Disclaimer: All the characters displayed in this fic belong to their respective creators, JK Rowling (Harry Potter), Moffat and Gatiss (BBC Sherlock), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes).

This is a WIP, all comments and opinions are welcome. It will be updated as regularly as possible and will cover as canon as possible from after Sherlock's death, covering the months we did not see, until HLV.

Please see the Notes at the end of the Chapter. I hope you like it

Note 26/03/2020: Edited, unbeta'd

Chapter 2: The ephemeral bliss

Dark, threatening clouds loomed over the buildings that Saturday as the taxi pulled into Baker Street. Despite this, Hermione saw that the windows and curtains of 221 were open, and when she stepped out onto the sidewalk, the sound of a radio playing 90s rock music came out of them. The driver had barely opened the trunk to get the bags out when Mrs Hudson appeared humming on the doorstep, wearing a flowered apron and bright pink rubber gloves. With her came a strong smell of carpet cleaner and bleach.

"Good afternoon, dear! We were tidying up a bit." Mrs Hudson beamed at her.

"Good afternoon, Mrs Hudson." Hermione left a suitcase next to her. "You shouldn't have. I could have helped."

"Nonsense." Martha turned to the hall and yelled. "John! Hermione is here!"

As Hermione unloaded the last of her scarce belongings, John appeared at the top of the stairs and trotted down.

"Afternoon," he eyed at the labelled boxes on the sidewalk. His eyebrows lifted up comically. "Is that all you have? Books?"

Hermione pointed at the two large suitcases by the door. "I have clothes too! And there are a couple of boxes with shoes."

John shook his head, smiling. "Let's get all this stuff in and get you settled in." Without waiting for an answer, John took the largest suitcase and disappeared upstairs. Hermione began moving the boxes into the corridor, taking care to keep them separated from the ones that were already piled up next to the stairs. Mrs Hudson looked at them.

"We were going to move them to the basement. Nobody uses it." Mrs. Hudson wiped the top box with a cloth. "We've been putting things away for days. Newspapers, documents..."

Hermione stepped forward, but before he could reach Mrs. Hudson, she had already gone into the kitchen, stifling a sob. Moments later, the bubbling kettle drowned out any sound.

"Where's Mrs. Hudson?" John asked when he came back to continue carrying things upstairs.

"Making tea." Hermione replied. She took a box and followed John upstairs. Without the clutter, the room seemed bigger, less dark and gloomy. There were empty spaces on the shelf, the tables were clear. And a red carpet that had gone unnoticed during his previous visit covered the floor. The air smelled clean, and one could breathe without inhaling dust. John or Mrs. Hudson had chosen some deep green succulents. For their amusement, however, the skull, the bullet holes, and the yellow smiling face were still there.

John interrupted her thoughts. "I figured you'd need some shelf and table space."

"That's very nice of you, John. Thank you."

Hermione began to empty the boxes as John made the last trip downstairs. Book after book, she put them on the table, ready to be sorted by subject and author. As it always happened when she was with her books, her attention faded, and she didn't realise that John was leaving the last box with a big "kitchen" label on the floor. He hesitated for a moment, not knowing where to go or how to move around her. Finally, John cleared his throat, and Hermione looked up from the book in her hand.

"I searched for you on the Internet last night."

Hermione laughed and dropped the book into one of the piles. "Anything interesting?"

"'Magic and myths during Norman England' appeared often."

"Oh, that." Anthea, you're an absolute genius. Mycroft's right hand had been in charge of building an online track record for Hermione Black. That included an unused Facebook profile, a few abstracts from conferences that never happened, and some books published by her. They had gambled it all to John not being curious enough as to wanting to read them. "It's a thesis I did years ago, for a specialist publisher. It's not for the general public."

"I also saw 'Runic influence in modern language: Futhorc as a case example.' Some professor in Cambridge said it was 'eye-opening'"

"I would have said the contrary. Unless linguistics is your area, it's a very dull book." And it doesn't exist.

"Maybe you could try fiction next time. I'd read it."

Later, Hermione had put the last cup in the kitchen cupboard and left her blanket on the sofa. All that was left were the bags and two boxes - bathroom and bedroom. When Hermione started dragging one of the bags into the bedroom, John got up from the couch, saying he was going to buy dinner. Hermione assumed that, despite the good will he had shown all day, John would find it hard to get used to seeing her come and go from the bedroom.

She brought the rest of the things into the bedroom and opened the door.

The scene left her speechless.

