Chapter 767 - 767: 0767 The Funeral

When Sherlock Apparated back into Hogsmeade, the first thing to greet his eyes was Hermione, who'd been covering for him. She'd spent every moment since he left with her heart in her throat, terrified some examiner would come over and ask where the candidate had got to. Luckily, this was the Apparition exam.

And luckily, the other candidates had been a great help too. Even witches and wizards with no confidence in themselves whatsoever had signed up to give it a try, which meant the exam had been one long parade of mishaps from start to finish. Anyone who passed as cleanly as Sherlock and Hermione had without a single hitch was vanishingly rare.

Even the candidates who did pass tended to have this flaw or that. Never mind the ones who failed outright. The examiners were run frowzy, with no attention left over for anything else.

Even so, as Sherlock failed to reappear, Hermione had grown steadily more anxious. Only when she heard a familiar crack, and saw him materialize in front of her, did she finally let out a breath.

"Hey, man!"

The moment Sherlock appeared, someone had still noticed something was off.

But it never would have occurred to them that he'd just used that brief window to make a four-hundred-mile round trip to London. They simply assumed he was fooling around after passing the test which was only natural—nothing worth remarking on.

Sherlock's gaze swept the crowd. "I don't suppose I'm late?"

"No," Hermione said, shaking her head, "but much longer and I couldn't have said the same."

"There was a small hiccup. Nothing I didn't have in hand."

He asked, "What's the situation now?"

Hermione glanced toward the examiners. "There's only one person left to test."

Sherlock followed her gaze.

Wouldn't you know it.

The last candidate was none other than their good friend—Ron Weasley.

"I can feel how nervous he is."

Sherlock glanced at Ron once, then looked away.

"He is, actually—Lavender's been trying to calm him down all morning, made him about a dozen wishes for luck, though it doesn't look like any of it's helping—wait, what is that smell on you?"

Hermione, mid-sentence, sniffed suddenly and said just that.

"A man's cologne."

Sherlock said it without so much as a flicker of expression.

"…?!?"

Hermione stared at him, utterly stunned.

What in the world had he just gone and done?

And how could he say something like that in such an offhand tone?!

"Sherlock, what exactly are you—"

Just as Hermione, thoroughly baffled, was about to press him for an answer, a burst of commotion rose from Ron's direction.

Despite the encouragement of his girlfriend Lavender, Ron had, in the end, failed to clear the bar and pass.

Watching Ron come stalking over, cursing under his breath, Lavender at his side, Hermione had no choice but to set her curiosity aside for later. All the way back to the castle, Ron stayed listless and thoroughly dejected.

"I'm such an idiot. I really am."

He kept muttering to himself, over and over:

"I knew perfectly well you're not supposed to split your legs when you Apparate—I just didn't know half an eyebrow left behind would get noticed too…

"Why wasn't I more decisive about it?

"If I'd just committed properly, that half an eyebrow wouldn't have been left behind…

"And that examiner's eyesight is a bit too good, isn't it?

"Half an eyebrow—half! And he still spotted it!"

By the time they sat down to dinner, Ron still hadn't given up complaining:

"Talk about bad luck—over something that tiny!"

"Exactly! It was only half an eyebrow. As if that's such a big deal!"

Watching Ron sulk, Lavender joined right in cursing out the examiner along with him, giving his feelings all the validation he could want.

"I understand completely. I really do."

Harry, who hadn't gone to Hogsmeade with the others, was only now piecing together what had happened that day.

Privately, he actually thought half an eyebrow mattered rather a lot—without it, Ron would no longer really be the bushy-browed, big-eyed sort of bloke he was. But naturally, this was not the moment to say so.

"Mate, that's rotten luck. But you'll pass next time for sure—I expect the two of us can sit it together."

"Yeah. Guess we'll just have to test together next time… never thought Neville would actually call it right…"

Ron gave a bitter little laugh as he said it.

As it happened, Ron wasn't the only one cursing the Apparition examiners.

