Uncle Vernon was less than pleased.
"I don't recall offering refuge to any more strays," he snarled nastily; twitching hands betraying the ever-present urge to throttle his nephew.
The cat halted on the landing, fixing him in her unwavering stare.
"Besides," added Aunt Petunia fitfully, with a nervous glance at her newest tenant. "Mycroft's allergic, aren't you, Mikey?"
Mycroft ground his teeth inaudibly.
"I think I can manage, mother. Just tell him to keep it locked in his room until term starts, or shut the thing outside…or some of both," he added hastily, as Sherlock shot daggers at him.
The cat gave him an approving stare and continued picking her way up the stairs to inspect her new quarters. Mycroft had no idea why his cousin had brought home a long-haired cat, of all things, if not to annoy him...Mum was right, his eyes were already watering…but it was fairly obvious that any attempts to get rid of the thing would end badly for all concerned.
More importantly, he had an alliance to forge.
"Acquired a familiar already? You're certainly jumping in with both feet."
Sherlock, who was reading, made no answer beyond lifting a smug hand to stroke the ears of the creature curled at his side.
"I never knew you were so narcissistic," Mycroft continued.
"Yes, you did."
"It's quite remarkable, really…it's…" Mycroft's thoughts drifted off as he stared at the thing. It was so obviously a perfectly normal black cat. Except that it wasn't.
"…almost a feline manifestation of yourself."
Sherlock actually glanced up at that, grinning. "Why Mycroft, how poetic of you."
"Not as poetic as the name you gave her," Mycroft pointed out.
Sherlock let the book drop to his chest. "It was fitting. Besides, Fluffy was already taken."
"Belinda," tried Mycroft slowly. "You know, I think I see it."
"So is there anything else you'll miss?"
Sherlock's voice drifted from the end of the hall.
Mycroft, clad in long silk pajamas, was carrying a carefully made cup of tea up the stairs. Sherlock lounged against a door frame, more elegantly blasé than any eleven-year-old in hand-me-down pajamas had a right to look.
"Besides the drama. I wondered if you'd miss the charm of my company."
It was a suspiciously casual question. But Mycroft knew it was casual; Sherlock himself didn't care for anyone's company, least of all his cousin's, and there was no love lost between them. Mycroft sometimes doubted whether Sherlock would have understood the concept of affection even if he had grown up in a less dysfunctional family.
"I might miss Fluffy." Mycroft nodded at the dirty salmon-pink cushion Sherlock cradled in his arms, the one he had taken from the hotel. The impulse had been more than kleptomania. The threadbare cushion represented Hagrid's eventual concession to performing magic; he'd been attempting to turn the thing into a cat, and it was now sporting pointed ears and a tail but remained stubbornly rectangular, if a bit fluffier.
Fluffy mewed. Sherlock stroked its ears.
"Fluffy will miss you too," he drawled.
And that was all there was to be said.
One month later, Sherlock was going mad with anticipation. His aunt and uncle felt much the same way, though for different reasons. Sherlock had spent half of the last month locked in his bedroom. Only Uncle Vernon's futile hopes that his new schoolbooks would distract Sherlock from "that blasted chemistry set", combined with the unsettling look in his nephew's eye, had prevented him from locking the boy's school supplies in the cupboard under the stairs. These hopes, however, proved unfounded when the explosions punctuating the night only increased in volume and frequency.
Uncle Vernon seemed to feel that the only way to handle this annoyance was to rid himself of another; namely, the sight of his nephew's face. And so Sherlock had been forbidden to set foot outside his bedroom until leaving for Hogwarts.
Sherlock didn't mind this at all; the respite from Aunt Petunia's many chores left him with all the time he wanted to practice with his new wand and study his schoolbooks, occasionally scrawling improvements in the margins. He was flipping through a Charms book for a fireproofing spell (potion brewing, he'd discovered, was best not attempted on thick carpet) when Belinda raised her head and mewed loudly. Half a minute later, the door opened silently.
