Chapter Three - 13B, Knockturn Alley

The Leaky Cauldron, at the best of times, could be filled with a wide variety of patrons, from weary wizards resting after a long journey, the odd goblin or two on break from Gringotts sneering at any who passed their rickety table in the far corner of the bar, or exasperated parents with hyper children that just came from Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. During the day, the sunlight streaming through the translucent windows gave the bar an inviting look, a homely look, from the hodgepodge collection of chairs and tables in different sizes and chairs, to the warm fire licking at the main fireplace, to the moving pictures of past bar owners smiling down at the diners. It was by no means the best bar in London, or the one that served quality food (patron beware the leaky, leaky soup), but it was safe, welcoming, and nostalgic for all of wizarding Britain.

The Leaky Cauldron in the early hours of the morning was not homely or welcoming, but rather reflected its true age and standing. In the low light supplied only by stubs of melting candles, the cracks and mildew of the establishment were more apparent, in stark contrast to the walls that peeled centuries-old paint and the wood flooring that was in need of varnishing. Tom the Bartender with his cheerful demeanour was absent, replaced by a squat witch with tangled, black tresses and a face adorned with a resting glare. A single man sat hunched over the bar, his long, pale fingers teasing a glass filled with a suspicious dark-red liquid. In the corner where the goblins usually sat, there was a pair of hags, picking at a dish with a foul stench that strongly resembled rotting apples.

John had never been in the Leaky Cauldron at this time of night before, nor did he think he had been missing out on much. As he followed Sherlock's heels into the establishment, he eyed the vampire at the bar with his drink, but mostly his eyes were distracted by sweeping over the place he hadn't seen in more than a decade. He tenderly looked at the table in front of the now cold fireplace, where he and his family had their first meal in the wizarding world after purchasing his school supplies when he was 11. And the pillar with the missing brick, behind that he had kissed a sweet Hufflepuff girl the summer before his fifth year.

Sherlock darted swiftly through the bar to the back, where the entrance to Diagon Alley lay nestled between the rubbish bins. He kept his head angled down and his hands firmly on his coat collars, and to anyone looking upon him, John was sure that all they would see were Sherlock's dark curls. John lowered his head as well, but noted that the witch at the bar polishing a glass for the vampire was following their movement as they strode past them. Sherlock shoved the door to the back open, and John caught it with his fingers to ensure that it clicked softly into place behind them.

The winter chill was less biting out back in the enclosed area, but the slight wind that had picked up still ruffled their hair and had John clutching at the edges of his jacket. Sherlock stood at the wall that would open to the shopping district, creases forming on his face as he appeared deep in thought. John mirrored his position in front of the wall, and took in the pattern of bricks he had not seen in a lifetime.

"So," John started, still focused ahead. Sherlock twitched beside him. "Caractacus Burke, one of the owners of Borgin and Burkes, I didn't realize he was still alive before this. When I heard of the shop when I was in school, people only really talked about Borgin."

"Borgin handles the day-to-day management of the shop, and personally deals with the customers," Sherlock said, his voice low. "Deliveries, sales pitching, the like. No, Burke was different. Reclusive, prone to experiment with dark objects and fashioning his own. He didn't interact well with others, was said to disturb or put off any of those he bothered to speak to, and had of his experiments consistently destroy the flats above the shop."

"Sounds familiar," John breathed, chuckling softly. Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow at the comment, and John shrugged. "Have you not seen what you do to the flat?"

"Yes, but I do not experiment with dark magic." Sherlock's voice was as frosty as the air around them. "You can thank Caractacus Burke for the number of cursed objects in the country. He was a genius in his art, a collector of rare artifacts, but certainly not a nice man. He would rob you of any spark of life and feel no remorse. He was no Dark Lord, but he is not a man to miss from this world." Sherlock's gloved hand gestured at the expanse of wall in front of them, and John pulled out his wand. The memory, although buried, tingled his arm into movement, tapping the bricks three up, and two across, like a pianist playing a song after a long hiatus. The hole started out small, a few bricks sliding out of the way and fitting together with soft clinks. As the pattern of folding bricks became more elaborate, falling back into an arc, John waved his wand with a lazy flick, silencing the bricks from echoing down the Alley and waking any owners currently asleep in their shops.

"You are used to Muggle weapons and Muggle traps, John," Sherlock continued. He tilted his head down and considered John. "It's been years since you've seen yourself facing wizarding defenses. I can assure you that it will be more dangerous than usual to trespass into Burke's home; I haven't the faintest as to what curses will be unleashed once we step through his door, and I can't guarantee that they can be reversed."

John returned his wand to the depths of his jacket pocket as he snorted at Sherlock's words. His imprisonment must have truly addled his head to cause him to stare at John with an unfamiliar look of apprehensiveness, and a twinge of hesitation in the set of his shoulders. "Like that's ever stopped us before. Let's get this over with, I have surgery in a few hours, you know."

