Three days later, Harry received an owl from Snape. Eagerly, he unfolded the thick parchment, only to feel as if someone had suddenly dashed cold water into his face. He read the letter a second time, his anger growing with every word:

Potter,

I regret to inform you that our twinkling "friend" has fled his frame. I had Flooed Headmaster Flitwick and informed him of our "situation", and of my intention to come to Hogwarts to confront the portrait in question. I had planned to Apparate to the castle after picking up an Apothecary order in Diagon Alley. However, by the time I arrived in the Headmaster's office, the portrait in question was empty, much to Filius' surprise, since the subject had left quietly and without his knowledge. Given the nature of my conversation during the Floo call, I suspect that the departed one was not sleeping, but eavesdropping, and took the opportunity to absent himself so as to avoid being interrogated. Filius believes it would be a waste of time to search the portraits in the castle, since the fugitive could simply hide out inside the walls until he is ready to reappear. Instead, we have decided to concentrate our efforts on perusing old records, to see if there is any indication of a Sherlock Holmes. It would help narrow down our search if we knew in which year he would have turned eleven, and thus received a Hogwarts letter. Your assistance in this area would be appreciated.

Severus Snape

Harry slapped the letter flat on the kitchen table.

A COWARD! Dumbledore was a COWARD!

Fleeing his frame...

What HAD he done to Sherlock? Was it illegal? Or, could Dumbledore, leader of the Light, possibly have performed some heinous DARK magic on a helpless child? Was that why he'd high-tailed it into the castle walls? Fear of the discovery? Shame for his actions? Could ... could punishment be exacted upon a mere portrait? In his mind's eye, Harry suddenly saw the Head of the Wizengemot incanting "Incendio" while pointing an accusing wand at Dumbledore's painted face...

"Problem?" Ginny's hand rested gently on Harry's shoulder.

Harry told her the latest news in short, clipped sentences. "So Snape wants me to see what I can learn from this end," he concluded.

"Are you going to talk to this Sherlock Holmes?"

"No. Not yet. We need to learn as much as we can before bringing him into the picture in a personal sense. But I can follow him. And I could always search his flat again. Find something listing his birthdate, maybe. Muggles often keep personal information handy, and as far as his lifestyle goes, he apparently lives like a Muggle. We need to figure out what year he had his eleventh birthday. As it stands, Snape and Flitwick are having to search through reams of parchment over a number of years."

Harry suddenly thought of something. "You got a much closer look at him than I ever did. How old did he seem?"

Ginny frowned, thinking back to that day at the café. "Thirty-something. Maybe a few years older than we are? But I'm really not sure. I wouldn't put him in his forties, though."

Harry sighed. "It's something, I suppose. I'll tell Snape mid-thirties to forty. But he's probably already figured that from the newspaper photo. Whether or not he and Flitwick find any trace of Sherlock, we'll still need to question him at some point. I just don't know what his reaction would be if wizards tried to take him away for a little chat."

They sat quietly, considering.

"I have an idea," Ginny said at last. "But it doesn't have anything to do with his birthdate. It's just in case you need to ‘capture' him to question him, if you think he might not come quietly if you tried to approach him directly."

"What's that?"

"Set a trap for him."

"What kind of trap?"

She folded her hands and smiled mischievously at her husband. "He fancies himself a detective, right? He'd follow a trail, if he thought it led to me."

"You must be joking!"

"Think about it, Harry. We could set something up, I'm sure of it.

"Well... "

-:- -:- -:-

Four days later, Harry was just about ready to concede to Ginny's idea of a trap. He'd staked out 221B Baker Street, only to discover that the dark detective had taken to playing his violin nearly non-stop. Day, night, day, night... Sherlock seldom even glanced at food, although the other chap kept bringing home various types of take-away to tempt him.

"I'm THINKING, John! You know I don't eat when I'm thinking!"

The shorter man sighed and settled down to his laptop, while Harry hovered outside the window, sighing himself. He could not enter the flat unless they were gone, and Sherlock, at least, seemed disinclined to leave.

Harry was just about ready to call it an early night when a police car pulled up to the curb at an awkward angle, lights flashing. Within seconds, a man that Ginny would describe as handsome had pelted up the inside steps to the flat shared by Sherlock and John. Harry practically pressed his Disillusioned nose against the outside of the sitting room window as the newcomer addressed Sherlock.

