"Albus, you can't possibly leave him there!" Mirvana exclaimed, shooting the headmaster the sternest glare she could possibly make on such short notice.
"Why ever not, Mirvana?" Dumbledore asked, curious.
"You only say that because you don't know what this family is like!" She hissed, unamused. "You weren't the one who heard Lilly crying about how awful her sister was! I doubt that anyone who caused that much strife would be willing to have much to do with an infant on such short notice. Young Harry would get a warmer welcome from Mr. Snape himself!" she said, punctuating how awful she found the notion with her arms.
"So?" Albus said, raising an eyebrow. "Lilly's sacrifice gives the potential for blood wards to form. That's the best protection that I can offer the child, and not only for him but also everyone who lives in his family. Surely no one would completely toss the possibility for such protection no matter what their opinion on it" he suggested.
Mirvana nearly slapped him. "You always were a sedimental fool" she said, rolling her eyes. "Fortunately, blood wards will work for any relative of the person in the sacrifice, at least as long as I remember correctly"
"Why yes, you would be right on that matter" Albus said, smiling at her show of ability. "As a matter of fact, I was the one to teach you that"
"Oh, do be quiet about that, Dumbledore" Mirvana said, sporting a light blush. "I was referring to the fact that Lilly had a half-brother that she was on much better terms with"
"Really?" Albus said, "I've never heard about that"
"Well, I was a bit more involved in Lilly's personal life than you, no matter who James turned to for indulgence" Mirvana said, huffing. "But Lilly didn't talk about her family much other than to complain about Petunia in the first place. Before Lilly or Petunia were born, their father divorced his first wife. He had two children from that marriage, a son named John and a daughter named Harriet"
"Was that who Harry was named after?" Dumbledore asked, surprised. "I was curious about what made Lilly agree regardless of her mother's tradition"
"Yes. John came back from work in the army about a year ago, and he reconnected with all of his siblings before settling into a new routine. He has a job, and I heard that he used to have a flat mate" Mirvana said. "Lilly had quite a positive impression of him, even though she couldn't let him stay with her for obvious reasons"
"I see. I confess, I would have thought that you'd have wanted the child to end up with his namesake" Albus said, smiling.
"I would have, but Harriet is a drunk. Between the three surviving relatives of Lilly alive, I'd say that Petunia would be a better option than her, and I've made my opinion of that woman entirely clear" she said, huffing.
"Oh, calm down dear. I suppose that if there's a few more options available, there's nothing wrong with asking John if he doesn't mind. If that doesn't work, I'm offering him to the drunk, and I'm leaving him on Petunia's doorstep with a threat, some compulsions, a letter, and a blanket if that doesn't work"
"You always plan things to far, Albus" Mirvana said, shaking her head fondly, "And always with the threats if you decide that you can't go without something"
"You do know me well dear, but I know that my foresight has payed of far to many times for me to disregard" Albus defended, jesting with her. "Let's see his opinion straight away"
When the door rang, John didn't know what to think. To be honest, be was still in a state of shock that Sherlock had actually thrown himself off of that building. He knew that Sherlock's method of deduction worked, he had even learned a few tricks, not that he was anywhere near as good as his departed friend. Sooner of later, he was going to have to leave the flat, but right now he just wanted to look at what he had and appreciate how much he had enjoyed having Sherlock in his life. He had really no idea what to do now that they weren't there to tell him what his knew purpose was. For a moment, he wished that the narcissistic git would walk in the door and tell him what he was supposed to think.
His wish was both granted and utterly ignored. Instead on Sherlock, some old man and woman walked in, escorted my Mrs. Hudson. Immediately, John's mind whirled to things that he hadn't realized that Sherlock had taught him until suddenly no one else was telling him those things before he got a chance to think. The man was straight postured- he probably had some means to be important. It was the middle of the night and they were just walking into his flat- one or both of them were possibly narcissistic or at least used to getting their own way. The man at least certainly carried himself as if he were all knowing in the same way that Mycroft did, so he probably had a good information network or just plain had high connections with people in government. The woman with him did little to dispel that impression, what with her superior stance and milder military posture. She didn't have the same self-confidence, however, so she was closer to someone of Athena's position than to either of the Holmes Brothers. Still, they were far to similar to each other and to comfortable with each other for her to simply be a security guard. It was more likely that they had at one point had a romantic interest in each other the way that Microsoft and his assistant did or she was his daughter or something along similar lines. With the difference of scale between the gray hairs on her head, John decided that he would prefer to assume they shared a familial relation than speculate about who had been seducing who to start a relationship with such an age gap. Either way, this was definitely not boring.
