Reality Switch
[Harry/Sherlock] [Set between season 2 and 3] Harry; sixteen year old prodigy Unspeakable who crosses into the veil after a year of intensive research to find his Godfather and arrives in reality without magic. Sherlock; bored genius mopping around after John's refusal to visit over the 'faking his own death' fiasco. Wonder what happens when they share the flat at 221B?
Reality: One
Location: Department of Mysteries, Death Chamber
Date: 1996 – Thursday 13th June
Time: 03:05 am
Harry smiled. It had taken him a year. A single year.
Where countless others before him had spent entire decades without success, he completed within a year. Him; the sixteen year old rookie of the Unspeakables. They would never know of his work, however, since he was taking all of his research with him. He smirked; even if he did leave the data behind, the Wizarding World would never be able to retrieve it. The only possible way for them to access it would be if they had a muggleborn examine it and even then said muggleborn would need a specific skill set, but that was the beauty of it. To get the data, the Ministry would need to invite a muggleborn to handle the sensitive information. And that was something they'd never do.
For all of their talks on equality and such, they still held onto their ridiculous prejudices. Their biases had been hidden very deeply, Harry would give them that, however if you looked closer, you could see the supremacy they felt they had over muggles. It was all; oh look how cute they are, trying to use their silly little technology to make up for their lack of magic. And that naturally translated over to the muggleborns, consciously or not. It was proven when none of the muggleborns, some whom were top of their classes and chosen fields, never made it past the store clerk jobs or secretary positions while the purebloods just moved up and up the career ladder with their family name and contacts. The only option for the muggleborns were to marry into a pureblood family, or leave. Harry himself had only managed as well as he did because was a halfblood with the Potter line behind him. It made him sick to think that it was his father's name, not his own merits, that got him where he was now. However that was the reality of this so-called 'magical world' and by holy-pickles did he hate it.
It was in fact, one of the reasons he joined the Unspeakables when he had. They were the ones that held the gateway beneath the Ministry. Ever since he'd first seen the veil in his fourth year, he had known it would be his escape from the grey reality he lived in and its goldfish inhabitancies. Sirius' fall into the gateway just pushed him further; he had always known that his Godfather was still alive, even when no one else believed, too enamoured with the old legend of death's gateway. Even then they clung on to their ancient stories and traditions, too blind to see the facts over their fiction. But now, he had proof that he was right; that the veil was not a gateway to death's realm (the hallows were enough to tell him that) but a wormhole.
Harry thought it was ironic how the muggles had the veil figured out before wizards, even without seeing the wormhole itself. He had spent the last year combining science and magical theory. The whole thing was like a jigsaw-puzzle with each piece heavily linked to the other side. Of course, there were still holes in the picture; lost magic and not-yet discovered theories, but it was enough to properly study the veil.
It had felt euphoric when he had discovered and confirmed that the veil was indeed a wormhole; a portal to another space or even time. It was like a rip through reality, an overlay of two spaces interlinked by the energies melding together, bleeding through each other. Those energies had been the major key to his research; they were like a barcode number where the elements that matched the code would lead him to what was hidden behind the other side of the gateway. He was almost disappointed when he realised that the space behind the veil was not unlike theirs but reminded himself that Sirius was more likely to survive in a familiar environment.
After that he had spent time draining every last drop of information he could gather from the gateway, calculating and anticipating exactly what he would have to prepare for. Those weeks of planning had all led up to today; the day where he was going through the veil.
Harry felt adrenaline roar through his veins. The excitement, thrill and hope warred with fear and trepidation as he stood before the stone archway, the veil's raw energy humming thick in the air, so heavy that it was almost suffocating.
He gave a wiry grin as he slipped his phone from his jean's pocket and fit a black metallic case around it, enclosing each surface of the fragile technology. The metal substance was his creation, bonded with magic to withstand the pure energy of the veil. It had been crafted with that very purpose; of protecting his phone from any damage, either physical, magical or from the gateway's energies. After all, he had stored the entirety of his research on its memory card.
He stared at the phone for a second before flipping the front of the case open and holding it up to the veil. There was a click and a picture of the veil appeared on the screen. What better way to complete his research than with an actual photo of the subject. Harry smiled at the image, feeling awfully sentimental; he had been so alone after Sirius' fall and Luna's death. They were and still are the only friends he had in his life so far but during the time spent analysing the veil, he felt strangely connected with the gateway, it being the only constant during the past year. Then again, he supposed that it might have been something to do with the hallows.
He slid the phone back, this time to his jacket's inside zip-pocket and grabbed the rucksack by his foot, slinging it around his left shoulder.
This was it. He was finally leaving the dull, lifeless world of his behind. He was going to find Sirius.
