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A curly head poked through the door and quicksilver eyes took in Mycroft’s appearance with an unimpressed sneer.  “You look terrible,” said the four-year-old, his R’s gentle and perfectly rounded (he’d finally decided to master the sound, which had taken him only half a particularly rainy afternoon). “I’m going to tell Mummy you're panicking again.”

  Mycroft ignored the threat, his mind still reeling with all he wanted to accomplish before September the 1st.  “Sherlock, I know you’ve filched my wand again—bring it back.  I need it. There are several spells I’d like to practice before supper.”

  Sherlock scowled and stepped fully in the room, Mycroft’s pale wand clutched in a frustrated fist at his side.  “I still think it’s faulty,” he whinged, glaring at it heatedly.  “It doesn’t do anything!  It won’t respond to me at all!”  He waved it and started muttering all the spells he’d learned from Mycroft’s textbooks, while the ginger wizard rolled his eyes and heaved an exasperated sigh.

  “Sherlock, I told you what Mr. Lestrade said.  Wands choose the wizards, and that wand did not choose you!  It won’t respond because it’s not yours. Will you give it back now?”

  Sherlock just chanted over him. “Lumos! Alohamora! Reparo! Wingardium Leviosa! Flipendo!” His voice got steadily louder and louder, and by the end he wasn’t waving the wand so much as stabbing the air with it.

  Amadeus the owl hooted irritably from his favourite perch on Mycroft’s armoire.  Human, make the little one shut up.  I’m trying to sleep!

  “Sherlock, this is pointless!  Give it here before you poke someone’s eye out.”  With a shriek of frustration, Sherlock made as if to throw the wand on the floor—but ended up just gently placing it in Mycroft’s open hand.  “Thank you.”

  In a turnaround typical of the energetic little toddler, Sherlock sat down next to Mycroft’s slew of open textbooks and perused them interestedly.  “What are you working on?”

  Mycroft, who had immediately begun practicing his ‘swish-and-flick’ wand motion, indicated one of the open pages with his free hand.  “There’s a curse in the Defence Against the Dark Arts book I wish to try—Locomotor Mortis, The Leg-Locker curse.  There’s also a Full-Body Bind, Petrificus Totalus.  I could use a body, if you wouldn’t mind,” which he knew Sherlock wouldn’t.  The boy was all-too eager to participate in Mycroft’s magical experiments whenever possible.

  “Okay!” Sherlock exclaimed, predictably. 

  So Mycroft spent the rest of the afternoon happily incapacitating his brother, an exercise in stress-relief that not only satiated his brother’s hunger for magic, but also made Mycroft feel much more relaxed (not that he’d tell Sherlock that).

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Mycroft had packed, dressed, and gone downstairs before the sun had even risen on September the 1st, still full of nervous anticipation and excitement that hadn’t allowed him to sleep for more than a few scant hours that night.

  He spent an hour and a half pacing the front hall before finally someone else came downstairs for the day—it was Mummy, her appearance perfectly groomed and impeccable as always.  She seemed startled to see him.

  “Mycroft, darling!  Why are you doing up so early?  Don’t tell me you’re developing your brother’s insomnia,” she said with a tone of exasperation.  Mycroft didn’t really blame her—it was a nightly struggle for her to get her little one into bed, and even if she succeeded it was never for very long.  Sherlock believed that sleeping was boring, and there was just no way to get him to sleep if he felt he had something more interesting going on.

  “No, Mummy.  I was just too excited to sleep much.  Surely you haven’t forgot that I leave for Hogwarts today!”

  Virginia sighed.  “Of course not.  I have been dreading this day a little bit, to be honest.  You’ll be gone for most of the year; I can’t help it!  I feel like you’re leaving the nest already.”  She clucked her tongue in disappointment.  “What’s a poor mother to feel?  I worry that without you around I shall have to smother Sherlock in all my excess love, which I doubt he’d survive.”

