Hello, everyone,

Just a few words before we get into this. First things first, this story will focus a lot on the Sherlock characters themselves, but it will eventually include some of the characters from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, so watch out for them later on when they become important. Also, for the story to work, the timeline of Harry Potter has been moved up 19 years in order to coincide correctly with the timeline of Sherlock, taking place during Order of the Phoenix and after His Last Vow (but ignoring the Abominable Bride). It will be in third-person for the majority of the story, save for John's blog entries every now and then. Enjoy the story!

Alright, John, take it away.

Chapter 1 - The Unexpected Development

The Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson

4th March, 2015

I know I really shouldn't be writing this right now, but it's something that's been on my mind for years and I need to get it off my chest. When my therapist Ella suggested I start a blog to talk about anything interesting that's happened to me, I always had to censor my work, as I have never been wholly truthful in my entries. Not everything interesting that's happened while I've been friends with Sherlock has been typed out for the world to see. If I had done that, I'd probably have been arrested, and would currently be serving a lengthy sentence in Azkaban. I don't think this post will ever see the light of day, but it feels better to write it. But if anyone ever sees this, I'm going to tell you the truth.

Magic is real.

I don't mean the cheap rabbit and hat tricks that those birthday magicians do for kids, I mean the turn teacups into tadpoles, flying broomsticks, and potion-making magic. No, I swear I'm not mad, despite all the time I've spent around Sherlock. I could get out my wand and make a vlog of this as proof, but again, I'd rather not get arrested. You'll just have to take my word on this and come to your own conclusions.

There's a secret community of witches and wizards living in Britain, centred in London. I think Sherlock had the magical community in Britain estimated to be around 15,000, so it's not like we're going to rise up and take over things. We like to keep quiet, which is why you've never heard of us. We have our own school, bank, shops, and bars. Most witches and wizards stay in the magical community their whole lives, never interacting with the Muggle – that's what wizards call non-magical people – world. However, there are a few from that community that venture out from that secluded world, like me. But my parents were non-magical, as well as my sister Harry, so it wasn't as though there was anything to keep me in that world after I graduated and my school friends died in a wizarding war. But that's a story for another time.

All of the adventures I've had with Sherlock that I've written on my blog were actually slightly different in reality. Even the first time I visited our flat I had to omit some descriptive detail. It was still a mess, like I said in my earlier entry. Papers everywhere, experiments festering in every corner, and that skull of his 'friend' sitting on the mantle of the fireplace. I didn't mention that cauldrons littered the table in the kitchen; one was bubbling with sludge that was a concerning gray, permeating the flat with an odd metallic smell, and the other a disturbing bogey colour. He had a jar with a pickled Cornish pixie sitting out on the counter, just as you please. The dishes were cleaning themselves in the sink (though I learned later that was because Mrs. Hudson had charmed them to do that as Sherlock wasn't going to do it himself). Honestly, with the state the flat was in, he was lucky that he didn't just pick up a random Muggle off the streets and ask them to be his roommate. So I chastised him for that, since he would have been breaking magical law if he had told a Muggle about magic. I didn't know back then, but clever, bloody Sherlock Holmes had deduced I was a wizard back at the hospital. Something about knowing that 'the dimensions of my inside pocket of my jacket weren't conducive to carrying a gun,' but how he made the jump from that to me having a wand, I don't know. I'd have to ask Sherlock again.

It was in the week after I moved into 221B that I realized that Sherlock's magical abilities hadn't really manifested themselves at all. I had been using magic around the flat a lot; it was nice to have a roommate and a landlady who wouldn't have a fit if the teapot starting pouring tea by itself. Mrs. Hudson, the saint, knows every cleaning spell known to wizardkind and helped keep the flat compliant to minimum health code. But in all that time I never saw Sherlock with a wand, or do any magic for himself. He was a genius potioneer; I may have achieved a respectable E in my N.E.W.T.s in the subject, but that man could brew anything if he put his mind to it. I wouldn't be surprised if he somehow happened upon the cure for cancer just because he was bored one day. Potions is a physical subject, and any person, magical or non-magical, could certainly be a dab hand at it. Like Sherlock said,"Potions is merely poorly understood chemistry."

The lack of magic-wielding ability, coupled with the fact that I did not remember a Sherlock Holmes attending Hogwarts in Ravenclaw (House of the intelligent – honestly, could you see him anywhere else?), I assumed he was a Squib, a non-magical born in a magical family. I had never seen a Squib besides the gross and cantankerous caretaker at school, but I knew they were looked down upon in magical society, usually opting to live in the Muggle world to actually do something with their lives instead of living as second-class citizens in the magical world. I never said anything to him about it; as I understood it from school, it was embarrassing to mention.

The first time the subject arose was after the Blind Banker case. Until then I had occasionally used magic to help with cases, but not too much mind you, I still had to keep it secret after all. A simple unlocking spell if Sherlock's lock-picking skills were taking too long with a particularly stubborn lock, or a silencing charm on our shoes if we were sneaking around where we weren't supposed to be. Anyway, Greg Lestrade from Scotland Yard had called us up, asking if we were interested in tracking down a thief that had been targeting elderly women. Sherlock was bored enough, thank goodness, and he tracked down the thief later that night to an unused warehouse. The only snag was that as the thief tried to escape, he smashed into a toolbox, and something dark swirled about, only to form into a giant spider of all things. Apparently our thief had an extreme case of arachnophobia, and he scrambled back to us without any hesitation to cower. When I stepped up to the spider, it immediately transformed into Sherlock, dead on the floor.

