to deliver an acceptance letter to their school where they claim to use magic?"

"Oh, that's right, we raised you like a muggle to prevent any disappointment if you'd turned out to be a squib! It's not just Hogwarts, it's how all us witches and wizards deliver mail. "

Right. Erm.

"DADDY!" he shrieks, clamouring out from under the sofa and ignoring the other name that had almost sprung out unbidden. "Mummy's gone mad!"

He could faintly hear Daddy's reply from their private library. "Alright, what's she done this time?!"

"Sherlock! I'm not mad, dear, I'm a witch."

They were going to take her away to a special care home, and, and and

"Why is Sherlock screaming his head off like he's just found out science isn't real?" Daddy asks as he walks in, perfectly calm and slightly amused. Sherlock had always been such a logical and rational child (at least, when Mycroft hadn't been messing with him.)

"Hogwart letter."

"Ah."

Ah? Ah?! How was that an appropriate response to this series of events?

"Mummy. Daddy. What is it that I'm missing here?" Sherlock asks because obviously he was missing some important data point (and while Sherlock could try to deduce what it was it was rather more efficient to simply ask.)

Daddy raises an eyebrow at Mummy, who simply smiles and pulls a polished stick from her trouser pocket.

Sherlock stared, because if you'd had asked him the moment before he would have stated with absolute certainty that there had been nothing in those skin-tight trousers (Daddy called it an early onset mid-life crisis). It would have and should have revealed its shape, so how-?

And then Mummy did a series of motions with it, ("wingardium leviosa!") and the sofa floated.

Floated.

Sherlock's jaw may or may not have dropped open as he immediately waves his arm above the sofa, looking for non-existent strings, and then looking above and below and feeling for magnets.

Mummy was looking expectantly at him, an amused grin on her face at getting the best over her son. Daddy was looking at Mummy with that sappy lovey-dovey look of pride and something else Sherlock couldn't quite identify.

Sherlock crosses his arms as he pouts at his parents. "Alright, fine. I'll bite. How did you manage to achieve this illusion?"

Infuriatingly, Mummy laughs at him. "Oh, Sherlock. Of course you would- Oh, darling, isn't our little Sherly just such the budding scientist?"

"Of course, dear."

"Mummy!" Sherlock whines. So embarrassing! he thinks, the way his stupid parents insisted on calling him cute or whatever creative pet-names they'd decided on that day. They absolutely delighted in tormenting him, it seemed.

"Alright, alright, Sherlock. It's magic - magical people have magical cores that allow us to channel magic through a directing medium such as a wand. We direct our magical energy through our wand along with the intentions for what we want the spell to become. What I just did was cast a levitation spell."

"You-you're messing with me, Mummy." Sherlock accuses, faltering. "There's no way - bollocks! I call bollocks!"

"SHERLOCK!" Mummy cries out, appropriately scandalised.

Daddy frowns disapprovingly along with Mummy. "I told you he wouldn't be easy to convince, dear. Still," he says, directing his next words at Sherlock. "There's no need to swear, Sherlock."

"You expect me to believe in such a load of nonsense as magic?!" Sherlock breaths, staring wide-eyed and disbelieving.

Mummy sighs, and then there was a repeat of the pseudo-Latin and suddenly Sherlock himself was floating.

Magic suddenly seemed a lot less like nonsense once Sherlock was presented with evidence to the contrary.

"…Any more questions, Sherlock?" Mummy asks, annoyed, fatigue evident in her crackling voice. It was to be expected - she'd been answering his non-stop questions for the last four hours.

Sherlock pauses, considering, and Mummy groans and put her head into her hands.

"Your Latin was all wrong, earlier. You were the one who insisted on a Latin tutor, and yet you yourself can't even speak Latin properly!"

It was completely unfair and hypocritical of her, he feels-

Sherlock finds himself literally speechless as some kind of magic stopped his vocal cords from working.

Mummy looks like she was going to cry when Sherlock simply starts a series of mimed actions to indicate his feelings, the last of which was the commonly understood single finger salute (in an uncharacteristic act of defiance born of disbelief.)

Sherlock very, very quickly learns that any sort of crass behaviour or rebellion was to be crushed at the roots and got his miniature lab confiscated and Sherlock himself hexed.

While it was useful to understand firsthand the effects of harmless spells with malicious intent, it also quickly became annoying to be forced to hop everywhere he went, or sing every question he had to the tune of 'Mary had a little lamb.'

Everyone was glad when Sherlock finally went to Hogwarts.

She worries about Sherlock.

Constantly.

He's always been a special child, her baby boy.

How on earth she managed to have not one but two incredibly intelligent and gifted children, she's never been able to figure out. She was by no means dumb - but the way they thought just seemed so fundamentally different. They'd puzzled her, frustrated her - but she had adored them regardless.

She'd done her best to understand them, but never managed to grasp whatever made them tick. So she'd done her best to be understanding of their antics instead. So what if she would never fully understand? They were her boys, and she loved them unconditionally.

Losing M-

(No)

(She can't quite bear to even think his name)

She censors her own thoughts, letting her mind go blank because it's just too hard.

(It's going to be okay, she repeats to herself. Don't think.)

She'd never thought she'd have to bury her child.

