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His Federation rep strongly advised against his attendance in the interest of salvaging his career. Lestrade restrained himself from telling the young man where he could stuff his career and instead contented himself with a terse restatement that he would be there.
He’d drunk two large whiskeys before he’d nerved himself up to ring Mycroft. It had been wasted booze; Mycroft was horribly pleasant with him,
“Yes, of course, you’re be welcome to attend,”
“The rest of your family won’t mind?”
“There will only be me.”
There was a long pause then while Lestrade searched for the right words, before he blurted out,
“I’m sorry,” at the same time as Mycroft said,
“You aren’t at fault,” before they both stopped again.
“I should have refused, when the Chief Super told me to arrest him, I should have refused, but I told myself we’d get it all sorted out, I believed in the system, that an innocent man like Sh... like your brother, would be fine.” Lestrade ran out of words and the pause drew out into a silence before he continued, “I know he didn’t invent it all, I know that Moriarty was real, I know that what he did, the people he helped, that it was all real.”
“Thank you,” Mycroft replied, "I was ... am, very proud of my brother.”