Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Crime is of the Essence	By : K8BNimble Category: Harry Potter Crossovers > Slash - Male/Male Views: 6594 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or BBC’s Sherlock nor do I make money from this. I just like playing with them. Harry Potter is owned by owned by JK Rowling, Scholastic and Warner Brothers & BBC’s Sherlock is owned by, well, the BBC

Chapter List
- 15
- 16
- 17
And I still don’t own either Harry Potter or BBC’s Sherlock. I also make no money on this either….

Story note: The year is 2018. It’s canon until the Epilogue. Harry never married. Ron and Hermione had Rose and Hugo earlier than indicated in the books so that they are older in this story. Rose was born in 2002 and Hugo in 2005. Other minor modifications made without notice probably!
Reminder: The Sherlock in this story is from BBC's Sherlock which is set in contemporary times. This IS NOT Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock nor any traditional versions as portrayed by Jeremy Brett or any other actor. This is Sherlock as portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch. You do not need to have seen the BBC series to follow this story.

---

Crime is of the Essence

Chapter 15 – The Truth Unravels
Harry had cocked an ear to the door and heard the response, “I’m always ready, Professor.” The voice was eerily similar to his own. The door shut and Harry couldn’t hear anything else.
“Who was…?” Harry asked Lockhart.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“It sounded like me.”
“Very nearly like. I can assure you, he also looks very much like you. We have some very talented employees.”
The implications were staggering. Harry felt sick to his stomach. Had Lucius always wanted Harry? Why, then, use someone else? They had him prisoner. Lucius could have taken him right there. As an Auror, Harry knew that there was always a possibility of sexual violence among the criminals he chased.
Lockhart sat on a chair at an angle from Harry so Harry couldn’t get his wand pointed in the right direction. He hoped the man walked in front of him at some point.
“I can see by the look on your face that you’ve figured out exactly what your friend Snape is up to. He’s waited a long time to get his revenge on you for leaving him to die in the Shrieking Shack.”
“Nice try – Lockhart.” Lockhart’s eyes widened at the recognition. Harry felt he should keep him on his toes. “That’s not Severus Snape.”
“I can assure you Severus Snape did not die twenty years ago,” Lockhart replied, obviously trying to confuse Harry.
“That much I know,” Harry said, looking directly into Lockhart’s eyes. “It would have been a clever plan, too, if Severus Snape hadn’t been at my house for the last few days. What happened anyway? Did you kill that man or did he try to kill Severus?”
Lockhart sat back and looked at Harry. “Harry, Harry, Harry… you really are so much smarter than I imagined.” He looked as if he was considering something. “Do you know that you and your little friends ruined my life? I may have my memory back, but my life is gone. I can’t even show my real face in public. You also ruined the lives of many others. My partner for one.” He had that smug tone that Harry had hated since the first class with the man.
“What I don’t understand is how you hooked up with Lucius Malfoy.” Harry knew he was pushing it. He hoped it would anger Lockhart enough to do something stupid. He hoped it would be to brag about his elaborate scheme. The man had loved talking about himself and Harry was counting on him still being a conceited braggart.
“Since I’ll Obliviate you anyway, I’ll tell you. We have some time before Lucius is ready for us.”
Harry almost cheered. He hoped the iPhone was still recording or transmitting. Even if he didn’t make it out alive or with his own memory intact, someone might figure out what happened if they found it.
Lockhart settled in to tell Harry just how brilliant their plan was. “Lucius did in fact save Severus Snape back then. He was unaware of Snape’s treachery in deceiving the Death Eaters. He used a form of Draught of Living Deathwhich essentially stopped time for Severus. Lucius planned to revive him later but was sent to Azkaban. So Severus Snape slept in solitude for many years until Lucius was set free. By the time of his release though, he had no money left except for the Manor which Narcissa refused to give up so Lucius had to find another way to restore the wealth that you caused him to lose. I’m sure he thought about just killing his former friend, but those years in prison made him think of other schemes. Schemes that one of the world’s foremost Potions Masters could help him with, given the right persuasion.”
“When Severus was first revived though, he refused to help. Lucius decided he could help in other ways and returned him to his unconscious state until Lucius solidified his plans.”
