Right. Sorry. Again. Real life once more got the best of me. Buuuuuuut I come with another chapter! Complete with another cliffhanger! :D Not sure if there's much to say going into this one...we're on the verge of getting to know for sure what Mary's up to, and next chapter will include the Big Confrontation. Thanks as always for your lovely responses, and let me know what you think of this one!

Chapter Ten

The next few days past by fairly silently for the pair. They spent most of their time indoors roaming through the thousands of books in the library, looking for whatever clues they could provide as to where Mary might have gone. At night, Sherlock often snuck away from their quarters to visit the headmistress' office. He and Snape got along better than John had ever seen Sherlock act in his life other than with himself, and they often could be found talking quietly together long into the evenings. John let them be, declining any interaction to spend more time with Cecelia instead. He could tell she was missing her mother despite her little understanding of what had happened, and John tried to fill the void left over as best as he could.

It wasn't until nearly a week after they first arrived at Hogwarts that John heard anything from Harry. As soon as the owl arrived, he rushed out to find Sherlock on the grounds. He'd gained a further interest in studying Potions during his nightly discussions with Snape and had gone down to the greenhouses to speak with Neville about plants often used as ingredients. John encouraged him to go and bring Cecelia with him, hoping some time out in the fresh air would do them both well. Since they arrived at Hogwarts, Sherlock had been acting a bit off, and John wasn't sure if it was some sort of illness or an after effect of everything that had happened. Regardless, John knew getting away from the dusty library and immersing himself into a subject he was passionate about would certainly help.

John skidded down the long, gravel-strewn pathway to the greenhouses, squinting in the bright sunlight. He saw a pair of bodies moving in greenhouse two and launched himself in that direction, Harry's message clasped tightly in his hand. Sherlock and Neville jolted in surprise when John nearly tore the door off coming in, Sherlock's expression turning to curious worry at the hectic state of John.

"Just came – "John gasped, thrusting Sherlock the note and bending down to clutch at his knees as he heaved in breaths. "It's from Harry. Something's happened."

Sherlock began reading through the note, keeping it just out of reach of Cecelia when she snatched at it. His eyebrows furrowed the more he read, his delicate lips shaping into a frown. "They haven't found her, not yet," Sherlock muttered, easily figuring out that what John really wanted was for him to read through the lines. "This is to do with the pair we met up with in the forest the night you revealed yourself. I'm certain they're still in custody – Harry's handwriting, though naturally a bit of a scrawl, isn't nearly as hasty as it would be if they escaped – but something isn't right. I can't tell from what little he provided what exactly it is, however."

Neville glanced over Sherlock's shoulder to read it for himself, shooting him a quizzical look as he glanced over the no more than a dozen words. "He barely even says anything there, not much more than an invitation to stop by. Hell, he doesn't even mention the case! How could you possibly get from that to where you did on so little?"

Sherlock shrugged in little concern. "Science of deduction," he replied without looking up from the parchment. "Normally I'd tell you to look it up, but, well, your faulty magic lacks access to the Internet." He brought his currently golden tinged eyes up to meet John's. "What's the fastest way to get to the Ministry from here?"

"Apparation is the quickest and easiest," John replied. "We'd just need to get down to Hogsmeade, away from the wards, and I'd have us there in a flash." He glanced down at Cecelia, her head cocked to the side in interest, and carefully pulled her from Sherlock to cradle her close to his chest. "What about Cecy, though? I'm not taking her with us, not with a risk of running into Mary."

"Hannah and I would be happy to watch after her for you," Neville said in a friendly manner. "It's still two weeks before any students will show up, plus we're both almost always up here on the grounds since Hannah took over for Poppy. Between the two of us, Cecy will be completely fine."

Sherlock stepped closer to John as Neville spoke, eventually resting one hand on John's forearm and the other on Cecelia's head. A tiny wrinkle of concern ran across his forehead when he looked at John, a worry John seldom saw on him peering out at him from his expressive face.

"Do you trust him, John?" Sherlock muttered low so Neville couldn't hear him. "Can we?"

John nodded firmly, his jaw set tight. "I trust Neville with my life, Sherlock. He's one of the few I'd trust with hers as well. She'll be safest here, where Neville and the other professors can watch over her."

"I'm loathe to leave her behind," Sherlock breathed out with a frustrated huff. He knelt forward to place a soft kiss on her forehead. "I know she'll be safest here, but I hate having her out of sight."

