"And you're weak and you're harmless

and you're sleeping in your harness

and the wind going wild

in the trees,

and it ain't exactly prison

but you'll never be forgiven

for whatever you've done

with the keys."

-Leonard Cohen

...

Gift Horse

The ice clinked together, as Mycroft took another drink. Looking at the glass of whiskey, he decided that he might soon develop a problem with his, let's call it, de-stressor. Shrugging, he downed the rest of the drink, and let out a long sigh.

He was tired. It was another long day, as they all seemed to be, recently. All the bureaucrats were insufferable, the politicians were more corrupt than before, and his brother was in trouble again. Or rather, still. His brother was still in trouble.

Maybe not immediate trouble, Mycroft consoled himself.

A faint bluish-white glow danced around his office walls. There was a stone dish on his desk, which was casting the glow. He had to go through bureaucratic hell to get his hands on this little dish. Then the memory, which had cost him a few too many bribes and manipulations than he was comfortable with. Of course the wizards didn't want to lend him this particular piece of government property. What would he, a muggle, want with it after all? And, securing this specific memory was maybe just a little suspicious. Thankfully, Mycroft thought, wizarding England was nearing it's new election term. He hoped, with all the excitement of new candidates and their campaigns, his little foray into their world would go completely unnoticed, in the long run. He hoped.

Now, what was he going to do about Sherlock?

...

Harry chuckled, grabbed Sherlock's arm, and took them back to their flat.

The second that Sherlock's feet touched the ground, and his lungs finished decompressing themselves after apparation, he let out a triumphant shout that almost surprised him. He found that his sour mood had all but dissipated. He felt a familiar rush in his veins, muscles, and most importantly, his brain. Another case solved, another riddle neatly fitted with an answer.

The elation would only last so long, before boredom returned. But at least now he had a vanguard: even with the case over, there were still mysteries waiting to unfold in the magical world.

Sherlock twirled around to face the wizard, who had shifted back into his own looks, the auburn hair replaced with black, and the goatee disappearing completely. Harry had proved to be incredibly useful. Sherlock liked having an assistant primarily for the ability to bounce ideas and theories off another human being. Thereby, through reflection, his deduction would only become more focused and accurate. Of course, John, being a doctor, would sometimes save the day.. Sherlock had to admit, that as much as he felt regard for John, he was nowhere as useful as a wizard. Especially one that was exceedingly qualified for Sherlock's specific line of work.

"It's highly advantageous that you have spent the last decade on the run from authorities." Sherlock announced. Harry lifted an amused eyebrow.

"The skills you would have gained from this, versus say a career in magical accounting, will be quite useful to me." Sherlock clarified.

"Well, I'm glad to know my long and lonely years of exile had a purpose." Harry chuckled.

Sherlock wondered if that was a social cue that he had gone too far, but decided to ignore it, since the wizard didn't look exceptionally bothered.

"You will assist me on future cases." It wasn't worded like a question, but Sherlock thought it left the vague notion of choice hanging in the air.

"As long as I'm advantageous." Harry echoed back, which was as good as a yes. "Want dinner? I'll cook."

Sherlock jerked his head with non-commitment, and went about his way through the flat. He was bouncing between his laptop, and paper files, which held the details of Baskey's other victims. He would have to remember to keep tabs on Laura Baskey. She might have a few more details on her father, and his 'hobby.'

A merry sizzle started in the kitchen. Sherlock barely registered the sounds of cupboards opening, and pans being shuffled about.

...

They were eating together, as had become the norm over the past month. Sherlock didn't particularly care for the habit, but he supposed he did just solve a major case. He could afford to slow down for an intake of nutrition.

The wizard across from him was being quiet, and looking down at his plate. Sherlock thought it looked like he was contemplating something. With Harry not meeting his eyes, Sherlock found that he was freely staring at the wizard. He watched the wizard's eyes take on a far away look, as the muscles in his jaw worked. Sherlock felt again the now familiar, yet still unsettling hike in his abdomen.

