A/N: Hey, thanks so much for clicking and reading! Supposed to be writing chapters for Chemical Defects (and perhaps also doing A levels...) but this idea grabbed me and refused to let go, and I just love Potterlock. Turned out a lott longer than I was expecting. I really hope I've managed to keep everyone – especially Sherlock damnit – from getting OOC, and that you enjoy it!
And biggest biggest biggest thanks in the world to lilsherlockian1975 for beta'ing, she's such a lovely person and has been so massively helpful in improving my writing as a whole, I couldn't be more grateful.
"Can everybody see the cauldron? Good, good..."
The fumes that fill the potions classroom are intoxicating, alluring in their weightlessness, and Mary tilts her head back, letting the warmth of the afternoon wash over her.
She notices the dreamy, lost looks across her classmates' faces with a chuckle, noting that red curtains combined with a complete lack of ventilation were really not the most worthwhile investments in student concentration.
Not Molly though. Her face is, as always, bright with focus; her back rigid with attention, absorbing Professor Slughorn's every word.
She makes an amusing contrast to the student beside her, who wears an expression of utter boredom as he leans slightly against the wall. Though his eyes are unfocused, on a trip to the mind palace no doubt – she snorts – she knows he is cataloguing every piece of information the room has to offer.
"Well, take a look, my dears!" Slughorn booms. "Don't be shy."
His theatrics have the desired effect; the students jostle forward, crowding eagerly around the cauldron. With minimal movement (damn him for being so tall), Sherlock's frankly unimpressed stare flickers over the cauldron's contents.
Mary elbows her way ruthlessly to the front and peers in with interest. She flits through her mental catalogue of potions as she tries to identify it - the mother-of-pearl sheen and the steam rising in spirals are distinctly familiar…
She meets Sherlock's eyes with a smirk she realises exactly what is in that cauldron, and he rolls his eyes at her, mouthing – predictable.
Molly is still stuck at the back, grimacing as she attempts to wriggle through the throng. Mary winces as she watches the shortness her friend has long complained of prove distinctly detrimental to her efforts.
Until Sherlock reaches over, unceremoniously shoving Amos Diggory to the side. His hand presses ever so lightly at Molly's back, guiding her to the front.
Like clockwork. Mary hides a smile.
"Thanks," Molly murmurs gratefully, her face slightly pink as she smiles up at him, before leaning forward.
Mary doesn't miss the way his mouth opens and closes, as though he is stumbling over a thought, before he carefully schools his expression once more.
"Amortentia!" Slughorn announces with relish, making a grand sweeping gesture to the cauldron in front.
Mary rolls her eyes as crude jokes and giggles filter across the classroom.
Molly's eyes widen excitedly, and Mary stifles a giggle herself as her friend practically gets up on tiptoes to see it – her enthusiasm is almost infectious. Once again, she doesn't miss the way Sherlock's face softens for a moment as he looks at her, an amused smile tugging at his lips.
"And who can tell me what it does?"
Molly raises her hand tentatively. Slughorn beams."Ah, Miss Hooper?"
"It's the most powerful love potion in the world." She hesitates, then persists, "Well, so-called love potion."
"Oh, ho!" Slughorn's eyes twinkle, and he asks genially, "Why "so called"?"
"Because..." She starts out quietly at first, but becomes more assertive with every word. "It's impossible to create love. Love–it sort of...grows from something, until it fills you up."
Her eyes seem far away, and a little sad. Mary's heart fills with compassion for her friend, not out of pity (never pity), but pride at her enduring spirit, and a kind of indignation that somebody so wise and so true could ever be made to feel unloved.
And Sherlock stares at her intently as she speaks, his eyebrows furrowed, his lips pressed tightly together, as though trying to unlock a puzzle in each of her words.
"All that potion does is create a crazed obsession...nothing like the real thing, and a pretty poor substitute." She finishes simply, her hands falling to her sides, a spell of solemn silence cast over the room.
Then she rushes to add, "But I can't wait to study it."
