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Chapter Text

Harry didn't know exactly what made him consider such madness.

Maybe it wasn't just one thing. Maybe it was combination of fate and circumstances mixed with his poor judgment. Or maybe it was a natural consequence of wheels of time preparing for another turn. It was also possible that he projected all of the above on his simple need to finally do something selfish for himself.

If saving a life - his life - can be considered selfish.

He had read once that solitary confinement was considered a war crime because it had long reaching consequences on both physical and psychological health. He started to believe that they were onto something.

Ever since he came back from Hogwarts, he felt like there was a pressure closing on him from all sides, making his already cluttered room feel even smaller. It was clogging his lungs and clinging to his skin like a stale sweat, resulting in endless twitchiness that got him a stinky eye and smug whisper of "withdrawal" that his Aunt sold to their neighbours. The silence stretched for hours till he couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears. Light streaming through the window remained too bright for his straining eyes and going outside started to become a scary thought.

There was also a question of the constant booming noise that came from his cousin's room on the late evenings and if it could be put under 'music torture' category. What penetrated the walls was a drumming echo accompanied by some agonized screeching and sounds of nails on a blackboard. The blinding headaches that followed seems to confirm it.

It was awareness that came after three days of barely moving out of bed outside of doing the chores, woken up by nightmares in those moments when he managed to close his eyes, plagued by insomnia, tired without even doing anything strenuous and with mouth so dry that swallowing hurt like he munched glass for breakfast, that if he does not leave anytime soon…anywhere, really, he will only get worse.

He needed out.

Not just outside, watched over like a dog, and if the people that sat outside his house and under his windows thought they were being discreet, they were delusional.

He needed to walk away from this toxic atmosphere, sickly peach walls and his Uncle's twitching eye. (It was twitching more often recently and that didn't mean anything good in Harry's experience.)

Or thoughts that intruded on his mind will get out and be given life.

It was already bad enough that he was ready to climb walls years ago, but after Cedric…

It barely made him sad anymore. No, now he was angry, furious even and it scared the bejeezus out of him. Being constantly torn between impotent rage hidden quietly under thin veneer of control and crippling apathy, realizing that he hadn't had a moment of simple joy in weeks that wasn't accompanied with crushing desolate feeling in his chest…

He felt as if something was eating him alive.

Maybe that's why one day he sat down at his rickety desk, found one roll-on notebook that was barely filled with some scribbles, broken pencil he sharpened with a pocket knife and on the top of the page he wrote 'Shopping List'.

He needed some food, not a lot and nothing that would be missed, finding that won't be hard since it was not a new practice. Dry toasts would keep better than bread. A handful of cornflakes and few spoons of raisins and cranberry. Nuts. Apples from the garden under #10. Jar of peach jam from the basement. Carrots. Cup from the fast food near Kings Cross for free soda refills.

And then, there were other essentials. A sewing needle and threads, glue gun from garage. Tape, bandage, scissors. Whole bag of starch and four balloons. Fishing line, too.

And, as he was feeling somewhat spiteful, (and maybe a little bit like a man on a mission - James Bond style) he put a cracked pocket mirror with rose wood casing next to the page and then rewrote everything… in a code. A simple one...maybe too simple. He needed some research.

Oh, Hermione would be proud.

The list was steadily growing longer as the afternoon passed, sitting innocently in the nondescript notebook, for now, the only mark of the plan cooking in Harry's head.

@

Harry had more than enough experience with scavenger hunts, having spent most of his life under radar on quiet, socked feet, nicking bread by taking one or two pieces from different places and then pushing the pieces together to seal the gaps. Filling juice boxes with tap water. Stealing away at night through the window in the basement and coming back with pillowcase full of less than legally acquired goods, hiding most of them in garage behind brand new, never used, bike. Plastic bottles full of water from garden hose that dented slightly his already lumpy mattress. Always prepared for a time he would be sealed away in his cupboard for some imaginary slight, smuggling bits and pieces by hiding in plain sight.

It was endlessly stupid of him to not expect trouble when he came back from Hogwarts for the first time, hiding only few sweets in the pockets sewed on the inside of his too big trousers. Should have know better, that while he has changed and was growing into his own, Dursley's stayed their own cheerful selves, ready to rip into his jubilant mood.

He wondered briefly how well would his friends survive in this suburban hell.

Two days at most for Ron, who was a spoiled brat, even if he didn't quite realized that yet. He would come back to his home, on foot if needs be, half starved and kissing his mother's feet.

It always somewhat irked him, the way that his friend took his family for granted. The food on his plate. Warm bed. Family. Harry spend his life fighting for every scrap and doing with less, he knew exactly how it is to be overlooked and always the last. Ron didn't know how lucky bastard he was, having so much, but as much as it irritated him, Harry would never wish for him to be depraved of those things.

More credit should be given to Hermione. She would probably last a whole week with increasing complains, before she would start to question the validity of her staying put in place that was hazardous to her health and then informing everyone of her plight. Of course, she would be promptly ignored.

Harry knew how things worked.

He spend fourteen years of his life in rags, munching on shamrock when his stomach was glued to his back. Sucking on icicles, not even entertaining a thought of a warm tea when winter made him doubt about his continued survival. Glasses probably hurt his sight even more, even when they helped to see anything more than blob shapes. Trainers were always too big, filled with paper and feet with two pairs of thick socks on, taped and coloured with markers to cover the stains. Nearly everything he owned was mismatched and unwanted by others, usually too big or broken.

It all screamed child abuse.

Adults were blind. And deaf too, putting everything into 'kids those days' category. Or maybe Harry was just too good at lying. He would rather not let people know that most of the time he was caught at it, it was because he didn't want them to dug deeper.

It didn't matter now. All that mattered was digging up all old habits and leaving as fast as he can without jeopardizing himself.

That led him to write a letter.

The loopy handwriting was hard to copy, it took just over an hour to even get a hang of a strangely embellished 'j' and sloppy 'h' that had more than passing resemblance to 'n'. Maybe it was futile to try so hard, it's not like people that the final product was meant for would go on their way to check if the message is genuine. You have to both care and have IQ higher than room temperature for that, and Dursley's were not the brightest Lumos in the room. But then, Harry didn't want them to entertain even one thought about possible deception. This was the first plan conceived since he was ten that couldn't be summed up by 'everyone on one, two, three', it needed to work.

In the end, three different copies were made, left with suitably open spaces to fill with dates and hours once he figures out how much time would be needed for all preparations to be done with.

It would be easy to nick Dudley's phone. Maybe not that easy to operate with it, it was some time since he held one and smartphones were so needlessly complicated, but his lump of a cousin had a stupid habit of leaving that thing in the strangest of places, completely uncaring of how expensive it was.

He would also hesitate to inform his father if said phone suddenly went missing, since they had some sort of a deal (as it was fourth phone in less than two years) that if he looses or break this one, the next would arrive on Christmas. With thirty pound limit. Dudley was suitably cowed by this threat. Far more than the risk of heart attack and aneurysm from his unhealthy eating habits.

Harry's cousin came back from school round like a beach ball.

It wouldn't be a problem per se, there were plenty of people in the world that would never be called skinny, but were healthy and rocked the boat in sports and modelling and whenever they damn pleased. They lived their lives happily, not even considering cutting themselves in pieces to match some unreachable standard.

And, in Harry's personal experience, eating more hurt less than not eating at all. Which is why he never understood why people would willingly starve themselves.

But problem was, Big D was no longer just big, and school physician stated firmly that if he won't start eat differently, he could say goodbye to boxing, because nobody in their right mind would let him out in the ring with a possibility, that he would be knocked out by his own failing heart.

It was a big downside for Dudley. But it was also a good thing for Harry. For the last two weeks, on Monday and Thursday like a clockwork, the Dursley family left home and headed out for the doctors, dietitians, and some sort of every day rehabilitation program. Which probably translated as gym, because every time they came back, Dudley looked like a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting on a pavement.

And Harry, of course, was left alone, locked up in his room like a hairy princess in dreary tower. If the dragon keeping him from his freedom actually had razor sharp teeth, claws and atrocious morning breath, it would have rated only as minor inconvenience. Naturally, getting out was no longer a problem, his lock-picks and a knife from Sirius worked, well, like a charm.

All this meant that most things he needed could be gathered as soon as tomorrow.

He looked at the letters, list, and the rest of his claustrophobic room and sighed. There was still so much to do. But for that to work he needed to forget how it is to be a wizard Harry Potter and remember the person he was before he choose Gryffindor over Slytherin.

As for the wizards… Harry spend last four years observing them in their natural habitat the same way they paid attention to him.

He found a curious thing, something that even the most hardcore muggle lovers shared with blood purists - a conviction of superiority of magical world over muggle. It was affliction that even few muggleborn students started to share. Harry loved magic and he had very few reasons to feel the same about all the non magical people he knew, but he would be first to point out that different doesn't mean better. Or worse. It just means different.

But because of this groundless belief he would remain free for far longer, trapping his unaware stalkers with the power as invisible as shy Demiguise. The power of perception.

He was going muggle.

The days came and went and Harry took careful notion of all the new additions hidden all around his room.

Notebook filled with nonsensical jumble, rows of numbers and doodles. Only about half of it was useful.

He took perverse joy in the fact, that whoever would feel like deciphering his carefully arranged clusterfuck, would have to go through three recipes for cupcakes, six pages long monologue about how much president of United States reminded him of Voldemort - only more orange and less polite, whole page of anagrams of Tom Riddle's and his own names (his personal favourite was Mild Doormat Lover, sue him), notes on DADA summer homework, increasingly more ridiculous ways to kill someone (that will give them a pause) and one fat, big, gargantuan, half a page large question with inadvisable amount of exclamation marks : 'If Voldiebear used my blood to resurrect his age old pasty ass, and it is my blood that adds to 'protections ' around this shithole, then why the ever loving fuck I am still here?'

It was a good question. One that occurred him when he prickled his finger (again) with the tip of a sewing needle.

The half an hour freakout that followed would have caused Hermione to rip her hair out in the sheer stress level, but Harry, the soul of discretion and tact clenched his teeth, marched around the house making sure it was empty and then screamed in the bathroom for a while, afterwards cheerfully murdering his pillow with Dudley's Smelting stick.

He didn't feel better exactly, but calm enough to not just pack his things and then do something as stupid as taking his Firebolt and invisibility cloak and throwing himself out of the window this very moment. He had a feeling that his bid for freedom in that case would last less time than it does take for Ron to decimate chicken leg and trouble will only multiple. Murphy would have a ball.

An idle mind is the devil's playground and whatnot. Sitting around certainly didn't help with anxious feeling that nestled itself in his chest not a long time ago and liked to make his heart flutter and breath speed up at seemingly random times. Staying in one place is not good for the soul, especially where safety is dubious at most.

So, firmly telling himself to calm his tits, prepare and stop procrastinating, he got busy once again. (Not that it stopped him from fretting.)

In the end he was ready far sooner than he thought he would be. Picking out the forged letter he took a deep breath and with a taste of impending freedom on his tongue, eagle feather travelled across the parchment. Done.

He decided, that while Vernon would probably be overjoyed at his leaving, it was far safer to approach only his darling aunt and let her deal with her lump of a husband.

"Hedwig?" Two large yellow eyes blinked open, white wings moved slightly, settling along the back. Harry moved his hand through the soft plumage. "Hello love, do something for me? It's a bit complicated so listen closely. Those three are for Ron, Hermione and Ginny. This for anybody who is with them. But this, this is special." Harry raised very thin scroll circled with light blue ribbon preferred by Ginny. Owl eyed it curiously, following his hand.

"You will fly away with all of them, leave this one somewhere close but safe, deliver the rest and come back. Then, I will give you a note, small enough that you will hide it in your talons and you will drop it off in a trash somewhere, and bring back the one with a ribbon."

"Preck?"

"Yes, I know it's convoluted, but they sit under the window and I think they monitor us, so feel free to come with dinner, too. And Petunia will be here waiting for that," Harry tapped the scroll, "but she can't know I wrote it."

"Preck?"

"Quite sure."

"Preck."

"I know that, I am talking to you. Not exactly paragon of sanity."

Hedwig nipped at his fingers, letting him tie the letters to her legs.

"You sure you can do it?"

"Preck." She ruffled her feathers looking quite insulted by his insinuations. He nuzzled lightly the top of her soft head, cajoling her to climb on his forearm.

"You are the best girl."

And if the look she send him before she spread her wings didn't say 'and don't you forget it', he was going to eat his pointy hat.

Well, that's it.

He suddenly felt more than little grateful to Hagrid. For more than one thing, but his wonderful owl was topping on that list.

The next move was so sudden, that anybody watching would be convinced, that Harry was ducking out of the way, but in fact, he landed on his knees close to the bookcase quite willingly.

All the books there were cracked at least once but only by one occupant of Privet Drive 4. Harry always had a special talent for sneaking about, that's why he knew that among all those volumes were two that someone like Hagrid might like. He didn't have any literature about magical animals, but muggle world was not devoid of dangerous creatures. That's why he sighed in relief when he found what he was looking for. He learned to read using those two, his half-giant friend will probably appreciate the sentiment. 'Animal Planet Wild Animals. Animal Bites' was his favourite child book for a long time and, the other, far more complicated, 'Wild Animals of Britain and Europe' followed close. Dark brown doe looked at him from the picture on hardcover. Now he knew why he always liked deer so much.

Harry stood up, rummaging through the piles of old newspapers and then he gently put the books on an open page, creating crude and bit lumpy package. Well, you couldn't be talented at everything.

And, because he had no intention of ever coming back and books in Dursley household were considered a waste, he decided to get wild.

After all, he still had a pile of convenient paper and more than enough tape for that.

Hedwig came back not even an hour later, bearing letters from his friends. Along with deliciously smelling piece of treacle tart and chicken sandwich.

Thank Merlin for Molly Weasley.

Even knowing that the letters contained nothing but platitudes and general small talk, Harry was glad that he wasn't just forgotten and even when they couldn't tell him anything, he was still missed. It fed that small part of him that needed to be assured every now and then that he was not abandoned.

Was he mad? Yes. Maybe. There was that voice in his head who wanted to scream at them and ask why they would treat him like a Faberge egg. He was not a fragile flower petal nor a delicate glass figurine. He would not break.

Another part was just tired. Too tired to always fight for every bit of information this way. Like he had to tear the answer from the cold dead fingers of some ancient king after going for year long quest. Would it be so hard to just say things? 'Hello, can't tell you everything over the letter, but here is my phone number, call me. And see you soon.' 'Hi, I gave this message to people who guard you, it's like super secure post office just under your window, here is everything you need to know. Hope that clears it up for you.'

No, Harry wasn't sore about that. At all.

Maybe magic and common sense just don't mix well.

Harry knew, that most people think he likes to tap danger on the back until it looks him in the eyes, but he was nowhere near as stupid as that. He thrives under duress, where it breaks many others, but that didn't mean that he would put down his neck under cutting spell just for shit and giggles. And that meant, that coming downstairs and facing the woman, who he fantasized about sending somewhere far away packed in a box with holes and ten pounds of glitter, required tactics. Underhanded, dirty, completely under the belt tactics.

First, he waited.

He knew, that the best time to approach his dear Aunt, was the time just after the end of 'Desperate Housewives' summer re-runs. She was usually more relaxed after watching so much spite and drama. Harry was pretty sure that would he look up 'Schadenfreude' in dictionary it would have Dursley's phone number.

Secondly, he made tea.

Inconspicuously.

Added just that little bit too much water when filling the kettle. Left the teabox next to his elbow. Filled the sugarbowl. Washed the lone plate that lay on the counter.
And then, he attacked.

"Do you want some tea, Aunt Petunia?"

And...strike one.

It was the combination of free tea and Harry doing manual labour that usually hit the spot. Dursley's were petty people, but nobody said that handling them needed to be complicated affair. It's only, that any manipulation's done, needed to be spaced and repeated sparsely, as even the dumbest animal could feel that it was led to a slaughter when not handled carefully.

He watched her take the first sip. Then poured the rest of the water from the kettle out. Wiped the counter to get rid of sugar and circles left by cups. Hanged the towel. His prey was placid and unsuspecting.

Next.

He sighed into his cup. Loudly.

"What?!" And there is nothing that could catch her attention more than Harry being miserable. "Spill it boy."

Hook.

"I got a letter from... them. I will be leaving on Monday."

Here it is, the suspicious frown climbing on her forehead. Every time she did that, Harry had before his eyes Grinch and his fluffy green eyebrows.

"You were supposed to stay for a month, that man said so, otherwise we wouldn't be safe once they take you."

"He explained it too, but he also told me that I have to be gone sooner, because they don't have people to babysit me and that if I try to move later, everybody will know." Harry had done everything in his power to sound petulant. Honestly, he didn't need to try all that hard, but Petunia's expression cleared somewhat, still some suspicion lingered. Now, for the main event."I can get you the letter, if you want?"

"Bring it."

.Line..

So there he was, breathing deeply, looking miserable on the prospect of traveling alone, without escort or so called 'special treatment', watching his aunt holding the parchment like its existence personally offended her. But the contents must have been very pleasing, indeed.

"Write to your friends."

"Now?"

"No, next year! Of course now you idiot boy! Here!" She slapped a piece of paper and ballpen on the table before him, looking over his shoulder. "Where is that damned owl of yours?"

Harry tried very hard not to show satisfaction at her shriek, when Hedwig suddenly appeared like a Swooping Death, taking the letter in her claw and zipping out of the kitchen and into the morning light outside. They sat in the tense silence, slurping their cooling tea, waiting for the message that would change both of their lives forever. Minutes slugged by till a loud bark made both of them jump. For just a second Aunt Petunia's face reminded Harry of Narcissa Malfoy with how much her nose scrunched in distaste, face going a little bit more green at the large rodent hanging from Hedwig's beak. Small note tied with blue ribbon landed on the table. Harry waited for one nerve wracking second while the letter was unrolled.

"You will be gone by the time we are home."

And sinker.

Harry nodded at this simple statement, pursing his lips and reaching his hand for letters and being gleefully denied.

"I need to show it to Vernon. Go upstairs and pack."

Harry turned, Hedwig comforting weight on his shoulder, trudging upstairs with heavy gait, closed the door behind himself with soft click and... smiled.

Sharp.

Full of teeth.

Now, to the other things.

Chapter Text

The doorknob clicked softly, cold bluish light slipping through the crack, spilled onto the floor and stopped, casting an eerie shadows over the walls. The room was empty. Every spare inch was covered with thin layer of dust that danced restlessly around them once they shuffled in.

In the central part of the desk stood a handmade card. Plain white card-stock with a few words scribbled in the middle in Harry's familiar handwriting. Remus leaned over to read it.

"Oh"

"So he knew we were there." Growled Moody after limping toward Lupin, who now opened the card. Tonks abandoned poking at the rickety lamp standing on the cluttered DIY nightstand to stand beside them. Painted inside the card was a cake with a large 'Congrats' stretching over the orange top layer. Candles were replaced with slips of paper, easily removable and coloured like candy canes, their ends stuck out at the bottom. With a feeling of dread he pulled them down, exposing the text hidden behind. Then he read the message out loud.

"'You've found I am gone! Congrats! Now look up.' What?"

It was Tonks who found it. Next to the window, pinned to the wall by what looked like a piece of play-dough and a pin, was calendar. Made by hand, with little care for looks, half hidden by the picture of Hedwig. Few numbers were crossed over, all of them made at the very beginning of summer. Two dates were marked red, the first of September and the …

Remus gaped at the circled number with disbelieving eyes and then, very slowly, refocused on the page he was still holding like it was a dangerous animal about to bit his hand off. He looked at the back. The words seemed to mock him.

'

"Ouch, harsh." Remus looked disbelievingly at exceedingly unconcerned Tonks, who was peering at the contents. Her shoulder brushing his while she stood on her tip toes, like she forgot how to morph, leaning closer, completely ignoring any social cues about comfort zones. He was grateful that muted wand light had that fortunate upside of not exposing the blush creeping onto his face.

"We were guarding an empty house for over a month, looks like." Moody was already reading the letter, snorting few times. "He certainly doesn't mince his words. Quite refreshing."

"He is missing, for god's sake! Give me that." Remus shook his head, trying to stop thinking about rather sharp tang of cinnamon that came from direction of the woman standing next to him, and all but ripped the paper from Auror's hand, ignoring the one armed shrug.

Underneath was a strangely detailed shoeprint with visible elongated triangle upper shape and small square heel.

Hestia's new ankle booties. Tonks was rather jealous of them, but she couldn't really spare a third of her income for high heel shoes, that won't be able to stand some heavy workout. Or rain. Or gravel. It was a sensible thing to do. Yeah.

"Think it's true?" Asked Tonks, her voice strangely hoarse, and when Remus looked at her, she was brushing off her tears with blue jacket sleeve. His eyes blurry, he wiped out the wetness from his cheeks. He cleared his throat.

"What part?"

"All of it. Any if it. Does it matter? Even if the fraction is truth… "She didn't need to continue. The implications were clear enough.

"It's true. At least some of it." When they still stood over unstable desk, leaning on it perhaps to heavily, Moody was already moving through the room, opening wardrobe and two drawers. He pulled something from under the bed accompanied with a sound of ripping duct tape. A trash bag. "I had a bunch of cases of child abuse in my career." His grizzled expression turned even more foul. It took a moment for them to decipher it as concern. "There is rotting bits of food hidden in pillowcase, under that floorboard, that's where the smell is coming from. Lock-pick. All things that he likes or needed over the years are hidden among the trash in case someone would like to destroy it."

He pulled out a Gryffindor banner from under the pile of old comics that looked untouched, dust on top of them was thick and undisturbed. Dream-catcher with small greenish-blue stones got fished out from behind the bedside table, where it was hanging on a pin wedged inside the wood. Funny shaped glass that turned out to be Sneakoscope, was previously sitting in a box on highest wardrobe shelf that proudly proclaimed 'Furby'.

"He is really gone." Remus was holding Harry's most praised possession, a photo album that was missing few shots gently pried away and probably carried close wherever he was. But for him to leave it...

"Yes he is."

"How can you say that so calmly?!" Remus's eyes flashed with a yellow tinge when he rounded on Moody. Not like the Auror looked impressed at all, snorting under his nose about choleric mamabear werewolves, before just shaking his head and looking at Lupin through the corner of his natural eye.

"Listen, Lupin, the lad ad run off, and I would be damned, but that might have been the best decision he made with information he had, no sense in moaning about it." Remus gasped uncomprehending, paused for a moment before he blew.

"He is fourteen!"

Tonks in a gesture of self preservation from continued argument she had no need or want joining in opened the door. With a few Silencio thrown around she took a peak into the room next to Harry's. It was… To call it a mess would be admitting that Tonks' own achievement in this department was meagre at best. And she was a person who was considering throwing away the fridge instead of cleaning it. Circe, how can anybody live in that kind of pigsty? The walls were nearly invisible, every inch of space was taken, sometimes or maybe most of the times, growing vertically. PC and laptop and two tablets on top of some magazines, TV and one of those game stations, CD's that took one whole wall. She could see at lest eight plates, but not even two square inches of the floor...nor the bed for the matter, covered in so many tent-sized clothes that they made a nest. It smelled like a stale sweat and cheese and things unnamed. No wonder that they didn't sniff out the food getting spoiled in Harry's austere little room with this just next door. She looked at the teenager who was gleefully killing everything in sight on his computer, music wailing so loud that he would not notice a bomb going close. She could see what Harry was getting at.

Neglect can go both ways.

Tonks brushed her red hair back, dissolving her silence spell and rolling her eyes when she saw her companions still arguing.

"Kids run away from home every day, not saying that's alright, but better on the streets than dead. He sends out the message every three day, writes his friends regularly so he must be safe and sound. And he was smart enough to pull wool over our eyes for a whole month, would do so for longer if we didn't come here. Kid had us all fooled, and he obviously can take care of himself. The last thing we need is for the other side to catch hint that he is out there."

It was hard to argue with that. Harry kept in contact, his 'I am fine' turned into short messages, no longer with that angry increasingly less readable scrawl. Maybe it should have clued them in a bit sooner.

"I want to see the cupboard." Announced suddenly Tonks, her hands curled into fists and arms crossed over her chest. Her hair was a curious mix of vivid red and muted mousy brown, flicking and changing as emotions warred in her chest. "It's not that I don't believe him, I do…I just...

"Would rather find proof that he was exaggerating." Her mouth was pulled into unhappy line, but she nodded. "If you stay an Auror, you will deal with many things like that. Kids being beaten, sometimes killed by accident, murdered. From newborn to teenagers to adults. If you want to do your job well, you can't cling to hope of human's good nature when evidence proves otherwise."

Remus glared furiously at him, turning to Tonks to offer few kinder words in the face of her obvious distress, and blinked in shock to find only squared shoulders and violet eyes gleaming with determination. Before he got to the point, she was already out of the door, head held high, wand in hand.

He turned to Moody.

"What was that supposed to mean?"

"Don't coddle her, Lupin! She is a badger and that means teeth and claws and conviction. She isn't some weak minded pushover that you need to hold by hand all the time, so stop doing that."

"I don't do that!" Protested the man, twirling around in agitated circle. "I just don't get why you would needlessly upset her, isn't the situation bad enough?"

"She has job to do, no, shut your yap, Lupin." He added sharply when he saw Remus put his hand up to argue his point. "You care for a woman who will go head to head with the worst scum scrubbed from the proverbial shoe bottom of this world, job that doesn't end after you come home. It stays with you, right here." Moody tapped the side of his head, right next the swirling eye with his finger, driving the point home. "So you either respect her and stand by her side or not at all and be left behind. You can be gentleman all you like, but stand in her way and she will raze you."

"Tonks is a very sweet girl…"

"That's very kind of you to say," Remus turned, his face already hot to see her smiling lightly, even when her eyes were rimmed red. He felt his heart clenching.

Bigger part of him was already whispering 'nope, don't go there' but the other unapologetically was singing 'oops, too late for that. You are in loooove fluffy butt'. It sounded irritatingly like Sirius. He was doomed. But Moody was right, damn him, and he shuddered internally since he was now taking romantic advice from a man who lost his left buttock and without irony called himself Mad-Eye.

Merlin help him.

Now or never.

"Are you going to stand there like a gorgon got you or are you finally going to help me here ?"

Never, then.

Moody already had a ton of little knick-knacks spread all over the narrow dusty bed after he scurried the room, plucking them from the weirdest places. And then, he took out a bag out of the many pockets of his trench coat and carefully started packing them up.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"What does it looks like? You go for the desk, take the papers and that notebook, anything that might look important, too. " He ordered without turning, his electric blue eye sweeping the corners, trying to find out if he missed something. Two pairs of surprised eyes were digging into his back. "What? The lad is not coming back here, he took only what he needed the most. Doesn't mean he won't be happy to have those back."

"And next year?" Asked Tonks quietly, her fingers playing with the strangely delicate bracelet made of pinkish and orange seashells and wondering where it came from, so beautiful and out of place among all those broken things.

"Well, we will just have to make sure that he doesn't return, don't we?" Remus put his hand on her shoulder, his kind, tired face hovered close, filling with quiet determination.

She smiled weakly.

A hint of solution was better than none.

She thought of the small dark cupboard. Of tiny handprint in the farthest corner, barely visible in the muted overhead light. Row of overthrown cheap plastic soldiers, all of them chipped or broken. A cot, stood up and pushed over to make a place for Harry's trunk. Tiny, dirty, overused. There was a bleach stain on the floor, covered in dust. How long was it there? The cupboard was small in every direction. It had a lock far too complicated for a place you should keep your hoover and Mr Muscle in.

She thought of the small boy who wrote 'Harry's Room' with something sharp in the corner, place that nobody would see unless they were looking for it. Pictures. Flying motorcycle, trees, a demented looking bunny, three people, adults and a child standing in the middle of green. Three others like the last one. And one with a woman only. All of them swallowed by green. For a moment she thought it was grass. And then she realized that it wasn't grass at all, but a very familiar spell. Oh God.

She thought of the wizarding trunk that now stood close to the front door and how a person this young could and did eschew most of his earthly possessions not impulsively, but with full knowledge of what he was leaving behind.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

There was a note burning a hole in her pocket.

Chapter Text

The return to Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix turned out to be far less triumphant and coming later then anybody expected. But still, nobody in the house slept, waiting and worrying, not without a cause.

"Nymphadora, Remus, finally. Where have you been?

Mrs Weasley was already halfway through dreary corridor when she stopped suddenly at the sound of closing door and seeing only three people standing, where there should be four. The thumping sounds of descending feet shook her out of the creeping numbness, that took over at the unwelcome sight.

Ron jumped off the last step, socked feet sliding a bit on the polished wood floor and pushed through the small crowd, but it was Hermione, fast on his heels who asked.

"Harry? Where is he?"

Mad-eye limped forward, taking out the bag from his coat and then enlarged it, passing it to Hermione.

"Take it upstairs, girlie. You troublemakers take the trunk." He mentioned toward twins, who stood far too still, frowning, no sight of good humour on their youthful faces.

"No! Nobody will go anywhere till you tell us where is Harry!" Screamed Ron standing tall and proud and scared in the dark corridor, dressed up in his maroon pj's with indian pattern that ended a whole inch above his ankle. Hermione's hand snuck closer, grasping the fried edge of his sleeve, searching for comfort, mouth pressed tightly to stop the sob that was already threatening to get out.

"He is gone." Whispered Lupin in defeated tone, voice carrying, his eyes trailing on the dark woodwork at his feet.

"Stop it, you overdramatic shit!" Growled Moody, tired of the man's attitude, making people jump in place at his sudden exclamation." To answer your question, youngling, we have no idea where he is. Your friend packed up essentials and run off."

It was like a dam has burst, filling the house with angry noise, changing quick into the buzz of hornet's nest. For so few people, they surely knew how to make a lot of noise. Sirius's voice carried over the others, filled with fear, breaking halfway.

"Then why are we waiting for, he must not be gone for long. We need to search every place he knows off, he wouldn't know how to get here."

"SCUM! LIARS! TRAITORS! MUDBLOODS IN ANCESTRAL HOUSE OF BLACK! I SHOULD HAVE CURSE YOU THE MOMENT YOU LEFT MY LOINS. SHAME! SHAME AND DISHONOR!"

It took some time to wrestle the curtains over vocabulary deficient portrait of the thankfully late Waldburga Black, time the others took to relocate to the kitchen, waiting in tense silence for the screams to stop. Molly, puttered around preparing tea that no one asked for, blinking out the tears while little cups crinkled in her hands. Sirius came in a moment later, slung himself onto nearby chair and put his hands in shaggy mane, barely acknowledging the steaming cup put under his nose. He was breathing hard and shallow through his nose, swallowing every few seconds, blinking off the sting in his eyes.

"We have to call the Order. " Arthur gently pried the kettle from his wife's hand, pulling her closer and looking at their diminished numbers.

"Oh yes, call the Order, but not before you tell us what you know".

"Ginny! You will let us handle it. Besides, what are you doing awake, up to your rooms."

"That's so not happening." Ron glared at his mother defiantly, jaw clenched and fingers white clutching on the table's edge. Twins didn't even blink, crossing arms in eerie unison. Ginny was gritting her teeth, looking mutinous, deliberately slurping her tea like she was trying to say 'uh, uh, comfy here, will stay '. Only Hermione tried to avoid Mrs. Weasley gaze, but there was no question that she wouldn't move an inch for all the gold in Gringotts. "Harry is my…our best friend. We will not leave until we know what happened to him."

"Please, just tell us. Is he hurt? Did he left something?"

"As a matter of fact…" Auror ignored the scandalized 'Moody' hissed by Molly and send her a small glare, that made her mouth pinch tightly. He focused both of his eyes on Hermione. "As a matter of fact, he did. Lupin, give them their letters."

Whatever method was used to call the Order, it was effective, because Remus barely had the time to give out all the letters (sneakily hid as soon as they touched the owners hands in the simple case of 'out of sight out of mind' thinking), before the kitchen grew more crowded. Sleepy eyed people nodded to each other tiredly, confused and nervous, accepting their cups of tea or coffee, before setting themselves in their usual spots. Unscheduled meetings in dark times were never appreciated.

Finally, the room was full.

Albus Dumbledore walked in, his yellow robes a true cause for impending headache, even at the late hour still looking fresh as cucumber. He took his seat at the head of the table, peering curiously at the present teenagers who sat close to each other, their expression daring anyone to try and throw them out. And then his heart skipped a bit, because Harry was not among them, and if he knew that boy, all the king's horses wouldn't be able to keep him out of the centre of things. Which meant only one thing…

"Potter is missing." Announced Moody with his characteristic bluntness. Naturally, chaos ensured. Alastor rubbed the bridge of his nose, understandably missing working with people who knew when to shut up. Kingsley on his right appeared to share his sentiment, even if his facial expressions were hard to decipher on the best day.

"Splendid. You have dragged us at unearthly hour because Saint Potter took a midnight stroll. He probably mopes somewhere and moans about how hard he has it." Snape drawled with distaste. Moody looked at him like he saw particularly ugly worm and added. He wasn't the only one, most of the order members had no sympathy for this dour man, who never made any effort at all to be, if not polite then neutral. Maybe it was too much to expect courtesy from someone who likes threatening children with death of their beloved pets and made even seventh years cry.

Moody's not so secret fantasy was dragging the man before Wizengamot and watching him take one way trip on the boat to Azkaban. Usefulness as a spy can not be dismissed, of course, but in his private opinion, it shouldn't outweigh the damage done to wizarding world. And Alastor knew very well who was the reason most of those bright kids, that thought about Auror or Healer career never made it past their OWL's. So, he observed very closely Snape's reaction for his next words. He was not disappointed.

"For a month".

"What?!"

For a moment there was only stunned silence. Not everybody knew the details, but it was common knowledge that Potter was under surveillance twenty four hours, seven days a week ever since he came back from school. Which didn't explain…how?

"We arrived exactly half past ten, the adults were already in bed, cousin was in his room listening to music, and I use this term loosely, playing on one of those time eating contraptions of theirs." Tonks murmured with a side of her mouth 'Computer', like it was supposed to tell them anything. Moody patted her hand without looking at her, pointedly glancing at Lupin.

"Harry's room was empty. And the smell was somewhat atrocious. The only thing out of place was that." Remus patted his coat, taking out sheet of paper, glaring at it like it somehow betrayed him.

He put the 'Congrats' card on the table next to Emmeline Vance, who immediately took it, her jaw about hitting the floor from the sheer audacity, before passing it to Strugis Podmore.

Tonks took over, pulling out the note that she found on the trunk.

"He left this where his things were hidden, under lock and key by those 'people'," there was no mistaking the derision in her voice," in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry's first bedroom." Before anybody tried to stop her she straightened the paper and started to read.

"What a sentimental angsty babble. Woe me…"

"Are you talking about yourself, perhaps, sir? Hoping for a peck?" Growled Charlie, rolling his shoulders like he was preparing for a fight. Fred and George mimicked puking which made Ron interesting shade of purple and green. "Or maybe you are just jealous that he could choose freedom? Had the guts to pull it off. Is trying to make something off himself."

"What he is is arrogant and reckless, and the only thing he can make of himself is canon fodder." Snarled Snape, his sallow face caught in the familiar sneer. He didn't seemed to be very concerned by the way Charlie was already pushing up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, exposing scared freckled forearms and Ron looking like he might at some point join his brother if not for Hermione's hand pushing him down. Maybe she should have done the same to Ginny, since the youngest Weasley's hand was halfway to her wand.

"What he is is clever, resourceful and sneaky." Hissed Sirius already on his feet, his mouth twisted and fists going white on the table. He barely spend any time with his godson, but Merlin be merciful to that spiteful man, for he had quite enough. "And ten times the man you will ever be."

"He succeeded in spite of his incompetence. That and luck, nothing else."

"Oh, so you think that he avoided detection for entire July by luck? " Asked coldly Remus, sending a briefest glance at Sirius, who sat down, with unreadable expression. "Do you suffer from sort of selective hearing disorder, Severus? You are peeved because he had proven you're wrong. He was cunning and that personally offends you, because you didn't see it coming. And don't you sneer at me, I am not eleven year old and distinctly remember that you sat at the front of his house few times, ergo, he fooled you too. Need a bandage for that ego of yours?" If looks could kill, Lupin would be a distinctly unimpressive smear on the nearest wall. It came as a bit of surprise that it came from him, since he usually shied away from confrontation. But then, people liked to collectively forget that a shabby sweater does not a man made. Besides, Snape was the kind of person that pushed everybody buttons just by being his normal lovable self.

"But Harry wouldn't run away, not like that. He wouldn't." Whispered brokenly Mrs Weasley, dabbing her eyes with flower patterned kerchief. Snape rolled his eyes, but for once he proved that Slytherin's self-preservation was a real thing, just sparingly exercised. Ron threw his mother incredulous look.

"But he would. He already did, last year. Harry was packed and gone and in Leaky before anyone got to him in ten minutes flat. We told you that he was miserable, but you didn't believe us."

"Ronald!"

"He had bars in the windows!" Growled George, glaring at his mother, still peeved that she didn't believe when they told her the first time.

"That's enough." Ron bristled. Hermione looked torn between standing up for her friend and bowing down before Headmaster's curt tone. Nobody looked very happy, Sirius with tightly pressed lips stared with wordless accusation at the side of Dumbledore's head. "Remus, can you show us what he wrote?"

A small notebook that was earlier resting under Lupin's palm landed in the middle o=ft the table, where it was snatched by eager hands. The first few pages were shifted with reverent slowness, like they contained the secrets of the universe, but then with increased agitation Sirius nearly ripped it in half. He raised his head.

"I can't read it. It's coded."

Spell after spell landed on the paper showing…nothing. Wands tapped on the thin cardboard cover, every known revealing spell cast and working in its own way… or more accurately, just making a mess more jumbled then before. Sequences of numbers changed into unreadable squiggles. Doodles became colorful blobs. In the end with one resigned 'Finite' it returned to its original form.

"And there is that. Your oh-so-smart godson's notes, full of gibberish."

Hermione got up, fed up and tired and worried, shooting her professor a haughty glare.

"Just because you can't read it doesn't mean it's useless, …sir." Fred couldn't hide a smirk while his brother was blinking off imaginary tears. Their friends were of the more serious sort, but the way Hermione could say any compliment as an insult…now, that was a special kind of talent. Mundugus Fleatcher who was the closest to the notebook, pushed it toward her with something close to 'by all means' looking over the goblet made of pure silver. She opened it on the first page, frowned and then turned it upside down, slowly rotating it. Suddenly her eyes widened and a chuckle got out unchecked, when she finally figured out a way to read it, snatched the goblet right out of disgruntled Fleatcher's hand, pouring the cheap wine down the drain and a moment later she deciphered the first few words. Then she started to laugh, tears running down, fingers touching decoded message. The relief was so sudden that she barely found the edge of her chair.

