AN: I apologize for being a bit late, rl is just... Man, I don't even know anymore... I don't really like this chapter, but, well...

Finale

Sherlock Holmes was bored. He had been hoping that after The Moriarty Scare, as they were now calling it, he would have something to do. However, Moriarty hadn't appeared as of yet and Graham – sorry, Gregory – didn't have any interesting cases for him. And he admits it, yes he's pouting. Though he was happy that John visited him often, John also had the annoying habit of telling him stories about his more-than-likely deceased pet dog when Mary wasn't there to accompany him. It was even more annoying when John kept comparing the dog to him, especially when talking about its eerie intelligence, which Sherlock did NOT appreciate. He was rather insulted when John first compared his and the mutt's intelligence.

He cursed loudly and uncharacteristically, wishing he had John's gun so he could make Mr. Yellow Smiley Face a friend.

His head hit the sofa with a muffled thump. Usually, he'd do an experiment or compose something on his violin to alleviate his boredom, but he was feeling particularly low today and didn't even want to move. All he wanted was a good case to get his spirits up.

His phone beeped and his eyes moved to glare at it when it didn't stop after the first few seconds. He wasn't sure what made him get the call, boredom probably, but he was sure glad he picked up. It meant that he was no longer bored, at any rate.

"It's not only incredibly baffling, but it's unbelievable, too. I mean, who would steal sixty toilets seats, a plastic scythe, a whole lot of cloth, a giant stag model, a paper mache rat, a rocking horse, a werewolf costume and a hellhound carved out of stone?" Greg complained to Sherlock as the consulting detective examined the restroom which was missing toilet seats. "Of course, usually, we'd never get assigned to any case like this, but… This is just weird.

"Sixty toilet seats from a variety of public places all across London, a giant stag model from the British Natural History Museum, a giant paper mache rat and rocking horse from the houses of two wealthy citizens, a werewolf costume from a costume shop, a giant portion of expensive black cloth from a very reputable cloth shop, a gigantic plastic scythe from a toy store, and a 'hellhound' carved out of stone from a shop which sells garden statues…" Sherlock murmured to himself. "All disappearing last night within ten minutes of each other, from places with surveillance cameras that short-circuited during the scarce minute it took to steal the items…"

"How can you be so sure they were all stolen by the same person?" John asked, feeling awkward as he watched his friend snoop around. It was rather obvious as to why: they were in the women's bathroom of a museum.

"Well…" Greg drawled walking towards the last cubicle, "It's probably because of this." He opened the door and pointed, catching the attention of their resident consulting detective. Sherlock was over there in a flurry and he raised an eyebrow at the wall. Behind the toilet was the lifelike painting of a black, shaggy dog with piercing grey eyes. The dog was sat on its haunches, grinning doggy-ly at them. In the back ground was a graveyard…

The graveyard where 'Sherlock' had been buried.

"Padfoot."

"What was that, John?" Sherlock asked absently, getting closer to the picture and pressing a finger to the painting. He sniffed at his finger and frowned. It was almost like the colours of the tile that made up the wall had just changed. There was not a hint of paint or anything covering the tiles. There wasn't a trace of anyone having been here, either, except for the person who had discovered the theft. The thieves had covered their tracks well.

"It looks exactly like Padfoot," John gasped out in shock. "Just like the scene when we first met."

Sherlock turned to look at his companion in slight surprise. "Do all of the… crime scenes," he hesitated a little as he said the words. Stealing toilet seats was weird, but not interesting and certainly wasn't much of a crime. Sherlock had thought this would be a boring and odd case, but had come nonetheless after Lestrade had told him about the lack of evidence. It was proving to be more than interesting now though. "Have these pictures?"

"Yes, which is why we thought they were done by a group of people working together. None of them were stolen at the same time, but from the timing, it would've been impossible for only one or two people to have done it. Otherwise they would've had to have gotten halfway across London in less than ten minutes," Greg replied. "So? What've you got?"

Sherlock's lip curled upwards in a half-grimace, half-smile. His answer was hesitant and reluctant, but impressed. "Nothing. These thieves were surprisingly thorough. There're no signs of tampering. Anywhere. It's almost as if those toilet seats decided to take a walk. No, not take a walk. It was as if they just disappeared into thin air. And this picture… There's no sign of the tiles being changed. As if the original colour of the tiles were at it is now. That doesn't make sense…" The rest of his words were incoherent murmurs.

John frowned.

Harry was perplexed and exhausted and completely and absolutely irritated.

"Sirius?"

"Yes, Harry?"