He dropped his eyes, too. Whatever strange madness was afflicting him, it was obviously not done yet. Worse still, the episodes seemed to be increasing in frequency.

Sherlock's mind jumped to what had happened under that cloak, today. The cloak, which he made a note to interrogate Potter about later. Really, the wizard kept the fact that he owned a cloak of invisibility pretty quiet.

Sherlock was, to put it mildly, confused, about what had happened. In as much detail as possible, Sherlock replayed the event. Perhaps there was a clue as to what was behind Sherlock's ridiculous impulses. He remembered commanding Harry to hide, and then the wizard took out his cloak, and draped it over the both of them. That is, in essence, all that happened. So why had Sherlock's brain violently and spectacularly gone off the rails, from such a simple event?

He tried to recall his precise thoughts in that half-minute (27 seconds, give or take), when he was trapped under Harry's body. Although his mind seemed clouded, and distracted at the time, now everything came back in clear detail. His nervous system had an exact replica of where the wizard's body had leaned against his. The nerves where they touched lit up like beacons, like city lights that drew a map of the street and intersections, as you flew by above.

He remembered first fixating in the wizard's neck, then on his arm, and finally on his hipbone. Where those three areas somehow connected? What was the purpose behind his touch? What was Sherlock trying to do, acting on that insane impulse? Being unable to resist impulses wasn't exactly new for Sherlock. But most of the time, he could at least guess where the impulses came from. No answers were forthcoming, as his brain kept spinning in circles.

Sherlock took a deep breath. Even as he played the scene through his mind, he felt his blood shift, and his heart pounded in an elevated rhythm. This made chewing more difficult than necessary.

Sherlock growled deep in his throat, though he hoped it sounded like he was merely clearing it. He took a drink of water, and then another bite of his dinner. Whatever this madness was, it was affecting him physically, and that was bad news. Frustrated with the lack of insight into his own psyche, Sherlock decided to discard the matter for now. The only course of action he could see is to repress the impulses, until hopefully, the problem disappeared.

He counted each time he inhaled and exhaled, with measured intakes of air. After a few long minutes, he felt his pulse settle back to normal. He looked up at the wizard, who had thankfully, not noticed anything.

"So why haven't started a family?" Harry suddenly broke the silence.

Sherlock jumped a bit at the unexpected question. His eyes snapped up to meet Potter's.

"I've told you, my work prevents it." He might have been unnecessarily short, but really what a nonsensical query. Harry had met Sherlock, he ought to know why.

"Besides the fact that I barely tolerate human interaction, my profession constantly puts me, and those around me in harm's way. Why John, who was only my flatmate, got targeted. Imagine what would happen if I decided to...reproduce."

Sherlock put as much condescending stink as he could on the last word, letting Potter know just what his opinion was on children, and having them.

Harry nodded thoughtfully, but didn't say anything. Sherlock felt his mouth go dry, and an uncomfortable heat settle on his face.

"You must think me inhuman." Sherlock added. Everyone did, for the most part. Harry was looking at a spot above Sherlock's shoulder.

"No, I think you're very selfless." He said slowly. Sherlock barely restrained himself from snorting, and made a little noise that sounded like he was choking.

"It's difficult, not to get attached. Even when you know you shouldn't." Harry elaborated, as though that clarified the matter.

"I don't find it difficult." Sherlock stated flatly.

"Right." Potter wasn't denying it, but surely there was something a little off about his answer.

Later lying in bed, Sherlock found himself unable to sleep. Not an unusual state of events, but still an undesirable one.

With the Harelsden maniac caught, he should be thinking about the next case, but he still swiveled back to Potter. It was annoying. He had already made the decision to stop thinking about what he had done under that cloak, but a part of his mind refused to cooperate. It went back, again and again, replaying the scene in high definition detail. Though the precision and clarity remained, sometimes his brain would extrapolate, and create scenes which didn't actually happen. Like, Sherlock putting his hand on the wizard's shoulder instead, or on his chest.

Sherlock was forced to open his eyes in order to dispel the image, and stared at his ceiling.

