A/N. Happy New Year! Apologies and more A/N to be found at the end of the chapter.


Chapter 2 - The Wizard Among Muggles

The police tape cordoned off most of the area of Vauxhall that Sherlock requested that they meet at, making it hard for John to see, what Sherlock had led him to believe, a collection of unfortunate decreased people lay. Police lights flashed distractingly from all directions, and he held his hand to the side of his head to block out some of the light as he scanned the edge of the police tape border, looking for anyone that he knew that would let him in. He didn't see Sherlock there, and could only assume that Mycroft was holding him up in some way. Probably still negotiating the terms of his release, John mused.

He wasn't alone as he approached the scene. A few interested bystanders hovered on the edges, some attempting to take pictures for the media, the rest standing around with daft looks on their faces, looking as though as they were only there because of the pretty lights drawing their attention. John spotted Sergeant Sally Donovan leaning against a cruiser, staring at her phone, disinterest flickering on her face. John had never liked Sally; despite how Lestrade argued over and over that she was a good cop, John could never get past her inappropriate conduct and general rudeness. And really, how could he really tolerate her, especially after she had been one of the most vocal against Sherlock right before the Fall? Scanning the tape again and not finding anyone else that he knew well, he set his shoulders and approached her.

Sally glanced up when he approached and immediately adopted a pained expression. "Oh, if you're here, he's not far behind, is he?" She angled her body so she could look around him, as though she would find Sherlock lurking ominously behind John's back.

"Sherlock's coming later," John said testily. Sally pulled a face, which John chose to ignore. "If you don't mind letting me in so I can wait for him. . ." He made to duck under the tape, but her hand snapped out and held the tape down.

"Sorry, not this time, John." She said it with a slight smirk, clearly not sorry at all. "This one's been snatched out of hands by some special division. They won't like you and the Menace parading all over their crime scene." She jerked a finger to the side, and he could see a small congregation of men and women all dressed in dark suits and thick jackets, speaking quietly to each other. John spotted a woman with bubble-gum pink hair, and wondered what special division they belonged to that would allow her flashy hair colour. "So it's easier if you take off and tell him too before you're both escorted out." Her eyes flashed in amusement, as though she really wanted to see that.

"Oi, Donovan! Go easy on him, would you?" Greg Lestrade yelled, jogging neatly to them from the direction of the crime scene. He had a thick wool hat covering his silver hair, and his arms were wrapped himself tightly to try to block out the cold March air. "John, I'm glad to see you here. Get in here." He lifted the tape and John slid smoothly under. Sally opened her mouth to protest, but a stern look from Lestrade stopped her; instead she harrumphed and stalked away, her thick curls bouncing with each step she took.

"Sorry about that," Lestrade said, rubbing at his head awkwardly with a gloved hand. "She was really excited to take the case, you know, strange deaths. She hasn't seen anything like it in her career, was extremely excited to attempt to solve it, but when we got the call that we were being bumped off of it, she didn't take it well. Some people got stuck doing crowd control while the rest packed up to let the big boys in." Lestrade led John away from the tape slightly so they could talk in private. John could make out in the distance several coloured tarps littering the ground, marking each body. He swallowed hard as he realized Sherlock was not exaggerating saying it was a mass murder; the sheer number of tarps seemed endless from his distant perspective.

"So who are they, then?" John asked, nodding his head to the congregation of dark-clothed, professional-looking people, leaving the subject of the deaths for the moment. Lestrade followed his gaze.

"They're called Aurors, I think. No idea what department they belong to, though I wouldn't be surprised if it was something crazy like MI5. I haven't had to deal with them in years." Lestrade missed John's eyes light up in recognition as he watched the group. John examined them once more, now with a new light. He had to admit, they had done an impressive job blending in with Muggles; even he hadn't recognized them for what they were, but he supposed it explained the woman with the pink hair. He wondered if anyone he knew from his school days was there, and if they would recognize him. He blinked, realizing that Lestrade had continued talking throughout his appraisal of the Aurors.

"- It's always a hassle, because they demand that we hand over all our notes, which takes time, and it's always a little funny because most of my people seem to always forget what case we're talking about. It's like they're the blokes from that show, X-Files, always showing up to look after the strange cases. Well, stranger than you and Sherlock usually deal with." Lestrade frowned at John. "Where is Sherlock? I got a call earlier saying he'd be here to look at the scene before those Aurors take it over."

"He'll be here at some point, I think." John looked out to the road and tried to spot one of Mycroft's cars or a taxi, but nothing, no Sherlock. "What's happened? Sherlock didn't tell me much."

Lestrade breathed out a heavy sigh, one that twirled frozen in the air in front of him like he had just taken a long drag off a cigarette. "It's terrible, that's what it is. There was a big homeless community based here, has been for years, but the whole lot of them are dead." John's face turned grave. He remembered being here with Sherlock years before, when they had been running around following various clues for Moriarty's first game, leading them to the hide-out of an infamous Czech assassin. Sherlock's homeless network had been invaluable back then, and he shuddered to think if any of them had been caught up in the mess that lay not too far from him.

"How many?"