His response pacified Sherlock. With a swift swirl of his coat, Sherlock set off with John trailing at his side, although his eyes were focused at the street he had not seen since his first war. The twisting alley was the same as that of his childhood; the display windows were dimmed by the night, yet the little light the winter moon offered hinted at the glittering array of potion ingredients, spellbooks, and other wizarding equipment within each shop. There was a flickering candle lighting the back of Ollivander's shop, but the thought of the quirky wandmaker working at all odd hours of the day did not surprise him. The alley was quiet in its slumber, waiting for the awakening of a new day for smiles and laughter to grace its cobblestone paths once more. This was in stark contrast to the side alley that Sherlock stepped into, marked only by a weathered, wooden arrow marked Knockturn Alley. A dank stench wafted up from the alleyway, one that reminded John of unpleasant memories of decay and unwashed bodies.

Stepping down the passageway that sloped ever downwards to the slums of the wizarding world, the ambient noise faded, and the lack of noise pressed into John's ears. Even though Diagon Alley was peaceful in its sleep, the nightlife of London could be heard around. Here the darkness pressed uncomfortably in on their sides, blocking the noise from the outside world, and making it incredibly hard to see. John squinted at the form of his friend only steps in front of him, but while John was unsure in his footing on the uneven stone ground and was wondering if he would need to light a wand before he broke his ankle, Sherlock didn't even glance at his footwork as he strode along.

When they entered the main stretch of Knockturn Alley, John could understand why as a child he was forbidden to walk among this street. The shops that lined the narrow, winding, and decaying road proudly displayed human bone fragments, buckets of ooze that continued to bubble in the off hours, dangerous and certainly illegal potion ingredients, along with ordinate pieces of jewellery that were without a question cursed. Whereas Diagon Alley was colourful, vibrant, and glittery with the best of the wizarding world, this alley was the muted and dirty version, where only the scum and darkest of souls gladly tread.

Sherlock slowed his pace as they arrived at their destination, Borgin and Burkes, a dingy shop nestled in the mildewy stone. John's eyes skimmed the items in the window; a collection of shrunken heads stared out at him, their waxy skin held taut by black stitching. Sherlock scanned the building until his eyes rested on a side door attached to 13B. John noticed it as well, and from a glance at the grimy windows above the shop, he could only assume that it led to the apartments above.

With a quick look around them, Sherlock crept closer to the door. The handle was old-fashioned to John, rusted, and looked like it had been there since the alley was first erected. Sherlock muttered to himself as he examined the lock, and with his own look down the street, John leaned closer to Sherlock so they could talk.

"Well, then, tell me," John muttered. Sherlock frowned, pausing in his stroke of the lock with the tip of his gloved finger.

"Tell you what exactly?" Sherlock quipped. His eyes didn't leave the lock as he wiggled his finger above the lock with a flourish. His frown deepened when the lock did not respond.

"All the deductions that you had at the crime scene. How did you know who he was? I didn't, and I've dealt with a lot of nasty wizards through the Order."

Sherlock lowered his glove. His gaze refused to waver. "Caractacus Burke may have supported the Dark Lord indirectly, but he was not one to get his hands dirty. You would have never seen him in the battles that you fought during that war." He tested the handle of the door, but it was still locked. "I, however, find Knockturn Alley to be useful on occasion. All the shops in Diagon Alley are boring. None of them sell the good potion ingredients."

Considering the experiments that went wrong every fortnight, John knew better than to describe the "good potion ingredients" as such. John gestured to the current problem, while keeping a soldier's eye on their surroundings.

"Having problems?" he commented in regard to the magical lock. Sherlock stepped back from the lock.

"Annoyingly so," he spat. "Though I did expect that the living quarters of the masters of dark magic would have good defenses on their door to prevent the common riff-raff from getting in." Sherlock held his hand out, his eyes forward. "Give me your wand."

John lifted an eyebrow at Sherlock. "You're a wizard. Use your own wand instead of mine because of sheer convenience."

Sherlock huffed with annoyance. "I don't have mine on me."

John echoed Sherlock's exhale. "Sherlock, I'm not the glorified weapon's carrier. Learn to carry your own bloody weapons with you. We're in Knockturn Alley for Merlin's sake. Common sense dictates that you would be armed with your wand!" John fought to keep his voice low, but he was able to keep the exasperated tone.

"It is exactly as you said, John, it is more convenient." Sherlock's words were clipped, trying to force the end of the argument. "After all, you are more proficient with the gun you carry on you anyway, so why argue? We will each have a weapon, since that is what you're heavily fixated on at the moment." His fingers twitched again, beckoning for the wand that was safely held in John's left inner coat pocket. "Now, seeing as we're about to walk into a dark wizard's flat, one that is sure to be heavily guarded by countless painful and possibly fatal curses, don't you think it would be better for the wizard with extensive curse-breaking knowledge to hold the wand?"

John lifted his eyebrow at Sherlock's bold claim, but had no doubt in his mind that it was true. John's knowledge on curse breaking was limited, and even though his knowledge of Sherlock's magic past was even more so, it was so incredibly Sherlock to have knowledge of dark magic. And considering destructive incidents that Mycroft loves to hint at, has probably experimented with at one point, despite what he said earlier, John thought. Even with this line of thinking, John was reluctant to hand over his wand, unarming himself to a degree. Yet his hand entered his pocket and fished out the stick of English Oak.