"I know, but the sooner this is finished, the sooner she'll be safe." He twisted his hand to rest over the top of Sherlock's on his opposite arm. "Once this is done, things can be right again."

John wasn't entirely sure if his full meaning was caught in his cryptic words, but regardless Sherlock let out a breath and nodded. They passed Cecelia over to Neville, who cradled her with practiced ease. John felt his chest constrict as they said their goodbyes. It took all of his willpower not to turn back as they headed off in the direction of Hogsmeade, feeling unpleasantly empty. He stirred a bit when Sherlock's hand darted out to squeeze his, and he refocused on what Sherlock had deduced from Harry's note.

"So something's up with the prisoners. Any idea what?"

Sherlock shook his head, his frown deepening. "Not specifically, but I suspect it isn't good. I wasn't inclined towards Harry's tone – he's confused about something, something to do with the prisoners, but it isn't concerning him overly enough to come out strongly in his words. As I said before, I need more facts."

"Well, you'll get them soon enough." John increased his pace without thinking to match Sherlock's so they marched side by side. "Harry said he's at his office, yeah? I can Apparate us right into one of the safe zones. Hopefully he's got you the proper clearance to get into the Ministry without walking out Obliviated."

"Harry, though generally as ridiculous as most, has thankfully been gifted with a fair bit of common sense. I suspect he realized long ago that his wisest option when allowing me to remain Unobliviated thus far was to ensure that it would continue to be so for a long time to come."

"There's the smartarse," John chuckled, knocking his shoulder with Sherlock's. Sherlock replied simply with a smile and the rest of their brief journey was travelled in silence. Once they passed the invisible barrier stopping them from Apparating, John wrapped a tight arm around Sherlock's waist and they were gone.

Not unlike Hogwarts, one couldn't simply Apparate into the Ministry of Magic. Various safe locations had been set up nearby, however, enabling John and Sherlock to get fairly close. They both gave cautious glances around their surroundings before emerging from the camouflaged alleyway, John leading the way to the plain telephone booth he remembered as an entrance. Neither spoke as it carried them into the heart of the Ministry, but Sherlock let out a long suffering groan when the door opened to reveal an all too familiar besuited man with an umbrella.

"Yes, it's positively horrid to see you as well, baby brother," Mycroft drawled. "But if you could possibly contain your displeasure just long enough for me to convey you to Mr. Potter, it will be as though I was never here at all."

"Nonsense, Mycroft, the place positively reeks of your presence." Sherlock glanced around him in veiled interest before taking off, John close behind. "That new scent of yours if awful, by the way, I'm surprised Anthea hasn't mentioned it. She seems to be the only one of your various minions able to both tolerate your company as well as speak with you relatively honestly. She's one of them, isn't she? I never had the chance to bring it up before now."

Mycroft rushed to catch up, a sour expression on his face as he took over leading them. "Of course she is, Sherlock, how well off would I be in any sort of situation without at least one witch or wizard close at hand? Now, if you would kindly let me – "

"Yes, very well then, but be quick about it." Mycroft scowled but didn't reply, guiding them to an empty elevator and jabbing at a button. Sherlock watched the pair of paper aeroplanes as they danced overhead, an inquisitive expression on his face. "I see where your delightful idea the morning after your reveal came from, John. Clever, I admit, if a bit childish. It's to avoid droppings?"

"Can't imagine why the staff wouldn't tolerate cleaning up literal shit daily on the elevator shafts," John replied in a conversational tone. Sherlock's lips quirked into a grin while Mycroft rolled his eyes. "I'm a bit surprised they're still using the planes, though. That's what they used the last time I was here, and that was close to twenty years ago."

Before anyone could reply, the doors opened to reveal a slightly chaotic office. Desks were ordered into a seemingly consistent pattern, but it looked as though the various papers and materials sitting across them were strewn about carelessly, allowing them to be easily shared amongst workers. Chatter echoed through the long room, occasionally broken up by a random shout or laughter. The three visitors were mostly ignored as Mycroft led them through a path between desks, earning the occasional glance but passed over for whatever task was more important. John nearly had to drag Sherlock away from the desks they passed, his interest constantly distracted by the potential magical cases. The office, besides the occasional burst of magic, reminded John of New Scotland Yard, causing a rolling sense of comfortable purpose to settle in his shoulders. With a hand firmly pressed into the small of Sherlock's back, he shoved the man forward until they reached Harry's office.

