The parcel arrived in the early afternoon which was highly frustrating as Sherlock had absolutely no idea what it could possibly be and he had hours to wait until the intended recipient arrived home to open it.

He did repeatedly contemplate opening it but he knew that John would be angry. The one thing he seemed to hold as private was his military career and thus a parcel with Sandhurst listed as the return address, was bound to be counted as one of the few things Sherlock was not allowed to meddle in. However that only made it all the more interesting.

Sherlock didn't usually care about John's post or his privacy for that matter but he was bored and the parcel just seemed to make so little sense. John usually received nothing other than bills and the occasional promotional magazine but this was a large box and not from Amazon or some other obvious mail order company but from the military, the contents had to be interesting.

His attempts at doing the right thing and wait for John to come home lasts all of twenty minutes before he is rearing the paper off the box and pulling out its contents. He can rewrap it and John will be none the wiser.

What he finds inside entirely baffles him. Sherlock has never been particularly impressed with John's wardrobe but the garments he find in the box are not boring and generic, they are downright odd. Sherlock would never take John for the kind of person to wear three quarter length trousers. Then he spots the shoes and the prosthetic ears and it dawns on him that Halloween is just around the corner. But why would the army be sending John a masquerade costume and what on earth is it supposed to be of.

Searching through his store of information on monsters suitable to dress up as at Halloween takes up the rest of his afternoon, but nowhere in his mind palace does he have any information about a scary creature with pointy ears and enormous feet.

He doesn't end up rewrapping the parcel, he is too engrossed in his own mind and he isn't even really sorry about that when he hears the door slam below, announcing John's arrival.

John shuffles in, deposits his jacket on a chair and with a sigh puts the kettle on. He opens his mouth to ask Sherlock how his day has been but is interrupted.

'John what has huge feet and pointy ears and wears unattractively short trousers?' Sherlock asks and John's eyebrows shoot up.

'A hobbit.' John answers instantly turning toward his flatmate. 'Sherlock, if that is an attempt at a riddle you really haven't got the hang of them…. Oh no they didn't.' The last is exhaled with a sense of panic as John spots the opened parcel and the costume on the coffee table.

'I am not that short.' John exclaims angrily as he strides across the floor to examine the contents of the package. The statement makes no sense to Sherlock. What on earth does John's height have to do with the costume?

Sherlock contemplates further research but decides on the more direct approach seeing as John is right there. 'John what is a hobbit, and why is the army sending you a Halloween costume?' Sherlock asks and watches as John slumps in his chair holding a shoe shaped like a very large foot.

'I take it you deleted Hobbits along with the solar system then. You haven't by any chance noticed the fact that London is plastered in movie posters announcing The Hobbit: Battle of the five armies? It's only this year's biggest blockbuster.' John asks and his annoyed expression softens a little.

Of course Sherlock has seen those posters, they have been everywhere. 'There weren't any feet in those posters.' Sherlock argues, embarrassed at having missed something that John considers obvious.

'It's not just the posters Sherlock.' John shakes his head. 'The hobbit is one of the most famous children's books ever. It's brilliant, if you haven't read it you've missed out.' John smiles slightly and the frustration over the costume seems to have faded away.

'That may be but it still does not really explain why the army wants you to dress up as a character from a children's novel and blockbuster movie.' Sherlock looks at him quizzically.

'It's for a reunion. They're holding a large reunion for my graduating year from Sandhurst. They invite us every ten years for a big do, so this year it's everyone who graduated in 2004 like me but also those from 1994, 1984 and so on, it's a huge thing. I accepted the invite over a month ago. They said they would be sending costumes out. I was expecting zombies or pirates but I guess they decided to give it a theme based on the film release.' John sighs. 'I don't understand who got it into their thick head to make this year fancy dress, it's always been black tie before.' He moaned.

'So based on a film several hundred officers are going to be dressing up in giant feet and pointy ears. I'm glad I'll be missing that.' Sherlock laughed, his interest in the costume greatly diminished now that he had been given the explanation for it.

'I wish that was the case but I doubt it. The invite said we would be assigned characters to dress as. The book only has one hobbit, hence the Hobbit. I think this might mean I'm it.' John looked despairingly down at the giant foot he was holding.

'I fail to see the problem. Is there something horribly embarrassing about this hobbit, those posters you spoke of make him look rather like a hero.' Sherlock pushed barely interested any longer.

Instead of answering John got up gathered up his costume and disappeared up the stairs. Sherlock remained on the couch considering what had just transpired. Just as he was getting his phone out to google 'hobbits' John returned. He dropped two DVD cases and a thin, worn looking book in his lap. 'Educate yourself and deduce from there why I'm not entirely happy with this situation. I'm done explaining.' John huffed and stalked off again intent on phoning those of his friends he knew were going to the event to see if some of them at least had been given equally embarrassing costumes. Someone had to have gotten Gollum right?

Having nothing better to do Sherlock picked up the thin book and began to read 'This is a story of long ago. At that time the languages and letters were quite different from ours…'

An hour later he reached the end '"Thank goodness!" said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco-jar.' Was that it? Sherlock felt strangely deprived, he had enjoyed the book more than he would ever admit to John and now he felt it had been far too short. Then he remembered the two DVD's and promptly shoved the first one into the player. By the time all the dwarves had arrived in Bag End John turned up in the kitchen and started to make dinner. He was obviously flustered, having found that in fact all of the people he knew who were going had ended up nameless humans, or elves with the exception of two of the men who had been assigned to dress as orcs and were bragging about the cool costumes and the fact that they would apparently be offered help with makeup on the day.

They had all been highly amused by the fact that John had been given the part of Bilbo and to a man had argued how well suited he was. In all fairness to them there had been mention of bravery and kindness and always having the best of intentions but all bar one had found it irresistible to point out that John had after all ben the shortest male in their year by a good inch and a half.

For that very reason John was currently fuming at whatever nameless faceless person had come up with the idea of the themed reunion but he was still mildly pleased and surprised to see that Sherlock had actually taken his advice and was watching the first instalment of the film trilogy with rapt attention.

Stir fry finished John sat down with Sherlock and together they watched the rest of the film while John ate and Sherlock picked absentmindedly at the plate presented to him.