The Case of the Broken Brotherhood

And this is a new story. The inspiration was a random musing that Mark Gatiss would have made an excellent Voldemort – more menacing with less histrionics.

These will be the real cases as from the books as well as the show, but the people will be quite like the characters in Sherlock. Voldemort resurfaces as the Mycroft to Harry's Sherlock. The cases will all be adapted to the magical world. No pairings.

It's experimental. The transition to the story from the canon-world is similar to the standard template of the Reptillia28 challenge. I solemnly admit that this is intentional, because in spite of swearing by Harmony stories, those stories stick in my craw.

Death, Harry Potter decided, was certainly not what it was made out to be – either in terms of the fear some accorded it, or in terms of it being the next great adventure as some would euphemistically describe. To him, it resembled a switch; on one moment, off the next. As he sat up – again a relative verb, for he wasn't sure what this place or existence, which he presumed was the afterlife, entailed; nor was he sure whether or not any normal laws of existence such as gravity and position, unassailable for an unsupported body even in the magical world, worked – he decided that it was also a boon. He simply couldn't remember thinking about things with cold objectivity before, and in solitude, it was a wondrous trait to have.

Next was the urge to indulge in observation, for now he did not fear having to open his eyes and see, and observe. For, everyone saw because they had their eyes open, by default, but few truly observed. And here, much to his disappointment, there was nothing to observe except a brownish blob and his own naked form in an endless expanse of white mist. Mist was the word he accorded it, for he was sure that he discerned no relative solidity; but then again he wasn't sure whether he himself was solid.

Sighing as he gave in to curiosity, Harry walked over to the brown blob, wishing to be clothed, and lo and behold, he was. He didn't bat an eyelid at that. When he came upon the blob, his first instinct was to hurt it. It was the piece of Voldemort within him, obviously. It looked very much like the homunculus. He decided not to. It would probably have no bearing in this place.

All of a sudden, the homunculus changed into a likeness of a seventy-year-old Tom Riddle as he would have been, if he hadn't become Voldemort. Slightly balding, with a slight paunch as well, this Tom Riddle was dressed in a very conservative pinstriped navy suit which looked to be specially tailored and purchased from a shop on Saville Row, complete with a watch-chain and an umbrella. He would not have looked out of place among the highest echelons of non-magical British bureaucracy.

"Potter," Riddle called. "It is interesting to meet you here."

Harry noted that it was spoken normally. It was slightly surprising. "What are you doing here, Riddle? I believe it would be, considering it was a part of you that sent me here."

"Yes. That has brought things to the proper conclusion," said the very cheerful voice of a woman dressed in, once again, conservative British formal wear.

As one, the enemies in life went onto the defensive together in death.

The woman chuckled slightly. "You are not in any danger from me, gentlemen," she announced. "Even if it were so, I suppose you might have realised by now that magic doesn't work here – not the sort of magic you're accustomed to, anyway."

That was true. The two men looked at the woman in intrigue. To an external observer, it would have seemed that they were staring at her. They were, however, observing.

"I find it highly amusing to meet a woman in muggle clothes, but one who presumably has a midsize owl – I would say a tawny owl, and works in a place similar to the Department of Muggle Relations, has been married before but is not at the moment, in the afterlife," Harry remarked. "You are or were probably a muggleborn, or a witch who married a muggle."

"You missed the facts that she is or was a widow, whose husband was probably a muggle who worked on a ship, and has one more pet, presumably a black cat," Tom added snootily.

"And you missed the fact that she is left-handed."

"No. I didn't. You missed the fact that she lived in solitude, but has had a fairly decent amount of money to go on."

"Which is a fact that I will claim that I didn't miss, irrespective of the fact that you will dismiss that claim to satiate your ego. You however, once again missed an equally obvious thing; she revels in painting and walks, or walked, a lot on muddy or sandy roads. You also missed that she is a woman of meticulous habits."