Mary grins at her across the cauldron, mouthing - good save – and Molly smiles sheepishly back. The spell is broken, and the light-hearted frivolity that had temporarily left the room – as each person reminisced about one once loved, or a love that was yet to be felt - returns in full force.
"Indeed! And your explanation - couldn't have said it better myself." Slughorn says warmly,
"Twenty very well-deserved points to Hufflepuff." And Molly flushes with pleasure.
At the sound of the Professor's voice, Sherlock's face falls back into its previous disdain. His gaze wanders over to a nearby shelf, where he examines the newest titles on the wall.
Slughorn continues gravely, "In fact, this lust filled little potion here is the most dangerous one in the room –"
"Hardly." Sherlock's scoff carries across the whole room, and the room collectively winces.
Slughorn turns towards him with obvious reluctance. "Holmes." He acknowledges wearily; these situations are too close to becoming routine.
Mary sends an intense glare Sherlock's way; she secretly finds his "verbal takedowns" hilarious, but Ravenclaw is narrowly in second place in the House Cup and she really doesn't want to see her hard earned Quidditch points go down the drain.
He ignores her pointedly, opens his mouth with relish, but then he catches sight of Molly's pleading look, her minute shake of the head, and promptly closes it again.
"Nothing, sir." He mutters reluctantly, looking away in irritation.
"Really?" Slughorn seems to have been bolstered by his most irritating student's apparent retreat, his chest puffs up, and he continues with triumph. "Not entirely surprised, m'boy. Paying hardly any attention, stood there with that sullen look on your face, it's no wonder you have nothing to say."
Silence.
Mary runs her hands across her face, and for an instant she fools herself that Sherlock has developed temporary deafness, or perhaps an even more temporary sainthood; any way for him to just let the words float by.
It seems as though the room itself holds its breath.
Slughorn has turned back to the blackboard, writing up the brewing method, completely unaware of the chaos about to erupt. It is his biggest mistake.
Sherlock's head snaps up, and there is not a single glimmer of outrage or anger on his face. There is only deathly calm. His eyes rest on the Professor's back, filled with a single minded ruthlessness.
And Mary knows then that Slughorn is doomed.
"Well, Horace, if you're looking for an answer, I'll give you one." His eyes flash, and the words are precise and piercing. "Amortentia, as Molly said, does nothing more than simulate foolishly blind infatuation, something that people are more than happy to create for themselves at a moment's notice. So yes, I'd say labelling a sex drink as threatening is ambitious, but "most dangerous potion in the room?"
Mary looks over at Molly, who has her hand over her face – at first glance she seems pained, but it soon becomes apparent she is both trying and failing to hide a smile.
Sherlock snorts, and his voice is incredulous. "Melodramatic, even for you. The only use it has for me is in generating the smells of books, the black lake, burning wax, some Muggle chemicals and –" A flicker of confusion crosses his face, so quickly smoothed over it is almost impossible to notice, but she doesn't miss it.
"- and on closer observation," His voice takes on a hard edge, and he makes a show of slowly looking him up and down. "It's not surprising at all that you chose to focus on a love potion, considering you've been rejected by two witches and a wizard in the last month."
He rolls his eyes at the gasps that echo around the room. "Oh please, it's not as if he ever confined himself to one gender when he "collected" his students. All further evidence of his wallowing in self pity; if the closest thing he has to meaningful relationships are the students in the framed photos on his wall, which he takes religiously good care of – judging by the depth of dust – then perhaps I shouldn't begrudge you trying to console yourself with a love potion." He crosses his arms. "Except, yes, yes I do, because it's a complete and utter waste of our time."
Slughorn's face has turned an alarming shade of red, one that spreads further and further to his neck the longer Sherlock speaks. Beads have broken out on his forehead, and Mary almost pities him.
"Unacceptable!" he splutters. "The nerve, and the complete lack of decorum-" Heavy breaths escape him, and he temporarily seems to have lost the ability to formulate a sentence.
"Ninety points from Ravenclaw!" he shouts angrily, and Mary loses any pity she had for the professor, and any amusement she had felt for Sherlock's antics.