"Anderson had it counted at 56, and as far as we know, no survivors have come out." Lestrade shook his head sadly. "Can't make heads or tails of it, really, and if it hadn't been done already, I'd have called the two of you in for it immediately. They all look like they've been scared to death, with their faces frozen in fear to prove it." John shivered, though not from the chilly air around him. He knew exactly what that meant. "Christ," Lestrade continued, "I haven't seen anything like this since I first joined up. 15 or 20 years ago, this crazy shite was common. Couldn't get through a month without people turning up like this, dead without a mark on their body, and those Aurors would always show up in a flash. Never did find out what it all meant. . ." He trailed off, staring in the direction of the bodies again.

John swallowed hard. He knew. It was when Voldemort had been in power, and it had dark times for everyone in Britain, not just the wizards. The Death Eaters loved to attack Muggles for pure enjoyment. It hardly ever reached the Daily Prophet, but he had been able to pick out their attacks from the Telegraph. He remembered reading about numerous murdered families, most with small children. The one that stuck out the most was a restaurant set ablaze near his family home, back when he was still in school, a restaurant that his family frequented often when he was back on summer holidays. He had overheard a Muggle-born fourth-year Ravenclaw, who he knew lived in his area, mention it one morning back when he had been in sixth-year. He remembered the panic that filled his veins, and the cold sweat that beaded on this skin. He had pleaded with Professor McGonagall for emergency correspondence with his family, which she had granted immediately. He was relieved that his worries had been for nought; his family was fine, but he was one of the lucky ones. Towards the end of his schooling, it was commonplace for a student to be pulled out of class to be told that a family member of theirs had been killed.

"Just terrible. . ." Lestrade muttered, his voice still distant. He shook himself. "Never mind that, how's Mary and the baby?"

"Fine, fine. Still about two weeks from the due date. Mary's a bit sore, though, and I tried to get her to rest more, but of course she's too stubborn to listen."

Both Lestrade and John turned their heads back to the tape at the sound of a car pulling up. They both walked in tandem to the black car, its sleekness and obvious governmental look clearly identifying it as one of Mycroft's. The back door swung open, revealing Sherlock Holmes. He exited swiftly and stood tall, fixing the edges of his coat, and flicking up the edges of his collar with his gloved hands. Lestrade sighed in relief at Sherlock's presence, but John just smiled, happiness at seeing his best friend in the first time in months curling in his stomach. Sherlock was paler than usual, reflecting three months of house arrest where John wasn't able to at least force him into the sun. Otherwise, he seemed the same as he always had; eyes sweeping across every inch of what he could survey, his head haughtily held high, and the subtle shift in his body language that betrayed his enthusiasm for a new case.

John noted that the open door revealed the so-called Anthea, typing quickly on her mobile, all the while looking quite bored. As Sherlock stepped out of the way, John leaned down to her eye level, and called out a greeting. She barely twitched a response and continued to smack on the wad of gum she had in her mouth

"Oh, don't mind her," Sherlock said, waving a hand. "She's relaying our every action back to Mycroft. Takes a lot of concentration to type out all of our breaths and errant scratches, you know. Mycroft would hate for her to miss a single thing."

At this Anthea looked up from her screen, but her thumbs did not cease their movement. She fixed him with an exasperated glare, shockingly similar to the one Mycroft would also give Sherlock. Sherlock gripped the door with his hand. "Do me a favour, would you, Anthea, if that is the name you're going by this week, anyways. Tell my brother to get his treadmill fixed. He needs some sort of balance to what he eats."

Anthea's attention returned to her screen. "Ta, boys," she said between gum smacks. Sherlock swiftly shut the door and the car immediately began to drive away. He joined John and Lestrade on the other side of the police tape.

"Took you long enough to get here," John remarked, grinning.

Sherlock made a face. "Mycroft kept nattering on about trivial things regarding my release from solitude. It was annoying."

"So, that's it? You're back?"

"I'm back." Sherlock turned to Lestrade, giving him a once over. "Lestrade, I see your divorce finally came through. Finally got tired of taking back your wife, did you?"

"I'm not even going to ask how you know." Lestrade wiped a hand over his face tiredly. "There's only so many lies about PE teachers I can believe before it just looks bad on me being a Detective Inspector."

"Yes, but you surpassed that quota several years ago," Sherlock quipped. Lestrade groaned behind his hand, sounding something along the lines of 'didn't miss this bit'. John's lips twitched upwards, but he was able to hold the full grin back.

"Sherlock, play nice. You haven't even been back two minutes and you've already started to insult Scotland Yard," said John lightly. But he was enjoying every second of the exchange. He had really missed his best friend. Sherlock ignored John's comment, his attention on the group of Aurors. His eyebrows creased and a small frown formed on his lips.

"No point in saying that, John, it's too far ingrained in him," Lestrade sighed. "He's going to be insufferable when he sees Anderson. Well, come on then, I suppose you want to get right at the scene."

"Of course." Sherlock tore his eyes from the Aurors, striding ahead immediately. Lestrade and John trailed behind him, jogging at first to keep up. "Tell us, what happened?"

"Call came in a couple of hours ago," Lestrade said. "Some pedestrians reported hearing screaming, flashing green lights, and a couple of loud cracks, like fireworks. They go and investigate and find nearly 60 bodies."

"No witnesses?" Sherlock interjected.

Lestrade shook his head. "None have come forward. We're not sure if there were any survivors. It looks like they were surprised; barely any of them ran far enough before being killed." They neared the fence dividing the street from the scene. A uniformed officer stood guard and nodded at Lestrade as the three of them walked in.