"Just a Boggart," I called back, and I dispatched it with a lazy Riddikulus. We still had a quivering mess of a man on our hands, which worried me. Doing magic in front of Muggles was very illegal, but I didn't know what to do with him, and I voiced this to Sherlock.

Sherlock was busy trying to keep the man's hands from his coat, but gave a solution. "Memory charm, obviously."

His solution didn't help, because I responded with, "I was always rubbish with memory charms." And I was. Back during the wizarding war, when I attempted a memory charm on a Muggle I erased five days of memories instead of five minutes. At that, Sherlock roughly pushed the man at me, and snatched my wand from my fingers, holding it deftly in the man's face. I didn't see how that would help; Sherlock was a Squib, and no matter how hard he tried, the wand wouldn't respond to him. Sherlock didn't like it at all when I told him that. He speared me with a scathing look, something I had only seen him direct at Anderson. He spoke clearly without hesitation, but his voice was thick with annoyance. "Obliviate," he said.

The man's eyes slid out of focus, and he relaxed into a dreamy state. There was no doubt that the spell worked. Sherlock tossed the wand at me as I stared at him, mouth agape like an idiot. "I never said I was a Squib," he said as he strode past me, briskly walking to the exit.

I never fully understood why, but from that moment onward, magic was more commonly performed in the flat. Sherlock often stole my wand, mostly to set a certain footstool on fire when he was bored, which annoyed Mrs. Hudson to no end. Eventually it got to the point where I had to dismantle the smoke detector simply to get silence during the interludes between cases. Occasionally something would fly across the flat into Sherlock's hand, which impressed me the first time I had seen it, especially since he performed it wandless. For all the times I've seen him do magic in the last few years, I've never seen him perform it with his own wand. He's quite fond of mine for the complex spells I've seen him cast, or he just snaps his fingers for the small ones. Sherlock was definitely a wizard, but his lack of a wand bothered me. It was usually the symbol of a wizard who was expelled from school, or broke the law to a degree that his wand was forcibly taken from him and snapped. And yet, he's never said anything, and I've never asked. I trust him enough that if it was important, he would tell me.

John paused for a moment, his fingers hovering over the keyboard of his laptop as he reread the last sentence he typed. He frowned at it, and was quite tempted to backspace the line and replace it with, I've been friends with him for over five years, and you would think he'd trust me enough to tell me. He sighed heavily. There were many things he didn't know about Sherlock Holmes; his childhood was rarely ever mentioned - and if it was it was usually in the form of vague comments from Mycroft when he decided drop by 221B to berate Sherlock for something- but never why he was without his own wand. From slips over the years, and those were far and few between, John gathered that Sherlock had attended Hogwarts, but not what year he attended. John ruffled his hand through his hair in annoyance. He knew the expulsion thing was unlikely, as he was sure that would have been mentioned in the papers.

Mycroft could be keeping it hostage as a punishment for Sherlock, he mused. He had a brief thought of Mycroft happily locking the wand away from Sherlock in a safe guarded by Britain's finest before shaking his head. God, I sound like Anderson with his crazy theories on how Sherlock survived the Fall. He shut his laptop with a snap at the same moment the toilet flushed in the ensuite. His wife, Mary, waddled out of the bathroom, her right hand resting lightly on her very pregnant stomach as her left hand shut the door behind her. She rolled her eyes at her husband lounging on the bed. "I will be so happy when this one is out of me," she said, gesturing to her stomach. "Morning sickness was bad enough, honestly, but I'm so sick of peeing all the time! I can barely get through an episode of a show before I have to dash to the toilet."

John smiled. "It's nearly nine months now. Not much longer."

"Hmm, I know." She flopped into the bed beside John, propping herself up on two pillows. "Not soon enough if you ask me." Her hand ghosted over the laptop's surface. "Were you writing a new entry on your blog? You haven't written one in months, not since. . . Christmas." Mary's voice trailed off with a fading trace of guilt as she saw John wince slightly. She lifted her hand from the laptop and gave his a quick squeeze.

"It's not really anything I would post, just something that's going to exist as a document on my computer as I try to figure some things out. I haven't written a blog entry in months because nothing interesting has happened in months. Mycroft is keeping Sherlock under strict lockdown as punishment for the Magnussen debacle, so it isn't as though I can pop my head into Scotland Yard when I'm bored to ask for something to do," he said shortly, but his frustration was not directed to Mary. She studied his face, knowing exactly where it stemmed from.

A little under three months before, Sherlock had been investigating Charles Augustus Magnussen, nicknamed the 'Napoleon of Blackmail' by the consulting detective himself. John loathed to think of the sociopathic newspaper owner who had him kidnapped and nearly burned alive in a bonfire, and threatened Mary with knowledge about her past. In some aspects John hated Magnussen more than he did Moriarty. Moriarty, as insane and dangerous as he was, still followed his own twisted code, and was at least cordial. Magnussen was different, taking extreme pride in tormenting his victims for the sheer pleasure of it, ignoring any and all social niceties that most people were ingrained with, simply because he believed himself above everyone else. John nearly broke the Statue of Secrecy when Magnussen urinated in the fireplace at 221B; every fibre of him was sorely tempted to curse the Dane, and he was only held back by a flick of Sherlock's fingers telling him not to.

