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 S4 (hopefully, and with variations. See Notes at the end).

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

Note 28/03/2020: Edited, unbetaed

Chapter 3: A case of identity

The brightly illuminated shooting range was in absolute quietness except for the whirring noise of the overhead lights. Hermione took a deep breath and aimed at her target at the fifty yards mark. The silence was then broken by the sound of bullets piercing paper and shells ricocheting against the concrete walls and floor. The protection over her ears made everything sound distant and muffled.

When her magazine was empty, Hermione tore off the protection and threw it on the table. She could not make out the holes at that distance, but she was sure she had missed the mark a few times.

"You know, when you said we were going out, this is not what I had in mind," her companion said as soon as Hermione could hear her.

Hermione snorted and started disassembling her gun. "I thought you'd be bored with needles and flu shots, Mary. What did you think we were going to do?"

Mary shrugged from where she was leaning on the edge of the table, her back to the gallery and her unloaded gun next to her hip. She was wearing a navy jumper over a white shirt. Her short, blonde hair clashed with the strident orange of the ear protection around her neck. "I thought we were going for tea and biscuits."

"Civilian life is making you soft."

Mary raised one of her delicate eyebrows. She turned around and in precise, rehearsed movements she put a new clip in her gun, aimed and shot the target next to Hermione's. A quick succession of shots and it was over. Mary reached under the booth table and pressed a button. On the other side, the target carrier began to move and stopped barely a few steps away from them. Mary had done a perfect score. Hermione confirmed she had missed the last two shots as both had landed on white.

"It's not like you to miss at this distance," said Mary.

Hermione did not answer. Instead, she sat on the bench next to the control booth and grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat off her face.

"Something is bothering you too much if it affects your precision." The brunette felt Mary's stare on her. Putting the towel down, Hermione rested her head on the wall behind, closing her eyes. "Who's pissed you off? Your flatmate?"

"It's not John." Hermione opened one eye, seeing as the other woman was disinterestedly tapping away on her phone. She stood up and stretched, hearing her bones crack and her muscles untensing. "If everyone were like John, this world would be a much better place."

"Oh! Do we fancy the doctor now, Miss?"

Hermione laughed and reached for her phone. "I'm not going to say he's not attractive. He is. He's just not my type. Look." She opened the secure folder in her memory card and scrolled down to find a photo of Sherlock and John from a newspaper. She handed the phone to Mary.

"He's definitely my type." Mary swiped to the right, looking through the other photos, humming with appreciation. "Yes, I think probably a Holmes brother would be more your type, right?"

Hermione threw her the towel and snatched her phone, discarding it inside her open handbag while Mary laughed. A comfortable silence settled between them while they dried their sweat, changed their tops and left the equipment for later collection.

"Hermione, you don't think you're off the hook, do you?"

She looked at Mary. "The Ministry caught me on tape, doing magic in front of a muggle."

Mary's face scrunched in a deep frown. "How? Weren't they allergic to technology or something like that?" Hermione kept walking down the corridor towards the exit. Mary picked up the pace and grabbed her arm. "Wait, are they blackmailing you?"

"They haven't said it in so many words... They're forcing me to go to the annual 2nd of May celebration ball."

"Can't Mycroft get you out of this?"

Hermione shook her head. "Even if he did, this is my mistake. It's me who has to solve it."

"Don't beat yourself up. Mistakes are bound to happen in this line of work." Mary's face grew sombre, as it did every time she remembered her past. Hermione took her hand, and they continued their path along the hallway in silence, listening to the heels of their shoes resonate with every step.

"What do they want you to do, exactly?"

"Show up, put on a good face, make a speech about how good the Ministry is. Apparently, my word is precious currency these days."

"And what's the loophole and how do you plan to exploit it?"

Hermione laughed and linked her arm with Mary's. "You know me so well. Which leads me to the second part of our day out." She pushed the main door of the security facility. A few steps farther was a black car, waiting for them. "You and I are going to go to Harvey Nicks. If they want me there, they are going to have the full muggle experience. Although I doubt they'll be able to appreciate Chanel."