John swallowed hard at what he saw before him. Dozens of tarp-covered bodies littered the ground, and some, he noted, were quite small. They were positioned in a way that showed that they ran madly from the large, sheltered area from which they constructed a small, warm community, but had clearly been ambushed upon escaping. He grit his teeth. It was obvious that several people had been involved; some to flush out the people, and the others to catch the ones who came close to escaping. John spotted Philip Anderson and another forensic officer staring at a red splotch on a distant concrete wall.

Sherlock stepped up to the nearest tarp, knelt down beside it, and pulled back one corner to reveal the face of the victim.

"Oh, God," John gasped. His head turned side-to-side of its own accord, and he felt his chest twinge. "Is that – is that Wiggins?"

"Indeed," Sherlock replied tonelessly. John stepped forward to get a closer look at Wiggins' face. Like any victim of the Killing Curse, his face was frozen in the last expression it held in life. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was slightly agape, as though he had been yelling in fright. John grit his teeth. When he had first met the young man back in December, he had not exactly taken to him, but Sherlock had. Wiggins had possessed great powers of deduction; Sherlock was attempting to take him in as a trainee before the Magnussen incident. By all means, it seemed as though he was turning his life around. John was puzzled as to why he was even here in the first place.

"Sherlock, why was Wiggins here? I thought you said that you planned on training him as your sort of apprentice?" John knelt next to Sherlock, and reached for Wiggins' wrist.

Sherlock's mouth thinned. "If you think you were the only one investigating on my behalf while Mycroft decided to play house, you are sorely mistaken, John. As part of his training, he was my ambassador to the homeless network while I was otherwise occupied." His eyes flitted across Wiggins' face again. "This was a waste. His death was unnecessary."

John removed his hand when Sherlock roughly tossed the tarp back over Wiggins' face and stood up. Without facing Lestrade, Sherlock asked, "Are they all like this?"

"Most of them, yeah. Do you know what it is? I'd honestly like a better explanation than scared to death-"

"Wait, most?" John interrupted, standing once more. "They're not all like this?"

Lestrade rubbed the back of his neck. "That's one of the weird things. Most of them, yeah, look like they've been scared out of their wits, but we've got one back there in the settlement who's been shot in the head. But he's been moved there. We have no idea who he is, or really where he came from, though he'd look like he'd fit in well at the Globe Theatre."

Sherlock had already walked away, flitting neatly between the tarps, occasionally stopping for a moment to lift the edges and gaze at the faces. John strode quickly to his side. Lestrade huffed as he jogged up, but as he arrived, Sherlock took off again, heading towards Anderson and the red wall. The other officer had already moved away, taking some equipment back to a van.

Anderson had spotted them and intercepted them before they could reach the wall. He stood excitedly in Sherlock's path, a wide smile blooming behind his ridiculous, thick beard. "Sherlock, I'd knew you'd come," he said giddily. "John, nice to see you too, well, despite the circumstances that got you both here."

John merely nodded politely at Anderson. Sherlock groaned in exasperation, and fixed Lestrade with an annoyed look. "You hired him back? Scotland Yard was actually bearable without him there. Why did you have to go and change that? It was nice!"

Anderson's smile did not diminish in any way. Lestrade's hand rubbed his face again. John thought that at the rate he was going, Lestrade was going to rub his face raw by the end of the night. "We were short, Anderson is good with forensics, and the department was fine with him, especially after we realized that you simply faked your death. Besides, you shouldn't be complaining. Anderson likes you now, so it won't be a hostile working environment like last time. He runs a fan club about you, you know!"

"Yes, I know, and that's what makes him even worse to work with," Sherlock spat. John's mouth twitched at his friend's comments. Anderson, of course, jumped to the defense of his fan club and exclaimed, "I'll have you know my club helped convince people that you were not a fraud, and that you were still out there-"

"Anderson!" Lestrade barked, cutting off whatever fan-theory rant he would have gone on. "Stick to the case while we still have the scene, will you?"

"Right, right. If you will follow me, I'll show you the message left behind." Anderson started to lead the four of them to the stretch of concrete stained red, but of course he couldn't stay silent for long. "Now, I was talking to MacPherson earlier," he started as they stopped in front of the crimson wall, "and we both have agreed on a theory for the symbol. The killer obviously left behind this so they could tell us that 'we're watching you'-"

"Anderson, if you value not continuing to sound any more like an idiot like you already have, I would suggest shutting up right now," Sherlock barked, his eyes never leaving the expanse of wall in front of him.

Anderson huffed. "What else would a giant eye mean?"

John couldn't help but agree with Anderson at the moment, but he knew if Sherlock had made a comment about it, then it wasn't as obvious at it seemed. Before them a crude eye adorned the wall. It was quite simplistic in nature, merely two curved lines that crossed and enclosed a circle. Thank goodness it isn't drawn in blood, John thought as he examined how the off-red paint had dried dripping down the wall, a sign of how hastily it had been drawn. John glanced at Sherlock beside him, who was muttering under his breath as his eyes flicked over every inch of paint, categorizing each errant splatter. Lestrade had his arms crossed over his chest as he bit his tongue waiting for an answer.

John looked back to the tarp-covered ground for a moment, then back to the wall. Mass murder in Vauxhall indeed, and considering who they had been attempting to track the last three months, it wasn't hard to figure out which psychopath they knew had done this. "This is Moriarty's work. The eye and the attack on the homeless."