Cries echo around the room from their fellow Ravenclaws, the usual angry whispers of "Piss off Holmes!", "Bloody tosser!" and "Can't you just shut the hell up for once?" whilst the Hufflepuffs look gleeful.
The list of ways Mary has devised to kill Sherlock Holmes increases from thirty to fifty nine in a second.
But then something distracts her from her irritation. Unnoticed, Molly has backed away to the edge of the room, her face seems pale, blanched, and she pulls at the sleeves of her robes. As soon as she catches Mary's concerned glance, however, she immediately regains her former ease, giving her a quick smile before looking away.
It's interesting, the way the both of them seem so determined to portray specific facades, ones that Mary never buys, not for a second.
"...deserve to be in this lesson," the professor was declaring, and Mary sighs, refocusing her attention again on the utter hyperbole that is Horace Slughorn. "I demand you leave my classroom immediat –"
Sherlock lifts a single finger languidly, and at that exact moment the bell rings.
Mary stays behind momentarily to hunt for a quill she'd dropped, hearing snatches of conversations alternating between excited chatter and grumbled whispers on the events of the lesson. She catches up with her friends bickering light heartedly as they walk through the corridor outside.
" – and he claimed I was the idiot. He had it coming to him, Molly!" Sherlock says defensively.
"Easy for you to say, you don't give a damn about the House Cup," Mary grumbles, punching him on the shoulder.
Sherlock wrinkles his nose at her, rubbing his shoulder as he mutters. "Still deserved it."
"I agree," Molly says apologetically to Mary, who opens her mouth in outrage to point out her house bias, and so she hurriedly turns back to Sherlock and tries, "I just think, maybe, you could have been a bit gentler, and I don't know, not have taunted him about his love life?"
"Oh, well, apologies for impeding your application to the Slug Club..."
"Dear God, don't accuse me of wanting that." Molly looks positively revolted. "All those pretentious parties where I'd have to care about the invention of a potion that, oh I don't know, only makes someone's hair fall out a tiny bit slower."
That earns a rare laugh from Sherlock (actually, not so rare when it comes to Molly, Mary notes) and his face almost brightens from the full force of it.
"Spending a night dodging pervy fifty year old wizards – don't understand why you wouldn't want it, Molly," she teases in mock surprise, patting her on the shoulder.
Molly shudders. "I think I'd need your Defence against the Dark Arts expertise there."
"I think you may need to resort to your proficiency in Charms in order to cast an Obliviate," Sherlock quips; and they all dissolve into chuckles.
"But seriously..." Molly pauses, trying but failing to completely expel the laughter in her voice. "...it's not Slughorn I'm trying to defend, I'm just worried you won't get a potions NEWT at this rate."
Mary raises her eyebrows. "I'm sure his brother will put in a word for him," she says pointedly, and Sherlock nods complacently at her.
"Yes, having my very own King Slug really is a handy asset," he drawls, smirking as he dodges the hand that Mary swats at him.
Molly grins at him, and her gaze lingers on his face when Sherlock looks elsewhere. It softens, taking on a hint of the wistful, as delicate as drops of mildew on blades of grass. But then Mary sees her face blanch again as it did in the classroom, and she glances away.
"I've got an essay to do for McGonagall for next lesson, so I need to dash off," she says hurriedly, pulling her bag tighter over her shoulder, and rushes on ahead.
"Just copy Sherlock's," Mary calls. He turns to her with a questioning look, and she adds louder, "I already did, he had no idea!"
Sherlock's eyes narrow in disbelief, and she shrugs unashamedly.
"Unlike you, Morstan, I have morals!" Molly yells back over her shoulder, and Mary really cannot deny her point.
(Well maybe she can, but she has a suspicion that something is bothering Molly, something she needs time alone to process.)
Sherlock's stare comes to rest on the back of Molly's head, that transcendent softness returning to his face, almost catching him unawares.
In that moment, Mary instantaneously understands two things at once. She realises exactly what is troubling Molly, exactly what Sherlock is so unaware of, and that these two things are exactly the same.
