15 reviews for the previous one! Just ONE short of 70! I'm so excited best exam-finishing gift ever! THANK YOU! And more than 200 follows! More than 100 favourites! I officially love all of you! Each and every one of you!
Can't stress how lovely it is to open up your inbox and see almost 70 reviews on the story, so many favourites and follows!- thank you guys SO much again!
Here are some to whom I couldn't reply:
Dasserk: Wow, that is a great idea Dasserk, I am totally going to take that up in the near future. Luna is also a part of the little family Hermione has on the other side, so I think it can be done and it'd be amazing. :) Thank you for your review but I would suggest that you PM me suggestions or prompts next time. Thanks again! :)
Guest: Thank you. I'm happy you do. :)
sethiel: Thank you, I'm glad you liked it, hope this one keeps up too! :)
Sarah: Thank you! I'm relieved about that part, honestly, I thought there might be bad reactions to Draco's presence or something but we need to understand that War changes people and Draco's going to be a huge example of that. In fact, many of my characters are. :) Thank you for reviewing, you're a sweetheart. :)
Not making you wait more- here we go. Enjoy!
Chapter 7:
John read his book for an hour or so, after which Hermione decided to follow Crookshanks into her room and he heard the lock click into place.
He immediately turned to Sherlock, who was on the sofa and had been resting in his classic thinking pose.
"I assume you're looking at me that way because you'd like my thoughts on Draco Malfoy." Sherlock said, not bothering to move from his place.
"Your deductions," John corrected, "and yes, I'd like to know."
Sherlock cast a glance at the closed door of Hermione's room. "Don't worry, it's locked." John supplied and Sherlock huffed out an "I know" before resuming his pose and starting his parade of deductions in his usual whirlwind manner.
"He's a businessman: the watch was a costly professional one he probably forgot to take off, he was part of a sports team in his teens: the jumper was quite old and faded and had the air of being used overly much, though I didn't recognise the game or the ball featured on the front, belongs to a rich family: old, antique and costly ring on the finger of left hand - just like Hermione and Theo - I wonder if they have a society of old English families or something, had a lipstick mark around the ear which means he's in a relationship and Hermione neither knows about it nor is concerned or she would have subconsciously noted that the perfume had a feminine tinge to it - jealous people tend to do that, plus she didn't mention anyone when she talked to him but we can't be sure about the talk downstairs, but higher chances are that she doesn't know so our guy has a hidden girlfriend, how interesting. Anyway, he lives in or around_, judging by the time it took him to get here."
John frowned a bit as he realised that he had picked up probably most of the things except the girlfriend part and his location. He was, however, glad to find a glitch in Sherlock's deductions and happily pointed it out to him, knowing it would annoy the detective to no ends.
"I think you got the location wrong."
"What do you mean?" Sherlock looked up from his position in surprise at John's innocently smiling face.
"I think I was very clear with my statement." John replied cheekily, enjoying it a bit too much.
"John." Sherlock warned, his eyebrow twitching.
"You didn't consider the time it would have taken from Malfoy's place to pick up Crookshanks." John said, in an amused, taunting voice.
Sherlock's eyes grew wide and he blinked once, then twice, and then went off to his bedroom hurriedly, to search for something, most probably.
The next morning, Hermione was gone before John woke up. And since he woke up at 9, and Sherlock had been up before him, he asked the detective if he had seen Hermione.
"Do look around and deduce that for once, John. But since you've just woken up and you can hardly see, let alone deduce, I'll just inform you that there's a note on the table." Was the answer he got from Sherlock.
The note was addressed to both of them and said that Hermione had made breakfast - tea and toast, loads of it with porridge and eggs, and that she would be back by 5 in the evening. She'd also said that she expected to get to know them both better at supper, if they were up for a bit of a chit-chat.
Personally, John liked the idea, and he and Sherlock spent the day tracking down a murder victim, for a change, since the murderer Greg's team had managed to catch claimed to have committed no murder, and Sherlock seemed to agree with him.
"So I heard you have a new flatmate living with you?" Greg asked, as John waited outside the old church while Sherlock was inside, working.
John looked over in surprise at the DI to find him squinting at the road in front of him.
"Yeah, yes, she moved in yesterday. How'd you find out?" John asked, curious for once when Greg didn't meet his eyes.
"Nah, desk sergeant said you mentioned it in the blog. I was just, uh a bit worried." The inspector replied, still not looking at him.
"Right. Worried about?"
Greg looked at him with what John could comprehend as panic for a moment, but then averted his gaze quickly.
"About, uh Sherlock, of course. How's he taking to it?" Greg replied.
John tried his best to ignore the feeling that something was wrong with Greg today, and nodded to Greg's question.