"Well done, John. Always more observant than Anderson," Sherlock remarked lightly.

Anderson didn't bother smothering his haughty pout. "Yes, well, according to you everyone is more observant than me."

"But what does it mean?" Lestrade echoed Anderson's question. He rocked on his heels to try to keep himself warm in the March chill. "If it's Moriarty, he's back for you, Sherlock, but if he's not watching you, what is this all for? Last time he bloody gave us some time to figure out his cryptic messages before he went around and murdered innocent people."

"Revenge," Sherlock said, frowning. "This was nothing but for revenge. An eye for an eye."

"What, Hammurabi's code?" John asked. The phrase was ancient, he knew, and one of the oldest recorded laws. But why would Moriarty apply it now?

Sherlock flew into a flurry of movement, coat flaring around him. "An eye for an eye. My network for his. When I faked my death after the climax of our game, I spent the years you all thought I was dead tracking the various strands of Moriarty's great spider web, and destroying them. It would be pointless to spend all the time during the Reichenbach mess attempting to get rid of one master consulting criminal if someone in his web decided to step up and become the new spider at the centre. I eliminated all of his connections, and he would have had to start from scratch when he returned." He paused, glaring to the side. "Which is why I have not been able to find a trace of him yet," he spat.

"So he took it out on the homeless?" Anderson, as much as he now admired Sherlock, still had skepticism in his voice. Sherlock threw his glare to him instead.

"Were you not paying attention? My network for his. I destroyed his link to his web when we both disappeared, and in response to that destroyed mine. Not just any homeless, my homeless network. I have been paying the homeless for years in order to get information around London that would take you lot ages to retrieve. How else would you think I found Dzundza so fast when we were dealing with Moriarty the first time around?"

Anderson grumbled something unintelligible under his breath and turned away. John shoved his numbing, gloved fingers into his coat pockets. Staring at the eye again, he knew Sherlock was right. No, it wouldn't be as simple as an 'I'm watching you'. Moriarty always knew, he was always watching. He was as attuned to their movements just as much as Mycroft was, and it wouldn't make sense for him to point out something that they all knew. This was a game for Sherlock, so of course the clues would hold entirely different meanings. But that's what it was, a game.

"But as sick as this is, this is all just for you, Sherlock," John said. "He's showing you that he's ready for another one of his twisted games."

"Yes, murder does seem to be his way of saying 'hi'."

"So it's true, then?" Lestrade sighed, his heavy breath twirling in the air. "Moriarty's really back? That video a few months back wasn't just a hoax?"

"He's back," Sherlock said tonelessly. His lips melded into a flat line.

"But he shot himself in the head!" Anderson exclaimed. He mimed the gun with his fingers, and rested them against his head. "You said that yourself, and we had to pick up bits of his brain off the roof of St. Barts' that day."

John had been wondering the same thing for months. He never saw Moriarty shoot himself, of course, not with him being on the street stories away from the incident, but he trusted Sherlock's version of the events. John had considered maybe a duplicate replacing the actual Moriarty, but dismissed the idea because he knew that Sherlock would have been able to tell right away an imposter. John leaned closer to Sherlock so he could mutter in his ear. "Sherlock, how did Moriarty survive?"

"I don't know," Sherlock said quietly, before raising his voice to reach normal volume. "I need more information. I can't simply create a theory before I have the proper data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." He turned to Lestrade. "Show me the one who was shot. I need to know why they were different from the rest."

"Right, he's just at the centre of the compound," Lestrade said. As he started to lead them away, Anderson followed, so he stopped for a moment to say, "Anderson, you finish packing up here, and go talk to the Aurors before you leave. I think they want to take your statement before you go."

"Or erase your memory," Sherlock muttered under his breath, loud enough only for John to hear. As Anderson collected his forensics kit and walked towards the vans, John glimpsed the Aurors starting to mobilize. They grouped themselves into pairs, and were beginning to speak to the constables. One pair, he saw, was speaking to Sally Donovan out of sight of the general public, and John was sure that she would be Obliviated soon. Lestrade was not far off when he mentioned that some cases would slip from the minds of his officers; when magic was involved, the Aurors went out of their way to ensure that no Muggle would remember the incident. John now understood why Mycroft had sent for Sherlock to examine the scene. The Ministry of Magic, despite knowing that the British Government was aware of their existence, refused to cooperate with their Muggle counterpart, even in dark times - one simply had to look to the last time Voldemort was active before now for proof. John and Sherlock would be safe from the Ministry's strict policy as wizards themselves, and could relay any information back with ease.

As they approached the new body, John noted that it seemed to be the epicentre of the tragedy that lay in the form of tarps on the ground. The other bodies radiated outward from him, like he was the blast that ended their lives, even when John was sure that a single killing curse could not have been used to murder 56 people. The deceased in question was an elderly man, exceedingly tall for his age, with thick, white hair. He was dressed in what John recognized as expensive, blue robes. John frowned, and tilted his head. Wizard, definitely, pure-blood, if he had to guess by the robes alone. He didn't recognize the man, but considering that he had separated himself from the wizarding world 16 years ago, he didn't see that as unusual. And it wasn't as though a Muggle-born like him was going to be invited to all the pure-blood functions to interact with its elderly members.

