.oOo.

Mycroft

.oOo.

Mycroft didn't notice it at first. He should have noticed; there was nothing more important to him than his family.

Harry called it her 'accidental Imperius', Mycroft just knew it as the ubiquitous pressure of Eurus' will against his own. And yet, when it ended, he took a fortnight to realise what was missing.

He'd just finished the exhausting leadup to Thatcher's landslide election win, and a health scare over little Prince William. He'd figured out how to account for 500 million in national budget cuts, and had slid Hughes into the House of Commons to start working on a new bill for 'Civil Partnership'. Harry had been extremely useful on that front, providing a whole list of people that could be turned to as lobbyists.

When his long work days ended, Mycroft would be simultaneously energised and exhausted. He'd leaf his way through familiar tomes, letting the relief drain back into him from the bottom up. Those nights, Harry's quiet company was a gift. Even if they merely sat together, there was something very different in the feeling of returning not to a flat, but to a home.

Eurus had developed an interest in little Sherry now that he had been healed. The boy's blue-green eyes were sharp, almost calculating. He had mastered looking like he actually understood everything Eurus was telling him, from political intrigue to the status of local murder investigations. In the beginning Mycroft had expressed his concern, but Harry was so sure that Sherry was safe with his sister that he couldn't help believing him.

Somehow, Harry was particularly believable, more so than even Eurus with her mind-bending magic.

It was disarming for Mycroft to realise that he was comfortable. Yes, work was exhausting, but in the end—from the beginning—he'd never before been so happy. Hence Mycroft's shock when he noticed the change.

He'd meant to ask Eurus if she wanted a pizza. He'd been reading about Bernardino Telesio's philosophical deductions and decided to celebrate their Friday with some takeaway. Reaching out towards Eurus' mind was so simple that it had become instinctual.

When she wanted something, she exuded it like a ripple on a still pond. Instead of asking, 'Do you want a cuppa?' he could tap into her thoughts and learn if she was thirsty. It had been how they communicated, from sister to brother, all her life.

Until, just like that, it was gone. As if from a great distance, Mycroft heard his book fall to the floor.

Harry didn't look up. He had fallen asleep with the Daily Prophet splayed across his chest.

"Mikey?"

Johnny trotted over and placed his big grey head on Mycroft's knee.

"Papa?" Sherry had tottered over and was struggling to hold up the book that Mycroft had dropped.

"Thank you, dear." He pulled Sherry onto his lap, cradling the boy for comfort. "I was just thinking, maybe we could go for a little walk down to Alfredo's. Or is it too late for you to have pizza?"

"Pizza," Sherry said, nodding once and thoroughly underestimating how tired he was. He then reached out with his pudgy little arms, implying 'Carry me' quite effectively.

Setting aside the book, Mycroft swung the boy onto his shoulder and got to his feet. They left Harry snoring softly on the settee. Meanwhile, Eurus helped slip Sherry's shoes on and followed them downstairs, after which Mycroft made Sherry walk hand-in-hand between them.

"I still think Harry's methods are stupid," Eurus said. Sherry wouldn't suffer the indignity of being swung between them, so they didn't even try.

"And yet." Mycroft turned and smiled at her. "Congratulations. I'm proud. So proud. Mummy will be, too."

Eurus scoffed. "I'll leave you the pleasure of telling her, then. Oh! Tell her it was your deviant lover's doing. She'll hate that."

Mycroft indulged her by laughing.

"You're really going to Oxford then? No murdered dorm mates, no scandals where you hang their pets from the rafters, just a normal student life studying crime?"

Between them, Sherry stiffened. Eurus said, "It's alright, I'll visit every weekend," but that didn't seem to reassure him. Mycroft let it be; if Sherry wanted to talk about his feelings he'd turn to Harry, not them.

"I'm proud of you," Mycroft said again, holding open the restaurant door.

Eurus laughed, happy and real, as she walked through and ordered for the four of them. As they waited on the bench outside, she was still grinning. "Actually," she said, because she'd always loved correcting him, "I'm studying criminology, not crime."

Were she anyone else, Mycroft would have been convinced of pure motives regarding crime-solving, but with Eurus he knew she was learning the law to better break it. Rules had always been a matter of semantics to her, even back when it had been about adhering to her bedtime, or the rule of no food allowed in her room.

She'd abandoned studying law because it bored her, but she'd most definitely been learning something. The worst outcome he could imagine was his little sister strolling from one crime scene to the next, quite literally getting away with murder.

Technically, she had already gotten away with murder. Uncle Rudy had wanted Eurus locked away after Sherlock died in the fire, but Mycroft had known it wouldn't solve a thing. No institution in the world could contain his sister, so he'd sent Rudy away instead and gotten his sister a puppy. He'd hoped a dog would inspire a sense of responsibility or even empathy.

"Perhaps you may be some type of consultant," Mycroft suggested, trying to arrange his face into a smile she wouldn't see through. "Someone with your particular skills might be very useful on an advisory basis. I could find you a nice position in British Intelligence. I quite enjoy working for Her Majesty's Government."

"Brother dear, you mustn't lie to me."

