A VERY SHERLOCK CROSSOVER, CHAPTER ONE
JOHN H. WATSON KNEW from a very young age that he was different from his sister Harriet, and all of the other children who lived in Little Whinging where John, Harriet, and their parents lived in Number 6, Privet Drive, between the Coxes in Number 8, whom his mother got on rather well with, and the Dursleys in Number 4, whom nobody got on well with.
John, however, was the only friend of Harry Potter, who had the misfortune of living with the Dursleys. Harry and John realized around the age of four or five that they could both do things that other children couldn't, and so, when, at the age of 11, they received their acceptance letters to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they shared their enthusiasm and worries with each other.
John's parents had accepted Harry as their son, and provided some of the enthusiasm they knew Harry would never get from his aunt and uncle. And so, when Rubeus Hagrid came to take Harry to Diagon Alley to buy his supplies for school, John insisted on going with them. When the time came to purchase their wands, John and Harry walked into Ollivander's to find that he was already helping a rather tall boy with unruly black curls and ice-blue eyes to find his wand.
"Here you go, Mr. Holmes, Ash, Dragon Heartstring, 7 inches precisely, not particularly flexible… here, have a go. Sherlock swished the wand quickly and all of the wand boxes dusted themselves off and rearranged themselves in a much more orderly fashion. Mr. Ollivander smiled knowingly at Sherlock, and said, "7 galleons, please, Mr. Holmes, and do please give my regards to your family. It's no difficult task to see that you're going to do extraordinary things with this wand. Use it wisely."
He then turned to John and Harry. "Ah, Mr. Potter, I was wondering when you'd come around. And who is this with you?" "John Watson, sir." "Well, just sit there and I'll help you in just a moment, Mr. Watson." John went and sat in one of two ancient-looking spindly wooden chairs in front of the shop window, and Sherlock Holmes sat in the other.
"I can't believe my parents are making me wait here until they get back from getting Mycroft's new robes…" he muttered to himself. "Hello," came a small voice from the chair next to him.
He turned to face the rather small boy who must be his age if he was in here for the first time. Sandy blonde hair, dark blue eyes, muggle clothes, so he must be muggle-born…
Probably his first trip to Diagon Alley. Most likely here with the very unintelligent seeming boy that Ollivander was currently helping, and they couldn't be here alone, though he couldn't currently see an authority figure near here…
He faintly recalled Mycroft telling him about Hagrid, the groundskeeper, sometimes helping to get first-year muggle-borns' supplies… that must be it then, Sherlock thought.
"So, where are you from? Surrey, judging by your accent, I should think? And who's that boy you came with? He seems familiar… oh, I'm Sherlock Holmes, by the way." "John Watson, I'm from Little Whinging, and that's Harry Potter that I came with."
A few seconds passed in a strangely non-awkward silence. "You should really tell your parents about that boy in your neighbourhood who beats you up. It's obvious that it's going to start effecting your self confidence soon if it doesn't stop. Are you in your first year as well? Or have you gone and broken your wand? Not that it matters much. You'll be in Hufflepuff, by the way. Most of my family's in Slytherin, so I expect that's where I'll be as well… how dull. Your friend there will be in Gryffindor."
"I'm sorry, what? What are you on about, I'll be in Hufflepuff? What's a Hufflepuff?" "That's what we all ask. Hufflepuff is the house with the least glorious background. There are four houses at Hogwarts; Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw.
"They're sort of like fraternities in the sense that you will always be in the house that you are Sorted into, you sleep in a dorm with the rest of your house, and each house has its own special table in the Great Hall.
"You get sorted into your house based on what you value most, for example, if you value bravery, you will be in Gryffindor. If you valu-"
"Wait, but I value bravery! And you just said that I would be in Hufflepuff!" "I'm getting to that, if you would just wait half a second. If you value cunning and ambition, you will be in Slytherin. If you value knowledge, you will be in Ravenclaw. And if you value loyalty, you will be in Hufflepuff.
"Harry Potter is a shoo-in for Gryffindor after his encounter with Voldemort, but you've never really been the one to tell off the muggle bullies, have you? It's always been your friends, and for that, you are completely and unquestioningly loyal to them. You're also particularly good at finding things.
"Ah, here's Mycroft. I hope that we can talk again, Watson." At that moment, Harry found his wand (Holly, 11", phoenix tail feather core, reasonably pliant), and Mr. Ollivander waved John over to find his.
After about ten failed attempts, he found the wand that had chosen him: a redwood wand, 8 ¾", phoenix feather core, surprisingly swishy.
They paid Mr. Ollivander for their wands and went to wait in front of the shop for Hagrid, who appeared in front of the store with two animal cages: A birdcage with a snowy owl perched inside for Harry, and a wire cat carrier with a sleek black cat lying in it for John.
