The Six Anglias
I'm on a date. A proper date, paid for with my own money...and it's going well. She's cute, she's laughing at my jokes, and no one is trying to kill me. Amazing.
John Watson grinned at the girl across the table, enormously pleased with the way she shyly smiled back before lowering her eyes. Jeanette. She was a pretty, sloe-eyed sixth former and a blissfully oblivious Muggle. Jeanette was so fantastically normal that John could almost predict what she was going to say before she said it.
"I'd like to stay in London," she was saying, tucking a lock of silky brown hair behind her ear, "but at the same time I dunno. Mum said I might trying studying abroad. Spain, maybe, or France. Course, she's only saying that because she thinks I'm boy-mad."
"Oh?" John leaned forward. "And aren't you?"
Jeanette giggled. "Mad for a boy, maybe." She flushed prettily, and John had just enough time to imagine her flushing like that in his bed before the waiter snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Watson, isn't it?" he asked, looking a bit harried. "I think you've got a guest-"
"John." Sherlock strode up out of nowhere, casually bumping the poor harassed waiter aside. He stole a chair from a nearby table, swung it around, and sat on it backwards before glancing perfunctorily at Jeanette and nodding. "Sarah, hello," he said, before turning back to John.
"No, no, no, no," John rushed, noting the immediate change in Jeanette's body language. "This-this is my friend, Sherlock. He's bad with names, that's all. Sherlock, this is-"
"No, wait, I can get this." Sherlock rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Sarah was at school. Then there was the Muggle with the spots, then the one with the nose, and then...who was after the boring virgin?"
Jeanette looked crestfallen. "Nobody."
"Jeanette!" Sherlock cried cheerily, beaming at her and John in turn. "Process of elimination." He turned to John and added, more solemnly, "Can you dismiss her now? We need to talk."
No no no no no no... John's brain seemed to lose all functionality. "I-I..."
"It's fine," Jeanette said, her tone indicating otherwise. She stood up quickly, her chair scraping noisily. "Consider me dismissed."
"No, no, Jeanette..." John stood and cleared his throat. "I didn't...for the record, I never said-"
"It's fine." Her teeth were gritted and her eyes narrowed. "I'm stepping to the ladies', okay?" That Sherlock needed to be gone when she came back was left unsaid, and she stormed away on clicking heels, her dress swirling charmingly around her thighs.
John turned to Sherlock and gave him the look he'd mentally dubbed 'mega death stare'. "What...the...hell."
"We've got a case," Sherlock shrugged, picking around on John's plate and nibbling. "I stopped by your house but your sister said you'd come here, so I took a cab. Muggle transport; dreadfully slow. Then the driver started badgering me about quids and metres so I threw some Muggle money at him and dashed. It was quite the little adventure, actually." He munched thoughtfully on an asparagus spear.
"Not 'metre', 'meter'...oh, never mind." John rubbed at his temples. "Couldn't this wait? I have a living room at home. Couches, telly. I would've been back in thirty minutes at most."
Sherlock pulled a face. "Thirty whole minutes? Merlin no, this can't wait that long."
Curiosity battled agitation...and won. "What is it?"
Smiling smugly, Sherlock leaned on his arms and said, "The most interesting case we've had all summer."
John rolled his eyes and resumed cutting his steak. "Considering the only interesting case we've had this summer was Mr. Wilson and his stolen goods, that won't be hard to top."
Puffing his cheeks, Sherlock stabbed a bit of steak with John's knife and protested, "Not so! Most of our cases were interesting." He ate the speared meat delicately, his teeth scraping the blade.
"Right, those two girls complaining about having their boyfriends stolen away with love potions were a bundle of laughs." John took a drink of water. "There was that looney bloke with the ashes, the Ministry man and his broken quill, the writers who accidentally summoned those spirits-"
"That was a great case!"
"-and the one with the snake." John shivered. "I really, really don't like snakes."
"If 'the one with the snake' is so boring, why did you write it up and publish it in the Daily Prophet last month?" Sherlock smiled the way he sometimes did when he seemed to be thinking: checkmate.