John rubbed his face roughly. "It's a right mess. As much as I hated Magnussen, Sherlock blew it out of proportion by shooting him. He nearly got himself exiled-" Mary opened her mouth to comment, but John plowed through the sentence before she could speak, "and don't you lie to me and tell me he would be fine, because I know that even Sherlock bloody Holmes wouldn't have lasted long out in Eastern Europe. I was in Afghanistan, I know what a hell hole it can be in those countries, and I was lucky I came back."

Mary did nothing to deny his claims, but turned up the corner of her mouth slightly. "He did it for us, John," she insisted. "For a self-proclaimed sociopath, he sure knows how to sacrifice himself for others." She rested her hand on her stomach, staring hard as though she could see their unborn daughter. "Magnussen would have never let us free, no matter what you bribed him with. I know you didn't look at the memory stick I offered you, and I will never not be thankful for that, but if he let slip anything, I would have been ruined. Sherlock's brother would have tried to incarcerate me at the very least."

John let that last line go unchallenged. He gladly shared a lot with his wife, magic, tales from school, and all of his adventures with Sherlock, but there were darker memories from both wars he participated in that even he didn't want to face just yet, and he accepted that there would be things that she would never fully elaborate on. "Yes, but for as big as that brain of his is supposed to be, there were many better ways to go about dealing with Magnussen. A memory charm would have been the best. But no, he's Sherlock Holmes, he has to make a big show of it, so he goes and does that. And look where it's gotten him."

"Has he messaged you lately? Or has Mycroft banned mobile privileges again?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if he had," John snorted. "I don't think Mycroft realized how difficult Sherlock would be confined to a small space for long periods of time. It was bad enough at the flat when we went without a case for a few days. Last I heard Mycroft took away his laptop during a video call with Greg after he found out Sherlock had taken a knife to his walls out of boredom."

"So that was after Sherlock found a revolver and blew apart a chunk of Mycroft's fireplace," Mary chuckled. John laughed along with her, their amusement echoing slightly in the otherwise quiet room. Mary rolled over to her side and shifted closer to John. He placed his hand gently on her stomach. "You would think," she said, her smile still filled with mirth, "that the British Government could think of a better punishment for Sherlock over the Magnussen issue than to give him house arrest at Mycroft's. I think it's more of a punishment to Mycroft than it is to Sherlock."

"I think that was the plan, really, for Mycroft letting his brother kill a very influential mogul in the world, he needed punishment too. I swear sometimes Mycroft acts like a handler more than anything. I haven't had a message from Sherlock in days, but I imagine they're driving each other up the walls as usual." Which was true. Whenever Sherlock was allowed correspondence with the outside world, it was either to connect to Lestrade to solve cases, or to complain to John of whatever misdeed Mycroft had performed to Sherlock of the late. "I merely wanted to test the average extinguishing times of African blackwood and ebony. It is not as though Mycroft was ever going to use the carvings, and it's his own fault I'm this bored. He's the one that keeps taking away everything I need to focus on Moriarty . . ."

Which was the whole point of Sherlock's imprisonment with Mycroft the last few months. His return from exile came with strings; locate and deal with Jim Moriarty, if it was indeed him that broadcasted on all types of media the day Sherlock was to be sent to Eastern Europe. Sherlock had told John that it was Moriarty that had sent that message that day, if only to keep Sherlock tied to London. But since that day, there had not been even the smallest whisper of Moriarty's whereabouts. Separated from Sherlock as he was, John wasn't the best help, though he had checked out some of Moriarty's old known locations on Sherlock's behalf. Despite the fact the government knew that Sherlock was their best hope when it came to Moriarty, they still felt obliged to punish him in some way for his actions at Christmas. Any prison he'd be deposited in he would only start a riot, and being allowed house arrest at 221B would not bother him greatly (with the three weeks he once spent glued to the sofa as evidence, John mused). Mycroft was the solution, and Sherlock was watched at all times lest he manage to sneak out of the house. Again.

Mostly, John thought, Sherlock contacted him as often as he did – though it was never anything besides complaints or investigative requests – because he missed him. John knew that the month after he married Mary had been rough for Sherlock; after all, he had been briefly engaged and forcibly dragged out of a drug den, though not necessarily in that order. Sherlock would never admit any of that aloud, and as Mary had pointed out all those months ago, since he was like a child that had been feeling out of sorts because a baby sibling had come along, John would have to put some effort into showing that their friendship had not changed.

Before John could dwell on his friend's subtle whinging for attention further, a small, but strong nudge came from below his hand. Mary gasped softly in surprise. Both of their faces split into adoring grins as they glanced down to the source of the kick.

"Goodness, she has a wicked kick." Mary rubbed the spot where their daughter's foot had pressed and grimaced, though there was still a loving glow reflecting in her eyes. "She's going to be leaving me bruises if she doesn't come out soon."