September the first couldn't come fast enough for Harry and John. After learning that John had also received a letter from Hogwarts, Harry had promptly been locked in his cupboard for the remainder of the summer, and forbidden to see John until school started.
John's parents offered to drive Harry down to King's Cross with them when they took John, and so it happened that at 7:00 in the morning on September first, Harry left Number 4, Privet Drive without waking the Dursleys and loaded his trunk into the back of the Watsons' station wagon and left Privet drive with his best friend, ready for the first full year of his life without the Dursleys. In the confusion at King's Cross, the Watsons lost Harry on the bridge between platform 3 and 4, not noticing until it was five minutes to eleven o'clock, and was therefore too late to go back for him.
John made his way down the length of the train, looking first for Harry, then, after finding him in conversation with a gangly-looking redheaded boy, looking for a spare seat in a compartment. He made his way to the very last student compartment, after being turned away everywhere else, poked his head in, and found that it was occupied by none other than Sherlock Holmes. "D'ya mind?" "No, of course not, please sit," the raven-haired boy said dismissively, waving John into the seat opposite before staring out of the window with eyes narrowed and fingers steepled under his chin. He took a deep breath and shook himself out of whatever he had been thinking of, turning to John. ``So, Watson, I've been thinking. I don't really like very many people at all, and I've never really met anybody my age who wasn't completely stupid, but I feel like you're less stupid than most of the people that I've met. I don't know why, but you intrigue me, and I'd like very much to get to know you better." "You know, you don't have to be so formal about it, you know, you could just say that you want to be friends." "I don't have friends," Sherlock sneered, the slightest bit of sadness betraying his voice at the last possible moment. "You do now. Call me John, okay? I'm not really used to being called by last name." "Okay, then, John. I suppose you should call me Sherlock, though most people just call me 'Freak'." "Why?" "I can deduce things about people by looking at them. Often people think I'm using magic, but I'm not; I'm just noticing, observing, if you will. For instance, I could tell when we first met in Ollivander's that you were Muggle-born; that you were from an upper-middle-class neighbourhood in Surrey; That you had had more than a few fallings-out with the neighbourhood bullies and that you are trying to live up to your older brother's reputation, he's going to med school; That you had had a much easier time than most muggle-born wizards in believing that the wizarding world is real; and that the only reason why you came that day, and not the week later, was so that the boy you came in with wouldn't have to be alone." "How did you…?" "You were wearing muggle clothes, not a strange thing in itself, but they had obviously been worn before, there was slight wear on the hem of your shirt, and it was hanging as though it had been washed more than a few times. You wouldn't shop second-hand for muggle clothes, though, which brings me to your upbringing; Your accent told me Surrey, and I gathered from your speech pattern that your parents were not poor or overly rich, so, upper-middle-class. Your knuckles were slightly bruised, and there were small scars on your cheeks from when they've punched you too hard, and your nose has been broken and corrected. It was still slightly swollen at the time, however, and since the scars weren't fresh, and you would have needed somebody to fix you up without your parent's knowledge, and they did a rather good job on fixing your nose, so they must have had some form of medical training, and you've got a note just now in your pocket from somebody named Harry. Brother at med school, of course you'll try to live up to him. I could gather that these were multiple incidents over a lengthy amount of time. Your facial expression when you first came in and saw the shop showed wonder, but not disbelief. This means that you must have had a friend in your childhood who was also a muggle-raised wizard who in all probability either discovered his magic when you were present, or told you right away, and not incredibly long after that, if not before, you discovered your magic. The two of you would probably have practised together or talked about it a lot, as you thought for all of your life prior to this that you were muggles, though of course you wouldn't know the term yet. Judging by your conversation when you were entering, you had known the boy you were with for quite some time, which lead me to believe that he was the friend with whom you had discovered your magic. A friend like that, you wouldn't let him go into the magic world alone before you and discover everything without you, he'd have had far too much fun without you. It's simple observation, John, nothing that you couldn't have found out about any given person, if you took the time to notice." "Brilliant. Absolutely astonishing. Wow." "But." "But?" "Well I can't have got everything right, can I?" "My family can't do magic, I've already told you I'm from Little Whinging, I was one of the neighbourhood bullies' favourite punching bags and Harry did patch me up, the other Harry and me did discover our magic together, and we got our acceptance letters the same day. I went to Diagon Alley with Harry to keep him company, because his aunt and uncle couldn't be bothered to." "So? What did I get wrong?" "Harry, in the case of Harry Watson, is short for Harriet." "Sister! Sister! there's always something!" Sherlock hissed, leaning back against the back of his seat. "All right, we'd best change, we're getting close to the castle now."