The Order's meeting came to an abrupt halt, when suddenly fake galleons began to shimmer slightly, a head appeared in the fireplace, two patronuses stampeded through the walls and into the room, and John's phone began to ring.

John was getting a bit bored, and he cursed himself for welcoming the excitement. Am I really becoming Sherlock Holmes? The wizards had been discussing some motion or other, and some issue with some policy that the ministry had passed. John never thought that he'd find sitting in on the meeting of a magical secret freedom fighting group tiring, but then again, he never imagined he'd be sitting in on such a meeting.

"Mary?" he cried, struggling to hear her above the din. "Mary what's wrong?"

He was trying to take everything in. The coins that some members had sat out on the table before them, they were galleons, badges of honour. If you had one, it meant that you had been a member of Dumbledore's Army. And messages could be sent via them. They were being read quickly.

"Oh thank god John! I've tried Sherlock but his phone isn't- anyway, Irene Adler is back."

John thought perhaps he should be insulted that she tried Sherlock first. Then he took in what she'd said. "But she's dead-" he protested. "And how do you know-?"

The patronuses, and John only knew that was what they were called, because Sherlock had shown him a picture a few days ago, began to talk. Both spoke across each other, shouting for attention. One had Neville's voice. The other sounded like Mycroft.

"She was infamous at Hogwarts. And she's sat in front of me right now. Are you with the Order?"

Only those who knew the secret could speak via floo within the Order Head Quarters. John didn't understand that. People couldn't travel via floo, that was simply too unsafe. So the man in the fireplace must be someone trusted, and yet he didn't look like someone from the photos Sherlock had shown him. He didn't recognise him, but maybe he did. Maybe…

"Yes, yes I am-"

The world was spinning. People were moving. Sherlock was grabbing him by the shoulders.

"Molly sent a message out to them. But she said Sherlock doesn't carry his coin because he doesn't like what it represents. Idiot. We've had no response from Lestrade or from any aurors, what's happening?"

Harry was trying to regain control of the meeting. He was failing spectacularly.

"Silence!"

John flinched and resisted the urge to sit down and cross his arms like a good little school boy. Instead he whispered into the phone; "I'll have to call you back," he paused, "I love you," he added hastily, and hung up.

Professor Snape, and after the use of such a spectacular teacher voice, John couldn't think of him as anything but that, stood in the centre of the room. "Thank you," Professor Snape snarled. "Now that you are all behaving like the rational adults you claim to be…can we please relay information in a calm and…collected, manner. Mr. Smith, perhaps you would like to go first?"

The head in the fireplace smiled. "Thank you…Snape. There has been a break in, in the secure levels of Switzerland's Ministry of Magic-"

"What is he doing in Switzerland?" hissed Sherlock at John. "Mycroft said-"

"What part of silence do you not understand Mr. Holmes?" Snape glared at them.

"I cannot divulge my location Sherlock," Zacharias continued.

"You're clearly in Switzerland!" protested Sherlock. "Speak quickly."

Zacharias Smith didn't have much more to say other than that there had been a break in. John was waiting for the name Moriarty to come up. Harry was waiting for the name Moriarty to come up. Sherlock was waiting for the name Moriarty to come up. Except it didn't. No one had seen anyone go in. Nor had they seen anyone come out. Nor had anything been taken.

But carved into the ceiling of a corridor connecting one highly secure area with another, a tunnel type corridor that could not possibly be breached, it was simply unfathomable, was a short simple sentence.

Enemies of the heir, beware.

Hermione Weasley nearly attempted to apparate within Grimmauld Place when she picked her coin up, and John wondered why Molly had never mentioned her. John had never imagined that meek and mild Molly Hooper would be part of a teenage rebellion group. He never imagined that she would have fought in a war so young, and was willing to die so young. Was forced to be willing to die so young. And all the conversations they'd had, he'd never even guessed. Molly always seemed to share so much, had told him about school and about family and friends, yet it had all been twisted, made superficial and trivial. She condensed her entire self to chit chat.

The first patronus was Neville. He'd heard it as he was taking Teddy back to his. Gringott's had had a break in. Gringott's had had a handful of break-ins over the years, but all of which were stopped, and no one had yet to succeed in stealing something. Apart from that one time with the dragon, but no one talked about that. Just as the other times, no one had stolen something this time. But that wasn't the interesting thing, and Sherlock's face lit up when it got interesting (John had to kick him). There hadn't been an attempted theft at all. Rather, someone had deposited something.

Someone had broken into Gringott's, and gone to the higher-security vaults, and placed a small grubby bag inside Vault 713. Inside the bag was a simple pebble like one might find on the sea shore.

The second patronus was Mycroft.

John could barely hear him speaking.

SHSHSH

"I didn't know where to go! But this," Irene Adler held up what looked like a silver cigarette lighter, "this brought me here."

Molly stared into her mug of tea that was rapidly going cold. She couldn't quite bring herself to take a sip. Hermione had said she was on her way. But there were bigger things happening. John had filled Mary in, but couldn't really explain where he was, or what he and Sherlock were doing. Mary had given them information second hand, but it really didn't help.

"I find it interesting, that on the day you decide to return from the dead," Mary said, "so does Moriarty."

"That isn't yours," Molly shook her head, pointing at the deluminator. "That cannot be yours."

Irene's fingers closed around it. "Oh but it is. I was given it as a gift."

Molly felt a lump rise in her throat. "No, he wouldn't."

Mrs. Hudson took a long sip of her tea. "Men do funny things dear," she tapped one of the ones on the floor with her foot. "Especially those who are rather…passionate. And I've always found red heads to be so."