"There's been another one," he announced without preamble. "A couple this time - double homicide. Will you come?"

Yes, GO, thought Harry. Give me a chance to search the flat.

But as the detective hailed a cab so that he and John could follow the police car to the scene of the crime, curiosity got the better of the Auror, and he banked his broom to follow the cab as it wove its way through the tangle of street traffic. Streetlights, headlamps on cars, colorful traffic lights, bright signs on businesses - all combined to create a glowing carpet of constantly-changing illumination beneath the flying wizard, and it was all he could do to watch out for mid-air hazards hidden in the darkness above street level while pursuing the black cab. Afraid that he might lose it in the river of similar taxis, Harry quickly aimed his wand at the top of the vehicle, and a For-Wizard-Eyes-Only glowing yellow spot appeared on the black paint. Relieved, he now concentrated on flying safely, hoping not to break his neck on a suspended power line before they reached their destination. Hurtling around a sunlit Quidditch pitch while dodging Bludgers seemed as tame as a play park swing, compared to flying through London after dark.

When they arrived, Harry Finited the glowing spot on the taxi, thinking ruefully that his Solar Flare could have made the trip in mere minutes. As it was, the taxi had taken more than an hour to cross several sections of the moderately congested city. Sherlock and John entered a modest one-story house after the former exchanged brief barbs with a pretty brunette police sergeant, who addressed the taller man irreverently as "Freak".

"Dining room," indicated the handsome man, leading the way. "Neighbor found them when she came over to return a casserole."

Soundlessly, Harry Apparated into an unoccupied corner of the room, partly shielded by an open French door to the lounge. Even with the ceiling lights on, his Disillusioned form would be hard to detect, and unless somebody tried to push the door flat against the wall, thereby bumping against him, he would go unnoticed.

The murdered couple had been positioned facing each other across the dining table, each one's wrists bound to the other person's by a supple, braided cord, so that, even in death, they had not slumped completely to the floor, but remained supported by each other's weight. A single narrow-handled, thin-bladed knife protruded from the woman's back; a small bloodstain on the man's shirt surrounded the first knife's twin.

"The signature?" asked Sherlock.

"Both of them," nodded the handsome man. "A hundred-dollar bill, American, in each of their mouths. Just like the other murders."

From his corner, Harry watched as Sherlock sprang into action, examining the bodies, the cords binding them together, the knives, the rug, the table, the chairs, the windowsill - everything, really.

"How did the murderer get in?"

"Uncertain," the handsome man admitted unhappily, running his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. "The neighbor used her key when nobody answered the bell. She routinely watered plants and picked up mail when the deceased couple traveled, which was frequently, so she kept a key to the house. We found no sign of forced entry. The chain was on the back door as well as the front. The neighbor says these two normally kept both chains on whenever they were in the house. I suppose it's always possible that the owners let the murderer in themselves, though I don't think it likely."

"If the chains were on, how did the neighbor get in?"

"She didn't. She tried her key in both doors and hit both chains. Then, since no one had responded when she called through the doors, she tried to look through the windows. She found a slim gap in the dining room curtains and could see the couple sprawling across the table with their hands bound. That's when she called us."

Sherlock looked sideways at the handsome man. "I don't suppose there were witnesses who saw anyone coming or going?"

"We're still canvasing the neighborhood."

So far, the examination of the crime scene bore a superficial similarity to several unfortunate murders which Harry himself had processed as an Auror, and he could not imagine why the police had called in a "genius detective" to look things over.

"Anything else significant, Lestrade?"

The handsome man quirked an eyebrow at the dark detective's query. "All the windows were latched from the inside. Manual latches. Nothing automated."

"Wait a minute," John inserted. "You're saying that both doors and all the windows were secured from the inside?"

At Lestrade's sharp nod, John posed the obvious question. "How did the murderer get OUT?"

"That's what we need HIM to work out," Lestrade jerked his head toward Sherlock, who had exited the dining room to closely study the doors and windows throughout the rest of the house.

When the tall detective reentered the dining room, he launched into a lightning-fast monologue of analysis, which left Harry catching about every fifth word of it, describing the victims, their habits, their hobbies, and such a slew of other sundries that it left the wizard's head spinning. Harry listened with open-mouthed astonishment as Sherlock, posed questions, offered alternative possibilities, rejected some, then some more, explaining why they didn't work, and finally narrowed the field to a few more likely probabilities.