That familiar indignation bubbles up in her again, and she decides to bite.
"Perfume, was it?" she says nonchalantly.
"Sorry?"
"That smell you couldn't identify. From the Amortentia." She nods at Molly's retreating back."A sort of honeysuckle?"
Sherlock's eyes widen, a deep crease appears between his eyebrows, his lips pressing rigidly together. She can almost hear the gears turning in his mind, the clunk of the penny as it drops.
There's a sharp intake of breath, and then his mouth shuts as quickly as it opens. A scowl darkens his face.
"Oh piss off," he spits, pushing past her, and Mary grins.
Half an hour later she finds Molly in the library, her head in her hands, with Trials of Transfiguration - the recommended book for their essay – open on her lap.
Open on page one. Bollocks.
Mary slides into the seat in front, and her friend looks up, her frown relaxing into a relieved smile as she identifies her.
"How's the essay?" she asks knowingly.
Molly looks decidedly shifty. "I've started it," she says slowly.
Mary glances at the page in front.
"Alright, I've written the title," Molly admits, gesturing to the words "Partial corporal transfiguration" scrawled on an otherwise empty parchment. "So," she continues, banishing any troubling emotions on her face into a knowing smile. "What did you smell today?"
Mary allows her the temporary deflection. She leans back in her chair. "Butterbeer. Fresh fallen snow. A Quaffle. John's sweaty Quidditch robes right before I jump his bones," she finishes airily, and grins as Molly does a double take and bursts out laughing.
"Dear God, Mary Morstan, your libido is insatiable," she splutters, looking half amused and half scandalised.
Mary shrugs happily. "Those Quidditch robes just do it for me."
Molly laughs again, but Mary immediately hears its forced edge, its half-heartedness, how quickly it dies. Softly, she asks, "You got his scent, didn't you? That's what's bothering you."
"God, that makes me sound like a dog," Molly lets out a deep breath, looking down at her intertwining fingers, the knuckles turning white against the mahogany of the table. "Yeah," she breathes out shakily, and finally meets Mary's gaze. Her eyes – they're so openly vulnerable, so heavy with an immeasurable ache that Mary almost can't bear to look.
Hands fist the shirt on her back. Wracking cries against her shoulder. Her heart beats into rage for a broken one.
And after it all, Molly wipes her tears in determination, and looks her fixedly in the eye.
"I'm over him," she says fiercely. "Or I swear to you I will be. I'm done crying over him."
Mary nods, only pulling her into another hug. They don't speak of it again.
"I'm so sorry, love." Her arm reaches across the table and gives Molly's a squeeze. She bites her lip, and says cautiously, "The potion's fumes are only attraction though, maybe –"
Molly shakes her head, and Mary's words fall flat.
"No." She pauses, turning her head to stare out into the grounds, towards the black lake, fiddling absentmindedly with her plait. Eventually she turns back to Mary, whose eyes never left her, and says quietly. "I've never needed a potion to figure out my feelings. I – I never got over him." Her teeth clench as frustration fills her voice. "I tried so hard. It was always there, no matter how I tried to ignore it, or pretend it wasn't. But I-"
Mary sees her body sag against her chair, and she sounds so defeated that it kills her. "I love him, Mary."
"I know," she says honestly, and Molly bows her head. Mary's fingers reach out and tap under her chin, lifting her gaze up to hers. "It doesn't make you any less strong," she says determinedly, and Molly briefly smiles at her in gratitude.
"I learn to live with it. It's just today." She sighs, her face lapsing back into its previous dejectedness. "Having a physical reminder of your pathetic and hopeless feelings shoved in your face is a bit shit."
"It's not pathetic," she stresses. And it's certainly not hopeless. The words bubble up inside of her and she wants to share them so badly, but they cannot come from her.
(What Molly needs to hear can only come from one person alone.)
Mary notices many things. In the world she grew up in, missing the most minute of signs could cost you dear, and she was forced to learn quickly.