There were other events from the day, beside that damned cloak, that Sherlock needed to dig through, vivisect and understand.

Refocusing his mind to the best of his ability, (which was slightly more difficult than usual, with his nervous system still half lit up from the physical memories he had vowed to suppress), Sherlock shifted his awareness to the other mental notes he had left himself throughout the day.

What else had been important?

Sally Donovan. Well, she wasn't important, obviously. What she had said had been, though. It was some variation of him being unusual for his fascination with crime, death, and murder. Really, all of her insults melded together, as they were usually the same phrases, recombined in slightly different ways. So really, what she said wasn't important, but...

Harry's reaction was. He had grabbed Sherlock, and stopped him.

'Why do you let that woman talk to you like that?' He had said. There was an odd lilt to his voice. His tone was was a note higher, and abrasive. It was, what one could consider, angry. But Sherlock knew that it was put on, like a play for an audience, the pitch imperfect, and contrived. His wizard, for some reason unknown to Sherlock, acted out an emotion he didn't feel.

Sherlock considered what intention the wizard had in doing this. Was he simply displaying his opinion on the way the Scotland Yard lot treated their consulting detective, and the play acting meant to reinforce the point? John had been outraged on his behalf a number of times.

Sherlock decided to think of another instance where Potter displayed anger or aggression. Maybe the contrast of real anger would provide an answer. Not everyone gets frustrated over the same things, after all. If he could analyze Harry's pattern of aggression, he could figure out this little mystery.

Sherlock mind began playing through every encounter he's had with the wizard since they met in May, looking for any instance of anger. It was only a month of memories, so he reasoned that it shouldn't take very long. Especially if he were looking for something specific.

Sherlock's brows furrowed. He saw Harry's face, changing rapidly in his mind's eye, going through all the memories he had shared with the man, fastwording through a month of his life. It only took a few minutes to sift through them all. His could almost hear the mechanical click, as his mind paused at a moment a fan hour ago, when he last saw Potter, concluding his mental perusal. Well, that can't be right.

Sherlock fingers came up to massage his temples. He went back to the beginning, this time examining in more detail, each moment he had observed Harry, all in chronological order. The search criteria was still there, but after scanning all the relevant data, his brain still drew a blank.

His body snapped up, and began to pace across his little room, with the lights still out.

He forced his mind to dig into every moment that it had recorded of the wizard, analyze every second. Sherlock's eyes were scrunched together, as his legs automatically took him across the length of his room, and back again. His head jerked slightly to the left and right as he walked. But again, his mind ground to a halt, when it reached the last memory it had of Potter. Nothing.

Not a single instance of genuine anger. Not even a flash of violence and frustration.

The closest instance had been panic, wild fear that he had been caught, when Sherlock deduced that he had already been to prison. Harry had then thought that there were aurors coming, perhaps already hiding in wait. But no, even then, he was at most short, panicked, but certainly not aggressive, which would be reasonable in the situation. He had read Sherlock's mind then, instead of hexing him to bits (which, after multiple perusals through Confronting the Faceless, a beat up old textbook from Potter's knapsack, Sherlock decided was a very good thing to avoid).

Even when Sherlock first met Potter, jumping out with a gun and yelling, Potter was...oddly calm. Unnaturally peaceful.

Sherlock stood still now, as the conclusion dawned on him. He stared at the door, imagining the wizard somewhere beyond it. There were, in total, only two possible explanations.

The first was that in almost a month of living at Baker Street, Sherlock had not managed to seriously irritate the wizard, even once (Sherlock wasn't sure if that felt like a slight, or an accomplishment on his end). The second was that Harry Potter was incapable of anger .

Truthfully, they were both equally unlikely. Almost as unlikely as the fact that Sherlock had not noticed this hole in the wizard's psyche. Although, he could be given some leeway, since he had seen some discrepancies. He had noticed that the wizard seemed hollow, subdued, but to be missing so much?