John blinked at him. "You read those?"
"Of course." Sliding John's plate over, Sherlock pushed the mash around with a fork and wrinkled his nose. "Although I'm a little surprised you never mentioned it to me."
"Well..." John licked his lips. "You're always going on about how rubbish the Prophet is. So when they approached me right after that whole thing with Moriarty and asked me to write a column about our...adventures...I guess I just thought it wasn't the sort of thing you'd, I don't know, care about. Or approve of."
Sherlock looked Jeanette's plate over disinterestedly. "If you're going to be a writer, John, you really must stop ending sentences in prepositions. It's painful."
Jeanette reappeared then, saving John from a frankly tedious grammar lesson...though 'saving' was perhaps not quite the right term. She was glaring daggers at them both, her arms folded and her pretty pout twisted irritably. "If our date's through, John," she growled, looking at Sherlock, "I'm going home."
"No," John said, at the same instant Sherlock yawned, "Yes, well, nice meeting you." John kicked him under the table and gave Jeanette a puppy-dog look. "Don't go. Sherlock was just leaving."
Sherlock frowned. "I most certainly wasn't."
"Yeah, well now you most certainly are."
"We have a case," the Slytherin boy hissed, his silver eyes narrowed.
John gritted his teeth. "It can wait."
Throwing up her arms, Jeanette sighed loudly. "Stop, please." She looked at John the way one might look at a dog who's gotten into the garbage bin. "Honestly, John, I just want to go home. I'll call you tomorrow, all right?" She scooped up her bag, tossed a twenty-pound note on the table, and clip-clopped away.
Head in his hands, John groaned loudly. "All right, Sherlock," he acquiesced unhappily. "You win. I guess it's a case-night after all."
x
They took the bus to Kensington since it was close-by, John very chivalrously paying Sherlock's fare. On the way, Sherlock explained the case.
"It's very peculiar," he said excitedly, twiddling John's bus pass. "A few nights ago a shop in Diagon Alley was broken into and an item was destroyed. Not stolen; destroyed. The shopkeep reported the incident but because it was so singular the only suggestion seemed to be better security spells and a bit more diligence. Two nights later, however, a strikingly similar incident occurred. An elderly Wizard reported that his home had been broken into, and two identical items to the ones in the shop were taken out to the garden and smashed to bits."
"What sort of items?"
Sherlock grinned. "Toy cars. Tiny model Ford Anglias, all charmed to fly in small loop-de-loops on command."
"Right." John rubbed the bridge of his nose. "So someone really hates Ford Anglias? Or Harry Potter? Or the Weasleys?" He sighed and considered. "Could be one of those political activists, trying to show support for the Whomping Willow."
Sherlock looked at him askance and shook his head. "Not likely. All the smashed Ford Anglias were taken from the same mold. Doesn't that strike you as significant?"
John shrugged and swiped his bus pass from Sherlock's fingers, stuffing it into his pocket. "So...what? We're going to spend the evening tracking down some git with a vendetta against flying toy cars?"
"No." Sherlock looked out the window, his eyes suddenly serious. "The case interested me right from the start, but the real draw is this: less than an hour ago, our Anglia-phobe killed a man."
"Really?"
Sherlock nodded at his reflection. "Lestrade owled me. That's where we're going now, the crime scene."
"I don't get it. Why kill someone just so you can smash up a silly toy car?" John shook his head. "It makes no sense."
"Facts first," Sherlock droned, as always. "Theories later."
x
The crime scene was bustling with Wizarding authorities when John and Sherlock arrived. Head Auror Lestrade was there, talking solemnly with a trembling old man on the house's sprawling front porch. Donovan was pacing the pavement, mumbling Muggle-warding spells under her breath. Other, lesser Aurors were collecting evidence or talking among themselves in little clusters, all wearing bemused expressions. Sherlock paid not one of them any mind; he grabbed John's sleeve and yanked him through the press to Lestrade's side.
"The body," he said, by way of greeting.