"Are you John Watson?" the female asked. John tried not to shout 'obviously' to her in the manner that Sherlock would have done. Instead, he remembered his manners and politeness.
"Yes" Still, Sherlock's influence was not lost on him. "Do you suppose that anyone else would be in his flat right now, especially with my flat mate's apparent death?"
"It never hurts to be sure, my boy" the older of the visitors said, eyes twinkling at him. John decided to ignore the possibility of flirtation within that comment in favor of buttering them up with manners. The two looked stressed, and they would probably be much more inclined to share confidences with a gift to appease whatever had them up and paying visits this time of night.
"Would either of you care for some tea?" He offered. "The landlady just sent me up a nice tin of biscuits, and it's far more pleasant to snack on such delicacies with company"
"I told you that I wasn't the only one who offered sugary sweets, Mirvana" The nan said, smirking to the woman. That was at least one of their names figured.
"Would you like some tea to go with your sweet tooth and a name… Professors?" John asked, seeing them both straighten up a bit at the guest.
"I suppose that Lilly told you about me, didn't she?" Mirvana asked. "That's her former headmaster at Hogwarts"
"There's always at least something" John said. "I'm sorry for any accidental slights on your behalf, but this talk of my sister has me worried. Why not let me get some tea, I'm sure that we'll all need it if she's involved"
"There was nothing wrong with her" Mirvana said, defensively. It looked like Lilly's favoritism for her head of house had been somewhat reciprocated. At the vary least, this person had at least had contact with Petunia or Harriet to know the normal inclinations of his family. John made his position on the matter clear in the least patronizing way that he could.
"There wasn't anything wrong with Lilly, that much I can agree" He said, setting the kettle on the stove, "but if you're talking about Lilly, who told me that she was going into hiding and wouldn't stand letters or other forms of communication, them I'm assuming that she's dead or at the worst fatally injured. Am I wrong?" He asked, looking at their faces. He couldn't read motives the way that Sherlock could, but he could see a fair bit of shock on both of their faces. "I'll make the tea a chamomile, to offset your troubling news" He decided, not brushing of the sadness in the manner that Sherlock would have- goodness, he couldn't stop thinking about Sherlock nowadays, could he?
"I'm afraid that you're correct" Mirvana said. "Lilly and her Husband passed away this afternoon.
"You're quite clever to have figured that out for yourself" the older of the two said, smiling.
"Oh, I'm not clever" John said modestly. "Now Sherlock, my flat mate, he could tell you your lives stories just by looking. I only have a few tricks compared to the deck of aces he hid behind that trench-coat"
At this point, both of the visitors were looking at each other a bit nervously, something about the description checking mental boxes. John didn't know what, only that it could be dangerous. "Of course, you don't have to worry about him picking apart your secrets just now" he said, smirking. "Sherlock has left, and I have no way of proving how permanent it is"
This had them visibly relaxing, even though John couldn't tell why.
"That's alright, my boy. We're here to see you, regardless of how impressive your flat mate is" The older visitor said.
"The water's ready" John said abruptly, turning to get that and letting the visitors talk behind his back. People who thought that they were clever often did things like that so long as you didn't make it painfully obvious that you were listening, even if they could probably deduce that it was what you were intending to do. This time, like many others, a discussion immediately pretended that it wasn't happening behind John's turned back.
"I'm not so sure about this, Mirvana. Whoever this Sherlock is, I think that he sounds a bit too much like one of us for comfort" Interesting, what sort were these guests of his?
"He is still the best option. Whoever he associated with, they are clearly out of the picture. Besides, do you want to risk the Boy-Who-Lived becoming a snobbish normal brat?" Mirvana hissed. Whoever gave her the notion that hissing make you in any way intimidating or harder to clear had told her wrong. Each word nearly shivered down John's spine.
"Alright, I'll give him a chance, but I'm still leaving the boy on their doorstep if he refuses" Yikes, whoever these people were, they seemed to know as much about boundaries as the Holmes brothers combined did.
"I expected nothing less" Mirvna answered. Who was in his living room?
Setting some cookies on a tray with no trace of Sherlock's meddling, John decided to renter the conversation when he stopped being able to hear them and the tea was actually brewing.
"So, what is this business that you are hear to discus, other than the unfortunate death of my favorite sister" John asked, trying to present himself as more likable.
"We are here on behalf of your nephew" Mirvana said, apparently not giving Dumbledore a chance to chicken out the way it seemed that he wanted to.