Neither John nor Lestrade appeared at all startled, as if Sherlock's intense breakdown of the crime scene was commonplace indeed. The other men simply waited until the dark detective had finished, although John did scribble a few quick notes on a pocket pad.

At length, when Sherlock fell silent and contemplated the windows once more, Lestrade ventured, "So, how did the murderer get out?"

"No idea," Sherlock stated bluntly. "But all the previous crime scenes had obvious entry and exit?"

"Yes."

"So he's becoming more clever," said John.

"Or extraordinarily stupid," countered Sherlock. "I'll be in touch." With that, he whirled, his long dark coat caught by surprise and taking a moment to catch him up, flapping against his calves as he walked rapidly toward the front door.

"I suppose he'll be off food for another week until he figures this one out," John said, shaking his head. "Good night, Detective Inspector."

Lestrade simply sighed, waving John toward the front door.

Harry silently Apparated to the tiny front lawn, keeping clear of the police presence. It only took him a couple of seconds to locate Sherlock and John. The former had borrowed a torch and was now shining the beam along the ground next to the house's foundation, paying special attention to the areas in the vicinity of each window and near both exterior doors.

"Any footprints?" inquired John.

"Plenty," said Sherlock, "but none that match."

"Match what?"

"The shoeprint on the dining room rug."

John looked taken aback. "There's a shoeprint?"

"There was."

"Then why didn't you tell Lestrade?"

"He's a police detective, isn't he? He should already have seen it before I arrived at the scene. Besides, by the time I returned to the dining room, he'd already scattered it."

"Scattered ... the footprint?"

"Sugar, John!" A shoeprint in sugar. And he'd already trodden upon it. Or someone else had."

"And the sugar is significant, how?"

"On the kitchen table, an empty sugar bowl, the lid removed for refilling."

"And a container of spilled sugar on the floor, I take it?"

"No."

"No?"

"No sugar at all in evidence."

"Except for the footprint on the dining room rug."

"Exactly."

"Sherlock - "

"TAXI!"

Feeling way out of his depth, Harry hesitated, watching the black cab shrinking into the distance, before he shrugged and decided to Apparate home to Godric's Hollow and his family. In all likelihood, the men would stay in their flat all night now, so there would be no opportunity to search it before the morrow, anyway.

-:- -:- -:-

"Dumbledore is still lying low," Snape growled, his dour features distorted by the green flames of the Floo call. "Headmaster Flitwick and I are still digging through old records. He had the idea to check the magical school roster and discovered that some tampering had taken place in 1987, where someone's name had been magically obliterated from the Headmaster's list."

"Was that the only incidence?" asked Hermione, sitting next to Harry on the sofa in the Potter cottage. Ginny stood in the kitchen doorway, listening, while Ron sat cross-legged on the braided rug, noisily crunching an apple.

Snape shook his head. "Oddly, once he discovered how to detect the tampering, Filius came across multiple instances of obliterated names, although we believe the 1987 date is most likely, given that the next two closest, one in 1971 and the other in 1995, would be too far off the mark for a man who is currently in his mid-thirties."

"I agree," said Harry, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. "And these ... erasures ... occurred during Dumbledore's tenure as Headmaster?"

"The most recent ones did," acknowledged Snape. "There were none during Headmaster Dippett's time in office. However, when you go back even further, several other Heads of School apparently inflicted alterations upon the roster during their own years."

"What does it signify?" asked Harry, after exchanging glances with Hermione.

"That is open for debate," returned Snape, looking displeased. "Each individual instance could have different underlying circumstances. If a parent chooses to homeschool a child instead of enrolling him or her at Hogwarts, the roster reflects that option. The Founders simply created a perpetual roster to record every eligible witch or wizard born in the British Isles. Whether or not they attended Hogwarts at any time, their names have been recorded, along with their dates of birth and death."

"Death!" blurted Ron, dropping the apple core on the rug.

"The roster goes back ten centuries, Mr. Weasley," Snape reminded him dryly.

"Oh. Right." The redhead's freckles nearly vanished as his face flushed with embarrassment at being caught out over something so simple. And by Snape, of course.

Harry chuckled, while Hermione just shook her head.