"She's going to need a good kick considering she'll be growing up with someone like Sherlock in her life," John said, pausing for a moment to give Mary's stomach a tender look. "I can't imagine all the messes he'll drag her into when she's older."

"Like her father is any better," Mary quipped lightly. "Or her mother." She laid her head down on John's shoulder. "Let's face it, John, between the three of us, she's going to grow up just as mad as the rest of us."

John rested his cheek against Mary's hair, turning briefly to press a kiss there. There was silence for a few heartbeats before John offhandedly said, "When do you think we would tell Sherlock that we're not actually naming our daughter after him?"

"We? He's your best friend, so you can be the one to sit through his rant about why 'Sherlock is a suitable name for a girl'. I want no part of that."

"He was quite adamant on using his name for our daughter, wasn't he?" John smiled at the memory of Sherlock on the tarmac before he was supposed to leave to start his exile, attempting to keep the mood light by suggesting names for their child.

"Hmm, he was." Mary glanced to the bedside table, raising her eyebrow when she glimpsed the clock. "10 o'clock already? Don't you have to be at the clinic for tomorrow?"

"For the morning shift, yes."

"How about I get us a bag of popcorn, and we can settle down with the telly and a nice movie for the both of us." She waggled her eyebrows, daring him to refuse.

"Eating, this late?" John smirked. "I thought we were past the cravings?"

Mary smacked his arm. "Shush, you. I'm hungry, and I don't care what time it is, but I am getting something to eat." She started to pull away from him, but he tugged her back down. "Don't you get up, I'll get it for you," he said. John stood up from the bed, wincing slightly when his bones cracked as he stretched. As he was walking to the bedroom door, his mobile, which was placed next to his wand on the bedside table, pinged. John returned to the bed, sitting on the edge as he picked up the device and looked at the message on the screen.

Mass murder in Vauxhall. Interested? – SH.

"Speak of the Devil," John muttered. Mary nodded to herself at that, immediately catching on to who sent the message. His fingers flew across the screen as he typed a response.

Aren't you still under house arrest? John replied.

"Who died this time?" Mary asked casually, as though she was merely asking for the weather.

John looked up from the screen to meet Mary's eyes. "How did you –"

"Oh, both you and Sherlock get the same look plastered on your face." Mary gestured at him lazily. "You're both like excited children on Christmas. All bright eyes and manic energy."

The phone pinged again. Underpass where Dzundza hid. Meet me in 30 minutes. –SH.

"Mary, there's been a-" John started, but Mary cut him off again. "Go on, then," she said, making shooing motions to the door. "Go have fun with Sherlock. Goodness knows that you've been bored out of your mind on nights like these. It's not right in the world unless you're chasing after your mad friend and even madder villains." She winked, picking up the remote on the bed and switching on the telly.

In a flurry of excited movement, John crammed his mobile into his jeans pocket and snatched his wand off the shelf. He dashed to her side of the bed and gave her a sweet, parting kiss. "Thanks, Mary."

Mary gave his arm a pat before he turned away to the closet, on the hunt for a jumper to help protect him from the winter cold. She flicked through several channels absentmindedly as she heard hangers scraping and clothes being pulled. "Why don't you put on your nice school scarf?" she called without looking away from the baking show she had settled on. John emerged from the closet, tugging a tan jumper over his head. She flicked her eyes over his attire briefly. "The red and gold would go really nice with your . . . brown look you always have going on," she smirked.

John pulled dark socks from the drawer and slipped them on one foot while awkwardly jumping on the other. "First it was the moustache, now my dress sense, is there anything else I need to know that I've been apparently doing wrong?" he said, but his voice was light.

"Oh, that's a list for later," she laughed. "Now go and find out what's important enough to manage to get Sherlock out of his prison."

As John left the room, his answer carried back to her. "I bet you Mycroft finally got sick of him."

It was sometimes odd to think that Mycroft Holmes was indeed human, and not some otherworldly creature who needed no sleep, simply existing to watch over his brother while simultaneously running the country without stopping to take a calming breath. It seemed hard to imagine that someone like Mycroft did not only exist in his room in Diogenes, or gracing government conference rooms, twirling that bespoke umbrella of his. He did have to take a pause in life, despite his supposed superiority over the others that populated the Earth, required sleep as anyone else – albeit was used to less than the customary eight hours – and as Sherlock loved to point out, required food just the same. Thus it was safe to correctly assume, although it was not used often, that Mycroft owned a house with a normal bed and kitchen.

It was such a house that Sherlock Holmes was currently trapped in. Like Mycroft, the house seemed to ooze professionality and a sense of aloofness. Elegant were all the antique carvings that adorned every inch of the space, from its crown moulding to the chairs that sat in each room. Impressive and intimidating was the front of the house; the brown bricks may have been slightly chipped, but the small iron gate blocking the rest of London from its doorsteps was ferocious and the oddly placed chimneys made it look as though it had horns, if you looked at it at a certain way. Children would call it the Demon House, and the man who called it home was just as cold as the ninth circle of Hell the house could have come from.