Sherlock almost immediately discarded explanation number one. Some people thought Sherlock so narcissistic that he simply didn't see how his behavior affected (read: infuriated) bystanders. But Sherlock did know, and simply chose not to care. It was much easier that way; it had always been. The only drawback was that sometimes, even those that had stuck by him (John, Mrs. Hudson, Molly Hooper, Lestrade) entertained vague notions of murdering the only consulting detective in the world. Presumably, they stopped themselves on some moral ground of all those criminals Sherlock wouldn't catch, and the havoc they would wreak.

It seemed like a glaring impossibility that he wouldn't have made the wizard angry, irritated, frustrated, annoyed even once, during his stay at Baker Street. A snide voice in the back of Sherlock's head suggested that it was preposterous he was even concerned with Potter's emotion, or lack thereof, but that was quickly hushed. Sherlock needed to know who he was dealing with.

Explanation number two didn't seem any more likely. Sherlock quickly flipped through the abridged DSM-V stacked in an easily accessible part of his mind palace. There was no neat explanation for this, but he already knew that. With the exception of catatonia (obviously not the case here), violence and anger tended to express themselves in every human being. If anything it's what that tied everyone together.

Aggression was a very mammal thing, really.

Sherlock's mind lightly grazed over anti-social personality disorder as a possible explanation, but that was not possible either. If anything, the wizard was overly empathetic, making his guilt almost too easy to manipulate.

He paced back and forth across his small room, the two theories rolling in his head. Sherlock ought to know about people with missing emotions, considering that he was missing whole sets.

But anger? That was an odd thing to miss. Sherlock could certainly get angry: at boredom, at his brother, at the newscaster for being wrong...There were so many things in life to be irritated at. Now, he found himself irritated again.

Here he was, a master of his own emotions, more so than any other human he has ever met, and HE was the one that was slowly going insane for a still unknown reason. Really, Potter was the one that should be madly pacing about like a caged, unfixed cat. Yet, because of some strange quirk in the wizard's psyche, Harry remained unperturbed, calm, and friendly, even when Sherlock dropped a thumb (severed, of course; not his own thumb) in the wizard's oatmeal a few days ago (by accident, to be sure).

Yes, Sherlock thought, this matter definitely requires investigation. One way or another, he would get to the bottom of what was wrong with Potter. Sherlock quickly and conclusively decided to focus on this, instead of what was possibly wrong with him. A voice that sounded incredibly like John gave a soft, disapproving hum, but Sherlock though if he were to listen to the voices in his head, they could at least be polite enough to use words. Slowing down his pace, Sherlock thought of the next step.

An idea began to form in his head.

He had two theories. If he could disprove one, the remaining one would have to be the truth. He hadn't made the wizard angry yet, but well, he hadn't really been trying.

Sherlock didn't want to assume, but he had a feeling that if he were to really apply himself to the matter, the wizard's saintly patience would run thin rather quickly.

Now, there were a number of ways he could approach this experiment, many of which he was intimately familiar with. Sherlock was in the business of pissing people off since the tender ages of early childhood, when Mycroft had been his favorite subject. Hopefully, his expertise would pan out well in this new setting.

Sherlock recalled his experiments with flies, and musical stimuli. The experiment was ruined ("I'm drawing the line at bugs, Sherlock" John had said), but not before he had gathered enough data about certain rhythms, pitches, and their effect on aggression.

Resolving to begin his research the next day, Sherlock lay back down, and fell asleep.

He was in the labyrinth again. There was stone, all around, nothing but twisting passages made of cold blocks. Except, he didn't feel lonely this time. Sherlock was sitting on the floor, and Harry was sitting across from him. Harry was propped up against a wall, and there was a large dark stain spreading on his abdomen. Sherlock remembered that he had impaled him, last time he had visited the labyrinth. He was very glad, then, that Harry seemed to be doing okay, for some miraculous reason.

They had a ball of string, between them. Sherlock rolled it to Harry, and the wizard rolled it back.

'So how long are you going to take to figure this out?' Asked the wizard. He sounded a bit bored, which annoyed Sherlock. He didn't have to stay in this labyrinth if he didn't want to.

