When Sherlock and Harry reached the second floor of the Shrieking Shack, they were startled to discover a door half-open on the landing.
Harry instinctively looked to Sherlock for guidance.
To his surprise, Sherlock walked forward quite openly and pushed the door wide open.
A luxurious four-poster bed immediately came into view. In stark contrast to the exquisite and opulent bedding, the curtains around it were covered in dust.
But more attention-grabbing than these was a figure with his back to the door, apparently sorting through an old trunk at the foot of the bed.
Hearing Sherlock push open the door, he sprang to his feet abruptly.
However, when he turned around, he froze in place.
At that moment, Sirius Black's gray eyes, once shrouded by Azkaban's gloom widened suddenly.
Because he could clearly see Harry standing at the door holding his wand, with a face similar to his father James. His unruly black hair stuck up at the back of his head just like Harry's, and he wore glasses too.
Behind those glasses were the same green eyes as his mother Lily—anyone who had ever seen Lily would never doubt this.
In Sherlock and Harry's eyes, Sirius Black looked just as terrible as he did on the wanted posters.
His originally long, straight black hair was now filthy and matted, hanging down to his elbows.
Waxy skin stretched tightly over his facial bones, combined with deep, dark eye sockets, making him look like a living skull.
Even so, his slightly hunched body was still imposingly tall, appearing to be at least six feet two or three inches.
"Harry?"
Perhaps because he hadn't spoken to anyone in such a long time, Sirius's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper rubbing together.
However, both Sherlock and Harry could see that he was trying very hard to grin with his yellowed teeth.
"You—you actually came. How did you find this place? And who are you?"
Sirius's gaze fell on Sherlock.
At this moment, Sherlock had somehow put on leather gloves and was picking up a sandwich from the table, examining it carefully with a magnifying glass.
"Sherlock Holmes. I believe you've heard my name, Mr. Black."
Sherlock placed the sandwich back on the table and looked at Sirius.
"Interesting. Dandelion jam with a small amount of sneezewort—it seems that while preparing provisions for your escape, you didn't forget to add herbs to relieve anxiety."
Hearing himself addressed this way, Sirius was quite startled.
He stared at Sherlock, who shared his gray eyes, as if he had long forgotten this was possible—it had been a very, very long time since anyone had spoken to him so politely.
"Sherlock Holmes."
Sirius slowly repeated the name, looking Sherlock up and down for a long while before speaking slowly:
"I know of you. Harry's best friend at school, the new Lion King of Gryffindor."
Just as Sherlock had deduced earlier, seeing that the person accompanying Harry to find him was Sherlock, Sirius breathed a long sigh of relief.
"I didn't expect it would be you two who came to find me—I thought you would have the cat deliver a letter first."
Sirius paused, then said slowly.
"That way we could have chosen a more suitable place to meet. But—how did you find this place?"
"Harry thinks I found this place from the Marauder's Map, which is actually half right. After all, this place can't really be considered part of Hogwarts anymore. When I—"
"The Marauder's Map is in your hands!" Before Sherlock could finish, Sirius had already cried out.
"When I saw your name disappear from the passage under the Whomping Willow, that was enough for me. Rather than having the cat deliver a letter, I preferred to come and meet you directly."
Sherlock first finished his sentence, then looked around at the surroundings before continuing to answer Sirius's question. "Yes, the Marauder's Map is in Harry's possession. It played a major role in capturing Peter Pettigrew. Coincidentally, he had a hand in creating that map, but in the end, he was exposed because of it. You could say it's poetic justice—what goes around comes around."
At this point, Harry also stepped forward and took out from his pocket the letter Crookshanks had brought today.
On it was written in shaky handwriting: "If you agree, send word. This cat can find me."
"Sherlock can always find the truth where others can't see it."
Harry himself hadn't expected that when he truly met Sirius face to face, his emotions would surge, but his voice would be so steady.
His green eyes met Sirius's gray ones, pronouncing clearly.
"I trust you, just as my father trusted you back then."
"Truth... trust."
Sirius repeated these two words in a low voice, his eyes gradually welling up with tears.
"Harry, you're just like your father. That's exactly how your dad treated his friends. You're both so brave, willing to risk your own safety to gamble on my innocence. I'm grateful."
"Why not?"
Sherlock tilted his head. "Things have been made clear. The person who betrayed Harry's parents was Peter Pettigrew, not you."
"But I might as well have killed them."
Sirius said hoarsely.
"I was such a fool. Really. I only knew that I would never betray my friends. I didn't know that Peter had already betrayed us. I convinced Lily and James to switch Secret-Keepers from me to Peter at the last moment. They only did it because they trusted me. The night they died, I went to check on Peter to make sure he was safe.
But when I reached his hiding place, he was already gone. There were no signs of struggle. I felt something was wrong. I got scared—I went straight to your parents' house. When I saw their house, it had been destroyed, and I saw their bodies. I knew Peter must have done something terrible. I knew what a huge mistake I'd made."
Sirius finally couldn't continue.
At this moment, tears were already streaming down his face.
So were Harry's.
A sorrowful atmosphere began to permeate the room.
"If you don't mind, Mr. Black, I have a question."
Just then, Sherlock suddenly spoke, asking somewhat abruptly. "How exactly did you escape from Azkaban? Was it merely by virtue of being an Animagus?"
Sirius looked at Sherlock in surprise, then turned to Harry, who nodded at him.