The parlour of this house had been taken over by its unwilling tenant. Presently this man lay on his back in the centre of the red-carpeted room, dressed in a blue bathrobe over thin, striped jim-jam bottoms and a holey white top. His eyes were squeezed shut in concentration, and his lips traced the words he spoke in his mind. His unruly dark curls were in need of a brush, his skin was paler than usual from his three-month confinement; overall, his entire being screamed at being held from solving cases throughout London, one of the only passions worth pursuing, in his mind.

Besides the sprawled consulting detective on the floor, his mark had been left around the rest of the room as well. The stone fireplace in the room was currently unlit, but soot surrounded the gate, hinting that a rather large fire had recently been held there. The fireplace mantle would have been a beautiful addition to the room, complementing the clear, well-kept age of its adornments, but a sizeable chunk had been blown out of the top right-hand side of it. Debris from the mess still littered the floor, but one corner of the mess had been swept away, as though someone had tried to clean it up and then had been chased away.

On the right-hand side of the fireplace, a very large thought web had been constructed out of string and paper, all tacked into the expensive wallpaper. At the very centre was a picture of Jim Moriarty himself, the smug photo of him from the newspaper after the trial three years ago. Strings branched out from his face in a multitude of directions, some leading to other faces, some to locations, and others to hastily written questions on scraps of papers. All of the faces had violent red streaked over them; dead ends, all of them. The locations were treated the same way, after John had confirmed their uselessness. Red blotched every corner of the web, save for one question scratched into the wood and wallpaper itself above Moriarty's head: How do you survive a bullet to the head?

This is what Sherlock muttered over and over as he lay on the hard floor. His mind raced through different possibilities, discarding each nearly as quickly as he thought of them, as they all never seemed to fit the facts he had. Several thoughts tumbled forward in the room that he designated for Moriarty, driving to the forefront of his mind.

Fact 1: It was Moriarty himself on that roof. No doppelganger stood in for him as he taunted and played his game. I would have seen through that in an instant, and he as well if I had planned to survive the Fall as such. We know each other too well.

Sherlock went through every second of the conversation he had on the roof. He focused on Moriarty's parting sentence, right before he pulled the trigger. "No. You're not. I see. You're not ordinary. No. You're me. You're me," Moriarty had said, looking into his eyes as though he was seeing the other for the first time. As disturbing as he was, he was unequivocally right; he was Sherlock, if people like Mycroft, John, Molly, and the others had not kept him firmly of their side of angels and all things right. There was no denying who was really on that roof that day. It was him.

Fact 2: Moriarty shot himself. Irrefutable. The glimpse I was given of the gun was enough to for me to confirm its legitimacy. The consequent mess of a gunshot to the head matched with the ones I had previously seen.

Sherlock drove deeper into the construct of the memory he made in his mind palace, and once again found himself on the roof of Bart's. That odd mix of sun and cloud shone down on him, but that stiff breeze he knew had been present he did not feel at that moment. He stepped around the scene himself, clad in his present bathrobe ensemble. He spared a brief glance to his past self, frozen on the concrete edge of the rooftop in mid-conversation with John, who he knew to be on the ground below him. He turned away and stepped closer to his felled nemesis, his bare feet slapping lightly on the roof's smooth surface. It was well worth it to be a skilled Legilimens, if only to examine his memories like this.

He ignored the pool of blood as he hovered over Moriarty, peering at his figure intently. As he had thought, the gun itself was real. The shot through his head had been clean, he noted as he examined Moriarty's head from both sides, and very lethal. There was no faking a misshapen hole like that in the back of one's head. Sherlock straightened himself and restarted the memory with a wave of a mental hand. He kept his eyes on Moriarty's body as his younger counterpart finished his 'last words' to John and jumped. Moriarty did not as so much twitch. The memory ended itself there, but he managed to confirm Fact 2. And yet that didn't answer the ultimate query. He whirled around in a fury, the robe swirling around him dramatically.

How do you survive a bullet wound to the head?

The question reverberated through his skull, taunting him, mocking his inability to answer it. With a growl, he violently tore his mind from the memory, and strode down the hallway of his mind palace, searching until he found the construct he built of 221B Baker Street, the home he missed so dearly. As he walked to his chair, he took in the garish red and gray carpet, cracked a small smile at the smiley in the rather gothic wallpaper, and flicked the stacks of papers overflowing on his desk. He settled in his chair, feeling comfortable, but not at home. The reddish chair in front of him remained empty, leaving an unwanted view of the kitchen. He paused for a moment, concentrating.

As though he had always been there, his mind's construct of John sat staring at him, expectantly. Fake-John was wearing the same outfit he had been when he first met him; black and white checkered button-down shirt, black trousers, and a loose-fitting, dark jacket. "So," he said. "It was definitely Moriarty on that roof."

Sherlock relaxed back into the chair, his fingers steepled under his chin. "Undoubtedly."

"He was dead," came another voice. Sherlock turned his head to the sofa, where Molly Hooper sat, wearing a white coat over a plain, white blouse and formal brown trousers, her hair simply pulled back. "I never saw his body," she continued, "nobody did. It disappeared. But what we just saw on the roof, that bullet wound should have killed him instantly."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at her presence in the flat. Molly had been an integral part of that day; without her, he knew for a fact that he would not have pulled off faking his death successfully. And yet, it was not the first time she had emerged in his mind palace as an internal voice of reason. Even though the events were hazy, he remembered immediately after Mary had shot him in Magnussen's office, she was there, coaching him into finding the will to survive, while Moriarty's voice had been trying to lure him to death. The version of Molly he constructed stared at him seriously, determinedly, showing none of the hesitation that her real-life counterpart used to show when he first met her. It had taken a few years, but she had grown considerably before standing up for herself and speaking her mind. Yes, Molly belongs here, he thought.