"But for anyone's name to be magically obliterated... Quite frankly, I was not aware that such an action was even possible. The Hogwarts roster is supposed - was DESIGNED - to be definitive. Absolute." Snape's glare looked rather sickly when shaded with green flames.

"And there's no way to actually restore the destroyed entry?" Harry frowned. Muggle raised, he still marveled at magic after all the years he'd used it, and he still found it hard to believe that there couldn't be a magical solution to nearly every problem in the Wizarding world.

Snape shook his head. "Not that we've been able to discover. Yet. A reversal of magic of this magnitude requires more than a simple Finite, you must realize."

Actually, Harry felt a bit embarrassed to realize that he'd been thinking along the lines of a simple Finite.

"What about the other Heads of School?" Hermione wondered. "Have you or Professor Flitwick consulted their portraits? The ones who also had erasures, that is?"

Despite years of retirement, Severus Snape had never lost his ability to sneer, and he did so now with undisguised contempt. "The Heads in question unexpectedly took leave of their own frames."

"What!" All four Gryffindors leaned toward the fireplace, as if they weren't certain they'd heard Snape correctly. Ginny even walked over from the kitchen so as not to miss a word.

"I've no doubt they've all gone off to consort with Dumbledore SOMEWHRE in the castle walls." For a long moment, Snape looked completely at a loss. Then he added, "They're probably trying to come up with some sort of strategy to explain their actions, something which will allow them to come off smelling like roses..."

Harry thought quickly. "What about the Heads who are still in their frames? Even if nothing suspect shows up during their years, would they have any knowledge of what the other Heads might have done?"

Snape snorted, causing the green flames to flicker. "Some deny knowing anything at all, while the others are determinedly sleeping as hard as they can."

"Refusing to wake up and talk, you mean."

"Just what I said, Potter."

The room fell silent and still, the only movement the dancing green flames surrounding Snape's perturbed visage.

"So," Harry said at last, "what do you suggest we do, Professor?"

Frowning, the Potions Master said slowly, "I believe we shall need to speak to Sherlock Holmes himself."

"Right," said Harry, nodding once. "I'll go."

Snape gave a sharp nod of his own and vanished. The green flames died upon the grate.

But when Harry Apparated to 221B Baker Street moments later, he discovered that Sherlock's flat was empty, and the men's own fireplace grate had gone cold.

-:- -:- -:-

Disappointed, Harry stared around the comfortable flat, wondering where Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had got to. They must have been gone for some time already, since the fireplace held not the faintest trace of heat in the bricks. And when were they planning to return?

Sighing, he decided he might as well make use of their absence, and he began a systematic search of the flat. He worked efficiently, but quietly. Mindful of the landlady's keen hearing, he'd cast a Muffliato before starting, and he made sure to keep his own ear alert for any footsteps coming up the stairs. After his untoward discovery in the fridge on the previous trip, he opened furniture drawers and closet doors warily as he searched the sitting room and the bedroom adjacent to the kitchen. Previous surveillance had alerted him to the fact that Sherlock slept in that main bedroom - on the rare occasions when he actually did sleep - while John kept his own bedroom one floor up. Neither bedroom turned up anything enlightening, in terms of Sherlock's date of birth, and the varied contents of the sitting room - while fascinating - proved equally unrevealing.

Once again, Harry stared reluctantly at the doorway into the kitchen.

The refrigerator almost seemed to be leering at him. Merlin only knew what Sherlock had stashed in it this time...

Realistically, he'd probably not find anything useful in the kitchen, since few papers had turned up during his previous search, and he absolutely refused to consider opening the fridge again.

Of course, he thought, swallowing hard, the body parts might have been put there deliberately, in order to deter casual intruders against investigating any further. If Sherlock really wanted to hide something...

NO! NOT happening!

And surely, Sherlock would never have hidden documents bearing his birthdate in a refrigerator anyway, with or without body parts.

As for John's computer -

The men had left it behind, turned off and unplugged, but it was a simple matter for a Muggle-raised wizard to reestablish power and then use his wand to coax the laptop into revealing its password. Quietly, Harry pulled out a hard-backed chair and sat down at the table.