"And you in your haste to prove yourself, made a monumental mistake when you declared her profession. She wasn't in the Ministry."

Harry was quiet for a moment, and nodded sombrely, and then muttered in slight irritation, "There's always something!" But then he grinned. "You don't deny though, that you missed her habits and nature, nor that you have an ego."

"The two facts are self-evident. There is no need to mention them. And I suppose, the ego is as well, is it not? And you don't get to complain about my ego, not when you manage to show off."

"Shut up! Both of you! Just SHUT UP!" The two men looked at the woman who was looking at them in slight anger, and shock.

"A Gryffindor," muttered Riddle, "Or a good candidate for such a sorting."

"Quite obviously," Harry rejoined, highly miffed at not having had the chance to say that first. "She did take the risk with attempting to perform magic."

"You are capable of thought sprung for observation then," Riddle retorted patronisingly.

"I SAID STOP! How do you two know all that? It was all true for me when I lived!"

"I believe I will let him say it. He always likes to show off. I must say, though, that it is very...weird...how I am on good terms with him, and how I happen to know that he likes to show off."

"I don't care who tells me! I want to know."

Harry threw Riddle a dirty look. Weirdness was part and parcel of this Death Malarkey, it seemed. "To whom do I have the honour of addressing?"

"You can call me Anthea."

"Which means that that isn't your true name," decided Harry. "You wear a wedding ring on your chain which was clearly worn on your left ring finger. It also has an anchor charm and beads and shells, all of which have been added as a group, suggesting someone has presented it to you. It has been taken care of rather well, as has been the ring. Obviously it was given by someone you cared for, or loved. The presence of the wedding ring itself, which you have removed from your finger and placed on the chain, suggests that it has been given by your husband who was dead at the time of your own passing. That ensemble lends itself to suggest that he was a seafarer."

"It is true," the woman replied. Now that she was given reasons for the observations, she was mollified. "Marcus was on a Merchant Vessel. It sank."

Harry blinked. Having seen so much death, he felt almost impervious to it, and therefore was unable to show much sympathy. So he blithely continued, "You knew about magic, and there are marks on the thumb and fingers of the left hand, particularly at the tip which declare the use of a quill as well as your left-handedness. However, along with those marks which are very close – in a way only quills can cause, and only after prolonged use – there are also the signs of the usage of a ball-pen. That would place you as a squib or a muggleborn. With all due respect, squibs want to hold the vestige of their heritage which rejects them. So you were more likely to be a muggleborn on balance of probability."

"I was, true. So how did you go wrong with my profession?"

"Well, the Ministry was prosecuting muggleborns. And my quite hate-worthy companion was helming the bigoted operations," Harry spat in Riddle's direction. "Anyway, you wouldn't have worked in the Ministry of Magic in any department, and still get paid enough in spite of being a muggleborn, to dress as impeccably as you have."

"My owl and my cat?" the woman asked. She also speared Riddle with a hateful glare. The older man appeared unaffected by the vitriol in both their gazes.

"You hold your left shoulder slightly higher than your right shoulder, as if to compensate for about a pound or so in weight settling there. There are very slight scuff marks, due to talons nearer to the free end of your shoulder. That tells us that you have a midsize owl. A tawny owl was only an extrapolation. Your cat, Madam, was obvious from the slivers of black on the white socks. While there are a number of other things that could cause it, at that height, it is only a creature as despicable as a cat that can do so," Riddle explained.

Harry didn't despise cats – or at least he liked Crookshanks who had sniffed out Pettigrew. He frowned at Riddle. The woman scowled at Riddle as well.

"What? I hate them!" Riddle protested.

"And there's an entire life story summed up in a single sentence," quipped Harry. "It's true for everything, not just cats."

"My long walks and painting?" prompted the woman.