'Mooooo?' He said, though it might have meant something more like 'Figure out what, Potter?' as he rolled the unwinding ball back towards Harry.

'Whatever it is that's bothering you.' Harry said, and rolled the ball of string back to Sherlock.

Sherlock rolled it back with his hoof, and snorted out another 'Moooooo,' which of course meant: 'I've decided to simply ignore it.'

Harry caught the ball, and looked at Sherlock. Suddenly, he looked very scared.

'You've tried that before.' There was a deep rumble throughout the labyrinth. Sherlock knew, with a sense of dread, that it was coming from the center, where the monster lived.

Harry was looking around with panic.

'You've tried that before, and now that thing lives here.' Harry said, and Sherlock knew he was referring to the monstrously dark center, around which the labyrinth was built.

Harry woke up the next morning to what could only be the sound of a musical saw played by a ghost. Horrible, jagged sounds, sharp and high pitched were coming from the living room.

Throwing on his clothes, he went downstairs to to locate the source of the noise. It was Sherlock, who was standing by the window in a dressing gown, and absolutely torturing a violin.

His eyes lit up when Harry entered, as though he had been waiting for him to wake up.

"Er...what's up?" Harry asked, pointing to the instrument. Sherlock barely looked around.

"Practicing! You don't mind do you?" Sherlock said, not asked.

"Practicing for what, a death day party?" Harry asked, grimacing. The sound really was terrible. Each note had a whining pitch, that somehow penetrated through his head, and ground on his brain like sand.

Sherlock looked around curiously at the mention of death day parties. Harry could see that the detective wanted to know more about this, and Harry would happily tell him anything, if it meant that noise would stop.

Apparently, whatever Sherlock was practicing for must have been important, because the detective didn't press further, and continued "playing." There wasn't really a melody. The notes (and calling them that was a stretch) ran wildly up and down scales in chaotic patterns.

Still wearing a painful expression, Harry made his way over to the kitchen. As soon as he cleared the living room, he cast a quick silencing charm, and almost sagged with relief when the noise stopped.

He put on the kettle, and went about making something to eat.

Before the toast was even done, he heard the noise again, Sherlock twirled into the small kitchen, violin still firmly held on his shoulder, and still making those ungodly screeches. Harry couldn't resist putting his hands over his ears, which barely dampened the sound.

"It helps when I practice around other people." Sherlock said cheerfully, a gleeful look on his face.

"It sounds horrible." Harry told him blankly, but Sherlock didn't seem to care one bit. He strode around the kitchen still making that noise, not letting up for a moment.

Harry tried to make himself something to eat as quickly as possible. He practically jammed two pieces of toast down his throat, and gulped down his tea, which was a few degrees below scalding.

All the while, Sherlock watched him with a hungry, expectant expression, as though expecting Harry to do a trick in tune with the music.

Some of the notes made his muscles coil, almost like an adrenaline rush. It was a strange feeling: he felt himself tense up, and then release, and then tense up again, almost like a muggle car he'd seen, that would rev up when the key was turned, and but was unable to start. It dawned on Harry that maybe the noises were intended to elicit some sort of reaction, though he had no idea what it could be.

He shrugged his shoulders, trying to get rid of the feeling. Rinsing off the crockery, he hurried off to the room in the upstairs landing. Unfortunately, he would only have a few minutes of quiet and peace, because Sherlock really was intent on having an audience.

The sun was setting and Sherlock was slouched in his arm chair. John had called it his 'brooding chair,' but Sherlock thought that was a ridiculous moniker. He didn't brood. It is possible that statistically, he used this particular armchair more often when he was wading through a difficult case. But brooding was something that teenagers engaged in, and he was now decades away from that. So, Sherlock arranged his face into a blank expression, and his limbs into a comfortable and open position, that at no level of scrutiny could be called 'brooding.'