Of everyone who'd sat the test that day, fewer than half had passed.

Which left the whole Great Hall thick with resentment.

Words like "Heck," "Damn," and "Shit" rang out on all sides without pause.

Ron's own personal favourite, "Bloody hell," stood out from the crowd as ever.

The whole scene looked for all the world like a room full of failed driving-test candidates, gathered together for a proper griping session.

Only by the time everyone had trooped back to the common room did the mood seem to lift, if only a little.

Naturally, from there, the conversation drifted toward Hagrid, Aragog, the Acromantula, and the funeral.

"So—are we actually going to see Hagrid, or not?"

"Honestly, just stringing those words together in my head makes my skin crawl."

Saying this, Ron pictured the enormous spider without meaning to, and couldn't help but shudder.

Harry nodded. "Er—I can understand that."

"Harry, it's not that I'm not being a mate about this!"

Ron said it with a perfectly straight face. "I'd rather face You-Know-Who himself than go stand there wailing over that horrible, hairy corpse of his!"

Harry didn't say anything. Instead, he took out the note Cho had passed him and handed it to Sherlock.

Aragog died last night. If the three of you could come to the funeral tonight, it would mean a great deal to me.

I mean to hold it at dusk—it was his favourite time of day.

I know you're not allowed out that late, and I didn't want to ask, but I can't face it alone.

There was an understanding between Sherlock and Harry that needed no words.

So he took one glance at the note and said:

"Hagrid's been crying—the smudged ink tells you that. Fat teardrops, one after another, falling right onto the parchment…"

"So what?"

Ron said firmly.

"There's no way I'm going, no matter what!

"If you two are going, just tell him I failed my Apparition test and I'm off sulking somewhere, all right!"

"But we've gone to see him at night before."

Harry was still making one last attempt. He knew Hagrid genuinely, sincerely wanted them to come.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have written something like I can't face it alone.

In fact, after Sherlock and the others had left for the Apparition test in Hogsmeade, Harry had gone and specifically discussed the matter with his girlfriend, Cho Chang. Cho's advice had been simple: follow his heart.

Harry had never been much of a rule-follower to begin with.

And since Hagrid's feelings were plainly genuine, there was no need to worry about school rules—if he wanted to go, he'd go.

"We have gone before, that's true. But going again for something like this feels a bit…"

Hermione hesitated. "We've taken real risks for Hagrid's sake before, but Aragog's already dead. If it were to save him, that's one thing, but—"

"Then I'm even less inclined to go."

Hearing Hermione say this, Ron's expression turned even more resolute than before.

"Trust me, Hermione—that thing dying is nothing but good news for Hagrid."

As if to underscore the point, the moment he'd finished speaking, he stood up and went off with Lavender to a corner of the common room.

Watching Ron go, Harry and Hermione turned to look at Sherlock at the same moment.

As always, whenever the three of them couldn't decide on something, the answer was simple: ask Sherlock.

"You're both overlooking something," Sherlock said quietly.

"What's that?"

"Materials."

Sherlock spoke quickly, the words coming fast: "Acromantula venom is a key brewing ingredient in a great many rare potions.

"Getting venom out of a living Acromantula is next to impossible which is exactly why it's so valuable.

"Aragog only just died. Under normal circumstances, the venom in his body won't have dried up yet.

"As a raw ingredient alone, a single pint"—a British imperial measure, eight to the gallon, roughly 0.568 liters— "is worth about a hundred Galleons. And once it's brewed into a finished potion, the value multiplies several times over. But of course, the most important thing is this: leaving it there uncollected would be an absolute waste."

Harry: "…"

Hermione: "…"

Sherlock had said it so bluntly that neither of them had the faintest idea how to respond.

In the end, regardless, the three of them decided to go to Aragog's funeral together.

On the way there, Sherlock told Harry and Hermione about what he'd seen and done at Gringotts that day.

"You—you actually Apparated to Diagon Alley!" Harry said, his jaw dropping. "How—how did you even manage that?"