"John, Sherlock, excellent," Harry said, rising from his chair to dodge around his desk. He sent Mycroft a smile in thanks, which was returned with a stiff nod. Motioning them to follow him, Harry continued to speak over his shoulder while guiding them down a narrow corridor. "I hadn't personally been down to see the two prisoners you found since we got their confessions, but they were all settled to head out to Azkaban this morning. It, er, didn't quite work out that way, though." They reached a doorway where Harry muttered a spell and gave an intricate swish of his wand. The lock clicked open and Harry waited for John and Sherlock to go in first.

The two prisoners lay on their parallel beds, seemingly asleep with something small clasped in each of their hands. Once John and Sherlock approached, however, it was obvious from a single glance that the men were dead. Both pairs of eyes gaped open at the ceiling in frozen terror, locked in their final expressions before they had been hit with the spells that killed them. John recognized the sight of someone hit with the Killing Curse, but it had been many years since the last time he'd been forced to face it directly.

While John studied one man, Sherlock studied the other. Though he had read about the effects of the curse, Sherlock nearly vibrated with excitement at the prospect of inspecting it firsthand after knowing exactly what had caused the death. He reached into his pocket without looking away from the body, pulling out his leather gloves and magnifying glass. Once the gloves were on, he began twisting the man's wrists about with gentle motions, searching for any signs of fatal wounds. He found none, but an all too familiar etching was carved into his forehead. As he flipped the man's hand so that the palm fell open, a rosebud fluttered out, its blood red petals standing out starkly against both the lighter color of the petals' ends and the paleness of his skin at death.

"Blood traitor," Sherlock muttered as his eyes roved back up to the etching. He turned to shoot a glance over at John. "Mean anything specific to anyone, other than the obvious?"

"It was a common phrase back when Voldemort was still around," John replied with a sigh, rocking back onto his heels. "The same sorts who called Muggleborns Mudbloods were the most likely ones to use it. Typically it referred to people or families who were purebloods but favoured befriending Muggles rather than getting rid of them."

"Do we know who these men were specifically?" Sherlock asked, turning to direct his question at Harry. "We heard at least one of their names before John took them out. Travers."

Harry gestured to the man lying in front of John. "That would be this bloke. He was a known Death Eater we'd been after for quite some time after the Battle at Hogwarts. The other one, Lewis Jones, was as well, though he tended to stay more towards the neutral zone among the Death Eaters."

Sherlock nodded and returned to studying Jones. "Not exactly blood traitors, then, are they? And if they were the ones to do the original killings we were investigating, they certainly wouldn't kill and maim each other. Besides, I suspect you have their wands in custody."

"That was the first thing I checked when we found them – both wands secured and unmoved. We even did a few Prior Incantatos on them to check out the last spells the wands cast. They were the same as when we brought them in, just the curses they sent at the two of you before John knocked them out."

"Well, this obviously clears up any questions of whether Mary's involved," John muttered, leaning back with a deep sigh to sit on the hard floor with one of the osiria roses in his hand, twisting it slowly between his fingers. "I mean, she's got the ability to get in and out of here unnoticed because of the whole metamorphmagus thing, and we know she has a wand again. But why the hell would she break in to the Ministry to kill the same blokes who helped her do the murders? It's not like they're going to tell us she's in on it, at least not now, and if anything she'd be better off breaking them out than killing them. Why go to this trouble just to get rid of them herself?"

Sherlock didn't reply to John's questions, but his forehead furrowed in thought as he rubbed a gloved finger over the words etched into Jones' skin. He abruptly stood and pulled the gloves off with a snap, looking between Mycroft and Harry. "Have you made any leads into who specifically may have been involved with the murder of John's parents? Or any additional information on the wand you first recovered?"

"We can't go back far enough into it to check on the spells it cast, beside it being nearly impossible to figure out accurate times and places for when specific spells were cast," Harry explained. "Given everything that Travers and Jones told us before they died, however, we know that at least five people were involved in the Watsons' deaths – the two of them, a woman named Abby Avery, Yaxley, and one of the Rosiers. Besides these two and Avery, the others have been in Azkaban since the Battle."

"Additional security should be placed around the two in Azkaban as quickly and silently as possible. If we can, I'd like the opportunity to speak with them myself."

Harry excused himself to do as Sherlock demanded and John stood to come up to Sherlock's side. In a voice low enough so only he could hear, John stated, "I suppose this is the last bit of clue we needed to know that Mary definitely is Avery."

Sherlock gave him a small, jerking nod. "The bit with the roses seems to be the final touch to let us, you specifically, know that she's involved. Though inscribing 'blood traitor' on them seems to be sending an odd sort of message, both to us as well as Harry and his Aurors. Obviously it's meant to have some sort of meaning, but whether to them or you specifically is uncertain."