"It should have, yes," he agreed. "All the evidence points to it. But there's still something missing." He waved one hand angrily, frowning deeply. "Yes, Moriarty shot himself. Blood and brain blowing out, all the fun, gory detail that I don't care about. By all accounts, he shouldn't have been able to do anything except rot in the ground, and yet we have him gallivanting around London again, leaving whispers and ghosts behind him."

"Polyjuice, maybe?" Fake-John asked. "Moriarty lookalike goes up on the roof, shoots himself, while the real one continues living on."

"No, no, no." Sherlock jumped out of the chair and starting pacing irritably, pulling at his hair. "No, you're not listening! It was Moriarty on the roof. There was no switching around of people midway through the conversation, or anytime I turned my back. Moriarty threatened the lives of those around me with his own lips, not through a pager with the voice of a blind woman or a child. He was there, that was him seeing the climax of his game play out with his own eyes." As he paced, the robe rippled around him like a living blue shadow, ready to attack. "I am missing something. You lot are me, and you're not being helpful at all."

Fake-Molly watched his movements calmly, her serious expression never wavering. "What about magic? Could he have used magical means to survive that day?"

Sherlock paused in his pacing, staring at her for a moment, wondering why his mind had the only Muggle in the room speak so nonchalantly about magic. "Magic can't bring back the dead," he said bluntly, repeating what he had been taught since he could talk. "Everyone knows that."

Fake-John pulled a rolled-up newspaper from his jacket and tossed it on Sherlock's vacated chair. "I wouldn't be too sure."

Sherlock snatched the paper up and glanced at the front page. It was the Daily Prophet, the wizarding newspaper that he often stole from John moments after the owl delivered it in the mornings. Since John had moved in with Mary, Mycroft had arranged for Sherlock's own subscription despite his protests, if only to keep him updated about the goings-on of the world he had left. He remembered the headline that he was being shown. It was the one from late June of the previous year. The Boy Who Lies? It read.

He looked up over the newspaper at Fake-John, who said, "Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter claim that Voldemort is back. A man that died 14 years ago came back from the grave. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

"This is different," Sherlock barked, tossing the paper roughly back on his chair and resuming his pacing. "Moriarty has shown me nothing that allows me to connect him in any way to magic. He had every opportunity to do so, walked into our flat and surely saw all the experiments I had running in the kitchen, and made no comment of it at all. He showed no signs of carrying a wand, and I would have remembered if he attended Hogwarts. He was the same age as me and would have been in the same year, but he never went."

"But, Sherlock," Fake-Molly said. Sherlock whirled to her, calming slightly at her tone. "Moriarty had me convinced that he was an awkward man from the IT department, sweet in every way possible, and perfectly happy to date." It was here her serious face cracked a bit, and sadness leaked through. Sherlock remembered how devastated Molly had been when she found out she had been used, and the memory of her downcast face and slumped posture bled through here. She continued, her voice only containing a fraction of the emotion she had had when she actually lived it. "He acted the part of a gay man so well he had you believing that was what he was. He had the world believe he was Richard Brook, and that you were a fake genius." A tinge of anger showed now in her voice, and Sherlock had to wonder what part of himself it stemmed from. "If he could do all that, how would you really know if he wasn't just tricking you again, and that he actually did have a magical trick up his sleeve?"

It was then Sherlock sat down again, carelessly tossing the newspaper to the floor. He wiped his hand down his face in exhaustion. "Voldemort is back, there's no doubt about that, but there is a lot of evidence present to allow me to assume he did not die on that Halloween night back in 2002 like most of the wizarding world believed. Though I can't imagine his existence would have been better than the lowest of ghosts." Sherlock paused, steepling his fingers under his chin once more, capturing the eyes of both Fake-John and Fake-Molly simultaneously. They both blinked at him, waiting. "But Moriarty surviving in the same way. . . " He continued slowly, drawling out the words. "Voldemort was a master of the dark arts, and had decades to perfect a way to cheat death. Moriarty has shown no knowledge of magic, let alone the dark magic that would prolong life." He shook his head. "As of right now, there are no facts, and I refuse to try to fit theories to nothing but speculation."

Fake-John leaned forward in his chair. "But you will keep it in mind, won't you?"

"Of course," he said. As much as he disliked to think that Moriarty had been hiding magic from him all of this time – it tarnished his reputation as a master of the art of deduction, after all – he could not help but think that it could be plausible that magic could be involved. He stood once more and walked over to the wall above the sofa where Fake-Molly sat. The string map he had created beside Mycroft's fireplace appeared there, complete to every small detail. Fake-Molly and Fake-John flanked his sides in a second.

"If Moriarty wanted to remain underground in a way you haven't considered, he wouldn't be using these people," Fake-Molly said, reaching out to pull down the photos marked with red.

Fake-John tapped his chin thoughtfully. "What if he created a new network? New people, people you've never had your eyes on?"