Now, she watches her friends spinning in circles so close to overlapping, sometimes only a sliver of a millimetre apart, but somehow constantly missing one another in their trajectories.
It's becoming unbearable to watch, because what Molly longs for (though she pretends she doesn't) is precisely what Sherlock feels (though he pretends he doesn't). So much make-believe - and all for what?
She decides it's Sherlock who needs the push, because Molly has acknowledged her feelings, but has decided to bear them all alone, whereas he doesn't have the self awareness to recognise them, or the understanding of what needs to be done in the aftermath.
For a man who feels so deeply, it's sometimes frightening how determined he is to lock his emotions away. Though as the sea erodes even the most hard wearing rock, so does she know that sentiment crumbles the cliffs of his cold resolve. That dreaded word has slowly but surely shaped him, smoothed his harder edges, made him softer somehow. Bit by bit, she's watched his feelings spill through the cracks of whatever door he has locked them behind.
Yet their emergence has never been voluntary, and he refuses to allow them the freedom they deserve. It's hurting Molly, and it's hurting him, and somehow he doesn't realise either of these things.
And perhaps a potion induced push in the right direction, him doing something, anything, and seeing how right it feels, will remove this block he has, or at least force him to contemplate the possibility of coming to terms with it. If he crosses the line once, she hopes he will no longer be so afraid of it.
None of this justifies what she decides to do, but in a way, that is what makes it all the more appropriate. The solution couldn't be reasonable, for their crumbling dynamic was far from normal. It is slowly becoming a game of chess, both sides presuming to predict the emotional moves of the other's in an attempt to determine their own.
And Mary has never been content to sit on the sidelines of any game, far less one of which she can change the outcome.
So she steals back into the potions classroom, casts a Disillusionment Charm on herself (another skill learnt far too young for all the wrong reasons) and watches Slughorn marking essays at his desk.
He monologues to himself as he works, and it's truly an entertaining sight. There are over enthusiastic observations out loud at the good essays - he often takes sole credit for any talent in his students - whilst the bad ones illicit a melodramatic sigh with piteous mutterings. With some, he boldly claims that he'd always predicted a particular student's lack of prowess, even from the minute they walked into the classroom.
More importantly, however, the Amortentia is still rippling lazily in its cauldron, and Mary rather suspects Slughorn has left it out for it's invigorating aromas. Soon, he's consumed the appropriate amount of mead for an opportune bathroom break, and Mary loses no time in taking advantage of it.
A few minutes later, and Mary ducks out the classroom with her prize clutched in her hand, and a hair of Molly's she'd found earlier clutched in the other. The two are added eagerly together, and her eyes light up as the potion turns darker. Activated. Her jubilation is cut short as she realises hiding a flask under her robes may cross the line of the conspicuous into the flat out obvious, and so she stuffs it into her bag, hoping the lid is screwed on far more strongly than her patience.
She tiptoes into the Ravenclaw male dormitory – whichever founder had thought girls were more trustworthy was clearly the same person who'd thought hiding a monster in a chamber was a worthwhile assertion of power. What always strikes her when she visits is that, in spite of the stereotypes, this room is far neater than its female equivalent.
The framed poster of some Muggle chart she struggles to remember the name of (a peeryoddit table?) declares itself in its colours, bright against the pale wall, and she moves carefully towards the four poster bed beside it. Sherlock's bed is a microcosm of his mind; a cluttered mess of parchments and books and everything in between that he somehow insists has a system.
She raises her wand, and whispers, "Accio Sherlock's jar of honey."
The jar flies out of his second bedside drawer – so mundane he hadn't even considered it needed protection – into her outstretched hand.
The seemingly insignificant details, the ones he would probably delete from memory, are the ones she never forgets. She knows that once a month Sherlock receives this specific jar of honey from his parents - she can only assume it's something from his ever allusive childhood. And though he scoffs at their "overbearing mollycoddling", the honey becomes the main part of his diet until it runs out.