“Then several things occurred. The improved Polyjuice formula was invented and Wizards began to welcome Muggle technology into their daily lives. Once the revamped formula was restricted, Lucius found an black market willing to pay a lot of money for it. Severus may have been a great Potions maker, but Lucius was also adept at it. And he had no qualms about its side effects. If people were willing to use it, he would happily provide it. It created a nice sum of money for him.”
“Then he began to realize just why people were using it,” Lockhart said with a grin. “And it wasn’t just the occasional foray into robbery or identification theft. Lucius’ biggest customers were underground brothels that provided any type of Muggle you wanted if you could afford it.”
Harry began to see where this was going and it sickened him. “That’s disgusting. Muggles have rights, too.”
“There is no law against impersonating a Muggle, Harry. As an Auror, you know this. It’s only illegal to Polyjuice into a Witch or Wizard. As far as the clients were concerned, they were not breaking the law any more than they already were by selling sex.”
“Lucius was making money, but not enough to get him what he really wanted. One day his son came for dinner and they had the most interesting discussion about something you had found on the Wizarding Web – a pornographic image of you and his son with your broomsticks. Of course, Draco said the two of you laughed it off since it was badly drawn but that’s when Lucius had the idea. How many people would pay to sleep with one of the Wizarding World’s biggest heroes? How much would they pay?”
“You’re saying that Lucius did this for money, not because he..he wanted…” Harry couldn’t finish the thought.
“Oh, my dear boy, do you think he lusted after you?” Lockhart laughed. “No, he prefers women. That’s not to say he hasn’t enjoyed your ‘charms’ over the last few months. You are quite delectable, after all. But that was not the reason he did this. It was pure business.”
Harry breathed a sigh of relief even knowing that either reason was despicable.
“Lucius realized of course, he’d have to have a steady supply of your hair and that of the others. He also needed a way to be sure no one would remember. As fate would have it, he remembered my gifts with memory charms. He chose to invest in the best doctors and had them resume work on my recovery since Ministry funding for my care had all but dried up for anything but the basics. Lucius handled of all the details once I regained my memories.”
“So he was the one that had the records altered?”
“It was simple enough. One of the Mediwitches was addicted to Rapturous which he provided. Then it was my job to ensure she forgot she did it.”
“Is that also how you ended up at the Ministry?”
“It’s where you and several other celebrated Witches and Wizards were employed. Where better to get the supply than from the Ministry Barber Shoppe? All I would need to do is snip, clip and divert the required Evanesco of hair from its usual destination into a special box that I could retrieve any time I wanted to.”
“Where is the real Tidus?” Harry asked.
“Oh, he’s in safe keeping so I can harvest his hair whenever I need to. You know, he’s a real barber. That made it much easier to get in for the interview. Once the Ministry W.R. had checked my ‘references’, I was a shoo-in, but a little Imperius on Pansy Parkinson guaranteed my hiring.
“You already had my hair. Why kidnap me now?”
“Honestly, when I failed to get you last night through the Floo, we had to improvise. We had planned to replace both you and Kingsley at the Ball in order to get to the Ambassador, however once that plan failed, we knew wand security protocols would be instituted. That meant the wand had to match the Wizard so our Harry and Kingsley couldn’t arrive at the Ball, they had to change there. It really was quite inconvenient. You’re a hard man to find at times, but we knew you’d be there tonight and we needed supplies. It was really killing two snitches with one bludger.”
“Okay. But how did Snape fit in to this?”
“Snape was revived once again once Lucius realized there was a market for him as well. He attempted to use hair from him while still in stasis, but it never took. Whenever one of our employees took the potion, they passed out. An unconscious hooker is not a big money maker,” Lockhart explained, amused at his own quip.
“So the people who use it are all prostitutes?”
“Certainly! We would never use anyone unwilling. Our clients have certain scenarios they like to play and they want their playmates to convincingly play along. Our ‘actors’ are highly trained and well-paid. I can’t say the same for all of the outside brothels we supply, but generally we like to deal with establishments who only use willing employees.” Lockhart seemed quite proud of the ‘working conditions’ they provided. “You are our best seller,” he said with a smile.
That made Harry want to vomit. Lockhart stood up and began cutting Harry’s hair very short. The hair was magically collected in the bottles sitting on the table.