"This one's a bit odd," Lestrade said, scratching his head under his hat. Sherlock immediately crouched down and started his examination. "Besides being shot and moved here to this location, he sticks out like a sore thumb. I rang the Globe Theatre to see if they had any actors or costumes missing, but they denied anything of the sort. I'm not sure if there are any fairs in town either, but he'd fit in well with one of those."

"John," Sherlock said, but his focus was still solely on the body. John crouched down beside him, but had the thought to look back at Lestrade. "Sorry, Greg, do you have any gloves for me?" he asked.

Lestrade pulled a pair from his pocket and tossed them at John. "Figured you'd ask."

Leaning over the body again with Sherlock, the consulting detective spoke again. "What do you see?" Sherlock asked, genuinely curious. Or more likely a test, John mused. He took his time looking down at the unfortunate wizard below them, taking note of the precise single-bullet wound to the forehead. Small calibre, most of the head still intact, enough left for facial recognition. His movements were methodical as he probed the fatal wound, before he moved to the robe, looking for identification. No wand, which would have concerned John if he didn't know that Lestrade would have mentioned it right away as part of the wizard's 'oddities'. But he did notice that the chest of the man was severely bruised, and John would bet that his ribs were broken too.

"Wizard, pure-blood going by the quality of the robes, but no wand on him and I don't recognize his face," John whispered. It wouldn't do for Lestrade to hear them, even if he was going to be Obliviated at the end of the night. "Trauma to his chest. Probably beaten before killed. Single gunshot wound to the head, but seeing as the concrete isn't a bloody mess, he was moved here." John glanced around him at the tarp-covered bodies, and elaborated more. "Most likely Apparated here, seeing as how everyone seemed to be running away from this point, they must have appeared out of nowhere."

"Better, but you still are missing the essentials," Sherlock said. He glanced up to say more, but spotted something over John's shoulder and immediately ducked his head back down. Confused, John looked behind him. Two Aurors were heading their way, the woman with the vibrant hair and a tall, dark-skinned man.

"John, the Aurors are getting impatient and they're trying to steal the scene from me. Go distract them while I finish my examination." Sherlock kept his head down as he said this, and shifted so his back was to the Aurors. John's eyebrows quirked up at this. "Why? They won't bother us, it's everyone else they're going to Obliviate."

Sherlock grumbled deep in his throat. "If they ask, and they will, tell them that you're the only wizard here. Tell them that I am simply a Muggle detective doing Scotland Yard's job for them."

John frowned. "Sherlock, you're a wizard; I've seen you do magic. Why would you deny-"

"Trust me, John, this is easier," Sherlock snapped, but still managed to keep his voice low. He resumed his examination and happily ignored the expletive John muttered, despite the look that John was also drilling into the back of his skull. Damn it, Sherlock, John thought, his inner voice full of annoyance. When are you going to stop acting without explaining things to me? Regardless, he followed his instructions, stumbled to his feet, and moved to intercept the Aurors before they would reach Lestrade, Sherlock, and the body of the unknown wizard. He heard Lestrade asking Sherlock if he had found anything, but was distracted from hearing Sherlock's response - if there was one, he was being uncharacteristically cryptic tonight - as he recognized the pink-haired witch's companion.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt, I haven't seen you since school," John said, reaching out to shake his hand in greeting. Kingsley, unlike his time in school, was now completely bald, and a single gold hoop pierced his ear. They had been in different houses, but had been friendly with each other. The tall wizard grinned warmly and clasped John's hand tightly, covering their joined hands with his unoccupied one. The pink-haired witch slipped ungracefully to a stop beside the two, but smiled politely once she recovered.

"John Watson!" Kingsley exclaimed in his rumbling, baritone voice. "It's been far too long, my friend." They released hands, and Kingsley gestured at the pink-haired witch beside him. "John, this is Nymphadora Tonks." Tonks scowled at the use of her full name, but Kingsley carried on without interruption. "She is one of our new, but brilliant Aurors. Tonks, this is John Watson. He was invaluable during the last war. Dumbledore always spoke highly of his actions."

"Wotcher, John!" Tonks said, flashing him a wide smile. Her hand snapped out and captured John's, giving his a warm shake. "It's nice to meet you. If you fought in the last war, were you apart of the Or-"

"Tonks!" Kingsley reprimanded, but his voice was kind. Tonks bit her tongue and mimed zipping her mouth shut. She silently said 'sorry', forming the word with over-exaggerated movements of her mouth. John smiled softly at her energy. She was still incredibly young, early twenties at the most. Examining her and feeling a lot like Sherlock, he knew that despite her youth, she was dedicated, and John had a strong feeling that she was a force to be reckoned with if ever provoked. The slip of her tongue indicated that they were both in the Order of the Phoenix. He was surprised with Kingsley, as he had not been a member during the first war. Though that war had essentially destroyed the ranks of the Order, so John wasn't surprised, he supposed, that they had been replaced.

"I was, yeah," John said in response to her unfinished question. "Joined right after I graduated. Dumbledore recruited me before I had even left the castle from the ceremony." He was one of a few that year, he remembered, that Dumbledore had pulled from the graduation luncheon with their parents. He had been decked out in his best dress robes, and his mother was trying to take a picture of him and his father with the castle as a backdrop. Smiling, as he glanced away from the camera, he saw Professor McGonagall approach him and whisper lowly into his ear that Dumbledore wished to speak to him.