Till this moment some part of her was still convinced that Harry was kidnapped, made to write those things and then taken against his will in some elaborate plan. But this, this meant that it was real, and maybe she should be mad, but for now she knew that Harry was alright and that made all the difference in the world. Maybe even better then alright, going by the tone of his last letter that came barely ten hours ago.

Doesn't mean that she won't make him pay for worrying her so.

"Miss Granger?" Blue eyes hidden by the half moon glasses peered at her, curios, but some of the worry bled out after noticing her reaction. She cleared her throat.

"'Dear Hermione, I knew you would get there. Have fun, Harry.' That's the first sentence. He used skip code and mirror, nothing magical about it at all. "

"He used the what?"

It took few moments to explain how Cesar Cypher worked and wasn't that a treat to get one over wizards, that believed that if it can't be done by magic it can't be done at all.

"So can we translate it?" Asked Bill, already itching to know more. Codes and ciphers and long lost languages was in his lifeblood and realizing that muggle world was not devoid of those meant a lot of new possibilities.

Hermione bent her head over scribbles, pen mysteriously finding its way into her hand. Minutes tickled by and after initial few words no sounds of furious scratching penetrated the air. Finally she looked up with an expression that was difficult to interpret.

"My best friend is brilliant asshole."

Ron giggled followed by Ginny and a moment later room filled with the sound of twittering people, breaking the heavy nervous atmosphere. Hermione colored slightly, her frizzly hair covering the redness of her ears.

"So what did he write? " Asked Ginny, leaning over Hermione's shoulder, glancing at the page that translated part was on.

"Bread, granola, sugar…is that…is that a shopping list?" She asked with disbelief. "Oh, Merlin…that's so…Harry."

"Bored, salty and bit peeved Harry," added Ron with a grin, watching as Hermione's forehead hit the table as she groaned pitifully. "Well, I would be pissed too, if someone would send me somewhere I don't care to be and then not tell me anything at all."

There was nothing subtle about the way his eyes skimmed over adults in the room. Very deliberately avoiding Sirius, since the man begged, pleaded and cajoled any chance he got to get Harry to come or at the very last, to tell him what was happening. Out of everyone in the room he probably understood the most the need to just be able to walk free, even if it is just to the nearest shop for a bag of peanuts.

"Yes, but why me? Ugh…You are going to help me and…Bill, you too. Twins? Once we figure out the keys, translation will be simple, if somewhat tedious."

"Keys? As in plural?" Asked Bill, pushing his chair closer and paging through the notebook, like he was holding a map to a treasure hunt.

"I tried to skip his two pages long shopping list and cut straight to the cheese, but it has changed into string of letters. Which means that somewhere between bread and butter is a clue to the next message, a key word. We will have to find it and then figure out what other code he used. And that means we have to go through all of this, whatever he wrote, to get the tiniest bit of information."

"Oh, goody." Bill clapped his hands like Christmas came early, then copied the page few times, giving them off to his somewhat disgruntled siblings, and then happily went through the gibberish, noting carefully down every fourth word.

Above their heads already an argument brewed, if it was wise to give the task to Harry's friends who might want to cover vital information. In the end, the general feeling was that it was in their best interest to find their wayward friend safe and sound. Naturally in the typical adult fashion, they did not care much about the opinions of the teenagers. Would they care for it, they would realize that while safety was important factor, they all were aware that wherever Harry was, it made him happy.

And, as they were people that spend the most time with their bespectacled trouble magnet, they knew it was a rare case, indeed.

Most of the crowd dispersed, small teams were set to patrol the most crucial places, but with instruction to keep up the illusion, that Harry Potter was under protection and glad to be there. There was still one full month till September, and the less anybody outside the room knew, the better the chances for retrieving their wandering boy wonder.

At the single knock on the kitchen door everybody froze in place. Nobody else was supposed to be there now, at this hour. And then they heard familiar bark.

Charlie, who sat the closest to the door, slid from his seat, score of wands behind his back already waiting to unleash unholy hell should it turn into trouble. Doorknob turned. On the floor at Charlie's feet lay a rolled up wad of parchment and a single white feather. The corridor was completely empty. Somewhat bemused he sat down once again, twirling the feather in his fingers.

"Hedwig," whispered Sirius, hand travelled towards letter, unrolling it carefully.

"Home." Whispered Ron, gaining looks from the only residents of Grimmauld Place. "Did you ever heard him calling Dursley's house home? "

"Never. Hogwarts is his home." Hermione worried her lower lip with his teeth. "You think….that he wouldn't want to come back? "

They sat for a moment in silence, trying to imagine world where Harry Potter doesn't come back to school, isn't there for breakfast, dressed up proudly in red and gold and laughing for something Ron said, looking fondly at Hermione while packing toast for her to nibble on when she is too deep in lecture. Sitting before the match between Angelina and Alicia, absentmindedly rotating his wrists, already too focused inward to be fully a part of conversation. Chewing on sugar quills, because he liked the crunch between his teeth, a fact that made Hermione cringe and finally scream his name, only to be offered the rest of the box, like it was all excuse to share. The way he would smile, only with his eyes, when he spotted someone doing something kind, and letting it carry him through the day with just that little bit of bounce added to his steps, which in turn made people around him just that bit happier, seemingly with no reason at all.

They already found themselves missing him, the thought of him not coming back was unbearable.

"He will come back." Murmured gently Remus, sliding into a set opposite Hermione, with Sirius at his side. "He already said that, and Harry isn't the kind of person who breaks their promise, especially promise made to a friend. What we will have to do..." The man leaned closer, looking at Mrs Weasley who was chopping onions, whatever to prepare breakfast or just have an excuse to have a bit of a cry without people trying to cheer her up. He shook his head. "What we have to do is make sure that he can, at the very last spend some time with those people next year, they seem to be doing him lot of good."

"And that we will be able to see him. I don't like the idea of him sneaking and running away like a thief in the night, just so he could be both safe and content with his lot. I am sure that he would want to have all the people he loves at his side." Added Hermione, her mouth set. She never liked the thought of Harry with Dursley people and the way he seemed to shrunk every time she hugged him at the beginning of the year was filling her with justified anger. She worked hard for this friendship, damn it, so did Harry. So did Ron. They always tried to support her, even when they weren't all that happy with her, so it would be the high of disloyalty to not help him find...family. A dad or two. Little sister.

She suddenly had the vision of Harry tying pigtails on a baby girl's head, his tongue sticking to the side while he tries put elastics on wiggling baby's hair. Slowing down from that too fast pace of his to trot, so the short legs could keep up with him. Learning babytalk. Giving piggybacks. It hit her that her friend must be doing just that, living with a tiny person for whom he would fight for, because he already loved her like a little sister. They can't just take him away, not on her watch.

"It's a bit hard since we don't have idea who those people are." That made her slow down a little and refocus of Ron. "Merlin knows that the bloke deserves a bit of normal in his life. Ouch, whoa?" He glared at his only sister who none too gently jabbed him in the ribs. He caught himself just in time to see his mother sending them suspicious look. "I miss him, it's never boring with him around. "

Molly turned, misty eyed and sad, Sirius climbed up on his feet, sending them a wink over his shoulder and with a swipe of the wand, butter knife danced and started to work on a pile of still warm toasts.

Remus took out the one letter that he didn't want an Order to read, Moody and Tonks concurred. It was something that shouldn't be shared with so many strangers, as Ministry already was doing everything in their power to destroy Harry's reputation. And he knew at least one person who would use it against the child out of simple unchecked pettiness.

They bowed their heads to read the letter and afterwards shared a look among themselves.

And just like that, the decision was made.

Chapter Text

The summer air was heavy and already too warm, even this early in the morning. Heat wave hit Britain few days ago and left the grass with yellowish tint, roads dusty and in some places asphalt had melted like fine dark chocolate, clinging to wheels and rising tempers. Hospitals were working full time, as people swarmed in with quite common for this weather headaches and nausea, disregarding the advice to not venture outside without reason and that hydration was not optional.

It was the perfect time, however for a noticeable increase of lawlessness, severe drop in manners and occasional riot. Sadly, it had a added bonus of the crime drop that involved kidnapping, murder and organized crime, which meant that the only excitement at 221b in the last two weeks was not mysterious, if quite tragic, death of their elderly mailman and Catherine screaming 'thanks Obama' every time she saw her shadow in the last three days. Lestrade's call sounded like an angels choir, as it seemed that there was at least one killer not scared of little heat.

When Sherlock slid out of taxi, John fast on his heels, he thought that maybe that fear was somewhat justified. They didn't even try to pretend that they weren't sweaty and gasping the moment the car's air conditioning became only a distant memory riding toward North London. The sun was barely up, sky still bathed in baby pink and not even one fluffy cloud in sight, the only thing to break the monotony were white-ish streaks left by planes. It said something about the state of things, when Londoners started to actually miss the rain.

Police cars were already parked under large tree, standing next to two story house. The lawn looked like it didn't see good mowing in the last decade, knee high hard weeds and sharp grass grew willy-nilly, sprouting up between stone patch upraised by nearby bush roots. Windows glared with eyes made of broken glass, those that still hanged whole between jagged shards were nearly as grey and impenetrable as concrete. Ivy crawled up the dirty brown brick wall like an infection, spreading up and reaching the roof with thin, barely covered coils.

This whole place looked…filthy. And matched the rest of the street about as well as dog house resembles a palace, which is to say they both have roof and walls, but comfort of living is debatable.

Sherlock slid under police tape, rising it up to let his partner slip through, an action which always produced a smile that moved only one side of John's lips. They shared a look and went inside, their hands brushing.

As it turned out, outside was positively luminous in comparison. The air was full of dust, thick enough to resemble a grey swirling fog in the meagre light that penetrated through caked windows. Heat was overwhelming, and only amplified atrocious smells, that made the officers mingling around cover their noses and blink tears from watering eyes. Floor, once covered in wood panels distorted in places, creaked with every step, footprints visible in the earth that gathered over the years, dragged inside by many shoes. And now the evidence got trampled over by overeager youngsters.

Sherlock felt the headache coming.

"Lestrade." John went to stand next to their mutual friend in what was once main room, yawning widely and paying for it with thunderous sneeze, scrubbing his eyes with a back of his hand. Sherlock barely made a move toward the body propped up between the wall and ancient looking low TV stand, when silver haired man mentioned him over.

The window they stood by overlooked an overgrown backyard garden, two large trees gave long shadows, even when some of the leaves had already wilted and turned sickly yellow. On the side, along the brick wall stood dark wooden shed with lone window covered in bars. A single rose bush was stubbornly clinging to life, climbing over the wall, one of the very few spots of colour. Lestrade discreetly moved his head toward taller tree. They followed his gaze. About fourteen feet from the ground, hidden by a mass of overlapping branches and screen of yellowish-green vegetation was a person.

"That's why you called us? Really? Even Kitty was still sleeping. Damn it Greg." John, understandably was less then tickled about it. Especially since Sherlock finished the last of jam the day before and he had to eat his toast dry. In taxi. At god-damn-o'clock in the morning. He was expecting something more exciting then someone swinging on a tree.

"Shhh…" Older man looked over at his team and then back at men, that made him regularly question why he was still friends with those cranky idiots. "It's a teenager. He was there before we came. He doesn't move, doesn't try to hide, either. Waved at me when he saw me looking at him, but didn't get down. He just…watches."

"He is waiting." Sherlock hummed low in his throat, then spun around, heading toward terrace doors.

"For what?" John was already half a step behind him, all too happy to leave the stuffy room, Lestrade followed then, wiping his brow and happily gulping fresher air.

"For us to put the pieces together. He found the body." It was not the question, but DI nodded anyway, carefully trudging through weeds that slowed them down. Even Sherlock with his longer limbs had some problems, which was probably why John decided to walk behind both of them, the smug bastard. Sherlock scanned already made trail with his eyes. It wired slightly to the left toward shed before it parted, second patch leading to trees on the edge of property.

"Someone called the closest police station just before five in the morning. Someone young, male and anonymous. They thought it was a joke, but they still send a patrol to check it, probably far later then they should, too. Surprise, a body exactly where they were told they would find it. I got a call while heading to work. He was already there."

"Before five?" Lestrade moved the report toward John. It read twelve to five." Quite early for a morning walk, especially for a teenager." John looked up.

The boy in question was eyeing them wearily, his whole side pressed hard against trunk. He was young, maybe fourteen, dressed in light blue torn jeans and long-sleeved washed out t-shirt. Even as high as he was, John could see the dark patches of sweat and the way it glistened on the child's skin. That was not good.

"That's because he slept here." Muttered Sherlock, making Lestrade pause and make a small gesture that they interpreted as 'later', before he focused on the boy, John siding with him on a whim.

"Good morning." Called out Lestrade, standing just far enough to not get himself a permanent crick in the neck.

"Not for Johann, DI Lestrade." Greg peered at him suspiciously, but his face cleared when the child took out the phone from one of the large pockets of his jeans and waved ot gently. "Don't be surprised, somebody has unprotected wi-fi and I heard your name, not exactly a leap of logic there."

"Then you should know who we are." Stated Sherlock, his head cocked to the side, a wrinkle forming between his eyes the more he noticed about their witness. From the too big trainers, light shine on visible knees that could only be plasters to how hard he was holding onto tree trunk.

"If you aren't curiously well disguised child services, then I think you might be Mr Holmes and Dr Watson. I skimmed through your blogs and articles, before you came." He paused, bemused, putting the phone in his pocket and brushing his hand through the sweaty tangled hair with grimace. "Where the pink lady's white umbrella came from?"

"Pardon?" John frowned, trying to remember if that was true. He glanced at his partner and then did a double take because Sherlock was…John remembered that face. It was the same look he was given just seconds after he gimped up all the way those beloved seventeen steps to meet a madman already waiting there to open the door. He loved that face, it appeared frequently, but that was the first time he saw it directed at another person outside of their circle of friends. Sherlock liked him. That spindly-legged child sitting on giant oak tree, that he only just met.

"It's in the records. Everything she owned was pink. Shoes, case, jacket…then why the umbrella was white?" He asked in strangely breathy voice.

"She bought it on the station. One of those cheap things that break when you use it more then twice. Child, please get down."

Both John and Greg suddenly stared at the dark haired man, his voice going from matter-of-fact tone to soft tremble. He looked worried, eyes zeroed like a hawk on the slight silhouette above their heads. Kid nodded. And then swallowed and blinked rapidly, like the movement made him disoriented. He stretched up to reach the backpack hanging behind him, and swayed in place, his breath coming out as a gasp. Oh god.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, I will get your things down for you, no worries. Can you get down by yourself? Be honest, please, no false bravado." Inquired John, tried to squash the sudden vision of the boy toppling from the tree. Sherlock didn't wait for an answer. He was already climbing up. It wasn't that high, maybe around four meters, but hospitals are full of people who fell from less.

"Is that place taken?" Asked Sherlock, his hand pointing at the thick branch to kid's right. He was answered by a soft breathy chuckle, and horribly mangled 'mi casa es su casa' before heaving himself up. He stretched out his hand. "Sherlock Holmes."

Hard, calloused fingers wrapped around his in a firm handshake, the greenest eyes he had ever seen peered at him with tired amusement over the ugly chunky glasses. Plump lips were barely raised in a clear effort to smile, but it was falling short. This close Sherlock felt the clinging smell of cigarette smoke and sweat. He pulled the boy toward himself without warning, their chest colliding. Boy yelped half in surprise and half from pain, but he landed safely, held firmly with one arm against man's torso while his own hand was still grasping the tree and half sitting on the branch.

Gangly shaking limbs took hold around Sherlock's shoulders in a vice grip, while teenager moaned into white clad chest and then laughed with an edge of pain in his voice.

"Asshole" He muttered hoarsely, glasses digging into his face, but his hold was strangely sure for someone in his state. He was panting, but calming with every passing second, while Sherlock just let him cling, breathing slowly and evenly, hand lightly skimming over child's arm, hoping that it worked the same way on teenagers as it did on toddlers. It took some manoeuvring, but a moment later legs wrapped around his hips with barely a cue, clinging like a monkey to Sherlock's back. Overheated skin of slightly coarse cheek rested in the juncture between Sherlock's neck and shoulder, making his stomach churn in worry.

Leaning hard against the trunk he unhooked the backpack, throwing it straight into John's waiting arms, child moving with him instead of proving to be just a awkward ballast.

He took a deep breath and started climbing down.

"Rescued from the tree like a kitten. Let's never talk about it."

"Agreed." And then his hand slipped with a broken branch still in his grip, dry wood snapping loud and clear like a gunshot. His heart jumped in his throat, but before the unmerciful force of gravitation pulled them both down, arm tightened hard against his shoulders and he nearly lost his breath when long legs squeezed his middle, but unavoidable didn't happen. He blinked, flailing limb searching for another stable point to hold on. Above his head, long fingers were tightening on a piece of wood, nails digging painfully in the dry scratchy bark, tremor going through overstrained limb that for a moment held the weight of two.

Sherlock released a shaky breath.

"I've got you. It's okay, you can let go. I will get you down." He didn't care for the way his voice suddenly went higher and shakier then it should. He glanced down at John, who went completely still and pale, Lestrade was nowhere to be seen. "We are alright. Just a moment longer. Let go. Shhhh…" Without really thinking about it he pressed his mouth to the side of trembling boy's head. Sweaty jet black hair, smelling of dust and strangely enough, ozone, tickled his nose. Bloodied palm slid slowly, stiffly and then gripped the blue jeans, leaving red and green stains, staying there.

"Are you hurt?" Shaggy head moved to the sides. "Then what…?"

"Your shirt." Christ, of all the things to fret about, the last one was some blood on his collar.

"Screw my shirt, come here".

When his feet finally hit the ground he swore to buy a better pair of shoes. And that maybe he should stick with dead bodies and chasing the criminals and leave climbing trees to John.

"And what do you think you are doing?" He asked, feeling the boy loosening his grip, trying to weasel out from under Sherlock's arm.

"I thought of walking, you know, one leg before the other, mix it up a little."

John let out short barking laugh, coming closer, clicking his teeth at the elevated pulse on the thin wiry wrist and skimming over too warm cheeks. And not liking one bit how the child went stiff and weary the second he saw a hand coming his way. It was fearful reaction that spoke volumes and he didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to draw his own conclusions.

"We are taking you out of here. Lestrade left his car on, so we better go before someone will be tempted to nick it. You're sure you can walk?"

"Done crazier things." Child stood up straighter, rolled his shoulders and took a small step. And then, like he thought better of it, he slipped his arm around Sherlock's waist, his jaw set and daring him to complain. John took one look at his partner face and then at his young addition clinging to him like barnacle to a rock and snorted. And then giggled. And continued giggling all the way toward the door, as Sherlock mostly amused, even when he tried to pretend to be annoyed, trudged through the weeds, supporting boy's meagre weight.

They went in.

"Hey, look, Freak found himself a younger one. But toffee? Really? Thought you were vanilla guy." The child was gone from his side faster then he thought probable, stalking the man like a predator who zeroed on helpless prey and Sherlock could swear that the dark mane sprouting from his head like a fluffy dandelion looked even wilder then just a moment before.

They had a distinct pleasure of watching a policeman, nearly decade into his job, tripping all over his legs to back off from the nearly half a head shorter boy. A boy who ripped glasses from his face with a scowl and crowded the man against filthy wall, pinning him there without rising a single finger. It was a strange thought that the dark haired teenager dressed up in hand-me downs that swallowed his frame could, from one second to next become dangerous with no posturing, no screaming, no effort at all.

"Are you rehearsing for assholery award or does dumb comes naturally for you?" Hissed teenager. Then added with a low growl at the puffing of the policeman chest. "Silence. Your name, officer."

"Listen here…" Stuttered the man, trailing off when dirty finger pointed at his nose making him cross-eyed, focused on it like he was looking at a viper about to strike, fight gone at one look from that poisonous green eyes.

"I don't care for your excuses. I am bloody fifteen, so if you are implying what everyone knows you are implying, then I sure as hell am not going to leave it like that. Your. Name. So I could report your racist, homophobic and podophile charming self. And I am sure that your superiors would like to know about harassment of your co-workers, too."

"I am not! I was only joking. And I have a boyfriend."

"Well, nobody is laughing. And fucking your male co-worker doesn't cross you off the homophobic list. It just makes you a hypocrite."

Boy frowned and peered over his shoulder, when somewhere to his right somebody moaned 'oh great, there is another one', but before he had a chance to give his temper a free rein, an arm snuck around his stomach and he was bodily removed from his place with 'wooof'. He went with the move, hands already prepared to jab and fight and scratch if needs be, only to realize it was John who was dragging him away.

"Hey, I wasn't finished with that piss-witted, dickweasel, put me down!

John snorted, not loosening his grip, chased by scattered coughs that tried to cover laughter, while teenager wiggled like an angry cat. Sadly for him, John's grip while gentle was still too firm to be able to break it without taking more drastic measures. Measures, that the boy didn't seem to to want to undertake.

"I am preventing you from being arrested. Do you make a habit of fighting people bigger then you?" Asked John, putting his cumbersome package down on the sidewalk.

"I don't know, do you?" Was fired boldly at him without missing a bit, making Sherlock snicker behind his back.

"He's got you there." John rolled his eyes, standing the boy up and realizing that they are, in fact, even in height. Or rather, the boy was taller by what looked to be an inch and hair. Swallowed by his at least size too big clothes, hunched into himself and now on defensive, he looked smaller then he was. Weary, even when he let himself be led. There was tension in those not -as -narrow-as -previously-believed shoulders, readiness to fight, to run, to react the second that minuscule amount of trust he put in them would be betrayed. A survivor, if John had ever seen one. Sherlock opened car door and helped the teenager get in, seat already reclined and the inside nicely chilly. Thank god for Lestrade's foresight. Boy groaned deeply in relief and even before the doors closed, hummed contentedly, closing his eyes, letting his head fall back.

Somewhere, it the small hell on earth outside this blissfully cold heaven, two men had a conversation that didn't need even one word and ended in agreement before even single argument was made. To surprise of them both.

John tapped the window, green eyes meet his gaze and child nodded when Sherlock pointed at the back. He leaned over, keen eyes searching for a moment and then they heard a click, and car's boot jumped open.

"He barely sees through those glasses, I will get optometrist booked for tomorrow." John nodded, hiding fond smile, pulling out first aid from under Lestrade's jacket that lay, thrown and probably forgotten in the car boot.

And speak of the devil.

"How is he?" Questioned Greg, after he passed the bag to the boy in question, rough hand gently squeezing his in silent thank you, before door shut once again and they walked a safe distance to remain unheard.

"Spunky." Lestrade's raised his eyebrow at John, Sherlock looked gleeful and vindicated. It spelled trouble. "Fidelson made his usual inappropriate remarks. He included the kid. Kid retaliated."

"Please tell me I don't have to arrest him." Whined the man, thinking of all the added paperwork it would include. The day was already shaping to be shitty.

"No, John has dragged him out before your blundering idiot earned himself a kick in unmentionables. Rein him in, Greg. " Man opened his mouth to protest, but stopped himself at the twist of Sherlock's mouth and the way John frowned so deeply, that he looked like he aged by decade. He knew those looks. "It's nothing we didn't hear before, nothing we can't deal with but he," scruffy chin pointed toward the boy who was very slowly munching on the crackers, chasing them down with tiny sips of water, "he is a kid, potential victim, potential witness, not a co-worker or stupidly attached boyfriend, he or anybody else should not have to suffer the slurs that come of that man's mouth. He also implied…" Sherlock uncharacteristically trailed off, with the sort of quiet anger ,that came only when the man was inches from doing some physical damage. It seems that the child reaction somehow prevented Sherlock from decking Fieldson then and there. Thank God for small mercies.

Lestrade's mouth set into tight line, with a sharp nod he veered around Sherlock, flying on the wings of quiet fury toward the once white, but now ashy grey and chipped door.

He could forgive a lot. Overlook a lot. He was one of those rare quality policemen, that knew that justice is more important then law and that to get it you need to learn how to work outside the book. Sometimes you need to trust a recovering addict who happen to be a genius with a large heart who needed people as much as this world needed him and ex army doctor with anger issues, adrenaline addiction and illegal gun. Sometimes you need to look the other way, because life was far more precious and important then unconventional methods. And at the times like this, what he needed was to act.

His friends rarely complained about important things. They had the same habit of whining about small inconveniences, but rarely ever the bigger issues, preferring to lick their wounds in quiet corners of their minds. In his private opinion their therapists would achieve sainthood before crossing Peter's Gates. For Sherlock to go on his way to be half a step from formal report, when he never made the same compliant against Anderson or Donavan, and they tormented him for years before they got their heads out of their asses, each in their own way, raised Greg's hackles.

Which meant that Markus Fieldson will be gone off from the case and on on every behaviour management program, that Lestrade can find for his unprofessional foolish ass, if the man wants to keep his job. Should have done it sooner, too, but better now then never.

John watched them go, Greg not even noticing, that he had long legged smug shadow trailing after him with long measured steps. He opened the car's door on the driver's side and slipped into blessedly chilly inside, a full bottle of water moved into his vision. He nodded his thanks and took few gulps. His phone beeped.

He chuckled, briefly wondering if it's where the blueberry jam sandwich disappeared to. His daughter was as capricious as Sherlock can be, when it comes to food. But then, she has a excuse of her age. For now. Going by the way Kitty trails after her other dad like he is the next best thing since colour purple and swings, it might very well turn true in later years. He simply can not wait.

John turned his head toward the other passenger, question stopping dead before it left his mouth. Black, sweaty hair were pulled up, tied out of his face by orange elastic. Deep green eyes half hidden, long eyelashes casting shadows on dark cheeks as he squints, trying to look at Gatorade's list of ingredients held in his hand, and then at smartphone. The angle is just right for John to realize, that the child is searching whatever or not he can drink it safely. There are tissues, wet tissues, resting at the nape of his neck and somehow cleaner right wrist. Water bottle is nearly finished, but by the look of the darker patches on his shirt, not all of it was drank.

There is something hot and dark in John's stomach. The deep need to go and find whoever was responsible for the careful way the child holds himself, for the obvious experience in handling his own health, because there was nobody to count on but your own lonely self, is there. And it's screaming for blood.

"Apparently, this is shit." States the boy, holding the bottle up. His leg bouncing lightly in place. John blinks at him, torn from his darker thoughts, by the sound of low baritone, unclenching his stiff fists to glance up. Child looks better already. But still, there is a doubt nibbling at his brain ,if they shouldn't just taka a route to the hospital. "Something about bromine, dyes and neglecting calcium, magnesium and chloride?"

"No, I wouldn't recommend it, either." He answered absentmindedly as it occurs to him, that he has no idea what the kid's name is, and it's already awkwardly long time to ask it now. "Are your legs cramping?"

"Only a bit. And it's Harry." John briefly wonders if he did in fact asked out loud. He rewinds a bit, trying to remember the last few minutes and comes out short. "You were wondering about how to call me. It's Harry, well technically Hurricane, but yeah, Harry. Not Henry or Hovard or even Harold. Just Harry.

In the end, John just lets it be. He lives with a madmen who knows a lot of things he shouldn't and suspects even more. A kid who is so weirdly similar is nothing new. There were probably millions of others, who are able to do the same in their own ways, but there is still only one Sherlock, and John is content with that. The world was not ready for more then one.

They sit for a while in silence, child, Harry, taking tiny sips from his bottle and nibbling on banana, while John is searching the bag for pincers after putting the rest of essentials aside.

"I can't do an awful lot with that, but I can look it over for you." Offers John finally, pointing at the splotches of dried blood on boy's palm. Harry after a second of hesitation lets him cradle his scratched up hand, not even frowning, when second later antiseptic touches his skin. Two long splinters were pulled out as gently as one can manage. "You have reflex like a cheetah." Harry snorted, watching as the man wrapped his hand in a thin gauze. "I am serious, I saw it and still don't believe that anybody can have reaction that fast. Especially when you seem to have problem keeping your eyes open. Show me your other hand." Left arm lay where it was, fingers twitching before he moved slowly, body twisting toward John, hand hovering few inches in the air, waiting. The doctor took it, from under the sleeve of washed out T-shirt peeked a slightly dirty bandage. With a sudden feeling of impending doom, blunt fingers moved the softened cotton up and away, only to discover that bandage covered all the skin from wrist to elbow.

Harry squirmed in place, his long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks when he was trying to avoid John's gaze.

Please, please dear god, let it be something else.

He unrolled the fabric, spinning it into a roll as he finally clasped his eyes on what Harry'd tried to hide. And couldn't quite stop the sigh of pure relief, when all the damage he saw looked accidental instead of self delivered. But under the colony of mottled, bruised skin rests a pinkish, jagged scar. And he likes it not one bit.

"I fell." Admitted Harry after a moment, his right hand moving through his hair and then settling fisted on his thigh, thumb moving over the edge of thin gauze. "Some asshole thought that five feet from a bike is a suggestion and I landed in the ditch when he went for it. I lost all my food and water..."

And that explains why someone as sensible as the lad, who was now watching with unhappy frown John's fingers moving along the bone, pressing into blackened bruises and barely scabbed skin, remained so long without essentials.

"You couldn't buy...?" Harry's face twisted into something far too despondent for someone so young.

"Did you see how much a bottle of water costs in that little shop near Oak Inn? " John shook his head, his stomach heavy, like filled with lead. There was never a moment in his life when he couldn't afford bare necessities. He never went hungry. Even in the worst times there was always enough to buy new shoes, bread and bagged tea. "When I took a look and had to go without buying it, I swear the owner looked at me like I was some sort of...criminal. Just waiting for a moment to rob him blind. You'd think that one would get used to this."

"It's not your job to get used to this. It's everybody else job to stop being deepshits."

"Thank you, Dr Watson." He had a feeling that it wasn't about putting some cream on bruised skin. With careful fingers and inquisitive eyes, he reached toward sad looking washed out yellow shirt, hooking pointer finger over the edge. Harry took a shaky breath and helped to expose his sun kissed stomach and chest and a swath of plaster on the hip, the edge hiding under visible line of underwear.

"Christ". Gasped John, looking at the boy's side, coloured black and purple and wondering how in ever loving hell he was even able to move at all.

"It looks worse then it is, nothing's broken or cracked, I wasn't riding very fast. Got rattled a bit, that's all."

"You have the worst of luck, aren't you?"

"My life is tragic." Announced Harry with dramatic flair, all with the back of his hand draped on his scared forehead, there was a tiny smile hiding in his crooked mouth. John realized that, for all his cautious and skittish nature, their new, yet unaware, housemate was a little shit. He smiled. What is one more charismatic charming asshole in his life?

"Knowing my luck it will rain like this very moment." Harry leaned over in his car seat, looking up at the blue cloudless skies. "Fuck. But worth a shot."

"Can't do much about it, so it will have to wait till we get you home." The boy's breath hitches, playful spark squashed as he goes pale, eyes wide and panicked.

"No, no, I can't go back there. No." He is nearly out of his seat, hand clutching hard on his backpack, breath frozen in his chest, when John tugs him back, as gently as he can. He gets an elbow into his ribs for his trouble, but he finally finds a better grip, nearly dragging the child onto his lap.

"No! No. We are not sending you there. Easy, easy. Just breathe. In, hold a moment aaand slowly out. I have you, it's alright, nothing's happening. You are safe. In, good, good, hold on to it. Out."

And this is how Sherlock finds them. The unflappable teenager who witnessed a murder, weak as a kitten but with a bite of a tiger is now mostly wrapped in John's arms, coming out for large gulps of air, like he is drowning. He slides into car, as quietly as he can, Lestrade coming from the other side. They see the struggle to squash the rising panic, to let go off the shirt, that he is clutching so tightly. Eyes full of tears, even when not a one falls.

Lord, the child is stubborn. Which makes it both better and worse, gaining his trust will be like climbing a mountain in flip-flops, because once bitten, twice shy. (Sherlock doubted that it was only once). But then, the gods were rarely in their favour, and bad odds never stopped them from acting. Sherlock had a feeling, that once they break through the layers and sooth the obvious wounds, who will come out on the other side will rise beyond the wildest imaginations. There was something bright burning in that child, they have to just make sure that he won't burn at both ends. It will be worth it, in the end, he knows it. Sherlock doesn't invest in people who don't show potential, he doesn't bother with average. He has learned, of course, to appreciate the insight of a lesser mind, but then, his loved ones are anything but statistical normal people. And he choose them the same way they've chosen him so, what is one more?

Chapter Text

By general, unspoken consensus, they don't interrogate Harry then and there nor they consider taking him to police station. His appearance at the crime scene is waved off as circumstantial, at least to the rest of the team working in the stuffy overheated building. Instead, a car is called to take care of the bike that stood hidden in the shed, while Greg takes them to Baker Street. Sherlock doesn't even make a peep about riding in the back of police car, amusing himself by watching his lover trying to fit behind Harry's seat and finally admitting defeat and sliding closer to his side, their legs bumping, hands tangled together laying on his thigh. They breath for a moment, mentally preparing themselves for whatever was to come, while Harry naps, and they don't have to wonder if he did so in the night. The smudges under his eyes spoke for themselves.

The trip takes less then an hour and before they know it, they climb out next to black door, letting Lestrade to find a parking place somewhere.

The moment Mrs Hudson clasp her eyes on a long-limbed teenager, barely over John's height but looking as thin as Himself, looking at her sheepishly over Sherlock's shoulder, like he isn't sure if he should be there at all, she declares him Ward of 221 in her mind. She is the queen in this castle, and mercy on those who will try to take him away.

Her floral dress twirls in a circle when she spins toward the kettle, taking out her favourite summer tea. And then she sits him down, waving away their protest about case and puts a plate of oatmeal biscuits with raisins before him, absentmindedly patting his shoulder. Soon enough a large pot of weak, over-sweetened lemon tea, with a pinch or two of salt lands on the table along with tiny porcelain cup adorned by bluish magpies. He squinted at the birds, eyes unreadable, but he picked the cup up with a thank you and a lovely smile. It looks ridiculous in his hands, like she just handed him a doll's tea service, but he held it with gentleness of someone who knew precious things when he saw them.

Little girl, who hid in John's arms the moment she realized, that there was a stranger sitting in Mrs H. kitchen lightly nibbling on the offered treat holding it through the paper towel, peeked up from under light long eyelashes when Sherlock kissed the top of her head.

"Want to say hallo, Little Bee?" Her face scrunched into something that John called 'Thinking Deep Thoughts' expression and then she squirmed like a slippery eel, lion slippers hitting the ground. Harry watched her making her way to the table and then stand on tippy toes, hand already searching for something, and he needn't to guess what it could be. His hand was already there the moment she grabbed the handle of sugarbowl, gently prying child fingers and sneakily passing a biscuit right where she could see it.

"Hewo!" She exclaimed suddenly, startling Harry. He never was close to any baby and didn't quite expect that they could talk while still being this small. "Pwfafy".

He looked at her with confusion, and before he realized, she was already trying to climb on his lap. Rosy mouth clamped on the biscuit, leaving crumbs all over his jeans. He tugged her gently, helping her stand and then cringed when soggy dirty hand went straight up, patting and tugging on sweaty, dust filled hair. Well, she couldn't exactly make it worse…except maybe by putting there a bubble gum. Harry erased that thought before it truly formed, cringing inwardly.

She was tiny. Even standing on the chair, feet a little bit too close to certain parts of his anatomy for his continued sanity, she looked like a bird. Fragile baby that was so, so easy to hurt. His hands spanned over her back felt too large, too brutish. Merlin, but he was absolutely unequipped to handle this, give him a Dark Lord any day over this.

"Dada! Pwfafy hew!" She squealed into his ear, leaving remains of murdered pastry all over his clothes. John came over, his eyes strangely soft when he glanced at Harry over his daughter's head, like he did something extraordinary to earn it, and then gently pried that steely grip from the black mane, his hand resting over Harry's for a heartbeat, and then he squeezed it lightly, taking little girl from his arms.

"Yes, it is very fluffy, but we musn't touch without permission, yes?" Girl looked mutinous. John took what was left of the squashed baked goods, cleaning her hands off and nipping on her fingers till she giggled and smacked him in the face, by waving her hands a bit too enthusiastically. "What do we say? Catherine, what do we say when we are sorry?"

"Sowy, Pwfafy." Well, Harry had worse as long as nicknames went. He could live with 'Fluffy'. The second. Esquire.

"Are you okay?" Harry nodded, smiled softly, his fingers wiggling at the girl, and every time she saw it, she would make a snorting sound and hide in her father's neck to resurface a moment later.

Sherlock, sipping on iced tea from stripped cup snuck behind John and placed smacking kiss on Kitty's forehead. He grumbled, whatever he said made John smile and look at him with the same expression Harry saw on Molly Weasley when her husband mentioned anything muggle, and put the cup on the counter, brushing his girl's strangely curly blond hair back, fixing the messy ponytail with a patience of someone who done this hundred times before.

They heard the main door opening and closing.

"We are here!" Lestrade walked in a moment later, greeted with a cool drink and a joyful 'Taddy!' Before being handed two and half year old and sat down at the table. "Come up in fifteen minutes or so. Mrs Hudson?"

John was already tugging baffled Harry from his chair and waving at Kitty, who was far to busy chatting up Greg to even see her dad leaving. He didn't seem to be upset, just rolling his eyes, joking under his nose 'oh, the betrayal'.

"Of course dear, but get her before noon, I have plans." Sherlock kissed her wrinkly cheek before climbing seventeen steps and entering 221b.

Harry was standing in the middle of the room, all his earthly possessions at his feet, staring at the bison's head with half of his mouth twitching up like he was too tired to smile all the way. He was brushing the edge of his shirt, few black cat hairs falling from yellow cotton. His glasses were gone, and Sherlock didn't know how a child who had 'lived through hell' written all over himself had still found enough trust to let them come this close, while he was left vulnerable. The room itself was chaos, living with a toddler meant that things tended to spread in all directions with no predictable pattern and sometimes disappear altogether with no trace, only to be found months later in the last place anybody would expect. And it's not like he and John were really the most orderly people, both preferring somewhat organized chaos. Sherlock made a mental note to get rid of the ham sandwich drying slowly on the windowsill, least it gets munched on when nobody is paying attention.

"Lestrade will be here in a few, but you have the time to take quick shower and John can look you over."

"I'm fine." Said boy with a stubborn tilt to his chin. Problem was, Sherlock knew that he wasn't even close to fine. Functioning? Yes. He had little doubt that if pressed, this young man would bite his way through disaster and come back up bleeding but breathing on the other side. He met people like that. With so much strength that they may turn brittle when faced with their own nightmares after danger passes. Mistaking scars for growth, when it was living with them, accepting them, that was the hardest work. Which means, that he needs to try to teach, what he learned only quite recently if he had any hopes of reaching the boy before he collapses into himself.

