Author's Note: Here it is! I really hope you like this, it's a retelling of Prisoner of Azkaban with a lot of the Sherlock characters and other aspects of the show woven into it. Please feel free to drop me a review at any time or point out any mistakes you may find, although I think I've caught them all. I had a lot of fun writing this….

I have decided to offer my disclaimer as a syllogism. Fanfiction is when fans write fiction about what they are fans of and do not own. I am a fan writing fanfiction. Therefore, I do not own what I am writing about.

Chapter One: Owls and an Incident

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of the year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard.

Harry was lying in his bed, working on an essay for his History of Magic class (Discuss the influence of magical narcotics on Muggle affairs). He lived with his aunt, uncle and revolting cousin during the summer holidays, which was why he never enjoyed them very much. The Dursleys were nonmagical Muggles, and were completely opposed to magic in any form, including Harry. Harry had been forced to sneak his school books from where the Dursleys had locked them while his relatives were outside admiring Uncle Vernon's new car, in very loud voices, so that the neighbors would admire it too.

The clock next to Harry's bed that he had repaired two years ago showed 1:00. Harry's stomach gave a funny little jolt, for he had been thirteen for a whole hour without realizing it. Getting up from the bed and crossing over to the window, Harry opened it to feel the cool night air on his face and lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. It was a mark left on him by the curse that had failed to kill him nearly twelve years ago…he had only been a baby, but Lord Voldemort, the most powerful and feared Dark Wizard of all time, had singled him out as a target to kill. Voldemort had murdered both his mother and father before stepping over them to attack Harry, but something had gone wrong that night. The killing curse that had taken the lives of so many had rebounded on Voldemort, who was reduced to spirit and forced to go into hiding for years. But Harry had come face to face with Voldemort twice since then, at the end of both his first and second years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Looking back on his last encounter with the Dark Wizard, Harry realized how lucky he was to have reached his thirteenth birthday.

Something was making its way across the sky towards Harry. Squinting through his round glasses, Harry struggled to make out what it was as it came closer. When it was feet away in the dark sky, he recognized his snowy white owl, Hedwig, and saw she was with two other owls. He stepped aside and allowed the three owls to swoop into his room through the open window. They had three packages and four letters between them. After receiving an affectionate nip on the finger from Hedwig, Harry opened his first ever birthday card.

It was from Ron, one of his two best friends at Hogwarts. Harry smiled to himself as he read the note about Ron's family's holiday in Egypt visiting his brother Bill, and grinned openly at his invitation to meet him in London before school started, hoping he could make it. Then he unwrapped the parcel that had come with it. It was a sneakoscope, which another note from Ron explained would light up and spin at any sign of treachery or magical concealment. The next card was from Hermione, his other best friend, who told him about how she had re-written her History of Magic essay to include things that she was learning about on her holiday in France, and about how Hedwig had come to find her to take him the present she'd ordered for him. Intrigued, Harry picked up that package and tore off the wrapping paper as quietly as he could, so as not to wake the Dursleys.

"Wow, Hermione," he whispered, as he revealed a sleek box marked "Broomstick Servicing Kit." Aside from his friends, the thing that Harry missed most about the wizarding world when he was isolated at the Dursleys was Quidditch, the best sport in the world (in Harry's opinion). It was a game played on broomsticks with seven players a team and four balls at once.

The next parcel was from Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper and a friend of Harry's. As he began to open it, however, there came a snap from within, almost as if it had jaws. Harry knew that Hagrid would never send him anything dangerous intentionally, but Hagrid didn't seem to have the same idea of what was dangerous as most people. He had been known to befriend giant spiders and croon over a baby dragon that he had christened "Norbert." Warily, Harry turned over the package over his bed. And out fell—a book.