John had not been blind to the increasing efforts of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, no, the newspaper incident that proved that. At the Gryffindor table, many would outwardly protest against the senseless killings, and swore that as soon as they were graduated, they would lend a hand in the fight against the dark wizard. One voice he remembered being one of the loudest was James Potter, who had been a year younger than him; he had also joined immediately after graduation, and rest his soul, had paid the ultimate sacrifice. John agreed with the need to fight back, and knew that the war affected him the most as a Muggle-born, with parents that could be targeted. So when Dumbledore asked, there was no hesitation in his affirmative.

"John, no one has heard from you in years," said Kingsley. He clasped his hands professionally in front of him, and his head tilted down so their eyes locked. "Where did you go? You barely returned anyone's owls."

John lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "After the war, there wasn't much left in the wizarding world for me. You know what happened to my housemates," he muttered, ice in his tone. He shook his head, and offered a brief summary of the years. "So I left. I went to medical school, became a doctor, seeing as that's what I wanted to be as a kid and since healer didn't interest me as much. I got caught up in another war, the Muggle one in Afghanistan, but came home when I was injured." He paused, and the corners of his mouth turned up involuntarily when he thought of Mary, who was currently watching the Great British Bake Off at home. "I got married last year, and my wife Mary is pregnant with our unborn daughter."

Kingsley clapped a hand on John's shoulder. "Congratulations, my friend."

"Congrats!" Tonks chirped. John blinked as her hair seemed to flash hot pink for a moment, before it settled back to bubblegum. She leaned in conspiratorially, and her words were a hush whisper when they spilled from her mouth. "Did you ever look back, though? Didn't you miss it at all?"

Rather than be offended by the blunt question, John considered it. The past few years in his flatshare with Sherlock, and his marriage to Mary, he had reflected on the wizarding world less and less as time went on. It wasn't as though he removed magic completely from his life. His wand could always be found on his person along with his gun, and was dead useful for situations that were a bit unorthodox. Sherlock, of course, liked his dangerous experiments, and more than often John had to have a counter-curse ready on the tip of his tongue or had to quickly Vanish lethal potions before the fumes could suffocate them all. He enjoyed using magic around his home. But what made John comfortable with his life was the perfect meld of magic and Muggle that he managed to create. As a child he worried that he would have to give up the wonderful things the Muggle world had to offer if he chose magic; now, he could see it didn't have to be that way.

"No." The truth rang in John's words. "When You-Know-Who vanished in Godric's Hollow at the Potter residence, and his Death Eaters scattered, the war was over and I was happy. I wanted to move to the Muggle world, and I can honestly say I've never been happier."

While Tonks looked thoughtful, John noticed that Kingsley's mouth had tightened at his mention of Voldemort. He also bent his body down, and surveyed the immediate area before speaking. "Have you seen the Daily Prophet lately, John?" Kingsley rumbled, his eyes hyper-focused as they swept over the smaller man.

John frowned as Tonks grew more attentive herself, but he knew what they were leading up to. "I have a subscription," John remarked, "but I haven't really been reading the paper because of all the rubbish it's been printing." Kingsley looked disappointed with John's assessment, so he sought to clarify. "How a wizard in his right mind could undermine Dumbledore is beyond me, as he wouldn't support a statement unless he truly believed that there was merit behind it. And 10 escaped Death Eaters is hardly a coincidence when paired with what Dumbledore has been claiming for nearly a year."

Kingsley nodded, but his eyes were distant; John knew he was turning over a heavy thought in his mind. Tonks' mouth twitched into a grin. "So you believe it, then? You believe he's actually back?" Her words tumbled out in a rush, and John could hear the unspoken question. Will you join the Order again? He had been expecting someone to approach him for a long time; last June when Harry Potter first claimed that Lord Voldemort had returned, within hours he had received an urgent owl from Dumbledore himself imploring him to rejoin the Order in the fight. And yet, he had hesitated. He was engaged to Mary at that time, and Sherlock had long since returned to drag him back into the wild and adventurous life of a consulting detective. He was tired of wars after fighting in two, magical and Muggle, and did not wish to have the scars of another adorning his body and mind.

John spotted Sherlock's sweeping form approach them, leaving Lestrade behind with the wizard's body. Sherlock flipped up his coat collars again as he walked, but kept his head angled down. His pace didn't slow as he passed them, but he was able to interject a sentence before they all turned and watched his coat swirl as he stalked back to the police tape. "I've got a lead," he had said coolly. John merely sighed in response.

"Sorry about that," John said apologetically. He started to lean away from Kingsley and Tonks. "Sherlock Holmes, famous consulting detective in the Muggle world. Bloody brilliant, but no ounce of common courtesy. Sorry, we'll be on our way."

"Is he a Muggle?" Tonks inquired, peering at Sherlock's receding form. "Sorry, but if he is, we're doing a clean sweep of all the Muggles with a team of Obliviators soon, and he needs to stay for that."

John's mind raced for half a second. Sure, Sherlock had said to say he was a Muggle, but if he was to reiterate that, they both would be stuck at the scene for a long time. Which would hamper Sherlock's plans and only lead to a fuss that would give everyone a migraine, John thought. But if he were to say Sherlock was a wizard, he had a gut feeling that Sherlock's revenge would be unpleasant, despite the fact that John saw no reason to withhold the information.