Sherlock stared at Moriarty's face as the nonessential photos were torn down, leaving a blank slate once more. "It's the only logical explanation," he agreed. "He's exhausted all old contacts. That web had clearly been destroyed, I made sure of it all those years ago. Obviously he has been able to source a new web of untraceables, but the question is, who? Were they able to assist him in surviving the bullet wound? Did he find a wizard to help him?" He ruffled his hair. "There's too many unanswered questions. I don't like not knowing. I need data."

"He needs to show himself, make his move," Fake-Molly said quietly, looking up at him. Her face was soft, tinged with sadness. Sherlock knew that Molly would be concerned firstly with the loss of countless lives that were always associated with Moriarty moving out from the shadows. It certainly showed on his construct of her now.

"What he does now will set the game." Fake-John's face hardened into the soldier that dutifully followed his friend into the battlefield. He crossed his arms stiffly, his shoulders set. "Whatever he emerges with, that will be how we solve the mystery of his survival."

The three of them stared at the lone picture on the dismantled string map, contemplating in silence, before a voice echoed through the flat, muddled as though someone was speaking through thick glass.

"Sherlock," the voice called, coloured with annoyance. The three looked up at the ceiling. "Come now, little brother, up you get."

All three twisted their faces in identical expressions of exasperation. "Oh, what does he want this time?" Fake-John spat, but in Sherlock's voice.

"Honestly, how can he expect us to get any actual work done when he's always bursting in like this?" It was rather disturbing hearing his baritone rumble past Molly's thin lips, but he could not help but agree with what his mind thought of the situation. Sherlock sighed heavily, and banished the constructs he created of his friends. The flat dissolved into a whirlwind of blurred colours as he pulled his mind from the deepest depths of his mind palace until the voice that had been calling to him became clear.

"Really, now, there are more comfortable places to lay, Sherlock. Your back would prefer it," Mycroft said with the perfect amount of disdain, from somewhere above him.

Sherlock remained with his eyes closed on the floor for a few seconds longer than he needed, if only to put off the inevitable painful conversation a little longer. He took the time to take a stock of where he was again. His fingers brushed against the thin carpet he lay on, feeling the hardwood floor underneath that. His back did seem to ache a bit from the position he was in; if he had to guess from the discomfort, he had been on the floor for at least three hours. Mycroft's foot tapped impatiently from beside his ear. He listened to the sound of the shoe lightly hitting the wood for a moment before concluding, as a distraction, that Mycroft had chosen to wear the Oxfords that day.

"Let's not be petty, Sherlock. You have to face me at some point, and I do not feel like indulging in another one of your little standoffs again," Mycroft said. Sherlock could perfectly imagine the expression of disapproval that was sure to be gracing his face at the moment; a slight, pouty frown, downcast face, and eyebrows pinched together. Sherlock opened his eyes, and when the dark spots cleared, he found the exact expression gazing down at him, as predicted.

"What do you want, Mycroft?" Sherlock snapped. He sat up slowly, shaking his head slightly to clear the dizziness that followed. Mycroft stepped back from him, brushing off imaginary dust from his black, pinstriped, three-piece suit, clutching that trademark bespoke umbrella. His hair had thinned a bit more since Christmas, and a small smattering of grey hairs could be found among the rest, but whether that was from dealing with the fallout from Magnussen or because he had to share residence with the likes of Sherlock Holmes, it was up to debate. He straightened his red tie as Sherlock stumbled to his feet, stretching to sort the pain his back (not that he would ever admit that to Mycroft). Sherlock moved to sit in one of the ancient, decorative wooden chairs that was closest to him. He returned Mycroft's cold look with his own scathing glare. "Well?" Sherlock demanded. "You never stop by for social visits, so something must have happened. Unless you've come to carry on about my failures in locating Moriarty again."

Mycroft leaned on his umbrella and threw Sherlock a thin smile. "Really, Sherlock, has our brotherly relationship devolved to this? Trivial remarks and rude actions?"

"Please, I thought we've already established you prefer to be called 'mother'," Sherlock said, crossing his arms over his shirt.

"And there goes any hope of this conversation being free of your pettiness."

"Petty? I'm not petty. I'm simply waiting for the moment when you lament about my failures yet again."

Mycroft's mouth twitched. His eyes raked over the map on the wall with all the dead ends, making his own observations with what data Sherlock had managed to collect. "Well, it has been three months and you still do not have any leads on Moriarty. It is your own fault that you have not been able to make any correct conclusions so far."

"Ah, there's the insult. I knew you couldn't resist." Sherlock rolled his eyes dramatically.

"It has been difficult enough arguing with the people concerned with your return from exile that you are the only one who can deal with Moriarty," Mycroft sneered. "It would be quite helpful if you actually presented something I could work with to assure them that you are taking care of it."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, standing swiftly. "They can feel free to solve it themselves if they aren't satisfied with me working the case. I am the only one who he will respond to, the only one he would bother coming out of the dark for." Sherlock raised his voice in response to the swelling of anger he felt in his chest. "I have no facts! If it weren't for them I could be out searching for evidence myself, but I'm trapped here relying on nothing but John's sporadic intelligence and papers three years dated! If they want useful information, I need out!"

