Christmas morning brings snow and a ringing Sneakoscope. Sherlock scowls, because he has instantly deduced who has come.

"Mycroft!" he yells from his bedroom. "Get out, I'll be seeing you and your pudgy cheeks in seven hours anyway!"

"Albus," Mycroft sighs from the doorway. "How many times have you broken the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in the past few days?"

Sherlock glares right back. What is Mycroft doing in his bedroom? "I have a feeling you know that better than me."

"You have broken it 143 times." Mycroft says.

"It's 142," Sherlock retorted. "The Sneakoscope does not count. Anyway, why are you bothered by this?"

Mycroft smiles. "I think you should do the one thing that would nullify all the infractions." With that, he disappears from the doorway. Sherlock can hear him decline John's bleary-eyed offer of tea and walk down the stairs, swinging that irritating enchanted umbrella from his elbow.

Sherlock knows what he means- propose to John. A fiancée of a wizard or witch would automatically gain access to the magical world. But if that is what Mycroft wants, why would he tell it to Sherlock so blatantly? Mycroft, after all, is a devotee to the art of reverse psychology. Sherlock thinks for three more seconds (embarrassing, really) before the truth hits him.

Mycroft knows I want it badly. Even more so than him. So he plants this idea in my head.

Sherlock curses at his manipulative creep of a brother. Even though he knows he is being manipulated, it is what he wants as well. Is that really manipulation? Things get so- ah, John's favourite quote from Doctor Who- timey-wimey when John is involved.

Sherlock slumps back into bed. No cases or bodies, Lestrade and Molly are off on vacation and Dimmock won't speak to him. His Draught of Living Death needs five more days of fermentation and the experiment on eyeballs need three more days to dry. Sherlock would want Felix Felicis, but he used it up all in one go once and got high. (It wasn't really cocaine that he nearly died of a overdose from three years ago, but Lestrade need never know that.)

So he scowls and settles back into bed.

John gets him up at 11am, asking him what he should bring along to the Christmas dinner. Mundane. Boring. He looks at John and wonders, 'Can he love me back?' Then he brushes the thought aside. He is supposed to be getting over this ridiculous crush (love) on John. Not that confessing to him that he was a wizard helped in any way. It just strengthened the crush. John is so accepting that he would probably accept a worm for a friend or something ridiculous like that.

Sherlock is over thinking this, but he can't help it. It's true that Mycroft got him thinking like this, but it's more like a wake-up call than anything else.

Merlin's pants, he is falling in love with John. Not that Sherlock didn't know it, he was simply practising self-denial. He was getting pretty good at it until Mycroft interfered. Again.

"Look, Sherlock, Mycroft left a bottle of something. Can you tell me if it is going to blow up in my face, or is it safe for consumption?

Sherlock? Sherlock!" John's worried voice breaks through Sherlock's thoughts. He looks over at the bottle, and pouts even more. Mycroft meddles again.

"It is a bottle of Firewhisky. An alcoholic beverage." Sherlock states, leaving John to do his own deducing.

"Right," John says uncertainly. "A Christmas present from Mycroft?"

"Don't be naive, John." Sherlock snaps. "Mycroft left it because he knew your social conscience wouldn't let you appear at our home without an appropriate gift, and I wouldn't be procuring a Firewhisky on your behalf."

John thinks this through for a while. "It's got to be something more than that. If it was just that, you wouldn't be glaring at the bottle as if it owes you ten thousand dollars. And Mycroft wouldn't come here just to ease my social conscience. He must have wanted to tell or give you something too. Maybe even this gift is his way of sending a message to you too."

Sherlock is impressed. He forgets that John's insight and strength of perception sometimes. A mistake. "Very good, John." But he doesn't answer John's unsaid question, and instead flops down on the sofa to examine the ceiling wall.

He doesn't know it (for once), but John is staring at him with the sort of look that Clara used to look at Harry with, in the early days of their courtship. The sort of look Sherlock gives John when John isn't looking.