One of the first things he'd done after Voldemort's defeat was to purchase a computer and become proficient in using it. He knew that, as a future Auror, he would need to move in the Muggle world as well as the Wizarding, and technology and the knowledge of how to use it would prove invaluable. Also, since hiding in plain sight was often essential to maintaining any type of cover while on assignment, computer literacy would aid him in appearing to be an ordinary Muggle as he pursued Dark witches and wizards who were attempting to hide among Muggles. If nothing else, his upbringing at the Dursleys' had given him a serious advantage over the wizard-raised Aurors in moving fluently between both worlds.

While many modern-thinking wizards never bothered with computers, believing them useless around magic and its residue, open-minded Harry had been delighted to discover that certain limited types of magic, especially when he restrained his powers, could be applied to computers with great effect. The Password-Revealing Charm had been his own invention, and aside from his trusted closest friends and selected members of the Hogwarts teaching staff - specifically Filius Flitwick and Severus Snape - he'd kept all knowledge of the charm to himself, not even telling Kingsley Shacklebolt, who continued to serve as Minister of Magic, winning three uncontested elections since Voldemort's fall.

Harry had originally bought a desktop computer, but while it worked well enough in a deeply-buried chamber far below the protective wards surrounding his cottage, those same wards precluded any possibility of receiving Internet service at home. He'd pounced on a laptop the moment prices became reasonable, since he could simply Apparate it to an unwarded Muggle Wi-Fi spot to go online.

His years of experience made it child's play to gain access to John Watson's laptop, and he began to search for online information concerning one Sherlock Holmes. Amazingly, Sherlock had his own website dealing with "The Science of Deduction", which Harry skimmed through quickly. Fascinating, yes, but he'd need to revisit it at his leisure - maybe even turn Snape onto it, since its intricacies seemed the sort of thing that the Potions Master might indulge in for some light reading. Oddly enough, it had been Harry's own success with computers which had inspired Severus Snape to take the plunge, and now he was every bit as proficient with the technology as the average Muggle, although he preferred to print out and read from hard copy, rather than squinting into the computer's lighted screen.

Harry moved on to a more general search, and it was the media reports about Sherlock which really caught his attention. He skimmed a few articles, then decided to copy them to his memory stick, which he removed from a sealed, shielded box in his pocket. He'd learned the hard way that memory sticks could end up permanently erased if they lingered in close contact with his personal magic for extended periods of time. Merely handling them posed no difficulties, but carrying them unshielded in his pockets was a good way to lose information in less than a month. Once a memory stick's memory faded, it could not be restored or reused. Necessity had led to Harry's developing of a stasis shield box to preserve the memory sticks which he routinely carried on his person.

Plugging the memory stick into a USB port on John's computer, Harry quickly began to save article after article. He would read them carefully at home, where he didn't have to worry about a landlady popping in unexpectedly. He might even print them out for Snape and Flitwick, and the thought made him consider once again how much he needed to develop a Charm that would produce hard copy directly from a computer.

Then, he paused.

Suicide?

Sherlock?

But the man was alive!

Yet - multiple reports of his death after he had apparently jumped from St. Bart's Hospital rooftop, his body crashing bloodily onto the concrete sidewalk far, far below. Other headlines referred to Sherlock as a "fake genius" in reporting his supposed demise, a fact which confused Harry even further. It appeared that Sherlock Holmes had, for some reason, been discredited around the time of his "death".

But later, the media seemed to relent, and more recent articles boasted headlines heralding the return of the genius detective, featuring the now-famous photo of the man in the deerstalker, his dark collar turned up beneath prominent cheekbones.

Utterly bemused, Harry saved everything to his memory stick and took care to delete his searches from the laptop's History file. He closed the computer, quietly replaced the chair, and Apparated back to his cottage, where - unlike 221B Baker Street - a welcoming fire had been lit to stave off the evening chill.

-:- -:- -:-

"Surviving a seventy-foot fall onto concrete could be indicative."

"You think?" Harry almost - but not quite - scoffed at Snape's unerring statement of the obvious.

The man's dark eyes glowered at the younger wizard. Hard to believe that Potter was now older than Snape himself had been when the boy had come to Hogwarts for his Sorting. So help him, Merlin - he still saw Potter as that same young boy, although he'd made quite a successful career for himself in the Aurors' Department for more than a decade. He could hear the boy - er, Auror - trying to rein in his sarcasm. It did not do for the young to disrespect their elders' opinions...