Lestrade looked down his nose at the pair of them, despite Sherlock being his own height. "You're very late, Sherlock. They've already taken it in to St. Mungo's."
Sherlock swore and glared at the old man cowering at Lestrade's side. "And who's this? A witness?"
"Sorry, no," the old man said, his voice thready but polite. "I'm a reporter," he supplied, "for the Daily Prophet. Horace Harker."
John wasn't a genius or an Auror, but it did strike him as a little strange that a reporter should be hanging around at a murder in his dressing gown. "You're not here on official business, I imagine," he said, causing Sherlock to chuckle.
Mr. Harker shook his head. "No, no. Well, I'll be expected to write up something for the Prophet, I suppose, though Merlin only knows how. I'm afraid I'm not much of an eyewitness. Too shaken up, you know."
"Even so," Lestrade said patiently, "why don't you tell the boys everything you can remember? Sherlock Holmes is something of a detective. He might be able to help."
"Sherlock Holmes? Oh yes, yes, and you must be John Watson." Mr. Harker shook their hands in turn. "I'm quite a fan of your columns, Mr. Watson. Quite a fan." He smoothed his hair and took a deep breath. "Now, as to this sorry business...I suppose it begins with the Ford Anglia. I'm a bit of a Potter collector, you see, and some months ago I found a neat little flying Ford Anglia model at a toy shop in Kennington...Harding Brothers, was it? I can hardly remember now, I'm so distraught." He pulled his dressing gown tighter, despite the evening being mild.
Sherlock gave Lestrade a look, and the older man cleared his throat. "Getting to tonight..."
Mr. Harker looked up at him and nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Tonight, yes. Hmm. Well, I was at my desk upstairs working on a bit of copy for tomorrow's paper when I heard the most awful scream from just downstairs. You cannot imagine the sound of it, Mr. Lestrade. I was terror-struck by that sound, you understand, but after a few moments I seized hold of both my wits and my wand and ran down the steps. The window in the sitting room was thrown wide open...but the only thing missing, so far as I could make out, was the model Ford Anglia. I looked out the window but, seeing no one, decided to go out the front door instead. And that's when I found him, of course. The dead man." Mr. Harker shuddered. "Nasty business, that. His throat...my dear boys, you're much too young for such descriptions, but I assure you I knew right off that he'd been murdered. I dashed off a quick owl to the Aurors' office...and then I must have fallen right out, because the next thing I knew she-" he pointed to Donovan- "was shaking me awake."
Sherlock frowned pensively. "And the dead man?" he asked Lestrade. "Who is he?"
Shrugging, Lestrade said, "Dunno. Nothing to identify him in his pockets, not even a wand. The only thing he had on him was this." He pulled a photo from his own pocket and passed it to Sherlock, who looked it over greedily before irritatedly pushing it on to John.
It was a Muggle photograph of an unattractive man with crafty eyes and a jutting jaw. John looked at it for a moment and passed it back to Lestrade.
"And the Ford Anglia?" Sherlock was asking.
Lestrade tucked the photo back into his breast pocket. "We found it. Broken to bits, like all the others. Do you want to see it?"
"Of course," Sherlock said brusquely. "Now, preferably, before one of your colleagues destroys invaluable evidence."
x
The Ford Anglia had been carried over to the empty house next door and broken underneath a street lamp. Sherlock pulled out his little magnifying glass and swept over the scene very carefully, sometimes picking up a piece of fragmented plastic and humming under his breath, before standing and frowning at John and Lestrade.
"Well?" asked Lestrade.
Sherlock's eyes flashed. "The theft of the Ford Anglia was more important to our Anglia-phobe than a man's life. That's significant. Equally significant: he didn't break the toy car in the house or just outside the house. And why not, if his only goal was to destroy the thing? Because of this." He pointed up at the street light. "He wanted to be able to see what he was doing."
"There's something inside the cars themselves," John said eagerly, pieces of the puzzle clicking together in his head.
"Facts first," Sherlock replied, but he was smiling.