"Or maybe it would be better for the wizard who actually bothered to bring a wand to a dark wizard's lair to hold the wand," he grumbled as Sherlock snatched the wand from his hands. Sherlock immediately began twirling the wand in complicated swirls and slashes above the lock. Silver and blue trails of light were left behind in the dry air like ribbons, twisting together to form a knot.

With a final flick, the knot dispersed into the lock. Sherlock reached forward to twist the knob and the door swung open with a long, disconcerting moan. Sherlock paused, his ear cocked to the open doorway; no response from above was heard. John followed Sherlock up the narrow, slanted staircase after shutting the door behind them with a twin moan and a soft squeak.

Muted yellow light could be seen flickering at the top of the stairs. With each step up, the steps creaked and protested under their feet until Sherlock cast a Silencing charm. The landing that they reached was as dirty as the Alley; the floor was caked in a layer of dirt, dust, and muck. A small lamp rested on a table in the centre of the hall, to the left of which was a door labelled Borgin. Sherlock flicked the wand at the door shortly, presumably casting another spell to prevent that occupant from hearing them trespass. At the end of the hall, there was a second door, this one labelled Burke. John noticed that Burke's door rested on the door jam, already having been opened.

John's hand slipped into his pocket and withdrew his gun. He jerked his head to indicate that Sherlock enter first. Sherlock raised John's wand to the ready and both men slipped inside the door. It clicked shut behind them at John's touch; they were in the dark once more.

"Lumos," Sherlock whispered. A dazzling bright light erupted from the tip of John's wand, illuminating the flat and its contents.

It was a room that betrayed the owner as borderline hoarder. Stacks of items could be seen throughout the room, from discarded parchment to what suspiciously looked like human phalanges. They were surrounded by towers of dirty glass cases, each containing an assortment of objects that rivaled those in the shop for sale. The case closest to them held several pieces of jewellery that easily could have cost a fortune each, but the slight glow that encompassed each gold chain necklace and jewel gave away its cursed state.

As Sherlock swept his arm left and right, not daring to move more than that, he illuminated more chipped skulls, various body parts putrefied in jars, and piles of leathery books. A small path led from the door to a large workbench nested under a curtained window. Despite the junk and dark objects littering the room, it did not seem as though anyone else besides the two of them were currently in the flat.

"John." Sherlock's voice cracked in the stagnant air. His focus was still trained on the objects around them. "If you care to keep your life, I would recommend not touching anything in this flat." To compliment his comment, he waved John's wand over a silver brooch closest to them. It began to tremble, small perturbations on the glass it rested on, before it warped and stretched, a small tinny scream originating from it before it burst into dust. John merely blinked.

"Not that I was planning to, thanks," John responded, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. He took in the flat before them, scanning for movement. "I don't think anyone is here."

"At the moment, no, but someone was." Sherlock took a tentative step forward. The wood moaned in response. He waved the light of the wand to the floor where in the thick dust, there was a clear indication of a disturbance. "This flat has been untouched for months, as even a slob such as Burke would at least tread through his workshop and carry away the dust. He hasn't been here. The imprints here are too small for his feet."

John nodded, putting away the gun as he did. Sherlock muttered under his breath, twirling the wand as he did. He took another step; the tip of the wand spat red. John watched the movements Sherlock was making with his wand, but he did not recognize them. He only acknowledged that the air in which they breathed seemed to be thinner, and that there was a mild burning sensation that he could feel on the back of his neck.

"What are you doing then?" John asked, stepping forward each time Sherlock made a move. They continued this way until they had made it approximately halfway to the workbench and Sherlock stopped in his tracks.

"There are more security protections than I imagined that there would be," Sherlock said, his voice light. He grinned. "Breaking the curses that Burke had layered on this flat was one of the most challenging tasks I have done in a while. Quite refreshing from the torture that was living with Mycroft." Sherlock wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and lowered the wand. "I believe that I have broken all of the curses. We should be free to move at our own accord."

Sherlock's gaze fell on the workbench, and John could see that perched on top of numerous scraps of parchment was a flat, silver tray and a folded card with cursive script. Sherlock's coat swirled as he took another step forward.

BANG.

The flat echoed with a sound that rivaled fireworks. John fished out his gun in the split second since the sound, and pointed downward as the floorboards shivered with magic, rippling outward from underneath Sherlock's foot like a stone being thrown into water. Sherlock whirled around with John's wand raised as thick, black smoke rose from between the cracks in the floorboards. John frantically glanced at Sherlock; John was useless in a magical attack without his wand, and he swore he was going to buy a second wand if they survived just so in circumstances like this. He would then at least have something useful to defend himself.

Sherlock immediately jumped into action, brandishing the wand with practiced confidence at the smoke that hovered at their ankles. Yet Sherlock's slashes of white fire and shouts of "Tenebris Conticescent" did nothing to slow its progress. The cloud rose insistently; John yelped as the smoke filled the room, burning his skin and chilling his lungs. He fought to stay conscious as he choked on the spell. He stumbled forward to try to find Sherlock in the vicious cloud, but his friend's voice was sounding farther and farther away until John finally slumped down to the ground with a muted thump.