"If I might continue," Snape said, his tone taking on an edge, which caused Potter to nod quickly. "Perhaps, if Holmes' magic had not been tampered with, he might even have suffered a lesser degree of injury."

Harry nodded, more slowly this time. "Yeah. I'd kind of wondered about that. Especially after Neville told us that when he was a kid, his family thought he might be a squib until he fell out of a - what was it? - a third story window? - and just bounced when he hit the ground."

Snape listened, turning thoughts over in his mind. "Also, if Holmes had been treated by the Healers at St. Mungo's instead of by Muggle physicians at St. Bart's, he might have had a faster recovery." Snape mouse-clicked yet another file about the detective's supposed suicide. "But nothing explains why the press announced his death. Or why he went missing for months afterward."

"Well, gee... Look who's talking," muttered Harry, not bothering to hide his sarcasm this time.

Through the ominous silence at his elbow, Harry could feel a threatening frisson of angry magic suddenly brushing across his sensitive skin. The underground computer chamber abruptly felt far too small, too claustrophobic, somewhat as if Snape had crowded with him into Harry's old cupboard under the Dursleys' stairs.

"My POINT," enunciated Snape, in tones which Harry long remembered from the depths of countless dungeon detentions with the Potions Master, "is that the majority of reputable Muggle news publications do not engage in yellow journalism. The same could hardly be said for the Daily Prophet, as you well know. So, why report his death? By fake suicide, no less."

The Gryffindor shook his head with a shrug. "I suppose that's something else we'll need to ask Sherlock, once he gets back from wherever he went. And there's no telling how long he'll be gone."

Snape finished reading in silence, while Harry patiently waited. When the Potions Master sat back, frowning pensively, Harry checked his Coming-of-Age watch. Almost dinnertime, although the cooking smells seldom made it down this far.

But here came the sound of footsteps pattering down the long, sloping passage, preceding the appearance of five-year-old Lily. She smiled cherubically and climbed into her father's lap, and the aroma of Ginny's cooking clung to the child's clothes. Harry hid a smile when he saw Snape's nostrils twitch discreetly as the man inhaled deeply.

"Would you like to stay for supper?" Harry invited. "I think Ginny has a chicken roasting. I'm not sure what else we're having."

"Peas ‘n' taters," piped up Lily. "Smash taters. They're good. But peas is only good for throwin'. That's what Uncle Ronnie says. At Gramma's house, he throws peas at the gnomes. They throws ‘em back!"

Snape smirked, which didn't disturb Lily in the least, and the man's eyes sparkled as the little girl smiled brightly up at him. "Good for the gnomes! I hope their aim is accurate."

"Yup!" agreed Lily, before Harry could say anything. "Las' time, a gnome throwed a pea right up Uncle Ronnie's nose! It got so stuck, he couldn't get it out. So Gramma zapped him wif magic, an' the pea popped out like a big green bogey."

"Lily!"

"It did so!" avowed the little girl. "An' it was kinda smushed ‘cause of Uncle Ronnie stickin' his finger up - "

Harry's hand quickly covered Lily's runaway description. "That's quite enough about the bogey - er, pea, sweetheart. Run along and tell Mummy we'll have a guest staying for dinner." He raised an eyebrow at Snape to verify the man's acceptance, and Snape nodded through silent laughter.

Lily's head swiveled around toward Snape. "How far can you throw peas?"

The Potions Master's ribcage was shaking with repressed mirth. "I really couldn't say. I don't ever recall trying."

"That's okay," Lily assured him, hopping off of her father's lap. "I'll have Mummy save you some to practice wif. That way, if you ever come to Gramma's house, you can throw ‘em at the gnomes." Then she giggled. "Or at Uncle Ronnie. Bye!"

And then she was off, running at full speed up the long passage, leaving the two men laughing in her wake.

"Bless Merlin for little girls," Snape gasped, trying to catch his breath a minute or two later. "So help me, Potter, she reminds me so much of your mother. The same irrepressible spirit. The same sense of humor... " And for once, the shadow of regret did not cross his features as he remembered his childhood friend, his only love. Instead, he appeared ... content. "Lily would be so pleased with her granddaughter. With all of her grandchildren, in fact. Pleased, and very proud."

Harry felt his heart clench a bit, and he fought down sudden, welling tears. "Thank you for saying so, sir."

Emerald eyes met ebony, and the two men shared a moment of mutual understanding.