"You have a deliberate stride. You compensate for lack of reaction force. Moreover, your calves are better formed and in better shape than you, as such, though your walks have kept you slim." Harry's reply had the woman scowling, because he had practically called her unattractive, while also inadvertently saying that he was ogling at her calves. Riddle stifled a laugh at that. "That suggests sandy or muddy terrain. You haven't been here long, or you would have become accustomed to this misty environment. You have connection to the sea through your husband, so a beach would be a valid assumption. One would further deduce that you were kidnapped and killed after or during such a walk. You had to have stopped to paint, given the smudge of yellow paint on your right wrist, which held the palette."

For some reason, Riddle felt it necessary to keep Potter, the only person and minutely bearable company he had here, out of the hole he seemed intent to dig for himself. So he intervened. "Your meticulous habits, of course, are borne testament to by the fact that after your walk, you seem to have cleaned your shoes, and clothes, of the sandy residue. As a witch, it would be easier with a charm, wouldn't it?" He then smiled in a sickeningly condescending manner at the woman.

The woman looked at the pair of them intently. Harry blinked. So did Tom. The woman smiled. "Well, I was the one designated to check if you were still all there as you were supposed to be. You are." The men blinked again at this non-sequitur. The woman ignored them. "SELENE!" she called out. "IT IS THEM ALRIGHT. THEY ARE STILL THE SAME SORT OF INSUFFERABLE, INFERNAL DICKS YOU EXPECTED THEM TO BE!"

An instant or a minute, a year, or a lifetime later, another woman appeared into their midst. This one was a blonde-haired woman. Harry perked up a bit before he faced the woman and shrank away slightly in spite of himself. He knew that Luna, his friend in life, had her middle name Selene after her mother. This woman wasn't anything like Luna, not even in facial resemblance. If Fleur had transformed in her mind while still retaining her human form physically, this was what she would have looked like.

"You two have come. Good." Her manner was curt and short. "Come with me."

Tom made to protest. The woman scowled even more angrily at him. "You shut up. You are the one that is the problem." Harry felt gleeful at this but refrained from commenting. The woman continued, "You are the one that slipped off our hands at the wrong time."

"He wasn't supposed to be born?" Harry asked innocently. It was probably a bit too innocent.

"Nor were you, but you were as a means to bring this one back," Selene spat. "Your brother, he is, after all!"

And the other shoe dropped, as it were. Presently, they left the white mist to a swanky office.

"Sit!" They sat. "Have you understood why you were tested?"

"You wanted to find out whether we still were as we were supposed to be," Harry parroted what 'Anthea' had said.

"You can remember what people say," Anthea sarcastically acknowledged.

"You also called me a dick, at the same time. I am unlikely to forget."

"Enough!" commanded Selene. "The paperwork is going to be a right nightmare, but interacting with the fools and imbeciles working under me who slipped..." she muttered. "Alright; you two are here because we have to perform a temporal-spatial reassignment for you two brothers," she explained looking at Harry.

"We were supposed to be brothers?" Harry asked weakly.

"Yes. Between the clinical cynicism as a personality trait and learning that cold logic and acute intelligence was the way ahead, and a predilection to not caring for anyone, you two manage to portray that you don't care for the other, but you do care."

"With all due respects, Madam, I intended to kill him."

"I mirror these sentiments."

"That's exactly what I am saying", Selene pointed out. "This killing that you talk about... well there is always sibling rivalry. You are taking it to the extreme!"

They stared at her, unnerving her in the process. They were mortal enemies. Killing the other was their duty.

"You don't truly appreciate how difficult it is for me, do you?"

"Thankfully, no," Tom replied. "It seems to me that you are bereft of job satisfaction."

"Keep that deadpan delivery down, boy!" Selene scolded. "You talk about job satisfaction when we get to the paperwork for the temporal-spatial reassignment!"

"Paperwork; reassignment...I suppose this is where you tell me what I was supposed to be?" Tom asked with a condescending, patronising sneer. It was a marvel how he managed to pack it all in one expression.

