Not mine.

Serial suicides. The Prophet was going to have a ball - and they'd at least try to give the story to Skeeter, too, now that someone marginally important had offed themselves. They always did; Lestrade didn't have the luck for them to give it to anyone decent. And if they gave it to Skeeter, it was only so long before one of his Aurors decided they'd had enough and cursed her. Hopefully Donovon. The fallout would be worse if the offender was male.

Which meant they would give it to Skeeter, and it would probably be Anderson who lost his temper, because Lestrade was only capable of so much damage control. Especially these days.

He could already feel a headache pounding gently just under his temples, and he didn't have the energy to brew something for it. He wasn't any good at headache remedies, anyway. He never thought about them until he could feel a big one coming on, at which point he was in no condition to make one.

Donovan had left a file on his desk just before leaving for dinner herself. Lestrade didn't bother looking at it - he'd been over the facts a hundred times, and they weren't going to suddenly start to make sense on the hundred and first. Especially not when he had the beginnings of a headache and hadn't eaten for most of the day.

As usual when he was this stumped, a face and name surfaced in his brain, and Lestrade tried to decide whether or not he was that desperate yet.

He wasn't, really. Not quite. Not after what the war had done to all of them.

His headache pounded just a little bit harder.

Lestrade shoved the chair away from his desk and got up, reaching for his overcoat. Maybe he'd be a bit more optimistic once he'd had something to eat, and at least a walk would clear his head.

And if he happened to wander past a certain address, he might stop in and have a word.

Sherlock answered the door in a blue dressing gown, his eyes wilder than usual and his wand dangling from his fingers and sparking. Lestrade ground his teeth, because he knew both signs too well after five years. He just hoped it was Muggle drugs this time, because he didn't have the energy for it to be potions. He didn't have to do anything about Muggle drugs.

But he didn't ask, because he didn't want an honest answer. "Bum a light?" he asked instead, holding up a cigarette.

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow. "You're trying to quit."

He didn't produce a light, though, so Lestrade just fished in his pocket for one of his own. "I was. And then there was a war." He found the lighter after a moment and dug it out. It took him a couple of tries to get it lit, during which he examined every exposed bit of Sherlock for evidence of drugs and found nothing overtly alarming. Yet. "Or are you going to try and tell me you hadn't noticed?"

"Trying is not succeeding," Sherlock said. "And this is your first in some time."

"Sally'd have something to say if I started smoking in the office," Lestrade argued, even though he knew Sherlock had probably deduced that he was putting a smoke off if he could and thinking about nicotine patches, because his life obviously required more stress. "May I come in, or are you doing something illegal I'm not in the mood to know about?"

Sherlock blinked at him a moment, which wasn't usual, and stepped back to let the Auror in. Lestrade pushed past him before he changed his mind and started up the steps to Sherlock's overcrowded flat. There was a potion on boil when he opened the door, but Lestrade couldn't see or smell anything he knew was banned, and tonight he was willing to leave it at that.

Sherlock shuffled in after him, twirling his wand between his fingers. "Sherlock, you're sparking again," Lestrade said, even though it wasn't the sort of thing normal wizards failed to notice, let alone wizarding detectives.

"Mmm?" he looked down as though he'd forgotten about it, then shrugged. "It's not important."

Lestrade sighed. Sherlock wasn't the only one he knew who sparked on occasion, although he was the only one who seemed to do it most of the time. All it really took was some innate talent for silent spellcasting and a brain that worked too fast, and the latter was easy enough to get if you were using controlled substances. It was also not terribly dangerous provided Sherlock was thinking about it. "You could have put the wand down before answering the door," he said. "I'd rather not obliviate half your street again."

"Mmm. Boring," Sherlock answered, waving the wand dismissively.

"Well, yes, for me, too, under the panic. I ought to've arrested you last time."

"Also boring. You didn't come to reminisce about the past, Lestrade, you came about a case."

"Did I?" Lestrade asked vaguely. He still wasn't entirely certain he wanted to talk to Sherlock about it himself.

"Why else would you be here?" Sherlock demanded. He glanced at the bubbling potion and threw himself onto his couch. "It's not a raid unless you've started doing those alone."

Lestrade sighed, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "I s'pose you've already heard about the suicides."

"Mmm?"

"Three of them? All done with the same Muggle drug, none of 'em with a history that would've given anyone any warning, all of 'em found someplace they'd no reason to be."

"Oh, right. You lot have noticed the connection, then."

"How many suicides that use Muggle methods d'you think we get called in on, Sherlock?"

"I wouldn't know, suicide isn't that interesting, generally. Obvious."

Lestrade waited a moment, not because he was expecting sympathy for the dead but because he was hoping for more deductions. "You said they were connected," he prompted.

"Yes, obvious. The Prophet's been vague, though. I don't know what you expect me to do if I can't get a look at the crime scene. An uncontaminated crime scene."

"Two of them don't exist anymore," Lestrade reminded him. "And the third certainly isn't uncontaminated."

"You've been to all of them."

"No. No, Sherlock, for the last bloody time, I'm not putting any of my memories into your pensive," Lestrade snapped, suppressing a shudder as best he could. He didn't like the idea of Sherlock rooting around in his thoughts, even if it was only the ones he allowed Sherlock access to. And this was something he could say no to - Sherlock wasn't a legilimens; he didn't have the focus for it.