Sirius was giddy and his giddiness was starting to become extremely annoying. And extremely weird. They were sitting in the middle of sixty toilet seats, a paper mache rat, a model of a stag, a rocking horse with a werewolf costume on it, and a hellhound statue.

Now, Harry didn't usually swear. In fact, he had never really said anything beyond 'hell' or 'crap' or one of those weird wizarding swears that sounded disgustingly bizzare to his then muggle ears. But the f word seemed to be perfect for this situation.

"What the fuck is all of this for, exactly?" he asked.

Sirius merely grinned back at him as they approached the parliament building.

"We are making our master piece!"

And then, ten minutes later, Harry regretted going along with Sirius as they stood in front of a twenty foot tall monument of toilet seats placed in a manner to look vaguely like a human being, a stag, a werewolf and hellhound with a rat crushed under the pile, held together by magic and superglue.

"Wait," Harry suddenly piped up, after a moment of Sirius' proud staring at the monument. "Do I not get to be a part of… this?" He gestured vaguely at the masterpiece.

Sirius turned with a somewhat unnerving smile. "Of course you do!" Harry instantly had a bad feeling about it all.

…

He was not impressed when, a minute later, the toilet seat-person thing gained a black cloak and a giant plastic scythe.

Sirius was very, very proud and cheerful.

"Yeah, laugh it up Sirius."

Sherlock was agitated and confused and utterly obsessed, which did not bode well for John's sanity. The pacing of his flatmate was grating on John's nerves, especially after seeing different scenes of Padfoot at each scene that reflected a moment of John's experience with Padfoot. Padfoot on a train, Padfoot in a new dog bed, Padfoot knocking over a vase, Padfoot on the roof, Padfoot on the Eifel Tower, Padfoot on a treadmill, Padfoot at Mycroft's gentleman's club, Padfoot in a field, and Padfoot in an alleyway (he wasn't sure where the last two came from but Sherlock seemed to have reacted to that). He and Padfoot truly had a deep connection, even across species.

Now, John, who usually had an infinite well of patience for dealing with Sherlock, was at the end of his fuse and about to yell at Sherlock to just stop when Mrs. Hudson burst in and told them that DI Lestrade was here.

"Sherlock, John," the detective inspector began, hesitant, "We've, ah, found the missing items.

Sherlock and John looked at each other and immediately followed as Lestrade walked back dwn the stairs.

John had the pleasure of seeing Sherlock's face contort into a mixture of shock, confusion and relectant admiration. He was pretty sure he wasn't much better though, seeing the addition that had been made to the house of parliament. There, on its roof, stood what looked to be a grim reaper made of toilet seats, a stag, a hellhound and a werewolf all crushing a rat. On the side of the building were the words: "All hail Messers Padfoot and Thanatos, the new generation of Marauders!" in bright, eye-blinding gold and red. A pawprint was next to that in deep gold paint.

"This is… new," John commented, pondering on the coincidences that more than likely weren't coincidences God, Padfoot, what on Earth had the trouble-magnet dog got himself caught up in this time? A whole lot of mischief, John would bet.

"We managed to get fingerprints though, from the, um, toilet seats," Lestrade cut in hesitantly. "But we still have no idea who the… perpetrators are."

"Fingerprints?" Sherlock questioned, incredulous.

"Yes, they were all over the stolen items as well as this note."

Sherlock frowned as Lestrade pointed to a slip of paper pinned next to the bright words.

"Isn't this beautiful?" Was all that was written on the slip of paper. There was some dirt and other odd stains on it, too, though.

"They want to be found," Sherlock concluded, "They're leaving us hints. I'll be needing this." With that, he grabbed the paper with a pair of tweezers and placed it into a plastic bag before striding away from the scene. John blinked and quickly hurried after the other.

"Sherlock, wait up!"

"And we couldn't have done this in a normal way, like, going to visit them as neighbors or something?" Harry hissed.

Sirius grinned and shrugged. "This is more fun. And, well, we're inviting them over for dinner, aren't we?"

"What if they get the authorities involved?"

"There are compulsions on the invite. Don't worry!"
"… We really need magical law enforcement in any world with you. Compulsions are illegal!"

"So?"

"Dear John Waston and Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street. You are cordially invited to dinner at six PM today at 239 Baker Street with Messers Padfoot and Thanatos. We hope you accept.

P. S. Bring Mary, too!"

John blinked down, baffled, at the words on the piece of paper. Where the hell did this come from? He looked towards Sherlock who was performing a series of experiments on the slip of paper they had brought home. He had been at it for two days already, but he couldn't seem to find what he was looking for in the slip of paper.