So he compromised.

"Squib, actually," John lied, shrugging and employing a straight face. "Made for an easy flatshare. I didn't have to explain away the owls and floating teacups, which was a nice change."

Tonks nodded, accepting the explanation. John tried to skirt away once more, but Kingsley's firm hand grasped his shoulder. "John," he rumbled, "war is again on the horizon, and I am afraid that it will touch the world you hold dear. If you ever change your mind about Dumbledore's request, my door is always open. We will welcome you back with open arms." He removed his hand.

"Right, thanks," John said. He nodded to the two of them. "Sorry, I have to catch up with him. He'll catch a cab and leave me behind if I don't. Tonks, it was nice meeting you. It was great seeing you again, Kingsley." He darted away after Sherlock, and Kingsley and Tonks continued on to Lestrade and the wizard's body.

He caught Sherlock past the police tape, already walking towards the main road. Sherlock didn't comment on John's arrival; for all John knew, perhaps Sherlock had thought he had been there the entire time and had already been rattling out his deductions.

"Definitely Moriarty, then?" John said, matching his friend's long strides as he made it to Sherlock's side.

"Yes, there's no doubt about it." Sherlock stopped on the corner of the busy road, staring down the road in search of a cab. "All of that was meant for me. My homeless network gone, the writing on the wall, all down to the wizard."

"But why now? He announced he was back months ago."

"His premature announcement was due to my exile. He needed a quick way to ensure that I would remain here in London, and he certainly succeeded. Most likely he planned to announce his return with the scene we just faced, but of course, sometimes plans need to be altered."

"And the magic?" John asked. This was the aspect that he was struggling the most with. Years ago, there was no indication that Moriarty knew of the wizarding world, let alone knew enough to hire people to perform the Killing Curse on 56 people.

Sherlock suddenly stuck his arm into the air. The hailed cab puttered obediently to the curb. "I have a few ideas, but I still need more data." Sherlock opened the cab's door and slid in. John followed and closed the door. "However, I know where to start." To the cabbie, Sherlock spoke up and added, "Charing Cross Road."

"Charing Cross Road?" John repeated. In his head, John skimmed over what he remembered was on that road, but only came up with second-hand bookshops. "Where from there?"

"The Leaky Cauldron, of course. We need to get to the wizard's flat before the Aurors barge in and muck up the evidence worse than Anderson drunk and blind."

John frowned as he tried to connect to where Sherlock's mind was, but he still was left with the feeling that his brain's gears were running slow. Didn't miss this part, he thought, but it was light-hearted.

"Wait, wait, Sherlock," John said. "How did you figure out who the man was?"

A smirk bloomed on Sherlock's face. John shook his head fondly, knowing that Sherlock had probably missed having someone to show off to in his three months of house arrest and was eager to do it once more.

"You missed what was important, John, but weren't wrong in your deductions. The man was a pure-blood, cared enough about his blood status to flaunt it with expensive, tailored robes, but he was not rich enough to be powerful in any capacity, like the Malfoy family. His robes were aged, showed signs of wear before his death, so he wasn't able to replace them on a regular basis and had to resort to repair. Hence his poor financial status. Well-worn robes, and not just regular robes, but near-dress robes. So he worked with high-end clients on a regular basis, and required such dress. But what you missed, besides the obvious cause of death, was his fingernails."

"Fingernails?" John echoed, playing along with Sherlock, who currently was now positively beaming as the words tumbled from his eager mouth.

Sherlock waved impatiently. "The fingernails, John! The fingernails! Dark magic leaves a mark, especially unstable or experimental dark magic. If you work with it for years consistently, it stains you, curses you back in accordance to what you have used. Lord Voldemort, as a blatant example, was said to have become less and less human in appearance as the years passed."

John's mouth flattened into a grim line at his memory of Voldemort from the first war, with blazing red eyes, a pale complexion, and a horrible, high laugh that sent chills down the spine of whoever was unfortunate to hear it. "He did, yeah." John agreed, shaking his head to dispel the image. The cabbie slammed on the brakes abruptly to avoid a collision, and John had to grip the seat in front of him to prevent himself from hitting his head. Sherlock sat unaffected, sitting as straight and poised as he ever was.

He continued as though there was no interruption. "The wizard's fingernails were streaked with black. To Muggles, it would seem as though it would be an injury, or a form of melanoma I believe, but if you were paying attention, you would feel it. It pulses, and writhes under the nails. This man worked consistently with his hands, personally handling dark objects or working his own into creation."

"So he was a dark artifacts dealer? Sold to the pure-blood community?" John said, catching on to Sherlock's train of thought. Sherlock nodded approvingly, so John continued with his next question. "But how did you know who he was? Did you find a bit of identification?"

Sherlock's smile slowly fell until his mouth settled into its resting, indifferent line. His eyebrows twitched together and he turned to look out the window. "No. I recognized him."

John blinked. "You did?" The man that John hadn't even known was a wizard for sometime, who for some reason didn't possess a wand, and the man who asked he hide his status from the Aurors, actually knew a wizard? Let alone a dark one? It wasn't surprising, John considered, that Sherlock knew the unsavory side of the wizarding world when taking into account his previous actions, such as his drug den visit after John's wedding. John couldn't help but recall the statement that Sherlock had repeated once, after he told the real story of what happened at the Fall. Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them.