Reality: One
Location: England
Date: 1996 – Wednesday 3rd July
Time: 16:05 pm
Special edition: Teen-Who-Conquered Missing?!
After the war ended, nothing had been heard from the Teen-Who-Conquered, Harry Potter, other than his sudden drop out from Hogwarts so it hadn't been all too worrying when the saviour disappeared for a week. However, alarm bells started ringing when the teen's flat had been discovered empty by worried colleagues who went to investigate. It is from an anonymous source who revealed that the teen saviour had been working closely with the…
Reality: Two
Location: England, London, St. Bartholomew's Hospital
Date: 2013 – Thursday 31st October
Time: 21:14 pm
Sherlock watched as Molly unzipped the two body bags. He walked up to the first corpse, identified to be Tyler Lawson; 5 foot 9, aged 20, bulky build, small tattoo at the back of the neck, gunshot wound in chest, faint bruises on arms and knees. The signs were obvious. The man had clearly been captured and forced to his knees before being shot, as seen from the light bruising, but had not fought back as there weren't any marks on his hands and knuckles. A man like him, all brawn and no brain, would have been confident in his fists; would have fought back. But the fact that he didn't meant that he had been taken by surprise. However, judging by the different sized bruises on his arms, the two who had grabbed him were both big, too big to hide which meant Tyler must have seen his murderers but still didn't struggle until they grabbed him. The murderer was someone who Tyler knew and trusted then. The report from the on-scene investigators also said there had been no sign of forced entry at the house and that only confirmed that Tyler must have knew them well enough to let them in. Then there was the small tattoo on his neck that tied everything together; the tattoo of the Crux gang members. His murderer had likely been a fellow member who killed him in an inter-gang dispute.
"Mysterious murder" Lestrade had said. The 'mystery' was practically solved and Sherlock hadn't even looked at the second body yet.
If this hadn't been the only the only one that month, Sherlock would have never taken such a simplistic case, but it was and the flat had never been as disgustingly dull as it was now. He reluctantly admitted that a minor factor in his newfound boredom may have had something to do with John's refusal to visit since his so called 'rise from the dead'. In his opinion, John's behaviour was completely illogical considering that he had been the one to ask Sherlock to "stop being dead". Sherlock huffed internally, this was why he had always said sentiment was not an advantage. It only encouraged irrational actions. He ignored the part of his brain that pointed out he himself was acting slightly irrational, taking cannon fodder cases for distraction. Sherlock quickly supressed that thought and moved to the second body; now was not the time.
The police had yet to identify the corpse but wasn't exactly saying much since they were generally incompetent.
He frowned as he examined the body; 5 foot 6, estimated age at 18, athlete's build, pale complexion, tattoo on chest, small calluses on the right thumb and forefinger, no wounds, scars or bruises. There was no indication of any struggle or physical harm and yet the forensics team reported that there were no drugs or chemicals in the man's body. That meant the cause of death had to be a heart attack. But that didn't make any sense.
When the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true.
Sherlock lifted the head and checked the back of the man's skull. It was possible the man had died of fright but there would have at least been some marks or bruises at the back of his head from where he fell. Strange.
He set the man's head back down and took a step back to review what he knew. Sherlock would say that the man was some type of reporter judging by the calluses on his hands and the fact that other writers only had to type up their articles online, but his complexion suggested he hardly went outside; and yet he also had the form of a runner. It just didn't fit. There was also the tattoo; a circle within a triangle bisected by a straight line down the middle on the left side of his chest, right over the heart. He didn't recognise it as any gang symbol. He'd have to ask his homeless network if they could identify it, however it was likely that it was just a religious or sentimental tattoo considering where it was placed. It wasn't exactly much to go on, however.
Perhaps there would be something interesting in this case after all.
He peered down at the man's face and began scrutinising it, cataloguing everything he could see.
Messy black hair that just about touched his shoulders, pale smooth skin like the rest of his body, slim jawbone, soft pink lips, button nose, big eyes. Sherlock had to admit that the man was aesthetically pleasing with the boyish face but it was more than a little frustrating that there was nothing that could give him any proper information. He glared at the peaceful face as if the answer would come if he glared hard enough.
Suddenly his vision was swamped with bright harlequin green.
The man's eyes' had opened. The week dead man's eyes opened.
Impossible. And yet it wasn't. The evidence was right there, staring him in the face, literally.
The man sat up slowly and Sherlock moved back. In his peripheral vision he saw Molly drop her coffee. Good. That meant he wasn't the only one seeing this impossible phenomenon.
As if he had just been sleeping, and not dead a moment ago, the man rolled his head and shoulders back before looking around the room. After a second, the man's gaze landed on him.
"Where are my clothes?"
There was a thunk from behind him, in Molly's direction and he assumed that she had just fainted.