She unscrews the lid and pours the potion in, pulling her wand out to ensure that every detail is accounted for: the honey evenly mixed, its undisrupted shiny surface restored, and the lid promptly resealed afterwards. Under his scrutinising gaze, nothing can be left to chance.
Outside, the sun burns up its sky into dusk, and she stares at her reflection mirrored in the glass of the jar, warped, distorted, faint under the fading light. There is a moment of rare hesitation in this solitude, as she fully grasps for a moment exactly what this action could tear apart -
- and exactly what it could tie together. That rises far more prominently in her mind, and she sets the jar back in its previous position with a magnified feeling of purpose, and an almost binding sense of duty.
It's depressing, Molly thinks, that these days Madam Pince sees far more of her than most of her friends.
It's the next day after breakfast, and the essay is still nowhere near done. Her head is slumped on her usual table, with ten books on human transfiguration scattered around her, the quill in her hand drooping listlessly.
"Still on this, then?" an all too familiar voice cuts through the fog in her brain; a voice that fills her with happiness for a moment and then becomes a poignant reminder.
She lifts her head blearily and looks up at Sherlock, his eyebrows raised and the faint traces of a smirk on his face – an expression that frustrates her in its ability to make her want to both punch him and kiss the living daylights out of him.
She huffs. "Well, some of us need longer than a day to master a NEWT level transfiguration concept."
"Hmm," he drones. "Wasn't particularly a stretch." Holding his hands up at her glare, he says amusedly, "I did offer to show you."
"No," she insists, shaking her head stubbornly. "I will do it alone." A forlorn glance at the essay later, she admits, "Ask me again at the end of the week."
"Noted." He leans over her, and she swallows at his proximity, the scent of him almost intoxicating her, before she steadies herself in a matter of seconds. (It's becoming a well practised ritual.)
He plucks the essay out of her grasp and wrinkles his nose at it, grinning as he easily holds it out of reach of her scrabbling hands.
"Sherlock!" she yells, her arms extended. "Give. It. Back."
"This is a library, not a room of ruckus!" Madam Pince screeches in their direction.
"You heard the woman," he murmurs, holding a finger mockingly to her lips.
They are both still very quickly.
His skin is cool to the touch, and she can feel his pulse beating rapidly in the tip of his finger against her mouth. A burning heat rises within her, her lips part, and her breaths become shallower as she sees her face reflected vividly in his widened eyes.
He withdraws rather hastily, and turns away from her to tuck the essay into a pocket in his robes. When she sees his face again, she briefly searches it for any trace of unsettlement, any fraction of the turmoil she feels, but it is utterly composed, and that familiar sinking feeling surfaces in her stomach again.
Sliding into the chair opposite, he dumps a paper bag containing a lion's share of marmalade covered toast onto the table and pushes it towards her.
"Eat," he says simply. "It's illogical to think your brain will reach its maximum working capacity under starvation."
"You barely eat when you're working something out," she says, grateful but confused at this abrupt change in attitude.
"I wouldn't recommend being me," he says briefly, his eyes flickering for a moment, before he refocuses his gaze on her.
"Now eat," he commands, leaning forward on the table. "And tell me about something you actually find interesting."
Thoughtfulness in Sherlock comes and goes like the ebbs and flows of a tide, and she smiles as she pulls out the first piece of toast.
"I've been distracted lately by forensic pathology." Giggling slightly at Sherlock's bewildered look (it's a rarity to be savoured), she proceeds to clarify, "It's another branch of Muggle science."
His eyes light up, and he practically drums his fingers on the table in excitement. Being able to captivate him in concepts gives her a soft kind of pleasure, one that flows across her being, fills every crevice of her skin.
Molly, being Muggle-born, insisted on not completely abandoning her Muggle education. Her parents had obliged, sending her journals and articles by owl post. Ever since Sherlock had read a chemistry article over her shoulder at breakfast, he'd been completely riveted by the sciences and would frequently implore her for explanations at random intervals.