"Get down!" A voice screamed, nearly drowned by the sound of rapid gunfire and shattering explosions. In the distance there were muted sounds of others, mostly men, yelling in another language, one that John hadn't heard in what he thought was years.

John blinked. The Afghan sun blinded him; he winced away from the rays as tracers of light danced in front of his corneas as he took in his surroundings. Bodies rushed around him on the sandy expanse dressed in dusty tan, fighting off the ambush they had suffered at the hands of their enemy. He glanced to his left as another explosion threw dirt into his dry eyes and made his ears ring. Their convoy had unknowingly passed over a mine and it was the vehicle that set off the explosion that he was currently looking at. The fire inside was dying to a slight flicker, but he could see that the soldiers that it was carrying had not survived. The driver was draped over the wheel, her face a bloody mess; the passenger seat was empty, but a bloody trail led away from it to end at his knees.

The young man he was working on could not have been much older than 21. His dark face had been lightened with the coarse sand and crimson blood had been ground into his skin. John remembered that not one minute ago he had been speaking, pleading with the doctor to stop the bleeding from his wound in his neck and help him. His brown eyes were closed, but a thin whistle of a breath was still coming from his lips. John readjusted his grip on the dressing he had applied to the wound, knowing that as soon as he released the pressure the wound would immediately become fatal.

He thought he heard another voice above the madness, this one warbly, as though someone was yelling through thick sheets of glass. John glanced around him, staring at the heat waves in the distance as they distorted his vision. It was a faint baritone, this voice, and though he could not pick out the words that were being said, he knew that it was pleading with something among the sobs and screams that also came from this source.

John blinked again, a flash of a dark room of odd trinkets coming to mind, and a shock of curls on the floor at his level emitting the sound. Sherlock? his mind began, but the flash of clarity disappeared as soon as it came. He shook his head. No, he didn't know a man of that name. The baritone screams faded and John could only assume that he was hallucinating in the sweltering heat and the stressful conditions.

John focused on the man he knew was real. His eyes were drawn to the young man's name tag. "Come on, Stevens, we're not done here yet." He knew that the injury the man sustained from the shrapnel was too severe for him to properly treat out in the field like this. Another soldier yelled out a warning, and John pressed his body close to the man's chest to protect him from a blast that was close to his back. He felt the heat burn his neck. The ringing increased, and he could barely hear his own voice as he shouted, "I promise that I can help you, so if you still hear me, just trust in me."

John clamped hard on the dressing with his right hand as he slowly withdrew his left. He may have left the wizarding world behind him to become a doctor and a soldier, but he wasn't about to let a man in front of him die when he had the magic that could save his life. He slipped his hand toward the secret pocket he had sown in the inside of his jacket, magically invisible to Muggles. His index finger cleared the opening; he choked a laugh as he touched the handle of his wand because after all of this madness, he would be able to decrease the body count by one at least-

CRACK.

He wasn't sure why he was able to hear the shot that struck his shoulder above all the rest. Perhaps he had imagined it, or maybe it was the sound of the bullet ripping through flesh that he heard. The shock of it immediately flooded ice in his body; he was a doctor, there was a red cross on his arm, you were not supposed to shoot a doctor. They treated everyone…

It didn't matter in the end. John felt his fingers slip from the neck of the young man as his body was jerked back from the force of the shot. Pain spiked greater than any injury he sustained from Quidditch in his school days, or hotter than any curse he experienced during the wizarding war. The edges of his vision darkened and his ears buzzed with muffled sound. His body thumped to the sand beside the young man's, giving John a clear view of blood soaking through the dressing with no abandon, despite John trying to fight through the pain and the impending wave of unconsciousness settling heavy on his mind. He screamed in frustration as his body refused to cooperate with him to save one life, this young life. His fingers dropped centimetres from the pooling blood. His vision went dark.

There was a certain sense of déjà vu as John existed in the dark limbo. His shoulder still shrieked in pain, but hadn't he had this injury before? Wasn't the sand and the heat that stuck to his skin already a distant memory, despite how real it felt? And the young man by the name of Stevens, hadn't he had numerous nightmares that replayed the moment he watched the blood leave his body and end his life before he could wave his wand and save him?

The baritone voice became audible once more, but it wasn't a scream of terror or a cry for help, this was the voice of a man in control, standing tall against the void.

"Enough!" the baritone voice commanded, still muffled by the invisible glass. "Enough!" Clearer this time, as though it originated from beside John, though he knew that there was nothing but the darkness there. "Expecto Patronum!"

A dazzling white light cut through the black, illuminating John's eyelids in a soft pink. As it bathed his body, he felt the bullet wound fade to a pinprick of a memory and turn into a soft ache in his leg. The heat of the Afghan sand was misplaced by the bitter March chill, though the sweat remained soaking through each layer of clothing he had chosen to wear. John noted that he was lying on a hardwood floor as his mind struggled to sort out the Hell of the past from the present. Sherlock is my best friend - Moriarty is back - Burke - not Afghanistan - London - not Afghanistan, you're not back there -

John opened his eyes.