  Mycroft smiled soppily at his mother’s ridiculous words, but his heart stung a little bit as well.  In all his excitement he’d forgotten that once he left, he wouldn’t see his Mummy for months.

  Sherlock joined them not terribly longer after that, and the three of them ate breakfast together.  To his surprise, Sherlock was quiet and withdrawn, not at all as excited as Mycroft thought he’d be.

  “What’s the matter with you?” The older boy asked, after fifteen minutes of not one interjection from the younger in the conversation—a rare feat practically unheard of.

  Sherlock looked up from the eggs he’d been poking at with a fierce expression, aimed at Mummy of all people.  “Ask her,” he exclaimed hotly, gripping his fork in a white-knuckled hand.  “Ask her what she was doing on the phone last night!  Ask her how you’re getting to King’s Cross Station today!”

  Bemused, Mycroft turned jade eyes upon his mother.  “What is he talking about?”

  Virginia delicately set down her fork and daubed at her mouth with a cloth napkin before speaking.  “It is rude to eavesdrop, Sherlock.”  The curly-haired child sucked in a breath and Mycroft could feel a tantrum coming on—but Virginia had already turned to her eldest.  “I was ordering you a taxi cab.  It will arrive at nine-thirty this morning and take you to London for your train.”

  Mycroft’s heart seized up in his chest, electrified in his shock.  “Why … why would we take a cab when we can use the car, Mummy?”  His mind was circling endlessly, looking for an explanation that didn’t fill him with anxiety. 

  “Because she’s not going!” Sherlock cried, and Mycroft couldn’t muffle his sharp inhale.  “She’s not going and I’m not allowed to go, either!”

  “What?! Mummy …?”

  Virginia was perfectly calm, taking a sip of breakfast tea and saying, “Of course you’re not going.  Don’t be silly, Sherlock, a four-year-old can’t take a cab back from London all by himself.  It’s simply impossible.”

  Mycroft’s insides curled in anxiety. First he’d had to go to Diagon Alley with strangers, and now he’d be going all the way to the busiest train station in England by himself! He couldn’t believe it.  It was like his mother was distancing herself from him—but why? What had he done to displease her?

  With considerable effort, he cleared the fog of selfish indignation from his mind, and came to a new realization in the clarity. She was not distancing herself exclusively from him, but from the whole world.  Since her husband abandoned them, Virginia had not left the house once, not even to go to her friends’ for afternoon tea like she used to.  In fact, she had hardly contacted them at all, only taking the rare phone call every now and again when they called to check up on her.  Siger’s absence had hit the family hard … but he could see that it hit his Mummy the hardest of all.

  She reached across the table to place a hand over his.  “Don’t look so gloomy, darling, you know I would come with you if I could.  But I’m afraid that I’m just not feeling up it. London is a fair distance away; it would be such a long trip.  Sherlock cannot go because he is so young—but you, my clever little boy … I’m not worried about you at all!”  She suddenly had tears in her eyes, as she stood up from the table and moved to cradle Mycroft in her bosom, petting his hair like she used to when he was Sherlock’s age, scared of the darkness at night.  He clutched her bony, pale arm and fought the sting in his eyes, threatening to well up in tears. 

  Guilt curled up inside his throat and clogged his airway. He felt guilty that it was him who drove Father away and caused Mummy all this pain.  He felt guilty that even after depriving her of her husband, he was abandoning her now as well.  He’ll be gone all year …!  How is that repaying her for standing up for her eldest son?

  Sherlock had started to cry now too.  Virginia held out her free hand to him and he joined Mycroft in embracing their mother, a small family made smaller all lamenting their loss together—first of father, and now of son, even though Mycroft wasn’t really leaving for good. 

Adrift as they were in a sea of love and loss, the Holmes family nearly missed the sound of the doorbell ringing, signalling the arrival of the taxicab.

  “Oh, look at me, tearing up like a sentimental old fool,” Virginia admonished, relinquishing her hold on her children to daub carefully at her eyes with a tissue.  “That will be the driver—Mycroft, be a dear and get the door.”