“Back to Snape. We had to revive him in order to get his hair to work properly. He was brought to the store so we could wake him briefly, get what we needed and knock him back out. Unfortunately, I was interrupted by a customer who had just picked up one of your vials when I heard Severus blast our inventory and attempt to escape. I tried to stop him but he deflected my curse and it hit the other man and killed him. In the confusion, I was able to cast Petrificus Totalus.”
“I contacted Lucius for instructions. I was to leave Toffington’s body and reset the Muggle look of the place so the Muggle authorities would have a John Doe. He had me slash Toffington’s throat and shove the knife in Snape’s hand. I dropped the vase on the floor to make it look as though Toffington fought back. I Obliviated Snape and then I left to call the Muggle authorities using a pay phone a block down the street. I noticed someone walking through the front door and panicked. I raced back into the alley and came in through the back door to see who it was. As you know, that was Sherlock Holmes. Of course, I didn’t know who he was until later. Lucius recognized him from my memories and told me he used to be your Muggle partner. At the time I just thought he was a nosy wizard. I attempted to Stupefy him but he Portkeyed away before I cast the spell. Imagine my surprise when the first Muggle officer walked in. I had no idea Muggle law enforcement would get there so quickly. I had to Apparate out and leave everything behind. I had hoped to retrieve the vial from Toffington later but we realized it was only a matter of time before the Aurors learned about Severus Snape so we had to adapt our plans. I immediately went to the Ministry, at Lucius’ request, and assumed Kingsley’s identity in order to retrieve you before that nosy Muggle ruined everything.”
“So, then you’re the one that Obliviated Snape,” Harry conjectured.
“Obliviate Maximus to be precise. I couldn’t tell what he’d be able to remember so I wiped everything out. How is he without that sparkling personality of his?”
Harry was relieved that it wasn’t Sherlock’s mistake that had caused Severus’ amnesia. He assumed that Severus’ innate Occlumency skills prevented the spell from permanently damaging his memories. “Is that what you’re going to do to me?” he asked.
“Oh no. I’ll only Obliviate the last few hours and implant the memories from our other Harry who’s been dancing in your stead.”
It occurred to Harry that that was what Lockhart had done to the kids – implanted false memories. That would explain the dizziness they had experienced.
“We have two Harrys that are truly remarkable. They will be most convincing in our first film,” Lockhart was leering at him.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what tonight is really about Harry. Selling you to individual clients is profitable, but do you know what’s even more profitable?”
“Uh, no.” Harry thought he really didn’t want to know.
“Pornography. It’s the number one use of the internet – both in the Muggle word and in the Wizarding World. And while there are plenty of legal sites available, the most profitable are the ones that deal in subjects that are not legal. Our employees can only service so many individual people at a time. The internet makes you accessible to many more who are willing to pay a few galleons to watch you in action. I was surprised to learn that the most requested scenario is to see you in Professor Snape’s detention. Lucius aims to please his clients and so that’s what they’ll get. All we need to do is record one session and we can sell it to hundreds of thousands of people. We are about to get extremely wealthy. All thanks to you.”
If Harry wasn’t already sitting down, he would have collapsed.
“You – you aren’t using Rose like that are you?” he whispered.
“Goodness no. She’s underage. The penalties for that are too high to risk. It’s much easier to get the desired Witches or Wizards once they are of age and then use a deaging potion if our clients are so inclined. That doesn’t carry the same penalties if they’re caught.”
“Then why?
“I could get Ron Weasley’s and your hair at the Ministry, but what about the lovely Miss Granger? Or Ginny Weasley? Luna Lovegood? Or Neville Longbottom? No, our clients want celebrities. They want to see the heroes of Hogwarts debauched. Rose and her friends were merely the means of obtaining our supplies outside of the Ministry.”
“Were Scorpius or Draco in on this?”
“No. Lucius wouldn’t involve his family except he did use Scorpius, unbeknownst to him, as the go between to get Rose and her other friends to Floo to the Manor from Madame Puddifoot’s. From there, Lucius would create the Portkey to the store so we could collect the supplies they had gathered since their last visit. When they Portkeyed back to the Manor, Lucius would then Imperius their next set of instructions on them.”