Nothing had been touched. It looked like the picture of a moment, as if the room was waiting for its owner. The robe laying on the unmade bed. The wardrobe in disarray, and a pair of shoes abandoned on the side of the room. The window had recently been opened, probably that very day, because the room still had the smell of dampness from being closed for so long. The only clean place was the dresser by the door, where Mrs. Hudson had left fresh sheets. She stood there, looking at a dead man's belongings, for a few minutes, trying to understand why they were there. Why no one, neither Mycrfot nor his parents, had claimed them.

John will be back in around an hour, she thought. Better get to work.

After bringing all her things inside, Hermione decided to deal with the bed first. As she removed the old sheets and started making the bed again, she could see the difference in quality. The ones Mrs Hudson had given her were far from cheap but were nothing compared to the Egyptian cotton of Sherlock's sheets. Then, she emptied one of her suitcases on the bed and left it open on the floor. She put the bedding in it and then started with the clothes. Expensive suit after expensive suit, Hermione cleaned out the wardrobe and continued with the drawers near the bed: from T-shirts with the exorbitant price tags still on to perfectly folded ties, handkerchiefs, socks. When she was emptying the underwear drawer, a pair of black boxers got stucked at the end of it. She tugged from them, reached with her hand and tried to tear them free. In her efforts, her fingers found a gap between the end of the drawer and the bottom.

"What?"

Hermione pulled the drawer out and examined it. The hole was larger than to be a manufacturing problem, and the height from the inside seemed to be clearly different from the outside. She looked around the room and saw a letter opener on the desk, which she used to lift the wooden panel. Underneath she found about twenty photos, dated and well preserved. Some were old, like one of Mr and Mrs Holmes in front of a country house, or one where Mycroft was holding a newborn Sherlock. Others were new, with John and Mrs Hudson. Hermione thought of Mycroft. She knew him, he probably had a similar set of photos, and like his brother, he probably kept them hidden. What has to happen to someone for them to think that something as simple as a photo is a liability?

The noise of the front door opening startled her. Her heart was pounding in her chest as if she had been doing something forbidden by seeing those photos that Sherlock so evidently wanted to keep secret. Hermione put the pictures and false background in place and ran out of the room before John got to the kitchen, feeling that she was sharing a room with a ghost.

Hermione settled into an easy routine in the dying days of January. Having been cleared from all sorts of immediate duties with the MI-7 until further notice by Mycroft, she spent her days reading and having tea with Mrs Hudson, and her nights documenting John's day. Which at the moment was 'at home', 'gone to the therapist', 'engaged in conversation', 'still no job'. Mrs Hudson was being lenient about John's grieving, and he probably had some savings, but Hermione doubted an ex-army junior doctor would have much of those.

However, there were positive aspects that made her think John was on the road to recovery. Agreeing to rent the room was the first, and since she moved in, his behavior had changed, and his tension had gradually dissipated. They had some missteps at the beginning like when Hermione had sat on the black leather sofa in front of the fire, and John had bolted to his room. Or when she had taken to sit in the spot where the microscope used to be, and John had spent the next days trying to hide his watery eyes. Nowadays, John almost did not flinch when she opened her bedroom door and he had begun to laugh. Hermione counted that as progress.

Baker Street's greatest asset was Regent's Park. Hermione ran daily through the green areas, which were so different from the small park she used to go to. That day, through his headphones, came the sound of an incoming call. She stopped near the lake, breathless, and pressed the button to answer.

"Hello?"

"Hello to you too, darling." Said a deep voice on the other side. Said a deep voice on the other end. Hermione's face lit up with a smile.

"Look who's decided to call. You've been missing for weeks, Sirius."

The man burst out laughing, sounding like a bark. "' The lady doth protest too much, methinks.'"

"Do not Shakespeare me, Sirius. How are you?"

"I'm fine pup. What about you? I had to hear from Mycroft that you've moved."

"I have indeed. Probably the best job I've done for Mycroft so far." She came near the exit of the park, in front of Clarence terrace. She took Baker Street only to see John getting in number 221. "Have you heard from him?"

"No. But he's due to come back from his Illuminati summit soon. That's not why I am calling though."

"It's bad manners to leave a woman hanging."

"I've done plenty of that lately." The innuendo was evident in his voice, and Hermione laughed, amused. And a bit disgusted.

"Gross, Sirius."

"Anyway, are you free tomorrow night? I want to invite my favourite girl to a nice, ridiculously expensive dinner. And then you can tell me everything about this John Watson."

"Yes, tomorrow sounds great."

"Perfect. Gotta go, love. Love you."

"Love you too."