In the years since Snape's return, Harry had witnessed a gradual mellowing of the man's general personality, but only in private. His public persona remained sharp and unyielding, as if Severus Snape still needed a shield between himself and the rest of the world. Every now and then, however, as now, he seemed to truly let down his hair and enjoy a few precious moments before withdrawing into the protective folds of his virtual robes. Harry felt privileged to be one of the few with whom Snape had formed a quiet bond, close enough for him to relax his guard. For when he did, the unexpected could happen. Bless little Lily!

Eventually, Snape looked back at the computer screen. "Could you print all of this out for me? I'd like to share what you've found with Filius."

"Fine," said Harry. "It'll take a while, so I'll owl it to you. I'll probably use a Shrinking Charm after I bundle it all together."

"Right. Now," said Snape, his black eyes glittering, "shall we go throw some peas?"

Harry laughed aloud as they ascended the passage to his cottage, where Ginny and young James, Albus, and Lily were waiting supper for them.

-:- -:- -:-

"A copycat, do you think?" asked John as the black cab sped through London in slack traffic. "One murderer who goes noticeably in and out through doors and windows, and - "

" - a second killer who somehow manages to conceal routes of ingress and egress?" finished Sherlock. "Or, perhaps the same killer playing at being a copycat."

The cab swung to the right and John nearly pitched across the back seat into Sherlock's lap. "Sorry!"

"Not your fault. But let's examine the facts: Seven murder scenes so far, with nine victims in total. Four scenes we know how the killer came and sent, the other three we don't. All involved murder by backstabbing with a thin-bladed knife, and aside from the first two individual murders, where two different types of knives were used, all of the remaining murders were committed with identical knives."

"So, he's settled on a favorite kind of knife?"

"Perhaps."

"And always, the hundred-dollar bill in each victim's mouth."

"Relevance unknown."

Sherlock's phone rang. He glanced at the incoming I.D. "Lestrade." He clicked to answer. "What have you got?" He listened for a moment, then said, "Right. Keep me informed." He listened, then scoffed and added, "You know what I mean, however you choose to take it." He hung up.

"Well?" asked John.

"Lestrade says some of the American money is counterfeit."

"Counterfeit!"

"Yes. Quite odd, in fact. The fake bills all passed the usual authentication tests - paper, ink, security features, etc., but they all shared the same serial number. If not for that, they never would have been spotted as counterfeit. The overall quality is the highest Interpol has ever seen, and the U.S. Treasury is extremely concerned, with good reason."

John blew out his breath. "I don't doubt it. If counterfeit currency of that quality can be mass produced, it could quickly destabilize the American economy, then the world's, putting us right back to the crash of 2008. Or worse. Probably far worse."

"Precisely. But there's an interesting link between the fake bills and the murders."

"What is that?"

"Care to guess?"

But even as John opened his mouth to respond, Sherlock interrupted, saying, "Don't bother. You'd get it wrong."

"Would I!"

"Of course you would."

"Did YOU get it before Lestrade told you?"

A scoff.

"I didn't have all the facts. How could I possibly ‘get it' before I had facts to work with?"

"Meaning you didn't get it."

"Don't be rude, John."

"Okay. Fine. But I'll guess anyway."

"Nonsense."

"The fake bills all showed up in the victims' at the scenes where nobody could tell how the killer came and went."

Silence.

Stunned silence.

Then -

"I'm impressed, John. You might make a detective yet."

"So, I'm right?"

"Indeed. That's exactly what Lestrade told me."

"This case gets weirder all the time."

"But tell me, how did you work it out?"

"You told me to guess."

"Lucky guess."

John gave a satisfied chuckle.

The cab braked to a halt outside 221B Baker Street.

Upstairs, the men dropped their cases on the floor and flopped into the plaid-covered lounge chair, in John's case, and into the depths of the leather sofa in Sherlock's.

"So, now that we've traveled to visit the other murder scenes, what do you make of it all?" John propped his heels atop a slightly-worn ottoman and leaned back, closing his eyes. The ottoman was his recent purchase from a neighbor's moving sale, and he relished being able to put his feet up. He'd long envied Sherlock his ability to stretch out his length upon the leather sofa cushions.

"Tea."

"Sorry?"

"Making, you said. We need to be making tea."

"Your idea."