"I was fine, too, when I came back from Serbia." Green startled eyes followed him, when Sherlock came closer, two fingers hooking under strap of the backpack as he steered the boy toward bathroom, hearing John walking around in their room. "I was so fine that I fooled everyone. For a while. Even myself. It was all fine. Every shadow in the house looked like a place someone might hide in. Child from across the street kicked a ball a little too hard, broke a window, I had a knife in my hand and could not remember how I got from my room to the kitchen. I walked to shops, talked with my friends, solved cases even and then I would sit down feeling every scar hurting, long after they healed. After not sleeping, barely eating, disregarding any and all wounds and jumping at every shadow, I very nearly died. I did die. Ironically enough, a bullet in my heart was what made me wake up and start to search for some help. Harry,…"

Sherlock turned around, his hand coming with a spare toothbrush and the next words died on his lips. Harry was crying. So quietly, that there was barely any sound at all, but with eyes squeezed tightly and arms wrapped around his middle like they were the only thing that kept him together. It seemed that Harry did in fact was acutely aware, that he was not fine at all.

Sherlock did, what he wished someone did for him all those years ago, when he was skulking around like a wounded animal, relying only on his pride and intelligence to survive, when not an ounce of kindness was to be found anywhere he went. He gathered the trembling boy, slowly, intently, tucking him under his chin, wrapping his long arms around that starved body and letting the child break apart at the seams and howl in his chest like a banshee. Great heaving sobs shook that bony frame, wild keening barely muted by man's shoulder. Fingers latched convulsively on Sherlock's shirt on his chest and side, and then one hand slipped and went to Harry's mouth to muffle his cries.

It was horrible sound of a wounded animal, that made John lean on the other side of the door, hands full of towels and linen sleeveless shirt found in the depths of their wardrobe, and blink off tears that came out of nowhere. Nobody had a right to sound like that, least of all wide eyed boy, who few minutes before was smiling with genuine confused affection at a toddler he'd just met. Who looked strangely delighted at the head mounted on the wall and quipping 'it adds character' at the headphones. Who blinked at him with soft, trusting eyes, when John slipped the glasses off his face and put them in Harry's pocket.

He wobbled in a place, trying to get a grip on himself and will his knees to stop giving up on him. He straightened up, opened the door as unobtrusively as he could and froze. Sherlock's face was wet from tears, slightly unseeing and John would stake his medical license over the, fact that his partner was now somewhere in his teen years, reliving years upon years of petty cruelty, that people heaped on him when he spun around confused and hurt and with no explanation in sight. Harry was curled close, the wails turning into helpless sobs, trying to meld himself into Sherlock's very being, starved for human contact. They were swaying in place, fingers clutching at each other, like letting go would be admitting defeat. John threw his bundle to the side and carefully slid his hand over child's wild hair, while his other wrapped itself around his partners waist, letting both of them know that they are not alone anymore. Sherlock moved closer, his face tight with abject misery, meeting his eyes while blinking off tears.

Dear god, what a mess.

@

Lestrade pretended to not to see the red eyes on all three, pretended that he never heard anything, no matter how much the sounds carries in this funny old house.
He might not do subtle well, but this? This he could do.

Harry didn't sit in The Chair. Instead, he was curled in the tiniest possible ball on the couch, sitting with scarred and bruised arms wrapped around his legs. He smelled like he bathed in aloe and arnica, plasters scattered all over his body, small puncture wound in a crook of his arm where John took blood sample. He had folded into himself like an origami crane, staring witlessly with eyes red rimmed and wide and still wet, at a glass of apple juice dangling from his fingers, swirling a lone ice cube around. He looked like he went for ten rounds with professional boxer and lost.

Sherlock was nursing cup of tea, sitting on the other side of the couch. His arms curled inward didn't quite hid the wet patch that clung to his skin, nor how much his shirt looked like it got mangled by a feral beast. He looked lost in thought and rarely more uninterested in the case, then just now. Only his fingers moved, like he was playing a song against his thigh, and knowing him, he probably was.

John, in typical johnlike fashion when dealing with emotions, that can't be walked off or screamed about before confronting them in the safety of his own mind, preferably in peace and quiet, made himself busy. His breathing too controlled, snaps of the knife going through poor abused cucumber too even and Greg realized that whatever's happened affected all of them. From the tight pinched look on Sherlock's face to John's shoulders that went just a bit too high and the completely wiped out of any expression Harry's face, the only conclusion came, that whatever it was, it left them apart and that's the last thing they needed.

But for all the tea in England he could not figure out a way to bring the subject up, so instead he asks.

"What is your pronoun?" Harry blinked like he was woken from the deep sleep. He cleared his throat and then when it didn't work, took a sip from the high glass.

"I prefer Your Majesty." His voice barely a croak and smile falling before it formed, but it was more then Greg expected. "Why are you asking?"

"He assumed that you are trans. It's the earrings, I think." Explained Sherlock, tipping over and then lightly tugging on Harry's ankles, to make him straighten out his legs. Being all curled up was hardly good position for somebody in his state. Harry touched his ear, taking of small faux pearl earring, doing the same on the other side, putting them on the table, massaging sore earlobes. He forgot they were there. For something that was giving him grief for hours yesterday it was remarkably easy to just ignore them once the initial pain was gone. He blinks when something lands on his lap. It's a large, fluffy brown moose mascot, as long as his forearm. He looks at it, two fingertips caressing soft plush, warring with himself over whatever or not he should. He scoffs at his own indecision, and finally just picks the toy and hugs it, hiding his face in impressive rack.

They've already seen him at his worst and there was still no pity in their eyes and Harry is so tired of always being the one who carry on the show. There was no enemy to fight. No battle to win. Nobody to protect. Here, nobody knows him and still they were nothing but kind to a howling brat who couldn't keep it together. He is, for once, not a hero of his own story.

Part of the sofa dips down and there are fingers in his hair, short and blunt and it's stupid that his body already can recognize to whom they belong to, relaxing swiftly. It takes him barely a second to understand, when a small strand is parted from the rest that John is brushing his hair. His wet, never managed hair that stands up even when it's dirty and oily and which was never really brushed by anyone since his aunt teared out at his roots and then finally shaved his head, leaving his hair chopped and uneven.

He is sniffling again and he hates it, he hates that those people go around, doing those stupidly right things with little thought, like they weren't breaking all those precariously constructed walls, digging under fundamentals. Where the hell they have been years ago? He would have paid money for just few minutes of this kindness when he was younger.

He feels Sherlock put his legs over his lap, hand laying limply just below the hem of borrowed track pants. They say nothing. Wait on him with no signs of irritation or anger. And he…

He just wants to go to bed.

He wants to wake up next year, where everything is okay and resolved itself without him. Where his fame is old news and there are no unreasonable expectations that are never spoken of but he would be pressed to met them non the less. No disappointment when he doesn't perform or doesn't know thing's that he has no business of knowing. No Dursley's. In the wildest of dreams a tiny flat with two rooms and big light kitchen where there are always three meals a day and his friends basking in the sun of large windows. Basil and thyme and mint in small ceramic pots. Sirius sleeping on the couch, leaving fur on the pillows. Free to walk whatever he wants, just like his godson.

Was it too much?

Was it being selfish? Ungrateful? He was so tired of being kept like a dog in a kennel, waiting every year to be saved, like he couldn't just drop his so called family like a hot potato and let them go whatever the hell they wanted. Good luck and good riddance. It's not like they paid for his school, he didn't even get any new clothes since he was eleven, and all the labour done from the time he was little boy, should have been more then enough to pay for any food he ever consumed under their inhospitable roof. They were more then happy to wave him goodbye, Harry was even happier to be gone, so what was the point of coming back every year? He had friends, good friends, enough money to never become a strain on their families budget, and he would be welcome with no questions asked. He can feed himself, knows how to pay bills and do laundry. He can keep garden. Paint the house, too. Even fix a thing or two, no problem. Still, he was send back, told to 'keep his nose clean' like going out on a short trip to market was synonymous of attracting trouble. It was unfair. Unfair to rate his happiness as just below inconvenience. About as high as stepping on half chewed gum. He was a person not a newspaper, that one can throw out once they are done with it. A person, god damn it.

Harry felt his body pulsing with pain, many pinpricks singing in one tune and those stupid tears didn't want to stop, headache crawling and nestling itself behind his eyes made him want to punch something, but instead he just cried harder.

It was like a dam burst, years of quietly swallowing all his hurts now made him choke on them. He knew pain in the intimate way, but this, this was always pushed back, squashed in some part of mind that all unwanted things went to and now it clawed its way out and there was no way to smother the fire that burned in his chest, no potion or bandage, nothing that would take away those hateful feeling.

He didn't know how those men will be able to treat him seriously. Someone died, Gods damn it, and there he is, being complete mess held together with tape, toothpicks and good intentions. Completely useless snivelling slug, wasting their time like he had any right...

"Stop right there, whatever you are thinking right now, stop." He flinches at the rather sharp tone, afraid to look up, stifling his cries. But nothing happens. Nobody is screaming, hand on his leg is squeezing just that little tighter but it hurts not one bit. It's grounding, gentle, safe. He realizes that his hair is in a simple ponytail and that John was now sitting fully on the sofa's arm just behind him, his warm body like a wall at his back.

He counts to ten. And when it doesn't work he counts some more before he is calm enough to rise his eyes. The howl in his head is quieter, leaving him with tight feeling trapped under his breastbone and he massages it absentmindedly. Everything is blurry. A pack of tissues finds itself to his hand and he uses half of it before he feels he is able to talk normally.

"Sorry." His voice a croak, nervous fingers tearing the last tissue into tiny confetti, creating a pile on his lap. He tried to give up the slightly worse for wear moose back, only for John to put it back in the crook of his arm.

"Harry," Sherlock admonished, long fingers squeezing his ankle." We need to teach you the importance of not apologizing for other people bullshit."

Harry chokes out a laugh that's closer to sob, but he shakes his head and grit his teeth, straightening up. He looks like he is slipping in a role, dressing up in new skin that fits him to a t.

"Do you think you can tell us what happened?" Asked mildly Greg, watching Harry swallow painfully twice, before finally nodding, getting out his phone, fingers sliding on the touchscreen. Lestrade gets out recorder and the boy looks up in askance. "It will not be a part of official paperwork, we will keep you out of it as much as we are able."

Harry takes a deeper breath, rolls his shoulders and press on. He was always at his best when he was thrown into the deep end of things, so he does what he does the best. Carry on.

"It started, when I booked a room at the Old Oak Tree Inn...

Chapter Text

It was not exactly the way Harry envisioned his day going, but he honestly couldn't say that he was surprised. It was hard to be surprised when things always happened to you and you started to expect upcoming catastrophe with a bit of an eye-roll and pointed look at the clock. Fate liked to meddle with him, string him up to have some fun at his expanse and then leave him hanging upside down and he started to think, that this is going to be a pattern and the only thing to do, was to accept his lot in life. And maybe piss off some people as he goes, since he would end one way or another six feet deep in horseshit, so why not make the best of it.

It was hot. No, that was like saying that ocean held more water then a raindrop. That listening to 'Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing On Rainbows' for twenty four hours is mildly irritating. Finally, that Harry was average, well adjusted teenager coming from good home and with loving and supportive family. It was a lie, everything was a lie. The only truth was, that Harry would welcome the blessedly short Avada in the back if that meant, that he would stop feeling like he kissed swinging shovel. The air was so dry and overheated that it was waving, moving, trembling making him blink too many times to get rid of the light imprinted inside his eyeballs. He was a ball of sweaty mess, trapped in a white floral dress that was mite too short, now that he thought about it, and some sort of flip flops on high heel, that he won't even pretend to know the name of. He regretted not putting something between his skin and two balloons filled with starch and flour mixed with water, because it was torture on the sparse hair on his chest and they keep bouncing in that godawful bra, because of how sweaty he ended up only minutes after leaving house.

But yeah, it worked.

He is out and nobody made a peep when he left.

Maybe it's too late to wonder if he could get away with less dramatic measures, as it's still the weirdest feeling in the world to have legs this smooth. Nice, but weird. He probably would have succeed with just a hat and sunglasses, come to think of it.

He hit the breaks on the bike, and unstrapping the helmet from his head, stood it up next to bus stop as he appraised himself in the clear Plexiglas.

Definite overkill.

"Nice shoes." He blinked against harsh light, only to realize, that when he was gaping at his own butt like he expected to find a bike saddle still attached, there was young short woman in the most radiant yellow t-shirt he ever encountered (why it had googly eye?!), looking at him from the other side of the glass with a sort of half smirk. Great Merlin. "Not really a biking material, though."

He shook his head, feeling some of his hair escape the plait, that was put there with extreme prejudice and coated with as much of hair spray as his lungs could handle. Not that it made much difference. He sat down on the bench next to her, letting himself take a moment to rest and drink.

"Fashion hurts." He answered after a moment, trying to smile without looking like a demented nervous prison escapee. It must have worked, because what followed was the most bizarre experience in his life thus far, which...said a lot.

The girl, Loretta, was cute, with button nose and strawberry blond short hair that constantly got in her eyes and bubbly sort of personality that had him smiling before he knew it, chasing away the cold feeling that slept in his chest for far too long with just few minutes of playful banter. She insisted at being called Lo, threw a pack of cherry gum at his head and called his glasses the worst abomination since 'Catwoman' was made (as if Harry knew what it was). And either she didn't really notice that Harry was a guy packed in his Aunt's remade clothes, with ears still sore from being pierced by a needle over a bathroom sink, or she didn't exactly care one way or another, when he introduced himself as Hilda.

Harry had no idea how they got from proclaiming heels as devices of torture designed by patriarchy (he is going to nail those heels to a board and mount them on the wall like a roadkill) to laughing about absurdity of platypus existence and cooing over raccoon washing marshmallows while peering at her smartphone, before her bus arrived. What he realized was that the first time he actually, quite obviously, undeniably flirted with a girl he was in full drag. And if that didn't sum up how ridiculous his life was, nothing ever will. It would have been nice to knew he was flirting to begin with, but no, of course not. That's why he only flailed for a moment when she leaned over and with a rakish grin, that spoke of the more naughty intentions, whispered straight to his ear that he can find her on tumblr, before sweetly kissing his cheek just that tad too close to his lips and waving goodbye, but not before calling him pretty babe. Pretty. Babe. Circe, he was not the only one who had sight problems.

He wouldn't even try to deny, that he set there blushing like an idiot for a longer while, feeling strangely warm inside. Which proves once and for all, that even the smallest bits of kindness can heal a crack or two. He took a breath, much deeper and lighter then any other in nearly a month, before getting to his feet and fixing his dress. Casually disregarding the wolf whistle and some older lady disapproving glare at the lacking length, or maybe out of pure jealousy about how great his legs looked in this light, he put on the helmet.

What the heck was tumblr, anyway?

Harry just wrote it down along with the strange sounding nickname for later. He didn't really liked the feeling, that he might have led her into believing he was someone else. He was good at deception. It didn't mean that he was feeling good about hoodwinking people who never did him any wrong. Right now there was no sense in overthinking.

Except, of course he was. Overthinking was a special talent of his, after all.

Because quarter of an hour was more then enough for a shift in perspective. He had never spend any significant time talking with anyone his age outside his closest friends. And the only girl he truly knew was Hermione, and while she was his best friend, the only time he had ever seen her as a…as a woman, was the ball. And that was disaster start to finish, never to be repeated again. It was a downer to realize, that he was a bit of a shithead and that Parvati deserved better then his grouchy self, stupidly pinning after Cho (and maybe her dance partner? A bit? Possibly? Who was he kidding...), instead of dancing with the girl he invited.

That's what you get, when you go around treating people like collective not individuals.

So, just in case, he wrote that too. He owed few apologies for being such a pillock, and a gift wouldn't be amiss. There was that shell bracelet, he remembered, pinkish and with opalescent gleam, that he found one day inside his locker along with a fresh daisy. Nobody admitted to loosing it, so at the end of the day he tied it around his ankle and kept it hidden for years. Problem was, it was still at Dursleys...

Why was everything such a drama?

The rest of the day didn't improve his mood. It went downhill faster then a stubborn snitch, when he was clambering from the roadside, clutching at his hip and trying hard not to break down, when he saw all his food disappearing under cars wheels. The only blessing was that his backpack was still firmly attached to his back and that, except few nicks, the bike was whole. Both of his legs were scratched, blood itching as it went all the way down to his heels, drying fast in the burning sun. He still had few miles to go.

Just fucking wonderful.

And he needed to pee somewhat fierce.

@

"How late was that?"

"Just after five, I think? I found Shell, some nice lady dug out from her bag whole package of Spider-man plasters, that her nephew favoured when she found me in the ladies bathroom bleeding all over the place. I spend just over half an hour patching myself up. The same lady bought me hot dog and soda, left them with the cashier and was long gone before I sorted myself out. Do you think I have a chance at finding her? I want to say thank you." Asked Harry earnestly, polishing cubed fruit and cucumber from the plate placed on his lap. The only mark that he was ever upset was the puffiness of his eyes, otherwise he put himself together, bouncing back like everything was a minor inconvenience.

John started to think that maybe it was. Maybe he was used to trampling all over his feelings and letting them sleep just under his skin, collected like an army of angry wasps, but rarely released.

If he decided to leave Hounslow and carry on to Greater London or outside of the city and never called police, they wouldn't have been able to find him. Much less find the body before it turned into sack of fluids half eaten by the rats and insects. He probably had very small budget but Tesco Express was just few minutes either way. He obviously had enough to pay for hotel room and two meals a day were included, but for some reason he ended up on the street. There was enough battery on his phone to last another day, he had no need for public transport and sported enough determination to carve himself a place wherever he went. He could have been gone the first thing in the morning, but... But he put it on hold out of sense of justice, even knowing that more bureaucratic policeman would drag him through Social Services and straight where he came from or arrest him for trespassing.

The point was…he could have been gone. Bruised, hurt and alone, with no roof over head and scrap of food or safe place to sleep. Storm is supposed to hit Britain in three days, what would happen should he be there? And if he would catch cold? John met homeless people…but they were homeless for some time, some of them even didn't want homes, some scoffed at shelters that held too many rules, for others it was institution, since they lived better remaining on the streets, saving the money they earned for other things then hotel rooms, building for better future. Harry was the first person he had ever met, that purposely left his home prepared to live on the run, but was plucked right out of that life before it began, and with Harry's question came quiet hope that maybe, just maybe, they would be able to keep him out of it for a bit longer.

"We can try once this is over, if it's truly something you want to do?" Questioned Sherlock, his gaze puzzled when he noticed John nodding frantically behind boy's back. Harry nodded curtly. His face doing again that half smile, that they already recognized as genuine happiness. It was tiny thing, resting in the corner of his mouth, gentle and secret, leaving a dimple in his cheek, lighting his eyes from within. It made him look inexplicably taller, bigger, stronger, even when he hadn't moved at all and if to treat the smiles like weapons, this one would win many fights.

"It's the right thing to do." He stated with absolute certainty, his jaw jutting proudly. "She was kind to me, it does cost me nothing but some time to do the same."

Lestrade thought about his two teenagers, busy chasing skirts and eating pizza on every weekend with a bunch of friends. They were good kids, but then, it's easy to be good when you aren't challenged or nothing bad ever happens to you. The worst in their life was divorce of their parents and as much as he and his wife didn't get along, there was never a question of how the kids figured out in this. They kept them away from any and all drama they could and never played the guilt game with them around. Children were not a commodity and should not be treated like goods that could be bargained with.

But he wondered, just briefly, if his kids would do the same thing as Harry. Go look for a stranger who done them kindness or just take it like it was their due. He honestly couldn't answer.

"I will find her for you." Harry's smile grew brighter as he whispered 'thank you', like Sherlock has done him a great service. "So, what happened once you got to the inn?"

Harry took a deep breath, they could nearly see him counting backwards as he glared at the piece of banana held between his fingers. This time Sherlock knew that it was not just trick of light. Boy's hair stood up, like struck by electricity current, something that wasn't missed by the neither John nor Lestrade. The strange sort of pressure filled the air and then stopped and disappeared suddenly with no proof that it even happened. Harry didn't notice. He slouched in his set, gritting his teeth and his next words held a muted kind of growl.

"The owner was nice enough, that's it, till I gave her my ID. She assumed the same as DI Lestrade, only she was less gracious about it." Harry looked down and chewed savagely, angry and hurt in equal parts. He glared spitefully at the blue nail polish, that he spend ages mastering putting on, like it was the source of all his problems. He remembered how hard it was at beginning, with crusty blobs and smeared fingers, before he learned to do each finger with three fine strokes. He liked those nails. There was nothing fucking wrong with those nails. And there was nothing wrong with the dress with large poppy flowers, except that it was mite too short and just not something he would like to repeat without good reason. But something must have been wrong with people, if a sight of a boy in dress causes more attention and spite then the sight of neo-nazi in a hotel lobby, throwing death treats like it was Halloween. "Words were said, accusations were made, insults were thrown, so was the punch," Harry smiled sharply, his fingers skimming over knuckles, remembering the shape of a jaw they landed on," and I was less then politely asked to leave, as the owner had the right to refuse service. So she did. It left me on the street, after nearly an hour of pointless discussion, without refund of the twenty percent I already paid, broken nail and no idea what to do with myself. "

John made a mental note to sick Sherlock at said horrible women. And he will not feel guilty either. Ha!

"Punch?" Inquired Lestrade, making Harry look at him and flex his fingers and while his expression somewhat sheepish, his eyes were little too hard for any regret .

"I didn't appreciate her husband's attitude, or his handsy approach to my person and older gentleman who tried o help. Poor dear wasn't nearly as hard as his running mouth seemed to suggest. Toppled like a tree. His stepson cheered me on and apologized after all that mess, but I'm afraid he had rather got himself in trouble because of that. You will be checking that place?" He received three nods." Check on him? Tall, around seventeen, brown short hair shaved on the sides, gangly but athletic, plays basketball, handsome, too. His stepfather looked like he rather didn't like people disagreeing with him and had no trouble trying to cuff a stranger and call a guest 'whiny bitch'. Please?"

They didn't need a lot of convincing. Abused children often knew exactly where to look for to find people like them. If Harry thought, that there might be something fishy going on, it would take only a moment to check if it's true. Lestrade just made a note and then he asked.

"Where did you get from there?"

"It took some time wandering about, I first went along the river, but then I got a bad feeling in my gut, sat on the bike and was gone from that place as fast as I could. Can't exactly say that it done me some good, but… that place made me scared. Like someone was looking at me, waiting, like I was hunted… I didn't see anyone, but it made my skin crawl."

Lestrade stopped him, turning off recorder for a moment. Harry wasn't scared of the body, of the grown man while he was dressed in heels and not at his best, of going alone with only himself to count on. He didn't strike him as a person who startled easily or who would just run at the sight of the danger. Much more as a person who would go in, guns blazing backing fear into corner and saying 'stay here I have things to do'. But now, in a safety of 221B, Harry looks uneasy at the very thought, his fingers twitched at his side like he was trying to search for a weapon, his hackles raised as his skin broke in goosebumps. There was no question of laying or embellishing, only genuine belief that there was something off. He hums under his breath, wondering if child's gut feeling was enough of a motivation to go and look for trouble. It might be tied together with this case…it might not. It might be nothing at all but an overstressed boy, getting progressively more scared at the thought of no shelter after dark. For now, he was the only common denominator.

Can he afford dismissing it? Well, not before he hears the rest of the story.

"So, the crack house? How'd you found it?

"Well, it's not exactly inconspicuous building. And it's never hard to find bolthole like that, you just have to go to place that people go out of their way to try to avoid. For a good reason."

@

Here goes nothing.

Harry crossed the threshold of the house, barely keeping his last meal in, when it was trying to climb all the way up and see the light of the day in the bid of freedom. He had an urge to just leave right this second, climb on some tree, bike be damned and sleep tied to the branch, like he used to, when he was locked out of house and his usual hideout was occupied by less then savory sort.

The fear that chased him from The Common's bank was fading, like whatever made his heart hammer against his ribs choose to not chase him here. Harry doubted that it was anything on the 'human' side. Still, he pressed on, he wasn't sorted in Gryffindor for nothing.

It was surprisingly dark inside. Under the wall rested old mouldy sofa with indistinguishable pattern and next to it a row of dirty mattresses. Empty. Abandoned? Still, that might be a problem. There was no other sound in whole house bar his breathing and the turning wheels of the bike as he stepped farther in. To his left wooden staircase led to first floor, most of the steps looked unsteady, or gone altogether, the railing on the other hand...Cast iron. Sturdy. Easy to climb. Perfect. He opened the terrace door to take a look at the backyard and after short scouting mission, hid the bike in the shed, even if it took some extra energy to lead it through the weeds that caught on the pedals.

He returned moment later, moving quietly, searching for anything that might be useful and finding nothing of the sort. Mildly disappointed, he climbed up, put his things it in the least dirty- smelly- moldy spot he could find and covered the floor first with his foil raincoat and then blanket, trying to not think about anything more then just surviving the night. Worry gnawed at his gut, he swallowed heavily and climbing on his tiptoes he opened the upper row of windows from the garden side.

Well, dumbass, you have what you wanted, freedom at its finest.

Harry did the sensible thing and told himself to shut up. He changed quickly, bundled up dress landed in the bag, feet freed from the confines of high heels thanked him by revealing reddened skin. He paid them with putting on aloe vera and soft massage after standing on tiptoes and curling his toes couple times and afterward putting on a pair of thin socks. The funny feeling, like the shoes were still on, remained for some time, dull ache that went from the balls of his feet to heels and ankles and calves reduced slightly by the fingers pressing deeper into his skin. He sighed deeply, for once glad for the silence, especially after the horrendous traffic, that left him with an aftertaste of dust and car exhaust. It was quite a surprise to find out, that for all the problems, he actually somewhat enjoyed himself. It was good to fineally be doing something, even when his stomach felt tight, he felt... alive. Like he woke up from a long sleep, still tired, still somewhat sluggish and not all there, but better all the same.

With careful move he unhooked the bra, looking crossly at the marks it left and with a quiet promise to burn it on the pyre, he threw it into the bag, blue balloons stashed in one sock followed. He checked the bandage on his arm, but only if it was still tight, (he had only one more clean one) Spider-man plasters, wonder of wonders, held. His hip was the worst, it pulsed gently, and it felt too warm and swollen when he put on arnica cream and patched it up few hours before. He took two pills of ibuprofen, for once thankful, that his Aunt liked to swallow pills like they were candies, mostly because it meant that box she kept meds in could make a doctor double take. She wouldn't think twice should some of its contents disappear.

He stood up and gently rolled his shoulders, stretching, knowing better then just drop down on his improvised bed when he was sore and still wound up. He made that mistake after his first training with Wood and woke up stiff like an upper lip of an old aristocrat. And there was no laughing Angelina who would push a potion in his hand, messing his hair on the way to scream at her Captain for his idiocy.

It wasn't that bad, really. There was no sign of people involvement upstairs, no abandoned used needless or plastic packets, no shoe marks bar his own. A few cat pawprints were freshly pressed in the dusty floor, beginning suddenly and ending nowhere. He dragged his backpack closer and hid his holly wand deep under his clothes, pulling out a purse and putting a single sickle on the windowsill. That explained some things. When he finally lay down, the ground was cool which, right now, counted as a plus. Air remained dusty but far fresher, what little wind there was turned out to be enough to get rid of the smell that made him dry heave. He took out his quidditch jersey, the only hoodie that was thick enough to replace the lack of jacket, and balled it up to make a pillow, pushing his nose in the red and black-blue fabric. Even house elves couldn't make it loose that lingering aroma of cedar broom polish and faint traces of leather, as it was usually where he hid his three pairs of gloves.

It brought a wave of nostalgia that was promptly stopped by the hoot and a beak clacking on wooden frame, when Hedwig slipped through the small space and landed near his head in a flutter of white wings.

Thank Merlin for small graces.

He fell asleep with a feel of overly concerned owl preening his hair, having learned long ago to hoard every minute of rest...and woke up when the crash of shutting door filled the still air. Hedwig, one of her clawed foot firmly wrapped around mouse, or what looked like one, in a flurry of feathers landed on Harry's arm. He winced at the sharpness of her talons, when she leaned to one side and swallowed her prey.

There were voices downstairs. Two men. Loud thump and quiet moan, followed by strangled 'Bitte' and a string of coughed out words that Harry couldn't make head or heels off. Heart fluttering wildly in his chest like a restless bird he rolled on the concrete floor and in a semi-darkness slid closer to the stairs.

"You have made someone very angry, Mr Cowell. And she is not well versed in mercy. Or forgiveness. But...Ariadne wishes to give you a chance. Sit, night is young and I have a lesson to teach. There, there, good boy."

Harry lay on the cold ground, dust filling his nose and with wide eyes he raised his head to look at Hedwig like he wanted to make sure he heard it right.

Oh dear Merlin.

With a shaky breath he crawled back, took his phone, send a message and prepared for a long and stressful night.

Chapter Text

(218) Comments

As always you avoided writing everything of note, John.
Sherlock Holmes

I write it as I remember it.
John Watson

Then you remember it wrong.
Sherlock Holmes

All this had happened?
John Watson

Yes. But you left out every important asdhjhkhff.#/&^#^*?**?Y_: $
Sherlock Holmes

Kitty agrees with me.
John Watson

That's the Vine material.
Dame Latif

that sounds fake but okay
Joy

You forgot to mention that JS died because henchmen were idiots not because he was supposed to be killed. Saying it's accident it's like saying he tripped and hit his head. You can't miss things like that.
H-Jay

See? H-Jay agrees with me.
Sherlock Holmes

He would.
John Watson

who this?
C Melas

Hey, who is the new guy?
Jacob Sowersby

I'm shook
Harry Watson

Hi, shook, I'm dad.
H-Jay

Why are you always this cheeky?
John Watson

Not always, I suppose I have to sleep sometime.
H-Jay

Dear god…
Sherlock Holmes

The number you are trying to reach…
YourGodIsHere

This entry is missing everything of value
Theimprobableone

Like your life. You must feel right at home then.
H-Jay

Hurricane dear if you are finished with roasting I'm baking sweet buns drop by on your way?
Mrs Hudson

ETA 15 minutes. Can we do lemon icing with hazelnuts?
H-Jay

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@

"I was looking for you everywhere" exclaimed jovially Sirius at the sight of Remus nursing a cup of what looked like tea, but going from the smell tea was the last ingredient. His friend was known to practice the fine art of potion making. "I hadn't seen hide nor hair of you since this morning. Are you hiding?"

"Funny that, I was here the whole time." Remus looked at his friend's half smirk and rolled his eyes. "It's the first place you searched, didn't you?"

"Might have, you can't prove anything. Now give." Remus didn't pretend to misunderstand. He leaned to the side, rummaging in the pocket of his cream-brown vest, before a large bottle of fifteen century whiskey landed on the table. Sirius clapped his hands in obvious glee. Grimmauld Place was not the kind of house where one can survive extended periods of time by staying sober. He even saw Molly throwing a shot or two of cooking sherry and looking flustered when caught at it.

He didn't envy the kids. Poor sods. Cleaning an old house from pixies and hand sized spiders was nobody's idea of great time, especially in the middle of the summer. Sirius remembered first war, so did pretty much everyone in the Order, and he was sure there was nowhere this high level of paranoia going around. They let themselves grow hoarse screaming at concerts, went skinny dipping in the night, coming back missing clothes and shivering as they run home over the wet cold grass. Listened to muggle songs and drank cheap wine while dancing under rainbow of colors in clubs smelling of stall sweat and cigarette smoke. Nobody tried to just close them up in the dreary house with nothing to do. Circe, even his parents didn't try to make either him or Regulus stay in the house. War was a part of life, but they didn't let it stop their fifteen, sixteen, nineteen year old selves from dinners at friends, Quidditch and everyday normal things. Times had changed, but should they ask for opinion,( and they never did,) there would be no harm in letting the kids go to cinema after slapping some hair coloring potions and funky clothes or to take them for few hours to walk around some small, remote village. Let them run wild on a beach somewhere in Cornwall. Take a god damn walk on the moores full of heather flowers and fresh air. They were missing out on everything that was important while growing up and suffering from cabin fever in the depression inducing hell hole. At least Harry seemed to make the best out of it. He hoped that the child would find a way to contact them before they all grow grey with worry and collectively loose they marbles.

And dear Merlin, was he missed. For someone so young he made big waves, causing the Order to scatter all over Britain like headless chickens instead of doing something productive. Sirius was a Gryffindor by choice but he was a Black at birth, first and foremost, taught at the young age that a road to success was to 'divide and conquer'. He couldn't help but wonder if part of Voldemort's silence was just a silence of a tactician not interrupting when an enemy was making a mistake. And what a mistake it was. Instead of focusing on recruitment, training and intelligence gathering, they were running around after a boy who was gone for over a month, but safe and content to stay where he was. Alternatively, they got send to Ministry, babysitting a prophecy, a problem that could have been solved by a half an hour visit years ago, when Harry was a little tyke and didn't yet had a mental capacity to grasp what prophecy was about. Or any time after, with one medically approved Obliviate reversed when he was old enough to handle it. First day of summer vacation, even, since Harry has every right to know by now. But no, sending him to abusive family was a way to 'preserve his childhood' and giving him barely any support over the years was 'character building'. Because we wouldn't want for him to grow up arrogant and privileged, don't we? All that Sirius heard when the subject surfaced again and again was 'we don't want him to have loving family, confidence and resources'.

If Sirius could find a way, one single solution to free his own name from suspicion, to get an actual hearing from Wizengamot, there would be no power on earth that would prevent him from telling Harry everything he needed to know. Teaching every single dirty trick. Gaining all the political backing one man can handle and tearing a new one in the Dark Dork fraction. And woe anyone who would stand in his way. He didn't buy into traditionalist way of thinking nor in pureblood supremacy, but he was the head of house of Black, and they always fought to the last.

He poured himself a cup of whiskey, tipped it with tea, shaking off his dark thoughts. He smirked suddenly and pinned his friend with inquisitive glance, waiting till he took a sip from teacup.

"So, are you and Nymphadora banging?" He wasn't disappointed. Remus bent over the table, hacking like a cat, leaving a shower of absolutely vile concoction he was marinating his brain in for some hours now, on the already abused table. Sirius took a dainty sip. And then chortled at the constipated look his friend was sporting, trying to deny everything between him and spunky Auror. Sirius knew better, no, they weren't having at it, but he had eyes. Better yet, he had a nose, and a curious thing about being somewhat stuck in animagus form for so many years, was that some characteristics bled through. His senses were now better then ever, which had its upsides and downsides. One of the multiple reasons he tried to sit as far from Mundugus and Snape as it was possible, because… gah. And Snape…ah, there were times when he dreamed about putting that man in a jar, shrunken and marinated like a pickle and setting it on the fireplace with a plate stating 'Snivellus. Poisoned by biting his own tongue'. It would fit right in with the rest of this house aesthetic.

"No, Sirius, just…no." Of course Remus would deny everything like the lying liar who lies he is. Sirius decided it was high time to be…serious.

"She likes you." Remus visibly deflated. Aaand there it was, the overthinking.

"We aren't in kindergarten, Sirius."

"Funny you should say that, since you behave like a five year old dragging their feet, so he could go to bed five minutes later." Remus looked up at his friend's flat tone. Sirius' mouth was pulled in tight line, grey eyes unusually unreadable as they made holes in his head. "You are hurting her."

Remus crumpled, leaning forward with his head tightly held in his hands, brown hair sticking up at strange angles between whitening fingers. His face was completely pale beside the two red splotches on his cheeks, like between one moment and the next he caught Dragon Pox and had only days to live. Sirius somewhat claimed the tittle of their group drama queen, but let it never be said that he could not be yet dethroned by this resident diva. Remus always was the ball of angst, but in the last few weeks he climbed up on that scale and was hitting the roof.

"I am sorry, Sirius, I know that it's not right…I will make sure that she wouldn't see me again after the mission. I will go to Quebec, there are some werewolves there that communicate with their wolves through yoga and veganism…" Sirius tuned out the rest of the rant, suddenly intimately aware of how much shit he put their friends through when he got the same way Moony was now. Merlin, it was an eye opener.

"Stop it. God, Moony, you are a world class idiot. No, don't talk. Do you like my cousin?" Remus had the deer in a flashlight expression, nodding, then shaking his head like a wet dog and setting on resigned slump of a pouting teenager. Merlin, and that man has a gale to call him immature. "She likes you, too. What's stopping you?"

"Wha…What's stopping me?" Remus laughed with an edge of hysteria in his voice," what doesn't? She is dorky, competent, smart, funny. She doesn't let things bring her down, she is always so…full of life. Like everything bad with this world is only temporary thing with large teeth, but ultimately a small inconvenience, that can be squashed under you boots as you make your way. She is clumsy and can burn tea, I mean, who burns tea? And she laughs like a hyena and it's so aggravating and she does it on purpose too, because she just enjoy making people tell her to stop only to say 'no' and do it all over again…like, like…like some kind of sadist! Sadist, I tell you! And she can be so…unruffled and optimistic to the point of naivety, and it's sweet, but it's dangerous, still adorable. She is so brave…And I'm not any of those things. Just a werewolf and old one to boot. Ha!"

Whoa.

If it was supposed to prove anything, it proved beyond the shadow o the doubt, that his best friend would have a very curious reaction to Amortentia. He expected to tear out reluctant admittance that there is something, not a whole litany about Tonks' valors and 'adorableness'. Remus was in love.

And not at all happy about it. What a nincompoop.

"Is it your excuse or explanation?" Asked finally Sirius, after somewhat mortified Remus sat down, trying to hide his burning face.

"Pardon?"

"Tonks is a woman who knows what she wants. A woman, Remus, you dumb bunny, not a little girl, not anymore, we are not going into that pureblood nonsense of grooming your bride, because…" Sirius cringed.

He remembered how his parents tried to make him 'romanticise' Gwyneth Jones while she still played dolls and was missing front teeth, while the marriage contract was already half written, discussed as if they were trading goods and properties not children. To this day that talk made him want to scrub himself raw and pour bleach through ears to get rid of mental image. It's something that only James and Euphemia Potter knew. It came out at a time, when he questioned everything and one of those question, unfortunately, was- What if I didn't become friends with James? It led to guessing and then second guessing and finally horrible panic attack that ended with being gently cradled by Mrs Potter arms as he cried with realization, of what kind of person he might have ended up, if not for his friends. In all his life one thing has proven right. He needed at least one Potter to keep him alive and afloat. He thanked Merlin that Gwen's never truly realized what was happening, before he'd run from home and didn't come back till now. For some reason he was gleeful about the fact that she played for her own team, it was like resonating 'fuck you' to all who thought she would marry some Lord or another as the pureblood princess she was. It was immensely satisfying to see the next generations kicking the pedestal from under stuffy old people clinging to power, like it was forever theirs to keep.