That same afternoon, her plans for a nice bath and tea went awry when John informed her that, calling through her phone on the countertop, was someone named 'Mike'. In her bathrobe and hair in a towel, she entered the kitchen and started the kettle before picking up the phone, smirking.

"Hi, Mike. You're back already?"

"Can't you go elsewhere?" Mycroft's voice sounded tired and annoyed. Precisely the kind of Mycroft she liked when she was bored, and how she loved to hear him squirm. "You know I abhor that name" She poured the hot water into two cups, holding her laugh.

"I know. Wait, I was making some tea for John and me."

"For God's sake, Hermione." In her mind, she could imagine his exasperated look, with fingers stapled over closed eyes.

"I told you about John, didn't I? My new flatmate?" She handed John his cup of tea and covered the phone with her hand.

"I'll go talk in my room so you can continue reading, John."

"It's all right if you want to stay." John replied.

"Don't worry. I'll see you later." She continued to talk as she walked to his room and closed the door. "What were you saying, Mike?"

"Could you please behave like a grown-up?"

"You are no fun, Mike," she said with special emphasis on his name. Mycroft sighed excessively. He was a drama queen sometimes, and the idea made her giggle. "Oh, come on, Mycroft. This is the most exciting thing I've done in two weeks."

"I assume that everything had been quiet then."

"Almost deadly so." She left the cup on the dresser and threw herself on the bed. "I was going to drop by yours as soon as I knew you were back. To give you the report. And to ask about John's financial situation. You told me Anthea was on it."

"She is, I'll have more information in a couple of days." He stopped momentarily. He was going to change the topic. "I've spoken with Sirius." His voice was casual, but there was some heaviness in it, the tone he always used to speak about business. "I don't mean to impose, but there are a couple of things the three of us ought to discuss, so I'll be joining you for dinner tomorrow."

She frowned. Normally, Sirius and Mycroft in the same room meant nothing good, and it usually meant magic.

"Mycroft, what is it?"

"I'm afraid it is too delicate to speak over the phone. See you tomorrow."

And with that, with hundreds of questions running through her head, she knew that the next twenty-four hours were bound to be very long.

The next night she put on some classic jeans with a burgundy cashmere jumper and black heels. She was finishing her makeup when John arrived home from the grocery store. He left the bags on the table and looked at the open bathroom door.

"You look fantastic."

Hermione looked at him in the mirror and gave him a smile.

"Thank you, John. I am going to have dinner with my father, and he has this stupid habit of taking me to the weirdest places where I'm either overdressed or underdressed, so I thought this was a good compromise." She took a black hairband from the top drawer and went to her room to get her trench coat and handbag, twisting her hair in a messy bun. "I won't be late, and I promise not to wake you."

"No worries." Hermione also knew he was not sleeping anyway. John's appearance had improved, but the bags under his eyes and pain and sadness in them were still there. In days like this, she understood Sherlock better: there were very few things in this world you hated more than an unhappy John Watson.

She wished him good night, went down to wait for her cab.

The cab left her in front of the Zuma restaurant. She got out and approached the maître, asking for a reservation under 'Black'. He silently gestured her towards a narrow hallway. When she opened the door of the private room, she saw two men, each on one side of a table, each with their own styles, both exuding power in their own way. Sirius was wearing a pair of tight pants and a white shirt, and was reclining in his chair drinking a glass of bourbon, his suit jacket discarded somewhere. Mycroft, with his three-piece suit and impeccable posture, smelled of a glass of red wine. When Sirius saw her, he stood up and pressed her against him, in his typical bear hug.

She inhaled the familiar aroma that she had learned to love in all those years and kissed him on the cheek.

"I swear you look more and more beautiful every time I see you, Hermione."

"You are just fishing for compliments. But I'll indulge you: you look very handsome as well." She went over to where Mycrfoft was sitting and kissed him on the cheek, something she only dared to do when they were alone. She refrained from telling him that he too was very attractive.

"I am glad to see that your sense of style has remained intact after living with Dr Watson."

She went to the other side of the table while taking off her coat and ordering wine. She sat down and smiled at them, while the waiter poured Mycroft's white choice in a stemmed glass.

"For your information, John is the perfect gentleman. And Mrs Hudson is lovely. She always has a cup of tea warm for me in the afternoons. But I doubt we are here to talk about John, so let's get on with it." She rolled up his sweater and looked at the men. The reaction in her interlocutors was almost immediate. Sirius stood straight in his chair, while Mycroft left his glass on the table and adopted his business posture, legs crossed, arms on the armrests of the chair. No one spoke.