"Why bother doing all this now, though? Without this and the roses, we still wouldn't know for sure if Mary was Avery, and keeping them alive could have kept us distracted from finding her for days longer. It seems ridiculous for her to waste her time on them when she could be escaping notice instead."

"Sentiment," Sherlock muttered, stretching out a long fingered hand to stroke the rose in Jones' now loose grip. Before John could ask him to explain, Harry came rushing back in, his expression grim.

"We need to get to Azkaban now," he said, placing a hand on Mycroft's shoulder. "I've got a few of my Aurors already on scene, but I have a feeling this is something you ought to see, particularly Sherlock. The anti-Apparation charm's already been disabled temporarily from this room, so we can leave right away."

John grasped Sherlock's hand tightly and waited for Harry and Mycroft to Apparate. Once they had, he met Sherlock's fierce gaze once before taking a deep breath and following.

The Dementors had been removed from Azkaban after Voldemort's defeat, but it would take more than that gesture to remove their bleak presence completely. The prison still had a dark gloom looming over it, a constant fog drifting in from the water surrounding the island to give it a ghostly glow. It was located up north, so even in August there was a chill in the air, a remnant of the cold the Dementors left in their wake. Even Sherlock gave a small shiver as they approached the entrance, a motion John felt through their still tightly clasped hands.

Harry led the way to the entrance with Mycroft close behind, John and Sherlock in the rear. As soon as they pushed the doors open, they were met by a man in Auror robes who instantly stiffened at the sight of Harry. Harry waved off the man's formality and introduced them all. "Edwards, I want you to tell Sherlock and John exactly what you told me when I Flooed over here a few minutes ago."

"We check on the prisoners by floor hourly, just to make sure everything's in order," Edwards quickly explained. "Yaxley and Rosier are on the same floor, level five, and Havens and Faulkner were on duty to see to them last hour. Faulkner found Rosier first, dead for no longer than an hour since they saw him pacing in his cell during the last call. Havens found Yaxley the same way. They both swear not another soul was on the floor during all that time, not without getting past the pair of them."

"Take us up to them," Sherlock demanded, and they soon were racing up several flights of stairs to level five. The area was swarmed with Aurors who all gave a start at the entrance of Harry.

"Mr. Potter, sir," one man, a bit older with a receding hairline and am impressive beard, stuttered as he gave an awkward salute. "We had no idea the Head would be called in for this. We have the problem well in hand, sir, I promise you."

"You're not at fault, Williams, at least not as far as we can tell," Harry quickly reassured. "These gentlemen have been helping us with a case that may be connected and I was hoping they could have a look at the bodies."

"Of course, I'll have Havens and Faulkner take you themselves." Williams waved over a pair of men a touch older than Sherlock and John. The two came over as quick as they could through the crowd of Aurors, but the expressions of perplexity and slight fear on their faces were obvious to all of them. The fear only increased when they saw their Head of Department accompanying the three other visitors.

"Good to see you both, gentlemen," Harry said with a smile before they could burst into frantic denials of guilt. "Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson here have been helping us with a case that just so happens to involve our two victims. If you'd be so kind as to show us the bodies and tell us what happened?"

Havens and Faulkner glanced at each other briefly before guiding them down the cell lined corridor. John caught glimpses of prisoners' faces through the small windows as they passed and couldn't stop the memories that attempted to press in on him when he spotted a familiar face. He kept himself grounded to reality with the warm presence of Sherlock at his right, his excitement rolling off of him in careful currents as they approached the appropriate cells.

"They were both well enough when we checked on them last hour," Havens explained as Sherlock pushed past the few Aurors outside to inspect the body. John instantly recognized Yaxley even from his position at the doorway. "The only ways in or out are from the opposite staircases, and Faulkner and I were stationed one at each this whole time. It wouldn't be the first time a prisoner killed himself, but this looks too much like the Killing Curse for it not to be that. The only ones who have access to wands are the Aurors, so they had to have been attacked."

"You saw absolutely no signs of forced magical entry?" Sherlock shot out without looking up. His eyes were tracing the outline of something on Yaxley's forehead that John suspected was incredibly familiar. "No sounds of distress or hints at a struggle?"

Both of the Aurors were shaking their heads in the negative, but a gravelly voice from the cell on the left caused them to freeze. "Of course they wouldn't tell you if they noticed anything, not when it was one of them that did the thing."