That was a lot of information to absorb and Harry had a hundred questions. ‘They Flooed to the Manor? Then why was Rose at the store yesterday?’ Harry wondered. After some consideration, he understood. A store that moved would not be able to be connected to the Floo Network, nor could you Portkey directly into a warded location. They would have had to have had a central place to Floo to in order for Lucius to create the Portkey. He probably also had them deliver the supplies directly so he would never be seen near the store if it was ever compromised.
Another part of the statement just hit him. “Lucius Imperiused and Obliviated his own grandson?” How could someone do that to a family member they professed to love?
“A necessary requirement I’m afraid,” Lockhart answered.
“Is Lavender Brown is part of your scheme?”
“That insipid little idiot?!” Harry thought that insult coming from Lockhart was ironic. “Of course not. She was just too stupid to see what was happening. The Crup and Kneazle is too popular with adults so it was impractical. The only other possible place was one still run by Aberforth Dumbledore but we thought he would catch on eventually. Lavender was perfectly oblivious so that made it a good gathering point for the students. After they were done at the Manor, I would wait for the students to visit the washrooms, which had been part of their instructions. I Obliviated everything that had occurred in the last hour and modified their memories.”
The sound of the scissors stopped. “So Harry, shall we go see how your film debut is progressing. I think Lucius was quite anxious to portray the role of Snape!”
A loud bang and a scuffle was heard outside. Lockhart ran over towards the door to see what the noise was. Harry took that moment and yelled “Stupefy!” The spell hit Lockhart square in the back and he went down in a thud. Harry knew he’d only have a few minutes to get out before Lockhart awoke or Malfoy came back.
He struggled but couldn’t seem to get the wand pointed at a piece of rope. He thought about Incendio, but what if he caught his robes on fire? There was yelling in the hallway. The door opened a little and Harry saw Severus’ dark eyes looking in and down at Lockhart’s body. He hoped it was the real one.
Severus leaned in and waved his wand to float Lockhart’s body to the side. He rushed in after the body was no longer blocking access to the room.
“Rose? Where’s Rose?” Harry yelled.
Severus began unraveling the rope as he answered. “She’s safe, Harry. We found her about twenty minutes ago.” Severus kissed his forehead. “Sorry we took so long but I knew you would prefer us to focus on her first.”
“It’s Malfoy,” Harry spluttered.
“I know. My memories have been racing back since I saw him,” Severus admitted. The implication hit Harry. Severus remembered who he was...and who Harry was and still came…and still kissed Harry on the head. Once free, Harry leapt up and kissed Severus full on the mouth in relief before realizing his limbs weren’t working properly and collapsed in Severus’ arms. Severus held on tight and returned the kiss.
“Isn’t this touching,” Lucius said in Snape’s voice. He had Apparated in behind Harry and put a wand to Harry’s head.
“Back off. Evan, was it? You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Lucius said. “Harry and I will be leaving now.”
Lucius attempted to Apparate with Harry in tow but bounced back. Severus looked at him. “The Aurors have placed anti-Apparation wards around this building. You’re not going anywhere.”
Lucius thrust his wand out when Harry heard, “Drop your wand!”
Kingsley was standing there with a wand trained on Lucius. He entered the room and stepped over Lockhart’s prone body.
Lucius pointed his wand at Severus and said, “That’s the culprit there. I saw him stalking Harry earlier and thought I’d follow him.”
Harry suddenly lunged for Lucius’ wand. “Give it up already,” Harry said as they wrestled.
Lucius let go and acted as if he was going to give up. He then took a sudden run at the door when he was blocked by Sherlock as he stepped around the corner with a hand punch to the throat. Lucius went down gasping for air.
Harry saw a half-clad version of himself being hauled down the hallways by other Aurors. “They could have at least put more clothes on him.” He had noticed the Gryffindor tie still hanging on the otherwise naked chest.
“It’s more than you wore on the cover of Quidditch Weekly back in ’02,” Kingsley said.
“I was a lot younger then.”
“So is he.” Sherlock said and Harry grimaced remembering the deaging potion.

Severus leaned in behind Harry and whispered, “But he doesn’t have your tattoo.” Harry shook his head in mild amusement. At least they were all safe.
They began to walk out of the room. Harry bent over Lockhart and retrieved his wand with Kingsley’s approval. They were going to leave the clean-up to everyone else.
“How did you find me anyway?” Harry asked they walked down the hall.