"Yeah, he's taken it surprisingly well so far, behaved nicely-ish."
Greg nodded and scuffed his shoe, looking down, and then opened his mouth to say something, just when Sherlock came out of the building, rambling something about the scene at top speed.
Greg's weird behaviour remained on John's mind until they reached back at Baker Street, where there were more than a few cars parked around, and something felt definitely wrong.
Either it was John's mind playing tricks on him or there were just a little bit more people on the road than usual. Sherlock seemed to pay no mind to it and simply disappeared into the flat, and John followed closely.
It was about an hour or so later that the doorbell rang in an unusual, hurried manner - three rings at once, like someone was too eager to get inside.
John came out of the kitchen where he had been working on tea arrangements, and saw Sherlock meet his gaze with a surprisingly worried one of his own.
"That's not a client." John stated the obvious and almost flinched when Sherlock opened his mouth to make the "excellent deduction, John" comment, but the front door opened at the same time and also slammed shut in record time. John was confused as he recognized the weight of Hermione's footfalls as she climbed upstairs, relatively fast and hurried this time around, which was unusual, not that there was a usual to begin with but whatever.
John could only recognize the woman from her mane of bushy hair since other than that, she was covered from head to toe with some sort of clothing- except her eyes, which looked furious if John ever knew it.
"Who?!" she bellowed out loud, "Who freaking did this?!"
Hermione unwound the scarf from her face and threw it on the table, her bag, coat and a large hat following pursuit. Her hair looked fluffier than ever and her face was contorted in what John could identify as anger and frustration.
She threw herself upon the couch just as John stood, and Sherlock watched Hermione like a hawk.
She seemed to be breathing heavily as Crookshanks suddenly jumped on her lap, nudging her with his head. She took a glance at him before turning on Sherlock and John.
"What are they doing here?" she all but spat, her face turning towards the door, signalling something - or someone - they couldn't see, apparently outside the door.
"Who?" Sherlock said, walking to the window with long strides and his brow furrowed. John followed him, to see a horde of people dressed in robes, or something similar, crowding very near to the entrance of the flat. He remembered how he had thought that the street looked more crowded than normal in the afternoon but this seemed to be nothing compared to then. These people were probably hiding or something at that time.
There was a knock on the door at the same time and Mrs. Hudson entered, looking hassled and a bit confused.
"Hermione dear, what's the matter?" she said, looking questioningly at John and Sherlock when the girl rubbed her forehead tiredly, before standing up from her place.
"I'm really sorry for that, Mrs. Hudson." She said, starting to collect her things as she spoke, and looked apologetically at the older woman and towards her flatmates by the window, "Well, the thing is, the media wasn't supposed to know that I've, uhh... moved here. You see, my umm... job at the Ministry made me a bit of a celeb with the paparazzi and before here, I was going kind of incognito for them. Only a few people know my location and these guys weren't supposed to know, you see?"
She turned urgent suddenly and her brow furrowed in concentration and she looked at John suspiciously. "Wait, I hope you guys didn't mention this to anybody who could have caught hold of these people?"
John exchanged a glance with Sherlock, who shrugged in the universal I-don't-know gesture, before turning to the window again. Then, he suddenly remembered his conversation with Lestrade at the church that afternoon and almost bit his lip with guilt.
"Oh, shit."
It was supposed to be silent, an exclamation only for his own ears as self-realisation had struck, but unfortunately, it came out a bit louder than he expected.
Hermione looked up with panic filled eyes, "What? Who did you tell?"
Sherlock had also turned to him with a raised eyebrow while Mrs. Hudson seemed to scowl at his language. John bit his lip harder before turning to a panicked Hermione with more guilt than he should feel.
"I uh… kind of told many people at once and I think people at Scotland Yard knew and I umm… accidently might have confirmed that this afternoon."
Hermione's eyes widened as she stammered, "What do you mean many peop- and wait, Scotland Yard?" she almost shouted the last part.
"Oh No. Fuck No." she cursed, and moved towards John in a few steps which were too quick for her height. "Right. Who exactly, tell me each and every person you told. Now." She was almost nose to nose with John and he couldn't help but feel a weird shiver go up his spine - all he wanted to do was to get away from Hermione at that moment; there was something severely strong and powerful near her, in her, and John could feel a weird sensation rolling off her as the girl stood glaring at him with all her might.
He stumbled backwards a few steps and let out a deep breath before blurting it all in one breath - "I write a blog about myself and Sherlock and I might have mentioned about you moving in here with us on the first day you shifted your stuff, but I didn't know that I shouldn't, you hadn't mentioned anything like that so I didn't see the harm but I'm sorry."
He could feel Sherlock's gaze on his back but he dared not turn - he was looking right at Hermione for her reaction, feeling worried.
