A bit of Sherlock world (Movie-with RDJ) over here and there. No warning except possible OoC. First time Sherlock movie, so no guarantee on canon stuff either. Annnnnd UNBETAED. So you have been warned.

Inspired by the Master of Death by Esama.

Enjoy!

Bloody hell.

He was standing in the middle of bloody nowhere. The buildings looked very unfamiliar unlike the pictures of L.A. casinos' flashy lights, the snow telling him that he was in the wrong season compared to the supposedly hot temperature of California he was supposed to be in, and the stench around him was… utterly unbearable. Something that is unacceptable by society standard he was from (this kind of smell would illicit the worse complaint from surrounding citizen to the government, crying about stupidity and the misplaced of taxpayer's money).

Harry Potter sighed. It always his fate, wasn't it? Someone far above loved to play with his life. What was wrong with a nice, normal, boring life for a Harry Potter? No, no. There shall always be problems for the Bloody Fucking Harry Potter. His life was everything but boring or ordinary.

A minute ago he was in the departure longue of the international Portkey inside the Magical side of Heathrow Airport. His destination was L.A. It was a simple assignment from his department head, Kingsley Shacklebolt. His boss was apparently very worried over Harry, stating that the Boy-Who-Lived has started to become The Boy-Who-Lived-To-Work. Harry didn't understand why he was called as workaholic, since he was nothing like one. True, he always brought work to home, but that was because every case was very important and pushing to finish. He also always tried his best for every case, and wouldn't let himself sleep before he finished one perfectly. Hell, he didn't need to eat or sleep sometimes—he was fine with the irregular lifestyle—the life with Dursley has trained him to overcome seventy hours without meal.

So, basically under the pretence of 'assignment', Harry was assigned to go to L.A., given a stack of galleons (about ten times his monthly wage—apparently since Harry had been pulling an all-nighter for the two-third of the last two years, the Ministry of Magic's accounting department was bullied by Harry's fellow aurors to give Harry a 'sufficient compensation' for this particular 'assignment'), paid return ticket London-L.A., and a booked hotel room for two weeks. Shacklebolt also specified that Harry needed to 'make sure that there was no suspicious being on that hotel's areas, especially the swimming pool, the casino and the nightlife'. Harry should spend his time in those three places, preferably blending to his surrounding by gambling, reading PlayWizard magazines by the pool (while watching for anything suspicious, of course) and acted as a usual patron to nightlife clubs there.

Harry didn't know how to reject the order, so he accepted it. He had told Ron and Hermione about it, and both of them looked like Christmas came early. Finally, Hermione sobbed, you are a desk no more! And ran to Harry's flat through the floo. Ron was not overreacting like Hermione did, but he was still happy enough to hug Harry. Good on you, mate, was what Ron said to him before Harry realized that Hermione had returned from Harry's room with a well prepared (and Harry's only one) suitcase.

"Everything you need is in here," Hermione stated. "Please do not worry over anything else; I am sure I had perfectly prepared everything in this suitcase. Now, off you go!"

"My portkey is not until three hours from now," Harry sighed half-heartedly. "I still have time to burn."

"No, no." Hermione shook her head. "You need to go there three hours earlier the latest. You'll never know what happened. Maybe you'll get traffic jam and everything…"

"We are wizards, Mione." Ron smiled at his fiancée. "We can apparate there."

Hermione blushed. "Oh… Sorry, I was still in the muggle jet lag. My parents insisted I need to visit them via the muggle way last week."

They ended up having the last supper before Harry went away, which was ironically named now that Harry realized what happened to him. So yeah, back to the reality in front of him. it was in the middle of a harsh winter, with snow everywhere, people coated with thick clothing and he was in the middle of a unbearably smelly market. Luckily it was still noon in this place, so Harry took the initiative to cast a heating charm on himself and went to the nearest alley.

