Paddington Bear © Michael Bond
Sherlock Holmes © Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Harry Potter © J.K. Rowling
THIS IS NOT A SHERLOCK/HP CROSSOVER
A DOORBELL FROM HELL
If you wake up, you want to stay in your bed and snuggle under the covers. Or you don't. I always want to snuggle under the covers with my Paddington Bear – no, I'm not a twelve year old child. Only problem always is: I can't snuggle under the covers with my bear for one reason. Work. I always have to get up way too early to go to work. And even when I don't need to work I can't sleep long since my stupid flat mate snores. Yes, so loud it reaches into my room. It's a hell, I say to you.
But this morning another factor comes playing up, a ringing doorbell. Not the doorbell hanging at the entering door of our apartment, more the doorbell of the front door that leads to the street. Why, I hear you say and I wonder like exactly the same, why the hell is that stupid doorbell ringing? I decide that it's probably something for Logan so I pull my pillow over my head and try to ignore the sound from hell.
It's a sound from Hell, what was I thinking? Of course I can't ignore it and with my overly loud and obviously awake snoring I roll out of bed and instead of my mostly lucky fall on my bed I smack right on my face. Well, now I'm very, very much awake. It still takes me minutes to untangle myself from the blanket-mess around me – it's winter, what did you expect? That I would be sleeping with one, one, blanket? Silly you.
I know that if I want to make it downstairs, I should move and not stick to the ground with wide eyes as if I've just seen a ghost. I haven't seen a ghost of course, since I live in a muggle establishment, not wizard one. My right hand tries to find the radio on its complete own accord since I don't think my brain and my ears can cope with Rihanna or Electric Light Orchestra, no matter how much I love the latter and they wouldn't even play ELO these days, it's too old.
Mumford & Sons starts playing almost immediately after I've touched the on-button and I sigh rather happily. I could care less about other music so I let it play, receiving knocked complaints of my flat mate through the wall. Own fault, snoring idiot, I think and crawl up.
Getting downstairs is easy, I swear, but why I didn't bother to talk through the intercom, I don't know anymore. I only know that it was rather embarrassing to tell the guy who let us rent the place that I had forgotten my dressing gown – yes, I had forgotten it, I otherwise wouldn't open the door in my boxers. Who would? A male prostitute? Okay, there you probably have a point. Anyway, I open the door as every sane person (read: not my flat mate).
"Yes?" I manage to mutter, running a hand through my hair as I stare dumbly at the person in front of me. He's holding a box of something. Red paper is wrapped around it and I fear it might be something Quidditch-y that my bloody flat mate ordered. But if it was, he should have known that is was coming and since when do wizard magazines use muggle transportation to get their packages on time? No, this was a muggle thing. Did Mr. Annoying-Rent-Nagging-Person order something and then decided to annoy me by not opening the door himself because I haven't paid the rent in ages. Oops.
"Packet for a certain Keefe M. Lewis," the guy says in a rather thick northern accent, "I think that's you, sir." I stand there for a couple of seconds doing exactly nothing but doing a rather good impression of a fish: mouth wide open and not blinking at all. I bet he thinks I've gone insane.
"I haven't or- or- ordered anything," I manage to get out, my head snapping to the left as an annoying habit when I trip over 'ordered'. Great, awesome, perfect! Stuttering to a guy who has a muggle delivery I haven't ordered. Do I even look like I order muggle stuff? Yes, because I'm muggle born, but he doesn't know that! Bet he doesn't even know I'm a wizard. Shit, now it makes sense why I would be ordering muggle stuff. I just confused myself again, like always.
"Wh- what is it?" I point at the box, slightly hesitant because it would probably lead to more conversation and it wasn't my best day it seemed since I had yet to say a sentence without stuttering. He opens the thing and there they are, fifty – I guess – lovely, red, shiny balloons. Nothing against lovely, red, shiny balloons apart from the fact that I didn't order them!
"The red balloons you ordered, sir." I hear that he almost failing in trying to stay polite. Well, I would - to be honest - also fail to stay polite against some idiot that doesn't want to believe he has ordered red balloons. I did not just call myself an idiot... I did. I did and I honestly don't care about it. I want my Paddington and snuggle under the covers of my bed. Or go back upstairs and get money to go to the Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks… I like a nice coffee before I go to work and on the inhumanly hour I go to there, no one is in that thing so I don't need to panic. I always panic, it's my nature. I'm Panic-Man! Adore me!
I should fetch Logan. I should really drag my lazy ass of a flatmate out of his bed and let him explain it. But then it obviously hits me that the idiot of the century couldn't have ordered red balloons since he's a pureblood to the zillionth degree – don't ask me why he decided to go living with a muggleborn in a muggle flat in a muggle environment a billion miles away from some Wizarding activity.
"What's the address?" Ah, my first sentence without trouble. God, that took long. "Sure, it's not 221B Baker Street, because they order some weird stuff." I stick my head out of the door and point to a house two houses up the road.
"There, next to Speedy's. You should ask for Sherl…" I bit my bottom lip to think the word through again. The guy pulls up an eyebrow, probably feeling very annoyed by the fact that I'm stretching his time.
"Ask for John Watson, he'll help you." He starts frowning due to my sudden change of name.
"But, sir, this is for Keefe M. Lewis, 215B Baker Street. I'm pretty sure that'll be you after all you said. And this is 215 Baker Street I imagine." I scratch the back of my head, getting more and more annoyed with the guy in front of me. Better: the child in front of me. God, he's half my age! No, he's older. That made me sound like a grumpy fifty-year old, didn't it? I'm only twenty-five, mind that. Or keep that in mind.
"Yeah, okay! Whatever, hand over!" I shouldn't get angry. I really shouldn't get angry, but I'd love a miracle right now. Closing my eyes for a couple of seconds, I hope it's going to arrive, but it doesn't. As I thought it wouldn't arrive, since miracles don't exist. I snatch the box out of his hands with a faint smile and 'thank you' before turning around and closing the door with my heel. Snobby brat.
The house owner stares at me before returning to his own flat, leaving me alone with the red balloons. I walk up the stairs again; pushing the, what I thought was closed door open without touching the doorknob. I drop the box on the table near what's supposed to be a clean kitchen.
It was already a whopping five minutes of talking to a seventeen year old muggle, getting red balloons and making fun of the neighbours! Yeah, this day can't start better. Apart from the fact that Logan will come down with the latest gossip any moment.
Footsteps. Any moment. "Dominique is dating Key. You know, that dude from the Daily Prophet."
I think I dropped my cup of tea. And I should be screaming since it's running over my arm and it's hot.
"Fuuuuck!"