Selene glared at him. In a slow, measured tone, she admonished, "Listen here, boy. I am already under enough pressure and am a laughing stock in this place. You remember fearing death?"

"I do, yes. He bullied me when I was little. I never wanted to meet him again," Tom replied.

Selene's hand snaked out and slapped Tom in the face. "I have had enough with you, you reptile. No wisecracks! No superiority! Nothing! I will obliterate you, the soul that you are! Do. You. Understand?"

"He does. Please press on," Anthea nudged Selene.

After a deep fortifying breath, Selene trudged on. "Personality-wise Voldemort was close enough to what you'd be. Too cynical, socially detached, calculating, clever – arguably cleverer than him..."

"Thankfully," muttered Tom. "The ignominy of being lesser than him would have been a burden on my unborn soul as well. Thankfully I was spared that. I must have been repulsed by his stupidity, thereby causing the slip, if it really occurred."

"Or I might have pushed him off the grid to ensure peace for the rest of us." Harry was ready with a put down.

"I would say that you are better now than when you were alive, but somehow that is not enough of a complement."

Selene groaned audibly. "Can't you keep your petty sibling rivalry down for a bit?" Both men retreated a bit, and settled for sulphurous silent seething at the prospect of being brothers. "So yes, 'Tom', as I said while enumerating your personality traits, you are cynical, socially detached, calculating, have an exceptional amount of self-control, incredibly analytic, but lazy, and therefore make others do your work. Laziness is the only thing that truly separates you two. He can't have enough interesting work unlike you."

The two blinked. Then they blinked again.

"And what do I do, precisely, with these traits, considering that it was exactly what I do as a Dark Lord? "

"You take up your 'minor position in the Ministry' when you are ready."

"O! God! No! You want us to be Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes for the magical world!" Harry whimpered. He recognised the inference. "But Mycroft Holmes is nothing like what you described!"

"Oh, you do remember your muggle past then. You were already earmarked. When this one slipped, we had to delay you a bit. You were thrust in only to bring him back." Selene looked at the two with beady-eyed consideration. "I truly cannot see why you complain. Through all the different realities and dimensions, we have been casting you in the same roles. As for your protestation about Mycroft's characteristics, well, the rules change with the dimension we put you in." She rifled through her drawer as she spoke. "Where are those damn papers?" she muttered to herself. "Ah there they are!" She withdrew them, jotted something down and signed them.

"Somehow, I know what Potter is thinking without using Legillimency and I happen to agree. This is utter drivel." Selene raised an eyebrow at him. "I am sure Potter has some more colourful words in mind, but I shall choose to not use them."

"So solicitous, Tom Riddle," Selene smirked. "Yet you manage to try things beyond your power. It is funny, you know. In either case, whether you were Tom Riddle, or Mycroft, you would have found out about Horcruxes. In fact, except for making them, and becoming Voldemort and a Dark Lord, you did everything you would otherwise have done."

"I – WHAT?" Harry carefully stored that into memory. He had never seen Riddle flabbergasted before.

"Indeed. You were to be the bureaucratic sleuth, redefining the British policies to your...brother's...legwork and active dismantling of criminal syndicates."

"What about me then?" Harry was really curious. And curiously, unlike in life where being ignored meant not being in danger, he really didn't want to be ignored.

"Well, you were born to the wrong person, but in the right family. It really didn't matter what happened to you. So long as you brought this one in, it wouldn't have mattered. Now you will be the only consulting detective Auror."

"I am going to be a Potter?" asked Riddle horrified. Selene grinned viciously.

"So what happens now?" Harry demanded after a long, horrified, stupefied silence. He was supposed to share his family with Tom Riddle of all people! "I suppose you are going to turn time around? Maybe let us keep our memories or something, perhaps? Tell us that these are our last chances? You get away with manipulating me...us...so horribly?"