Sherlock was on his feet, John's wand brandished in front of him like a torch and his coat billowing out around him. A magpie Patronus flew around the room, chasing the the black smoke that had risen from the floorboards and destroying it on contact. John's breath still came in short gasps from the shockingly vivid trip down memory lane; he swallowed hard, trying to control the emotions he had felt so long ago, now throbbing at the surface. He fought to stop the trembling of his hands and he struggled to his feet, mindful not to touch anything as instructed to avoid that experience again.

Sherlock pivoted on the spot as he directed his Patronus to chase down the remnants of the curse. John studied his face carefully. Even though he had thought that the memory had been real, through it he had heard Sherlock at one point shrieking at the top of his lungs and… crying? Sherlock's face was stony in the reflected light of the Patronus, yet the bright light only served to highlight the tear tracks on his face and the abnormal clammy colour to his skin.

With a final flick of the wrist, the magpie disappeared. Sherlock snapped the wand in a circular fashion and the candles surrounding the circumference of the room flickered to life, bathing their unsettled faces in an orange glow. For a moment after the Patronus dissipated, they stood in relative silence, the only sounds their laboured breathing speaking of what they both witnessed. As always, John was the one to break it.

"I've never seen a curse like that before," John wheezed as he stared at the floor, daring the smoke to return.

"And yet, you've felt something similar," Sherlock rasped. He coughed to clear his voice, proving that whatever Sherlock had seen it did cause him to scream.

"It reminded me of what it's like to be around a Dementor," John admitted, catching on. Minus the cold chill and the unnatural rattle of their breath, the curse had thrown John back to one of his worst memories. "Different, though. It felt so real. It was as though I was right back in Afghanistan living it for the first time. I forgot about you and anything up until the present. Dementors can't do anything remotely close to that . . . what the hell was that?"

"A curse of Burke's making, I believe, designed to be stronger and to avoid the mess of working with the damn beasts," Sherlock said. He waved the wand at the floor again to ensure that what attacked them would not do so again. He grimaced. "There's always something that I miss-"

John moved to interrupt that tirade before it began anew. "So the Patronus worked the same way it would have against the Dementor. But I didn't even realize I was in a nightmare, how on Earth were you able to even think for a moment to cast that?"

"One of the benefits of having my mind, John, is that I know the difference between reality and memory on sight. After years of mastering my own memories, it's natural." Sherlock waved a flippant hand.

Even though they were starting to dry on his still-white face, the tears were obvious. "Right, Sherlock, because I'm sure crying is a sign that you knew it was a memory right away. It felt like a long time that I was back in Afghanistan before you broke the curse," John said, pointing out the evidence. Sherlock's frown deepened, and his fingers wiped away the moisture on his face. "What did you see, anyway? I thought I heard you screaming…"

Sherlock's stony face returned. John stared into his cool, blue eyes, but not a flicker of what nightmare he may have suffered could be found there. "Mycroft hiding my pirate hat when I was a child. He was as annoying back then as he is now," he said without a pause. John knew it was a lie and was about to call him out on it, before Sherlock shoved the wand back into his hands. "Here." His tone was short, signalling the end of the query. "As far as I can tell, there are no more intruder curses."

John accepted the wand and picked up his gun that had been lying on the ground. He chose to drop the subject for now - if Sherlock didn't want to tell him what he actually saw, there was no force that could make him. He could only imagine that it would have been something that occurred during the time Sherlock had pretended he was dead and hunted down Moriarty's old web. He once overheard a snippet of a comment from Mycroft that Sherlock had been tortured in Serbia before he had come home. John shuddered, his mind spiraling down different torture scenarios that Moriarty left behind for Sherlock. He holstered the gun, but kept the wand handy.

"I would have thought there was just more than one curse in this flat," John said off-handedly.

"There were several that I managed to catch and quickly neutralize. The flesh-eating hex was a tad tricky. You may find blisters on various bodily areas later. It was just that last curse I missed." Sherlock turned away, his attention caught by the wooden workbench at the other end of the room. A metal object reflected the light cast by the oil lamps. A folded square of stationary sat neatly on top of the metal surface. "Now, let's see what has been left for us, shall we?"

Sherlock stepped forward with his usual confident stride, his eyes trained on the prize that awaited them. John joined him, his wand hand still at the ready in case Sherlock missed another curse. Yet they reached the messy workbench with nary a dark object even twitching.

John heard Sherlock give a hum of displeasure as he glanced at a silver, ordinate dinner plate. The plate itself was easily one of the most expensive items John had seen outside of a museum; it was obviously an antique, it hadn't been polished in recent years, but a house crest was intricately shaped into the centre of the plate. At the top of the crest was a skull, underneath which was a hand grasping a wand, and lastly, three birds. The motto Tourjours pur graced a banner that curved around the bottom of the crest. John knew enough to assume that the last word was 'pure' and that it probably belonged to a pure-blood family, but which one he couldn't even begin to guess as a Muggle-born. A single line of script was written on the folded piece of paper.