"I'm tired from the trip. I need caffeine."

"I'M tired from the trip, and I'm not your housekeeper."

"I need energy."

"Just use a nicotine patch."

"Sarcasm doesn't become you, John."

"Fine! I'll make the bloody tea." John shoved himself out of his comfy chair.

"A couple of biscuits, too."

"You don't mean you'd actually EAT them?"

"Energy, John."

"You're hyper enough without refined sugar."

"Hmphh."

Several minutes later, John carried the tea tray out of the kitchen and set it on the low table before the leather sofa. He'd been tempted to put it on the high table next to his laptop, but in Sherlock's current mood, the man would bitch and moan about having to walk across the room. John poured himself a cup, added a dash of milk, and took the cup and saucer back to his lounge chair.

"Well?" Sherlock demanded impatiently.

"Well what?"

"Haven't you forgotten something? Two things, in fact."

"No."

"No? You forgot to pour out for me, and you forgot to put the biscuits on the tray."

"I did not forget to pour your tea, and I'm serious about the refined sugar. You already take sugar in your tea, as it is."

"You fixed it. Therefore, you should pour."

"Stop being such a damned nuisance!"

Sherlock swung his long legs off the sofa and sat up, seriously disgruntled. He reached for the teapot.

"Sherlock... "

"Oh, shut up."

"Sherlock, someone's been in here while we were gone."

The tall man looked across the room and saw John slowly setting down his cup and saucer on the ottoman, staring intently at something low on the wall.

"How do you know?"

"I unplugged my laptop before we left. It's been plugged in."

The two men approached the wall beyond the end of the tall table, staring at the power strip's plug firmly inserted into the wall's electrical outlet.

"Mrs. Hudson?"

"Get real! She hasn't a clue about computers."

Sherlock shook his head. "No, I meant she might have come in to pick up. Saw the power strip unplugged, and thought she was being helpful by plugging it back into the wall."

"Or... " John glanced at the taller man. "Do you think our ‘visitor' returned?"

"Let's find out!"

Sherlock whipped open the laptop, waited impatiently for the command, then rapidly typed John's password into the machine. "You really should change this, you know," he said, as the computer accepted the password.

"To what purpose?" John countered. "You'd just hack the new one, too."

"True."

His lean fingers dancing lightly over the keyboard, Sherlock quickly tapped commands into the computer, while John watched the screen from over his friend's shoulder.

"I don't know how you do this," John murmured as Sherlock called up the data recorded by his sitting room and kitchen cameras.

"I'm a genius, John. It helps."

John Watson rolled his eyes. "Right."

And then -

"Yes! You were right! He did come back... " And Sherlock ran the image in reverse to catch the wiry man's arrival.

"How does he DO that?" breathed John as the intruder materialized.

"The same way, I should imagine, that other people manage to vanish into thin air."

John stared at Sherlock. "You think ... this is all related?"

"Possibly."

And they watched as the wiry man carefully rifled through their belongings, this time doing a far more thorough search than during his first visit.

"What is he looking for?" wondered John, while Sherlock stared unblinkingly at the computer screen, his narrow eyes blazing blue with an insatiable desire to KNOW.

"Whatever it was, he doesn't appear to have found it," Sherlock stated, adding with amusement, "And he certainly doesn't seem inclined to revisit the refrigerator."

John chuckled. Then... "Why - he - he's USING my computer! He didn't just plug it in - he's USING it! How the hell did HE hack my password?"

The wiry man spent a fair amount of time seated before the laptop, and Sherlock finally noted, "He appears to be searching the internet. You can just make out the image of the online directory... "

"Now look!" John's outrage went up by several notches. "He's COPYING! From MY computer! And saving it - what NERVE!"

At length, the wiry man unplugged his memory stick, closed the laptop, and vanished from the flat, apparently having forgotten to unplug the power strip from the wall.

Sherlock quickly checked the History file, but John just shook his head. "Those entries are all mine. He must have deleted his own searches."

"So, he's clever. And cautious. But far from infallible."

The two men ruminated in silence for a bit, before John asked, "What now?"

"Find the red-haired woman."

"How?"

"No idea. Aside from staking out that café."

John scoffed. "Do you honestly think she - that ANY of them - would ever go back there after being chased down the street by the two of us?"

"Unlikely."

"You got that right."

-:- -:--:-