"A blog," The petite woman clutched her forehead with one hand before breathing hard through her nose a few times. "Right."
"Right," she said again, backing off to the couch again, "I'm sorry for that, John. I honestly should have mentioned it to you guys but I forgot, really, my fault, that was. Sorry to trouble you with this Mrs. Hudson but I guess they'll just, scatter, in some time, hopefully." She sighed at last and transported her things to her own room.
"I'll just make a few calls to some people to get out of this mess. Sorry for that John. I'll clear this up as soon as possible, Mrs. Hudson. And John, I'd really love one of those painkillers."
The crowd in the street seemed to lessen after an hour or so, during which Hermione had made some urgent phone calls, sworn and shouted at about three people, while juggling the coffee, the phone and Crookshanks. The cat had been trying to get on her lap and kept nudging her or doing something with his tail, and after a few minutes of it, decided that it would be cool to just find a new lap - which happened to be Sherlock's.
While John was undeniably thankful that this new lap hadn't been his, he was also quite delighted to see Sherlock managing a cat. It kept nuzzling at his chest or elbow and he drew it away a few times after which he just threw helpless looks at John whenever he did that. John pretended not to notice, seeing Sherlock uncomfortable with an animal he couldn't experiment on was more precious than his morals.
Wait.
Oh no. He'd have to warn Hermione about that. It would only be a few more attacks from Crookshanks before Sherlock decided that the cat was good to experiment on.
After the crowd had lessened considerably, and only a few bystanders were left, Lavender appeared in a shiny black car, which was definitely not a taxi but looked like some model of Mercedes, with a bag of some biscuits and they had tea again after two hours, which Hermione seemed to be thankful for.
John managed to sneak in a warning to Hermione and Lavender while they were ravishing the biscuits but unfortunately, Sherlock , who had seemed to be busy with deleting John's post from his blog, after a rather polite request by Hermione, (it had been worrying him at the back of his mind how Sherlock seemed to be flexible and accepting without even once asking about what it had in it for him) had heard.
He had frowned at John disapprovingly from his perch near the fireplace, "John, I fail to see the problem in experimenting with the cat when he is going to be alive in the end of my ministrations. Also, in my own humble opinion, I'd like to say that you should stop worrying about the cat since he doesn't even like you and prefers me over you, which means he trusts me more so that would give me his permission, in a twisted sense of the word, to er… tinker, with him."
Hermione had her eyebrows hovering somewhere near her hairline and looked at John with the same did-he-just-say/do-that expression that he had seen on Lestrade's face often and Lavender seemed to be too stumped to say anything.
"I'll uhh… just ignore that." Hermione said.
"You're getting good at this already." John grinned at her, trying not to wonder what exactly this girl was.
"So, why are they after you so often, Hermione?" Sherlock asked, looking at the laptop again.
"Sorry? What are we talking about?" Lavender said, confused with the sudden question.
"I'd have to answer that assuming you did not just admit to having evil plans related to my cat." Hermione answered coolly, looking at her cup.
"Let's assume that then." Sherlock answered with a smirk, finally looking up and snapping the laptop shut.
"Well," Hermione sighed, "I should probably tell you that I work rather high up in the Ministry and I joined just a year ago."
John thought he saw Lavender tense up a bit but he couldn't be sure because her expression was back to normal in the next second.
"So well, I think you can figure out that I got promoted a lot and within the past year, I got a few laws passed regarding some... issues. And well, you know that not everyone agrees with you, especially when you're a public figure at such a young age. There's got to be haters along with fans and well, I guess you probably know what I mean. Media likes to get dirt on heroes and all, so yeah."
Silence met her words as she sipped her tea and John remembered Theo mentioning a Civil War the other day. He didn't remember asking about Hermione's role in it all and was just about to do so, when Lavender uttered a curse, looking at her watch.
"Okay, gotta go, I have that meeting with Purgs in half an hour, see you guys later!" she said, typing hurriedly on her phone and grabbing her coat.
She then shook hands with John, hesitated for a moment and then did the same with Sherlock and hugged Hermione briefly before dashing out of the door with the last shout of "Bye John, Bye Sherlock, Bye Hermy!"
John smirked at the last name she had called Hermione but Hermione was already speaking before he could form the thought, her face with a slight pink tinge-
"Don't you ever dare to call me that!"
Note: This chapter has been Beta-d by CleopatraIsMyName.
Whoa. Big one there. Breaks the record of the previous one- this is more than that, definitely. Hope this made up for lost time. :)
How was it? I hope ya liked it- I sacrificed a night's sleep and I never compromise with that but whatever, better be thankful.
And yes, Review lots please! I'd love to hear, maybe it could be worth the Holy-Sleep-Sacrifice too. :D