He never tells her the reasons behind his fascination, but then again Molly has never needed him to, and a multitude of them seem perfectly apparent to her. Growing up in one of the most noble pure-blooded families in Britain came, not necessarily with prejudice, but with a certain subconscious aura of scepticism around Muggle knowledge, and so finding distinctive evidence of the opposite must have seemed particularly thrilling.
Having, from childhood, long mastered a phenomenal level of magical understanding, this alternative dimension of entirely unfamiliar territory to explore must have seemed like a whole new world had opened up before his eyes, just as magic did for her.
What was most intriguing to the both of them, however, was the relationship between the two ideas. Whether they were two different theories for the same mechanisms, or whether magic flowed into science – the abstract into the tangible.
She nods happily and begins to explain. "It's basically working on the body after they've died. Mostly used to identify causes of death in a variety of ways: looking at the organs through dissection, or running tests to see what substances were inside them. So being able to tell whether someone offed themselves or – "
"- if they were murdered," he finishes in fascination, his face practically gleaming. "The closest equivalent we have would be Aurors using potions to test for poisons, but we certainly never dissect. It's taboo in wizarding culture, a remnant of medieval European ideas that we never grew out of after we went into hiding."
Molly frowns. "Well, that's pretty archaic. Prior incantatem only works if you have the right wand. So there's not even some kind of database of the effects of different spells internally?"
"No," Sherlock draws the word out, enthralled, and steeples his fingers under his mouth in his typical contemplative pose.
She smiles softly to herself, and has a sudden stroke of inspiration. Reaching into her bag, she pulls out a thick paged book (Forensic Pathology Techniques Volume III), a birthday gift that had been her bedtime reading for the past few months, and extends it towards him.
"Here," she says simply,."Knock yourself out."
He smiles widely, and it's one of his rare genuine ones. There's no artifice, amusement or arrogance - it's a pure undistorted expression of joy, and she looks at him and can pretend for a moment that she's flying rather than falling.
Their fingers are both clasped on the book between them, he glances down at them and there is a perceptible pause, full of something as incomprehensible as their beating hearts.
She sees his face soften and his smile turn inward. "Molly Hooper," he says quietly, and for once she cannot understand the look that crosses his face.
He looks up and meets her gaze, and doesn't answer the questions he sees in her eyes. "Thank you."
She nods, smiling faintly back, and he takes the book and places it carefully in his bag, with none of the impatience he usually stuffs his belongings in there with.
Her eyes follow him as he walks out; follow his impeccable posture, his fidgeting ink-stained hands, his pristine robes, his untamed curls and his even more untamed eyes and thinks: Sherlock Holmes is a contradiction, and loving him is even more so, both terrible and wonderful in all its ecstasies.
Mary finds Molly tending the patches in the Herbology garden, the extracurricular habits of a stereotypical Hufflepuff. She's sans gloves though, because she's always loved the feeling of the earth in her fingers.
"Hi," Molly calls softly; though she knows scientifically that plants can't get disturbed, somehow this place has its own sanctity, a magic she can feel in the greenery pulsing around them.
"Hi, Molly." There's something vague in Mary's voice that makes her look up at her friend, in her usual attire of trousers, rolled up robe sleeves and an assured demeanour.
But Molly knows the foolishness of taking this facade for fact, because Mary has always been comfortable with demonstrating every emotion except uncertainty, any state except the in-between. It's different to Sherlock, because she has no qualms about running headfirst into her feelings, but is of the utmost importance to her to portray an unshakable conviction, to smooth over any traces of vulnerability as she does.
"You alright?" Molly asks in concern, wiping her hands on her skirt and standing up to face her.
"Yeah, yeah..."
She's stood at the edge of the greenhouse, as though afraid of being the serpent in a Garden of Eden, arms crossed, eyes resting somewhere above Molly's head.
"I just – " She pauses, and Molly can now definitely hear the hesitation, an indecisiveness uncharacteristic of her in the words she doesn't say. "Walk with me?"
"OK."
So they walk together, the grass swishing under their feet, a chilly breeze incongruous to the sunny day ruffling their hair into tangles. Molly continuously glances at Mary, who strides ahead, staring determinedly at the sky above their heads, and this troubles her, because Mary's never been one who has to hunt for the right words.