Only this time, he could admit that he was indeed, brooding, because his experiments failed. Or rather, his findings were inconclusive, which of course, meant that they failed. He kicked out his legs angrily, crossed and uncrossed them, as he thought of his unsuccessful research.

He had taken painstaking care to not only modify, but enhance his finding from the fruit fly/violin experiment. The musical pitches he had created were supposed to create aggression in subjects.

Indeed, they had, but in the wrong subject. Sherlock was, himself, feeling frustrated and volatile. Whether it was the effect of the violin pitches, or the fact that he was no closer to answering any questions about Potter, he didn't know.

He supposed it was possible that theory no. 2 was correct, and Potter was incapable of being affected, though the absence of evidence was not the evidence of absence.

The more he thought about it, the more annoyed Sherlock became. The imbalance of Harry's perfect calm, and the inner turmoil of Sherlock's head wounded his ego. He was the one, after all, who had a cool grip on his emotions. Apparently, not any longer, a snide voice in his head commented.

He looked over towards the wizard. He was sitting at the table, a few spare light bulbs in front of him. He was, as Sherlock recalled, trying to charm them to float and produce light. It was tricky. It seemed magic and electricity didn't go hand in hand.

Sherlock let out a resigned sigh. It seemed that humans (well, live ones anyway) weren't his area of expertise. He was at a loss when he made them angry, and he was even more confused now, when he couldn't reproduce the same results. Usually, when he did make someone angry, John would have to explain the reason to him.

He simply didn't understand.

He recalled a particular instance, years ago, when he had pissed off Lestrade to the point where the DI had thrown him out of his office, and yelled something like 'he ought never come back,' though using slightly more colorful language. This had struck Sherlock, since usually, the DI was one of the more level headed people in his life.

He remembered, that this was when Ms. Lestrade had started her affair with the gym teacher.

Sherlock could tell right away, and had told Lestrade of his wife's infidelities. Why would this upset the man, he wondered. Or rather, why would this make Lestrade angry at him? Surely, he would rather know about his wife, wouldn't he? He and John rode in a cab that night, and Sherlock brought this up to the doctor.

John had explained that sometimes, when people are presented with information that's hurtful, they take their pain out on the source. The old 'shoot the messenger' thing. Then, John had suggested that maybe Sherlock should be more, what was the word, delicate, in revealing a thing like that. It all sounded like a load of garbage to Sherlock. Why did the method of delivery matter? Though later, he took John's advice, and apologised. Everything worked out in the end.

Sherlock jumped out of the chair. Maybe, he could use John's opinion again. If John could explain the source of anger, maybe he could explain the lack? He quickly texted John, informing him that he's paying him a visit. Immediately.

After Sherlock had shown up at John's place, he dragged his friend to a small cafe that was in the area. He didn't know whether Mary was clued in about magic, nor did he really care, since a former CIA agent would hopefully have the ability to keep secrets. But this puzzle, the wizard of Baker street, was too personal for anyone else. Except John. He was okay. John would probably understand.

They sat down, and Sherlock summarized the situation to his friend, starting from Donovan, and working all the way up to the violin experiment. John sat and listened, with that politely puzzled expression he usually wore when Sherlock explained cases.

"That's the only explanation. That he is incapable of anger. You had some training in psychiatry. What could possible cause that?" Sherlock finished. John's expression had shifted to amusement, which was doing no favors for Sherlock's mood.

"I don't know, Sherlock. Maybe he's a Buddhist?" John was joking. This wasn't the time, Sherlock thought.

"I'm being very serious, I need to know if this is a symptom of a medical condition of which I'm unaware." Sherlock replied coolly.

"I can't think of one…" John trailed off. He didn't look very worried. "Look Sherlock, maybe consider this from a different perspective."

"Which is?"

"Maybe it's not a medical condition, but rather he's just a...nice person, or something?" John finished lamely.

Sherlock produced a scoff that would put Mycroft to shame.

"Or even if it is, something like...a condition…" he paused. "Well, maybe it's not a bad thing?" John said.

Sherlock arched an eyebrow, silently asking John to continue.