Lestrade folded his arms. "Right, well you two can pursue whichever facet of this case you prefer, but me and my team are going to be looking into the John Doe. Find out who is he, find out what he was doing at Mr. Harker's house...that ought to lead us to the killer, one way or another."
Sherlock snorted. "I'm sure. I'll be needing that photograph, then."
Obligingly, Lestrade passed him the photo. "You've got a different sort of plan, do you?"
"Oh yes," Sherlock replied, tucking the picture away. "I plan to actually find our killer."
x
On Sherlock's command, John Apparated them both to the shop at Diagon Alley where the first Ford Anglia had been smashed. After a brief interlude- wherein Sherlock thoroughly harangued the poor shopkeep- they went on to the place where the shopkeeper had bought the toy cars himself: Gilderoy & Co, so named for the once-famous Gilderoy Lockheart, now deceased.
Gilderoy & Co was nothing more than a modern-day sweatshop, packed to the gills with sweaty, minimum-wage workers who put together toys with solemn mouths and distant eyes. The manager- a German wizard who claimed distant relation to the infamous Grindelwald- led them back to the office and spoke fondly, as they walked, of old Mr. Lockheart and his dream of supplying inexpensive toys to all the Wizarding children of the world, a dream the man had apparently mentioned to a young entrepreneur named Wesley Peckering on his deathbed at St. Mungo's. None of it was even slightly pertinent to the case, John was sure, but he listened politely if for no other reason than to offset the yawns and sighs of his friend.
The German checked his books and informed the boys that the toy cars he'd sold to the shopkeep at Diagon Alley had been part of a batch of six. He'd sold three to the shop in Diagon Alley and the other three to a shop owned by 'the Harding Brothers', the same shop Mr. Harker had mentioned before. He seemed as bewildered as everyone else by the sudden destruction of the Ford Anglias...and in fact even laughed over it, claiming that it only cost him six Sickles to produce the things and that they were sold for no more than twelve or thirteen Sickles apiece. "Nothing could be more worthless," he insisted in his slightly Germanic accent.
The photograph, however, quickly dispelled his mirth. "Where did you get this?" he burst, suddenly irate.
Sherlock seemed pleased by the reaction. "A dead man's pocket," he said. "Do you know the man in the photo?"
"Beppo," the German sneered. "He worked here, for a time. Awful man. Started a duel with one of my other workers- right in the middle of the blasted shop, I tell you! Destroyed quite a bit of merchandise and set a nasty hex on the other fellow."
"What happened to him?" John asked, leaning forward.
"They treated him at St. Mungo's, I imagine. Oh, you mean Beppo. He did a year in Azkaban, and that was the last I heard of him. Good riddance."
x
They left Gilderoy & Co, after denying multiple requests from the German to join him for lunch, and went on to the Harding Brothers' shop in Kennington. The shop was closed for the evening, but after some mild badgering the proprietor invited the boys in and settled them in the office with nice, warm mugs of tea. Over tea they discussed the incidences- the shopkeeper displaying a moment of genuine alarm when the murder was mentioned- and discovered that the remaining Ford Anglias had been sold. Thankfully it was a habit of one of the Harding brothers to note down who had purchased what each day. They collected their data and sent off an owl to Lestrade, who suggested they meet at Holmes manor.
X
"Well?" Lestrade said, as soon as they'd Apparated. He was pacing outside the gate, his silver hair stirring in the breeze. "Tell me you've got something I can work with."
"I've traced each Ford Anglia to its origin," Sherlock said smugly.
Lestrade made a face. "The cars? The bloody toy cars? Is that really all you've got? Merlin's sake, at least we've identified the dead man."
Sherlock looked surprised. "You have?"
It was Lestrade's turn to be smug. "Pietro Vennuci. Former Death Eater, originally from Naples. I reckon this other fellow was one of his lot...probably that's his picture you've been carrying in your pocket all day. So now all I've got to do is go down to this Vennuci's neighborhood, flash that picture around, and find our killer." He smiled. "Might be I called you in a little prematurely on this one, Sherlock."