“GPS. I tracked your phone,” Sherlock said. “I hoped that it hadn’t occurred to them that you might also be using Muggle technology.”
“You were right. He took one wand from me and never bothered to search me,” Harry said.
“Lockhart was always an idiot,” Severus commented.
“I think Lucius shares that same view,” Harry said. Severus looked at him curiously. “It was his fault their grand scheme came crashing down.” He leaned in and whispered to Severus, “But you’re the real hero. If you hadn’t fought back that first time, none of this would have been discovered.” Harry grinned at him. Severus gave a satisfied huff. Harry could see he was trying not to smile. Harry took hold of his hand as they walked together.
“I think I need to look closer at Muggle technology for the Auror program,” Kingsley said to the group at large as they walked into the street and to a place they could Apparate from. Harry recognized they were on Warwick Avenue, near Regent’s Canal.
“And Rose? How did you find her? Was that also the GPS?”
“You have Sherlock’s friend, John, to thank for that,” Severus said. “After you were Portkeyed out of the Wizard’s Wash, I went back to inform Sherlock and Kingsley about what had happened. We had to get the Ambassador to safety, capture the other Harry and find Rose before we attempted to rescue you.” Severus looked at Sherlock for the rest of the explanation.
Sherlock took the story up. “I’d had John monitoring Flitter to see if any new mentions of the ‘Essence of Evan’ appeared. Since we had obviously disrupted their previous plans, they would have had to notify their clients of their sudden change of location.” Harry realized that meant Sherlock had to have told John the truth about the Wizarding World. He was about to speak up when Sherlock stopped him. “Yes. He knows. Kingsley gave me permission to bring him into this.”
Harry looked at Kingsley, who nodded. Sherlock continued. “I’d been texting John who had indeed found a new message with a new string of numbers. I, unfortunately, didn’t hear your conversation over the music but the line was still open and recording. Once Severus found me, you had already been taken to your new location so I didn’t have the GPS information for the store. I stopped recording to end the file in order to send it to Kingsley and then started recording again. We went to his office to listen to the file I sent. Your conversation told us that Rose was at the store and my text chat with John had just told me how to find it.”
“Really?” Harry was stunned.
“He mentioned that the numbers in the new message looked like longitude and latitude coordinates but that there were too many numbers. I recalled Draco also mentioned there were too many numbers in the previous message for them to be apparition coordinates. But then John pointed out that today’s date was in the middle of the numbers: 2905 or 29 May. That made me realize that since the store moved every few days, they not only had to tell their clients where they’d be, but when they’d be there, so then I assumed some of those numbers would have to be the date and time of its appearance. Really clever people would throw a few additional numbers in for safety, but there would have to be a pattern there clients could understand. All we had to do was to figure out what the date and time numbers were and what the filler numbers were. I assumed the 15th number began the date, 2905, since the 15th number on the previous message was 28. That gave me the starting point.”
Harry gaped at him. “That’s bloody brilliant. How did you calculate all that so quickly?”
Severus arched an eyebrow. “Don’t let Sherlock fool you. Kingsley got the Unspeakables on it. They do use Muggle computers, and using Sherlock’s theory, they were able to narrow down all the possible locations. We assumed they stayed somewhere in the UK which narrowed things considerably. Then it was a matter of finding the store and Kingsley sent a pair of Aurors to each location to check the areas. Having twenty Aurors checking each coordinate, we found the store in less than twenty minutes. Once the raid was done and Rose was safe, we went to the GPS coordinates Sherlock had for you.”
Harry stared at the three men. “That is completely amazing.” He stopped for a moment and looked at Kingsley, “You do know what they were doing, right?” The reality of what Malfoy and Lockhart had done was hitting him. His likeness and those of his friends were being sold and were being used by prostitutes. They were going to make films of them. He felt his stomach churn.
Kingsley put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and nodded. “Harry, take some time off. We’ll track down every last piece of evidence, customer and criminal involved in this ring and close it down. I will keep you posted.” He Apparated away.
“Take care, Harry,” Sherlock said and turned to leave.
“Tell John ‘thank you’,” Harry said and Sherlock nodded before rounding the corner.
Severus put his arm around Harry’s shoulder. “Let’s go home,” he suggested.
- 15
- 16
- 17
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Crime is of the Essence