"Now why would I do that? What indeed would possess me to let you keep your memories?" Selene was smirking. "Why, I can just make the necessary changes instead, as I am authorised to do. Goodbye."

It was abrupt. And it was infuriating. And they were gone.

"You will keep them in line, won't you?" Selene asked Anthea. Talking to them managed to give her a headache, and she was free of those mortal afflictions by the very nature of what she was.

"Of course," Anthea demurred.

Tom Riddle attempted his first Horcrux, after the killing of Myrtle Roberts. It was a bust. In his haste, he had forgotten the soul bindings to the object, his diary, and had ended up with no soul at all. The body died a few days later.

Raymond and Charlus Potter were brothers – twins. Best friends. They did absolutely everything together. So it was no wonder, really, that Raymond had a son the same year as his brother. He sincerely hoped that the son was as bright as his mother, Violet Fleming-Potter, Raymond's wife, a brilliant potions mistress, who, for a witch in the 1960s and 1970s, had taken the unusual step of resuming her muggle ties and learning Chemistry. Then again Raymond was no slouch. As an extremely savvy financial wizard, in every sense of the term, he was as close to being a legend among the goblins as humans could be. He would also never know that in a dimension, he was one of the earliest experimental victims of the boy who would be born as his older son.

Born on the 1st of January 1960, Mycroft Thomas Potter, or 'Mike' as the tyke was known, much to his chagrin and exasperation, was named after the older of two brothers Raymond had read about in a book (because nobody else that he knew had such a unique name). A precocious youngster, he had nevertheless never fallen along with his cousin James in childish games and tomfoolery. It didn't reflect poorly on either. James respected Mycroft for being very clever, but was also thoroughly intimidated by him and his smarts. Mycroft had a slight condescending air, for, to him, everyone else of his age was often proven to be infuriatingly stupid. All the same, he tolerated James, knowing that he was the first heir to the Potter Legacy, while recognising early on, that his job was to further the interests of the self-same legacy through magical ministerial policy. Then again, the reality was that though James wasn't as gifted as he was, he wasn't a slouch altogether. His talents just lay elsewhere. Mycroft had another reason to tolerate James – he was also the only one to call him Mycroft.

A definitive change came in the lives of the Potters with the birth of the third Potter son in 1965, on the 16th of January, six years before the boys were to start their Hogwarts career. Mycroft had looked at the squirming puddle of flesh that was Sherlock William Scott Potter with great distaste. The name was surprising in the least. This new creature immediately brought out a hitherto unknown competitive, cynical streak Mycroft was born with. Oh, he cared for this...brother... of his, but made sure to let the kid know through his childhood, in as little interaction they had during their childhood that in terms of brains, Mycroft towered over him in stature.

Sherlock made sure to learn to show detestation for his brother while still adopting his skills of observation and magical knowledge and learning, but naturally gravitated to the red Krupp he had as his pet for friendship, what with the older boys being a clique of their own. Arguably, the little boy was distraught when the Krupp had to be put down when it contracted a flesh-rotting disease. He soon became colder than his brother, as a result, vowing silently to never care. He would later care for a few however.

As Sherlock grew older, the fact that as the youngest in the household and therefore given every chance to develop his curiosity and to observe, and thereby develop logical skills, both on the magical side as well as his maternal non-magical side, meant that his abilities improved daily. He still wanted to become a pirate though, something that only his brother had guessed, no doubt based on the name of the Krupp, Redbeard.

The Potter family was flourishing at a truly pivotal time in the history of Magical Policy. And the family's youngest generation would be the pivots, each, in his own rights.

This is the first chapter. Each Chapter will be one case. I am ready with a few obvious ones; however, they need a link. And I still have to write a magical equivalent for A Study in Scarlet as an introduction for 'John Watson'. John Watson and Mrs. Hudson are Sherlock Canon Characters, and I need Harry Potter Canon characters to replace them. I am leaning towards Remus for John, at the moment.