This story was inspired by a ridiculous image of Sherlock preforming magic in order to irritate John (though I suppose it really only makes sense to write this crossover story as I do have a tendency of drawing John as a crotchety old man).
This sort of follows the plot-line of the book "How's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones rather than the movie (although there are some pieces of the movie that will be included as well). Though I really only used the original plot-line as a rough guideline as I'll be adding on a lot of different things not found in either book or movie, some things from the show Sherlock and from Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories.
After all Ms. Jones provided the playground and I'm just supplying the toys, and these are the characters of Sherlock we're talking about and they wouldn't really do exactly what the characters from the book would do and it would be very boring and dull if I did a play-by-play of the book and movie and I'm going to shut up now and get down to the story so you can see for yourself.
Thanks to my beta sunny-confusion for encouraging me with her enthusiasm when I told her of the crazy project I had in mind!
PROLOGUE
There are several different ways to tell this story.
One way would be to begin with the end and work backwards (but undoubtedly this would be utterly confusing and irksome and lose half our dear readers). Another way would be to begin with the days when Sherlock's training was still taking place. In those final days, Sherlock had become utterly bored with the company in which he found himself with and had turned to drugs in order to escape the mundane. Suffice to say, this did not work out for Sherlock for quite some time until much later towards the end of our story (or is it more towards the middle? It's difficult to say exactly when things began to change for the better-although in truth, it depends on whom you ask.
(For example, Mrs. Hudson would say that the moment she knew things would end very well for her boys was when she caught Sherlock placing a blanket over John's sleeping form when the good soldier had dozed in front of the fire. Sherlock's hand-which had only meant to brush against his companion's shoulder-when, perhaps of its own accord, lingered longer than what should have been a moment's movement.
(Lestrade would say that it had occurred to him on the very day he met John, which had been the first time Sherlock had ever brought anyone with him to a crime scene. He would say that at the time, Sherlock was much more willing to take the police through his deductions without much insult than usual. Quite the change.
(Sally could care less. Her only comment would be that John must be a freak too based on the way he practically tripped over his own feet to follow after the King of Freaks.
(Sally is a feeble-minded idiot and should be ignored.)
The last way-and perhaps the best way-would be to tell you John's side of the story, and how a perfectly normal bloke ended up in the castle of a madman surrounded by magic, murder and mystery.
Yes I believe John's story is the best way to begin, if only in order for you to fully understand how the events led up to the end.
But before our story actually begins, we must go back a bit.
John Watson was a remarkable boy. (I say 'was' not because John is dead-far from it, in fact, as John is still very much alive-but only because when John had left for The War, he returned an entirely different person. But, unbeknownst to everyone-including John himself-somewhere deep down in his bones, he was in fact the same person he had been before he left.)
John Watson was a remarkable boy only because, to the people of Market Chipping, it was the polite way of saying that he was very unusual. John had a caring nature, was always willing to help others to no end, and had an unbent stubbornness.
Admittedly, this was not unusual; in fact it was very good that he was all those things. What was unusual was that John was eldest of three and he was all these things, for in the land of Ingary it was considered a misfortunate to be born the eldest of three because everyone knew the eldest was always the one who would fail the first-as well as the worst-if the three of you went out to seek your fortune.
John Watson was the son of hatters. His parents owned a ladies hat shoppe, and the Watsons were known far and wide as great hatters. He had just turned seven when his mother died. His father, knowing he could not possibly keep tabs on John as well as run his business, remarried to his pretty shoppe assistant, Fanny.
Shortly afterwards, Molly was born. Then shortly after her, Harriet was born.
Mr. Watson was very proud of his children and sent them all to the finest school in town.
It was there that John discovered his love of adventure through books, and-despite what everyone in Market Chipping said about the curse of the eldest born-had strong ambitions to go off and seek his fortune. Fanny was far too busy to look after both Harriet "Harry" and Molly, so the task fell onto John, who often ended up in vicious rows with Harry. John and her never got on. They were as agreeable to each other as oil is to water.
Which made Molly the person who would always have to break them apart.
Despite his attitude towards Harry, John enjoyed looking after his sisters, in particular Molly-who was the most congenial of the two-and encouraged them both to seek their fortunes.
As for the Watson girls, Harry had no interest in schooling and often skipped classes, preferring the company of the town delinquents to her books. In fact she was brought home more than once escorted by the town constable. Molly, not to John's surprise, became fond of human anatomy and biology. But where John wanted to protect the living, Molly was fascinated with dissecting the dead.
"I don't see why schooling's necessary," complained Harry as the three Watsons sat underneath a tree by the river where Harry lounged as she waited for a fish to bite.
"It's a bit important if you want to seek your fortune," retorted John as he and Molly poured over school books a good ways away from the river.
Harry snorted. "You watch, John, I can be successful without schooling!"
"And if you can't?" John asked.
Harry scowled and pursed her lips angrily. "Then I shall marry a prince! So there!"
Molly piped up, hoping to avoid another fight, and said with an awkward smile, "I should like to be successful by my own hand."