There he opened the suitcase—but it looked nothing like a suitcase. Instead, he had a black hole. Harry didn't know what to do, so he inserted his hand into the hole, wishing for a winter coat. His hand caught something, and when he pulled it out, Harry found his old and well used knitted sweater. Well, that was better than nothing and Harry quickly put it on. But it was still bloody cold, even with the strong heating charm he had casted on himself, so he went to wish for another one. By the time he finished, he was wearing all his knitted clothes with a thick scarf. Bless Hermione to actually pack some warm clothes despite his destination being in L.A. and their famous beaches.

And then Harry Potter set out to the world he never known before.

It was just his luck to be send by a wrongly dated (and magically still impossible nevertheless happened) portkey experience, Harry mussed as he settled himself in a small house outside what he guessed to be London in 1920s. The exact date was 10 November 1926, courtesy from the posted announcement all over the city.

But he was nothing less of a workaholic; after three days of surveillance and watching his surrounding, he started to feel restless. He needed to do something; he knew that the pressing matter was to search the way back home to his proper timeline, yet since Harry was no researcher like Hermione, he knew that researching (especially with the current's era's knowledge) was futile. So instead, Harry focused on adapting the lifestyle. Harry had managed to find Diagon Alley and settled himself two blocks from there, in a small apartment above the shop, by the address 223 Baker Street.

He started with buying the necessaries and making his small house comfortable. That took a week time, and by the end of the week, the feeling of restlessness came back with vengeance.

So Harry started to wonder around London, curiously watching muggles' steam engines and motor vehicles. Muggles were still wearing cape-like robes like the year 2000's Wizarding's fashion, and having a walking stick was acceptable for a gentleman (Harry immediately transformed his wand into a cane). He also rejoiced the fact that one galleon was equal to 100 sickles, and one sickle equals to 100 knuts. The currency rate was so good that even with his 'compensation' alone, Harry was sure he could let himself be jobless for the next five years and still considered himself to be a moderately comfortable. The inflation rate was small too, compared to the 2000s where he came from, so Harry spent his month week going around the place, watching how everything was done.

It was really not his intention when one morning when Harry was contemplating what to do that day, he remembered about Voldemort. It was his scar. Suddenly it flared with familiar pain, something that Harry never had ever since he defeated Voldy ten years ago (and a good 82 years from then). Harry rubbed his forehead, wondering why his scar hurt. Then he saw the newspaper's date. It was 23 December 1926, the month and year Tom Marvolo Riddle was born.

Oh, Harry almost spilled his morning tea. The idea of being a 28 years old man when dear Voldy was born was very amusing. Or confusing. But the most important thing was the sudden tickle of his curiosity, to see how did Voldy looked like when he was fresh out from the oven. So he took his coat and his wand, casting the locating spell.

Suddenly being estranged in the 20s wasn't so bad.

He found Merope Gaunt (or was it Riddle?) walking slowly, crawling through the London Lower end towards one of the worse orphanage around the area. Since it took him only 3 hours to find Merope, Harry was sure Merope would not given birth till a good week from then.

As he saw Merope's frail and pitiful image, Harry suddenly felt protective. Cursing his hero mentality, Harry watched as Merope watched the orphanage, looked into her hand, patting her swollen belly, and walked back to her semi-house under the bridge. It was a pity Tom Marvolo Riddle came out a bit bitter than most. If only Merope lived to see his son at least reached the age of five, maybe something will be different. At least it seemed like Merope did actually love her unborn child enough to make sure the baby would stay alive after she gave birth.

So Harry spent the rest of the week following the woman. Christmas came and went, Harry noticed without interest. He had nobody to celebrate the holiday with. Usually what he did was to enjoy a cup of nice English Breakfast in the café underneath his apartment (they have a good set of English Breakfast ready by 8 a.m. every morning). He also started to become more familiar with the owner of the shop (an old man with yellowing teeth but also possessed some roguish charm, making him 'handsome' by the current society's standard) after coming every opening day for the last one month. And then he would come to the usual roadside, casted confounding charm around himself and watched Merope Gaunt's daily rituals. Then he went home, bought something and cooked himself a good meal.