Uncountable shops and six hours later, Hermione opened the door of 221 Baker Street balancing the handful of bags she was carrying. The house, normally quiet except for Mrs Hudson's radio, was filled with a calm chatter coming from the upper floors. She debated a couple of seconds about if she should go for the gun that she had hidden under the seat by the stairs. Then, John's laughter coupled with someone else's reached the lower floor. He released the breath he was holding and went up the stairs, listening closely to see who was in the room. Hermione came through the kitchen door and found herself with the back of a man of her own height and slightly overweight.

"John?" The man turned around. He wore a good-natured expression. The smile that stretched out his cheeks reached into his eyes, which were too small for his face. Hermione couldn't help but smile back.

"Oh, hi, Hermione." She looked at John, who was behind the man opening what looked like a bottle of champagne. "Oh, yes. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. This is Mike. Mike, this is Hermione."

"Pleasure to meet you at last!" said the man. "John hasn't stopped talking about you."

"Good things, I hope." Hermione left her bags on the floor while John gave her a flute full of alcohol. "Are we celebrating something?"

"Yeah, I got a job. At a practice."

"That's brilliant, John!" Hermione had brought up work about ten days ago, in a casual conversation with John. She convinced him to apply to several ads she'd found, and with his resume, he had gotten five interviews before the week was over. "Which one is it?"

"The one near Paddington Station. It's a small place, just a couple of doctors and nurses. Apparently, I was the only one who applied. I guess I got lucky."

Well played, Mycroft. "Well, then we do need to celebrate. And Mike can tell me how you two met."

After Mike had left, and the champagne had run out, Hermione and John sat in each other's company, each lying in an armchair. The feeling of dizziness from the alcohol was gone, and they were now immersed in the drowsy aftermath. As per usual, at five sharp, Mrs Hudson entered the living room carrying a tray with tea, and homemade cake and gingernuts. Hermione, who had not realized how hungry she was, went straight to the latter.

"Sherlock loved them." Mrs Hudson said, and Hermione's head shot off towards the woman, and then towards John. "He could eat a whole basket if you let him, he'd go down to my flat and steal them every time I made them."

John had lowered his head and laughed, a sound so full of melancholy that it twisted Hermione's heart.

"That he did."

Neither she nor Mrs Hudson expected John to comment. Normally, John would keep quiet if anyone mentioned his late friend, the wound was still too fresh. Today, Mrs Hudson chose to see it as an encouragement to keep talking.

"Always so skinny, that boy. Unlike his brother." She left the cup on the saucer. "Have you heard from Mycroft, John?"

They were approaching dangerous territory, and Hermione didn't know if Mrs Hudson was unaware of it or if she was deliberately ignoring the signs. Hermione took a sip from her cup but kept her eyes on John. To the untrained eye, he seemed undisturbed by the question. His upper body, however, had become stiff, as if preparing for combat, and a slight tremor in his hands had caused John to clench his fists. Hatred rose in his eyes, boiling in his pupils.

"No, nothing." And he obviously prefers not to.

"That poor thing, without his brother." Said Mrs Hudson, dabbing her eyes with a napkin.

"Sherlock was just another chess piece for Mycroft." John's voice was full of ill-contained rage. "He wasn't even at the funeral."

Mrs. Hudson did not respond, and the three of them fell back into a tense silence. In less than five minutes the old woman picked up the tray and disappeared downstairs, muttering good night and taking neither the cups nor the food with her. Hermione looked down and swallowed the now cold tea. Before Hermione could open her mouth, John got up and fled downstairs. She thought he was going to talk to Mrs. Hudson, but the next thing she heard was the sound of the front door opening and closing. She debated for a few seconds whether to warn the security team. John had improved a great deal in the past few weeks, but it seemed that today he had taken a leap backwards. Better safe than sorry, Hermione thought. This reminded her of what Mycroft called "danger nights" - nights when Sherlock would be sought out and found in any crack den, with a list written in almost unintelligible handwriting and a tourniquet around a bicep.

On an impulse, Hermione went to her room and knelt down in front of the chest of drawers. From the bottom drawer she pulled out her sweaters and lifted the false bottom. She had been doing this more and more lately, she couldn't help it. She gravitated towards the Holmes brothers like the planets gravitate around the Sun. In those pictures, she found a Mycroft she did not know, and a Sherlock entirely different from the one she had been told about. It was like there was a part of them only she was privy of, and that made her powerful and special. Apparently, that was something both Mycroft and Sherlock had in common. The ability to make you special just by putting you in their lives.