This new slip was exactly the same as the one Sherlock had, down to every stain, just with different words

"Sherlock, where did this come from?" John asked. The other gave a noncommittal response. "Sherlock, we're going to 239 Baker Street to have dinner, okay?" Another noncommittal reply. "I'll interpret that as a yes!"

So they could finally get some questions answered. He didn't think it would be dangerous, and there was no reason to inform the police. These two seemed more interesting in causing chaos in the form of pranks, if the monument had anything to say about that. The artwork, if it could be called that, had disappeared the day following its discovery and news broadcast.

John was just more interested in finding out what the hell Padfoot had to do with any of this.

Six PM found an exasperated John, a confused Mary and a sulky Sherlock in front of the door of 239 Baker Street.

"Why are we here John?" Sherlock asked. "I could be-"

"Working on that piece of paper that will yield no results, Sherlock," John cut in, "And you agreed to this."

"When?!"

John ignored him. If Sherlock didn't pay attention, it wasn't John's fault.

"Is this about Padfoot, John?" Mary asked softly. "I saw what happened on the news. It was very… creative and odd, to say the least." Mary was eramoured with Padfoot, but didn't understand the depth of the connection that was between Padfoot and John. She had hoped he would get over Padfoot's inevitable death.

"This is about the case?" Sherlock perked up again. John just shoved the invite at him, too on edge to reply in fear that he might snap. He lifted the knocker and knocked.

The door opened not long after to reveal a smallish teenager with black hair and green eyes, who blinked before smiling. "Oh, good, you're here. Six PM on the dot. You must be John Waston, Sherlock Holmes and Mary Waston, then," the teen said, opening the door wider in welcome. "Come in! And don't worry, it's not booby trapped or anything ridiculous like that." His eyes sparked with a sort of humour that made John wary. "I'm Harry Potter, by the way. Paddy is inside."

"Paddy?" John asked. That sounded really close to Padfoot.

"Yeah, Sirius Black, my godfather," Harry explained and John deflated a little.

"And you two are… Messers Padfoot and Thanatos?" Mary chipped in, seeing John's deflated state.

Harry's eyes glinted and he grinned back at them. "How'd you like our masterpiece?"

"Loved it," Mary replied without hesitation, a look of almost maniac amusement on her face. "You have to tell me how you did it without leaving a shred of evidence!" John and Sherlock (despite his stunted understanding of social cues and emotions, he could still tell when danger he did not like was coming for him) both had the sudden urge to move far, far away from her. That look in her eyes did not bode well. Who knew that John's wife was not only an ex-assassin, but also a closet prankster?

Then again, John mused, her initial reaction to Sherlock was far from normal, too.

A bark caught his attention and John looked up only to see…

"Padfoot!"

The black dog barked eagerly, bounded over and tackled John down, licking him over the face. John laughed joyously. "Down boy!" Padfoot retreated to let the ex-soldier up. "You're okay!" Padfoot barked as if in agreement then trotted over to Mary to get petted.

"So this is where you were. We thought you had… Well…" the only woman in the room bent down to pet the eager dog and Padfoot barked with excitement.

"So…" Sherlock drawled, a little uncomfortable with the goings on. "You and your godfather… who is…?"

"Right here!"

And just about everyone fell over in shock when a man who looked startlingly alike to Padfoot suddenly appeared in Padfoot's place.

Harry just facepalmed.

My dog can turn into a human.

Two hours of simple explanations later over dinner left John with just that one thought in his head. Mary and Sherlock had taken the 'big reveal' surprisingly well. Sherlock looked smug at knowing something his brother would never be privy to and Mary was chatting happily with Harry about magic, looking somewhat awed and somewhat shocked. Harry seemed a little awkward, but eager to tell the other all he knew. They had to be sworn to secrecy though.

No, that's not quite right.

Sirius sat opposite to him with a wide grin. He had just finished telling them about going through a portal and having magic and coming from another dimension. He also explained why he placed the art piece on the building of parliament. They had been disbelieving until shown some magic. Sherlock had pressed for scientific details and looked disturbingly like he wanted to cut Sirius open to see how he worked. Unfortunately, there wasn't much that they knew about the scientific side of magic and Sherlock had sulked until Harry said something about only them knowing and offered to tell them everything he knew about magic.

My dog is a human who can turn into a dog.

So this explained why Padfoot had seemed so… human and also why the two left no evidence after stealing what they needed. John opened his mouth to say something, breaking out of his shock and Sirius perked up.

"And you couldn't have told me all this without the giant statue on the building of parliament?"

Sirius looked sheepish and all John knew was that he would never ever find anything to do with Sherlock weird again, ever.

Life with Sherlock… that was normality.