By the end of the year, Harry woke up utterly excited and prepared some additional things inside his rucksacks, like blanket and hot water bottle. He could conjure water and heated it with heating charm afterward, and he set to camp near the orphanage, waiting for the showdown of the century: the birth of Voldemort!

And… he truly enjoyed it, watching how hard Merope had her time until Tom deigned it was time to relief his mother from pain. "Tom Marvolo Riddle," she coughed it in her last effort before she gave her last breath.

But his blood turned cold when he heard the matron's voice.

"I don't suppose we can take care of this little runt, no? Looking at his mummy like that, he aint gonna be good looking, nobody will want him, I'd reckon."

"Mrs. Cole!"

Harry felt bad for Voldy, not for the first time yet. Tom Marvolo Riddle has no memory of happiness, just like Harry's own bad childhood. Somehow the image overlapped, and suddenly Harry found himself taking the abandoned baby with his blanket. Mrs. Cole apparently saw it fit to throw the baby near the bin outside the orphanage, near the river, maybe hoping the baby died soon in the harsh cold winter.

In the end of the day, Harry Potter found himself a newborn baby to bring home.

Harry cursed himself.

The baby that was Tom Marvolo Riddle was quite cute until the time he woke up and screamed like he was competing for the loudest siren of the century. Harry quickly tried to hush the baby, hugging it, even have it upside down, but Tom kept crying.

Twenty minutes afterward, the owner of the café downstairs came knocking on his door.

Cursing his luck, Harry opened it and saw that the owner has a lady beside him. The lady was quite old and motherly. Before they could say anything, Harry sighed exaggeratedly.

"Finally! A lady who knows how to be a mother!"

Apparently he was very wrong to say that, because Mrs. Hudson (that was her name, the café owner introduced her as the landlady of 221 Baker Street, their neighbour) started to bawl. Finally Harry was told that Mrs. Hudson didn't get the chance to have a baby since her husband has died in the war before she had a chance to get pregnant. But the miscommunication was settled quickly with baby Tom, who was red and blotchy and wet from his own tears. Harry was then berated by the lady because he apparently neglected the fact that (one) Tom was hungry, (two) Tom has a wet nappy, (three) Tom was cold, (four) Tom's lack of mother.

Harry explained that he just had Tom for the last hour, Tom's mother died giving birth to Tom, and no, he was not Tom's father but he was thinking to be one. Mrs. Hudson and the café owner have a different response to that statement. Mrs. Hudson cooed Tom and looked at Harry with a new light; as if suddenly Harry was a decent human and not a monkey. The café owner looked terrified, maybe for his café's compromised situation. The baby's wail would disturb the café's patrons and Harry initially rented the apartment as a bachelor, not a daddy with a newborn son.

Harry tried to negotiate the price, haggling quite animatedly with the café owner while Mrs. Hudson took very good care of Tom. When finally Harry Potter (trained to safe every penny he had due to his training at the Dursley's) has managed to gain an acceptable new rent price, he was surprised to see baby Tom silently enjoying his nap.

"You are always welcome to my place. I can help you taking care of Tom." Mrs. Hudson offered before she went away, "..but make sure you tell me in advance, because I have another baby I am in charge of."

"Oh?" Harry smiled as he cooed the small, and increasingly becoming cuter by minute baby, "Your baby? I have never heard or seen a child that small by this street."

"No, he is not really a baby. I mean, he is a man, but he acts like a baby, so he is a baby." The lady sighed. "His name is Sherlock Holmes."

Harry didn't pay much attention to the name but kissed Mrs. Hudson's palm before the lady went home. He should, though, because soon Sherlock Holmes would be a major part of his and Tom's life.

Maybe continued. I have general idea, but not knowing whether I can put it down or not.

Not gonna lie, but I have swore off ff for 2 weeks, but now here I am. I should get around writing my HP stories too. Gah. I am sorry. but dont hold your breath for anything.

Thanks for reading. Comment appreciated.