Sherlock slumped forward, steepling his fingers and resting them against the bridge of his nose. "I don't know how you expect me to solve your cases for you if you won't give me any data. Even I can't work with nothing."

Lestrade glanced around for an ashtray, wondering vaguely what Sherlock did with tobacco ash if he didn't have one. "I didn't really come out here to give you the case."

"Oh?"

"Whenever I go out to clear my head I always seem to find myself at your door."

"Well that's counterproductive," Sherlock muttered, looking up at him.

Lestrade didn't take the bait. "I know." The headache was coming back now, but there wasn't a lot he could do about that.

"Well why aren't you giving me the case?" Sherlock demanded. He sounded particularly petulant right now.

"Because I'm not that desperate quite yet."

"No, you simply haven't admitted it this time."

Lestrade vaguely wished he'd waited to talk to Sherlock until he'd gotten a little more sleep, because he couldn't think of a response to that which wasn't a blatant lie. "I'm not hiding the case file in my robes, at any rate," he muttered, even though redirecting neverworked with Sherlock.

"No. But by the time you've given it to me, there will be nothing left for me to observe."

"Which is why you used to break into my office and solve my cold cases when you were bored," Lestrade reminded him. He also didn't want to deal with Sherlock and Rita Skeeter in the same room if he could help it - Sherlock was just the sort of person she favored, and he didn't really have enough impulse control to keep himself out of trouble with her. And even if he didn't know he was going to have to deal with the reporter, he did not want to be picking up the pieces of Sherlock after her.

"I can only do that because you are a very thorough idiot," Sherlock grumbled. "And because most of your criminals are considerably less thorough. Besides, I haven't done that in years."

"Only in two." Lestrade had managed to keep Sherlock in cases while Fudge was still Minister of Magic. It was only after Scrimgeour had taken over that detective work had sort of tapered off in favor of battle plans, and only under Thicknesse that things had fallen apart so thoroughly that no one was certain what the law was day to day.

Sherlock shrugged almost imperceptibly. "Two is plural."

"Yeah."

Sherlock shook his head vaguely. "But as long as you're here and not telling me anything interesting, you may as well know you'll have to find yourself at a different door in the next few weeks."

"Landlord get tired of you again?"

"No, I found one who is aware of the existence of wizards. I just need to find a flatshare for it. Preferably before Mycroft can hire someone to live with me and tell him what I get up to. I'd drive him out soon enough, but then I'd have to find another one."

Lestrade glanced around. There might have been a few extra boxes about, but mostly it was stunningly unapparent that Sherlock had any intention of moving. He glanced down at his cigarette again. "And I s'pose one of the few things you've managed to pack are your ashtrays?"

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. "They were in the way."

Lestrade knew better than to ask what they were in the way of. Or to ask which box they were in, because Sherlock probably wouldn't answer.

"Are you just going to stand there?" Sherlock demanded. He'd gone back to staring at his steepled fingers rather than Lestrade, although he didn't sound particularly annoyed. He knew Lestrade would have left if he were really finished with the conversation.

Lestrade shrugged and flicked tobacco ash into a nearby pot, on the theory that it wasn't going to hurt the dead plant. "I'll probably get as much done smoking in your flat as I will back at the office staring at my case file all night. And more than I will chainsmoking outside the Ministry."

"You aren't going to chainsmoke. You rarely did and you're trying to quit again. And stimulants aren't going to help you if you won't process facts," Sherlock said irritably. "Let me in."

"Are you clean?" He asked, even though he knew the answer. It was the question he'd started asking five years ago, one he'd mostly stopped needing the year before the war. Now he needed it again.

"I won't show up to the scene under the influence, and provided I'm not cursing them, what I do with Muggle substances is entirely outside your jurisdiction."

"Sherlock. . . ."

"Give me the case, Lestrade. I need something."

"I said I wasn't that desperate."

"And I said you were wrong."

Lestrade sighed. He hadn't expected anything, not really - he didn't have the energy to get in a bloody great row about potions or drugs, even if it might make him feel better. And Sherlock didn't have enough information to devine some cryptic hint to worm into the back of Lestrade's brain and confuse him. "All right. This flat your moving into, just as soon as Mycroft finds you a suitable spy?"

Sherlock huffed, but Lestrade knew the man well enough by now to catch the hint of amusement. "Yes?"

"Where is it?"

"Oh." Sherlock shook his head. "Baker Street. 221B."

Lestrade nodded and glanced around the flat. "If you need any help with moving. . . ."

Sherlock shook his head. "I should be fine."

"Yeah?" When Sherlock didn't dignify this with a response, Lestrade started towards the door. "Good evening, then, Sherlock."

"Send me the case file, at least!" Sherlock called down the steps after him.

[Note: If you're interested in how I plan to treat Potterverse canon - unless I really screw something up, this should be consistent with the world in all seven books. It might not be consistent with Rowling's interviews or Pottermore, though, especially since I'm not even on Pottermore. It's also not going to follow the Sherlock plotline at all closely, although there will be series two spoilers eventually, so heads up. Cheers - Loki's Scribe]