"Watson!"
The shout echoes across the courtyard to where John looks up from the parchment Sherlock has been shoving at him for the best part of the day. He grins.
"Show me it later," John says, grabbing Sherlock's hand and pulling him into the courtyard to Greg Lestrade who is kicking a black and white football into the air.
"Bet you haven't seen one of these in a while," Greg smiles.
"God no, mine wouldn't fit in my trunk. How many can you do?"
Greg drops the ball and puts his foot on it to stop it rolling, "got about fifty once. Haven't had a chance to play recently so I'm a bit out of practice."
"I used to always get in trouble in primary school for doing keepy uppies," John laughs, "spent a lot of PE lessons and break times hogging the ball to practice."
"That has to be practiced?" Sherlock snorts.
Greg raises an eyebrow and nudges the ball towards Sherlock, "go on then."
Sherlock picks it up and defiantly lifts his chin. He drops it on the top of his shoe and it immediately bounces away to the side.
"Not so easy, is it?" John smirks as Sherlock goes after it. He tries again with the same outcome but moves to let John catch it before it can roll too far away. This time John dumps his satchel to the side and starts kicking the ball into the air, eventually finishing by balancing it on his forehead.
He looks at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye and smirks.
"You're using a locomotor charm to fool me, I'm not an idiot," Sherlock pouts.
"Nope. Just a lot of practice," John lets the ball fall to the floor and kicks it towards Greg, "been able to do them way before I even knew about magic."
"So what does it do?" Sherlock asks, eyeing the ball carefully.
"It's basically the same kind of ball as a Quaffle. Except in the game you're not allowed to touch it with your hands. That's why it's called football."
Sherlock frowns, "so it doesn't move?"
"It's a muggle game, Sherlock, of course it doesn't move on its own," John says. Greg stifles a giggle.
Sherlock frowns, "then what's the point?"
"It's fun?" John shrugs, "I was on my school team before I came here. Probably still would be if I hadn't come here and joined the Quidditch team."
"We're about to play a game or two if you fancy joining us?" Greg says, jabbing his thumb back at a little group sat on the grass, "we need a few more people to make it fairer."
"Definitely," John eagerly steps forward, "Sherlock?"
"I don't know any of the rules," Sherlock huffs, "between my parents and my brother I've never even seen a football before."
"I'll give you a quick lesson. It's not too difficult to get your head round."
"Fine, I'll play. But I'm on John's team."
Greg barks a laugh, "I wouldn't dream of separating you."
Sherlock and John add their bags and robes to the makeshift goals and join the group while Greg starts to divide them into two teams. One team is made up of mostly Greg's Hufflepuff friends, one or two blue and red ties amongst the mix, the other mostly red and blue ties.
"We just need one more person for even teams," he says, eyes scanning the courtyard. They fall on a ginger Ravenclaw boy perched on the steps reading a heavy book, "Mycroft? Want to join?"
Mycroft raises an eyebrow at the small group before closing his book and wandering over.
"What are you doing?"
"Friendly game of football," Greg nudges the ball with his toe, "fancy a game?"
Mycroft's eyes slide over to Sherlock, "you're playing?"
"Yes," Sherlock sulkily folds his arms across his chest, "John said it was fun so I wanted to try."
"You hate sports. You refused to even touch a broom before you met John."
"I'm broadening my horizons, Mycroft."
"It isn't too rough and tumble," Greg butts in, glancing at Mycroft's immaculate uniform, "the grass isn't too muddy and it's just a bit of fun."
"Thank you but I think I'll watch from a safe distance."
Heaving the book under his arm, Mycroft turns and makes his way to a shadowed corner. Greg smiles when he realises the book remains closed and Mycroft's eyes stay on their group.
Greg carefully counts everyone they've gathered again and sighs, "one more."
He spots a short, brown haired boy in yellow cutting across the courtyard and shouts, "Dimmock! Game?"
Greg holds the ball above his head and grins. Dimmock matches his smile and jogs over, throwing his bag onto the pile. He bats the ball out of Greg's hands and starts dribbling it towards the opposite goal. He shouts back, "you snooze, you lose!"
Suddenly the other players spring into action, laughing and starting to play. Whenever Sherlock gets the ball he quickly (and clumsily) passes it over to John who expertly ducks around the other players until Greg or one of the other muggle born students manages to take the ball from him. The other pureblood kids pick up the rules and start getting more and more confident until they've been playing for almost thirty minutes and they hear the faint tolling of the bell, signalling the end of lunch break.
Sherlock had tripped a few times and starts brushing the mud from his trousers, ignoring Mycroft's grimace, while John retrieves their bags and robes from the pile.
"Come home with me for the summer," John offers before Sherlock can restart their conversation from earlier, "it looked like you were enjoying that; I can show you all the other stuff I grew up with. And it's the football world cup this summer, we can watch that."
"I'd like that," Sherlock smiles shyly, "it could be interesting to see what it's like without magic."
"Just remember you can't get away with sneaky magic or anything from Weasley's like you can at your place," he grins when Sherlock frowns at him.
"Magical laws state that wizards under-"
"And when did you ever listen to the law?" John wraps an arm around Sherlock's waist, "just don't do anything in front of my parents. Mum still hasn't quite got her head around the whole magic thing. Now come on, what were you trying to show me earlier? We have still have a little time before classes start again."
Sherlock pulls the parchment from his bag and leans into John as he launches himself into an explanation of the compounds in the soil around Hogwart's grounds.