And then Irene Adler changed the subject, her thin lips pressed together in a smirk, a smirk that Molly wanted to slap away. But Molly let her change the subject, because answers to that question could wait.

"I didn't do what I did for Moriarty," Irene protested. "I didn't do it to endanger the wizarding community. I did it to protect myself. If Sherlock Holmes-"

"Why come here?" Molly sighed. She was tired. Tired of dealing with messes that other people made. She felt the hatred she had felt towards Irene Adler at school boiling up inside her. Always picture perfect. Always the one the boys chased.

"I'll show you, but you have to remember who's side I'm on. Who did I fight alongside during the war? None of my clients have ever been Death Eaters, unless it has been to gain information for Mycroft Holmes. To pay back some debt I incurred when Moriarty was just scratching the surface of your tidy little society."

"And that's where things get odd, don't they Irene?" Molly put her mug down before she dropped it. "Because that's when you died."

Molly could feel herself being incredibly harsh, as the temperature in the room dropped a degree or two. She hadn't accidentally lowered the temperature since the day in the morgue when Jim had met Sherlock and Sherlock had declared that Jim was gay.

"I sacrificed so much Molly! You can't possibly know what I've been through…these neo-Death Eaters, I'd argue that they're worse, far worse, than the originals. Because at the least the originals had order. Do you know what it's like to sell yourself to them? I'm not a submissive person Molly, but I became a cheap submissive whore because that's what Mycroft Holmes needed-"

"We've all made sacrifices you-"

Molly stopped herself. A car alarm began to blare somewhere down the street. Mrs. Hudson looked as if she was ready to get the pop-corn out to watch a duel.

With a steady hand, Irene drew her wand and summoned one of the many glass vials that Molly had stood neatly in her kitchen. Then touching the tip of her wand to her forehead she began to extract the memories that she wished to share. When she had finished she shuddered. "I do believe that Mrs. Hudson still has that old pensieve?"

SHSHSH

"Listen, it might not be Moriarty!" John said, trying to catch up with Sherlock, who was striding ahead. "It might be polysemy potion."

"Polyjuice, and that is already one of my theories."

SHSHSH

Imagine the living room of a rather elderly gentleman, who doesn't smoke, but enjoys the occasional tipple of fire-whiskey, and who owns a cat that sheds black and white fur on any clean surface. Except Neville Longbottom wasn't an elderly gentleman, but sometimes he felt like it. And this wasn't his living room, because he didn't have one, but his office.

His body was battleworn. On cold nights his bones ached. On some nights he had nightmares and woke up twisting and turning and screaming. Molly didn't. She was so balanced, always so balanced.

He shut his eyes, rubbing his fists into them.

"Don't you have to go join all of them?" Teddy demanded, slouching further into one of the huge armchairs. He wanted to go to bed or curl up and die. Whichever came first.

Neville sighed and abandoned his uncomfortable marking chair, moving to the sofa that took up most of the room. His desk was piled high with papers he had to mark. He hated marking, it felt so unfair knowing a child could do much better, should he or she not have panicked under exam conditions.

"You look sad when you think he can't see you Neville."

After the war. Well not just after, everything's after the war now. That's all he can see time as; before and after. It's seven years later and there's an appeal tomorrow. Neville's attended every single one. Only Harry's done the same. Neville's come to realise that being an auror isn't for him. He's thinking of applying for a position at Hogwarts. He's been dabbling in herbology for some time, and he's been doing a few experiments in his spare time. Except he can't afford a lab, and he's damned if he's asking Snape.

A Muggle one has far more advanced technology anyway. But Harry freaking Potter had arrived and told him the trial had moved and to be ready to apparate in ten minutes.

He doesn't like anyone seeing him look sad, because that means something's wrong. They can't know. They're all dealing with so much anyway. Especially Harry, and so he smiles and nods and begins to rapidly pack up.

"Neville, are you ok? Don't just say you are, because I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you."

"There's no point," Neville answered. "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

"You can see me Molly."

Neville had a photograph of them together on his desk. He had quite a few photographs around his office, to try and make it as welcoming as possible. He also kept an assortment of coffee, tea, and squashes. He dreaded the thought that someone's boggart might be him.

"You're just going to sit about whilst your friends are out there risking their lives?" demanded Teddy.

"I don't count."

"Teddy sometimes you have to just have to wait. Because realistically there is no point in us all rushing off and getting in the way. That's something even Harry had to learn."

"Neville come on!"

Teddy shrugged. Neville tried to engage him in conversation, then in a game of chess, and offered him various boiled sweets and words of advice. Finally he left him to sulk and go off to bed, whilst he himself began to read the latest instalment of Martin the Muggle's Adventures in London.

They were great, especially now the writers actually had a slightly better grasp on the concept of Muggles and Muggle life. Except they still really didn't, just as most wizards didn't. Neville kept having to remind himself that he was part of a group of exceptional people.

Especially Molly…especially…

He must have dozed off, because he woke with a start as he began to fall from the astronomy tower having had a rather vivid argument with a dragon that had Draco Malfoy's hair. Except it wasn't the fall that woke him, rather it was the loud crack, and then as he groggily stirred, the little hand of a Dory the house elf shaking him roughly.

"Professor Longbottom! Professor Longbottom must wake up!" she cried. "Come quickly. It's Master Lupin! Oh he's making a mess Sir!"

Neville picked up the short story magazine. "What is it? Where is he?"

"Oh Professor Snape will be angry Sir, if Professor Longbottom doesn't come quickly!"

But Snape isn't here…and…

"Fuck."

You can do a lot of damage in a potions' lab, if you're left unattended.