Molly comes to an abrupt stop, grabbing Mary's shoulders forcefully. "Calm down, Mary. Just tell me what's going on," she instructs her in measured, soft tones.
Mary nods and runs her hands slowly through her hair, the short blond strands parting at her fingertips.
"Look, Molly..." And suddenly it's like a long built dam has burst, and the words flood out in a torrent as she waves her hands wildly. "The two of you, you and Sherlock, you both feel for each other so deeply and it's so blindingly obvious except you think he doesn't love you, and he keeps pretending he doesn't, and I know you wouldn't believe it if I told you, so I needed to push him, get him to cross the line once so that he stops being so damn scared of it-"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Molly says, with an uncharacteristic force that brings Mary to a complete stop.
She runs her hands over her face, and the sheer amount of what Mary implies builds and builds into a slamming force of pressure in her skull, threatening to shatter the long built walls of resolution in her mind.
And yet, to her disgust, there is even a faint bubbling in her stomach that she realises is hope, a hope that must be firmly quashed, a hope that's only tortured her in the past.
You both feel for each other so deeply.
You think he doesn't love you.
I needed to push him -
And then all the noise in her brain is silenced in an sudden rush of horrifying clarity.
"Mary," she says slowly, trying and failing to keep the dread out of her voice. "What have you done?"
Mary sets her jaw and a grim determination crosses her face; an expression seen throughout history on the faces of self declared martyrs as they sacrifice themselves to their chosen higher cause.
"I spiked him with Amortentia," she admits bluntly. "For you though, no-one else, don't worry," she finishes with a sardonic laugh. The wind whips around them as they face each other, howling in a rush to fill the deadening silence.
No! No no no no no no -
Bile rises in her throat, her body shakes all over.
No no no no no no -
A detaching faintness fills her until all she can see is green, the grass that surrounds her.
No no no no no no -
It's when she feels Mary's hands shaking her that she realises she's sitting, no longer standing, and that she's yelling the words out loud.
Her touch pulls Molly back from her momentary frenzy, and simultaneously triggers a surge of red hot rage that courses feverishly through her veins. She's never felt anything of the kind before, nothing that has blinded her so much to her long held tenancies of consideration, care and kindness, nothing that has controlled her words so passionately and blindly.
"How dare you?" she spits furiously. "What made you think you had the right to do anything so fucking twisted?"
"Like I said, maybe him being controlled by it would make him realise he feels the real thing towards you –"
"Really?" Her laugh is hollow, mocking, spiteful, and Mary flinches from how foreign it is from her lips. "You think watching him chase after me would make me feel better, knowing he's been forced into it and knowing that it's nothing, nothing, like what I feel, nothing like what I long for him to feel?" Her voice becomes empty. "Knowing that the only way he'd ever want me is with a potion rammed down his throat?"
Mary opens her mouth, to elaborate or to contradict, but Molly presses on, "And imagine how he must be feeling? You know how important it is for him to be in control, how much he hates it when he's scared or upset. Imagine how terrifying it's going to be for him, when it wears off and he realises he was entirely powerless to one blinding emotion?"
Her voice grows quieter, more futile. "And what if he did make a move? What if I'd believed it, done anything with someone who'd never consented in the first place." She shudders, clenching her hands into fists. "He'd have to spend the next few years of his life regretting it, and I – I'd have to watch him."
"That's why I told you. I wanted you to know what was going on," Mary beseeches, trying to reach for her, to calm her down, comfort her – it doesn't matter, and Molly shifts away quickly. Mary gives up, her shoulders slumping as she murmurs dejectedly. "I didn't want you to get hurt."
Molly gets up, turning away from her imploring gaze, her eyes resting on the distant treetops of the Forbidden Forest.
"Well that's the thing, Mary." She shrugs in resignation. "You hurt him, and that hurts me."
Really hope you liked it! Reviews are better than Mrs Hudson's badass car. Part 2 already written and coming next week ;-)