"Yes," he said matter-of-factly, his eyes still following the flashes of headlights as the cars passed by, and the general activity of London at night. "His name was Caractacus Burke, owner of the most well-known dark arts store in the country. And tonight we're going to break into his flat."


She couldn't quite fathom it at first, why they appeared from thin air, but that fact wasn't important. It was the screaming that started soon after, and how Death was swift and not kind that night as it greeted its victims.

Five figures appeared in a swirl of black cloth in the centre of a concrete, homeless compound. There were dozens of people there, all bundled in their scavenged sleeping bags and blankets around well-kept fires. They were shocked at first, and angry that when the figures had appeared, they had knocked over and extinguished one of their fires. A woman with straggly hair kept in a purple toque was the first to stand and yell at the intruders, but her yell twisted into a startled gasp when she eyed the body of the elderly man being unceremoniously dropped to the ground, the man's skull hitting the ground with a dull thud. And the woman's gasp transformed into a shriek when one of the dark figures raised a stick at her in the moonlight and a sickening, green light shot at her from the tip. The light carried with it a peculiar sound, like wind rushing hauntingly, violently through the trees, and when it struck the woman, she immediately dropped.

Dead in an instant.

Discord ensued. As the other three figures joined in flashing the terrible green lights at the homeless, the hoard of people tried, in vain, to run away. In the end they all dropped, frozen in the last expression that they held in life. The rest of the neighbourhood was alerted to the dying screams of the homeless, and were quickly approaching. Three of the four figures disappeared, leaving in that swirl of black cloth exactly like they had arrived with. The last stood at a blank expanse of concrete wall and raise his stick again. Instead of the green light that swept away the lives of the homeless, red light painted a misshapen eye on the wall. And then this figure too did disappear.

The grotesque scene faded momentarily before it returned, and Sherlock was there, bent over the first body, the one of the beaten old man. But this too didn't last long, before it shifted to black, and she could hear laughter. His laughter. The one that was manic, uncontrollable, and screamed of all the murder that had been performed in the past out of sheer boredom. She panicked, searched for a way to escape, but there was only the pressing darkness and His laugh.

But a little light shone through the darkness, more gray in colour than white and he appeared. Sherlock. He stood at the edge of St. Bart's again, with his back to the drop. His long coat flapped madly in the wind ripping at him.

"Molly," he said, his voice sounding like it was originating from the depths of a long tunnel. But it sounded almost sad, the way he said her name.

But that laugh from before drowned out Sherlock's voice. There was another flash of that sickening, green light, striking Sherlock straight in the chest, and he fell over the edge once more . . .

Molly jerked when she awoke, and struggled to sit up in the twisted mess of blankets that she had been cocooned in. Her chest fluttered as her breaths came in short gasps, and her ears echoed with her wild heartbeats. She swallowed heavily as her hands tangled in the blankets. She let out a long sigh.

"It was just a dream, don't be silly," she chastised herself. She was in her thirties, and it wouldn't do to be scared by something as simple as a weird dream. Just as that thought left her, a dark shadow leapt on her bed, and she screamed.

The shadow jumped into the air and skittered backwards off the bed. Molly fumbled with the lamp at her bedside. Light spilled forth to illuminate the room, and she caught sight of a poofed cat on the floor, giving her the dirtiest look he could muster. "Oh my God, Toby, I'm sorry," she gushed. She patted the bed. "Come here, sweetie. I'm sorry."

Toby threw her another skeptical look, but obeyed, launching himself onto the bed once more. He immediately started purring as she pulled him into her lap and started scratching his chin absentmindedly. Silly, she thought. I'm just being silly. She bit her lip as she chanted the mantra in her head, because she couldn't seem to shake the chill from the dream. As a pathologist, it wasn't the bodies that was disturbing her; she'd seen many of those, and despite a brief sad moment for the loss of life, they never usually stuck with her. She was branded as an oddity as a child for wanting to become a pathologist, but she never minded too much, as she knew that it was her calling. So no, she knew it wasn't the bodies, despite it being disturbing that she dreamt of so many people being so thoughtlessly murdered.

But when she thought of the green light, the chill in her bones deepened, and spread to curl uncomfortably in her stomach. She couldn't think of a natural colour that matched the light that stole the life from those homeless people, and wondered if such a green even existed. That laugh, she could have sworn it was Moriarty's laugh, but then Sherlock had spoken. And then he too died. She shook her head to shake away the dream, one of many strange ones that she had had in the last few months. Just a dream, she thought again. She spotted the digital clock near her lamp. 3:01 a.m.

She glanced down at Toby lovingly, who was still purring away without a grudge against her. "Come on, Toby," she muttered softly to him, gently encouraging him up. "Let's get a cup of tea to chase the dream away."


A/N. Hello, all. Apologies for the long absence (I know, my editor EmperorKumquat has been harassing me because of it nonstop), but cancer research tends to eat up all of your free time. However, I am hoping to update chapters a bit quicker than this last one (four months was a bit much, don't you think?), as I'm sure my editor won't let me do that again.

Shoutout to sunsethill for reviewing. I enjoyed reading it and I appreciated receiving the review.

NEXT TIME: Sherlock and John do a bit of burglary and Molly receives a visit from someone she was not expecting. . .

Cheers,

CWS