A knot of panic formed in Mycroft's throat. "I do enjoy it. It's different from how I thought it'd be, but—"

"I know," she said, "But you don't work for the Government, you are the British Government. There's a difference. And your lovely husband holds a similar position. A public-private relationship of sorts; it's touching."

Her smile was impossible to interpret. "Do you approve?" he asked, almost a whisper.

Alfredo's interruption had him jumping almost out of his skin. Eurus carried the boxes back to 225 Baker Street, while Mycroft carried his sleeping two-year-old.

Eurus didn't answer until she'd unlocked the door to the flat, kindly ignoring his laboured breathing. "Harry's perfect," Eurus said, smiling. "And once I've finished my studies, I'll think about your offered position."

She took her pizza into her room in the box, though she did at least take some napkins.

Mycroft tucked Sherry and Harry into bed one after the other. He ate his own meal sitting alone in the kitchen, drowning out his worry with cheese crust.

.oOo.

It was a Sunday. Mycroft didn't work on Sundays, and he didn't let Anthea work them either. This had nothing to do with any kind of religious belief regarding a God-ordained day of rest. Mostly, it served to preserve his own sanity.

Naturally, the Minister of Magic didn't care, hence he'd insisted on a meeting. Blainbridge wasn't working, Anthea wasn't working, and Harry was going to have to be there as an attaché to Cornelius Fudge.

They'd never left Eurus alone with Sherry for more than thirty minutes at a time. Harry said this was to prevent accidental magic outbursts. Harry had lied; for all that he happily let Eurus talk to their son's ear off about everything, he didn't trust them not to burn the house down.

In two weeks, she'd be moving to student housing in Oxford, only visiting weekends. Her classes likely wouldn't hold her attention for very long, but Mycroft had high hopes that Harry would be able to enthuse her with a magical curriculum instead. Sherry was particularly crabby after having wet the bed that morning, but it was just a few hours of child-minding. Eurus had succeeded in situations that were far more challenging.

"A pleasure, I'm sure," Minister Fudge said, bringing the number of times he'd forgotten Mycroft's name to a round dozen.

"Quite. Now, you had urgent business?"

"Ah, yes, well, you see," Fudge began.

"The thing is," Harry cut in, "We're redoing the prison on our side. It's come to our collective awareness that torturing people isn't doing much good for reform."

"It's an excellent deterrent," Fudge muttered. He'd taken his bowler hat off and was wringing the life out of it. Not that the hat had much of a life to begin with, going by the wrinkles showcasing Fudge's habitual manhandling of his own vestments.

Mycroft raised a brow at Harry, who was sitting behind his Minister and off to one side. "Prison reform on a Sunday? What has the world come to?"

The replying grimace said it all. This conversation should have been held at home over tea and crumpets, or perhaps scones. He'd left a recipe book open in the kitchen for Sherry to find, hoping the boy would press Eurus into spending the afternoon baking.

"The thing is, the Dementors, they're these big dark scary creatures—"

Behind Fudge, Harry rolled his eyes. "The Dementors are on strike. We managed to gather them all up before it got out of hand, but now we have angry soul-sucking beasts out for our necks and no idea how to run a prison without them. Auror Moody fears a mass prison-break, so he's handling the case personally. This is just an FYI."

Fudge looked a bit confused, but Mycroft was long accustomed to his friend's odd figures of speech. "Thank you for letting me know. If that's all?" He checked his watch; Eurus and Sherry had only been alone for two hours. It would be fine.

Once they said their goodbyes, Harry followed Mycroft back to his office through the connecting portrait. They walked home arm in arm, though Mycroft had the distinct impression Harry was leaning on him more than anything.

They found Sherry already down for his nap, smelling of clean laundry and sleeping so deeply his sheets weren't even twisted. In the kitchen sat a plate of scones, but his sister was nowhere to be found.

They left Johnny sitting at the foot of Sherry's bed and settled themselves around the kitchen table with the schematics of Azkaban for a long round of scheming.

They pretended that all was well until Eurus walked in an hour later, reeking of disinfectant.

.oOo.

Mycroft was trying to find the words to confront her with. Harry had no such compunctions.

"What did you do?" he asked, turning on her.

Worse still was that she didn't have a convincing lie already sitting on her tongue. She blinked at them like a scolded schoolchild.

"Mycroft, why don't you go check on Sherry and see if he's alright?" Harry said.

Up until that moment, he'd never thought of himself as a coward. Mycroft tucked his chair in and went to see how their son was, but he left the kitchen door open so that their voices could follow him out.

"What were you doing in St. Mungos?" Harry was saying. "Where's Benjamin? I know you didn't make those scones."

Mycroft hurried over and scooped Sherry up, tamping down on his own panic when the boy was unresponsive in his arms. Mycroft inhaled the smell of his boy's strawberry shampoo, ignoring the psychosomatic scent of fire. When he returned Harry and Eurus seemed to have settled things already.

"He's not waking up," Mycroft pleaded, holding his son against his chest. Harry's wand was out and casting diagnostic magics instantly.