"It's not difficult, really, once you've got the trick of it."

Sherlock said it as though it were nothing much, but the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth gave away exactly how pleased with himself he was.

While Harry was busy being astonished, Hermione had noticed rather more than that.

Beyond finally getting an answer to the mystery of the cologne, a new question had surfaced.

"Sherlock—you wanted to look into a Death Eater's vault. Is it because of… a Horcrux?"

"Correct," Sherlock said with a nod. "Harry, I imagine you remember—the last time we looked back through Voldemort's thoughts."

"Sorry—I don't remember that at all," Harry admitted honestly.

Hermione shook her head too. "I don't recall it either."

"That's only natural—I merely mentioned it in passing at the time, and neither of you thought much of it."

Sherlock gave a light laugh and went on:

"But before that, even further back, we worked out the possible whereabouts of the remaining Horcruxes.

"Either it went the way Riddle's diary did entrusted to a Death Eater he trusted to keep safe —

"— or it went the way Ravenclaw's diadem and Slytherin's locket did, hidden somewhere he believed was safe.

"Piecing together everything we know, Bellatrix, her husband, and young Barty Crouch were the Death Eaters he trusted most—the ones who, even after he vanished, refused to give up and still wanted to go out and find him.

"So he very likely handed it to Bellatrix—though naturally, he wouldn't have told her it was a Horcrux, any more than he told Lucius Malfoy. He'd only have said it was a precious family heirloom, something to be kept safe.

"Harry—we're on our way to see Hagrid right now. Do you remember something he once said? If you want to hide something, there's no safer place in the world—except Hogwarts itself."

"Gringotts! A vault!"

Harry got it in a flash. But almost as quickly, he shook his head.

"Thinking about it now, that sounds like a joke."

"Quite right, my dear Harry."

Sherlock smiled faintly, speaking with total confidence:

"And that is precisely what gives me confidence to act.

"Six years ago, on your birthday, Gringotts was broken into.

"Of course, we now know the man responsible was Quirrell, with Voldemort stuck to the back of his head and that he came away empty-handed, because Hagrid had already got there first and removed the Sorcerer's Stone from the vault.

"If he could get in, so can I."

"So that's why you had Fleur and Bill check it out first, isn't it?"

Hermione picked up the thread. "Once you've confirmed the Horcrux is really in there, you're going to do exactly what Quirrell did back then go into Gringotts and take it out yourself."

"Yes. Given the way things stand at present, even I can't guarantee how many chances I'll get to act."

"That's why you chose to Apparate to Gringotts during the exam because you were worried about being seen, about someone noticing where you'd gone?"

"Obviously, my friend."

Hearing this, Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance, and only then did they truly understand what Sherlock was after.

Imagination that ran wild and free, action that was swift and decisive, what was there even to say?

Typical you.

By this time, the three of them had already arrived outside Hagrid's cabin.

"You've come."

"We've come."

"Ron couldn't make it—he's sorry, because—"

"It's all right, it's all right…"

Hagrid cut Harry off before he could finish.

"So long as you've come, he'll be moved. He really will. Harry, Sherlock, Hermione…"

None of the three of them could quite picture such a thing as being moved happening to a dead Acromantula.

But watching Hagrid, still sniffling away, his eyes red and swollen, even Sherlock found himself with nothing more to say.

Hagrid had a black armband around his sleeve, made from a scrap of cloth dabbed in shoe polish.

Hermione hesitated, then reached out and patted him comfortingly on the elbow—the highest point she could reach without straining.

Sherlock's gaze swept the surroundings, and he let out a sigh. "So, you did end up bringing the body back after all."

"Yeah. I did, Sherlock."

Hagrid said this while wiping his tear-streaked eyes with the corner of his shirt:

"Galloping Gorgons—you might not believe this, but —!

"The moment Aragog died, the rest of the spiders wouldn't let me anywhere near their webs. Not anymore."

No—we believe you completely.

The three of them exchanged a glance, and each could read exactly what the others were thinking.

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