New present for you tomorrow, boys.

An ill feeling settled in John's stomach. It wasn't hard to guess what sort of thing Moriarty would deem a present. He picked up the card and flipped it over, but there was nothing else written.

Sherlock's long fingers flitted through the stacks of notes to the left of the plate, his scowl still in place. John moved to the right of the plate, his eyes caught on a photo pinned to the wall behind the desk. It was wizarding of course; the three subjects were outside of the shop, awkwardly situated beside each other with neutral expressions on their faces. A short, squat man shook hands with a handsome, young man with dark hair that didn't look much older than Hogwarts-age. The young man stared into the camera with cold eyes, his picturesque self giving a reluctant half-smile every few seconds. It wasn't those two people that John's eyebrows shot up for. The third man stood to the side of the two exchanging pleasantries. He was elegantly dressed in outdated robes and he stood ramrod straight, blinking occasionally to break the hard stare he gave the camera. Unmistakably, it was Jim Moriarty.

Wait, no, John thought, it can't be. The picture looked decades old, from the water-damage at the edges, the black and white background, to the old-style robes. He removed the picture from the wall and flipped it over to see the off-white backing.

Burke, Borgin, and Riddle. 1966.

He looked at the wizards again. Examining who he thought was Moriarty once more, he started picking out the differences. This younger Burke was similar in structure, but his face was lined more than the Moriarty he knew and seemed to be in his late 50s. His nose was more hooked and he seemed to be at least half a foot taller going by the shop door he was in front of.

"It seems as though Burke developed the spell we had the unfortunate pleasure of experiencing for an anonymous customer," Sherlock said, flicking the pages back into place and interrupting John's examination of the photograph. "He only referred to the customer as 'M'. Doesn't take a genius to figure out who that is, obviously. However, there was no mention of what it was or will be used for."

"Did Burke have a son?" John asked, his eyes still on the photo.

"None to my knowledge. Burke never married, much preferring to lock himself away with his work."

Doesn't that sound familiar, John mused. He thrust the photo to Sherlock. "Moriarty looks an awful lot like Burke, don't you think?"

Sherlock accepted the photo from John, his eyes darting across the image. A small smile teased the corners of Sherlock's mouth.

"Oh this is fantastic," Sherlock mumbled. He looked up at John. "Don't you see?"

John glanced down at the photo in Sherlock's hands; Sherlock waved it in the air. "I'm the one who pointed it out-"

"No, no, that much is obvious. They're certainly close relatives, probably father and son like you said, but I'll bother Mycroft for Moriarty's birth records later. Think, John, think. Moriarty is the same age as I am, do you ever remember seeing him at Hogwarts?"

John thought about commenting, I don't remember seeing you at Hogwarts either, despite the fact you claimed to have gone there, but settled on answering his question directly. "No, I don't. He'd obviously be Slytherin, and someone like him would be hard to miss."

"Exactly! I don't remember him either," Sherlock exclaimed. "And that leaves the question, is Moriarty a squib or a wizard? If he was a wizard, why didn't he attend school? Did Burke know of him? I would think not, if Moriarty remained as an anonymous benefactor, so it can be assumed that it was a tryst of some sort." He snatched the plate and note up. "But I shall await for the birth records before I can make any definitive conclusions."

"Well," John said, his voice heavy, "we can assume one thing. There's going to be another body tomorrow."

Sherlock turned the note over in his fingers. "Yes, I believe there will be." He scanned the room. "It's interesting that this flat is untouched as it is."

"Burke hasn't been here in a while," John agreed.

"From what I know of him, it would take a great deal to get him to leave his flat. And yet, there's no sign of a scuffle, so he left willingly," Sherlock said. "I'll go to Bart's later in the morning and test the dirt I took from Burke's shoe to try to get a better sense of where he's been if not here."

John glanced at his watch. 2:50 a.m. "Sherlock, I've got surgery to do in the morning at Bart's, is there anything else you wanted to do while we're here?"

"No, I think we've seen all we're meant to see." Sherlock adjusted the plate under his arm, and John thought he heard him mutter, "... he's making it too easy…"

"What-" John started. Sherlock strode past him to the door. "Come on then, John, I'm sure Mrs. Hudson will still make us a cup of tea at this hour in celebration of my release from solitary confinement."

"No, Sherlock, I'm going home." At Sherlock's blank look, John continued, "I'm knackered. I'm going to sleep as much as I can before the madness continues tomorrow, alright?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I suppose Mrs. Hudson will still make the tea for just me." Sherlock's face was expressionless, yet John had the suspicion that Sherlock had been caught up in thinking that it would be like old times, where he would drop everything in order to work on a case. It was amazing how much a stable relationship and a child on the way changed that so fast.

"Listen, I'll Apparate you back to 221B before I go back to my place," John compromised. "It'll save you the cab fare at least."

