A/N: Hello, all. Thought I'd give Potterlock a try. This is a kind of teaser chapter for what is to come. I hope you enjoy it.

*SHP*SHP*SHP*SHP*SHP*SHP*SHP*SHP*SHP*SHP*

He had nothing left. Nothing.

His family despised him. His cause was dead. The public scorned him.

He had fallen so very far.

He was decrepit, miserable, alone ...

And angry.

So very angry.

He wanted to see them all burn, to burn them all like he was burning.

He wanted the whole of Britain up in smoke: not just Wizarding Britain, no; Muggle Britain and its filth, too.

He would bring it all crumbling down from the top.

He knew the key players on both sides. From his own world, one would think it would be Potter, and certainly, the man was an important piece, just as the Minister was an important piece. But the chess master, the one who moved them, who had their ears and so many others ...

... was the wretched Mudblood.

And though he was slightly less familiar with the world of Muggle politics, he found that an Imperius here and there on the right people worked wonders.

He also found that the British Parliament was much the same as the Ministry. The PM, despite being the elected leader, was really not the one in charge, the one pulling strings.

No; that privilege belonged to a man named Mycroft Holmes. And this Holmes had one starkly evident weakness: his younger brother, Sherlock.

And then, to make the whole thing even sweeter, it seemed Sherlock Holmes had a nemesis, a criminal mastermind with an expansive network and a passion for both theatrics and chaos: one Jim Moriarty.

One Jim Moriarty who just so happened to be inconveniently dead.

Then again, he thought, looking around at his bleak and dilapidated surroundings,

nothing's permanent.