I had a sudden urge to continue writing this story - so much has happened since I wrote the premise two and a half years ago. I graduated from school, began university (architecture arrgggghh - first year of six DONE) - you know, fun stuff. Just finished my exams, hence the sudden inspiration to write! God, reading the first chapter of this surprised me at how terrible my English was. I haven't seen Sherlock in a few years (or at least, since the newest series came out - was that 2018?) so the characters might be a little off... apologies.

Many many thanks to those who reviewed, followed and favourited this story - I was just rereading the reviews last night, and wow, you guys are all so incredible, as are your comments. Thank you so much!

Sherlock stomped up to the government building, collar up, scarf as usual tied around his neck. John trailed after him, a little behind after having paid the taxi driver. There was a small smile plastered on his lips.

"What is that?" Sherlock asked, pushing though the doors. John looked up.

"What is what?"

"That, on your face?"

"We've been over this Sherlock, the moustache is gone. Apparently no one liked it."

Indeed, John was clean-shaven this morning.

"No the smile. Why are you smiling?"

"People smile, Sherlock. It's a thing people do when they're happy."

He raised an eyebrow at John, whose smile only widened.

"They're actually happy to see you-" A hand slapped on Sherlock's shoulder. At his recoil, it instantly withdrew. "No really, they are happy to see you." Lestrade had arrived. He gestured at various policemen that had turned at John's and his arrival. Indeed, there were peculiarly positive emotions playing out on their countenances.

"Everybody lies," Sherlock replied somewhat nonchalantly. He was glaring at Donovan who had poked out her head from a screen between offices. He held no grudge towards, her, not really, more towards her idiocy than anything else.

"And on that note, to the case: Neil Gibson, former US senator turned gold mogul — his wife of seventeen years, Maria Gibson was murdered by the governess. All damning evidence points to her—"

"If it's so damning why reopen the case?" John asked, accepting a file he'd been passed. He flicked through the gruesome pictures of the late Mrs. Gibson.

Lestrade sighed and glanced over his shoulder: behind a slightly opaque screen, sat a middle-aged man in one of the many interrogation rooms. There was much about him that Sherlock could instantly tell: the slightly hunched back, roguishly handsome looks, worn out, but what stood out the most, was the immeasurable guilt that was written across his countenance and constitution.

"Because it isn't such a simple whodunnit case anymore," Sherlock said, feeling an odd smirk stretch his lips into an unfamiliar position. This case was beginning to look more like an eight than a seven — and he never left the flat for anything less than a seven.

"That's right. The husband came in an confessed last night. We've been holding him in cells and interrogation rooms since then."

"I'll have to see the scene of the murder," Sherlock muttered more to himself than anyone else. He hadn't been on a proper case in two years. Coming back to it so radically was proving to be harder than he had thought it would be.

"Yes, of course — ah, ah ah—" Sherlock and John had turned to leave and were halted by Lestrade. "The chief superintendent is making me take on a journalist for this case. As it's so high-profile, he feels the need to have a correspondent from the press who'll go along with us."

"Seriously?" John was blinking at Lestrade incredulously.

"He wants to make sure that Sherlock's collaboration is made clear. Every article will go through me and through the chief superintendent."

Sherlock frowned. Since his last experience with the journalist Kitty Riley, who'd supported Moriarty's claims that he'd been hired by Sherlock to play the role of the consulting criminal, he'd become even more reporterphobic than he'd previously been. In fact, he had actually somewhat enjoyed the attention prior to his 'death'.

"Oh over here!" Lestrade exclaimed and began waving someone over. John turned and just by judging his expression, Sherlock already knew that the reporter was a woman, and that she was attractive.

Seconds later, a woman very familiar to Sherlock, stood in front of him. He gulped reflexively and placed his hands behind his back so as not to fidget publicly; for he knew that face, he had grown up with the woman that stood before him. Her curly hair was as wild as ever, and her sharp intelligent eyes were brimming with intelligence.

She was older and looked more like a woman, as opposed to the teenager that Sherlock had known upon leaving the wizarding world. There were faint wrinkles around her eyes that indicated a happy and lively life. Her clothes were muggle, of course, and slightly on the unfashionable side, which told him that she lived mostly in the wizarding world these days.

"—Sherlock," Lestrade was saying. "May I introduce to you Mrs. Hermione Weasley. She will be following you and me around as this case develops. I urge you to treat her with the utmost respect." He smiled at her again, evidently he liked her. "Mrs. Weasley, this is John Watson—"

"Mr. Watson, I really love your blog," Hermione said, grasping John's hand to shake it. John was flattered and gave her an awkwardly flirtatious smile. Sherlock reminded himself to remind John that he was getting married next month.

