If there was one thing Joanna hated more than idiots, it was the press.

Sherlock might not give a damn, but Joanna knew they were a pack of vultures who'd gladly turn on someone if they thought their star was on the decline for a quick story.

A series of high profile cases and the fact he was already a "big thing" made her defensive.

The fact that they were being a bit more "public" about dating told the world at large that both were off the market.

Which was why Joanna became very paranoid about dealing with the reporters outside the flat.

And that lead to a rather...unusual... conversation with an overly paranoid witch.

"I am not apparating out of the flat," said Sherlock.

He didn't even know how to apparate, as he had loathed the feeling it had. He never bothered to learn.

"You have either two choices then, to avoid that circus out there eager to see you shine."

Sherlock looked at her oddly. He found it fascinating her disdain of reporters...it went beyond even her one-sided (because neither Donovan, Anderson or Mycroft stood a chance against her) feuds.

"What are they?"

"You can either go out the back under an invisibility cloak or a disillusionment charm."

"Or?"

"Or I install a vanishing cabinet and you come out in a random location in London you'll probably figure out the first time you leave the house in question."

Sherlock sat up when he heard the second option.

"Vanishing cabinet it is then. Good thing he hates the place and doesn't mind me using it as my own personal bolt hole," said Joanna cryptically.

"This is about the Reichenbach isn't it?"

"No, this is about the fact that I can see damn well where this is heading and I refuse to let it happen to you. It was bad enough being at the center of it..." muttered Joanna.

Sherlock blinked.

"What?"

Joanna scoffed, and it bothered him. He didn't particularly like the look she had in her eyes.

"Your 'star' is on the rise. That means paparazzi and people watching your every move, not just Mycroft. If something happens to make the public doubt you, not that you'd care if I know you at all, the repercussions are going to be devastating."

"Repercussions?"

"Something is coming. Something terrible and there's nothing I can do to turn the tide. Not at the moment anyway."

Joanna had this horrible sense of foreboding. The last time she had it was when she was fourteen and about to return to Hogwarts for her fifth year.

She had nightmares that felt like true visions of people dying around her, of those she considered family being killed in the senseless war between Dumbledore and Voldemort.

It had bothered her so much she had gone and looked up Hogwarts on the net, which prompted her permanent departure from the school.

That sixth sense of something bad had lead to the woman she was today. And compared to what she had seen in those visions, she hadn't regretted it once.

Joanna went back to normal by dinner...by all appearances anyway. But Sherlock knew the signs of manic determination to do something by heart.

She felt something was coming. Something that could change everything, and she was determined to find a way to weather it out come hell or high water. Every time he glanced at her typing, he could see her making preparations.

He didn't know what they were for, just that she felt she had to do something or she would never be able to sleep.

Had he been able to read the encrypted documents, he would have seen her making bolt holes, call signs, and more importantly sussing out who was in Moriarty's pocket.

Joanna could sense Moriarty would come after Sherlock and she fully intended to make sure he didn't rise again.

Moriarty did return, and he made a game of stealing the crown jewels and blackmailing the jury to get off free.

However it was the aftermath Joanna was concerned with.

She came home one day after getting the groceries to find assassins in the neighboring flats.

It was done discreetly, but she recognized them.

She put away the food items before casually mentioning it.

"Sherlock, there are four different assassins parked almost right next to our flat."

"What?" he replied, confused.

"There are four hired killers, all professionals from abroad, in separate homes near our flat. The only connection I can see is that Moriarty sent them after you to send a message, or is trying and failing to intimidate you into believing they're a threat against me," she said casually.

Then again she was used to threats against her life.

"...Port keys?"

"Already done and the things she wears most discreetly enchanted."

"Windows?"

"Sealed off with enough to stop anything short of an anti-tank gun, with the same enchantment that's on the Hogwarts sealing only focused on the outside. Really, did you think I'd leave such a vulnerability the second I realized that you had attracted Moriarty's attention after the mess with the bombs?"

"Food and water?"

"Outsourced to something I know he can't taint, and we've been off the grid for electricity and water for almost a month since I moved into the flat."

"If we're off the grid then who do we pay every month?" asked Sherlock.

Joanna gave him a flat look.

"Sherlock, who usually cares about the bills around here when you're off on your own tangent?"

He blinked, then realized that ever since Joanna moved in he hadn't had to deal with the monotony of paying bills, buying the groceries or even cooking. In fact he had come home after the Blind Banker case to find the entire flat warded so thoroughly he had assumed it was Mycroft's work.

"Wards?"

"I may or may not have tweaked the ones Mycroft had left here and given them an upgrade. Frankly I'm surprised he didn't ask to perform the same ones on his own home. Either that or he tried to replicate them on his own."

"Cameras?"

"Enchanting windows to feed back into the laptop is so much more reliable," said Joanna.

Well that explained why he sometimes saw Joanna looking at her laptop when he knew the thing was turned off. The screen was reflective enough for it, as was her phone.

"Walls?"

"I went under my cloak and enchanted them and the roof to be unbreakable. When I settle into a place for the long haul, I make damn sure it's a bloody fortress that keeps my over-prepared nature from having fits."

It wasn't paranoia if they really were out to get you.

"So what's our next move?" asked Sherlock.

"Now? Now we wait for Mycroft. And then...then the fun really begins. I have no intention of letting Moriarty think he'll have an easy go of turning the entire world against you."

It was one thing to make the public turn against someone as stand offish as Sherlock. It was another to piss off a Black who wouldn't hesitate to destroy someone slowly.