(Don't think about it)

Losing her eldest was… tough, to say the least. Everyone had done their fair share of sobbing once the shock had worn off.

Except Sherlock. Sherlock has always been exceptional.

She'd been told that he'd been dealing with their loss remarkably well, which only made her worry more. Though the pair had fought constantly (as siblings were prone to do) they had been very close. That blank, empty look of derision he'd given to the psychologist he'd been assigned after the accident was almost hurtful.

Yes, children bounced back more easily- but the way he seemed to move on so quickly?

It was part worry and part fear that had washed over her, irrational as it had seemed to fear her baby boy. She was no stranger to the strange and unnatural, but to see Sherlock acting the way he did, well.

It made her wonder if there was some truth to the accusation his former psychologist had thrown at him before she'd gotten him fired.

"You're a psychopath, you know that?! Your brother was decapitated in front of your eyes and you don't even care!"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, ignoring the strange tinge of pain in his chest (he should get that checked out, he thinks idly.) What can he say to that? He knows how it looks. Hell, he's not convinced the man's not right.

So he says the only thing he can think of to object to. "I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research."

He's well aware of the hypocrisy of the last statement, but the so-called psychologist had already proven himself to be a fraud. Someone who had actually studied the field would have known that there was no bloody difference between the terms, this idiot kept switching between calling himself a psychologist and psychiatrist.

Which was just plain wrong, because he'd noted the certificates the guy had proudly put up on his wall. Most licenced psychologists would hold a doctorate in their fields, whereas psychiatrists were actually doctors (medical degrees and all) who specialised in psychiatry. Big difference. Most people wouldn't take too much note of such a 'minor detail'.

To Sherlock, even the 'littlest' of things could be the all-important clue.

Of course, all that wasn't particularly relevant when the only degree the man had was a so-called 'Doctorte in Emotional Health' at 'Harvard Universitty'. Sherlock was also fairly certain the man's name wasn't 'Bigg Wang', even if the blond-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian somehow did happen to originate from South-East Asia.

(The man really should fire his counterfeiter, Sherlock thinks.)

At the man's spluttering, he leaves the room and takes a petty satisfaction in slamming the door hard enough he hears the frames fall off the wall.

"Mummy," he asks, apropos of nothing. "Did Mycroft know magic? Was that boarding school he went to actually Hogwarts?"

Mummy freezes before she sighs. "Yes, and yes." she says, so quietly that Sherlock was unsure she'd said anything at all.

There was silence for a few seconds, and then: "Why couldn't he have stopped the lorry, or levitated himself out of the way, or-"

"…Oh, Sherlock." Mummy's eyes are watery. "Magic is- well. Magic isn't all-powerful. We may be witches and wizards, but we're still only human."

He swallows down the ugly feeling in his chest.

"Sherlock." Mummy says sadly as she wraps her arms around her little boy, heartbroken at her only child left. "You wanted to know why he had to die?"

He allows her to hug him, because pride or not, he does actually love his Mummy. Sherlock nods into her chest, slumping into the comfort of her arms.

"That's life, Sherlock. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and sometimes, sometimes things happen that we just… can't control."

"…It's not fair. It's not fair! It's not fair!"

She kisses his forehead as she begins rocking him in her arms. "Life isn't fair, Sherlock." and then, when he doesn't say anything: "I'm sorry, sweetheart."

That was the final straw. Sherlock's body shudders before Mummy's blouse grows wet and Sherlock begins sobbing outright, shaking with how unaccustomed he was to this overwhelming dump of emotion.

"I miss him so much, Mummy. He was such a prat and he always teased me, but I didn't want him to die, Mummy!" Sherlock wails. "I , I, I miss him so much, Mummy" he sobs, hiccupping and face growing increasingly blotchy. "I wanted to show him how much better I can do than him, but now I can't, I can't, I can't because he's dead."

Mummy closes her eyes in sorrow, just holding him safely in her arms.

He's just her hurting little boy, and yet he'll never fully belong to anyone. He's far too independent to tolerate that, she thinks, and isn't that just another one of Sherlock's painful truths?

She only wants to protect him from the world, but he'd never be happy then. Too curious and too smart by far. And that means he'll get hurt more than she'd like him to, reckless brat that he is. They won't always be around to take care of him. (She'd hoped that his brother would, but it turns out that was true for him too.)

He'll grow up too fast, she realises, but he'll always be her little boy.

Still, it doesn't stop the fact she wishes he wouldn't need to deal with such painful realities.

So caught up in her thoughts, Mummy almost doesn't hear his next words. She's not even sure he meant to say them.

"Why's he got to be dead, Mummy? Why's he have to go off and die?"

It breaks her heart.

"…Oh, Sherlock."

There is no witty defensive comeback, no assurance that he is "just fine, Mummy, stop being such a worrywart."

Just a boy who understands too much and for once is having a hard time dealing with the truth.

She may not be able to do much. She's not been able to protect him, and she can't bring back the dead.

But she can hold him tightly and listen, if nothing else.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Hi there. If you like my works, I ask that you read them at Archive of Our Own for my author's notes and art (on some fics). That, and they're way better formatted and edited since I find Ao3's system for uploading way easier to use.

Thanks for reading. ^w^

/users/Malicei/works