"She, for some reason, wants you and didn't make it a secret. And she. Does. Not. Care. about you being werewolf. We didn't care either."

"You are angry." Whispered Remus and he was one hundred percent right. Sirius was angry, just not for the reasons his friend thought.

"I am angry. Moony, if Lily was here she would bash you in the head so hard you would remember infancy. You are not being noble, you are being an idiot. If you don't want her, and going by your…impassioned speech that's not a case, then tell her. And if you think she is too young…then tell her. She knows who you are, but you…You are dragging your feet, not deciding either way, and that is hurting her. Yes or no, Moony. Tonks is young, not going to lie about it, some won't like it.

"I sense a but." Remus was looking contrite, but not nearly as miserable as at the beginning of their chat and Sirius counted it as a plus.

"But she is not a child. Let her decide. Commit, hold hands, get to know each other, spend time together for year, two, three. If it will work, it will work. Nobody is saying that you have to go and do the naughty, but you know what? You two are disgustingly in love with each other. In few years any age difference will look minimal. In two decades nobody will even remember that there was one. She already was there for you when you changed. She saw it, didn't shy away from it, didn't run for the hills, accepted it as a part of a package. She choose to be an Auror, mental fortitude comes with territory. I am asking you, don't leave her guessing, hmm? She is a strong girl, but heart is a fragile thing, uncertainty can wear it down, so buckle up and talk to her."

"When did you get that wise?" Asked Remus, tiny smile fleeting briefly over his face. He looked like he came into decision or at least was thinking about it. Maybe a verbal kick in the ass was everything he needed to finally stop warring with himself. Maybe he will even talk to her, when she comes back from the 'searching for a run-away Crup in London' case. Goodness, the kind of things people call Aurors for…

Sirius genuinely thought that those two would in fact make a good pair. They both had the time to grow into their own people, with their ups and downs, bad breakups and sorrow and weight of experience wearing down the idealistic visage of perfect ever after. Remus had his moments of idiocy, as evidenced, but it should be said, that they were few and far in between and easily cured. Usually by blunt object. This angst muffin had a lot to offer, more then he thought he could, especially as he always seemed to forget that he wasn't his own grandpa, but a young man still, with years upon years to live as he pleased. He had the kind of patience that should lead to sainthood. For all his showy cynicism, there was a good heart that believed the best in humanity, no matter the hurt that piled up over the years. He carried himself with the kind of quiet confidence that made people at ease and safe in his company. Remus was soft man and that was compliment. It took so long to acknowledge the strength it takes to remain that way, to carry on through the life with kindness, willing to take chances with every person met. Sirius could not help but envy this honest hope in individuals. And Tonks? Tonks was boundless enthusiasm with little to none impulse control. Burning presence full of determination and natural curiosity. She had a love for mischief coupled with steel clad moral core. She was also stupidly stubborn, impatient and had still few miles to go before she learned any tact, but…His cousin had grown into a wonderful woman, who continued to be complicated person while pretending she was nothing of that sort. Impersonated boldness tied around a person as fragile as the rest of them, making her way in this world by a storm. Andy and Ted raised her well.

Remus and Tonks clicked together, different personalities that initially bounded over the love of knowledge, mutual alienation from society and fierce loyalty to their friends, family and convictions. They kept dancing around each other since the day they've met, handling each other like they spend lifetime getting to know all the quirks and pet peeves. They oscillated in close proximity like twin stars, always there for the other. To encourage, to lift spirit, to lean on. He had no idea why nobody else caught on when he knew before they seemed to realize it.

It might yet end in tears, a hazard of life that couldn't be disputed, but Sirius had faith in them. In Tonks' determination. In Remus' courage. And if it ended in friendship, well, what a friendship it could be.

Love is love and it never needs to be something more then it is.

Chapter Text

The day turned out beautiful. After nearly whole week of heavy storms and cold rain that made London look like it was the middle of October, this unremarkable Friday ended surprisingly sunny and warm. Something that dragged people out of their homes, crowding the streets, simply wondering about, enjoying their ice-creams and fountains breeze.

Sherlock would be pleased if Harry would do the same. He didn't expected it, no, but he hoped that he might try to venture out, if only to wander back in half an hour. It wasn't that Harry was opposed to going out, on contrary, he loved joining them, be it for a walk or for a case, and would spend hours lurking about corners with Archie or drag Lotta from her cave. But he would not go out on his own. Maybe it shouldn't be worrying, but Sherlock made career on observing people and he could see that something held the child back from exploring on his own. Whatever it was his distaste for large crowds, experience, caution or combination of the three above, he was yet to decipher.

It was hard to gauge since when Harry was up and about, as Sherlock woke up remarkably late, having spend whole night by Catherine's bed, checking her temperature and massaging her back when she coughed her little lungs off. He had put John to sleep after half an hour argument, that could be summed up as John being his stubborn self, while Sherlock reasonably pointed out, that one of them will be staying home the next day while the other will have people to diagnose. It escalated into bit of huffy domestic, till finally Harry interjected and tipped the scale in Sherlock's favour by saying, that he will look after her when the other would take a nap.

When Sherlock clambered out of his bed it was nearly noon. Kitty's hair still looked like dandelion from the bath and humid air coming from four largest pots standing on the stove, three full of water and one was a very slowly cooking chicken soup. Home smelled faintly of peppermint, making every breath easier and on the counter, far away from Catherine's reach and right next to her meds, stood a honey jar and peeled lemon on the plate. In the middle of the room, between sofa and TV lay a large pile of orange blankets and pillows, most certainly nicked from Mrs Hudson's sofa. Harry made blanket fort using two kitchen chairs, back of John's chair and broomstick. Aslan was proudly guarding the entrance, from the state of the kitchen sink a fresh pouch of different herbs probably took residence inside the lion's zipped head.

Aslan, technically belonged to Harry. A boy who was touch starved and cringed from it in equal measures for weeks, before he started to accept casual contact. Sherlock bought it a bit as a desperate measure following a suggestion from internet like a last idiot, because neither of them could look at the way Harry would put himself in a tight ball in his sleep and then flinch when they tried to make him unclench his stiff joints or just comfort him after he woke in tears. So he came home with a lion that was smaller then him by spare inches, its head already filled with lavender and hyssop, small stash at the stomach full of jelly bears and marshmallows and its enormous paws clasped together by magnets. It was good decision. If only to see Harry bursting in laughter, clear and carefree and unburdened at the sight of Sherlock dragging that monster home. And to see his wide glistening eyes, when he realized that this ridiculous toy was for him, stuck somewhere between half embarrassment and half gratefulness.

Harry was not the person who would hoard his possessions without sharing, a trait, Sherlock knew, many took advantage off. Like Catherine was doing now. But it was obvious, nearly right from the start, that Harry was a prickly creature whose, ironically enough, soft spots were his mightiest weapons. Love. Kindness. Compassion. Sherlock helped him find that older lady who offered him plasters and food and he in turn brought her whole tin of handmade biscuits joined by treacle tart, a score of strawberry muffins and light lemon sponge cake. Three days after, she send Harry a thank you note stuck to a cardboard box. Inside, framed in wood frame, was a beautifully done watercolour painting of himself or maybe in this case 'herself' in a white and red dress, hair slicked back but artfully chaotic, standing bright and vivid among the grey background. Harry blushed a storm, but let them put the picture in Mrs Hudson's kitchen where it fit better. He already sent her two letters. Proper one, written with pen on real paper in the old fashioned way, and his only explanation was that he learned once that kindness breeds kindness and while it's hard he decided to try to treat others the same way he wanted to be treated.

He carried this…softness around, for everyone to see with a staggering bravery. It wasn't that he believed that he couldn't be hurt, that he was immune and invulnerable. He simply trusted in the inherent goodness of human nature. Weary, expecting a blow, preparing to be disappointed but hoping, still hoping and sometimes being rewarded beyond measure. Years ago Sherlock would scoff at this, call it naivety and wouldn't look twice. Now he couldn't help the feeling that out of the three of them it was a fifteen year old who fell asleep each night cuddled with unreasonably sized toy that was the strongest of them all. It was humbling experience.

@

Catherine, as predicted, was already feeling better. Maybe potions couldn't work on a muggle, but they had their own wizard with actual Doctor and joined by resident plant (mostly poisonous, but it still counted) specialist to offer suggestions and mix few herbs to help more modern medicine along. Their little girl spend a long time this afternoon babbling at Belle, who made her nest among blankets, and knocking plastic ponies together, before settling down to watch some inane show on CBeebies. Nothing got broken or even slightly damaged, no signs of fire, flood or a food fight. She didn't curse even once in the last twenty four hours. Sherlock hated to think this, but it actually was the calmest he saw her in months. He loved her energy and never ending curiosity, but still welcomed the respite.

House was blissfully quiet now. Sherlock moved another sample under microscope light, his other hand scribbling notes. Only part of his mind was focused on the bits of vegetation trapped between the clear glass, the rest was too busy regarding Harry.

Harry for the most part was like a 221b resident ghost. The only time he ever saw him moving loudly, was when he was either angry or wanted to be noticed, and in the first case he had the sort of walk, the low simmering rage, that lengthened Harry's stride and exposed a warrior sleeping behind soft eyes. It made Sherlock's hackles rise and his reptilian brain fighting between fight or flight response. In the other case it was more…reserved. Nervous. Harry making ruckus in deliberate way was usually a sign that he was uncomfortable and non-verbally asking things like 'please, stop arguing, you are scaring me' or 'I have a question, don't be upset'.

Otherwise…

Well, John did call him a ninja it making. Nobody disagreed. A bell was proposed, but as Sherlock woke up with a hair full of butterfly pins and neither John or him even stirred, the notion was dropped. Mycroft meddled as he does and the situation was resolved only when Harry agreed to consider becoming a 'minor non-civil servant'. Mrs Hudson dressed them down for trying to make a teenager into spy and telling them off for watching too much Bond movies. As far as jokes goes nobody was laughing, except for Harry, who couldn't quite grasp that the offer was serious. Sherlock hoped for at least a decade till the subject comes up again. John called him optimistic.

Harry moved from his spot. The light footsteps came closer till a gentle hand touched Sherlock's arm and then took hold of already cold cup of cold tea next to his elbow. Touch from Harry was a rare thing, initiated even more so, Sherlock smiled inwardly as he put another notch in his tally. Every little success should be celebrated.

He looked at Harry's profile. Or he tried to, as the boy was frowning intently at the kettle, one of his arms around his middle as he was leaning his chin on the fist. He was deep in thought, eyes hooded and half hidden by the thick curtain of eyelashes. Something was bothering him, but he appeared to be in something that John called lukewarm mood, the state halfway between boredom and daydreaming and Sherlock decided to leave him be. He moved around the kitchen with the efficiency that spoke of years of familiarity and soon enough a hand landed in Sherlock's vision, turning off the microscope light without any hesitation. He blinked lazily and his inquisitive eyes peered up at Harry. Cup of fresh, and what Sherlock already knew, perfectly brewed tea stood just under his nose along a plate with a toast smelling of basil and tomato paste. It was a trick both Harry and John employed, taking advantage of the fact, that Sherlock will not refuse anything cooked by Harry. It was a trap, he knew. But he still put all his things to the side and went to wash his hands, anticipating the cheesy goodness and plenty of spices.

Their boy was a brilliant cook. He could make the most boring toast into something that would make Mycroft weep, probably one of the reasons why his brother thought it was a good idea to drop by more often then was absolutely necessary. It was hard to chase Harry away from the stove, to make him understand that he was not kept for his usefulness but genuine want, when eating everything he prepared was an experience. But they prevailed. And then Harry would do that, looking completely innocent, and Sherlock never knew if he was ganged up on or if Harry just felt like he wasn't pulling his weight.

He caught the green eyed gaze and nodded slightly. It was all the thank you Harry needed. All that he would safely accept, really, without becoming flustered and frustrated, trying to wave it off like it was nothing. And that was one of the ongoing projects, too. Sherlock, helped by disturbingly tight lipped Mycroft, was building a case against Dursley's and he promised himself to pile up their every misdeed till they drown and cook slowly in their own spite like a frog left in slowly boiling water.

He took a bite with a bit more force then intended, closing his eyes at the taste. He still couldn't figure out how Harry could make cooking easier then chemistry, something so close to precise science. John, just to prove to Harry that it was a skill worth being noted, make them follow the same recipe found in the vast expanse of internet. In conclusion, Harry's gnocchi won and John stated that 'the same starting material' doesn't necessarily equals success.

It kind of led to Harry sitting with Sherlock and pouring through the freshly bought potions books, with a glint in his eye that spoke volumes of his renewed interest. (The urge to hunt down the Snape person was there since the moment Harry mentioned being punished for breathing, but impending his education was an offence that will not be forgiven.) They softly blew on that small flame, as Harry was as fickle with attentions to subjects he perceived as boring as Sherlock himself, but not yet set in his ways. Still flexible and reaching out for things he found interesting. That's how they realized that Harry was a bit like a raven.

Equally picky and contrite.

His tendencies didn't finish at knowledge. He had predisposition for all that was glowing, glittering, shimmering and shining. He liked gold. Enough that one of the first things he bought just for himself was golden nail polish with glitter, putting the fine smooth coat on freshly manicured hands. It was supremely funny to watch him follow his own fingers with his eyes when the light caught just right on the gleaming surface. He had moments when he would look up at glint of glasses from a person sitting far away from him or get distracted by bejewelled phone cases.

One day they came home with cheep tacky gold fountain pen with fake swarovski crystals and they only ever saw it when Harry unearthed it from the depths of his ever present bag to write. It was…endearing. The cost didn't matter, he cherished that kitschy present the same way he did everything else they gave him. He was surprised every time they bought him books with no reason other then for him to enjoy them, clothes that they thought he might like and he didn't quite know what to do with his eyes when John put a package on his knees and wished him Happy Too Early Birthday. Didn't stop them from giving him presents and actual cake on thirty first, of course, but inside this parcel was a journal they thought was important for him to have it. It's original purpose was to serve for Harry's therapy notes, but he used it for pretty much everything. Binding was made of soft faux leather engraved with a world map, plenty of pages close in touch and colour to parchment and metal compass charm hanged from leather string as a bookmark. It was a large thing, growing bigger every day as he glued a stack of photos, doodles, rants and tickets to the thick paper. Everything that Harry thought important went there and he protected it religiously, letting them see one page every now and then, but nothing beyond, shy and careful, holding it close and never far away. It was tempting to see what was inside, to know what he thought and what hatched in his funny little brain. They were also sure that he was working on something bigger then just small cases, searching and hunting for information with dogeared determination. From the laptop history (which, not deleted- was fair game) he focused his digging here, in London, and while there was this elusive thing, a feeling that not everything was as it should be, try as he might, Sherlock couldn't see a pattern by just following the same road. Whatever Harry looked for was lost in the sea of research (and vine compilations, send usually by Lo, who also took on herself educating Harry in all things Disney and vintage cars) stalking social media for cases (logging in as either John or Archie as he tried to leave as little traces of himself in internet as he could) and incomplete by the virtue of him preferring to use smartphone instead of laptop.

Sherlock hated not knowing. It was a daily struggle to stop himself from just sneaking a peek in his notes when nobody was looking, but he had a feeling that would he try, Harry will never trust him again. Forgive? Yes. But he won't forget. They took home immensely private person who held barely any trust in adults that were supposed to take care of him, to break it now would mean that there was a very little chance that Harry would ask for help when he truly needed it. Sherlock liked that quirky teenager a little bit too much to risk his mental health or safety over satisfying his own curiosity.

Life is proving to be harder when you strive to become a better person, but it gives extras.

He threw a look at blond curly mane sticking out from the pile of orange blankets, Belle met his eyes and blinked at him slowly before setting closer to Catherine, probably ready to murder anyone who would try to lay one finger at his daughter. Hedwig would undoubtedly join, too. She was sitting on Harry's knee where he got himself curled up in the nook next to window, gold pen moving in his hand, sun reflecting in his glasses and hiding his eyes as he occasionally sipped tea from his star-covered cup. They were safe. Content. Close.

It was worth it.

He stilled when Harry closed his journal and got up, leaving it on windowsill instead of carrying it with himself. In a few moments he disappeared upstairs in a flutter of wings and fading footsteps. Sherlock listened to a soft click, delicate breeze curled around his ankles.

Catherine moved in her sleep, snoring lightly with the background of Raa Raa The Noisy Lion. John would be home in less then half an hour, so decision made, he wrote a message to Mrs Hudson and climbed on his feet, rolling stiff shoulders and taking last sip of his tea. Crossing across the room he picked up Harry's jacket, hanging it in the crook of his arm and then stepped closer to the makeshift tent.

"Sherlock? " Mrs Hudson stood with a bag full of yarn, beginning of charcoal grey sweater on top and he knew one person that it could fit on. He bend down, kissing the top of his daughter's head, run his hand through black-and-grey cat fur, scratching Kneazle behind large ears before straightening up and pointing toward stairs. Mrs Hudson nodded, making her way to the small part of sofa that was clear of any rubble, rolling her eyes at finding her pillows among the blankets, throwing him baleful glance. For once innocent he mouthed 'Harry' and she shooed him on his way, eyes clearing and crinkled in amusement as she set down. It was totally unfair, that she would trust fifteen year old over two grown men when it came to 'borrowing' her possessions. All the unguaranteed suspicion, so hurtful. She made face at his expression, one that said everything about the depth of her fondness for her boys and how utterly ridiculous he was being right now. He admitted defeat, if only in his head and headed upstairs.

As predicted, the window in Catherine's room was open, fingertips smudges along the glass, partial footprint on the sill a proof enough that at the very last Harry climbed on the roof with something more then only socks unlike the last time. Sherlock closed the window, deciding to take lazy approach, and minute later he was on top of the roof without breaking in sweat or acrobatics.

It was no surprise to find Harry there as he loved highs to a scary degree. When they took him for the first time to London Eye, he spend whole time with his nose inches from the glass, looking like he regretted it was there, eyes half closed in pleasure as the wheel turned slowly. He had a habit of climbing up the highest point every chance he got…much like a prickly cat who disliked company. It made him quite easy to find, one of those things that was comfortingly predictable in this otherwise quaint creature.

Harry was smoking. Sitting with his forearms placed on bent knees on the dragged in and upturned apple crates piled up in the corner. His bruises long healed, all that was left was tightly corded arms streaked with numerous scars barely lighter then his skin, but still visible like a stripes on the tiger's back. Physically, he looked well, no longer like he was bound to break at the slightest touch, growing steadily and chasing Sherlock for inches and John for number of whiskers sprouting from his sharp jaw. Small crate of potions took care of anemia, strengthened his bones (and boy, was it fun explanation that it was basically regrowing them in a space of hours) and for first few days helped him sleep, before he squinted sleepily at the ingredients and made them realize that asphodel and belladonna were addictive.( Sherlock still poured through books, trying to understand how in the world wizards have little to no problems by basically chugging on the most poisonous plants and substances in the world. He was not satisfied with 'because magic') Those went at the highest shelf in a blink of an eye, to be used only at a last resort. They were promptly replaced by infusion of Valerian root and marihuana that smelled like sweaty socks and would kill a lesser man, but didn't even tickled a wizard, and naps scattered over the day preluded by warm milk with honey or decaffeinated lemon tea.

It was something of an experiment that gave off astonishing results.

Wizards reacted strangely well to herbs, especially those prepared by them. And they worked better on non magical people, too. Tea made by Harry was more likely to help him sleep then when it was done by John. Pouch of lavender, scullcap and passion fruit would drop Sherlock down in minutes, something that just shouldn't work like that. But it did. While herbs worked better, they were not as effective on their wizard as the first potion, but none of them was willing to chance Harry becoming addicted to wizarding version of sleeping pills. Some nights he slept poorly no matter what they tried, but Grace endorsed natural methods and concoctions, as magic reacted badly with most muggle meds and the mental health research in St Mungos was still in nappies. It was a running joke that Harry was essentially a lab rat, because while his therapist knew every trick of human psyche taught by muggle and wizards, medicating was a nightmare of mixing Wiccan magic and well wishing. Which did not explain why Harry was sitting unnaturally still, breathing in a third rate tobacco and tar instead of sitting down with a cuppa of his medical tea.

Tendrils of light grey smoke swirled around Harry's head in unnatural way, making Sherlock believe that he wasn't really aware of his surroundings. Theory was proven when he stepped over two bowls of rain water covered by thin linen, sat down next to him and the boy only woke up from the trance once the dark red leather jacket landed around his shoulders. He blinked rapidly as the shroud disappeared. He could swear there were shapes in there, vaguely human-like, dancing, a second and you miss it trick of light.

It happened, sometimes, a minute signs of magic that looked uncontrolled and unconscious. Of course, there were moments when Harry was the one in control, focusing intently on creating light or summoning biscuits. It was wonderful thing to watch and know that it was real, but Sherlock never seen him performing this kind magic while he was so out of it.

Harry looked disoriented, like he was not sure how he ended up there. Sherlock pried cigarette from his loose fingers, taking a whiff and finding nothing that could cause that reaction. Harry kept blinking rapidly, shaking his head and then he rubbed his itchy chin, swallowing twice, trying to avoid Sherlock's eyes. He slouched, his hair falling around his face escaping the loose hold of plastic clasp. Sherlock looked him over, passing back the still lit fag. No dilated eyes, pulse slightly elevated but slowing down at the continued silence, no jittery fingers. There was nothing but embarrassment at being caught, and yet…

"Why now?" Green eyes peered at him, long fingers flicking ash in the old can, left there years ago for this purpose. "Why not two weeks ago, why not after we solved your case, why now, Harry?"

Boy shook his head again, disquieted, lips pursed as he looked up with somehow pained expression, gathering his thoughts.

"I don't know."

Sherlock sighed inwardly, willing himself to be patient. Screaming might achieve desired results. Harry could eat three times a day without being reminded, sit straight and go out 'socialize' like a nice little automaton, but neither John or Sherlock wanted to see him flinch and scurry around, retreating into his shell, mindlessly obeying orders out of fear or just running away, forever convinced that he was broken and unworthy of home, love, security. Deducing and fishing out information by striking in the most direct way was out of the question, as he never knew what he will stumble upon and blurt out without thinking. They have only two months, time that have to count enough for Harry to be able to go to Hogwarts knowing, that he have people who will not abuse him or measure his worth by how 'adjusted' how 'important' how 'useful' he was. Trying to drag out things that were not meant to see the light of the day for some time yet was counterproductive and Sherlock already knew more then Harry was comfortable with sharing. From the way his arm would loop around the plate to the few overly innocuous steps that would put his back to the door when John would rise his voice or Sherlock turned too sharply. From 'I don't need bed' to 'I'm fine'. From scarred palms and knuckles and not even a hiss at the sting of antiseptic. They were winning slowly but surely, inch by inch. All they required was time and space. And what they needed the most was a one thing they were short off.

"Why did you start." Sherlock asks instead and watches as Harry relaxes slightly, some of the tension bleeding out at being able to answer. His voice is bland, in a way that he recognized as a soul that was done its screaming in the void and remained unheard for far too long.

"It was easier to find cigarette then food. Helped a bit with the shakes, too. My cousin started smoking last year, but he is like a squirrel, forgets half of his stashes, it was child- play to find them and raid them, he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. My uncle is a chain-smoker so everything in the house is soaked in the smell. It's not hard to hide a lighter and fag, when everything smells like cheap snuff but take an energy bar and everybody is screaming bloody murder." Harry took the last drag, very slowly letting the pale cloud escape through his pursed lips. He didn't look up for a moment, profound sadness clinging to him like the last swirls of smoke as he pulled out mangled package out of the pocket of his jeans, offering it to Sherlock.

"Those are your last?" He knew they were. To his knowledge, this was the first time Harry smoked since they took him home, and he saw the blue and white foil long time ago among his belongings. Left there without confrontation to confirm a theory, because he can't deduce what he can not see. He still waited for confirmation, before passing the pack back. "I won't tell John and you may keep them, but I have ultimatum."

Harry's brief surprise turned into weary resignation, but he still nodded, stretching his long legs before him, putting his hands in the sleeves of his jacket before zipping it halfway. His mouth a pale confused line, still not used to people who not only gave a damn about him, but tried to raise him. Somewhat. He spend his whole life taking care of himself as best as he could and taking hazards with his health, some for his continued survival and some because he didn't quite got it yet that he was not expendable. Trying to teach him to be softer on himself was going about as easily as predicted, especially as that lesson has yet to sink in both John's and Sherlock's makeup. Hard to learn coping mechanisms from people who didn't yet got that part themselves.

"Shoot." Snarked Harry with smile like he swallowed a pint of lemon juice, not quite able to look Sherlock in the eye.

"You won't buy more. This is the last pack. I won't say that it'll last forever, but it's going to last as long as you live here. My nicotine patches are not for decoration and John will have kittens if he caught you or me, for the matter, with those. You live with recovering addicts and a baby, Harry." Harry paled, Sherlock barely heard the mumbled broken 'I'm sorry', before Harry's breath hitched as he curled into himself once again. He looked miserable, close to tears and it suddenly became obvious that some of it he carried ever since the 'Morning' exchanged after Sherlock joined the land of living. Way to go. Sherlock was completely off his mark, as Harry was bothered by 'something' enough to go out on his way o smoke like a ruffian and not even hiding. Enough that he spend most of the day quiet…too quiet even for him. Few rooms in Mind Palace suddenly needed remodelling, as he tried to remember every other tick and tell Harry showed over the span of he last hours that might have spelled 'trouble, proceed with caution'.

Life was a mine field.

He looked through the options and took one that guaranteed at least seventy percent of success. At least with toddlers. He lay his hand on Harry's shoulder and then, gently, pulled the panicking boy closer.

"Harry, we are okay, everything is alright. I am not angry. And even if John will find out, nothing will happen to you, understand? Nobody is going to hurt you. You are safe." It wasn't working. If anything, Harry was even more upset, his breath uneven as he was apologizing in a string of jumbled words.

Sherlock drew a line at 'stupid screw up'.

Harry's intelligence was a sore spot. Maybe even more for them then for Harry himself. It's not because he lacked it, if he did nobody would not let him and Archie handle all the little cases peppered around the city, nor would Sherlock waste his time teaching him to not only see, but observe. Harry was brilliant. He remembered all the obscure little facts, dragged up from the time he just barely learned to read, not to mention the way he would catch nuances that escaped both John's and Sherlock's attention and tie them down into bigger picture. But Harry spend his whole life being told that he was stupid, lazy, not showing enough potential. That he wasn't good at things because he didn't apply himself. That because he wasn't good at everything he must be good for nothing. Sherlock spend his childhood hearing the same thing. The 'could be better' and 'if you are so smart then why you don't know it' and 'you are not even trying'. From teachers, occasionally from his parents and everybody else, people who did not know the fraction of what he did, but liked lording their primary school knowledge over him. Sherlock found his niche in chemistry, became very good at it and suddenly was proclaimed genius, therefore allowed to become 'eccentric'. Then he found forensic science and any jab at his lack of knowledge in other departments didn't hold the same sting it did when he was little boy. But it still hurt.

Harry was still searching. There was keen mind at work there, flourishing at the lightest prompt, powered by enthusiasm, necessity or challenge. They shared that singular focus once it was found. Fixated on one point for extended length of time in the way that made John jokingly ask if they are sure they aren't related.

Sherlock found that he wouldn't mind if they did.

People in his life treated Harry like he was a broken toy that couldn't be left on its own. That he should be 'managed' and led by hand, couldn't be trusted to just be, made to perform one miracle at the time. John, after coming to that conclusions few hours after Harry talked (or more like mentioned in passing here and there, all of this meticulously put in memory and, in John's case, few hidden notes) about his friends and adults that 'took care' of him, spend hours apologizing to Sherlock, both verbally and far longer non-verbally. It took embarrassingly long time for Sherlock to draw the parallels between himself and their resident wizard. Maybe that's why it was hard to swallow hearing him say those things. It hurt even more knowing that some part of him believed them.

"Stop. Harry. Stop. No, you've done one small mildly stupid thing. You didn't break anything, no harm done. It's okay to not know, it's okay to make mistakes. God damn it child, why would you even…" Sherlock didn't finish, instead he found himself face to face with a wreaked with pain teenager. He needed John. That was precisely the reason they agreed to always talk with Harry together. Not that it ever worked...

"I lied to them! I lied to my friends over and over and over." Harry bit of a sob, trying to make Sherlock understand. And understand he did…of all the possible things… Harry's loyalty was unshakable thing and his friends were a fixed point in his life, the first fixed point. The fundamental point. To lie to them probably felt like a betrayal.

"I know." Child deflated, sitting on his knees, eyelashes wet from tears that didn't fall. He mouthed 'how?' In a incredulous tone. Sherlock considered lying, briefly. And felt all the worse for it. "I've read one of your letters. You've left it next to my notes and I…"

Harry closed his eyes, fists curled on his knees, even now trying to be conscious of his therapist advice, probably trying to assess whatever he had the right to be angry or not. He knew that Sherlock reads everything, sometimes things that he didn't want to see, had no business of seeing, but if it's not hidden, it's a fair play for a mind that couldn't just be turned off. But would knowing that make it less a breach of privacy?

In the end Harry nodded, defeated and hurting, fingers nervously tugging at his hair.

"Why did you lie?" Maybe Sherlock would one day learn to leave things very well alone, but it was not this day. Harry chuckled mirthlessly.

"So they will not know that I have only half of my oars in the water? My life before I met you was put together by tape and ten feet of string. Shoddy workmanship that, but it felt solid enough to not fall apart should I look the other way. I don't know how am I going to go back to the person I was when now everything is so…non -tangible. How will I win the war when I can't even pull myself together?"

"Did it ever occurred to you, that while the fates choose a good person, they did not choose non infallible one?" Sherlock pried Harry's fingers from his hair, gently waving them together and placing them on his lap. "You are not crazy. Not a basket case, no more nuts then me or John or Lestrade. Nobody can always be at the top of their game, not a sportsman, no lawyer, no scientist. We are not perpetuum mobile, we are not meant to stay strong all the time, child. The fact that you were able to endure does not equal obligation to withstand it. You've run yourself to the ground, trying to carry on as you always were, shouldering the weight of the world, but never gave yourself time to heal. To slow down, ease off from the full of sprint. You stopped, suddenly and everything that was chasing you to that point caught up and rushed ahead. That's why it feels like everything falls right through your fingers and you can't grasp where the old you finished and the new one begins. Change is tremendously scary thing and it takes a different kind of bravery to knowingly change yourself."

"Sherlock?" Whispered Harry after a long moment, fingers trembling lightly in Sherlock's hands, "I need to go and hit things."

"Do we have a deal?" Harry looks up at him, then at the pack lying close to his knee. He nods. "Verbally, if you would."

"Can do one better." Sherlock watches as Harry shuffles a bit to the side, cigarettes held in one hand and then he breaks them all in half, making tiny stack, foil and torn cardboard soon join in and a moment later they are ablaze with bluish flames.

"Just like that?"

"You are right. I should have done a flip. " Comes the serious tone and Sherlock breaths easier. Harry smiled sheepishly, thoroughly embarrassed as he scratched the back of his neck. "For what's worth, I am sorry…I just didn't want to worry you or John…"

"This, "murmured Sherlock looking at the smelly twisted package perishing in a tin ashtray, "worried me more."

"Not my smartest moment." And then Harry does something that surprises them both, leaning over and wrapping his arms around Sherlock, once again mumbling quiet apology half hidden in a thin dark blue sweater. "I feel like I licked an ashtray."

Sherlock pursed his lips to stop the chortle lodged in his throat, then lightly stood the teenager up and pushed him toward exit. There was still enough time to get rid of some lingering smoke. Oh, who was he trying to hoodwink, he would tell John five minutes in. He steals a glance at Harry, at the dark solemn eyes and sad pull of his full mouth.

He could not fix him.

Not any more then he could fix John's nightmares or Molly's bad taste in men, himself included. No bandage or spell or all the magic and might in the world would not be able to patch up this hurt that could not be made visible on any x-ray. But he could help and that needed to be enough. Maybe he will go make a calming potion, take a chance of Harry being in the room, since it needed a presence of magical person to work and not turn in the poisonous soup. Call one of those Mycroft's Monkeys to come and practice defence with Harry, tire him up physically, then sit him through logic puzzles, take his mind of the problem. Talk to John. And message Grace for morning therapy session, if all that fails to produce any results, take him to Molly. If anyone knew the weight of keeping secrets from friends, it was her. No, he can't fix Harry, but he will make sure that their kid will have all the tools to do it by himself. And once he did, Sherlock will enjoy watching him smash his enemies, building bridges and burning bright as he goes to make his mark on the world. There was too much fire in that boy to fade into obscurity. Too much sense of justice to sit back and do nothing and too big of a heart to stop protecting those who can not fight for themselves.

If only Harry knew those things…

"Limitations." Harry looks up as they walk down the stairs, Sherlock's hand resting lightly on his forearm. "Our greatest blessings are our curses and our curses are our blessings. I want you to write every character trait you think you possess and think of its opposite. Make a list and then find your limitations. We will brainstorm and think of ways to overcome them. It's good to know your strengths and weaknesses. " He waits a moment for any reaction, but Harry only nods slowly, thoughtfully as he unconsciously straightens up. "No protests?"

"As far as punishments go, this is the only one I ever had that didn't include mindless manual labour or senseless repetition, so… no. Thank you, Sherlock."

Harry made his way toward kitchen to check up on the broth, stopping to kiss Mrs Hudson's cheek, leaving Sherlock with the strangest feeling in his chest. Something warm and glowing nestled under his breastbone and he rubs it lightly. Huh, maybe he can do the parenting shtick without John after all.

"Sherlock, is that smoke?"

Shit.

Chapter Text

The Grimmauld Place was still swallowed by murky pre-morning light when a Kneazle sat on a short stone fence at the end of the street, golden eyes moving lazily over houses. It was rather large animal, elegant and long-haired, with pearly white fur marked visibly by jaguar-like gray-to-black spots running over its belly and legs. It sat there like a statue, long groomed tail over front paws, tip teasing the ribbon attached to its collar. Finally, flicking its pointy fluffy ear it stood up, stretched with a jaw breaking yawn and then trotted straight toward the invisible number twelve, jumped on the railing and through the means known only to itself landed gently in the inner courtyard.

Black car that stood for unknown length of time parked close to #1 moved suspiciously slowly in the cat's wake. A man with receding hairline and penetrating steely eyes looked through the shadowed window at the tip of the tail disappearing in the space between number 11th and 13th. For one moment, barely a flicker, he saw whatever was hiding under the spell - a sight, that should be accompanied with a flash of lightening, sound of tormented souls and perhaps organ music as the house truly represented the street's name. His only reaction was a pointed glance given to smartly dressed woman sitting across from him, her hands moving insistently and constantly over her phone. She gave no visible sign of being aware of her company, but second later the car parked on the corner. She opened the door on her side without looking up from the screen.

Slim, long-haired feline jumped on the seat and then made its way toward charcoal grey clad legs before, true to its nature, flopped down, leaving white hair on terribly expensive suit. She, of course, knew better then to kneed on clothes.

"Not a word." Stated the man, his hand going through the rich thick fur. The boy's appearance was a blessing in disguise, one of the better pros turned out to be a chance of acquiring such a wonderful threat detector. Kneazles were, in Mycroft's opinion, severely unappreciated. His dear Sappho and her sister from the same litter, Belle, were already proving themselves useful, not to mention how loyal companions they made. Fur on the clothes and carpets was a small price to pay for the pleasure of watching people squirm at their unnervingly intelligent gaze and readiness to take an eye from anyone threatening harm to their family. Beautiful, smart, refined and loyal to boot, who could ask for more?

"Sir." He didn't acknowledge the way her lips twitched in the most unprofessional way a his rather obvious delight in chosen...associate. They knew each other for long enough that this kind of behavior could be overlooked and forgiven.

Curiosity satisfied, he picked his phone, and swallowing his distaste for such measures, but intimately aware that calling would get him only a headache and none of those wonderful cupcakes he was promised, he send a short message. Not to mention how, that one day after calling, he dropped his glass on himself six times in a row before caving in and apologizing. Apparently, Harry could battle Dark Lords but shared Sherlock's aversion to picking up phone and had a strange predilection toward wild magic of rather mischievous nature.

Mycroft swallowed a sigh that threatened to escape as he petted Sappho purring on his lap. Oh, how he hated legwork, but trusting any of his minions with the location could prove to be a fatal mistake.

He deserved a reward, surely...

His phone pinged discreetly. He opened the message with a frown, enlarging attached picture. Behind grinning Harry, who looked far too chirpy for this hour was a familiar wooden table. There, standing on the rack in two even rows, slathered in puffy light lemon cream and adorned with tiny swirl of dark chocolate suspiciously similar to umbrella...Mycroft teared his eyes from the blessed sight at the next ping.

"Change of plans." Any crisis that lasted this long could last another half an hour. Anthea's eyes flickered up at him, noting everything that was there between one blink and the next and understanding even before he said another word. "Baker Street. It looks like at least one person beside us cares about the well being of government."

Anthea nodded and put the phone in her pocket.

That was the letter found on the windowsill in the kitchen, tied by silky pink ribbon with a fried edge and glued to one white owl feather. That is to say, it was found by Crookshanks, accompanied by loud choked up yowling that got whole house up in arms and stomping bleary eyed but alert, trying to find what it the world was causing those hellish noises.

The emotional response it caused was a sight to behold, as all this time spend searching for Harry there was no sign of him anywhere at all. From unanswered inquires in Gringotts that threatened to throw the overly pushy wizards in the mines to Snape's frosty reports full of 'I don't knows and neither does The Dark Lord'

Half an Order was despairing the fate of their small, innocent and painfully naive baby charge under the hold of those 'dangerous immoral people, probably dark, the lot of them' - Dumbledore's little lamb found home among the wolves, a fate so horrible that he needed rescuing before they mar his young innocent soul and turn him away from the Light. To be sure, Harry's message didn't lack unflattering description that, in most part, strangely enough matched Snape's cheerful countenance. Doubled. What other half noticed right away, was that Harry repeatedly stated that he felt right at home among them and that they cared for him in all the ways they should. In all the ways he lacked before.