Regardless, although Sherlock's question seemed somewhat inappropriate in this situation, it did indeed dilute the melancholy atmosphere.
"I don't know how I did it myself."
Sirius spoke slowly, as if organizing his thoughts:
"I think the only reason I didn't lose my mind was that—I knew I was innocent. That obviously wasn't a pleasant thought, so the Dementors didn't suck it out of my head. Because of that, I could keep my mind clear, and knowing who I was also helped me preserve my magical power. When the circumstances around me became truly unbearable, I would transform into a dog."
"The Dementors can't see the dog you become through Animagus transformation?"
Sherlock's eyes lit up immediately.
"I don't understand it."
Sirius swallowed, finding his speaking rhythm again, though it made his accent sound somewhat odd:
"They sense human emotions and thus sense human presence, approaching people. But when I became a dog, they seemed to judge that my emotions weren't as complex as human emotions. To them, I was like everyone else there, losing my mind, so they weren't concerned. But I was weak, very weak. Without a wand, there was absolutely no hope of driving them away from me."
"You're referring to the Patronus Charm?"
"Yes!"
Sirius looked at Sherlock in surprise again, as if he hadn't expected him to know this advanced spell.
"If nothing unexpected happened, I think I could only have lasted a few more years, until—"
"Until you saw Peter in that photograph in the Daily Prophet. You're more familiar with Peter's transformed appearance than anyone else. Even Professor Lupin couldn't recognize him at a glance, but you could. So, from that moment on, you were determined to break out of prison, right?"
Sirius was speaking rather slowly, so Sherlock simply quickly finished the rest of the content for him.
"You're right!"
Sirius looked at Sherlock in surprise yet again, gaining a deeper understanding of this generation's Lion King's exceptional qualities.
He actually has brains!
"But how do you know this? I haven't told anyone about it yet."
"It's actually not worth mentioning. Previously, people all thought you chose to escape from Azkaban to hunt down Harry, but that obviously doesn't make sense. You spent a full twelve years in Azkaban. If it was really for Harry, there was no need to wait until this year to act.
It wasn't until Peter Pettigrew was captured that we learned you were trying to catch him. But on the other hand, you would only take action after you confirmed the news that Peter Pettigrew was still alive. As a prisoner of Azkaban, there are only so many ways for you to learn about the outside world. Newspapers are one of them.
For Peter Pettigrew, as a pet rat of a wizarding family, opportunities to appear in public, especially before the prisoners of Azkaban, were even fewer. In summary, there was only one channel through which you could confirm this news—that photograph of the Weasley family in Egypt.
On the other hand, Minister of Magic Fudge told Harry that when he met with you this year, he gave you a newspaper to play word puzzles. Shortly after that incident, you successfully escaped. That makes things too obvious—it's almost like child's play."
After hearing Sherlock's analysis, Sirius was stunned.
He looked at Sherlock with an incredulous expression, taking quite a while to recover.
"Holmes, you're really—"
He paused and said, "If I didn't know it was impossible, I'd even suspect you used Legilimency on me."
"As you can foresee, you're not the first person to say that to me, nor will you be the last."
'So cool!'
Harry, listening nearby as Sherlock delivered the most pretentious words in the calmest tone, felt as if his friend was glowing at that moment.
At this point, Sirius also reached his claw-like hand into his robes and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
He smoothed the newspaper flat on the table.
Sherlock and Harry immediately recognized it as the issue of the Daily Prophet that had featured the article "Ministry of Magic Employee Wins Grand Prize."
Looking back now, Ron was standing in the center with Scabbers on his shoulder—at that time, it was still plump, completely unaware of its impending fate.
"So, you saw this photograph and that's why you asked Fudge for this newspaper?"
This time it was Harry's turn to ask.
"That's right."
Sirius raised his head as if recalling memories. "This year when he came to inspect Azkaban, he was chatting with me while looking at this newspaper. I've seen that bastard transform countless times, so I recognized at a glance that the rat on the boy's shoulder was Peter.
More importantly, I noticed it was missing a toe, which further confirmed my judgment. So, I used wanting to do word puzzles as an excuse to ask for this newspaper—Fudge didn't suspect anything at all. Just as Holmes said, from the article text below the photo, I learned that this boy would be returning to Hogwarts, to where Harry was.
So, I made up my mind that I had to take action. Because I was the only one who knew Peter was still alive. If I was one step too late and Peter learned he had allies, he would act, delivering harry to them. If he handed Harry over to them, who would dare say he had once betrayed Voldemort? He would return covered in glory."
'Another one.'
Sherlock looked at Sirius.
It seemed that starting this year, more and more wizards dared to say Voldemort's name directly.
First Lupin, then Sirius.
'Interesting.'
"After that thought came to me, I couldn't stay there anymore. It was as if someone had lit a fire in my brain, and even those terrible Dementors couldn't extinguish it. I suppose that was also because it wasn't a pleasant thought. It was this thought that gave me strength, making my already somewhat muddled brain clear again.
So, one night, when they opened the door to deliver food, I transformed into a dog and slipped out. As I said before, they're not as sensitive to animals. But even I didn't expect I could slip through so easily.
Fortunately, after twelve years in Azkaban, I had become very, very thin—thin enough to squeeze through the bars. By the time they discovered this, I had already swum across the sea in dog form, returned to the mainland, and completely left Azkaban."
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