This was Molly's attempt at a joke. Her older siblings remained silent as they continued their stare-down and ignored her comment (as was their custom). Molly's eyes cast downward as she added a quiet explanation, "Because I am fascinated with the mortuary profession..."
John had been seventeen when The Trouble first began.
The Witch of the Waste had threatened the life of the King's fiancée, a princess from the next land over, and had vowed she would make good on her death threats if their wedding took place. As a response, the King of Ingary sent three of the most trusted wizards in his employment to deal with her. Suffice to say that none of these wizards came back successful (or alive. In fact they came back unsuccessful and torn to unrecognizable pieces). For three years, tensions built up between the two kingdoms, as neither knew what to do about this very serious threat. They ended up fighting amongst each other in their panic and the disastrous result was that the contracted engagement between the kingdoms was broken and war was immediately declared.
John had been twenty and just finishing with his schooling when the castle appeared in the hills above Market Chipping.
He remembers it with distinct clarity: tensions had still been high between the two kingdoms and the threat of war was hanging heavily in the air like cigar smoke; he had been out walking when he saw a large crowd. The people of the crowd were all chattering loudly, saying different things, each of them coming up with their own story behind it, a few were screaming; each reaction different. The one thing that they all had in common were their faces: they all held some sort of fear and panic. Most of them were pointing and looking up at the far hills, John followed the direction they were looking and he saw it.
The castle was big, dark and ominous looking, with two tall, thin turrets that billowed clouds that changed colors. Most times these clouds were as black as midnight, and other times green like moss or a blood red color. It was an amazing sight, admittedly, but it was more frightening as the castle never stayed in one place. Sometimes it was a dark smudge against the far green hills of the north, other times it would sit in the heather just beyond the last farm to the west, once or more it had even come down into the valley over Market Chipping, looming over the small town like a dark shadow.
Everybody understandably thought that The Witch had come to wreak havoc upon the poor people of Market Chipping and so everyone took on what they thought were necessary precautions.
No one went out at night, in particular the young women were warned to travel in pairs or have an escort at hand if travel was really necessary. Due to the shortage of young men his age, John found himself often escorting not only his sisters but also other young girls of the town. The level of fear got so bad, that most times John would have to escort a large crowd of terrified girls to their homes. Though a few times, John would be left blessedly alone with a girl he fancied at the time. At first, he was quite happy to be alone with them-though this feeling never lasted as he would spend the entire evening reassuring the young ladies that nothing would cause them harm and settling their fears when they got frightened at the smallest thing. It was, understandably, quite irksome when he'd try and flirt with them, for they were so fret with worry they were not even aware of his advances.
In the end John gave up trying to woo any of them.
The town's fears were eventually settled as time passed and the castle only remained in the hills, a distance away from the town. It was learned some time later that the owner of the castle was not The Witch of the Waste, but a wizard. No one knew exactly who this wizard was or where he had come from, and soon afterwards stories began to circulate about him. The popular belief was that the wizard had a taste for the souls of young girls and would steal them away in the night, and keep their hearts in jars upon the shelf as souvenirs.
But it soon became apparent that the owner of the castle had no interest in Market Chipping when the billowing clouds escaping from the castle's turrets came out spelling words.
Once or twice the word bored could be made out distinctly against the backdrop of the clear blue sky.
Then the messages (which had been sporadic at best) began to become more frequent, eventually becoming a daily occurrence. It was then that the one syllable words morphed into full-on sentences.
It started with "It is the baker".
Everyone was baffled; no one knew what this could have meant.
Like wildfire, theories about the wizard's mysterious message began to spring up and spread; each theory more ludicrous than the last. Eventually the answer came about through an agent of the king. One of the businesses in Market Chipping was part of a powerful underground crime ring located in the country's capital that had been dispatched to gather intel on the town. But the King's police did not know which business was the informant or even how messages were being sent back to the crime ring.
It was the baker: he had been hiding encrypted codes in the blackberry pies and was giving them to the crime ring's foot soldiers who in turn would pass along the messages to their bosses. Soon afterwards, the baker and the soldiers were arrested and convicted.
The reaction was mixed. Some were amazed by the wizard's knowledge of the situation that had been invisible to even the King's agents, while most were disturbed. No one could figure out how the wizard-who lived in the castle beyond the town-had known not only about the situation that had been kept close under wraps, but also who the culprit was.
Another popular explanation was that the wizard was a mind-reader (which ended up fueling the soul-eating story: that the wizard could control your thoughts and convince you to come away with him so he could steal your heart).
Then the messages went back to being one syllable words. The odd occasional sentence appearing randomly only when a mystery, no matter how small, needed solving. Very soon after that, the castle had begun to be viewed as a backdrop and everyone in Market Chipping lost interest in it, returning to the very strong possibility of war.
Everyone except John.
As he made his way through town, John would note that each day, a new message was spelled out amongst the clouds. Words like tedious, idiots, and so obvious and other such insults would appear in the sky. The only consistency was the fact that it was always a different message painted in the sky each day, every day but always at different times. Sometimes there'd be black words against the clear blue, red words at midnight, or green words at dusk.