"Might be," Sherlock said, sounding as though he disagreed. "Although I propose a short-cut."
"Oh?"
"You can hardly expect to get anything done with that photograph this late at night," Sherlock said slowly. "So let's go to Chetwick tonight and we can try Vennuci's neighborhood tomorrow."
"Chetwick?" Lestrade looked put out. "If you're playing at something-"
Sherlock held up his hands. "I have a hunch," he smiled. "That's all."
x
John had long since gotten used to tracking Sherlock's hunches all over Great Britain. It didn't surprise him at all when Sherlock dictated the address of one of the buyers from the Harding Brothers' shop (although he was pleasantly surprised when Lestrade took both of their arms and Apparated, instead of making John go on his own). Sherlock insisted they find a good hiding place with a nice point of vantage (a nearby shrubbery suited their purposes just fine) and then they settled in to wait.
They didn't have to wait long. A man, shrouded in shadow, crept up to the house only moments after their arrival. He spun his wand and mumbled incantations, and then slid through a window which had opened at his command. Lestrade made to follow, but Sherlock touched his wrist and shook his head, and the Auror settled back on his haunches, frowning.
In mere seconds the man was easing back out of the window again, his fist closed around something small and shiny. He set the thing down and pointed his wand at it. So focused on his spell was he that he didn't even notice when Lestrade stood, took aim, and cried: "Petrificus Totalus!"
The man froze in place, then fell over, unflinching. Lestrade, John, and Sherlock emerged from the bushes in a hurry and went to his side. In the light of the overhead street-lamp, John could see that it was, in fact, the man in the photo. Beppo. Sherlock, however, barely spared a glance at the man. He was crouched down and examined the ruined remains of a flying toy car.
"Damn," he muttered, pushing broken bits of plastic around.
Lestrade had cast a mobilis corpis over Beppo and the man floated beside him, stock-still. "What?"
"This isn't the right one." Agitated, Sherlock stood and passed a hand through his hair. "Lestrade, you'll need to take Beppo to the Ministry, I assume. Afterwards, come back to the manor. John and I will have the last details tied up for you to present to the Wizengamot tomorrow."
"You mean there's more?" Lestrade asked, looking warily at Beppo's frozen form.
"Of course," Sherlock replied, his brow furrowed. "How else would you explain this business with the Anglias?"
Shrugging, Lestrade tugged Beppo over to him. "Who knows why people do the mad things they do? But if you say there's more, Sherlock, then no doubt there is. I'll drop by the manor once I've got this one settled in." He closed his eyes, then, and vanished with a pop, Beppo disappearing as well.
"Now what?" John asked Sherlock.
Sherlock looked at him with a smile. "Now on to Reading for a little theft of our own."
x
They were sitting in Sherlock's study when Lestade strolled in, looking very tired. He settled in one of the chairs by the window and tapped out a Muggle cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket.
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "I'd thought you'd quit."
"Yeah, well," Lestrade answered, lighting it and shaking out the match. He pulled in a deep breath, and when he spoke again his voice was smoke-tinged. "So, what's left?"
Moving a little closer (no doubt for the smell, which he seemed to relish), Sherlock answered, "I've got the last Ford Anglia." He took a deep breath and sighed. "I think we should break it open."
Lestrade frowned. "Got it from where?"
Crossing his arms, Sherlock made a face. "That's not important."
"Sherlock-"
In reply, Sherlock reached over and smashed the toy car against his desk. It splintered into tiny fragments...but there was something else inside it, something small and glittering. He scooped it up triumphantly and handed it not to Lestrade but to John.
As soon as John's fingers closed around it, the world changed. Colors grew more vibrant and danced through the air in swirls. He looked at Lestrade and blinked; the man seemed to be wearing chain-mail suddenly, the chain scrubbed bright and made of shining copper. Confused, he looked to Sherlock and paused again. Sherlock was dressed in full silver armor, even wearing a feather-plumed helm.