"Look, I've lived with you. You're no bouquet of flowers. Practically everyone who meets you will at some point want to choke the life out of you. You're very good at making people angry, is what I'm saying. Even the ones that love you."

Sherlock nodded, well aware of this fact.

"But see, here you have someone who doesn't get angry with you, or doesn't have the capacity. Does it make a difference which it is?" John asked. It took a few seconds for Sherlock to figure out that this isn't a rhetorical question.

"Of course it makes a difference." He replied.

John thought about it longer. After the silence stretched on, he finally added.

"The saying goes 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth,' but for you I suppose it would be more like, 'Don't deduce your blessings to pieces.'"

Walking back to Baker Street, Sherlock decided that he had not spent the day in a productive manner. The violin experiment, did not yield any relevant results, and John had been just as useless. But, he might as well take his advice. 'Don't worry about it, anymore,' had been the gist of it.

And John was right. Why would he try to explain his flat mate's strange emotional nuances? He decided that it was of no matter to him.

It was a pleasant evening. He turned onto Baker Street feeling more at ease. Or at least, until he spotted the door of 221b. Sherlock's face twisted into a scowl. Mycroft.

Sherlock made as much noise as possible going up the staircase, stomping on each step, and letting his displeasure be known. It had been too recent since his brother's last visit, and he had no desire to see him for quite some time.

When he reached the landing he found his brother and the wizard sitting across from each other in arm chairs. Mycroft looked morose, and studied Potter with a detached, icy expression. He was wearing that blue tie, with the stripes, which he always wore when he delivered bad news. It was like Pavlov's training; whatever came out of his mouth would be tampered now with Sherlock's expectations of something truly horrible.

Harry didn't look particularly happy, staring out the window with a tired expression. Sherlock suspected this was probably somehow Mycroft's fault.

Mycroft stood, giving a little tap tap with his umbrella, and fixed him with an unpleasant smile. Harry remained seated, and just barely looked up.

"Good evening, Sherlock." His brother started.

"Isn't it considered good manners to forewarn people when you come by for a visit? Request their permission, perhaps?" Sherlock fixed Mycroft with a glare.

"I was hoping to have a private chat. If you would accompany me..." Mycroft took a few steps to the door. Sherlock heard a car pull around the block and stop at the door of 221b.

"I'm sure whatever this private matter entails, we can just as easily discuss it here." Sherlock said, keeping his tone light. Harry looked up with a small smile, but then promptly went back to looking out the window. Something was wrong, he thought. Sherlock gracefully sidestepped his brother, and dropped into the chair that Mycroft had vacated.

Mycroft pursed his lips, and slowly blinked. This was his go-to expression whenever Sherlock was behaving 'like a petulant toddler, that has no regard for anything other than himself.'

Sherlock bit back a giggle. He loved that expression. Mycroft was not discouraged however. He made a little noise in the back of his throat, swung his umbrella in a circle, and decided to just get on with it.

"Uncle Rudy's health has taken a turn for the worse." He said, to no one in particular. "He's in a private hospital, in Yorkshire. Mummy insists that we visit." He finished. Sherlock was confused.

This was bad news, but not what he had prepared for. Uncle Rudy's been having health problems for the last decade, this was hardly surprising.

"That's unfortunate. I'll be sure to visit." Sherlock said.

"There are some other matters, family related, I wish to discuss. Sherlock, let's go for a drive." Mycroft said, and ostensibly reached for his phone, holding it in his hand. It was a clear enough warning; non verbal, so Harry wouldn't understand. 'Don't make me call up help.'

Sherlock growled, and followed his brother. Might as well get this over with.

..

.

AN: Wow, this one took a loooong time. I'm sorry everyone, to whom I promised to come out with this way earlier. I guess I had what they call writer's block. And to be honest, I'm still not totally sure about this chapter.

But you guys, that kept reading and reviewing, are amazing! I probably would have just left this story, if it hadn't been for all the lovely reviews I received in my absence. Thank you everyone:)

Anyway, I hope I can bang out the next one pretty soon.