(Said people also grasped the fact that Harry was utterly, wonderfully, delightfully savage and, as open as his insults were, their chosen targets were not mentioned by name but still recognized, unable to protect themselves in any way without naming themselves. Hermione who held the letter hostage till they were promised copies was so visibly torn between pride at the insinuation and disapproval at the rather coarse language, that it inspired Fred and George into making some sort of dual emotion candies. Sirius couldn't wait to see how one can feel 'cheerful despair' and how close it resembled his own mental state those days.)

Harry of course still remained a child, but no amount of wishing and wanting could make him a person he was not, while the Order continued to make a mistake of confusing his young age with the lack of character. Or skill. Or experience. Or two brain cells to clack and rub together. Sirius couldn't possibly grasp how they could truly think that anyone would still stay the same after the trials Harry has been put through, but maybe it came from the fact that spare few members had ever met him, drawing their knowledge from hearsay and second hand sources. Mainly Snape, as Dumbledore was rarely there to correct him. Those who did know Harry...well, they swinged from overprotective to downright wishing him the absolute worst. If you took those extremes, those left were Sirius himself, Remus, Tonks and Moody, joined less overtly by Bill and Charlie. Last two weren't that surprising. Molly always felt the need to keep her family close, as if she could protect them from everything not right in the world, but in the twist of irony she made a mistake of raising brave and independent people, who could not be contained and kept safe and happen to possess functioning brains.

The day didn't pass without tears. Sirius sat on his bed with copy of Harry's letter in his hands, fixing his gaze on his name written in familiar scratch, feeling his vision blur. With tears slowly traveling down his face he thought that those people, those wonderful strangers found Harry just in time. Just in time before he lost all trust and turned harder and colder and fractured, just in time to patch him up and offer him all the things Sirius couldn't, but would never begrudge those who did. He wanted his boy back, but it was not something Harry needed. This dark grimy house, strangers at all hours, secrets, boredom, imprisonment and mounting frustration...it was like repeat from Sirius' childhood, only now there was no warm home to run to, no Euphemia Potter to go toe-to-toe with anybody who would as much as look at her second son sideways. Sirius needed twelve years in Azkaban to realize, that the only difference between him and Regulus, was one great friendship with wonderful family, and that difference claimed his brother's life, because Sirius was too young to see, reach out and save him in time.

Guilt was an old companion those days, but it only magnified the relief when Harry found his own sanctuary.

His only wish was to see him just once before he has to leave for Hogwarts... it would be enough.

He already found Ron, who was angrily washing an armoire with cool water filled with suds and pretended to believe excuse of 'effing dust' at the boy's puffy eyes. The spot of wood didn't shine this much probably since the day it was made. Hermione dragged out a book, hid her face and sniffed, curled up in library chair, turning pages sparingly as if anyone would believe she was reading. She did not notice a blanket spelled over her legs in a chilly shadowed room. Ginny was writing. Mouth set in straight line as she waved him off when he asked if she needed anything. He politely ignored her trembling chin, leaving a fresh cup of tea by her elbow accompanied with a chocolate frog. Twins were...still twins, but he had never seen them this subdued, sitting in the corner surrounded by parchments, staring quietly in the space with listless and unfocused eyes.

He knew that it wouldn't last, soon enough they will gather together, re-read letters, lean on each other. Harry's friends were made of sterner stuff and knew intimately the value of sticking together through thick and thin. In an hour or two they will be more like themselves, bearing the weight of Harry being away with far more strength and fortitude then the rest of them. They had faith in him.

Maybe it was a high time for to Order to start sharing that sentiment.

Truly, it's like they never learned. Harry would tell them one thing, a point that is glaringly obvious, and they would dismiss it as gospel. Would share his point of view and be waved off. Ask- and be patted on the head and send off on his way. Admit to fearing for his life? No, lets put him again in the house with people who would love to see him dead. It looked like everyone and their uncle Jim might have opinion and be listened to - except for him. He had every right to drop them like a hot potato, every right to be angry and leave the world that thought nothing of climbing onto his shoulders, perched like a vulture, weighting him down and ripping off pieces as it liked, tossed him around, careless of where he lands. That he still tried to keep in contact with them was a miracle in itself. That he still wanted to come back...

Sirius loved magic, he might just admit to having problems with some of its users. Mainly meddling old coots with all the power but too much love for status quo, politicians and people who liked preaching that pure blood and noble birth were a mark of power, will, character or knowledge. Say that to Hermione, who at nearly sixteen had learned spells and concepts that took aback even scholary inclined Remus - a werewolf and a better person then even he realized. Harry with his Patronus, (Merlin, that Patronus) relentless determination to assure his friends safety and ever giving generous heart. Lily, a genius in her own right, a woman who stood for her ideas and fought for what she thought was right and never failed to give a fighting chance to all lost and broken creatures, an inclination her son shared if stories are to be believed.

Moodbloods and halbreeds, indeed. One would search the world, twice, and find few and far in between that could compare. He was undeservedly lucky to have met them.

Sirius put the letter with all the others, carefully kept and preserved, to read at times when the reality would get a bit too much to bear. The one at the top was the first that came after first of July, the day that Harry took for his escape, making him once again wonder why a fifteen year old would be interested whatever or not Peter liked flying or if he was capable of apparition. His godson was up to something and Sirius regretted deeply not being more able to help in whatever scheme he was planning. That rat comment...He hoped that Harry would prove less reckless then his godfather and not try for something he wasn't prepared to do.

It didn't matter, maybe, but Sirius had a whole stack of parchment listing every single thing he remembered of his once-friend. Just in case. Twelve years of forced solitude did strange things to person.

Speaking of friends, Remus was heading off to France. Probably will end up stuffing himself with croissants and washing them down with superb wine for a whole week, while pretending to be doing anything that Albus asked him to. Or maybe not. Maybe he will contact his mysterious 'associates' that seem to know things they should not, didn't wore any names to remember them by and were scattered all over the world like confetti. Whatever. Sirius wasn't jealous at all. Remus deserved to live a bit, especially after Snape went and exposed a secret kept for nearly thirty years to all who wanted to listen, leaving a confirmed werewolf at the dubious mercy of all the purist' bastards and misinformed British society.

Tonks kept going in and out, busy as a bee, training and searching for a squib that got lost along with a Crup. It was a sad state of things when people in Ministry were more worried about an uncooperative creature, then a human with little to none magic to speak off. It was sadder that the wife of said squib told about him only Tonks, and only three days after initial DRCMC* questioning, because she rightfully feared, that few if any Aurors would care about him being missing when they were given a shovel job.

Squibs were grey area that wizarding world didn't want to admit having. Fools, the lot of them. Squibs were absolutely the best at information gathering. Enough magic to walk among wizards, drink in bars, talk politics and sport, but not enough to make a wizard wand jumpy. After all, who would suspect poor, unfortunate magicless person of anything at all? It was a devastating blow in the last war when Voldemort went after them. More out of principle then because he figured out how many Order members were less magically gifted, but not many of those people were alive still. Shame that, Order needed all the help it could get. And they could've use few people with some common sense, it would be easier to follow if they were actually going somewhere. Ministry unwillingness to acknowledge Voldemort unwelcome resurrection gave them time, time they could use to prepare. But he couldn't help but think that the only thing they were doing was wasting it.

Moody was out. Again. Maybe doing what needed to be done. Maybe enjoying life. Maybe investigating what exactly caused two dementors to suck the souls of two helpless muggles in Merlin damned Little Whinging. Sirius didn't quite know where was he dashing off to. That man spend half a month in a hospital at the end of the year, showed up twice on Harry-sitting, was gone for Circe knows how long in the land unknown and just now he disappeared. Again. What was he doing? Moody retired years ago. He didn't have job. What he had, though, was more secrets then the bees.

He was going to figure them out. One after another. After all, he got nothing to do and all the time in the world...

The bag full of Harry's belongings lay precariously on the edge of the pillow as Ron, Hermione and Ginny sat around, staring at it for some time, like it contained a handful of scorpions and maybe an adder or two. None of them was truly convinced if they honestly should do what they wanted to do.

"Well, nothing to it." Grumbled finally Ron, waving morals goodbye, putting his hand inside and coming out with a book without a title, covered in faded yellowish paper. It looked worn and like it was put together only on scout honor, so with the mindset that anything that Harry found worth reading, he would also like, he opened it on random page. And then he blushed. And then bend down to read some more.

In sorted colours, praise a varied dress

In night-clothes or commode let either please.

Or when she combs or when she curls her hair,

Commend her curious art and gallant air.

Singing, her voice, dancing, her steps, admire

Applaud when she desists, and still desire.

Let all her words and actions wonder raise

View her with raptures, and with raptures praise

Fierce as Medusa though your mistress prove,

These arts will teach the stubborn beauty love.

Be cautious lest you overact your part,

And temper your hypocrisy with art

Let no false action give your words the lie,

For once deceiv'd, she's ever after shy.

What are you reading?" Asked Hermione curiously, her hands wrapped around open book, but eyeing hungrily the one held on his lap, clutched desperately as his ears went red.

"Nothing!" He screamed high-pitchedely, hiding it behind his back, face burning as he tried to look her in the eye, thinking he should have took the title before diving in this wonderfully instructive lecture. And then he felt it, fragile cover slipped through his fingers while Ginny shouted in triumph 'gotcha!', before she skipped away, opening the book randomly and reading aloud with emphasis to his ever-lasting mortification.

"Neglect becomes a man-this Theseus found

Uncurl'd, uncomb'd, the nymphs his wishes crowned.

The rough Hippolytus was Phaedra's care,

And Venus thought the rude Adonis fair.

Be not too finical, but yet be clean,

And wear well fashioned clothes, like other men.

Let not your teeth be yellow or be foul,

Nor in wide shoes your feet too loosely roll.

Of a black muzzle and long beard beware,

And let a skilful barber cut your hair

Your nails be pick'd from dirt, and even par'd

Nor let your nasty nostrils bud with beard.

Cure your unsav'ry breath; gargle your throat

And free your armpits from the ram and goat.

Dress not, in short, too little or too much

And be not wholly French nor wholly Dutch."**

"What is this, oh Merlin, it's priceless. You should take notes." Ginny was all but rolling on the floor at the sight of Hermione's gaping mouth and Ron's closed eyes. He looked like he was considering the murder of his only sister and the only deterrent was that he was too embarrassed to stand right now. Which was even funnier since the book, ultimately, belonged to Harry.

"It's Ars Amatoria! The Art of Love. How in the world it got there?" Exclaimed Hermione, eyes wide with surprise as she mentioned Ginny over. Redhead rolled her eyes, but came closer, avoiding the side of bed where strangely calm Ron was doing a breathing exercise.

"It came from Harry's room in the bag full of Harry's things and has Harry's doodles all over it, so...maybe I'm jumping a wand here, but it looks like it just might belong to Harry?" Hermione barely noticed the oh-so-subtly implied sarcasm, brushing the aged paper with her fingertips. On the top corner of the page bloomed a drawing of peacock with something that looked like curly toupee and busty lady in a frock that ended well before her knees giving him a one finger salute. She turned a page only to see slanted careful cursive, spelling 'Bitch, that's not how you flirt' next to, quite frankly beautiful, picture of a naked back of a person of unspecified gender with one arm raised high above the head grasping invisible thread in their detailed slim fingers. The other hand, partially covered was keeping out the cascade of black locks away from exposed neck, each vertebrae visible, a swarm of freckles standing out from the shading of lightly muscled shoulders. "Maybe we should put it back. I feel like I just read someone's diary."

Hermione, just because her thirst for knowledge was a power just a tad stronger then her morals, turned a page, blushed and hastily throwing the book aside put a pillow on top of it.

"Now you've made me curious." Ron slid his hand closer, but had no time to get the book out, as his sister decided to take action. Mostly by promptly jumping on the bed, sitting her bony posterior on the pillow, and sticking her tongue earning herself two fingered jab to the side. It quickly turned into a bit of a battle consisting of mostly jabs with pointy elbows and hands plastered over faces. Hermione took the chance and put the reason of the commotion inside the mostly empty trunk, and then she smacked them both for a good measure with a hard cover 'Treasure Island'.

It took them a moment of snarking and veiled threats to settle down again, before Ginny went for the bag without as much as by your leave, taking out few things at once. Dream-catcher made of stones tightly put in place with copper wire, small handprint pressed in gypsum, colored purple and blue that Hermione took away and started wrapping tightly in old Daily Prophet pages. Magic was all well and fine but one can never be to careful.

In a slightly torn cardboard box sat a whole score of bits and ends. Few single earrings, broken gold chain, a score of different keys, old camea made of mother pearl, misshapen nail and horseshoe. Camera lances and few dozen buttons. Rings, some lacking eyelets. It was this box Ginny fished out something she did not expect to see, but fell in love with all the same.

"It's beautiful. Well, put it on." Hermione waved off any protest. It's not like it wouldn't end up packed among other fragile things at the top of the trunk. She never expected Harry to be such a magpie.

Immediately after Ginny slid the pink and orange shell bracelet on her wrist, the seem on her long shirt caught on it. Pulling on hard to break the thread, she didn't quite foresee that it would unravel nearly right to her elbow, leaving the sides flopping about. Cursing to herself, she stood up on her knees to call her mum...and fell right over with resounding thud as her legs tangled in the sheet.

"God, Ginny are you alright?" Hermione peered at her friend from over the edge of bed with worried eyes, helping untangle the stubborn trainer from the messed up bedding. Ron stole a peek over her shoulder, laughing and singing 'klutzy baboon' under his nose, earning himself an elbow smack in his side and mouth full of bushy hair for his trouble. When Ginny picked herself up a moment later, and with the back of one hand covering her bleeding nose mumbled 'I'll live, shut your piehole, Ron', she made exactly two steps toward the door, before the heavy ancient bookshelf that looked like it would survive an earthquake creaked, groaned and fell. Coincidentally enough right before the tips of her shoes, sending books on the floor, one striking the Firebolt hard enough it slid from its place whacking Hermione in the ear, and making the sound of an miniature armada canon. Taking a fearful step back, Ginny tripped over her mysteriously untied shoelaces, falling backwards, this time with loud and pained 'owww' as her jeans clad butt met the hard edge of the dropped stone dream-catcher.

"Or maybe not." She whispered, eyes wide and filled with pained tears, sitting and not daring to move an inch or breath any louder then necessary. "You think it's cursed?"

They didn't have time to answer, as Professor Lupin opened the door, called by the racket, Molly Weasley right at his heels. The adults looked at the deer in the torchlight look the teenagers spotted, fallen bookcase and bleeding Ginny before Ron blurted out.

"It's the band!" Molly made her way to her only daughter, with a swift move of her wand sending a healing spell and another taking care of the blood gathered on her chin. Hermione walked to her other side, picked Ginny's arm and showing the pink shells tangled with red string and explained what happened. Remus send a spell, then another and after full minute shook his head, scratching his chin in thought.

"Ginny, take it off and pass it to Hermione, please." He was met with somewhat disbelieving gazes and Molly's scandalized look. Ron jumped off the bed.

"I will take it." Without waiting he broke the thread, earning himself a huff from Ginny and slid the bracelet off his sister's hand, holding it out for inspection. Nothing happened. Ron waved it around and was only met with tense silence. "So?" Lupin, shrugged with one arm and once again send a spell, shaking his head. "So, is it cursed?"

"To answer it simply...no." Remus took the bracelet from Ron's hand and to prove it made a few steps with absolutely no consequences. Ginny threw a betrayed glare at it, waving out her mostly naked forearm with piece of cloth flapping around her elbow, like she was trying to ask 'then what the hell?'." Are those Harry's things?"

"Yes, we wanted to repack his trunk, so the rest, "Hermione pointed at the half emptied bag laying overturned on the messy bed," would fit inside.

"Then I advise you to proceed with caution. This, " Remus put the bracelet on the bedside table, "must have been a gift. It's not a curse and will not hurt you,"he was met with skeptical looks so he amended,"badly, but sometimes taking someone's else gifts, given and meant with a certain person in mind, makes the taker extremely unlucky. It's a bit like anti-theft ward, but with no spell or set of runes. Just something close to wish magic.

"I wouldn't steal it!"

"I know this. But you liked it and it recognized your desire. It's not precise or omnipotent. It recognized you as 'not-Harry', so it acted to protect itself. That's why heirlooms are both so protected and revered. Things that were gifted and re-gifted over many years with this mindset become powerful on their own and therefore harder to steal, not to mention use them. But all the more expensive since even that 'unluck' can be broken. Someone must have wished Harry to have it and he in turn had to go on his way to keep it, for it to become this strong. Don't worry, just put down anything that causes you to become uneasy or like you shouldn't have it.

"Wouldn't it be better to supervise them? Who knows what else there might be in that bag. I will tell Bill, I'm sure he wouldn't mind checking it over for other surprises." Remus rolled his eyes at Molly's retreating back. He will have to remind her that he was the one who packed some of those things, was perfectly capable of doing that without a back-up of cursebreaker and if there was anything dark and sinister, Moody wouldn't let it cross the Grimmauld's door.

Gently.

They were all worried and high-strung without minor bad-luck trouble magnets. Even when they feel strange and awfully familiar. Wasn't it the same bracelet that Tonks zeroed on?

"The Order would be gathering soon, how is the work on Harry's notebook?"

"Great. If you want a recipe for breadsticks or theoretical one person dispute about whatever or not Arresto Momentum can stop a heart." Mumbled Hermione, who, more or less was done with about half of that accursed thing. She didn't quite knew why bother, since it was clear Harry was not in any place that he might have mentioned. She didn't share that thought, wiser people then her worked on the problem and there was simply no way that the idea didn't occur. "I never thought I would say it, but when I see Harry...I'll beat him to death with a wet newspaper. Four years and I didn't realize that he is the smartest idiot I know, the nerve of that boy!"

The sound of laughter made one black cat raise its head, yellow eyes lazily focusing on something flickering between the leaves. It sit up to lick the white patch on its chest and curling its tail in a graceful question mark jumped from the tall ash tree, chased by a low growling hiss of an orange half-kneazle as it vanished in thin air.

Chapter Text

When John slunk out of the warmth of his bed for a second time this morning, it was to the sight of both Harry and Sherlock sitting in the kitchen, looking like they would rather be still asleep. Kitty on the other hand was disgustingly chirpy and talking a storm over a bowl of...was it raw baby spinach? Oh God, it was.

"She refused choco pops." Mumbled Harry into his arms, like he heard John's mute disbelief over the state of matters as he stood rooted on the spot in his sweatpants and old man's flippers. John squinted at his daughter, who waved a leaf at him in greeting and after a moment of consideration took out his phone and snapped a picture as a proof of his loneliness in continued sanity in this madhouse. With a quirk of his mouth he made one more, catching Harry, who took quite a lot of space by sprawling on the table with nose squashed into old wood, refusing to even rise his head up as he waved his hand tiredly.

"Finally joining us in the land of the living?" Droned Sherlock, lowering The Times to peer through half closed and tinted stormy blue eyes all over John's silhouette, smirking smugly before hiding in the lecture. Bah! Like he had any ground to stand on, still in his sleep clothes, two different socks, bed hair that rivaled Harry's and lovingly nursing empty cup, apparently with no intention of getting up anytime soon. Lazybum.

"Needed my beauty sleep." Harry turned his head, cheek still squashed against the wood and snorted, lips twitching before he nestles once again in his arms.

"You poor soul, didn't get a wink, did you?" Sherlock cackled, joined by Kitty, who never passed a chance to emulate the worst habits, as evidenced by the half of dry toast squashed firmly between her high chair and left buttock. John rolled his eyes. Ganged up on the first thing in the morning, and his own flesh and blood, too. How insulting. He hugged his daughter, pressing a kiss to her hair, breathing in the soft baby smell. And spinach.

Of course. Nothing strange here, no mister.

He plucked the mashed tost, throwing it out as he moved to the counter, clicking on the recently overused coffee maker, hanging on its musical hum to keep him standing. They may have be fundamentally British but, a thing your own parents never instruct you on is that a cup of tea does nothing when you have a small child demanding attention at whenever o'clock. It does even less so when you also have insomniac partner, insomniac teenager and too many years of war to feed your nightmares. Not to mention a cat that, for such a smart animal, still tries hunting pigeons by bashing her head on the window.

Blinking off sleepy fog he set on the quest to find his cup, setting a sugar bowl on the table as he brushed Harry's shoulder, feeling it jump and relax almost immediately under his hand. He made a little detour, smoothing Sherlock's hair before leaning in to kiss his forehead, smiling as he moved closer. Like a pair of cats, those two.

Speaking off.

He watched Belle trot from the other kitchen entrance, her tearful terrifying meowing truly heart-wrenching as she tried to wind around his legs. He took a look at her bowl. Yep, as he thought. It was drying next to his prize over sink, hidden by the set of beakers. Still wet.

Belle was wonderful cat. And a fine connoisseur of food which usually meant that no, nobody forgot to feed her, but she will act as if they did no matter how many times she got to eat. She already looked like a fluffy balloon, since they only just realized that she somehow knew how to fit in her kibble container when they weren't home.

Belle, in word, was an awful liar liar fluff on fire.

John took her bowl, filled it with tap water and swiped his cup from the rack, happy enough that it wasn't used in nefarious ways. Again. At the sound of the coffee filling the cup Harry pushed his empty one, adorned by 'Let me charm you' cursive writing and tiny silver stars, toward John with lightly slurred words.

"Pour me the drink as black as my soul." John smiled wolfishly, put Sherlock's coffee close to him and then filled Harry's with warm foamy milk, enjoying the momentarily stupefied expression. Harry's nose wrinkled and with a sleight of hand that should be not possible, he switched the cups. They both watched in expectant silence as Sherlock looped his fingers around the handle, put the drink to his mouth, blew on it gently and then took a delicate sip. And then another, before frowning and then eyeballing Harry, who had his hands clasped around periodic table, tapping insolently at 'He' and taking a gulp with smug smile. Sherlock squinted at John with the kind of 'can you believe that?' expression.

John could.

Harry was prone to small bouts of mischief once he realized that they had no intention of punishing him for harmless pranks. John came home one day, sat down to finish his book, only to discover that plot stopped having any sense and the characters mysteriously changed their names overnight. It's how he realized that every single cover was replaced. On every book that belonged to John except the oldest ones kept on the highest shelf. It must have took Harry hours to do this (it certainly took some time to fix it), but it must have been worth it, since he was giggling like a madman the whole time he re-shelved tome after tome. It was far nicer then one day flapping face first into bed and realizing that your covers didn't suddenly became fluffier and nice smelling but gained about four cans of shaving cream and a 'that's a warning' post-it note. John was quite aware that it was deserved but not at all happy that Sherlock got scout -free.

"The world weeps for you." Sherlock locked his eyes with Harry before plucking a vial of a vile concoction from his untied dressrobe. The low pitched moan that followed was one of the few things that remind them that Harry was still ultimately teenager, one that had a PhD in being dramatic enough to please the ghosts of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde.

Harry hated taking potions with great passion. They tasted like socks juice mixed with gelatin for the improved sliminess factor. He had been fed with mud, blood and Haggis, but still the appetite stimulant potion was the one of the last appetizing things he ever tasted, preceded closely by Polyjuice and Skele-Gro. Harry grabbed the vial, popped the cork with one finger with dexterity of someone with worrying experience and drank it in one swallow, shuddering as it slipped down in its globy, slinky glory.

"What do you want for breakfast?" John slipped the vial from his unresistant fingers, replacing it with banana and vitamin shake that was a mixture of potions, herbology and old fashioned veggie-fruit combo. With pained expression he finished it with three swift gulps before biting into banana to get rid of the revolting mixture lingering on his tongue.

"Vodka and souls of the damned". Growled Harry darkly over the rim of his stolen cup, tipping it generously with milk. If he can't get away without drinking the vile white liquid, then he very well will strive to kill the taste of the gym locker towel with fistful of sugar cubes and black, black coffee. He raised his hand and whispered a blessing over it, knowing that this shit had fifty-fifty chance of working, but if it could work even for no-maj then why not for wizard? He needed all the luck he could get.

Kitty, at the sight of banana proclaimed imperiously 'bana bana' and Harry sighed passing the rest of the fruit toward her, where it was gleefully munched on. At least she looked ecstatic. Belle certainly didn't as she tried to climb on Sherlock's lap only to be thwarted. She finally raised her tail in the air and like haughty queen flopped over the carpet in the main room, very aware that she could and would trip over anyone who dared to not mind her.

"Eggs and toast it is." Agreed apropos nothing John, before shuffling over to the fridge, humming something under his nose. Merlin and Morgana, the good mood was spreading and Harry didn't want to know exactly what got into John. Not after the last time. Nightmares. Nightmares all around. There are things people are not meant to see.

Harry, in truth, was exhausted.

Sherlock believed that Harry rested the best by being kept in motion. He would be right on that account as idleness was a poison that crawled in Harry's brain and made him no better then a dog chasing his own tail in pointless sickening circles. It didn't change the fact that he was as tired as that one single fuck still left partying hard in his head. For the last few evenings he messed around with Mycroft's Monkey that insisted on being called Mr Smith. It was nothing unusual, because Harry had met at least four different 'Mr Smith's' who would come and teach him things and he would bet his wand that none of them thought that babysitting teenager in a basement flat would be a part of their job.

Harry might have committed tiny tactical mistake-many times over-by calling him and his 'friends' a different name every five minutes, thus earning a few brand new bruises, mostly gained by inattention. They were easily healed later, of course, what with his own (strangely successful) proves in the art of potion making and the fact that Sherlock was still somehow better at it. It was ultimately a small price for having his latest minder finally loosen up enough to crack a smile and accept a cupcake. Hitting things-or people in this case- was, Harry admitted, very good therapy and by extension a way to learn to protect his arse a bit better. He liked it quite a bit more then being hit with paint pallets and nursing the egg sized bruise on his thigh, even if the game itself was in fact brilliant. (Grace disagreed with a 'violence breeds violence' speech. Sadly, Harry could not afford to become pacifist on the drop of his hat, he left it for people who had an opt-out option.)

Harry was raised in sadness factory, growing up with self-preservation being in his morning and evening prayers and it taught him that being slow meant being in pain, hungry and ultimately would lead to also being very dead. The realization that mental recovery was more like tiptoeing turtle, bumbling and awkward, then a quick graceful hare, had the unfortunate consequences of meltdowns of epic proportions. The last one thankfully didn't cause any damage but for John throwing his head backwards as Sherlock did his fast talking, and thus getting a crick in his neck.

Smoking was a 'no no' in Baker Street.

Harry knew that he got off the hook lightly, (if watching increasingly disturbing pictures of lung damage and statistics and then having Sherlock sigh sadly at the character traits list he made - before he crossed half of it and rewrote it with things Harry doubted very much that they applied to him - could be called light It gave him ideas, though) maybe because for all that time he tried very hard to not cause problems, but minutely became overcome with this grand new stupidity highs. Like having a smoke would cure his doubts and issues. Ha! If only…He was finding brand new ways of breeding idiocy, but thank Merlin for those people.

Harry was of course grounded. He didn't exactly know how it manifested as he still had his food and his bed and he was not told to do something that included awful, gooey and smelly substances or cleaning or even being banned from going out, but he apparently was. He didn't have any idea how doing his homework - which was mostly done already long before that? - in the quiet corner of Mrs Hudson living room constituted as any kind of punishment or if he was meant to enjoy it as much as he did. He wondered if perhaps his therapist was a part of it. It sure as hell sometimes felt like the universe itself punished him for being a total moron by leaving him guessing.

Grace was wonderful, as always, but he would be grateful to not have a prodding and tentative talk about addictions, thank you. Harry didn't quite know how he ended up liking a person that made him cry and rage and hide under the blankets wishing he could disappear, but here he was. Spilling his guts too many times to think about it and drinking superb cappuccino curled up on the comfiest chair he ever sat on in company of hideously ugly teddy bear.

Within two hours session they talked about friendships and being stuck in a situations that don't have a good working solutions. The most important thing that he carried out of this discussion was that the way he felt indebted to his community didn't equal their right to his person. (No matter that such a debt did not exist in the first place.) He was not a public property, a point he strongly agreed on on principle, but not yet accepted as a fact.

Harry also agreed that the best solution for his guilt at not telling his friends everything after years of keeping big secrets from them, (which was a wise decision at this moment, no matter his mixed feelings on the matter,) was to write the list of everything he wanted to speak with them about and just find the right moment after they meet up again. To calmly explain that there are things he will not say, things that need to stay a secret, things that he needs to deal with on his own, but he will welcome their support. The ground for success was searching for a fine balance between hogging his hurts too close to his chest and putting too much pressure on his friends by oversharing. His relationships with other people should not become his crutch, they were not trained professionals and putting them in this position will end badly for all included.

That conclusion was…liberating. To know that he didn't have to spill the beans, as there were topics that left him raw and hurting, topics that were ugly and scary and few people he knew would be able to give him any advice at all and most would probably pat his head and tell him not to worry about it. As if it ever worked that way. Still, it was hard to think about choosing what he wanted Ron and Hermione and maybe Ginny too, to know. It was good thing that he didn't have to decide right now. A small ritual to clean his mind might be in order. Later. When he will have a strength to raise his arse from the chair, search for the booklet, herb's case and drag down storm water from the roof.

"Are we doing something today?" Asked John, putting down a plate with scrambled eggs on the table. Sherlock scowled at it like it insulted his whole ancestry, but got up to get plates and cutlery - Harry knew he would jab at his food with vengeance and take a few reluctant bites if only to spare himself the 'children learn by example' lecture. Those mercurial eyes suddenly crinkled in the smile that didn't make it to his lips but showed in his whole face at the sight of the back of John's head. It looked like an angry blond porcupine. He stepped closer, gently smoothing up the stuck up hair, running his hand down to the nape of John's neck, thumb lightly skimming the place under the ear. John was blushing, even when his smile was a tad too sharp for innocent thoughts.

Living with those two taught Harry that 'smoldering eyes' was not an euphemism, as they practiced that particular trick a lot. Secondhand embarrassment at this…eye fucking was a daily happenstance, but he prevailed. First two weeks were spend blushing so hard that they teased him by making cow eyes and exaggerated blown kisses. He and Lestrade bonded over mutual mortification that two people can be this sappy without pet names and indecent public cuddles. Now he just rolled his eyes, slurped his coffee and waited for the storm of feelings to pass, armed with the weight of experience and stronger stomach.

Kat thumped her plastic cup on the table and demanded to be put down from her place next to him. He watched her trot to her toys, smeared in green, dragging Miss Bee by one slightly worse for wear wing. He made a note to patch up that poor toy before crisis strikes and came back to his plate, chewing listlessly on buttered toast. At least she could escape this mute torture.

No, Harry wasn't being maudlin, he just wanted to find a pillow and marry it for few hours. For a whole night - another night in the row, for the matter - he had some strange dreams. Not nightmares exactly, but mirages full of technicolor shapes with no features, moving in circles in the never ending dance, a large cat with a white patch on its breast hunting balls of smoke that felt malicious and slimy, clinging to its paws like tar. An old woman with a bundle of clothing at her feet, sitting by a stream or a river, washing off blood and dog fur from button-down shirt with all the patience in the world. He would wake up and fall asleep minutes later, only for a dream to repeat, more or less in the same pattern. He had a headache, one that had nothing to do with a scar, so suspiciously quiet since that first and only vision. Worse was a feeling that he already knew what those dreams meant, but just procrastinated, as was his wont. He wanted to be wrong. He was on vacation, damn it, no saving humanity from supernatural threats till September. He should have office hours too, not starting all the excitement early in the year.

Sooner or later he will have to check it up, probably sooner, so he won't be hemming and hawing till forever. Taking those two lovey-dovey lumps with him too, because he can not risk exposing Statue of Secrecy to Archie or Lotta, and there is no snowball chance in hell they would let him get away with going alone. They hammered into his head that even spies have backup and going into sticky situation by himself, when there are people who can watch his four letters, was the high of idiocy.

They would know.

Harry was reluctant to break the trust they had in his common sense, however undeserved it was. He smuggled a dragon at eleven and stole a car at twelve, one would think that he shouldn't be trusted even with electric toothbrush, but apparently it was 'within norm'. Harry just nodded along in suspended disbelief and thought that maybe he should make sure that Kat never finds out about his…adventures. As precaution. Magic or not, she was shaping out to be a Gryffindor through and through, no need to encourage her. Or give her ideas. The point was - John and Sherlock were the first people, except briefly Remus Lupin, who protected him by giving him skills to protect himself instead of trying to wrap him in the bubble foil and cotton and then unexpectedly throw him at danger to either sink or swim. Going out without backup was like dismissing all they'd taught him and throwing their efforts in their face for the thrill.

And he owed them. He owed them big. He didn't know why they took him in, he tried to solve that mystery and tackled the matter at every possible angle he could think of and came up empty handed. They just did.

Steadfast John made sure that Harry never lacked anything, be it food, warmth, attention…Watched movies with him, put books under his nose as Harry discovered topics that didn't bore him to tears, who teased him about Archie and kept bringing home new bottles of nail polish for Harry to try on.

Sherlock took a world apart and explained it parts in ways that would confuse other people, but were perfectly clear for Harry. He observed and noted and drew conclusions and just knew what Harry needed sometimes before he did, giving freely as much as he was able. He understood and it was wonderful feeling to know that someone did.

Mrs Hudson just smiled at him with crinkled eyes, so often. Bought him a heavy jacket while glowering at her boys for forgetting things so basic and chatted his ear off when they baked in her small kitchen. Loaned him her sofa when he needed a nap and not a one place upstairs remained untouched by Kat's little hands.

Mycroft put a cat carrier and a manila folder in his hands with' temporary guardianship papers, sign', and Harry wouldn't admit under the pain of long and painful torture that he wanted to hug the stuff out of that standoffish idiot and, by Merlin, one day he will.

Molly plied him with coffee, dragged from the depths of her wardrobe a bag that he rarely parted with and introduced him to the pleasure of binge watching Netflix series.

Even Lestrade sicked his kids at him, so he wouldn't feel alone. (Not that it worked very well, as he was not good with crowds and hugging strangers while Ellie and Will were not good with no crowds and personal space.)

It made him feel…included. A part of this strange family from the moment he walked those seventeen steps and joined the circus. And Sherlock's parents…they liked him, just like that, no questions asked. Called him "dear" and "love" and even "sweetheart" like he didn't just drop out of nowhere.

For some reason they all wanted him here, (insomnia, restlessness and issues included,) in all his grumpy glory and he hoped, quietly, that they maybe, possibly, loved him about as much as he came to love them. That maybe, possibly, they will let him write or visit and that they will not forget about him. They felt…like family, more so then even Weasleys because they were…his. Just his, not shared with, not borrowed, not loaned. They choose him and cared for him and wanted him.

And he wanted them back.

"Harry?" Harry's head jumped up from his mostly empty plate, he slid his arm from the table and blinked as John's face came to focus. "Deep thoughts?"

Harry didn't quite thought about it, he just leaned over and pressed against John's stomach, his long arms wrapped themselves around hard middle as he breathed in and out evenly, taking in the aroma of freshly laundered jumper to stop himself from babbling embarrassing things. It was a bit awkward, with his legs still tucked under the table, body twisted halfway, glasses digging in one side of his face, but it didn't matter, because there were hands on his back holding him gently, safe and secure. John was very good at that hugging business, Harry would easily give him five stars. It was nice knowing that he could share this existential sludge of a life with people who make it worth the hassle even when it might not be for forever.

"Sorry for being such a prick." Murmured Harry from his place, making John chuckle and pat his hair, like he understood all the things Harry didn't know yet how to say aloud. He probably did. John was good with gauging feelings, bit worse with expressing them.

"You are a pain in arse but you are our pain in arse." Said John fondly, grasping his shoulder. Before it turned awkward they heard the sound of a cleared throat and Sherlock's strangely even voice.

"John? Come see this." Sherlock at some point left the table and was standing between window and sofa, staring bemusedly at something out of their line of sight. They shared a look, Harry climbed to his feet and then tiptoed in his buffalo slippers into the room, stopping over Belle as he followed John. The man stood gaping in disbelief, leaning against Sherlock's side, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Harry crawled over the couch and put his arms on its back to see what was behind.

On the previously somewhat clean floor lay…spinach. Or more is to say, Miss Bee completely caked and lying in the pool of green mush, probably taken from the little pocket on Kat's stomach, and banana peel with a company of Pinky Pie pink plastic plate full of jelly beans. Hairy jelly beans. So that's where they went…

Harry took his phone and made a picture, sending it to Lotta.

Harry watched the cursor for a moment and then just shrugged when no answer came. He knew that no amount of denying would convince Lo that he and Archie were just friends. Friends who sometimes smooch, when the mood strikes. Nothing romantic there. Just two guys being dudes. They liked each other and world was full of hetero-normative shit and literal shit right now so, whatever they had was perfect to them, no need to over-complicate.

"Sweetheart, what are you doing?" Asked finally Sherlock after a long time of just watching Catherine put her filthy hands in the mess she'd made with enthusiastic splash. She looked as happy as a clam in her elephant patterned outfit and Sherlock's worn-out deerstalker perched precariously on top of her curly head, but she kept inching closer and closer to the carpet and furniture and no matter how absorbing her little…arrangement was, there are some things that just couldn't be sacrificed.

"Pwaying cwime seen! "Came the joyful answer on unapologetic baby. It was like they were raising smaller version of Mr Bean. One that sometimes needed three baths a day, using up all hot water and causing small floods in the bathroom. As it happens she desperately needed one now and John was steeling himself for the battle. There was also no telling if the clothes will survive the attempts to revive them from the sickly green hell, they just might end up being a collateral.

John turned to look up at Sherlock, who was sporting particularly proud besotted smile. He barely contained the curious mix of resignation and amusement settling in his chest as he poked him in the side with 'This is all your fault' and turned toward kitchen. A second later a wet rag slapped Sherlock on the back of his head, causing Harry and Kitty to laugh at the splat when it slid and landed on his shoulder, wetting his robe and washed out brown t-shirt. John marched to bathroom, opening the door wide only to stop dead, one leg raised in the air. He slowly put it down and slapped his hand over his face and rubbed it vigorously.

"Sherlock, why there is fog machine in our bathroom?"

Sherlock didn't answer, too busy pouting as Harry snapped a picture of John hidden by a swirling mist. The boy kept chortling and only once he calmed down, he made a grabby hands toward Sherlock, hanging over the arm of the sofa like ridiculously large sloth trying to grab another branch.

"You owe me twenty." Sherlock patted his gown and then grumbling lightly pushed money in Harry's hand. Harry blow at the bill and put it in his own gown, patting the pocket with obvious smugness. "Thank you."

John stiffed his helpless laughter and went into the bathroom waving his arms and trying to not brain himself tripping over anything. He turned the machine off and started to fill the bathtub, making a note to get a hold of the picture later.