"What..." John looked down at his own hand and found it encased in a silver glove, with a small black stone sitting in his palm. The stone pulsed, emitting a flash of color every few seconds. "What is this?"
"A sight-stone," Sherlock explained. He plucked it from John's hand and passed it to Lestrade, who immediately sat back and whistled. "It allows you to see magic."
"That's one hell of a protection spell, Sherlock," Lestrade said admiringly. He looked down at his chest and sighed. "Mine looks almost shabby by comparison."
"Protection spell. I'm not..." John shook his head. "I've never cast a protection spell, but I'm wearing armor too."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Don't be an idiot. Obviously, I cast that spell ages ago. I refresh it now and again but I have to say, it's holding up admirably." To John's bewildered look, he said, "Oh, please. Do you really think you would have survived all the things we've been through without some sort of protection? I cast it out of necessity."
A tiny smile was threatening to break out across John's face. "When?"
Turning back to the desk and fiddling with some papers, Sherlock said, in a small voice, "Right before we went to see the mermen."
The merman? That was ages ago! John almost jumped up and kissed him, but Lestrade cleared his throat and brought John back to the moment.
"So, the sight-stone. That's what Beppo was after?"
"Clearly."
"Why not just...make his own?" Lestrade asked, rolling the sight-stone around in his hand.
Sherlock rubbed his temples. "In order to make a sight-stone, a witch or wizard must pluck out his or her own eye. It's a very complicated spell, and obviously the cost is high. As such, sight-stones are incredibly rare. As with most rarities, they're also worth a great deal of money. I recognized the name of the dead man immediately: Vennuci, the Italian mage renowned for his missing eye as much as for his skill."
"Our dead man has both eyes," Lestrade reminded him.
"Yes, and our Italian mage died several years ago. However, he had a son. A son who disappeared shortly after his death, and was rumored to be keeping less than savory company right here in England." Sherlock took the stone and held it between two fingers. "I suspect Vennuci the youngest was bragging to our recently arrested friend Beppo about his singularly worthwhile possession. Beppo very likely stole it from Vennuci...or perhaps Vennuci sold it to him, it makes no difference. Then there was a duel, and Beppo needed to hide his stone for later retrieval before the Aurors came for him. What better place then in one of the nearby toys? After leaving Azkaban it was only a matter of tracking down the batch of Ford Anglias and finding the right one. I suppose he didn't bank on Vennuci tracking him down. Nor did he bank on me taking on his case."
"I'd have solved this one by tomorrow," Lestrade said, but his eyes betrayed his mirth. He put out his cigarette in a waiting, spotlessly clean ashtray and stood, stretching out his back. "Nevertheless, I appreciate your help. We all do. It's a shame school starts in a few days...we won't be able to bother you as often."
A touch of color touched Sherlock's cheeks, but he answered stiffly: "My studies have never interrupted me before. Bring any cases you see fit."
Lestrade nodded. "Good night, then, boys. Good luck on the train, and don't give your professors too much trouble." He shook John's hand and have Sherlock an odd half-hug before walking out, yawning.
John watched him go and turned back, giving Sherlock a teasing smile. "That was cute. You, Lestrade, and your bumbling sense of affection."
Sherlock grinned. "Go home, John."
"I think I'll do exactly that." He stood and crossed over to Sherlock, taking the sight-stone (momentarily astonished once more by the change it affected upon the world) and setting it on the desk. "Give me a hug, too, you git."
Laughing, Sherlock obliged. His hair was soft on John's cheek, and his hands felt warm and solid on his back. For a moment it almost wasn't enough...but then the moment passed, and John stepped back. "See you at school, mate."
"On the train," Sherlock corrected, wagging his finger. "Or, better still, in the station. I could meet you at your house-"
"The station's fine, Sherlock," John interrupted, chuckling. "See you in six days."
Sherlock nodded. "Six days."
A look passed between them, like there was something they both wanted to say but couldn't. Then John squared his shoulders, patted Sherlock's shoulder, and walked out of the room. Some things, he'd decided, were better left unsaid.