"Never one for smalltalk, my dear." Muttered Sirius.

"Is this about them? About the invitation." She turned to Sirius. But instead of him, it was Mycroft who answered.

"In a way." He picked his suitcase from where it was lying against his chair, and took a folder out. "This was waiting for me on my desk when I arrived yesterday."

Hermione felt a chill run down her spine. Mycroft gave the folder to Sirius, and Sirius put it in front of her. On the cover, in red printed letters, was her real name, Granger.

"You might not be aware of this," started Sirius. "But things haven't been going well in the magic world. People are getting worried about how little things have changed. So Kingsley has been trying to pull all the stops to keep them satisfied. You are the last dice they have they can roll."

"They don't have me." Rebutted Hermione.

"Now, they do." Said Mycroft, pointing to the folder. "Looks like they've learned a thing or two."

Hermione opened the folder. On the first page, there was a magical picture of her. It was blurry, as if taken from a security footage, but it was clear that the person in the image was her. "In one of your missions, a couple of months back, you were authorized to use magic. You also had to erase the memory of the ones you found along your way, as is protocol. And in a very unlike you fashion, you forgot one." Mycroft tilted his head. With trembling hands, Hermione turned the page to face a mug shot of a teenager "Luca Ricci. He was the closest to the explosion, he barely had a pulse when you found him, and you made a rookie mistake and thought that he was dead."

"Mycroft, he would have been dead had the ambulance arrived a minute later." Interjected Sirius, who then stood beside Hermione with a protective hand on her shoulder.

"But he didn't, therefore it was a mistake" He responded angrily. "This is serious. Not only they have proof Hermione revealed magic to a muggle, they are also pushing aggression charges, muggle battering and mugglephobia."

"I'm a muggle-born, how would I attack someone because they are muggles?"

"They don't care about plausibility, they just want you to know they could put you in jail for life, Hermione." Mycroft raised his voice, and Hermione almost recoiled in her seat.

"Do we...know how they got this." Hermione questioned, looking at Sirius. He shook his head.

"I tried to do some digging. The guy was brought to the hospital in critical condition, and he made a miraculous recovery. He talked to the carabinieri about a woman with an English accent, that went to the Interpol, and from there to the I.W.P. Someone must have told the Chief Auror." Sirius avoided saying his name, but Hermione was very aware of who the Chief Auror was. Sirius put his own whiskey in her hand, which she thoughtlessly drowned. The liquid burned her throat as she went down, and she had to breathe deeply to keep it in her stomach. Then she gathered her courage and looked at Mycroft, ready to see the disappointment on his face.

"Unless they really want to see me behind bars, I assume they want something in return."

"They want what you've always denied them, with interest." Mycroft took a sip from his wine. "They want you to wear a pretty dress, go to the second of May celebration, and give a speech about how good the Government is, and how much you support them."

Hermione felt her shame left her body to be replaced by rage. She gaped at both men. "You're joking."

"I wish we were, so I could save you from this torture, my dear, but we're not." Sirius ran his hand over her back in a comforting gesture, but Hermione got rid of him and stood up. The magic swirling in her veins stirred by alcohol became restless, and her anger started to burn in her fingertips, hoping for a release.

"I cannot believe they are blackmailing me. Whose idea was this?"

"Kingsley didn't say. The funny thing is that they don't know you and I are in touch. So he came to me for advice. I told him he was not half the politician he thinks he is if he has to stoop this low to get people to support him. He went with it anyway. Maybe I'm losing my touch."

"Politicians do it all the time, Sirius. Only this time, it has been directed at us." Mycroft left his seat and went straight to Hermione. In a rare display of affection, Mycroft took her hand and talked to her looking into her eyes. "It won't be pleasant, but unless we have something better on them, you are going to have to comply, Hermione. And I'd rather have you uncomfortable for one night, than having you in a fortress in the middle of the sea."

Hermione nodded with a knot in her throat. She felt Sirius at her back, and Mycroft let go of her hand to go back to the head of the table, while Sirius kissed Hermione's temple, murmuring comforting words. Saying that everything was going to be all right, and she wanted to believe him with all her heart.

This has been very difficult to write because even if I've seen Sherlock several times, I can't yet get John's character in a way that is realistic. I was hoping to get a beta before publishing this, so I could give you something worth reading, but as things are, this the best I could do after weeks of re-reading and editing. So I hope you like it. If you think that something could be better, suggestions, rotten tomatoes, anything, review or PM me, I am always happy to answer and make this story better.

Beth