"Belle, no!"

Something thumped hard on the floor. John sighed, rubbed his nose and turned on hot water, filling the tub.

All in all, it was pretty unremarkable morning.

If Sherlock could, he would make the Dursley's long for something as soothing and mild as Spanish Inquisition. Maybe it wouldn't solve any problems but at least it would make him feel better. A lot better. He was never a fan of large population but people like that made him abhor the thought of belonging to the same species. They were like cancer, corruptible mass of cells, rot that spread in all directions, innocuous and invisible till you dig your fingers in and smell this garbage. Dursley's stood against everything Sherlock believed his whole life. Curiosity. Open-mindedness. Righting the wrongs. Disregard of rules that oppressed the person's individuality and discovery of their sense of self. They were rigid in their so called 'normality' to the point they may have, given time, set themselves back in evolution. And all that didn't even touch how raging hypocrites they were. Dear god, how in the world, how, a household like that managed to produce Harry. They had no idea what kind of treasure they were giving up.

And the only consolation to be had was Sherlock tearing into them, sparing nothing and finishing with telling them that he and John had no ounce of magic as the dunderheads assumed.

It wasn't enough, but it will be. Soon. Soon when the summer will end.

They made sure that once they will get the ball rolling it would snowball so fast the Dursley's will be buried under the avalanche of their own making within three days - from arrest to incineration. With many, many sticking charges and one of them conspiracy to kill a minor. The gentle, fierce creature that right now sat in the 221C staring into a bowl of water and trying to deal with everything the world heaped on him with just and aid of hedge-witch magic and two idiots who don't quite know what to do with themselves outside of their professions.

Sherlock could beyond a shadow of a doubt admit to himself that he was seething. John's fingers rested lightly at his forehead, smoothing the forming lines. It didn't help much. Maybe because the reason he was suddenly so enraged rested against his side, reminding him of itself every time he micro-moved with a soft crinkle of paper.

He forgot about it. He forgot because it looked like it didn't matter at a time so he deleted it. Until now. Until John did that sort of strangely adorable nose scrunch he did when he was thinking and remembered the letter hastily and carelessly put in Belstaff pocket. And now that accursed piece of paper was burning a hole in his blue gown, causing him a mother of all headaches.

He knew that this needed to be done. That Harry had to be given the option to accept or refuse, needed to make that decision for himself even if he ends up being hurt by it.

Sherlock had read it.

He was not exactly proud of it, but he did. With the mentality that nothing that came out of those people could have any more worth then the paper it was written on. If it contained nothing but threats, nothing but poison and hate he would have burned it without regrets and Harry would never know.

It didn't.

And yet, it was no less vile, no less bitter then if it were just hateful ramblings. Sherlock was quite sure, that should he ever met Dudley Dursley again, he will not let his tongue stay behind his teeth. He doesn't need to take out the letter to remember.

'Its good you are not here. Dad is furious. Dad say that they try to make me a sissy but I dropped 9 kg and if I didn't I don't know if I could run that fast from those hooded things. Those freaks turned by and said they were dementids and that they took them away. But they got Pierce and that whiny brother of his and doc said they are alive but not waking. I kinda thing they are done for. Those freaks of yours were here three times. They screamed a lot. Even more when mum gave them your letter. Asked if you took money from your account. Dad says he will leave you pennyless. That was before those weird guys came and said to sign some papers. Mum is pregnent. Dad finally cracked, said he will crack your skull like nuts if he see you'. Started throwing everything out of you're room so I wager you don't have anything to come back to, either way. Don't come back, Potter.

It didn't help anybody.
It didn't say anything they needed to know or didn't knew already.
It can't even be used as a piece of further evidence.

It was not even worth the paper it was written on.

Sherlock moved his head, grasping John's wrist and put his lips on the salty skin over pulse point, lingering. Counting the steady beats until his fury died down to just a simmer burning under his skin. He sat up, rolling his slightly stiff shoulder, chasing away the pins and needles feeling.

"That bad, huh?" John gently tugged him closer, closing the book he was holding. He was still on the same page he was half an hour ago. Sherlock went willingly, slotting himself on John's side and dropping his arm over oatmeal clad frame. He pushed his face in the blond and steel hair, relishing the familiar smell and touch of John's fingers sifting through the curls on his nape. His hand went to his pocket, pulling off the scrunched piece of paper and he offered it to John. Time passed in silence and then fingers stilled. "Well…can you imagine the sex?"

"John!"

John dressed up Kit and, after exchanging a long look with Sherlock, he took his jacket and phone and disappeared down the stairs. Harry watched as Sherlock slid from the sofa and with a frown etched on his forehead reached for the violin case.

There was a method to that madness.

Sherlock played often. Nearly every day. It was a treat when he was not in a hard place with the case, when the delicate strings would produce symphonies instead of the most hellish sounds known to mankind. A treat Harry relished, as any classical music in Dursley's household, was more dog-and-pony show from people who always tried to pretend they are somehow more erudite and enlightened then they were. Thus Harry's proper table manners and strangely high middle class enunciation and pronunciation. (A fact that always made Dean laugh whenever it came up, mostly because, while Harry was raised in Surrey, he had a proper private school accent.)

Sherlock plays every time there is something weighting on his head. He plays all the things he can not say and all the things that don't fit into words. Harry wished he could do that, too, hen he is high-strung, but the few times he tried his fingers were clumsy, sliding of strings, the pads stung. It felt wrong to torture that poor priceless instrument with his complete lack of talent.

Harry finally packed off the rest of the herbs, having already cleaned off his bowl. It left his head less a jumbled mess but filled with wandering thoughts and he relished the confirming message that came a minute earlier, if only to move his attention elsewhere.

"I'm going to Lotta, so she can scream at me about the lack of value of creams with gold and collagen while we fuel cosmetic industry, do you need something?"

"Pincers. And Kitty's shampoo." Harry winced. Privately he thought that providing ammo - and then spending another half of a morning moping bubbles created by tiny troll grabbing whole bottle and squeezing it into the bathtub in the three seconds nobody was looking - was an overkill. But even two year olds need to be dunked into water every now and then, so shampoo it was. "Will you be long?"

"An hour, maybe bit longer…but, she asked us if we want to have sleepover since her stepmother is blessedly away."

"Plays to all the future step-mom stereotypes, doesn't she?" Harry grimaced. Miss Patricia 'call me Penny' wasn't a bad person, not really. She only belonged to the type of a person who would loudly proclaim they always wanted a child of this chosen gender and had certain ideas about how this child would behave. Unfortunately for her, Lotta was rather too old to be converted to wear anything 'boho' and too stubborn to paint over the enormous bejeweled pirate flag that sat on her wall, no matter how it clashed with a shelf full of tiny crocheted endangered species animals. One of which was packed up rather sloppily in recycled paper and waiting for its time to shine, nestled safely in Harry's bag. He patted it gently. "Her dad will be home?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"And we won't see 'l am sorry I nearly get arrested' cake?" Harry blushed. It was once. And in a noble case. The cake was good, too.

"No, we will eat pizza, go to animal shelter to walk out some puppies, watch Star Wars and plan to overthrow government."

"Good, Mycroft could use some excitement. You can go. Don't forget to meditate. Or your potions."

"Already have them. " He saw Sherlock smirk lightly as he plucked the strings. Harry walked towards door rummaging through his bag, searching for the spare keys should he need them before he nearly walked into door frame. "Oh, before I forget, look up the dryer? I went to see if it's spewed out my sweatshirt but I think something is wrong with it. It whizzes like that haunted radio." Harry throws his hand toward the offending piece, a yellow and orange child toy radio that sometimes turns on on its own when the batteries shift, making awful 'screams of the damned' noise. Sherlock doesn't look. His eyes are closed. He breaths slowly, hands poised to play but not yet touching the strings, like he is composing in his head.

"Uhmmm. Harry? Are you alright with…?" Harry didn't pretend he didn't knew what he was asked about. The letter was…hurtful. But it was expected in a way that just made him roll with the blow and lend him straight on his feet again. Privately he thought that it was the one decent thing Dudley have ever done and that maybe there was some hope for him after all. His aunt's pregnancy was...Harry didn't want to go there. Whatever happens to this child, he hoped their life would be better then both his and his cousin's. In the end he nodded firmly, patted himself for phone and spare coins and headed for the door. "Have fun, kiddo."

"Bye dad!"

Harry was nearly fully down when it comes to him.

He stops.

Waits, heart nearly in his throat, eyes nailed to the ceiling.

And then he hears it.

It takes being two blocks from his destination for the tears to stop falling, replaying the melody in his head like a broken stereo. He shrugged off his tail nearly five minutes ago but now that he pays attention the feeling of being watched doesn't disappear. He hates it to bits even when he understands the necessity. He shakes his head and catches the sight of Lotta waving at him from the other side of the street, Archie slouching against the streetlamp right next to her in his characteristic 'my expectations for life were low but boy, it still sucks' way that is all in eyebrows. He wipes his tears at the sight but not the smile that stretches over his face.

"Hey, you cried? What happened?" Lotta grabs his arm and drags him toward the shop entrance while searching her bag for something.

"We don't have to kick someone's butt, don't we? You know I'm rather more 'wasabi flavored play-dough in a bubble gum wrap' then 'fist in the mouth' kind of man." Archie unslouches himself before attacking Harry with a boneless hug nearly smacking Lotta in the face. "But I will protect you."

Harry peers down at the riot of white-ish curls and a body that was known to struggle with the weight of smartphone and existence and wonders if that bit of soft fluff and mischief could protect anything ever that wasn't bucket of chicken wings or double soda.

"Why are all my friends like that?" Harry asks rhetorically and slides an arm around his clingy friend, wrestling him to his side, letting him glue himself there.

"Maybe you have a type? " Lotta finally finds a pack of tissues and dabs at Harry's cheeks, using the advantage of both of his arms being held hostage and that he has nowhere to run. She drops the tissue in her bag and, standing on tip-toes, plucks a daisy from his hair. His heart stops at the sight of it and he tries to swallow the unnamed emotion that comes too close to anticipation for his liking. Lotta puts the flower in the breast pocket of his flanel and smiles in a way that makes her nose all scrunched up. He chances a peek down and pulls his friends closer, scanning the air, knowing it will hardly help except for his peace of mind.

One more confirmation for his theory. When it rains, it pours…

"Annoying and awkward people who follow me around and then complain about places they follow me to?"

"Friends who have samples of your DNA and can frame you for murder. Now come, not all of us are born with your face."

"You are welcome to it." At which point Archie climbs on his tip-toes and kisses Harry's cheek throwing an obnoxious gesture and rather muffled 'no'. The quiet hum behind him tells him that the automatic doors close after them. He pulls them into an empty aisle and shakes his head at the concerned looks he is given. He breaths in and plunges "… I called Sherlock dad."

"Oh fuck. Tell us everything."

Chapter Text

"Harry, you look like a licked blueberry lollipop dragged up from under the couch. Please tell me that this will not stay." They were not the first words John expected to say this early in the morning. He put down the copy of Daily Prophet next to the newspaper pile and stood up to get Harry his cup. The front door closed quietly, bare whisper of material and light thumps succeeded in announcing that Harry managed to leave his jacket and shoes somewhere close enough to where they were supposed to be.

"Mistakes of my past self…I was lucky. Archie got magenta and he is blond." John winced. He watched yawning Harry make his way toward the kitchen table, pushing down his bag on the chair before he seated himself, making grabby hands at the sight of coffee.

"If you want to dye your hair we will do it properly not...what did you use?"

"Spray. Lotta has a lime green highlights. She looks like Grinch. How bad it is?" John did a quick search for words as he hid his twitching mouth in his cup before throwing a glance at his watch.

"What do you prefer, Cookie Monster or Stitch?. " John snickered at Harry's playful 'ouch'. "Blue is good colour on you but you look like you are wearing crusted over toupee. So…are we keeping it?" Harry hesitated and John prayed that it was not the case. Because he knew that decisions like that were usually followed with decisions about piercings and tattoos and he was simply 'not ready' for any of that.

"Maybe next year." Oh, praise the Lord for small mercies. " I need to wash it out. Errr...did Lestrade call you?"

"Harry…" Where was Sherlock when he was needed? Asleep. That's where. A man who claims to never sleep. As if. At least Kit is with him, probably keeping her small smelly feet on his face, so there is that. Maybe he will even decide to share why he was in a such a strange mood yesterday after John came back from the walk in the park. It's not every day…no, scratch that. It was not that often that John would find him sitting on the floor a bit disheveled and clutching at his violin looking so utterly baffled. And then he continued on the day switching between endearingly elated and terrified, jumping from one to the other in one leap like a mountain goat. If that will keep, Harry would catch on and probably be understandingly confused before thinking it was his fault, so…nope. They need to talk. Pronto.

One day was truly enough for whatever life crisis he was having. No need to overindulge.

"It's nothing! I mean, we only went to walk dogs, and it turned out that they…" Harry slid his hand through his hair, pulling it out immediately with disgusted look. John passed him a paper towel and let him fibble for a moment, pouring himself more coffee." Lotta goes twice a week, yeah? She dragged Archie and me there too, and last week we've been here, yes? There was that older labrador she liked to walk every now and then, Mikah. You've met her." John nodded, remembering very clearly his slobbered hands and Sherlock on one knee getting his famous coat covered in sandy and grey fur, too busy scratching the dog behind her ears to care about scowling pedestrians. To this day there were only three ways to distract Sherlock when his mind was on the case. Unexpected 'I love you's', shoulder kisses and dogs. John found he was kinda alright with that since he figured on that list twice. "So yesterday we went back and she wasn't in her cage and there were things not adding up, so we kinda…"

"Meddled?"

Harry brushed hard against his bristly chin and then tugged on his sleeves with both hands. Powdery blue spray dye smeared on his wrist. He blinked at the remains confusedly, before raising his head and pinning John in his place with the eyes that looked far too sharp.

"Finally! I thought we would never get here!"

"Archie, darling, the light of my life, the bane of my existence…we would get here earlier if we didn't have to stop to feed you at that Thai place." Lotta threw her keys at Harry, and he was smart enough to not comment about the fact she had her own pockets. She was very outspoken about the virtue of pockets. Especially lack of those fulfilling their proper function in her own wardrobe.

"And the pizza on the way." Harry opened the door to the animal shelter they were trying to invade, letting Lotta and Archie slip under his arm. Skilfully ignoring Archie's offended look and the fact Harry himself had partaken in sharing said thai and pizza and…

"Ice cream, too." Yes. That. It was rather bad moment to mention that he was craving a chicken sandwich so, wisely, he resisted from announcing that fact. He discovered a black hole in his stomach and while it was convenient at restaurants crawl Sherlock led him through so he would not suffer subpar food, it was stupidly insistent on being filled. He probably still had a whole box of coconut Laddu in the bag. Probably. If Sherlock didn't eat them all before he packed it.

"I'm a growing boy in need of sustenance and I will not hear your hurtful words you heathens."

And then Archie marched straight past them toward the cages and let the small bouncy fluff ball that could generously be called a dog slobber all over his fingers.

Harry had ambivalent feelings toward dogs. He liked them all in theory, but in practice he avoided the smaller breeds. He didn't delusion himself in thinking it didn't have anything to do with Aunt Marge and her prised monsters. Knowing that it was not a dog's fault that their owner was a bitch didn't make him any less weary of those ankle biters. The bigger ones on the other hand reminded him of Sirius and with this in mind he went in search of Atmo, a rather sad looking labradoodle blind on his left side he'd met thanks to Lotta.

It wasn't there.

It was only a second time he ventured into this shelter. Loretta had been lobbying for his company since forever, and so had Archie. It took him embarrassingly long to just admit he had problems with overly enthusiastic jumpy dogs that didn't reach his knee, has been promptly called an idiot, hugged and dragged along to walk with stoic old labrador named Mikah, labradoodle that didn't leave his side and pushed his head into Harry's hand at every opportunity and floppy eared massive bernardine who pulled Archie along like a roadkill.

He liked that dog. But instead of it there was a blue-eyed mutt with bright orange fur sitting behind bars, listless and incurious.

"She is not there. Mikah." Lotta paced along the row of cages and finally stood next to Harry. "Atmo, too?"

"Yes. Lets check the board." They backtraced, passing the door with orange dots and the empty coat rack.

It was strange. Both Mikah and Atmo were, what Jess- another volunteer that was there the last time and helped Harry with filling papers -said life-timers. So long in the shelter that they became more a fixture in a background then available choice. People rarely searched for dog veterans with scars or achy joints, instead picking up puppies without thinking what they would do with them once they grow up.

The board was just to the right of the entrance door. Pinned to the cork by colorful pins were pictures of the recently adopted dogs and cats sometimes with their new owners, sometimes by themselves with only a paper heart with 'found a loving home with' filled with names.

Neither dog was on the board.

"Is that unusual?" Mouthed Harry, his instincts already screaming wronwrongwrong." Do they put them the pictures later on? The hearts look like they were signed by many different people." He didn't even blink when Lotta circled him, putting herself out of sight of the passing worker and tapped some random picture with her finger with a fake smile plastered on her face.

"They have instant camera. It's the owners who put pictures and sign."

"Hey." Archie slipped between them, his eyes flicking at the board as he sprawled on Harry's side, his hand digging hard into his forearm. " Come on, there are new puppies!" His voice lowered to tense whisper as he curled his arm around Lotta's and tugged them forward. "Frog and Amor aren't in their cages. I checked the other room too."

Well, it was always nice to know that he wasn't the only one who sniffed mystery where others would see coincidance.

They followed quietly until they sat themselves in more open area, Harry's back to the desc shielding Archie who instead of a puppy was cradling his phone, tapping on it insistently, leaving Lotta on the lookout, sitting sideways, cooing at the brown balls of fluff and promising bloody murder with her eyes when the two people sitting in the dark corner filling some papers weren't paying them any attention.

"They didn't have any event. There is nothing in social media or the main page except…ah, here it is." Archie put out his phone like he was sharing cute picture, but kept it up long enough to get the gist. It was time to meddle.

"We need the red key." Harry scratched the puppy on his lap after he scanned the text. "And then the light blue and black."

"What?" Lotta looked over her shoulder at the pinned row of keys above the desc of a woman somewhere in her fifties. Her co-worker flitted over her, his short bleached hair making him look like he missed his time to shine by a decade.

"Room behind me, on my left."

"When the hell did you figured it out? I've been looking at that damned keys since forever."

"There is fifteen keys." Harry mentally thanked Sherlock for his 'practice observation where you don't need it' offhanded advice. He had been doing it everywhere he went now, picking on small things and congratulating himself when he was right. (And trying to figure out what went wrong when he wasn't.) It was absorbing game. He had counted the keys when he was there for the first time. Matched some of them to doors they opened. Was close enough to see the scratches on the surface and their sizes and differences in nail polish colors applied to them. It was very long twenty minutes at the desk where the computer system was mulling over his phone number, but it looked that it was not ill spent. " Unmarked with five on hoop is likely for entrance, reception, outdoor run area, storage and the gate. That leaves adoption office, isolation room, treatment, four rooms with animals, management and inner yard. Yellow for office. It's still in the lock. Dark red and orange for dog rooms, blue and violet for cats. Those are marked. Two plain silver ones are for isolation, one for dogs and the other for cats, I think. So that leaves us with lighter red, black, light blue and pink. The pink hangs on the opposite wall to others, kinda out of the way? If it was me it would be the key to where I keep meds - so treatment room. The guy is new. He keeps getting the reds mixed and trying to open that door with the dark red. So we need the other one. The management office. Light blue is larger, and it wasn't here last time we came by. I want it. "

"And the black?"

"No idea. Let's find out, shall we?"

"They killed her. And Atmo. A lot others. There was whole container full of black plastic bags in the yard. So we broke in, got pictures and called places. More or less receptive places...Greg might call. I know you have me on the pinglist."

"What was that story that tipped you off?"

"A pair adopted a Border Collie. Three days after that it got very sick so they had called the vet that was supposedly the one who had signed health check, except he didn't even worked with that shelter, you know? So we knew that there was something wrong with papers, Archie is a perfect distraction all by himself, Lo stole the keys and I got to the documents. They didn't even hide it, the orders for was smack on top of the pile. From three different places to cover up how big the order was. I guess that it still was cheaper than the meds and upkeep of sick and old and unwanted."

John tipped forward and wound one arm around Harry's shoulders, bending him sideways and kissing the side of his head, feeling his rigid pose melt a little.

"Proud of you. Very much. " Harry squeezed him back before he stood up and stretched to his full height. His eyes were wet. John pushed him gently forward. "You go wash that Smurf from your head. I'm going to wake up Sherlock and will make you a sandwich, hmm?" And John didn't need to be a detective to notice that even as Harry nodded, he looked nervous. Shifty. Well, so maybe he knows a thing or two that John doesn't. Time to grill his partner." You have the most lackadaisical luck in the world, kid."

"Don't I know that. Where is Kit?" They both raised their heads at the sound of feathers, watching as Hedwig, her beautiful white feathers dyed with henna into milk chocolate brown, squeezed into a window's opening and barking indignantly, pecked at the rolled up paper firmly clasped in her talons.

"Still asleep." John picked a leftover piece of bacon from his plate and waved it till the owl made her way from the sill onto the back of his chair, daintily taking the offering and dropping off the 'New Scientist' in Harry's hands along the way. It never got boring. How many no-maj people could say they have an utterly lovely smart owl that can fetch your post and steal one-hundred-pound-per-half-a-year periodics from your neighbours? He moved his hand, sliding his fingers over the fluffy head. Even the occasional sight of a rat's tail disappearing in her beak couldn't make Hedwig any less then absolute queen. "She discovered that Miss Bee is still in the washroom. We promised that she could see Sherlock doing operation on her wing and let her watch 'Little Mermaid'. She kept asking where is her tail."

Harry started to laugh, startling Belle from her nap, making her slide from her perch on the top shelf where she dangled precariously a moment ago tucked away among books. John had long ago stopped being unnerved by the fact that Hedwig could and did laugh, her barks loud as her head trailed the indignant cat wobbling through the room toward kitchen.

"Do you want me to make her one?"

"God Harry, how we lived without you?" Harry pulled out a bottle out of his bag, his blushing face barely fighting a smile that crept in the corner of his mouth. "Is that Kitty's shampoo? Well,…once more unto the breach?"

Harry send him a smile that said everything about how much he failed in his fake enthusiasm. Harry sipped on the dregs of his coffee and rolled his shoulders as he stood up.

And when John heard the sound of bathroom door closing shut behind Harry's back and made a beeline on the balls of his feet toward the bedroom, eh, nobody has to know, yes?

"Ooof, not sleeping. " Garbled Sherlock when the pillow smacked him in the face. He opened one mercurial eye to glare. It lost a lot of its usual effectiveness when paired with mussed bed-hair and pillow-creases on his cheek. "And is it the way to greet your partner, hmm?

John bent down and kissed his forehead, barely restraining the snicker at Sherlock's offended face.

"Yes it is when said partner is lazybum. And don't wake up Kitty." They both threw a look to where their child somehow gravitated toward the other end of the bed, slobbering on high thread cotton in her sleep. "Now spill, why you and Harry are so shifty. You have fifteen minutes and those hands are not to be involved in the talking."

John rolled his eyes at Sherlock pouting mouth when he took his hand from under the hem of John's shirt where it rested low on his spine and put it behind his own head. He supposed he could give this ridiculous man something as a consolation prize and kissed off that mullish expression.

"Alright. But on one condition…How bad Harry looks in blue hair and did you take any incriminating pictures?"

"Bad. And sadly no. Did Greg contact you?"

Sherlock waved toward his phone not moving an inch from his pillow to reach it.

"Yesterday, yes."

"And what did he say?"

"Well, from what I remember we were busy and you threatened bodily harm if I pick up my phone, so no idea." John opened his mouth and then choose to remain silent, putting the phone in Sherlock's hand. Any argument would fail flat like he did last night after they were done. He was asleep long before his higher brain functions returned. No regrets on that one, except perhaps abandoning his yoga practice for too many days in the row. Sherlock smirked like he knew exactly where his thoughts had wandered, the smug bastard. "How it is that Harry can't go anywhere without finding ways to complicate his life?"

"Are you asking me this?"

"…Fair point."

"So, what happened yesterday? Was it about the letter?"

Sherlock fell silent for a long moment before he lightly tugged him closer. He thought of resisting, having just ironed the shirt half an hour ago but instead lay down, feet still on the floor and let Sherlock put his head over his chest, ear pressed to John's heart. He curled his arm over the tense shoulders, breathing in the smell of Sherlock's hair.

"He called me dad. Said 'bye dad' and then dashed off and realized that before he went down so I played for him and watched him go and then kind of…"

"Got overwhelmed." Finished John feeling strangely breathless. It was one thing to wish for it and completely different to finding out that it happened. Bloody fuck, he is not going to cry. Ah…too late.

"Yes." Sherlock raised his eyes and nothing could cover the fact that they were wide and misty.

"Sweetheart…" John kissed him and didn't care whose tears he tasted. Sherlock moved, hovering slightly above him and then gently putting their foreheads together as they breathed the same air. "We are adopting him. For real."

"Yes." Sherlock nodded against his head, eyelashes wet but smile wide and happy. "Yes we are. It's just so…"

"Big."

"I was going to say unreal, but yes. We are going to be dads...Again!"

John couldn't hold it any longer. He laughed. He laughed so hard tears were streaming down his face and he laughed even more when Sherlock peppered his face with kisses, trying to pin him down to the bed. He jumped up and nearly brained Sherlock when a small weight landed hard across his legs and then his daughter crawled up demanding kisses and cuddles.

Bloody hell…

…and he was late for job.

Oh, screw that.

"Harry! Mount a rescue mission! I've been abducted!"

"It's not much of a case...more like irregularity." Explained Harry in the late afternoon, having somewhat hesitantly called them both after an hour of walking around, clearly mulling over whatever he should or not. Well, that opening certainly would explain why he was so keen on selling Catherine (and Bella, much to the Kneazle's disgruntlement) to Mrs Hudson after dinner. Harry made his way to the sofa, sitting with Sherlock right next to him and John leaning behind them both from behind. The poor man, having just crawled back home some time ago, regaled them with abbreviated story of his day and didn't exactly kept himself from snarking at people being sick in damned August.

"We went through John's emails and something jumped up." Sherlock snickered. Still not a Fort Knox. " Lot of those crimes were situated less then five minutes walk from each other. We looked up the police records and the crime map. Those are only from the beginning of June. There are pdf's with articles if you want them, Lotta helped us quite a bit by ordering them according to date and Archie made a graph, here. " Harry showed them laptop screen, but not before somewhat flustered scrambling to close the message window. Sherlock took it from his hands catching a website in the background about...Albania? And the tail of conversation.

He snorted. Inwardly. Archie and Harry were friends. Only friends, if taking romantic relation as some sort of end game. (Which was stupid, because before they became partners John was Sherlock's friend first and foremost and should it have always stayed that way, he would not be poorer for it.) But they were lonely and hurting and young, searching for somebody to connect with. That, and Sherlock was pretty sure that part of their fluid exchange was a bit of experiment in 'do I like it or do I not'.

It was 'friends with benefits' if benefits were emotional support and cuddling…Sherlock personally couldn't imagine coming home to someone he didn't like, so from observation alone, they had more functioning relationship then most married couples he had met in the line of his work.

They clicked together just right with the same dry humor, inquisitive minds and few scars hid under charisma and charm.

And baring all that…it was blindingly obvious how terribly lonely they were, no matter the size of the crowd.

Harry was cut from his friends more then ever. Not to mention how absolutely alien the world he left bare four years ago was to him. He threw himself into unknown with a heavy baggage. It was work and half to convince him that while he had problems,he wasn't a problem.

Archie…Archie was still heartbroken when his best friends left school less than two months before the end of school and were whisked all the way to Austria. Not to mention all the reasons for that move and why he once again appeared in Sherlock's life, the poor kid.

But, if Sherlock would wager an educated guess, what cemented that friendship was more born of shared trauma before they'd even met.

Like called to like, Sherlock would knew that very well.

The way Harry met Lotta, while amusing, had happened after less than ordinary circumstances and yet turned into friendship pretty quickly once Harry spilled his explanations. She was such an interesting person that it did something funny to his stomach when he thought of all the reasons why, after years of coming to London for summers, she would find friends only in two boys who were so obviously not interested in her at all. Not interested and so very, very protective, each in his own way. (He wondered if all Harry friends and family were shrouded in background drama.)

Both of those friendships was one of the reasons that Baker Street was nearly permanently out of food on most days, (that's a lie, they were never consistent about it and became only slightly more so after Harry despaired over the lack of something as basic as flour in their cupboards ) a pair of crimson jeans (Archie's) was drying in the bathroom along with one pumpkin covered sock (that belonged to Loretta ) and one black studded fingerless glove (Harry's, but god only knows where he got those from) which lost few studs along the knuckles but gained bloodstain in mysterious circumstances. The teens couldn't quite give clear enough explanation as to the what, why and the how or even the where. Sherlock puzzled this little story together but decided to not to share it with John. Yet.

At least they had enough of common sense between them to call Lestrade.

Again.

He nearly pitied that man.

Nearly.

In the wake of…whatever had happened then, Harry swore to never go for a dance again in the spirit of "one time it turning into disaster is coincidence, a second one is universe trying to tell you something". Sherlock was deeply aware of Harry's particular brand of luck and decided to teach him how to dance in the near future. Just in case. And that it was too long since he and John danced vertically.

Bearing that in mind, he focused on the screen and started scrolling through results. Some of it was already familiar. Fairly common thefts, domestic violence, shops robberies... all noted when he went through the laptop history few days before…Only, the kids were right.

The outbreak of crimes and frankly ridiculous amount of notes that consisted of - 'things disappearing and appearing again" lost keys, mysterious somebodies 'making a mess in the garden by planting weeds in circles on my meticulous lawn, the villains", too many cats, too loud birds, stolen…spoons?, neighbours children laughing after dark and missing pets - centered in only one place and, if the dates were right, in a space of around two and half months was staggering. Nothing that would interest either him or John, no gruesome murders, no million pounds thefts. The was no mystery in an idiot setting fire to a few trash cans. The only part that caught his interest was disappearance of three people that lived in the area, - their names, rough description and few other details along with assumed time of disappearance noted on different page - and four dogs found dead and mauled close to the river bank.

No wonder that the bobbies were so unwilling to check up when the Cowell's case came up, swamped with work as they were.

If not for their quick trip to Germany or more specifically to Hannover (which Harry and Catherine sadly had to sit out since Harry was sick as a cat even if he didn't want to admit it),

Harry writing down everything he heard (his recorder barely registered any sound, bar quiet tapping of his fingers, but enough to hear two men talking) from the car plates, to Billy Boe (which was about the worst nickname ever, but it did led then to William Bolevar and a sack, that smelled strongly of river muck stuck, stuck in the suspiciously clean boot like a particularly damning souvenir,

And completely unlikely story about finding poor Johan just wandering about in the middle of the night,

It would have taken months.

With Sherlock involvement… it was barely a case at all, with all the information provided by a banged up teenager. Harry took the notes John made at the airport when the shaky wife identified her scumbag of a husband's body, added them to his own and arrived as close to solutions as he could, and that without having the police reports on hand.

It was easy.

It was too easy.

Sherlock was not a fan of too easy. Especially when it should be anything but.

Now he wished he actually took more interest in the case. He rarely left any unsolved to their full extent when there were facts still to be found, but it kept sliding off his mind to the bottom of the list like a slippery dream you had once and was able to recall only bits and pieces. He hated that it felt like a loose end that kept dangling somewhere beyond his grasp.

If he only could focus…

Something tickled him off about that particular man finding himself exactly where he shouldn't.

Damien Goldberg, one very shifty shop owner, reeked of guilt.

Jakob and Natalie Ferguson, the famed infamous couple that owned the Oak Inn somehow figured in that too. If only he knew what to look at, but then he was distracted by the truly magnificent heist that happened only few days later and by the horror of spending two whole days with skittish teen and a two-year-old at seaside.

To be honest, the only obvious difficulty lay in fiding how to tie the mysterious Ariadna without her slipping out from the justice clutches. In the end it was more like the universe worked out its own solution. She, through means still unknown, found out that there was a witness to her henchmen failure and pulled her own noose when she send people after Harry's hide. It was unfortunate decision, as Harry already had half the London's homeless watching over him along with Mycroft's people, ( he found all this about as irritating as Sherlock did,) trailing his every step. A bit overkill to bring MI-5 or 6 - or whatever number they were at currently- into catching petty criminal and walking after bit sullen fifteen year old, but it made a funny story and left the VIP of magical world unharmed and snarking at the lack of proper excitement.

For someone who claimed to be tired of being always the one who has to deal with 'all the world's shit', he was unwilling to just sit around, rest and look pretty. They'd let him. For the most part. As much as they hated it, Harry needed experience, skills and knowledge to live through the new reign of one Tom 'put a fancy butchered french title here 'Riddle. They couldn't teach him spells or magic, not in the way that would make difference. But confidence? Thinking outside of the box? Building his own support web and falling back on it should he ever be in over his head? Nothing taught those skills better than hands on approach. It had an added bonus of somewhat tempering his hotheadedness. Now he would do things out of the sheer bluntheaded stubbornness. So, maybe, they were not exactly the picture perfect role models, but Harry was still alive and had a lifetime of burning his fingers to learn better ahead of him.

For that moment, Harry trusting them with his findings and recognizing that those might turn too big for his hands, was a sweet taste of victory.

Still, how three teenagers somehow got to this point where apparently no one in media didn't even notice?

Bloody hell…

Sherlock knew of a few things that could make people act in aggressive manner in controlled environment. It was surprisingly easy to poke a hornets nest.

If it was organized crime it should be called 'disorganized' in this particular case. Perhaps the petty crime was just a distraction? But from what? Disappearing people? Were they in any way important? Influential? Did they disappear because they saw something they shouldn't have seen?

Poisoned water source, sect and drugs were in the realm of probability, too, but Harry's research went in different direction.

For some reason he focused on the dogs. 

Two middle sized mutts, amstaff and a Jack Russell Terrier died in the last two months, found in the same state. Harry double marked 'Wet, like whatever they fought came from the river' with notes along 'fish scales' 'crup?!' and 'not a dog' on a margin of article that said the authorities were hunting a rabid dog.

"Dog that is not a dog?" Asked John, reading fast over Sherlock's shoulder. They agreed at the very beginning that Harry's cases were his and any theories, conclusions and facts gleaned by either of them will not be shared till he would ask as long as he would not lend himself or others in more trouble then he could handle. It worked well. Well enough that they barely had to intervene as Harry learned what he could safely handle himself. Neither of them expected they would get a detective in the making as a ward, but here he was and already better at it then half of NSY. Perhaps because he had a way of looking at things from angles that even Sherlock wouldn't see. The hardest thing to do was teaching him not to jump to conclusions by fitting theories he liked to only half the facts he had, but in learning those things he proved to be as malleable as he was stubborn in others.

It was as surprising as it was not, that in the midst of crime wave he would focus on a dog instead of a person…it was very him.

"Hmmm. This part I've done myself, Archie and Lo don't know, here. One of the witness reports said 'sleek and very fast in water'." Harry pointed out the part in his printed copies. Whole case of printed copies. Well, well, how fast they grow." She saw it leaving just before she had found her amstaf. I've found her on Twitter and we talked for a bit. Omara Horsh, she lives alone for now, her wife is working in Norway, coming back in September. The dog was engagement gift from said wife, she is horribly upset about it... There was a young amstaff in that animal shelter, you think she might want to adopt it?"

Sherlock, to his eternal embarrassment was half tempted to do it himself. Years ago he would not even entertain the thought that he was capable of taking care of living feeling being when he barely could function himself. Somewhat. It has been so long…so bloody long. Dogs had a very special place in his heart. Redbeard never left his memories, soft supple leather of his collar still hidden among his things ever since his first friend passed away. His insides rolled at the thought of someone's chosen companion being just erased from existence for no good reason. He never had and never will have any love for people who were cruel to animals. It was a fact, that people who hurt animals had little to no problem with doing the same to their spouses or children.

He was terribly fond of Belle and Hedwig and there might be that small domesticated part of him that thought that, maybe, since they were now two plus two, a cat and an owl, dog would be… Maybe he was not a picket fence kind of guy, but two kids, a dog, million bees and mayhem would suit him well. It was a stupid sentiment. One that didn't need to be voiced as John's fingers brushed his hand as he smiled at Sherlock's fleeting glance.

"Why don't you ask her later? Don't be surprised if she doesn't, some people don't want another pet so soon after they lost the one they loved. Think about how you'd feel if you'd lost Hedwig." Harry blinked and then moved his head staring at John like he proposed extermination of kittens. Sherlock found he was sharing that expression.

"Right." Harry's voice croaked with the suddenly tightened throat, scrambling for the notes even if he obviously did not need them, probably just as a way to busy his hands and have a moment to swallow heavily. He coughed and then picked the picture of a lovely puppy, staring at it like he saw it for the first time. "Om…Omara went for a walk around eight in the evening on June twenty fourth, amstaff named Ping on the lash, when he saw black cat, twisted out of his collar and made a run for it. She chased after him when she heard his barks and then a strange high pitched wails. She said that she was never so scared in her life, repeated it twice, and that when she came closer, she saw something in high grass of riverbank, either dark brown or black with strangely short paws, massive head and sleek long body. It jumped in the river and was gone in seconds, leaving her dog in mangled bits." Harry hid the puppy's picture in his bag, they did not comment on that.

"There is something I didn't tell you. I didn't think it mattered back then...and you still didn't know much of anything about who I am or what can I do. So...there was cat Sith in the house where Johann died. They haunt in dark alleys, in city underbelly mostly. Close to the souls of the wicked. "

"What do you mean by that?" Inquired John, brows scrunched in thought.

"They hunt souls of bad people, stay close to worst offenders homes or follow people who catch those and wait for death of darkened soul...and...we don't know what happens next. But there was a cat where I stayed and it took my offering. They are fae. "Sherlock remembered with a sudden clarity the black hair Harry was covered in when he helped him down from the tree in the bolthole backyard. The cat must have slept on Harry's things and their boy was as far from the wicked as they go. Not to mention Hedwig would have not let any creature come close if they meant any harm to her charge. Was it stalking its prey or waiting for Harry to lead it to it?" I have found flowers in places I shouldn't. I think that something is happening, something big and..."

"And you think that it is somehow tied to the rest." Inquired mildly Sherlock, trying to think of an animal that could match the description. More naturally occurring animal. Nutria? Otter? Just a dog? Maybe smuggled in ariranha Pteronuora brasilienis more commonly known as giant river otter. They were known to be particularly aggressive, and opposite of pretty, but leaving their prey…Quick search did not reveal pictures of the dogs post mortem but it did reveal that Harry searched for them, too. Smart lad.