"I'll make my own way back, thanks. It's been three months. I'm not an invalid," Sherlock spat. He turned, his coat swaying with the movement as he strode across the room and opened the door. He beckoned John with a hand as it disappeared through the frame. With a long, suffering sigh, John trotted after him, leaving the dusty dungeon of a dark flat behind them and already dreading the loss of life that was sure to occur the next day. But there was still that small part of him that was thrilled for the chase and the disaster that was sure to occur, like Mycroft had pointed out years ago.


Molly let gravity pull her butt to the cushions of her sofa as she plopped with her tea in hand. Toby circled around her feet before he decided to jump on the sofa beside her, switching on his purr for love. She gave his chin a long scratch as she placed her tea on the small table in front of her, sighing at the lateness of the hour. She had to be at Bart's for 7:00 that morning, and she was already dreading dragging herself through the day with so little sleep. She was used to it though.

This wasn't the first night where she had been woken up by a nightmare and sat in front of the telly with her tea ready in hand for warm comfort. They've been her constant companions for years since around the time she met John. She wasn't sure what exactly had triggered them; it wasn't as though it was something that she had experienced as a child, besides a small bit of anxiety. Yet, she couldn't help but be unnerved at such chilling nightmares that she had to convince herself weren't coming true.

The first one she remembered only snippets of. A pool, a gun, and explosives tied to a man. As time went on, the dreams became clear, and she realized that there were people that she knew that appeared among the faces she didn't recognize. John frequented often, but he was always accompanied by the main player of most dreams: Sherlock. Sherlock running from a vicious dog on a dark, foggy moor, Sherlock fighting and killing his way through Moriarty's web, Sherlock and John frantically trying to diffuse bombs on the Tube car, just Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock -

Molly took a sip of her tea to banish her thoughts. Toby brushed her legs, purring, and she pet him absentmindedly. "Just an overactive imagination," she told herself, but even she could hear her hesitation. She took a larger gulp of her tea and cleared her throat. "Just a silly crush that's been blown out of proportion, because Sherlock doesn't do that -"

Scritch. Scritch. Scri-Scritch.

Molly's hands tightened on her mug as her gaze was drawn to the door. Someone was scraping something against the door's keyhole, and the doorknob was jiggling. Toby jumped at the noise and skittered away down the hall. Molly dropped her mug on the coffee table, her eyes frantically searching the room quickly for a weapon, something blunt that could be used in a pinch to hit someone on the head, or something sharp to piece a blood vessel in an instant. She was a doctor, she knew what to target, even if she worked solely on the dead.

Just as her hands settled on the lamp at her side, the door whispered a creak and swung open to reveal Sherlock, retracting a key from the door.

"S-Sherlock!" Molly gasped. She lowered the lamp and tried to calm the thumping of her overactive heart in her chest. Her eyes swept over the man that she hadn't seen in months. Sherlock's hair was longer and curlier, his skin paler than normal, but otherwise physically the same. Sherlock's only visible surprise to her being awake was a twitch of his eyebrow. His eyes mimicked hers and swept over her and the room, but unlike her, his eyes shone with deductions when they resumed eye contact.

"Molly," he greeted in his baritone. At the sound of his voice, Toby emerged from his safe-hold and swirled around Sherlock's feet. As Sherlock pulled off his shoes, he gave Toby a few pats. "You've had another nightmare."

Molly returned the lamp to its spot and sat down again. She bit her lip as she reached for and remained focused on her cooling tea. During the period of time Sherlock had pretended to be dead to the better part of Britain, he did return to London on occasion. He couldn't go back to 221B, he loathed Mycroft's place, so he ended up at her place. He took the couch while she kept her bed, she shoved food his way when she thought he needed it, and she sat in the living room with her tea when she had nightmares, just like now. He remained on the couch in his Mind Palace most of the time, but on occasion he did partake in the tea she made. She was surprised that he kept the key she gave him though.

"It's just another dream," she said, giving him a small smile. "Sherlock, why are you here? I thought you were at Mycroft's?"

Sherlock tossed his scarf and coat on a hook with a flourish of his hand. "Moriarty is back." He was matter-of-fact. "John and I were just at his opening act. 56 homeless dead."

Molly's fingers clenched at the news. Green light flashed in her mind's eye, and the reminder of its sick colour turned her stomach again. The dream was a fresh taint on her mind; it seemed so real, as though she had watched it happen personally. The screams of what had seemed like homeless people tore at her heart and a heaviness settled into her core. Surely it was a coincidence? Her having a dream of a massacre, only to have Sherlock confirm the heinous occurrence moments after waking? Molly took another gulp of her tea to settle the uneasiness that trickled into her bones. The thought of Moriarty back was not a pleasant one, and she couldn't quite shake the ring of his slick, slimy voice from her ears.

Molly glanced at Sherlock to see if he noticed the distress written heavily into her facial features, but he had turned back to his coat. Sherlock's hand snaked back into his inside jacket pocket and fished out a silver plate and folded piece of paper. Molly blinked, and wondered just how big those pockets were. She drew her face into as neutral as an expression as she could muster as he walked over to her. The plate clanged as he tossed it on the table, and he sat beside her on the couch. His fingers steepled under his chin as he focused on the objects in front of him.