This fangirling would only strengthen John's belief that it was his blog that brought the clients. Oh well.

"Thank you very much," the doctor said.

"—And this is Sherlock Holmes, back from the dead," Lestrade said, gesturing to Sherlock. He refused her hand, frowning down at her, noting that he had grown enough over the years, to now be taller than her.

She was un by his refusal to shake hands and continued smiling.

"I very much love your analysis of the 243 types of tobacco ash, Mr. Holmes. I particularly enjoyed the bit about the medicinal rituals in Cuba," Hermione said.

Unused to this sort of flattery, he nodded once in thanks, an action that caused John to actually gape.

"Thank you for agreeing to take me with you," Hermione said.

"We did not agree upon anything. Good day," Sherlock said to Lestrade, then with a nod to each of them in goodbye, he spun around and rushed out of the building. He didn't wait for John and was about to get into his taxi, when someone appeared at his elbow. Hermione.

"Are you and Mr. Watson heading to the crime scene?" she asked innocently. Sherlock's brow became a deep frown. John, having now caught up looked at him with a look that said 'honestly'?.

"I have a prior engagement," Sherlock muttered.

"You do, eh?" John asked sceptically.

"Mycroft wants to see me."

"You're abandoning a case for Mycroft?"

"Do you mean Microsoft?" Hermione interjected, obviously accustomed to correcting her wizarding acquaintances and family when it came to muggle terms. Both Sherlock and John turned to look at her oddly.

"Mycroft — his brother," John's eyes were flickering with mirth as he said that. Hermione ahhed and blushed slightly, before muttering a small sorry. Sherlock ducked into the taxi and slammed the door shut, only finally letting out a sigh of relief when he gave the driver directions for the Diogenes Club.

Questions swam in his mind, making his head hurt and him grit his teeth. It wasn't rational to freak out like this; it certainly wasn't the way that Mycroft had taught him. And it certainly wasn't very much like him.

Sherlock grit his teeth; Mycroft had promised that his old life would never cross over with his present one. He had promised that he would never have go back, and yet, somehow Hermione had found her way to Scotland Yard. And she was a journalist now? And married to Ron?

He felt panic rise within him. He hadn't been prepared to see anyone from his life as Harry Potter quite like that — especially not a person he had once considered his family. There was an urge within him to tell her her who he really was, but he knew that if he spilled the beans to her, a chain reaction would ensue and soon he would be frozen in the same life as Harry Potter.

Sherlock had not even thought of that name in years, not to mention called himself that. The name no longer belonged to him and it no longer applied to him. He was no longer that person and he had no wish to be that person.

"That'll be fourteen pounds, sir," the cabbie said. Sherlock pushed some amount of notes into his hand and rushed out before the man could dig out the change. He rushed up to the Diogenes Club. He ignored the concierge, who called for him to put on slippers to make less noise, and straight to the back room, the single area in the entire gentleman's club in which it was allowed to talk.

He stormed right through, interrupting Mycroft during a call on his mobile phone.

"Ah, I'm afraid this conversation has to come to an end, Prime Minister," he said upon seeing a fuming Sherlock standing in the middle of the room, glaring at him. "I have been alerted of a… crisis…. Ah, no nothing terrible."

He hung up, placed his phone on the coffee-tabletop and stood up. He straightened his vest out; Sherlock noticed that his jacket was uncharacteristically slung over the back of his arm-rest. How odd, it was not like Mycroft to be so careless.

"What now, Sherlock?"

.

"Is he always quite like that?" Hermione said with a frown as she watched the car drive off. Mr. Watson sighed in an exasperated sort of way, as though this happened to him every day. He began searching the streets for the next taxi.

"I don't always quite know what's going on in his head, if that's what you're asking. But yes, he's mostly a dick."

"Ah," Hermione said. From what she had heard and read about Sherlock Holmes, he was a piece of work: mean, on the verge of brutal, yet truthful, and incredibly sharp — a genius. He was attractive, in a brooding sort of way: thick eyebrows, piercing eyes that she was sure she had seen somewhere before, hollow cheeks and an intimidating leanness and height.

"But he's a great man too, not many people understand that," Mr. Watson continued, waving over a cab. "I suppose he's gone over to 221B: he'll probably spend the night brooding but he'll have come around by tomorrow. We'll be at the crime scene at around eleven… you could coincidentally be there at the same time…"

Hermione smiled kindly at the older man. "Thank you, Mr. Watson."

"It's John," he said as he climbed into the cab.

"Hermione," she offered. "After all, I will be following you until this case is over."

He smiled. "I'm looking forward to it."