It was thick and leather-bound, and Harry read the title on the cover, "The Monster Book of Monsters." The book suddenly lurched off the bed, and Harry was forced to scuttle around on the floor after it. "Ouch!" he said, as the book made a snap for his fingers from under the bed and managed to get the tips. As it moved out from under the bed, Harry made a swipe for it and his fingers made contact with the spine of the book. The book gave a sort of shudder and quivered under his touch, freezing. Puzzled, Harry ran his fingers over the spine again, and the book made a sort of contented sigh and lay still, docile. Harry picked it up, stood up again, and opened it to a random page. "The Hound of Baskerville," it read, and went on to describe a spectral dog that could manipulate the senses into believing it was much more menacing and terrifying than it actually was as a defense mechanism. Apparently this dog was sometimes used by killers to distract and confuse the victim before they attacked.

After carefully securing the book shut with a spare belt he had in the closet, Harry moved on to read the noted from Hagrid and the contents of a more professional-looking envelope that was from his school. "Think you'll find this useful for next year," Hagrid had written. This made Harry slightly nervous…why would Hagrid think that a carnivorous book would come in handy? Surely he wasn't expecting help with some new monstrous pet? Harry shook his head slightly, and went on to read the letter from Hogwarts, which informed him of the start of term on September first, as usual, as well as the fact that third years were permitted to visit the nearby village on certain weekends. He wasn't sure how he was going to get his aunt or uncle to sign the form that had been enclosed, but he knew he'd try.

Harry marked off another day on the calendar he had beside his bed counting down the days until his return to Hogwarts. Smiling to himself, he took off his glasses and lay down under the covers that he had been doing his homework under just a few minutes ago.

He was an unusual boy, but at that moment he didn't feel so at all—he was experiencing a perfectly normal feeling, the feeling of being glad it was his birthday.

Harry went down to breakfast later that morning and sat down at the table with the rest of his relatives. They were watching a news report about an escaped convict on the new television that had been a welcome-home-for-the-summer present for his cousin, Dudley.

"…The public is warned that Holmes is armed and extremely dangerous. A special hot line had been set up, and any sighting of Holmes should be reported immediately."

"No need to tell us he's no good," snorted Uncle Vernon into his bushy mustache, staring over the top of his newspaper at the prisoner. "Look at the state of him, the filthy layabout! Look at his hair!"

He glanced at Harry grumpily, the first thing any of them had done to acknowledge his entrance into the kitchen. Harry's untidy black hair had always been a source of great annoyance to Uncle Vernon. Compared to the man on the television, however, whose pale and hollow face was surrounded by a dark matted tangle that fell past his shoulders, into which his sharp and high cheekbones disappeared, Harry felt very well groomed indeed. In fact, the convict's face had the appearance of a long skull covered in uncontrolled hair.

As the reporter moved on to cover another story, Uncle Vernon barked at the screen angrily. "When will they learn," he said, pounding the table with his large and purple fist, "that execution's the only way to deal with these people? Chuck 'em off a tall building, I say!"

"Very true," said Aunt Petunia, squinting into the neighbor's yard as if she expected to see the convict skulking across the neat lawns of Privet Drive.

"I'd better be off in a minute, Petunia," continued Uncle Vernon, pushing his silverware onto his now-clean plate. "Marge's train gets in at ten."

Harry, whose thoughts had started to wander over to his new birthday presents, was brought back down to Earth unpleasantly. "Aunt Marge? Sh—she's not coming here, is she?" Aunt Marge was Uncle Vernon's sister, and each of her horrible visits stood out painfully in Harry's memory. She always did her best to pamper Dudley while making Harry feel miserable whenever she came.

Uncle Vernon snapped back that Marge would be here for a week, and that while she was here, Harry was to be on his best behavior. Also, he added, she had been told that Harry attended St. Bart's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys.

"What?" yelped Harry.

