Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock or the BBC.

I must be stopped. No, really.

The twin pops! of two people Apparating downgraded Auror Gregory Lestrade's day from bad to worse.

He was standing in the middle of a crime scene—a young Muggleborn witch and her son had been found dead, the suspected victims of a hate crime. The Dark Mark floated lazily in the air above the house, making Lestrade's stomach turn. He had hoped that this Death Eater business would have been put to bed with You-Know-Who's defeat, but it seemed to not be the case.

To make matters worse, the new Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt had been distinctly unimpressed by the progress Lestrade and his team had been making with the recent rash of hate crimes. To the end, he had hired a close friend from the Order, Healer John Watson, to take a look into the situation.

Lestrade had no problem with Watson, who had been two years under him during school, and a friendly rival during the Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff games. Watson had been a good beater—even if he had been a Lion.

But Watson unfortunately came with baggage, namely one Sherlock Holmes. Holmes, who had an older brother high up in the Ministry with his fingers dipping into every department. Holmes, whose pure-blood family donated millions of Galleons in charitable donations.

Holmes, the attention-seeking, arrogant, brilliant bastard whose ruthless puzzle-solving mind Lestrade and the Aurors couldn't live without.

And Lestrade had no intention of letting him anywhere near his crime scene.

"Anderson!" he barked. "What happened to the Anti-Apparition Jinx?"

"I cast it fine," Anderson said defensively. "S'not my fault some Ravenclaw decides he can just willy-nilly get round it."

"Oi, steady on with the House slander," Padma Patil said, tossing her glossy back braid over her shoulder.

"Holmes is one of you, innit he?" Anderson said.

"And You-Know-Who was one of yours," Patil snapped back. "But you don't hear any one of us calling you a smug snake."

"Enough," Lestrade said. "Anderson, back to headquarters. Work on a Revealing Potion."

"But I'm—"

"Now."

With a death glare to Patil, Anderson twisted out of thin air just as Holmes and Watson appeared in the entrance to the sitting room.

"No," Lestrade said firmly.

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Leave Holmes outside if you will, Watson," Lestrade said.

Watson spread his hands in a you-try-and-stop-him motion and limped forward to where Patil was kneeling over the mother's body. His leg had been irreparably damaged in the Battle of Hogwarts, and despite the Healers' best efforts, it stayed as cursed as it had been five years ago.

"Watson," Patil greeted him with a smile.

"Hello," Watson said grimly, drawing his wand. "What have we got?"

"Mother and son, dead. Mother was Yaxley's half-sister; they never got along for obvious reasons. Killing Curse was cast six hours previously, and you will find Yaxley hiding out in his sister's house in Kent, most likely in a bedroom above the barn."

Lestrade and Patil stared at Holmes, who stared back in his usual, unflappable manner. Watson shook his head.

"Do give me something harder next time," Holmes said. He turned away. "Are you coming, Watson?"

Watson, ever the faithful Kneazle, followed Holmes out of the house, leaving Lestrade and Patil in stunned silence.

"Sir?" Patil asked tentatively.

"Yeah?" Lestrade grunted.

"How long do you reckon it would've taken without him?"

"At minimum? Six months."