And the best part?

Moriarty wouldn't see her coming until it was too late to stop. She would walk right up to him and shoot him point blank in the head after destroying his organization.

He was already having trouble with finding the person hiring the assassins that kept killing his more...efficient...people.

A week later Mycroft 'summoned' Joanna to an exclusive men's club.

Three days after that, Anderson and Donovan suffered a rather...unpleasant week. Starting with Anderson's wife divorcing him and Donovan being demoted, and ending with them having to explain to the credit card companies that their identity had been stolen.

If anyone was going to help Moriarty in discrediting Sherlock, Joanna knew it would be them without any hesitation whatsoever.

Moriarty wasn't expecting someone to turn one of his tricks right back at him. But it did.

"Naughty, naughty, little spider. You shouldn't touch other people's toys without permission."

"And what toy have I been playing with?"

"The detective. I must admit, your kidnapping scheme was quite clever...however you really don't want to see what I'll do to you if you don't back off and call the hired guns away."

"Oh no, I like this toy. I Owe Him," said Moriarty.

Her face cracked into a sinister smile that sent chills down the spines of anyone sane. But he wasn't sane. Not for a long, long time.

"So be it. But I think it will be hard for the police to believe Holmes is a kidnapper when they find my present left in a nice red bow on their doorstep."

Moriarty looked to the screen outside the Scotland Yard. For a moment there was nothing...until a car screeched into the frame and tossed something out wrapped in a red bow...and red blood all over it.

"The detective has his Homeless Network. Whereas I? I have the Underground Network. No criminal enters this city or performs something like this without my knowledge. Not all angels wear halos."

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The screen whited out, save for a single image. Three black irises with an old fashioned black and white photograph of him on trial for the crown jewels. Two of the irises were in a half circle to make a whole one, and the third sliced his photo in half in a diagonal.

It took a moment for his informants to come in that the picture was sent to every screen in the world...and for him to be informed quite bluntly that some of his more interesting backers were dropping him.

No one sane wanted to anger the Black Iris.

Especially not after such a public and blunt declaration that they were coming for his head on a platter and would pay any number asked to kill him, if they didn't do it themselves.

Moriarty started making some calls. He had to know the level of danger he was dealing with...and what he found did not paint a pleasant picture.

"You what?" said Sherlock baffled.

"I put a very public and expensive hit on Moriarty."

"How?"

"Not all angels wear halos, and the Black Iris is no angel, despite having wings."

"No, I mean how did you put a hit on a man you can't find?"

"Oh. I wrote a facial recognize algorithm that when used tracks anyone who has a high enough match and then alerts every assassin with a rather impressive kill count where to find him along with a base number for payment upon confirmation of his death. Again, you really, really don't want to see what happens when someone royally pisses me off to the point I put a hit out on them."

She had made it for Tom Riddle, but he had found her and solved the issue. MI6 almost never bothered to use it because it meant paying rogues to deal with their problems.

"And the kidnapper?" asked Sherlock.

"Your body double was just hand delivered to the Yard three hours ago in a nice red bow...and a bullet through the skull. There's a strong enough resemblance that even Donovan could see a case of mistaken identity when she saw it," deadpanned Joanna. He also still had the boots with the oil on the bottom.

Sherlock was impressed...and slightly concerned. Exactly how far did Joanna take her paranoia when she got this sort of feeling?

Joanna saw his look and something inside her shifted. Sherlock knew immediately that this was Iris, not his girlfriend.

"Joanna might be the nice one, but I'm the product of a bad home life and even poorer decisions from authority figures. No criminal above a pickpocket moves in London without my say so, even if I don't check in regularly."

The Sorting hat hadn't been that far off when he said she would have done well in Slytherin. Before the war had ended, Iris Black had used her connections in the magical underworld to seize the normal one. So long as she made it clear she was alive, none of her contacts doubted her ability to rule the place with an iron fist.

The few idiots who tried ended up dead before they could make more than a single ripple.

So when she put the word out for a body double of Sherlock Holmes, they had found and put him under interrogation within the hour.

She just waited before delivering him to the Yard to prove a very loud point to the insane "Consulting Criminal" about who controlled the criminal half of London.

If Joanna was the light half, the Iris was very much the 'dark' half. She was just too lazy to act on it unless provoked.

"So what now?" asked Sherlock.

"Now it's his turn. Let's see who dances on the string and who the puppeteer will be," said Iris.

If there was one thing Mycroft hated, it was the fact he allowed a madman to learn enough about Sherlock to actually do some damage.

Sherlock might not care about his reputation, but those around him... they would be hurt.

Joanna would weather it with ease. She could simply disappear and return under another name like any other spy. But Mrs. Hudson? Lestrade?

They would suffer the fall out of Moriarty's little game with his brother.

And if that wasn't bad enough, Sherlock had somehow ended up in the web of the Black Iris.

Mycroft didn't truly believe that Joanna could be the assassin as she claimed, or as her file said.

Files and evidence could be faked. The Black Iris was cold blooded enough to make even Moriarty nervous, and she had access to a program that was very dangerous. More so than the "key" Moriarty claimed to be in possession of.

He found it hard to believe that that the shadow Queen of England was living with his brother, or that Joanna had it in her to be ruthless enough to rule the London criminal network via the magical community.

So when Sherlock asked for his aid in faking his death... Mycroft helped with no hesitation.

It was atonement for his error in telling Moriarty anything he could use against his brother.