Her fingers went through the photos, looking for her favourite one until she found it. A grinning Sherlock, probably two at the time, was sitting on his brother's lap. Mycroft tried to look bothered, but the small wrinkle on the corner of his lips betrayed him. Her index finger travelled from Mycroft's head to Sherlock's hand gripping his brother's collar, to the Christmas tree behind them. These glimpses to the past made her wonder when the hostility began when Sherlock had picked his self-destructive habits, and Mycroft had decided that and Mycroft had decided that caring was not an advantage.

She hid the photos again, until the next time she had the need to try to solve the mystery Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes were.

Hermione did not see John that day, or any of the days after that. He would leave for the practice before she woke up, and return home -if at all- after she went to sleep. Hermione had decided to let him go through whatever was bothering him alone. After a few days, and although the people assigned to follow him assured Hermione that John was not in danger, she grew increasingly concerned. She had left him messages, waited for him at night, tried to intercept him in the mornings. John seemed to anticipate her every move. One morning she had found a glass with some leftover whiskey. And she was not supposed to know anything about Harry, or about the bouts of anxiety related alcoholism John had had in the past. So she did everything she could without giving up her cover. She waited.

It was Saturday night, and Hermione had fallen asleep on the couch with a book in her lap when a loud noise startled her. Her hand flew to where her holster should have been, but she only found the wool of her jumper. You are in Baker Street. In the kitchen, the kettle had begun to boil. She got up and found John, his head down and breathing deeply, his hands firmly on the counter. On the floor were the broken dishes that had frightened her.

"John?"

The man did not move. She got closer, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light of the kitchen lamp, her trainers crushing the shards underneath her feet. She stood beside him, not sure if he would reject her if she tried to touch him. Then she saw the drops staining the polished surface.

"John."

"Don't. Just don't." His voice was hoarse, tinged with pain, anger and unshed tears. He was breathing heavily, as if he had been running. Hermione put a hand on his left shoulder, and although his muscles contracted, John did not try to move. The kettle went off, and John sniffed turning away from her.

"Tea?" He looked at her, and she could see his red, puffy eyes. Instead of opening the tea can, John went to the cabinet on her right and took two glasses that didn't match and a bottle of bourbon. Unopened. "Tea isn't gonna cut it, is it?" He poured them both the amber liquid and drowned his own in one long sip. When he made an attempt to refill his glass, Hermione held his wrist.

"John, talk to me."

John let out an empty laugh. "What's the point of that? I've been talking to the therapist, trying to sort myself out, because I cannot keep unleashing on everybody every time someone mentions him." John let go of Hermione and poured himself another drink. "I'm tired of everyone looking at me like that," He pointed to her with his index finger, still holding his glass. "With pity, as if I didn't know I'm a mess and don't know how to fix it. Because there are days when I'm fine, and there are days when I can't breathe. Where the idea that Sherlock is no longer in this world is too much to bear, and the pain is so real that I feel physically sick and I just want to do something, anything, to make it go away."

"John…"

"You don't understand!" He interrupted. "Sherlock is dead. You don't understand what it's like to watch the best person you've ever known die."

Hermione had a déjà vu at these words, and sat down in one of the chairs, suddenly feeling like she was about to throw up. She felt her own pain rise from the depths where she had hidden it. The hopeless feeling of being alone in the world overtook her again, and she drank, embracing the bitter taste and trying to push down the bile that was making its way up.

"I do understand." She muttered. She watched John blinked and sat down, and she pushed the tumbler towards John, silently asking for a refill. "Everyone says people die all the time. And they mean it, and I know they are right… but you are the one that is left to pick up the pieces. The problem is that those pieces don't fit anymore." She lifted her head and looked at John. He reached and brushed his thumb across her cheeks, and that's when she realized that she had been crying. She let go a bitter laugh. "There is always this voice in your head, that keeps asking 'Why them? Did they deserve this life less than someone else? Did I deserve this pain that doesn't go away?'" The spiced flavour of the whiskey soothed her throat and warmed her, making her feel numb. "If someone would have had the magic recipe for erasing it, I would have gladly taken it. But it doesn't. And then I understood that we have different timings and different ways of grieving, but the pain never goes away. You just learn to live with it."

