Hi all, welcome back! This is a very short chapter, mainly because Google Docs decided to play hide and seek while I was copying the last chapter and removed the last 900 words of it. You can read this as an extension of the previous chapter (hence the name "interlude").

PS: One of the two promised reunion happens in this chapter, enjoy!

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).

Note: Edited April 2021

The lying detective - interlude

Hermione watched from afar how John left the black urn inside the hole dug into the ground at their local parish. The priest, with his eyes closed, was reciting something. John stood in front of the grave, his lips unmoving, watching intently how the cemetery workers started pouring concrete first, then a layer of fresh dirt on top. He was the only attendee, and if it hadn't been for Mycroft informing her of the funeral, she wouldn't have had a place to grieve for her best friend. The priest gave John a last nod and drove away amongst the gravestones, leaving John alone. Hermione decided she had already betrayed John's wishes enough and made her way back to the car waiting outside the gates. It took her straight to Sirius', and he did not say a thing when she sat on the terrace. He had just draped a thick throw around her and had brought her tea. She watched the hours pass by; the sky turning darker.

'Hey.'

Her head whipped towards the door, and she saw Harry, wearing a thick black coat over an Auror uniform.

'Harry, what are you doing here?'

'I had to talk with Sirius and... well, he told me.' He shifted from one foot to the other. 'I am sorry about your friend.'

Hermione did not know what to say. The last time they had seen each other had been the same night, Sherlock had come back, and that had been a year ago. They had not spoken alone in ten years.

Harry entered the terrace and gestured to the space on the bench next to her. Hermione nodded. Harry let himself down, grunting.

'I cannot go on those missions again. Middle age is coming faster than I thought it would.' The award humour was so Harry that a different ache joined the ones Hermione was already nursing. She could not help the tiny smile that escaped her.

'We are old now, Harry.'

'You look the same, honestly.' He complimented. 'I'd ask how are you but... Well, I can guess how you are... Sorry, that's not what I meant! Merlin, I haven't got any better at this, have I?'

She laughed this time, but she had felt the familiar pricking in the corner of her eyes. The laughter died and morphed into a broken sob. She wiped her tears, but they kept running along her cheeks.

'I was supposed to be done losing people.' Harry tentatively put an arm around her shoulders, and that was everything she needed to let go. She held onto him, grasping at the fabric of his coat, and Harry could do nothing but rocking with her. Hermione was slightly aware of his murmuring comfort words into her hair. That only made her cry more. For Mary, for Harry, for Ron, for her parents, for everyone she had ever lost.