The cursor hovered over the file, as Sherlock kept staring at the only bookmarked page that wasn't there last time. He clicked, scanned it quickly, slotting Finn Grusenberg arrest and involvement of the mysterious 'englishman' in the 'Hannover pearl brooch case' under the things to look over and closed the page, sharing a look with John. So Harry didn't think that the case was over, either. Sherlock never would admit it out loud but perhaps it would be better for all of them if their boy would be a little bit less…inquisitive and more prone to letting things lie. He was, oh the irony, too much like Sherlock in this even long before they've met. Great characteristic in detective and policeman, not so great in stubbornly protective child with a hero complex.

It was high time to look into things again.

"The second dog was found on sixth of July. Jack Russell. No owner, no chip but it did had a collar, broken in two parts. It had 62442 and RCMC on the tags." Harry looked at Sherlock meaningfully.

"And that means?"

"Magic, John. The older phones had letters under numeric keyboard with assigned letters. When you push 62442 you get…"

Both Harry and Sherlock waited for John as he mentally went through the message. John moved from his place and then sat on the sofa, his head tilted toward the screen, reading the sparse few lines.

"Magic. But, why then it doesn't have an owners address? What is RCMC, anyway?"

"I assume that's department that deals with unusual animals. "Sherlock turned to Harry who hummed in confirmation. "You said that many wizard's properties are protected against non magical, so it would be hard to find them, much like that house on Grimmauld. No sense in putting names if no no-maj would be able to return the dog to place they can't see."

"That and the fact that Crups can be quite vicious toward people with no magic. To the point that a household have to have two magically aware people to even keep one. They are category XXX, and have to be registered in Department For Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Crups have two tails, but otherwise are indistinguishable from Jack Russel, are fiercely protective and unquestionably loyal to their family. They also don't chase cats, don't leave on their own and are more prone to get their owners out of the trouble then fight. So if the Crup is found…

"It returns to the Ministry either so they can fine the owner or as a proof that something happened to its family. They don't claim bodies? Could the tag break when the dog died?" Harry shrugged." So the questions are what happened to his owners and what he tried to protect them from."

"I think I recognize what might have attacked him and those other dogs." Harry stood up, making his way toward stack of books wrapped in fake bindings. While 'Genealogy of Britain tomes A-B and O-P' and 'Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them' would pass the casual glance as history/fantasy combo, it wouldn't do to let all the world to see the 'Standard Book of Spells Volume V', 'Magical ways of travel' or 'Sacred twenty eight history of Wizengamot.' laying around. Especially as Sherlock was not the kind of person who would say no to magic books, so there was close to eighty tomes in stacks and additional shelves bearing the misleading names like "Agriculture of Bithynia in times of Julius Caesar. Overview" and "History of bicycle" while housing things like potions and herbology. Harry opened the already worn cover citing "Greenland subglacial drainage evolution regulated by weakly connected regions of the bed", sifting through the pages, before making his way back toward the couch. He put the book with an open page facing them. Most of the page was dominated by a drawing of a creature. Head closely resembling mastiff snout, short stout neck changed into elongated stocky corpus, long enough that its spine curved like a twisted 's'. Stubby, strong legs ended with unproportionably big, flat webbed paws with sharp knife-like claws. It had a long flattened tail. In fact, it looked much like an unholy offspring of a dog and otter, splattered randomly with patches of fish scales.

"Well, isn't it pretty." Snarked John, letting Sherlock read the rest. "What class XXXX means?"

"I eat dogs for dinner, piss me off enough and you might be next. Quite nasty little buggers. They do have something that would explain the unreasonable aura of fear, long before you see them."

"This…Dobhar-chú, you think it's responsible for the dogs. What about the rest?"

"I am just…not sure. "Admitted Harry, trying and failing to not be disappointed. "The flower circles are pretty much a proof that there are fairies around, but…Too much is happening in this place and I fear that's my world problems spreading over yours. I tried to think of a way that this can happen without magic aspect but…there is not many things that can kill a Crup. Nothing ah…naturally occurring that lives in Britain, anyway and that isn't amazingly fast. But the magical side has plenty of dangerous creatures…King Otters rarely ever come out of nowhere but when they appear it means that other Fae follow too. They are territorial, so one this close to any city is a bad news either way."

"What tipped you?"

"Kitty." Harry grimaced slightly. "You remember when she stared at the trees couple days ago? I thought I sensed something waking up from slumber. Now I know I did. It's been there for a while but nothing I could put my finger on. Like the feeling you have when you are looking at two identical detailed pictures and the more you stare at them the more you are sure that either your brain is trying very hard to trick you or that something is wrong with them. Something small. Lacking pupil or fingernail, vase millimetres to the left. Shorter fridge on the curtain. Now I am nearly one hundred percent sure - there are fairies in the London."

"So you think it might be only one of many agglomerations. Like infestation." John stared at the picture of King Otter for a second before turning a page. Eash Uisge-shapeshifter class. Ellén Trechend- extinct, if found kill on sight. How can you find something that's already proclaimed extinct? Fauth, class XXXX creature. Gwartheg Y Llyn…magical cattle protector? Like Cows? Kobold. Portune. Wight. John opened the first page of an inch thick volume to read the title. 'Creatures of Britain and Ireland. Chosen examples' He looked at Harry. Their Harry was a perfectly normal looking boy, he wouldn't look twice at him if they just passed each other on the street. But, dear god, how? How the magical world hides all those…dragons and three headed snakes and owls traveling by day? Unicorns. John still couldn't get over the fact that those were real. Cameras and satellites and all the technology in the world and they still walk unseen. Magicals have at least four different kinds of flying horses alone (Harry might have mentioned it two or twenty times) and they fly on brooms (too many miles per minute for John's poor heart), how no plane or helicopter never picked them up?

It somehow felt different when Harry was entertaining Kitty with light blooming on his hand or when he switched his porridge into potato mash and got horribly embarrassed, because accidental magic was for kids half his age. (At least now they knew that while he would eat nearly anything, he hated porridge and plain milk with passion, too bad-he needed calcium.) It did rammed it home, that when Harry means wizards, he means a whole world that was not theirs to touch. Except…they did. At everyday basics and that was a privilege that not many mundane people could claim, looking through the keyhole into workings of another world. It seemed like they just might come that bit closer to it very soon.

There were fairies…actually existing. Just there.

He just wished they would turn out to be more 'I'll shit on your carpet if you don't feed me' then 'I'll fuck you over so hard your grandchildren will limp."

Just for a change.

Chapter Text

"Sherlock?" Harry's hands hovered over the keyboard. Sherlock raised his head from the books and papers strewn around the low table. He was trying to catch up on his more unusual part of education before they would venture out to poke the proverbial dragon. He wished he focused less on Potions and Herbology in his earlier research. Right now, glossing through the bestiary spread before him, he realized that magicals sure as hell had no idea how to classify any of their animals. Beings. Creatures.

It was very much an 'it's magic. Deal with it.' kind of explanation.

He had little faith in any educational system but this was ridiculous. He needed to ask Grace how in the world she'd managed to finish her non-magical schooling along with the wixen. He could nearly feel his synapses sizzling with the lack of precise information.

"What is it?"

"Cowell/Schneider case isn't really solved, is it?"

Sherlock put down the book he had nearly given up on. Well, he shouldn't be surprised at the question. Harry's dog-with-a-bone attitude was one of the reasons he prepared himself to deal with Mycroft's smarmy face for the years to come. That and the two favours owed for pushing up adoption papers. Worth it. Completely worth it.

He took in the sight of the teenager chewing through his bottom lip, hand tugging at the end of his thick short plait. Harry had many recognizable habits, the most characteristic being how he would run his hand through his hair when deep in thought usually leaving it windswept and wilder than before. This time his fingers stuck there, fiddling with the hairpin that came loose from the complicated fish-braid.

It had served him better than his tousled half-bun, as early in the morning Harry had spent a not inconsiderable amount of time at 221C working on his various 'projects'. The last time Sherlock'd checked on him armed with chocolate-sprinkled doughnuts, he was throwing knives at the names of spells tapped to a plank.

(As far as Sherlock knew, adults shouldn't allow small children to play with sharp things, despite how much fun it was. Somehow it didn't seem to occur to the Dursley family that if Harry had had any less morals, they'd would have ended up dead as a doornail, no matter how much unhealthy joy they got from watching him getting hurt. Thus, Harry had come under Sherlock's care equipped with the plethora of skills that didn't match up with the place he had been raised in. Knife throwing was only one of them. Making another Mycroft's Monkey who was teaching him how to not cut his fingers off loose her cool was another matter altogether.)

The moment Harry arrived from his self-imposed task list, Catherine convinced him to plait her hair. And because she had no problems at all with getting what she wanted, she offered Sherlock's services in exchange. Well, if 'offering' was 'Daaaaadyyyy' screamed on top of her lungs while clutching a case of far too many hair applications, especially in possession of a girl that could barely sustain a ponytail. It took half a package of skull hairpins, that his daughter graciously provided, to get Harry's hair pinned just right. (And if Sherlock took some pictures, well, he could always say they were made for reference)

It suited him. It showed off his face better. Made him look sharper. Severe.

Handsome.

Sherlock wished for the thin layer of make-up that covered that famous scar and for the coloured eye-contacts to be gone. To see Hurricane James Potter instead of Harry Jay.

His son bloody well deserved to look like himself in his own damned home.

His son.

His abused, terrifying, curious witchling who was so much like him in some ways that Sherlock double takes on occasion. Sometimes it feels like he is looking at his fifteen-year-old self in the mirror. Better. Less focused on self-destruction. Without the sharp edges pointed outwards, ready to tear into the unkind world. Too god-damn young for it all. Harry, who can't leave things that bother him to lie and fester, poking and prodding till something gives once he is interested.

"No. It's not. I will share with you what I know but I want you to promise me something."

"Promise you what?"

Harry at least finally stopped agreeing to things without clarification. Sadly, that was the one moment Sherlock wouldn't mind his early days compliance.

"That you won't investigate by yourself or with Archie and Loretta." Harry closes his laptop and turns fully toward Sherlock, his face shifting from mutinous to frustrated confusion. "Please. Promise me that."

"Will you tell me why?" Oh... well, should probably have started with that.

"Of course." He watches as Harry's shoulder slump a bit and he is graced with shy smile, the one he likes the most in the world. Every time it appears it feels like he passed some grand test he wasn't notified off but aced nonetheless.

The joys of fatherhood were surprisingly... joyful.

He liked being a dad. He never thought he would be one, that he was able to care so much for a small person who hadn't yet grasped the alphabet. And then for another, for Harry, who sang said alphabet a little off-key through his laughter so his baby sister could mangle it while jumping on inflatable bouncing horse. It was ridiculous how easy it was to love them.

"Ariadna escaped. They were in process of dropping her off in the more secure prison. Her casefile says she was responsible for at least ten cases of manslaughter in Germany, and few more in UK. The brooch is missing again too, it was reported stolen this morning, and it hit the news not much later. My contact in Interpol thought I should know that they just relocated it. There were eleven attempts at snatching in the past half a year alone.”

"Okay. I promise. Won't go investigating on my own."

And, most surprising at all, Harry really looked like he'd meant that.

"They are trying to see who comes asking, aren't they? "So they did. And it won't be long that someone will.” "She was trying to get it through proxies."

Sherlock hummed in affirmation. That was his conclusion, too. The brooch was hardly pretty, rare, or even all that expensive, that stealing it would bring satisfying sum of money for all the trouble it generated. Not to mention, its protection system was not by any measure grand enough for theft done out of any professional pride. Which pointed to one conclusion.

"It must be bloody important to her."

Sentiment. The worst possible of reasons.

People were so much more inclined to violence if you poke at their feelings of ownership. They unfortunately like to poke back.

"Yes. I don't like where it is heading, Harry. You were the last person we know of that escaped her and there’s no telling what she might do. Especially, since she already tried to get to you once." Harry's fingers tapped on top of the laptop case staring forward and Sherlock had a feeling he had lost him for a moment.

"Harry?"

"What if she knew?" Harry put the laptop down, drawing one leg up to rest his chin on his knee.

"Knew?"

"About who Johann Schneider was. What if he did steal that brooch for her? We know that she wanted it from her files. Schneider and Grusenberg were contracted, but that means they had a buyer waiting for them. Did anyone ask where? Must have."

"Finn Grusenberg was heading to England, yes. Which you already know. He thought different airport would be enough to avoid suspicion." Answered Sherlock already seeing where Harry was heading with this.

"And he sent Cowell's body to the airport nearest to the Oak Inn."

Sherlock kept himself from beaming like an idiot. A lot of it was a conjunction but, bless, it was so nice to know that he wasn't the only person in the room with a functional brain.

"But in this particular place at this particular time... "Murmured Harry under his breath like he was struck by the thought. "Did you know that Jakob Ferguson is a jeweller? " Asked Harry finally, fingers tapping against his thigh." Awfully convenient that a man with a priceless brooch finds himself in this part of town at night and gets himself killed. With nobody noticing. Right across the street of the place Ferguson is co-owner of."

"You think Cowell's body was sent there as a warning for the partner who had cheated him of his prize." Sherlock twitched when John appeared by his side, his voice low as he pointed his chin at Catherine. She was sitting wrapped around Aslan, head on its fluffy mane as she watched animated dancing...guppies? Looks like her mermaid phase was only just beginning. Harry, didn't seem to notice him, still looking at one spot. Sherlock turned his head, letting John see the full force if his smirk. "The thing, about jewellery? It's not on Ferguson's social media, is it?"

"I don't know where that info came from initially, because there's no mention of it on his social media. It doesn't show in the first fifty or so search results, anyway. He'd flooded the web with inconsequential trivia about anything and everything under his own name, but once you know... 'Antique Jewelry Harbour' has a homepage. Little more than the names of the owners along with a few pictures of frankly unappealing earrings. It looks like it was last updated a little over six years ago. Just about the time he had gotten married." Recalled Sherlock, lips twitching at John's little notebook fished out from the space in his chair upholstery.

"Arthur." They both looked at Harry with blank faces. "His stepson? He was the one who told me. Maybe I've told you before?"

The funniest thing was, Sherlock couldn't remember. Neither the name of the boy he'd met briefly - not that he made the effort to, but still - nor where some of the information came from and why it was so dreadfully patchy. There were too many things about this case that he couldn't remember. If he was anyone else, he'd suspect memory problems, and yet he could recall with utmost clarity every detail of the cases he took since then. It almost looked like...

Magic.

Right.

But who or what made him forget?

And why?

"You two still keep contact?"

"Yeah. Not that close, but I know he came back home because he was afraid that that a-hole would do something to him mum. She is filing for divorce."

"Good for her. I'm still surprised that that man walks free." Added John, his pen still on the paper. Sherlock knew that this was not a question of 'surprise' surprise. More like wondering why in the world all people responsible for taking shit from the streets are suddenly wary of their shovels.

Sherlock sighed, sliding his hand over his face. He would have loved a case like this if it had had the grace to stay away from his family. It kept hitting too close to home.

"Sadly, the only things we have on Ferguson are just statements, circumstantial evidence and absolutely nothing else. He has enough money and connections to get off scot-free until we pin him down with something that he can't wiggle out of. At least not before we catch at least a scent of the bigger fish that pulls his strings. If that indeed is the case."

"Billie Boe. He might have not been lying, after all. They really might have found Johann wandering about but looking like Cowell."

"This is so convoluted... "John sipped at his tea with a heavy-set frown. "It would mean that all of them Billy, Lucas, Jakob, Grusenberg and Schneider worked for the same person - Ariadna. Except... Billy and Lucas - the Henchman were searching for Adrien Cowell - who was just a second-rate rat trying to rob people without consequences. And Jakob the Jeweller was waiting for Johann Schneider and Fnn Grusenberg, the thieves."

"It was in the middle of the hot night, practically middle of nowhere and Billy along with Lucas just happened to stumble upon the man they were looking for? Nope. Unless Jakob, okay - somebody," amended Harry with a roll of his eyes at Sherlock's gaze," was supposed to be there to pick Johann and Finn up. And only Johann showed."

"Making it a crime of opportunity. Which explains why only the bag was wet but not the trunk and why there was no sign of biological trace inside it. Johann was never put there. Bloody hell...but that's still..."

"Theory." Reminded them Sherlock.

"Theory. If Ariadna and Jakob do work together then it would explain how she knew that there was a witness. One who met Ferguson's step-son, one who was in the area, one who could be seen leaving with the police from the Oak Inn's window."

"Me."

"You."

"Ferguson failed to retrieve what he was sent for… you think that Ariadna will be lightly stirred or shook like hornets nest? What would make a good consolation prize?"

"Shit." Well, nothing like a crisis to speed things up. Time to look under the metaphorical bed.

Harry was nearly done with packing all his notes in his bag when John made a call. It took a moment to convince Lestrade and Molly to stay with Catherine for the nearest three plus hours and if his smile was a bit smug, that's only because he didn't give them the chance to say no.

They decide to take a walk, letting Kitty talk their ears of on their way on about all the thing she wanted to do with her Taddy and Mo. It's a lengthy tale that involves 'playing pirate fishes' and John smacks Sherlock's arm at his murmured commentary. "Thrilling treasures of the Thames' was not going to be his next blog post, ta. John staves of the word spill with a bag of animal crackers, which became his friend since he became a parent. It works well as her mouth is too busy chewing and hands too full of Miss Bee. In the depths of her teddy backpack rests a tambourine that has been banned from use in 221B. He'll be so gracious as to mention its existence just before they'd leave Lestrade's flat. He was nice like that.

Sherlock does the tactful thing and omits mentioning or speculating why their friends had synchronized their vacation time. Especially while not exactly going anywhere. It gains enough brownie points to put the child on Greg's lap and not hear any complaints while they turn tail and escape with the fastest goodbyes known to mankind. John had already realized that the longer they linger the more likely is the flood of tears. Leaving her off anywhere was becoming more and more like scene from a spy novel with all the sneaking around and tiptoeing upstairs to put her to bed. She could no longer sleep through the sounds of a chainsaw.

Thankfully, there was no shortage of places she could be left when her daddies were working. Besides, all their friends and family loved their Little Bean and somehow decided (with little to none of John's or Sherlock's input) that she needed to be raised in a tribal way or she would end up as hazard to society.

They probably should feel insulted by the mere insinuation that they are not capable parents. After all, any idiot can become one...yet, they couldn't bring themselves to do so. It's too good a thought that, should ever anything happen to them, there will be a bunch of people ready to step in and give their little girl all the love one human can handle or desire. They didn't even finish the question, before the promise was extended to Harry. Harry, of course, remained oblivious to this, told only that should there be any trouble he was to call a whole list of people and abort to Lestrade's flat. They had no idea if he would. He was terribly wilful and loyal, leaving people he cared about was not in his makeup. Probably the only way they could guarantee that he headed that piece of advice, would be to put him in charge of Kitty. Neither wanted to contemplate what needed to happen for this to pass.

The taxi drive to the 'nexus of buffoonery' was of course needlessly tedious, but as they got closer Harry's eyes gained a sharper glint. His posture resembled coiled spring about to be released, a hound that got the first sniff of his prey nearby and will be off the second he can. It's familiar sight. All three of them learned how to walk on a battlefield and all three miss it. Time tempered the worst impulses but the feeling of blood pounding in the ears, world becoming sharper, clearer, body tensing in anticipation of a chase, of a fight of sinking into danger...it was addicting.

Inevitable.

Welcomed.

Exhilarating.

Harry, as young as he was, already mapped some places angels feared to tread and came back out on the other side. It changed him, both profoundly and quietly. Gave him a taste for adventure and a creeping sense of responsibility for the lives he protected. The world sharpened his teeth, polished his claws and clipped his hide for his troubles and now they could no more stop him from fighting then they could stop him breathing. They could only make sure that he wouldn't get swallowed by perceived 'duty' or debilitating guilt, should he fail. It was inevitable that he will. The world does not have a sense of fairness, nor is it gentle for its heroes.

When they slid out from the cab, Harry's head had cocked to the side, like he was listening to something they couldn't hear. He walked slowly, his feet soundless on the curb, history in the eyes that slid over everything in the same way John's were doing since he came from Afghanistan and Sherlock's from his time Away. The carefully maintained space between him and every person who registered as stranger. Awareness. Alertness.

Watchfulness.

People had tried to hammer him into something normal. Convenient. Easier to understand and to tame. But Harry wasn't a nail. And he couldn't shift back to become a child when most of his childhood was spent on practicing survival. You can mold a child into a soldier, but you can't take a soldier out of a child. It was damnably hard to even try to remind him he was just a fragile human, and not one responsible for other people choices.

It was John who found their first clue that something was rotten in the state of Denmark, mostly by the virtue of being closer to the ground then his two bean-poles. A poster, paper, unlaminated and already somewhat worse for wear. On the top large blocky letters questioned 'Have you seen this man?'. The picture was at least of good quality, clear and in colour. The man in question was handsome, blond. Dressed in baby blue shirt and smiling… Only, the man turned out to be someone they all met, thankfully only briefly.

"Is that...?" Asked John only to receive twin nods as Sherlock took the paper. He turned it in his fingers and touched the piece of tape with a thoughtful expression.

"Was he on your list?" Harry frowned but shook his head. There were only three names and none of them matched. "So, we have four missing people, two of which we've met with one being our suspect. This could be coincidence but there are thousand people here, what are the odds of those two disappearing so close to each other?"

"Pretty good." Growled Harry, taking the photograph out of Sherlock's hands, folding it carelessly in four and stuffing it in his bag. "I don't believe that I'm the only person who ever thought of doing bad, bad things to both and I'm sure there are some people who hadn't stopped at just thinking."

"Thinking uncharitable thoughts is not a crime." Stated John mildly while putting his hands in his pockets. Harry's face does a complicated expression but when he starts talking it's with quiet unquestionable disgust colouring his voice.

“I don't believe in law, I believe in justice and I'd care if they were hurt by the miscarriage of it, but I can't say I will cry should they be gone." There is only stark honesty in his eyes as he looks them unflinchingly in the eyes. "And since I can't put them to prison for being assholes, I will happily punch every single person like them till they have no choice but to taste that pure blood of theirs. I refuse to feel sorry for people who go around telling the world that people who don't match their careful standards are better off dead."

"It has nothing to do with the fact that he tried to hit you?"

"You are asking like I hadn't done the same thing before I met you." Harry had a small smirk hiding in the corner of his mouth but it faded with the next words. "I don't care that he tried - I hate that it might have not been me. It might have been anyone and while I can take care of myself, others might not be able to. He tried to hit an older man who told him to tone down his language. That's why I punched him. He tried to hurt someone just because he could. No reason other than he thought that calling someone mongrel and spitting in someone's face was his right and being told off for that angered him. I don't care, I’ve been called worse. But he'd raised his hand at innocent man and he might have done the same regardless of the fact that it was me there and not someone else, someone who didn't fit in his carefully constructed worldview."

Harry took a trembling breath as an arm landed around his shoulders. It was more then he hoped for because, quite frankly, there was a part of him that was utterly disgusted with this outlook he cultivated in the dark parts of his mind like mold in petri dish. The bigger part, the one that got fed regularly with positive feedback, was crowing in delight, because as much as he believed in second chances he no longer believed in a tenth or one hundredth more. Children might not know better, but every human can learn. If they refuse to acknowledge other people’s rights for existence, for freedom, for equality and basic respect, Harry didn't feel obligated to treat them with any. In theory. "I know how it is to be hated. Many do, for different reasons... and I hate that it makes me happy when something bad happens to people like that, because I don't want to be that kind of person. But then I'm reminded what rhetoric they preach and then I'm not sorry at all. Does that make me a bad person?"

"Don't think we can be good judges for that. I lost the count of the noses I broke and how many times Sherlock went out of his way to expose people. Usually costing them their job in process, jail time in few other cases."

"You reap what you sow, as they say. People should at some point have to start smelling the shit they are shovelling. Point is, Harry, neither of us can really stand people who think that there is only one way to live and only one kind of people that should be allowed to thrive. I think," Sherlock looked at John receiving a firm nod, "neither of us can muster any sympathy for idiots who refuse to learn. But then, I don't know if you should look up to us for lessons on ethics, I mean we shot a man for each other, kind of puts a damper on moral argument."

"Sherlock!"

"What, he knows this."

"Public place."

"Oh, yes...Right! To the matter on hand. Harry, you've found something?"

"Those posters… they are all over the street but there is no missing person report I can find. On the other hand… look what just came up." Harry showed Sherlock his phone.

"Well, well, who do we have here? Curioser and curioser. And I am not going to ask why Anderson writes to you." Harry thought that this was a good thing. He didn't know how to tell them that Phil started to write to him because it was quicker than trying to get either of them to answer any inquiry he might have. Harry wasn't under illusion that it was friendship. It was a transaction and he and Anderson were mutually using each other for information.

In a friendly way.

But Harry had unlimited access to Sherlock's brain and Anderson was a gossip dog working in the building full of things Harry was interested in and was eager to explore.

Like Lucas Port, utterly forgettable weasel of a man. But, who knew, maybe if you shake him up just right, something useful might come out.

"She was horrid to you." Observed Sherlock as Harry and John left the Oak Inn and joined him on the sidewalk. They had argued for a bit before about who would go where and why and when, but finally settled on starting with the inn and shop before finding Lucas and then splitting up to look for clues elsewhere. Well, after Harry, grinning widely, wheedled the coat from Sherlock, swapping it for his leather jacket.

(The argument went somewhere like:

"You just want to be dramatic."

"Pot. Kettle. Black."

And surprisingly worked. If John knew it was that easy, he would have done that years ago. Perhaps it would have saved a few of his late jackets if Belstaff was in the line of metaphorical fire.)

John, mostly by virtue of being somewhat forgettable (which was a crime, really), and Harry, because last time Natalie Ferguson and he saw each other he was a slip of a boy in flowery dress and make-up, would question her about disappearance of her husband. And Sherlock, mostly by the virtue of being unforgettable and easily recognised would check with the life partner of Damien Goldberg. She had reported to police that the man didn't come home one day and any contact with him became impossible.

Suffice to say, John was not impressed at all with Mrs Ferguson 'call me Natalie'. But plenty impressed by Harry's fake Welsh accent and how he got away with cheerful 'fuck you' disguised as 'thank you'.

"She is horrid, but she had misplaced her husband, asshole as he is, but still. Divorce or not, I guess she still cares about that piece of shit. Sorry, I don't really feel like going after grieving woman."

"You've forgot your Oreo's, do you want to go back?" Asked John as Harry stripped off the coat, leaving it hanging from his fingers with an impish grin.

"Don't worry about them. We need to drop by Tesco to buy toothpaste." Sherlock paused, one arm in a sleeve. John didn't fight the urge as much as he should and covered his face with his hand. Mostly to hide his twitching lips. So much for Harry's neutrality. Well, couldn't happen to the nicer bitch.

"When did you..."

Yes. John was curious too, when exactly Harry had the time to exchange the filling in the whole package of biscuits and then seal it well enough for it to be unrecognizable from the original?

"Archie."

John peered at Sherlock, who was finding the buttons of his coat fascinating enough to grab his entire attention.

He had heard more than once the half teasing half mocking sentence that big things came in small packages, but in Archie's case those things were sass, hunger and mischief. No wonder Harry liked him so much.

"I should scold you, shouldn't I?"

Harry cocked his head to the side before nodding his assessment.

"Probably."

"Consider yourself scolded." Piped in Sherlock, his hand patting Harry's head like he was a puppy. Harry huffed, frantically trying to fix his painstakingly 'messy by design' bun. Plaits don't survive long with Kitty around.

"It's not pedagogical."

"John, if I could get away with it, I'd write every report in Cyrillic and deliver it by turning them into paper planes. I truly have no leg to stand on and you, dear lover, are an enabler." Sherlock tilted his head.

"No." Said John as firmly as he could.

"But you don't know..."

"No, Sherlock. You will not write reports in Cyrillic. Or any different language. Greg is getting grey just dealing with us, let's give him this much." All interested parties noticed that there was no explicit prohibition of basic origami.

"Personally," chipped in Harry, "I think Lestrade was born grey to speed up the process, all in preparation of the time you crash into his life like a speeding trainwreck waiting to happen and make him question his sanity. But that's only theory."

"Harry, now that I have an image in my head that I never cared to imagine and will need to delete later, can you please tell me if you got anything?"

"She thinks her son might have been the reason of Jakob's disappearance." Answered John, pulling Harry along as they crossed the street, walking in the general direction of their next quarry. "They never liked each other, not even when Arthur was younger. They bickered constantly... She didn't think much about investigating them toward child abuse and was vocal about the police being just a bunch of 'violent ragamuffins' who were bothering 'upstanding citizens' and trampling over traditional way of raising children."

"According to her, Jakob and Arthur got into a loud argument not long before Jakob disappeared." Added Harry, as he frowned at the building's façade. "She couldn't say what it was about. And maybe they did, considering that Natalie went ahead and filed for divorce. I suppose Arthur would have a lot to say about that. But that she tried to point fingers at Arthur… I gather, she’s either trying to cover up for her ex... or for herself."

"When did she file the papers?" Harry searched his phone, scrolling through his messages.

"Arthur wrote on 12th. But that might be only when she'd told him."

"Let's leave it for now." Sherlock walked straight ahead, heading for the block in their line of sight. "Come on, we're going to check on Laurence."

"It's Lucas." Corrected Harry, his lips twitching at Sherlock being purposely obtuse. "And once we're done with this case I'll never come back in this part of town. It feels like I'm in a period drama, only with more murder and fairies. Which we were supposed to focus on, I think."

"No reason we can't do both. Even if we are side-tracked. Again." Remarked John, stopping without a warning just few steps before the staircase door, making Harry stumble into his back. "Whoa. You are not coming with us." Harry's face clearly showed what he thought of this idea. "Harry, I am serious. He just got out of prison -and I'm still unclear about how that was possible -after drowning a man in a river and he works for a person who in all probability wants you dead."

"If I had a penny for every person who wants me dead…" Tried Harry, but then he is stopped by Sherlock's hand on his clavicle.

"It takes one lucky shot." Fingers curl at the back of his neck as deadly serious stormy grey eyes bore into him. "Please don't joke about it."

It knocked him a metaphorical step back in a way that made his throat a little bit too tight to swallow and put his heart into skipping gallop. He refused to accept the existence of wetness nestled in the corner of his eyes.

"Alright." He finally agreed one the words stopped refusing to flow. "But I'm gonna eavesdrop."

"Knock yourself out." Agreed John and he didn't imagine the relief that tinted his voice. He watched them going in and then climbed right after, stopping only when he reached the stairs above Lucas's flat and impudently waving them to go on.

Sherlock's first impression of the flat came from the bare crack of muted light streaming from behind the sweaty and pale man peering at them suspiciously with bloodshot eyes. It was rundown and the air stale, suffering from it's owners disappearance and earlier neglect. Kicked up close to the wall, nearly barricading the entrance and under the cover of a thin layer of dust was a messy pile of books. Gardening books.

In the crates pushed hastily under the table green stalks of new plants pushed from the earth. Lucas looked harried. His eyes darted between them and the crate. His white t-shirt glued itself to his chest as he tried to bar them any entrance. John's shoe darted in the small space between the door and the frame and he barged his way in.

As far as first impressions go, it went swimmingly.

John had that wonderful way of making people see his way without wanting to throttle them the longer they spoke, so Sherlock left him to do the talking, while he darted around his flighty sweaty obstacle and went further down the corridor to make a quick sweep of the rooms. He smiled at the impression of wheels in old linoleum that stretched to about a meter to the left of a, frankly, grossly oversized TV set that could speak only of how deeply went dear Lucas' middle-age crisis. He put one finger on the TV stand, it rolled away with barely any effort. He tapped the wall, listening to the dull echo it gave and snorting to himself he left, as it soon became apparent, to the only interesting room in this place.

John's own kind of magic worked and by the time Sherlock was done snooping he had the man resignedly sipping on warm water from the bottle sitting at the kitchen table. Lucas sadly hadn't stopped sweating buckets but had added patting his reddened nose with a paper towel to his repertoire.

"I am not talking with dogs."

"Good thing we are not dogs, then." Sherlock swayed on his heels. "Your bathroom stinks."

Lucas' face did a complicated expression he looked unprepared for until it set on good old-fashioned confusion.

"Listen man, I just came back, you can check it out and I aien't going back. Whatever romance you have for me you can keep it to yourself, I aien't buying anything." Mighty words for the man whose problems were so...down to earth.

Groundbreaking?

Green around the edges?

No, that was bad, Sherlock will have to leave the amusing crowd-pleasing quips to John.

"We aren't buying and we aren’t selling anything, we only want to ask you a few questions so we could be on our merry way and you can live your best dog-free life. Nothing you're going to tell us will go to them. We have a deal?"

Sherlock could nearly see the rat that lived inside this man's brain picking up the pace in its running ball at the smell of potential cheese. As much as John and himself dressed up, mostly for comfort, it was still carefully chosen way of projection of oneself onto the world. And a man in a cable sweater with a splatter of grape juice on the sleeve or a thin guy in fancy clothes and coifed hair didn't scream 'danger' until they smile at you in a dark alley when you're the one holding the knife. Sherlock loved to surprise those.

"Half grand and you've got yourself a deal."

"Five hundred? Are you serious?"

"Life isn't cheap, man." Especially when you take electricity and cable from one neighbour and the other wonders about the astronomical water bills. But then, maybe he was an honest thief and wanted to pay his... nephew? For checking up on his plants. Sherlock eyed the sad excuse of a fern that died its unnatural, prolonged, excruciating death by dehydration. Diligently, it seemed so.

He reached for his pocket.

"Will." John was a bad actor, but thankfully the sum was enough to make him make that outrageous 'what are you doing, you madman' sound he was so good at. The brain-rat all but panted in excitement at the closeness of its prize.

"You’ll tell us everything we want to know?" Lucas nodded eagerly, eyes on the wallet. Sherlock smiled guilelessly at John who sent him a rakish smile over the man's shoulder. Bless this man for going along with Sherlock's casual madness. "Don't think about it as a payment. It's investment."

"So. What do you want to know?" Asked Lucas, his palms greased with the contents of Sherlock' wallet, wad of papers pushed into jeans back pocket.

"The night Schneider died. I don't care how. I want to know what happened before."

"I've already said everything I know." Hedging. Sherlock despised beating around the bush. Why did people have to be so difficult?

"Then you won't mind repeating it. What you were doing before on that day?" Asked John, thankfully in time before Sherlock defenestrated the fool. Slightly. Only just enough for the man to feel the grip of his mortality.

"Bill and me got into cups, you know. Around the third bottle we realized that the booze is gone. We went shopping. That tall posh guy was talking with old Goldberg outside the shop.

"The hotel owner?" Asked John, catching Sherlock's eye. Sherlock started to wonder if he should be offended when people called /him/ posh, since he had yet to meet a person who wouldn't say it like it was an insult.

"Yeah, that one. A truer asshole mama couldn't birth."

"What do you mean?" John didn't need to fake his interest, but it was always cute when he was trying so hard.

"Well, he kept pissing off people with his holier-then-thou shit. Goes to church every Sunday like a good little bitch, but would tattle on his own Gran and beat her with a blunt spoon if she smiled at him wrong. Off his rocker, that one."

"Do you know what they were talking about?"

"Nah, man. They kind of just stopped speaking. All quick like, like when people are talking and then a mate tells you they were talking about you. All hush hush like in the Mean Girls."

"Abandoning dubious cinematic analogies," interjected Sherlock before the man would have an urge to share the plot of a movie he had no interest of knowing, "what happened next?"

"Nuthing. We went in, got a handful of puppies and found Schneider."

"Did either Goldberg or Ferguson seemed rushed? Nervous?"

"Youeah. Goldie snapped on Bill, told him off for being picky on the snacks. Goldberg is an asshole too. He is just less obvious about it. Thick as thieves those two. Like they are keeping a hand in each other's ass' I figure Dam's woman is pro'bly packing her shit since he's gone." So she was, actually. She was achingly polite when Sherlock had talked to her, but if she had any feelings about her partner's disappearance, the most obvious one was relief. She had a look of a woman finally free to do what she wanted and what she wanted was to pack her things and leave as far as she could. Sibling. Trondheim, if he wasn't wrong.

"One last question and we're gone. When you'd seen Schneider, which way he was going? Toward or away from the shop?"

"Toward, definitely. Looked like he was about on a freaking evening stroll, went up straight from that blasted inn."

They didn't bother with good-byes, Sherlock already considering an option that hadn't occurred to them yet.

"So, are we going to let that man live his life, or..?" Asked John. Sherlock took a moment to finish the thought and seeing as it led only to speculation, he just left that thread loose in case an idea would like to attach itself to the working theory.

"Of course not." Sherlock put the money back in his wallet. He might have pinched slightly more than he gave, but well, such was life. "But beside stealing cable from his neighbours and having a marihuana plantation I can't think of anything to pin him down, what do you think, did he miss jail?"

"What?"

"John, you were looking at it."

"Fern. And books." Sherlock hummed in pleasure at the thoughtful frown that turned into a snorting laugh. "Oh God."

"And," continued Sherlock, "I'm sure if we look through his phone we'll find payment made to his... nephew I think, for taking care of the business while dear uncle was away. Certainly, he won't be winning gardener of the year. He was mildly useful, what with his contribution to our rent."

"You pickpocketed him."

"Who is he going to tell?" Sherlock smirked as John continued to snicker at his side. He wrapped one arm around man's waist and they made their way out of the block. "Now, where is Harry?"

They've found Harry sitting cross-legged on the bench in the shade of a tree, evidently talking with somebody chirping from the phone he held on his lap.

"…check that?" Inquired softly Harry. They perched on the bench on both sides after his dismissive nod. He apparently didn't care whatever they heard or not.

"Yeah, I have still five hours before the plane and I'm getting stir crazy. Honestly, how much you think you need to take for two weeks to the country that is in the same climate as the one you are living in? My mum is fretting like we don't make that trip every year and the Smothergilla is trying to pack things for me that I wouldn't wear if someone paid me. I mean, look at this!" Came the indignant and familiar voice.

"…Is that a hat or some new kind of umbrella?"

"I don't know! But it comes with a box the size of Madagascar and I already said I'm taking only one suitcase but at this pace I will jump inside and find Atlantis. Sorry love, need to go. I swear if it's about another pair of shoes..."

"Text me once you confirm, ok? And call when you land."

"Sure. And then you can live vicariously through my social media and be jealous."

"Just don't…" Started Harry, but he was cut off in mid word.