"Lilly's son- do you mean the child named after Harriet?" John asked. "I'm not even sure why they named it after such a person"
"Lilly didn't have much competition on favorite siblings for the same reason as you" Mirvana muttered. At the same time, Albus was fiddling with some carved wooden fidget- John felt like he should know something about that, but he couldn't actually remember what.
"Harry, Lilly's son, needs somewhere to live after the deaths of his parents" the headmasters said. "We were wondering if you'd be willing to take him in before we ask your other siblings, given that you have the best track record among the living ones"
It took John a minute to prosses that. "Me? A child's guardian?" He asked, thinking it over. Mumbling to himself, he debated pros and cons. "It wouldn't be that different from what I did for Sherlock- no, a child's more responsibility than he could be, even if Sherlock attracted more trouble" Thinking it over, John realized that he wasn't actually opposed to the idea. Mrs. Hudson had had children once, along with Greg, so John had people he could contact if he had questions. Thinking it over, John rather wanted to have children, the only reason he'd been so persistent with boring dates even when he'd had Sherlock around. There was simply no other reason that he'd want to go through the tedious motions of dating. With Sherlock out of the picture, John was more than able to start working at the clinic closer to full time, or perhaps even working full time for real. John had only missed a few days, so if he cleaned up his act now, there was no reason that he wouldn't be allowed to work longer hours. With that increased income, he could manage to find a way to pay for schooling and similar things that a child might need. If he had to move out of Baker Street, it would be because there was only one income maintaining it, not because of a child. As a matter of fact, hadn't he been craving something to care for just before these folks came in? Where would he be if he refused, back to moping in the flat and missing Sherlock? No, the child would be good for him, so long as he didn't factor in the enemies that Sherlock may have uncaringly attracted.
"I would be delighted to take in the boy" John said, surprised at how genuine his words felt.
"Thank goodness. No offence, nut the rest of the people on his list of possible guardians is…"
"A bit not good?" John offered, thinking back to the different circumstances when he had said those words previously.
"Yeah, we'll go with that" The older person said, smiling benevolently.
"There's only one problem" John said, interrupting at such a time so they would be more inclined to offer protection than anything else. "Sherlock, my old flat mate, he had a talent for pissing people off. I'm not sure whether any of them plans on targeting me at some point in his absence"
"That is easily fixable" The older man said, smiling even brighter. "Due to the way that Lilly died, saving her boy, I can easily set up blood wards"
"And what, might I ask, are those?" John asked, suspicious. This seemed to be venturing into the category of things he had asked Lilly not to tell him about.
"A powerful protection against those who would do a family harm" Dumbledore said. "Did Lilly tell you nothing of her plans?"
"I preferred not to ask" John admitted, smiling with a shrug.
"Using the wards, I can easily keep it so that any wizards that want to hurt the family here can't get in" Dumbledore said, looking very grand.
"I hate to ask, but do you think that you could modify that?" John asked. "It's all well and good if any people who want to target Harry are stopped, but what if some random criminal or meddler makes a split-second decision to point a gun at him instead of me or Mrs. Hudson, or even just some random visitor?"
"Oh" Dumbledore said, loosing his momentum. "But there's no reason for a muggle to target Harry" he tried to start, looking very confused.
It looked like John would be the pleasure of being the one to smash rose-tinted glasses of a naive fool for once. "I hate to tell you this" He said, in the most patronizing tone possible, "But muggles, as you so neatly sort all of my kind, have done a number of nasty things to each other: beating up the elderly landlady and threatening to kill me chief among my disliked memories. I don't care where an attacker comes from, Harry might be in danger" No wonder Sherlock spoke to him in that tone of voice when he was being stupid about something like that. It was tedious.
"In that case, would leaving the ward generalized against any ill intent better suit you?" The old man said, trying to ignore Mirvana's smug look.
"I think that might turn people out of the house quite quickly" John cautioned. "It might be a bit better for that ill intent to be relegated to threatening or lethal intent instead of something that would keep out any petty revenge"
"I can do that" Dumbledore said, returned to a charitable mood. "After all, everyone deserves second chances"
"Everyone who doesn't take one of my or someone else's second chance away" John specified, even thought he agreed with the general principal.
"I suppose that would be a good limitation. Mirvana, do you think that you could bring young Harry over here?" the old man asked, turning to the woman beside him.
"I'm on it" She said, disappearing out of the building and returning with a toddler wrapped in a warm blanket.
"If you'd be willing to tolerate it, a bit of active participation on your part would greatly strengthen the wards that I'm going to install" the old man said.
"Why, certainly. What do you need?" John asked, even as he offered one cup of the tea to the man.