Suspiciously silently, thought Mycroft, edging through the doorway.
Sherlock looked up. Aside from Aunt Petunia's daily interruptions with food, it was the first time the door had been opened by anyone other than himself in several weeks. Since learning the Silencing Charm, he no longer had to oil the hinges to ensure that his nighttime forays go unnoticed.
"We're going," said Mycroft.
"Where?"
"You know where."
Mycroft was wearing the dark vest and trousers with a long black jacket that Sherlock vaguely recognized as his new school uniform. He tried for a moment to remember where Mycroft was going. Somewhere boring.
"That's right. What's the school, again?"
"Eton."
Sherlock smiled. "Eatin'. How…fitting."
"Juvenile."
"Speaking of fitting, it's a pity you never got to try on the Smeltings uniform."
Mycroft gave a long-suffering sigh. "Two weeks in solitary have done nothing to improve your manners."
"They've done nothing to soften your heart. What will Mummy do without her Mikey-Wikey?"
Mycroft's choice of secondary educational institution had brought on one of the very few altercations in the Dursley household that was not caused by Sherlock. Mycroft had won, in the end, by testing into a King's Scholarship at Eton College. That he had done so without the knowledge or consent of either of his parents in no way lessened the achievement.
"Dad says that if he comes back to find the house burned down or the walls smeared with frog intestines, you will never see the light of day again."
Sherlock brightened at this. "Then you're all going?"
His cousin winced. "It wasn't my idea."
"And staying overnight?"
"Obviously."
There was a pause during which Sherlock struggled vainly to conceal an evil grin from Mycroft. He was saved by Uncle Vernon sticking his head in the door to reiterate his threats. Sherlock smirked throughout the entire lecture.
"And you'll be getting to the station on your own, boy!" barked Uncle Vernon when he was through. "Don't even think of leaving that…thing…here." He returned Belinda's baleful glare.
"To your tender loving care? Wouldn't dream of it. I pity the poor, helpless creature who's dropped on your doorstep—oh, wait. Bad subject."
Mycroft watched his father's face flourish a deeper purple and reflected that Sherlock might have been spot on about the blood pressure. He also realized that he had missed his last opportunity to ask Sherlock about his parents before leaving for school…but unless the right moment presented itself, it would do no good anyway. He would see his cousin again in nine months. In the meantime, he had research to do. Not all of the academic variety.
Some of it Sherlock would be doing for him, although he didn't know it.
Mycroft lingered a moment longer as Vernon's heavy tread retreated.
"Can you get to London on your own? And find the platform?" He remembered the improbable platform number and wondered whether wizards studied higher mathematics. Heaven forbid they find out about imaginary numbers.
"I can handle it." Sherlock didn't sound worried.
"Well, then…see you. And your…pets."
Mycroft's eyes scanned the room, looking for the familiar salmon pink.
"Don't bother," Sherlock interjected. "You won't have to say goodbye to Fluffy after all."
"I—what?"
Sherlock was quite certain he was not imagining the note of panic in Mycroft's voice. He smiled sweetly.
"Belinda doesn't like it. I packed it for you."
Mycroft cursed inwardly, picturing his trunk buried beneath a small mountain of overnight bags and Mum's hair supplies in the luggage compartment of the car. Suddenly the lingering guilt over the GPS unit he'd planted in Sherlock's own trunk vanished completely.
He closed his eyes. "Do you mean to say that a bright pink, mysteriously meowing…"
"Myc!" sounded Aunt Petunia's voice from downstairs. Mycroft and Sherlock winced in unison.
The former managed to contain his rage just enough to offer his cousin a goodbye smile. Sincerity would have been rather too much to ask for.
"Farewell, cousin."
"Laterz," replied Sherlock, flopped on his back and again absorbed in his book.
"I was experimenting with reinforcing the animation charm," Mycroft heard his cousin remark absently as the door swung shut somewhat harder than intended. "It does more than meow, now…"
A/N: The best Fluffy fanart will be featured in the thumbnail.