They were in silence for some time. Hermione thought about telling him all her secrets. That she was a witch, that if Sherlock had been John's saviour, Mycroft was hers. That being recruited by the secret service was what saved her life in every way that a secret agent's life can be saved. That she had never been able to heal. That she was tired of lying and hiding. But she did none of that. It would be unfair to put that knowledge on John's shoulders.

John spoke again. "How did you cope?"

"I buried myself in books. I studied, I created my own sterile environment and wouldn't let anyone come into it. It took a while until I could function like a human being, and there are still times that I question myself if the person that came out of that is in any way who I was before."

"Are you?"

Hermione had reflected thousands of times on her post-war self. On the tortured girl that had clung to Ronald Weasley as if he was a buoy in the middle of the sea, with her heart full of vengeance and resentment, and that had sold all her beliefs in exchange for the mirage of normalcy. The person that stood impassible to other people's suffering, because she had already fought, it was time for others to save themselves. It took her years and distance to acknowledge that awful person had been her. It took her even longer to accept it. "No. But that's not a bad thing. My mom used to say that we should be like the reeds by the rivers. You might bend, the wind might shake you up, you might have water up to your neck, but you never break."

"That's good advice to live by." He poured both another glass. "Were you talking about them?"

She looked at him and nodded.

"I thought you met your dad some days ago."

"Sirius... He's not my dad... It's complicated. He's a father figure. When I lost my parents, he became my family, he took care of me. He's everything I've got."

"It must be nice to have someone."

"You have us."

John took her hand and passed his thumb across her knuckles before giving her a faint squeeze. He then raised his glass.

"To our dead. May we always remember them."

She clinked her glass with his and gulped it down. They sat there, in silence, each of them doing just that. Remembering.

Notes:

First, thanks to all of you that are still reading this. I know it has been months since the last update. But I had to make the choice of whether I was going to go with my initial story or if I was going to include some elements of S4. I've been writing several possible chapters depending on the amount of S4 that I wanted to acknowledge, and I am still deciding. Especially because of all the Molly and Mary, because I wasn't expecting any of them. Funny thing is, my whole idea for this story did include a third Holmes sibling, so the Eurus plot spoke to me. So, I am still not sure about how this is going to work out in the end. I hope the final product is worth your time.

Second, I've been checking online about the timeline for John. In his blog, there are some entries before the empty hearse, without a year. According to several websites, from the one titled "A new begging" to the empty hearse, they are probably from 2013, just before he proposed to Mary and Sherlock appeared. As long they do not have a year, and for plot sake, I am going to make them be in 2012. I hope you forgive this little license.

There is a reason why Hermione parents do not have their memories back. First, because we know it is possible for someone to erase memories and do not get them back (As Lockhart), and as intelligent and skilful she is, there is a reason why the process is usually done by ministry professional. I think so many things can go wrong, and especially if you erase someone completely from someone's mind. Second, because I always thought how unfair it was from the Order to leave them to their own devices while Harry's relatives were guided into hiding. Third, because I think we have lost a huge part of character development after the war. Having Hermione in mind, and after seeing to what extents she was willing to go for their safety, I can only guess what she would do for their happiness (She has been sacrificing her own happiness and safety for so long, after all). Add to the mix a heavily traumatized and PTSD suffering person, going to Australia and seeing her parents happy, and you have a daughter afraid of returning her parents their memories only to have them reject her. So in this story, she either couldn't return the memories or she wouldn't. I hope this makes sense.

Lastly, I am still looking for a beta for this story. If you want to be the one to rip the chapters to pieces for me to put it together again, DM me. I prefer someone with experience in Sherlock fanfiction because John and Sherlock are the characters that I am struggling the most when writing, but any help will be valuable.

Beth

PS: Next Chapter: Mary meets John, John starts his blog, and Hermione attends the 2nd of May celebrations. That's right, we get to see our HP characters!