"How come I wasn't called to work with the bodies?" Molly asked. She glanced at her mobile, but there were no missed calls or messages. "A massacre like that, every pathologist should have been called…" she trailed off at Sherlock's expression, which looked like he just ate a particularly sour lemon.

"Not our division," he spat. "It was taken out of the hands of Scotland Yard and given to incompetents."

Molly accepted his answer, even though she couldn't guess what 'division' Sherlock loathed that had taken his case, but perhaps he was merely put out that he wasn't as involved in it as he wanted to be. Instead, Molly looked at the plate Sherlock put on the table. The card was sinister, obviously hinting at more bodies, and the plate looked expensive. As nice as it was to see Sherlock again, his presence was … odd. His first day free of Mycroft and he visited her? Since he "returned from the dead" he had never been back to her place. She'd been engaged, so she never thought to suggest he could visit. No, that was a lie. Of course she thought about it. She might have been engaged, but even that relationship lived under the shadow that was Sherlock Holmes.

"Why aren't you home, Sherlock?" Molly inquired. She surveyed his face as she waited for an answer. She might not have possessed the same deductive skills he did, but she knew him. She saw him when others did not.

"I need someone to bounce ideas off of," he replied, his eyes unwavering from their fixed position. "John's not available, since he's playing house with his pregnant wife. You are the next best option, seeing as I don't have my skull at my disposal.

"56 people dead, all just to enact his revenge on me for disabling his criminal web. That's not the endgame for him, this petty act, no. This plate proves otherwise. It's simple."

She watched his eyes tighten imperceptibly as he said that. His mouth flattened, and his fingers twitched. His chest rose and fell quicker than normal. He was nervous. She shifted closer to him. No, he was unsettled. He didn't want to be alone, but he didn't want to admit it.

"What's simple?" she prompted him.

Sherlock reached out a long finger and stroked the engraved Tourjours pur. "It's simple enough that John could figure it out, if he bothered to stare at the facts and apply the correct theory. But I don't have enough information to answer the question of why Moriarty would bother with a trivial game like this. It's below him."

Another look at the silver plate offered no solution to the game, but she couldn't help but notice the boys on the card. "So maybe the game isn't just for you, Sherlock," Molly suggested. "All of the other times it was only about you. You were the one that had to solve all the puzzles." She picked up the card. "The card is addressed to both of you this time."

Sherlock's eyebrow twitched to the sky. "A game with multiple players . . ." he breathed. His eyes fell on the plate. Like a rushing wave crashing to the beach, darkness swept over his features and dissolved his quizzical look.

"What is it, Sherlock?" Molly asked. She sensed the tension rolling off of his stiff shoulders.

His words came slow as they first tumbled from his mouth. "His first game he wanted simply to meet me. To test my skills and introduce himself." His frown deepened. "His second game was meant to be his magnum opus, but I evaded him in his quest to destroy my credibility and end my life. But now …" Sherlock snapped to his feet; Molly dove for her cold tea and held it in the air as he swept past her. He began pacing on the other side of the table. "The first time wasn't enough, no, he's mad I won. The Final Problem . . ." Sherlock froze on the spot, staring at the objects he brought in. "Has yet to be resolved."

The dark shadow cast over Molly from his looming figure, in addition to the hard angles of stress his body was formed in, couldn't help but send a foreboding shiver down her spine. She might not have all the full picture of the situation that had arose that night, but she remembered the fear in which she had found Sherlock consumed in all those years ago in her lab just before the Fall. She sensed that fear in him once again. But she couldn't help but notice that the time was slowly creeping closer to 4:00 am, and she had to be at Bart's in three hours. She knew that Sherlock worked better on his own; he didn't need her presence anyway.

"Um, Sherlock," she said, rising to her feet slowly. "I've got work in the morning, you know, and you're welcome to stay here of course, but I think I ought to get some sleep…"

Sherlock stared at her for a moment, his eyes blank as though he had not heard her. He blinked, and the tension in his shoulders lifted. He gave her a quick nod. "Yes, yes, of course. I suppose it is rather late. I won't be sleeping of course, but I'll follow you in the morning to the lab. I have a soil sample from one of the victims that I need to analyze."

"Sure," she chimed, giving him a small smile. "No problem." She fumbled for her tea and started to make her way down the hall. Toby emerged from his hiding spot with a inquisitive mew and barrelled into her room. She paused in the doorway with her one hand curling around the door frame. She glanced back to her living room.

Sherlock had sunk into her couch, lying down with his hands steepled under his chin and his eyelids closed. She saw his lips quiver as they formed silent words, and the corners of his mouth were still turned down into a slight frown.

"Goodnight, Sherlock," she whispered, knowing that he probably never even heard her. She stepped into her room, her free hand closing the door behind her.

Before it clicked shut, she could have sworn his baritone breathed, "Goodnight, Molly."


A/N. Two words: medical school. But fret not, I will trudge my way through this. Eventually.

If anyone wants to leave a comment, I'd be very happy to read it.

Cheers,

CWS