But Uncle Vernon didn't want to hear it. He gathered his things and left the room for the car after saying goodbye to Aunt Petunia and Dudley. Gripped by a sudden idea, Harry followed him out. A few minutes later, he returned to the house, feeling slightly more cheerful. He had, in essence, threatened Uncle Vernon—if Harry were to remember that he attended St. Bart's, he would have to have some sort of motivation, in this case, the signed permission form to let him visit Hogsmeade, the village near Hogwarts. Otherwise, he might just let something slip…. His uncle had not been pleased, but had agreed.

Bounding up the stairs to his room, Harry decided to get a move on acting like a Muggle for the week of Aunt Marge's visit. He put away his new presents and schoolbooks, and let Hedwig out to fly around some. After awhile Aunt Marge arrived, and the dreadfulness began. Harry did quite well, he thought, for the first six days. It was on the last night of Aunt Marge's visit that problems arose.

They were all seated at dinner, which was fancier than what Aunt Petunia normally concocted, and Aunt Marge was getting steadily tipsier as the night when on due to the bottle of wine Uncle Vernon had uncorked earlier that evening. They had gotten through quite a lot of the meal without a single mention of Harry's abnormality. It was at dessert when Aunt Marge decided to begin questioning him. This was a favorite activity of hers; she loved to boom out ideas for his improvement while crooning over Dudley. "Where did they send you again, boy?" she demanded with a belch.

Uncle Vernon responded promptly, in case Harry didn't answer satisfactorily. "St. Bart's. It's a first rate institution for hopeless cases."

"And do they use the riding crop at St. Bart's?" she continued, looking at Harry expectantly. Uncle Vernon looked at him pointedly.

"Oh yeah," said Harry. "Yeah, I've been beaten loads of times."

Aunt Marge seemed slightly pleased, but she still found it necessary to comment, "If you can talk so casually of your beatings, then they clearly aren't hitting you hard enough. Of course, you mustn't blame yourselves for how this one turned out, Vernon and Petunia. It's all to do with blood, bad blood."

Don't rise to the bait, Harry thought to himself, staring at the tablecloth.

"One of the basic rules of breeding, you know," she continued. Aunt Marge bred bulldogs. "If there's something wrong with the bitch, then there'll be something wrong with the pup."

The glass she had been holding in her hand shattered, the pieces flying everywhere and the rest of the wine staining her hand and the tablecloth. Aunt Petunia shrieked, and Uncle Vernon glared at Harry suspiciously, whereas Dudley, on the other hand, barely glanced up from the television. After wiping her hand on the huge napkin spread across her lap and assuring Uncle Vernon and Petunia that she merely had a very firm grip, she pointing a meaty finger at Harry and continued to ridicule his parents. The atmosphere at the table had clearly changed, however, becoming tense and only Aunt Marge and the television program making any noise.

"And your parents…got themselves smashed up in a car crash, didn't they? Probably drunk, I expect," she said, clearly on her way to becoming so herself.

"They didn't die in a car crash!" Harry found himself yelling as he stood up.

"They died in a car crash, you nasty little liar," she asserted, helping herself to some brandy out of Aunt Petunia's glass. "Unemployed, weren't they? They did themselves in and left you to be a burden on their good, hardworking relatives—"

Harry was visibly shaking with fury as Aunt Marge suddenly stopped speaking, her chest swelling as if with suppressed rage. But the swelling didn't stop. She grew and grew as if with hot air and her already sausages of fingers grew to salamis. Rising a few inches from her chair, she hovered, and then began to ascend higher. The rest of the Dursleys were horror-struck, but Harry ran from the room. He took the stairs two at a time, running up to retrieve his possessions, and then slamming them into his trunk from under the stairs, the cupboard door springing open magically as he reached it. Hedwig's cage under his arm, he started for the door, but Uncle Vernon blocked his way.

"You go back in there and put her right!" He bellowed.

But recklessness had seized Harry. "No. She deserved what she got," and pushing past Uncle Vernon, he angrily marched down Privet Drive, carrying Hedwig's cage and dragging his trunk behind him.