"Post your pictures. I know." The voice on the other side paused, turned softer. "Hurricane? I'm glad you got away from them. And I hope one day you will be able to walk about without fearing they would find you."

"Thanks Loretta, for everything. Safe travels."

"Bye babe. Keep Archie away from the stupid."

The last thing they heard was 'Coming dad...!' followed by a string of curses before the sound went off and Loretta's face adorned with enormous white hat disappeared to show Harry's screen wallpaper.

"How was eavesdropping." Inquired Sherlock, his eyes twinkling with mirth.

"Yours or mine?" Groused Harry. "Don't you think it's the height of hypocrisy to have an anti-theft door when you're a thief?" He asked snappishly, pouting when they laughed. John's arm lightly wrapped around his shoulder as they all stared at the picture still showing on Harry's phone.

"We are glad we have you. More than you can possibly imagine." John lightly pushed his arm against Harry's, Sherlock mirroring him until they are bracketing Harry between them for just a short moment. It passes when Harry flips his phone, hiding it and subsequently also the photograph, in his pocket. John stretched before standing up. "We're making a break for food, so Sherlock better poke that brilliant mind of yours and see if there is any restaurant nearby that won't get us food poisoning."

"John! The case!"

"Sherlock! Teenager!" Sang John in the same tone of voice.

Harry snorted. Most of the time John forgets he has a working digestive system until Sherlock steers him to food with more skill than a Shepherd's dog. Truth was truth, though. He was hungry.

They find a small hole in the wall that wafers them in the smell of fried chicken. They spot an empty table, arm themselves in drinks and wait patiently for food to come after a spirited discussion on how to spot fresh products from soggy, refreshed, second-use food.

John listens patiently and nods in the right places, leaving his companions to their deduction games. He isn't nearly as picky as Sherlock, nor has he the ease of recognition of taste that Harry sports. For him something tasty is tasty and you could shoot him blind, he won't be able to tell basil from thyme.

He doesn't chuckle, but it's a close thing, because…

Harry spreads.

It's inevitable that he does.

He is comfortable with his company and uncomfortable with the table. For some reason they don't make restaurant furniture with tall people on mind. Sherlock's legs stretch under the whole length of the table, instead of having his knees awkwardly bump it, and since he takes nearly the entire space, it leaves Harry sitting mostly sideways and in every direction.

John once again contemplates that he is surrounded by baby giraffes.

"So, guess who had brilliant idea of finding out whether Arthur is involved or not?" Starts Harry with a grin and John snorts at Sherlock's ridiculously excessive hand motion of metaphorically giving Harry the stage.

They studiously ignore the unmarked car sliding slowly to a stop within their view and two policemen in civil clothing on their way to ruin Lucas Port's afternoon.

Harry watched as John disappeared from his sight with a promise to be on a lookout for Arthur as they parted ways. Sherlock bumped into his shoulder and Harry shook off the creeping sense of foreboding. The road they walked on looked abandoned. There was not even a sidewalk, but it was the lack of the usual human-made path that made him and Sherlock exchange a glance. Where lived people, there lived shortcuts. But here the grass grew wildly, untamed, tangled with weeds and untouched by boots. He stepped off the road and trudged in the untrimmed cluster. It reached nearly up to his knees.

On the other side of the narrowly flowing river lay a wicker basket and a bundle of abandoned wet clothes. A button-down baby-blue shirt lay splayed on the grass, left to dry in the sun of a rather chilly afternoon. Harry looked at it, felling a needling thought that it was somewhat familiar, before shrugging it off. He slowly came closer to the river bank, scanning the area through narrowed eyes. He stilled completely when he caught a glimpse of light reflected on the other side. There, an older woman dressed like a gypsy, her long flowing grey hair caught in two wooden bangles and watching them both with tilted head. Her eyes glittered in the sun like sparkling gems. She was partially hidden behind a hawthorn bush, stick-like legs and bare feet stretched out before her. Well, whoever the shirt owner was, they will not need it for long. Harry nodded to her politely, knowing full well that human she was not. She nodded back, regally, with something akin to amusement as her gaze went back to whatever was on her lap. He observed her for a moment and then scanned the shrubs closest to him. Hidden inside the greenery dew-drop fairies chased after fat glossy beetle, their tiny bodies swarming their larger prey. Further away and closer to the ground glowed small pinpricks of yellow eyes hidden in the grey face of a cross between cat and rat¹ . It was no bigger than a hedgehog and it seemed placid with its big round ears and fluffy fur, harmless and sleepy in the August sun. Harry had no idea what it was, but he decided to not take his chances and circled the lovely looking fae until he was sure it couldn't get to him. Nature liked playing the game of deceit and he had no need of deceit and even less of a need for a trip to St Mungo’s with a pretty ball of silky fur attached to his ankles.

A newt ran straight over his trainers and without a thought Harry stepped on it, hard. Small bones crunched under his foot. He patted his bag and pulled out one of the smaller jars. Whatever it really was a newt or Joint-Eater in its more dangerous form, it was not a time to do a spot of vivisection to check. He searched for tweezers and picked up the dead animal, dropping it inside the glass. Sherlock complained that they were short on ingredients and let it never be said that Harry can't be taught new tricks.

Two steps to his left something glittered in the grass, he bent down, before with a triumphant ha! he scooped a few roundish black and blue scales with a tiny turf of deep brown short and coarse fur still attached. Turns out even otters from different dimension can shed.

It took Harry a moment to realize that Sherlock was no longer at his side, having wandered a few paces ahead. He frowned, searching for the hint of the characteristic coat. He found Sherlock walking in the middle of the road, his stride mechanical, as he swayed and tilted to the sides. His arms swung from left to right. It was like he forgot what to do with the rest of his body while his legs moved. Funny, it reminded Harry of the way his classmates walked when under Imperio curse...

Oh shit.

"Will? William!" Harry ran right up to him, shoving scales into his pocket. He stood right before the man's face, waving before his eyes and nearly got bowled over like he was invisible, as Sherlock simply continued on. "Don't do this to me." Harry wrapped his hands around Sherlock's arm, tugging it lightly. "Come on, come on."

Then he saw it.

Thin, nearly dainty and vibrant blue, with long black triangle shaped nails: three knobby webbed fingers. A hand. Doing the unmistakable 'come hither' gesture. It would be more effective, if not a fact that it was suspended in the air, cut mid forearm and surrounded by silvery sludge-like substance. Its fingers waved flirtatiously and Sherlock went, stumbling and swaying and humming. Oh shit. Oh gods, not this, no, no... This couldn't be...

But it was.

Fuck.

Good luck charm? Ha! He will never bless a fucking cup of coffee ever again.

Well, it looked like all the excitement would start a few months earlier.

Wonderful.

Sherlock felt the uneasy feeling that crept unto him the second they walked into the alley melt into calmness. Through half hooded eyes he barely registered as Harry nodded at something he couldn't see, before he turned to the sound of music. Such a lovely tune. Light, skipping, pipes and fiddles and flutes filled the air. Happy.

He walked.

Feet as light as the fluttering melody. He wishes to dance. Body filling with a pounding of drums. Sweet breeze hits, chilly as the winter morning, good on heated skin. Hand. Nice hand, bluer than the sky. Beckoning him. He goes. Wants to touch it. Wants to see if it's cool. If it’s soft. If the rest of it has the same sapphire hue as those fingers. Something chitters. High sound, out of rhythm. It repeats. Brows furrow. Shhh. Listening. Listening. Something crawls on his arm. Sticks. Press. Hold. Drag. Keeps away from dancing and soft and beautiful. He shrugs. It sticks. Like honey. Vice grip. Chitter comes louder. It not that bad. It enriches the melody. Strong as church bells. Gentle like spoon silk. Fierce, a roar of flames and gentle flutter of butterfly wings. And then something picks him up, and he is weightless. There is a feeling of being held above the ground, of pressure around his middle as the world tilts. Feet in the air he flies away from the gentle invitation. Every point of touch is light and smells of thunder and lightning and the sound of warm hearth and it fits. Fits with cold, with the taste of snow, with pines and ravens and thud of pounding feet hitting the ground.

Everything stops.

Boots touch the ground, grovel crunches under his soles. He no longer soars.

Between one breath and another eternity stretches into infinity. And then it snaps like an overused violin string and he takes in the blessed air. Before his eyes is a curtain of pulsing lead. Heavy shimmering surface vibrates lightly out of synch, out of rhythm. It dances as if tiny droplets of liquid were splattering on its surface from the other side. Chitters come back. Low and urgent and close. Good chitters that match the hum. Hard warmth touches face, grasp at him with tender hooks of sun-blessed fingers, sooth the skin that is trapping him inside. He is staring at ethereal eyes that glow even brighter then simmering silver. Should be green. Why green? Why not green? Smile to it, smile. Wonderful shards of gold and amber framed with soft sheen of dravite, blinking on and off like faraway stars. He walks where their light suddenly turns in the fine, tightly spun void of black hair. Dravite hand rises from his skin leaving his face aching for its touch. Tiny glimmer hidden in the wavy darkness disappears. The one on the other side also. That hand rises. And flies. Twin specks of golden earrings arc in the trembling air and lend on sapphire, webbed palm. Delicate fingers wave goodbye and vanish in the pool of silver.

It cracks and shatters and Sherlock starts coughing, spluttering, clutching at Harry's supportive hand. With a whine he hides in the crook of his dark neck, breathing in the familiar smell. Nausea clutches his throat as the strange sensation creeps in. His brain felt like it had liquidated and was about to pour from his ear. Blond hair appears on the edge of his vision once he decides to open his eyes. John. An arm goes around his shoulder and the little brittle noises of wounded animal die a moment later.

"William, we need to go. Can you walk?" Sherlock's mind is like a sludge and his stomach rolls as he leans closer to Harry and John, not knowing which one of them was trembling. It takes a sliver of eternity to understand that he is 'William'.

"Dad, we have to go, come on, give me your arm."

His limbs are jelly but he settles his arm around the wide set of Harry's shoulders. He needs to remember how to move again, but he does, bracketed by two warm bodies. Breathing hurts, there are tiny shards of glass traveling through his lungs, throat squeezed tightly by a hand of unmerciful giant. He takes a small hesitant step, his hand sized by warm calloused palm. He needs two extraordinary long seconds to realize that the cold alien feeling is still there, clinging to his insides like a cloak of ice. He throws a look behind his shoulder. There is no delicate webbed palm waving becomingly. No silver curtain with pitter-patter of invisible rain, but whatever nearly swallowed him whole... it was still there. Air shimmered. Diamond sparkles moved in the swirling patterns like miniature snowflakes, catching every ray of afternoon sun.

Chapter Text

"Undine," announced Harry like it was all the answer they needed as he marched down the street. Well, maybe it meant something to him, but bugger, neither John or Sherlock knew one flying fuck about this voodoo mumbo-jumbo, except what they've read from those few books.

"Slow down Merlin, some explanation would be good." John realized that he was growling and he swallowed hard, since Harry had done nothing to deserve it.

He told them, God damn it, loud and clear, that there might be something from his world lurking around. But John was terrified and going by how pale and unsteady on his feet Sherlock was, he wasn't alone in this sentiment. Quite frankly, he felt stalked. There was this urge to walk faster, break in the mad sprint and don't stop until either /it passes or he passes out./ John knew better. You don't run away from predator. You either stare it down or very slowly back off until it loses interest and leaves you to live another day.

"I think I know who that hand belonged to. I met their distant cousins and, if I am right, and I don't want to be right, then shit is about to hit the fan." Harry was alarmingly...not scared. Riled and ruffled, but he looked the calmest of them. Sure. In control. For the first time they saw him on his home turf. Beside the grim expression and locked jaw, there was no stress and no fear. He held their hands not for his own peace of mind, but because while John was ready to bolt, Sherlock was barely able to walk in a straight line. John had a terrible urge to laugh, but he smothered it before it had a chance to get out, breathing noisily through his nose.

Sherlock kept mumbling something under his breath, his eyes unseeing, lost in his head. John remembered in excessive detail how Baskerville case had messed them both up. There was an unchanging pattern to murders, kidnappings, and human trafficking. Even in the very worst cases there were certain core elements and after a while you became desensitized to part of the violence, but H.O.U.N.D...

You cannot protect yourself from you own head, you can't saunter away from things you fear, when what you fear is caused by your own failing senses. That drug fucked with their heads and made them see things that were not there. And now...

Harry seemed to grasp that they couldn't continue this way, abruptly stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. He glared daggers at the muttering middle-aged man with a beer belly and owl-like eyebrows cursing about drunks and junkies. He followed him with narrowed eyes, until the offender went on his way, throwing slightly alarmed looks over his shoulder and tripping over his feet.

Harry slipped his hand from John's hold, sending him an apologetic glance. John sensed the difference immediately and with little thought he grasped the edge of the boy's jacket, shifting closer. What he experienced in the short journey from that unexplained thing lurking in plain sight to this unremarkable space of gray sidewalk and sparse grass, was nothing compared to letting go of Harry's hand. There was something... something…

John couldn't find the words for it if he tried. He felt watched, assessed, judged by the sets of invisible eyes peppered everywhere around him. Creeping cold crawled into his bones, making him shiver, frozen in place like a mouse in a presence of a snake. The growl in his head told him to start moving, God damn it, but it was nearly drowned by this…call. Muted. Insistent. Half sound, half thought, both alluring and repulsive.

Singing.

Beckoning...

Weaving a wall of fine threads, thin and subtle like a spider web. It made his war-honed instincts blare and scream for cover, to evac to the battle station, enemy fire behind. Instead, he planted his feet, squared his shoulders, clutched leather jacket in one hand like a lost toddler and breathed hard with his teeth bared and about ready to snap.

He watched Harry gently cajoling Sherlock to look at him, feeling useless and paralyzed, sluggish like he was moving through the neck-high pile of cold mud. Then their resident wizard took hold of dark curls and tugged sharply, growling 'Will!' into Sherlock's face. Apparently there was no time for being soft.

Sherlock blinked off the sudden tears at the sting before focusing at Harry, rubbing his abused head. His breath was worryingly uneven and eyes too dark as he grasped Harry's hand a bit too hard between both of his and tried to match the slow inhales and exhales of their wizard.

"Listen Will, your senses don't lie. This is real." Harry led Sherlock's hands to his chest, putting them over his heart. His voice was clear and even and penetrating through the fog of the mindless fear. "You told me this - 'When you eliminate impossible, whatever remains however improbable must be the truth', remember? I'm here, my existence is certain, you can see me, feel the beat of my heart. Hamish is here, take a deep breath, you can smell his aftershave. Hear this? Cawing crows. We are still here, real. You know what I can do. You saw it, you touched it. What I do is a fact. You've read my books, those things are real and tangible and achievable. It is not impossible, it's not a joke, it happened, it all happened and I saw it too. The probability just got high."

Sherlock's breath stuttered in his chest and then he wheezed and bent down, his hands sliding from Harry's as he grasped onto his own thighs. Harry gently ran his fingers through the fine dark locks, not losing physical contact once. Soon enough Sherlock looked better, more himself and actually present, straightening up, blinking off the shadow of doubt from his muddled mind. John, defying his own trembling hands, reached out to pat his arm. He didn't think he could do much more than that right now.

"What are we...where...?" Coughed out John, not recognizing the sound of his own voice. He sagged in relief when Harry once again took his hand. Outside world once again became quieter, except for the strange musical laughter, like a sound of twinkling bells and children giving a chase. But there was nothing and nobody around, certainly no kids, just that one familiar-looking cat, gazing at them, its yellow eyes too intelligent, too bright, too knowing. The white patch the size of a coin on its chest was splattered with red. The cat that was not a cat.

A flower waved at him and he found himself waving back.

Oh God.

"We will follow the murder or conspiracy. Whether comes first." There was a sound that came close to an actual protest, but John had no idea where it came from, choked out as it was. He threw a glance to the side. The cat was gone. He felt Harry lift their joined hands and he followed the given direction with his eyes. "Trust the crows and ravens. Never a magpie. They are a playful lot, but will help you for a few snacks or something shiny. Magpies will lead you astray, wait untill you die and take your eyes. They love eyes."

Birds were just…there. He had no idea how it came to be, not even noticing them earlier but...

Crows. Ravens. And yes, magpies.

Everywhere.

They circled and fluttered, cawing loudly and horsing around, like it was the most natural thing to do for them to gather in such numbers. The eerie quiet that hung like a cloak around John snapped, the city once again blaring in his ears. He was a fan of classics but, in this moment, he promised himself that he would never again watch Hitchcock movie and laugh. Reality was scarier, but there was no sense in tempting fate to prove him even more wrong.

Hiding in the bushes sat a bird of a different kind. Larger. Black with green sheen to its feathers. If he didn't know better he would say that it was a vulture, but it most certainly wasn't.

"Augury," commented softly Harry. "They have plenty of food here…huh, that's the first time I ever saw one."

John thought it looked sad, as much as a bird could have a facial expression.

From the flock circling above their heads one bird swooped down and settled close enough John could see its beady eyes peering at them from the branch of a nearby tree. Harry nodded to the raven seriously and whatever communication passed between them it sealed some kind of the deal. It jumped up, swaying on the branch, before its beautiful dark wings spread out and it took to air. Harry walked in its wake, his steps sure, but exceptionally careful as of where he put his feet. Numerous butterflies danced around large swaths of flowers growing in blooming circles next to the sidewalk, but Harry dragged them as far as he could from them, throwing glances and mouthing: "Hellos" at each one.

John resolutely didn't turn to see what he was greeting. (His hand kept squeezing the boy's fingers tightly, but he didn't seem to mind.) Sherlock did. And then closed his eyes, nodding to himself, barrelling through.

"Taxi?" asked Sherlock, his voice scratchy as he cleared his throat. Harry squeezed their hands, trying to reassure them. Pathetically enough, it was working.

"We need to go after the raven for a bit, she knows where it's safe to step. Can you write?"

Sherlock made a half nod before stopping himself to actually think about it and started to search for his phone with his free hand. It was shaking. He flipped the black case around somewhat clumsily, but a moment later he looked at Harry for instruction. "We will need to go where your blood is dwelling in a silent place. Tell him to bring open flame and to send his Monkeys for books about Magic that lives under hills. He needs to find black obsidian and put it outside of every window and door and then burn eucalyptus or ash-tree inside. Also the good inspector needs to check if a red tie is still where it was left. If not, replace it or put either pure gold or clear iron around Cat's paw. Bells, if he has them, will work too."

So, John was right, they were watched. Something was spying on them, even now, when they were following a bird like in the fairy-tales to find their way out of somewherein the middle of a city they knew like it was the back of their own hand. And…

She waited for them.

The raven.

Dhe would fly a bit forward and sit on trees, street lamps and windowsills as they walked, encouraged by a firm hold on their hands. She waited, letting Harry catch up to her, leading them through the unseen labyrinth. And then with a bark-like screech she dropped down to land on Harry's shoulder with a flutter of large wings.

Only to start excitedly caw into his ear.

"Aren't you a smart one. Do you want food or a shiny?" The bird cocked her head at the question, looking at Harry with one black eye like it was measuring him up, before she swayed to the side. She caught her balance and raised her claws, showing...two. Oh. She understood what they were saying. John will be crossing all horror movies from his list for the next decade. "Shiny it is. And no touching hair. Come in spring."

The raven jumped in place, digging her claws into the leather on Harry's shoulder, her long beak coming dangerously close to Harry's ear. But when it did, it turned out she was only interested in his glossy glasses frames, lightly trying to pick them up. Harry snorted, and actually smiled before he let go of their hands.

Nothing came. The call had ended. John felt chilly in a completely normal and natural way that had nothing to do with the sensation of winter crawling into his very bones. The residue of something supernatural was still there, like someone dropped a vial of perfume on the carpet, and aroma of it lingered on all who had spent too much time within its proximity. The only thing that didn't fully pass was the creepy sensation of being watched, but it no longer registered as malicious, only discomforting. Still…John needed to sit down and go scream in the corner as he was heading for a bit of a mental breakdown.

A flower appeared in Harry's hair. A tiny fragile daisy with a sunny middle hid among his dark locks. Sherlock kept staring at it with wide eyes, while their wizard was searching through the pockets of the gray Belstaff. Harry's other hand was far too close to the sharp parts of the avian apex predator, petting her lightly while she was busy pecking his glasses with her beak. John briefly wondered how close he was to the feeling people had when they realized they had lost their mind.

Harry straightened up and opened his hand. Kitty's ladybug hair pin. Of all the things to find in Sherlock's pockets, this was a chosen payment for their safe passage. The very enthusiastic raven carefully picked her prize from the few other knick-knacks displayed on Harry's open hand and then jumped off of the boy's shoulder. Making a tight circle above their heads she flew back from where they came from. They watched her go in silence.

It was surreal.

They stood close to main street.

A handful of people passed them by, unaware and ignorant, going about their business like there was nothing wrong, like they didn't even notice that they were breaching some kind of barrier and walking straight into the hunting grounds of something alien.

This was madness.

"That went well", commented Harry lightly, a sentiment belied by the clear sharp line of his clenched jaw. Sherlock shook his head and glared fiercely at the street and then at the Tesco and, for the better measure, at the unaware blond teenager of unspecified gender that kicked the can along the sidewalk conversing loudly with a mysterious entity nicknamed 'bitch'. When no answers appeared in the end, he turned to Harry with expression that made the wizard wince and smile sheepishly.

"'Not even a case', that's what you said if memory serves right." It served him right. John distinctly remembered the moment it happened. Besides Sherlock forgot little, once he decided it should stay in his head. Harry's smile turned fixed, one made to placate, like half of the smiles they've got before they made him realize that he didn't need to fake happiness to make them 'comfortable'. He still did that, much too often. A habit formed from over a decade of being looked down on for things he could not change.

Whatever Sherlock wanted to add, it died in seconds of seeing that smile form. He huffed through his nose, took John's hand and started walking.

The teenager trailed behind them with an anxious expression and hands hidden in jacket pockets, hunching over like he was searching for warmth, while normally being the most unfazed about temperatures and oftentimes walking around only in a t-shirt.

It wasn't Harry's fault.

It wasn't.

But they both needed a moment to cool down and regroup, before some few badly chosen words would slip through too tightly pressed lips, even at the cost of the child's hurt feelings.

Harry was slowing down, not glancing up from the tips of his red trainers moving on the grey slabs of concrete. Gone was the resolute soul that shined through peril, leaving behind a quiet shadow shrunken inwards. John felt him startle, when he put his arm around those bowed shoulders. He knew that his face was probably made of too many harsh lines to be comforting, that his hand squeezed perhaps tad too hard, but the message was understood, tension falling, dark fingers covered his hand, slipping something into his palm.

John opened his hand finding a chocolate coin. He lifted it, showing it to Harry in askance.

"Eat it. My professor and nurse always had some at hand when our school was infested by…pests. It helps," he added at John's disbelieving look, before passing another coin to Sherlock and showing them the gold crinkly wrapper of the one he had already eaten. Sherlock shrugged, biting into the treat, before his eyes widened and he gaped at the piece of tinfoil in his fingers. Harry was absolutely right. The second his mind registered the taste of chocolate, John's nerves melted along with it. Some time ago John had started nursing a suspicion that healing properties were not only a question of a chosen sweet. They had already proven that all food and drink prepared by Harry gave more…kick, then anything they made themselves. It was not outside the realm of possibility, that the chocolate coins sitting in the wizard's jacket pockets for an unmeasured amount of time might become a smidge more magical than the ones sitting in the jar above the kitchen counter.

"So, it was not that fish-dog posing as otter creature at all," commented John, watching as Sherlock did his own brand of magic and summoned their taxi. Harry fidgeted at his side, attempting to slide his fingers through his hair, stopping when he met the flower. He unwound it from under his hair tie, whispering something under his breath and when nothing happened, put it once again in its place.

"Actually…," he trailed off, just before sliding onto black leather backseat. John closed his eyes, letting his head fall back in sheer frustration.

When it was raining it was pouring and all that.

Chapter Text

Sirius was praying for a distraction as Molly tried to chatter his ear off with all the progress kids have made cleaning Grimmauld Place. Personally he thought that burning the house to the fundations would be both cleanising, less time consuming and far more satisfying, but that was a thought for another day. He sipped on his mixed blessing, feeling it burn all the way down and, with a rather loopsided smirk, he passed another glass toward the Weasley matriarch. She fumbled and protested a bit for the prioprety sake and then drank with a smack of her lips.

It was a good booze and indulged late enough in the evening that nobody would roll a bawful glare at one those would enjoy it.

The entrance door opened and a single loud thump signaled the unexpected arrival of Tonks, thankfully not followed by the howling crescendo of Mrs Black slurs. Sirius summoned another glass in the time it took the young auror to right the umbrella stand and appear in the kitchen… and he nearly dropped it at the sight of her.

She was as white as a sheet of paper, her hair reverting to black, making her look much more like her mother and aunt, and the look in her eyes froze Sirius' insides faster than any Dementor ever had.

"You-Know-Who?" Came a terrified whisper from his side. Tonks shook her head, curls bouncing around her face. She poured herself into closest chair in a boneless sprawl. A trembling hand reached for the glass and sloshed the liquid. Teeth clanked on the rim as she swallowed and then topped herself only to repeat it once more. Finally, coughing slightly, she slammed the glass onto the table and blinked at them, as if it was the first time she saw them. Then she seemed to actually remember the question and folded onto herself.

"Potentially worse."

"Harry?"

"No, no I don't think so." There was a palable relief from all three of them. Molly gently took Tonks's hand while Sirius cast a warming charm at his cousin. She shook, not from cold, but he knew that little warmth went a long way with shock. She reached inside her pocket, putting out a small old book in leather cover along with a few folded in half pages of modern paper, a bit creased from being jammed in her robe pocket. "I know what killed that stupid Crup and Raymond Howardson. That squib I was looking for."

Sirius took the loose pages. They were printed as much as he could say, which was where his knowledge of technology was nearly at the end, and containing a number of articles about dead dogs, missing persons and an unmisticable silhuette of a King Otter scetched by someone who hadn't had a knowledge of them and disbelieved their own eyes.

"I gather it doesn't end here." She looked at him with too wide eyes and then she giggled histerically untill she was hiccuping, hand covering her mouth. Molly took the little book, opened it randomly and paled terribly. Her hand snapped it closed as the breath seemed to leave her lungs.

"Yes! Exactly! I've got it anonymously. And then checked the facts. Like a good Auror should. It's there. It's there.

Sirius swallowed the feeling of dread as he slid his hand over the leather. It opened easily under his touch, perchmant dry and well kept. He didn't dare to look down. Not yet. He wrapped his fingers around his glass and wished that this little bit of liquid courage would be enough to face whatever made these two brave women cling to each other's hands like the world was about to calapse. He dived, eyes rowing upon the text, stopping on the picture.

He wished he hadn't.

In washed out watercolor Leonasidhe smiled at him with all three rows of her obsidian black teeth. A shimmery silver background sat behind her back. Perfectly lovely. Perfectly round.

She waved.

And with the fear eating at him like a starved dog…he waved back.

The back garden was filled with sound. Sirius leaned against the doorframe watching with tired eyes a murder of playful crows swinging from a willow tree.

"Ten." Came the quiet voice of Molly Weasley as she stood next to him, her eyes bruised from the lack of sleep, a patchwork flanel robe pulled tightly around her plump form as she nursed a cup of cooling tea. Sirius nodded. And prepared. For better or worse.

The Order dispersed barely an hour ago leaving them in this dark place to worry helplessly, trying to hide the discovery of the last two centuries away from overly curious children. Tonks stayed. In less than an hour she will arrive at the ministry and will try to convince a bunch of stick-in-a-mud beaurocratic assholes that the world as they knew it might go down around their heads. Again.

But now she pressed herself under Sirius' arm, lips bloody from biting too hard, her listless eyes trailed the birds through the dirty glass.

"What does it mean?"

"My mother sang me a song about crows when I was a child. Oh it went like… 'Eight for a wish, nine for a kiss...'"

"...ten for surprise you should be careful not to miss. "Finished Sirius. He pointed at the overgrown garden. "But I think it was about magpies. Wait. You see this?"

"Is it holding…a piece of paper? Oh." Molly opened the window, letting in the crisp morning air, put fingers to her mouth and whistled pircingly. A large bird swept in, landed on Tonks' guarded forearm and cocked its large head peering at them with its beady eyes. "Bring some jerky from the pantry."

Sirius untangled himself from his cousin and went to the kitchen. He came back to the sight of Tonks scratching lustrious feathers with a slight smile as Molly read the note.

"Is it?..."

"Oh, yes, that boy is sure creative." Molly passed him the piece of paper in exchange for meat. "And I hope you can read this, because I'm sure I can't with all that gibberish and Dora is a little…occupied."

Sirius sat at the small coffee table, smoothing the letter with shaky hands. At the very bottom of the page was a tiny Hazelnut Fairy.

He knew.

"Interesting, isn't it?" asked Tonks, her eyes sharpening. "It's almost like he knew the person who send the info or like he was the one to do it."

"Not believing in coincidences, are we?

"Not with this."

Once Molly's hands were empty the bird stretched its wings and flew out, joining its companions and cawing with a smug superiority. Tonks closed the window and sat close to Sirius on the worn armchair, leaving the last chair for Molly.

"This is what I've got for now:

"Well, here is a jambled part, I will need few minutes more."

"Quick and to the point. And I can use that, well…the mundane bit. Nothing gets those flabby-arsed idiots going like being upped by the other side."

"At least he isn't anywhere close. How far we are?"

"Far enough to deal with it while it's still closed, but if it opens…I was always fond of North America."

Sirius looked down at the letter and when neither Tonks nor Molly paid any attention he murmured 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good. '

"They are hiding something," muttered angrily Hermione, her hand sweeping through the pages with unusual carelessness to the parchment under her fingers. "If I wanted to sit without news I would have spent my summer with my parents and would at least be able to get out every once in a while. Look at my hand!" She struck her arm out under Ginny's face, its paleness obvious even in the murky light coming through the dirty windows.

They all knew that it was not about her unhealthy complection. It was about being practically imprisoned in a dark house with adults who preferred to pat them on their heads instead of simply talking things out with them like they were human beings capable of nuanced thoughts. It was that condescending tone that grated on nerves, the looks exchanged over their heads and being shooed away much like a dog would be chased from a sofa.

The frustration was churning deep and, if Ron would sometimes chuck his slipper in the wall like it has personally offended him, if Ginny would say just a word too much to her mother that gained her the outraged 'Ginevra!', if Hermione talked a bit more pointedly and primly with a snarl entirely hidden behind the false politeness, well, they learned not to mention it.

Ron leaned over and pressed a shy kiss on Hermione's forehead. It was probably one good thing that came out of the forced proximity. Small things piled up. Talks that were filled with thoughtful quiet instead of scatching arguments. Lingering touch that brought comfort. Smiles shared over private jokes. Banter that left them breathless with laughter when they arrived at a point of touching the lines that crossed over into absurd.

It was all brand new and fragile and in some ways as old as time, this careful dance of theirs.

They were, of course, insufferable about it and utterly annoying, sitting nearly on top of each other and making Ginny suffer with those dopey smiles plastered over their faces and prolonged eye contact.

Like they were doing right now.

Ginny sighed and took Hermione's hand into her own, forcibly dragging her out of whatever mushy thoughts she was entertaining. They shifted a bit on the bed, the story Hermione was reading to them all but forgotten.

"They do act shifty, but they would have said if it was anything to do with Harry, would they?" she pondered, pointedly jumping into the subject.

"Would they?" asked sceptically Ron, shaking himself from his thoughts. They looked at the door, knowing that kitchen was once more occupied and that no real information would be forthcoming from that end. The only news from the outside came in form of Harry's scatching commentary they had to fight to be able to hear and what tibits Sirius could smuggle to them without Molly Weasley's hawk eyes catching him at it.

It was a road of breadcrumbs and they were hungry.

"Who do you think those people are? Harry's new...parents. Merlin, that sound weird." Ron scratched behind his ear as he continued his thought. "I mean, he made them sound like they can handle themselves. No reason to think that they wouldn't be able to help Harry if he was in trouble, yeah?"

"I think that might be the reason the Order is worried," said Hermione slowly, like it was a point she mulled over a bit to long and it started to fester. She looked at Ginny and then at Ron, noticing their similar expressions. She took a deep breath and it exploded from her in a puff of air. "Harry was never out of their sight. Never. First was Arabella Figg. Then Harry was at Hogwarts for year after year. And then they posted people just right under his house. He was never anywhere where he couldn't be found. Don't you think it's strange that nobody simply told him that someone will watch over him? Especially once he knew about magic? Wouldn't that be safer?"

"Yes, probably. But what does it have to do with him not being under hand?"

"Ron, you and Ginny are here because your mother is here. I'm here because my parents let me come after I've spend a few weeks with them. Who is there to make those kind of choices for Harry? The only person who should be able is Sirius, because he is formally his godfather, yes? And yet, how many times he had asked, how many times we all had asked and heard no? How much easier it would be if he was here instead of sending people to him?"

"He was exactly where they wanted him to be," whispered Ginny, "away from us."

"But why? And why feed us with the bullshit that he needed to be alone? He could bloody well be alone here, where we could be around when he no longer wanted to be alone." Ron got up, pacing the room and, after stopping before the door he opened them briefly, peering into the dark corridor with narrowed eyes. He closed them with a sort of finality and jumped when, with a crack far quieter than they used to to irritate their mother, Fred and George appeared between him and the bed. They both put fingers on their lips, shushing them. From George's pocket hung a slim end of the Extendable Ear.

"Since they silenced the room...," started Gorge shamelessly, dropping himself on the bed and jostling Crookshanks from his doze. He put the cat on his lap while his twin sat on the either side.

"…we couldn't help but overhear...," continued Fred, his hand on his wand, silencing the room.

"…your dulcet tones…"

"And we agree." They finished together, their tone unusually serious. Ron sat down in his previous place. The bed was barely big enough to fit them all, but they were rather weary of the chairs that had a look of being kept standing only by magic, thin thread and spellotape.

"They don't want to tell us anything either. Officially, because mother objects, but we think that the more probable reason is..." Fred's hand never leaving his wand, his head tilted slightly away like he was listening to something they couldn't hear. His voice trailed off.

"That we would tell Harry," finished George, "and for some reason Dumbledore doesn't want him to know. We asked..."

"That we did, brother mine..."

"That if it wasn't safe for him, then how it was safe for us to be here."

"Because we are either safe or we aren't." Hermione reached with one hand to tangle with Ron's fingers. He squeezed lightly, even when his lips pressed into an angry line.

"Exactly. Want to guess an answer?"

"Oh, I don't know," Ginny's mouth curled in parody of a smile, "maybe something along the lines of ' because I said so ' ?"

"Like you were there." George exchanged the look with his twin.

"So, it's like they are afraid not for his safety but that he is out of their influence." Ron looked spitefully toward the door, finally spilling in the open the thought that had build in their heads. "They put him in Durskaban for so long not because there was any need for it, but because once he would be collected he would be grateful. Or angry. Or both."

"And if he was angry, then who would get the brunt of it. Albus Dumbledore who kept him there or his dearest friends who didn't write to him?" Ginny growled. "Merlin, I need to hit something."

She leaned forward and punched George in the arm. He seemed to anticipate this move, because he hadn't reacted beyond light swaying and laughing under his nose about anger management issues.

For that she hit him again.

Satisfied that she at least got her point across, she tipped back, leaning on the headboard and crossing her arms over her chest.

"You think he will be angry at us now?" Hermione fiddled with Ron's hand restlessly. Ron frowned when she didn't even made an attempt to scold Ginny for the roughhousing.

"I think that he might be less angry than he would have been if he was taken from one unpleasant place to another unpleasant place with only slightly more pleasant people." Quipped Fred with one-armed shrug. "I mean, have you ever heard Harry speaking like he does in his letters?"

"Rarely," admitted Ron. Hermione just shook her head.

"He sounds... well, he is angry but it's more critical. Sarcastic. Like he had already arrived at the point he can joke about it instead of exploding in a ball of fury. " Offered Fred with a wiggle of his eyebrows. They shared a smile. Harry could be as mild and inoffensive as a summer drizzle, but his temper was as legendary as the storm that could follow in its wake." He sounds more confident. Bold. Well, bolder then his usual. He has people who he can depend on not mostly those that depend on him. He told them a lot, so he trusts them. And, if he was lying through his teeth, he would have found a way to tell us he is unhappy. They make him feel safe and he won't go back to the person who didn't have adults who would make a ruckus if something would happen to him, yeah? People who wouldn't be afraid of standing up to Dumbledore if he tries to take Harry away from them. Or who are conveniently a felon who can't leave a house."

"You think that it's deliberate. Sirius."

"We think," George shared another look with his brother receiving a firm nod in return," he thinks he is doing the right thing. But as a head of the judicial body for the country, you'd be blind not to notice that instead of using his position to at least try to get Sirius justice, he send Aurors to misdirect the DMLE. Who do you think is going to pay for it if it gets out? Maybe what he is trying for is right...but it sure as hell isn't good, and we don't like that he is doing that at the other people expanse."

To their surprise, Hermione nodded along. She already arrived at a similar conclusion, but until she heard her own thoughts spoken by others she couldn't help but cling precariously to her denial. The disappointment was crushing, but this summer was full of lessons she hadn't wanted to learn.

"So, what can we do?" Ginny rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

"We help Harry." Stated Ron easily. "And don't buy bullshit excuses for not doing what feels right."

"We can write letters!" Hermione untangled herself from the middle, more animated than they saw her in some time. She opened the drawers in search for spare parchment and quills. "All the letters we should have written to him. So when we see him he could read them and know that we thought about him all along."

"And tell him everything we know about Order. And what we suspect," added Ginny. "He might not like it, but he needs to know even if we have to pull his head out of his ass."

Gorge snorted. "If there is anything our dear Hurricane hates more than not knowing it's being led to do something he isn't particularly fond of doing."

"You are telling me?" Snarked Hermione signing Harry's name with a flourish at the top of the page." You try getting him to write his Potions homework. I'm sure there are mountains more inclined to move than Harry is to grab his pen."

"Ten galleons that he got worse." Hermione groaned as Ginny and Ron snickered.

"Sucker's bet, brother dear." Fred shrugged at his brother teasing, before he tensed. George was out in a second.

"Someone's comming." They didn't need more explanation than that. Sheets of parchment landed together in the lowest drawer, quills in the first. They settled together, a book held between them and, at Ginny's nod, Fred was gone along with the silencing spell.

And if Hermione smiled a bit too sharply at the crowd leaving the kitchen, and if Ginny pushed her way inside without a greeting and if Ron stepped on a few feet a little to hard for it to be accidental...who could really tell?