"It is not as though I am enjoying the arrangement either," Mycroft added. "Like it was 17 years ago, it is more of a punishment for me than it is for you." His eyes fell to the damaged fireplace mantle, and flickered to the carving in the wood, his frown deepening. "And like 17 years ago," his voice oozing his annoyance, "you have begun to destroy my house again out of spite."

Sherlock didn't even spare a glance to the damage he had wrought to the room. He paced in response, showcasing his cabin fever. His hands waved in the air. "Yes, well, if I wasn't trapped here, I wouldn't have to resort to such methods to alleviate the boredom." He stopped, and whirled on Mycroft. His robe flared as dramatically as it had in his mind palace. "To the point, Mycroft. Why did you come in here? Despite the fact we're begrudgingly trapped in the same house as each other, you don't tend to stop by for inane chats."

"Hmm, quite." Mycroft straightened his posture, staring down his brother with a neutral expression. "After a lengthy conversation with the aforementioned people concerned for your welfare, I have managed to secure your freedom." He grinned smugly at Sherlock.

Sherlock perked up in interest, hope flooding his body for a brief moment before skepticism crept in. His eyes darted over Mycroft quickly, trying to find the answer to the question he was about to ask. "Something's changed," he concluded. Sherlock stepped closer, peering intently into Mycroft's face. Mycroft gazed down in displeasure at the invasion of personal space, and leaned back slightly. Sherlock pointed at Mycroft's face, stepping back once more. "You would have never put an effort to do that if nothing had happened, and certainly you and the rest of the British Government would not let me out of your amusing punishment unless he had done something. Tell me, Mycroft. What did Moriarty do?"

Mycroft pulled the face that reflected how much he was merely humouring his brother's deductions. "I see now you can finally make correct conclusions regarding Moriarty," he said, dodging the question, if only in revenge for Sherlock's earlier pettiness.

Sherlock growled in response, his face twisting with impatience. He resumed his pacing to burn off the frustration building inside him. "Tell me. Get on with it so you can go back to pretending you don't feel guilty for eating the last bit of cake."

Mycroft lifted an eyebrow at that statement, but did nothing to refute it. He twirled the umbrella once before responding. "The homeless of Vauxhall have all been murdered." He paused, catching Sherlock's eyes for the next sentence. "I am having the Aurors held off until you get there."

Sherlock stopped cold in the middle of his pacing. He frowned, turning slowly until he faced Mycroft's profile head-on. He took a step forward, the old wood creaking under his bare feet. "And what do the Aurors want with the homeless?" he asked, his voice steely with seriousness.

"It seems that the preliminary consensus is that the cause of death is the killing curse." Mycroft continued to survey Sherlock with that smug look of his.

"And Moriarty?"

"Left a charming message on the wall."

Silence fell in the parlour for several short moments. Sherlock's mouth worked inaudible words while Mycroft looked on, waiting. Sherlock closed his eyes briefly, his body as still as a statue, before he suddenly jumped with manic energy, a true grin blossoming across his face. "Oh, this is new." He dashed around to the wall with the string map, and tore it down in one go like he had Molly do in his mind palace. The pins clattered carelessly across the carpet, and Mycroft adopted the disapproving look once more. "This is fantastic! An angle that I wasn't sure if I would have to consider."

Sherlock bounced to Mycroft and held out his hand. "Give me my mobile, I need to text John." Mycroft reached into the pocket of his trousers to retrieve the device, and Sherlock plucked it out of his fingers before it even properly cleared the pocket. "Magic! Brilliant!" he breathed as he unlocked his phone. Mass murder in Vauxhall. Interested? – SH, he typed, and pressed the send button with enthusiasm.

As expected, John sent a reply almost immediately. Aren't you still under house arrest? Sherlock huffed in annoyance, stalking past Mycroft to exit the room as he ignored John inquiry, not in the mood to explain the details of his release over texts. Instead, he sent one more text, if only to ensure that John would drop anything he was presently doing to join him at the scene. Underpass where Dzundza hid. Meet me in 30 minutes. –SH.

"I expect to be informed of everything that transpires," Mycroft called, stopping Sherlock just before he bounded out of the room to get changed. Sherlock's head twisted around the frame of the parlour entrance, disgruntled. "I would rather not have to lie on record again for you, especially after the mess you and Moriarty made the last time. It is annoying when people die; it makes for a lot of paperwork."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Since when have you started caring? It's unlike you, Mycroft. You should stop now while you're ahead."

A long-suffering sigh escaped Mycroft, and he leaned wearily on his umbrella. His face fell into creases, showing the effect of his high-stress job and what the relationship with his brother had done to age him. "I always worry, little brother," he said tiredly, for the moment sounding world-weary. He cleared his throat, trying to bury the emotion before speaking again. "Moriarty, despite the joy you take out of solving his riddles, is dangerous, and we learned that the hard way with the Fall. Err on the side of caution." Sherlock turned away, walking to the stairs and starting to ascend to his room. Mycroft raised his voice, attempting to make his point clear. "In this case, Sherlock, it would be rather beneficial to your health to carry your wand."

But the only response Mycroft received was the slam of a heavy door upstairs. He sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering if Sherlock truly realized the danger he was about to walk into.