John slowly found himself looking up at the skies for the next message at all times of the day. A small smile would spread on his face when he found a new word painted in the sky. He even began to document each word and became eager for the new day to bring about the next message.
When the expected war was announced, men were called to arms. That first week when drafting stations were set up, John looked up at the now-familiar castle. He wondered what the wizard thought about all this war business. He probably wouldn't be bothered with it, as wizards lived a very long time and so rarely concerned themselves with the short-lived mortals and their destructive antics. John had to admit that he and the wizard had something in common: they were both bored of Market Chipping.
Apart from the wizard's messages in the air, nothing new or unexpected ever happened. It was the same slow-moving pace day in and day out, with the same, unchanging routine and John was sick of it. John had never voiced his boredom with the town before, so it came as a great surprise to everyone when he announced he had enlisted into the army. Despite his family's pleading, and the insistence from everyone around him that he would only fail, John boarded the train headed to the training grounds with a third of the men from Market Chipping. He was determined that he would prove everyone wrong; that the eldest could be successful their first time out.
He had to admit that the army had been hard, but nothing he couldn't handle. He spent two years in training before he was sent to join the fight in the front lines. John spent seven years altogether in the army, and during that time he was rising through the ranks so steadily that by the time he was twenty-seven, he was already captain.
Then he got shot.
John's only thought as the bullet ripped through the muscles in his shoulder and he was thrown backwards was that he knew he shouldn't have gotten out of bed that morning.
It wasn't until he had gotten out of surgery that he received a telegram from his stepmother. She wrote to inform him of his father's sudden death.
But that wasn't the only news that the telegram contained. Apparently Mr. Watson had been a little too proud of his children, for their school fees had all but crippled the Watsons with heavy debts. John was still recovering when the funeral took place, and over the next few weeks he corresponded with his stepmother to try and assess their situation. It was clear that Molly and Harry could not return to their school, as it was far too expensive for them to continue with their schooling and John's military pension could do very little to relieve them of their current situation, much less pay for them to finish their schooling.
During that time John hated his father. Throughout his life, John had admired his father and idolized him for being the kind and loving man that he was-but his actions had severely damaged their family, and that was neither kind nor loving of him. Though John hated his father mostly on Molly's behalf. He knew how much she loved school, and that receiving an education was important to her, and although she smiled and carried on, John knew that inside she was devastated beyond belief.
I'm afraid to say that John didn't forgive his father for a long while for wronging his younger sister.
Fanny had explained that the only way for her to take care of the three of them as well as keep the shop would be to set them all up in promising apprenticeships.
By the time John was discharged, Fanny had it all figured out.
She had arranged Molly to apprentice in the pastry shop Cesari's in Market Square a ways away from the family hat shoppe, while Harry was to be sent to apprentice under Mrs. Fairfax, an old schoolfriend of Fanny's as well as a witch. Under Mrs. Fairfax's tutelage, Harry would make several promising relations with her mistress's clients and connections in Kingsbury.
As for John, I'm sorry to say, he would be apprenticing under his stepmother to learn more about the hat trade.
You can imagine, John's immense disappointment. He would be returning to Market Chipping to learn the trade of his father's business that he would undoubtedly inherit one day. Although in his favor, John knew a lot of the business's goings-on already. In fact even as a young boy, he would help around the shoppe and there was little else Fanny had to teach him. When John brought this up to her, Fanny only insisted on his returning to help around the shoppe. He agreed only for simplicity's sake.
And so this was John: twenty-seven years old, an ex-solider shot down at the height of his career, with an intermittent tremor in his left hand, a psychosomatic limp and nightly terrors where he could taste blood mixed with sand. He felt like damaged goods for all his worth. And as though it couldn't have gotten any worse, he was returning to the painfully dull, dreadfully predictable Market Chipping (this was the worst part for him: returning to the mundane town) only because his family needed him and he had no other choice.
It had seemed the curse of the eldest had caught up to him.
Nobody in Market Chipping had the heart to say 'I told you so' when they saw the ex-soldier pathetically make his way slowly down the cobbled streets with his cane in hand and a perpetual scowl on his face. It was clear to all, that he was not the same easy-going man he had been before he left.
This caused John to isolate himself from people, becoming almost a hermit in his ways. Although it was really the people of Market Chipping who were to blame as they were avoiding John. They were afraid, should he be provoked, he'd take out all his repressed aggressions out on them, after all John had been a soldier; he could kill people. Though they never vocalized this, their eyes said it all for them. Each time John saw someone he'd known from his younger days, their eyes looked at him with pity before they quickly turned away from him.
God he hated them.
The only thing that kept changing, and yet remained the same, was the cloud messages in the blue sky the castle in the hills billowed up. Somehow the sight of them managed to lift John's hopes, however slightly the action might be.
John was determined: he made it clear to everyone working in the hat shoppe, Fanny especially, that his position in the shoppe was only temporary until they could get out of the hole, then after that he would leave Market Chipping behind and seek out his next adventure.