Instantly Havens and Faulkner were surrounded by half a dozen Aurors, all with wands directed right at them. The expressions of fear on the pair of men's faces turned fully into terror as they both began shouting out over the other in their defense. Sherlock hushed them with a glare and was at the cell's window before John could blink.

"What did you see?" he asked the prisoner in a low voice, fingers curled around the iron bars. The prisoner shot Sherlock a cocky grin and shrugged, leaning against a wall in the cell so that he was out of view of all but Sherlock.

"I might be inclined to share, given the right…incentive," the man drawled casually. Sherlock's lips pursed into a thin line and he darted around to hold out a hand to Harry.

"Very well. Do we have any Veritaserum on hand, Mr. Potter? Perhaps in that slightly hidden pocket stitched just on the inside flap of your robes?"

Harry blinked open mouthed at Sherlock, stunned momentarily into silence, before breaking out in a grin. "I'm not even going to ask how you do that," he said as he reached into the noted pocket to pull out a small vial. "I have a feeling I don't want to know."

Sherlock was just about to reach out and snatch up the vial when the prisoner gave a dramatic sigh and reappeared at the cell window. "A bloke tries to have a bit of excitement and this is the thanks he gets," he said before poking a hand out to point at Havens. "About a quarter 'til rounds, that one came slinking down the corridor and went in Yaxley's cell. He was in and out in less than five minutes all told. Didn't make a sound, did he, and I couldn't hear proper enough to tell what happened, but once they came back to do the official work, it wasn't particularly hard to figure it out."

Haven was screeching his innocence when Harry snatched up his wand, pointing it to the one in Havens' pocket with an indistinguishable mutter. A long, silvery stream of spells emitted from it, but none that could have etched the words into Yaxley's forehead or killed him. Harry did the same to Faulkner's wand with the same result.

"So we have two men, both the only ones with wands and the ability to perform magic in the vicinity, but neither of the wands did the spells that killed them," John said slowly, raising his head from where he knelt staring at Yaxley's body to look up at Sherlock. As he did so, he held out an osiria rose in his open palm, offering it up as a bleak offering to him. Sherlock was staring directly at him when their eyes met, a flash of encouragement in their now dark blue. Though John didn't continue his thought, Sherlock nodded in enthusiasm when he saw the austere understanding in John's gaze.

"She snuck in, disguised herself as one of the guards on duty, and took care of Yaxley and Rosier," Sherlock stated. "I would check Havens over for signs of recent attack, something that could have knocked him out for a bit without him remembering. He's certainly not our killer, at least."

"Jesus," John muttered, throwing down the rose as those it burned and letting it lay flattened on the stone floor. His shoulders slumped downward slightly in defeat. "So she did in the others who were behind their deaths. Now where would she go? Does she even have anyplace left?"

Sherlock strode forward, purpose in each heavy footstep, to pull John to his feet. He grasped John's face in both of his enormous hands, echoing his motions from the Blind Banker case. Instead of spinning him about in a circle like he did then, however, he gently let his forehead come to rest on John's encouraging him to breathe deeply along with him. John did as he was silently told, but kept his eyes locked on Sherlock's.

"Think, John," Sherlock muttered, his words let out quietly in one of his exhales. "Why would she kill these men, leave the flowers? Why them in particular?"

"Their biggest connection is me," John replied in an equally low voice. "But that doesn't explain – "

"Shh." The sound was more of a feeling across John's skin than an actual sound. "You are the connection, John. It's obvious. She is running on the emotions of her heart. Where can we deduce that will take her next?" Sherlock fell silent to give John the chance to reply, but all he received was a tickling sensation when John's eyebrows furrowed. "You know her best, John. You are the only one of us to know best where she might go. Think, John. I know you can do this." Sherlock let his nose nudge against John's in what was unmistakably an intimate fashion. John's reaction was to instantly jolt away, but from the way he gripped suddenly at Sherlock's elbows and the excitement in his eyes, Sherlock could tell the motion came from revelation rather than disgust.

"I know where she is." John's hold tightened before he let go and rushed down the corridor, towing Sherlock along and completely disregarding the stunned Aurors around them. "I know where she is!"

They dashed down the stairs, heedless of Harry and Mycroft shouting at them from above. Before they could catch up, John and Sherlock were back on the outskirts of Azkaban, not far from where they had originally Apparated. John grasped Sherlock's elbows once more, a broad grin on his face. "Ready?"

"Always."

They were gone before the others had even gotten through the front gate.