"I told him 'go to sleep' and set Johnny to watch him," Eurus said, her voice halfway between hurt and swallowed indignance. "So that I could take Blainbridge to the hospital, where they treated his burns and fixed his memory and sent him back home. I took care of everything. I did nothing wrong."

Mycroft sat and let Harry hold their unresponsive son. He took Eurus' hand and squeezed it gently. "You said you wouldn't use your Imperius on Sherry, but I can see it was an emergency."

"He'll be fine when he wakes up." Harry tucked his wand away and turned on Eurus again. "You still haven't explained why Benjamin was here at all. Your only job was to watch Sherry for what, two hours? How can you be so intelligent and fail to do something so simple?"

"I didn't want to watch him. He was upset and he wanted Blainbridge and I didn't know what else to do. He calmed down when I told him Blainbridge would be coming, and I didn't want to lie. I read that toddlers are like dogs, they need stability and you're not supposed to lie to them or they won't trust you."

Mycroft squeezed her hand again. "It's alright," he told her. "You meant well." He wished she wouldn't be running Pavlovian experiments on his son, but she wasn't going to stop being Eurus just because he asked her to.

"It's not alright," Harry said, getting up with Sherry deftly tucked against his chest. "He's a human boy, not a lab specimen. I'll accept your complete inability to tell what's child-appropriate or not, but next time—actually, there won't be a next time. I've learnt my lesson."

He walked out without looking back. The way the front door clicked gently shut was worse than if he'd slammed it. Mycroft knew what to do with angry outbursts; there was nothing more dangerous than cold, quiet fury.

"So," Mycroft forced, pretending his voice wasn't wavering, "We were just talking about the many ways a prisoner can be broken out of a wizarding prison. Do you have any ideas on how to refurbish the security of Azkaban?"

Eurus face was a pleasant mask as she leaned in to look at the schematics on the kitchen table. "Here," she said, pointing to the windows, "You need magic-nullifying webs like the Thief's Downfall over every opening. What kind of wards were you considering against house elves?"

Together, they worked their way from one security issue to the next. Eurus even thought of building in loopholes, should they need to break out a prisoner of their own some day. After ninety minutes Mycroft was sure the new layout would be perfect. The only thing wrong was that it had been two of them brainstorming at the table, not three.

Once Eurus excused herself for bed and Mycroft had packaged together their plans for Harry to turn in to the Unspeakable warders the next day, he slipped into his shoes and blazer. He took the tube to Chiswick and rang Blainbridge's doorbell barely thirty minutes after leaving the flat.

"They're sleeping," Mrs. Blainbridge said when she opened up, not bothering to lower her voice. "I'm glad you're here, Mister Holmes."

She shoved a pair of slippers at him before leading him into her living room. Her eldest child was at a desk in the corner, the middle twins were playing a computer game, watched avidly by Sherry from his place on the only armchair. Mycroft planted a kiss on the boy's head, smiling at the way he perched on it like a throne. Harry was tucked under a blanket on the Blainbridge's sofa, snoring gently.

"Benjamin promised me he'd never work Sundays," Mrs. Blainbridge said, thrusting a cup and saucer into Mycroft's unresisting hands. "He also never came back from work so tired before. And your son might be cute, but he's a right menace." She lowered her voice. "It's unnatural."

"Sherry's a good boy," Mycroft said on reflex. He hated how people were always judging, just because Holmes were a bit…different.

He ignored her scoff and took a polite sip of his tea before setting it down on the coffee table. "Wake up, Harry," he said softly, shaking the man's shoulder.

"Sorry," Harry huffed, and Mycroft didn't even have time to recoil before his breath was minty fresh. "Sorry. I just—I'm just tired is all."

Mycroft collected his son and his friend, thanked Mrs. Blainbridge for having them, and promised her husband wouldn't need to work on Monday. He brought his family home feeling lethargic, his feet heavier than usual on the four flights of stairs.

"I'm sorry, I should've known," Harry said again when Mycroft put the man to bed. "I trusted her, I told you it'd be fine and they went and set Benjamin's hair on fire. I thought—no. I…I'll do better."

Mycroft's heart felt like it was being crushed. There were, he realised suddenly, exactly three people on the planet whom he loved unconditionally. "I forgive you," Mycroft told him, pressing a kiss against the man's scar. They could find better ways to babysit their toddler going forward. "You did nothing wrong working with the information you were given," he decided.

Harry's relief was so strong it made Mycroft feel a bit better, too.

"Everything's going to be alright," Mycroft promised. They had five thousand pounds of debt to Mummy left, Eurus' college extracurricular fees coming up, a house of parliament full of ruffled feathers to smooth over, the Dementors were on strike, and Harry seemed to constantly be feeling under the weather.

But they were in this together, as a family. Eurus would be controlling her gift much better going forwards, with Harry's help. Mycroft could ask Anthea to watch Sherry tomorrow, and he'd ask Her Majesty for a bit more funding. Everything was going to be alright because when Mycroft had his intelligence and control, he could make it be so.

.oOo.

Next up: Harry visits the Department of Mysteries and accidentally has a heart-to-heart with Alastor Moody while high on Billywig stings.