AN: Hello, again! Two long chapters...I'm excited. :)
Third Year
Chapter 7
The season of summer still hadn't ended, and the Scottish countryside was still bathing in humid days that lasted hours later than light held out at Sherlock's house in Sussex. But the summer holidays were over, and Sherlock was back again at Hogwarts for the year. And this year looked like it might be very different from his first two.
Soon after Sherlock had told Lestrade about his girlfriend, the prefect had come to him again with a problem that he wanted Sherlock to solve—this one was also related to dating, since a Gryffindor girl he knew had come to him and said that her boyfriend had disappeared and she couldn't figure out what had happened. When she had gone to Professor McGonagall to report him missing, the Transfiguration teacher had told her that he never existed in the first place, which both confused and shocked her, and made her run straight to Lestrade for help. Sherlock had found it a painfully easy problem to solve, and a rather short and simple investigation had brought him straight back to Lestrade and ready to illuminate the full picture; her older brother had gotten one of his friends to impersonate a fake boyfriend for her to date, in order to keep her away from her ex, who was Muggle born. The fact that the situation had arisen out of such bigotry made Sherlock sigh and roll his eyes at the stupidity of the whole lot of them, but he didn't show any more emotion rather than exasperation to Lestrade when he reported the facts. It made him twinge with sadness inside, just slightly, but this sadness was a feeling he had now learned to suppress. He hoped to become impervious to it.
After that there were others. Lestrade seemed to have quite a number of people who came to him with their problems, since he appeared to be quite popular and influential, in the older years especially. Whenever it was something that needed actual investigation, rather than just advice, Lestrade would pass the case along to Sherlock, who started to relish solving them. Hogwarts was a complicated school, and Sherlock soon learned that the deduction skills he had been cultivating for years were ideal for this kind of work. Solving the puzzles Lestrade brought to him became more than a hobby for Sherlock—it became his obsession.
Sherlock spent most of his second Transfiguration class of the year reading about Patronuses with his book under the table. No one sat with him, and he had the table all to himself to transfigure the shoe he had been given into a porcelain serving dish. Within the first fifteen minutes he had managed to turn the old trainer from dish to trainer to dish to trainer and back to dish again, so he declared his work done for the day and pulled out his book. Patronuses interested Sherlock not because of their use in repelling dementors (he knew his chances of encountering one were very small), but because of the practicality of being able to use them to send messages. And there was something else, too...it seemed to Sherlock that Patronuses, being so difficult and demanding of their caster, were sometimes seen as a measure of how powerful someone was as a witch or a wizard. So, of course, it was something he was itching to try.
"Mr. Holmes, if you would please come up here for a moment," barked Professor McGonagall from behind her desk at the front of the classroom.
Sherlock looked up. The rest of the class was filing out the door, having obviously just been dismissed at the end of the lesson, and a few of them were casting backwards glances at him. Sherlock snapped his book shut, not bothering to mask it, and traipsed up to stand in front of Professor McGonagall.
Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and adjusted her square-framed spectacles with the tips of her fingers before beginning. "Mr. Holmes, I am afraid I must reprimand you for attempting to read during my class. What makes you think that you are so above your classmates and gives you such a right?" She fixed him with a piercing stare that Sherlock knew any other student would have quailed underneath.
"I finished the assigned task, so I decided to move on to my own."
"I see," said Professor McGonagall. "May I ask what you were reading?" She held out her hand for the book. It wasn't a request.
Sherlock handed it over. "Hmm," she said. "Patronuses. For someone as young as yourself?"
"My age has nothing to do with it. It's a practical spell to learn."
"And have you learned it?" asked Professor McGonagall.
"Not yet. I haven't had a chance to attempt it," answered Sherlock.
Professor McGonagall gave a little "harumph"ing noise. "Well, you shall have to tell me how you fare. However, this is what not what I wanted to speak to you about." Sherlock said nothing, and she continued to regard him harshly over the rims of her spectacles. After a short pause, she continued. "I have heard from Greg Lestrade that you have a knack for solving problems. Not disagreements, but things more akin to mysteries, that you are good at investigating. He says you can...deduce things, and see things that others do not."
Sherlock gave her a nod to show he understood. "I'm the best. I could tell you what you ate for breakfast this morning, that you grew up with family tension because one of your parents didn't wish to reveal their magic to the other, and that yes, you really would do well to write to Miss Mayfair's parents even though you are undecided about the matter."
Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips. After another pause, she proceeded again. "In that case, I have a puzzle for you, Mr. Holmes. Although I must impress upon you its seriousness. This is not something I bring to you for your own amusement, obviously, but something concerning the school's best interests."
"Yes," said Sherlock. He understood all too well—to him, everyone thought their problems were serious, no matter how trifling they were. What mattered to him most was the excitement and intrigue he could get out of them.
"Hagrid found a dead unicorn in the Forbidden Forest this week, which makes three within the past month. This is an unprecedented amount, and the forest's unicorn population can be extremely fragile since unicorns reproduce so rarely and often have only one foal at a time. Therefore, Hagrid would, of course, like to find their killer, and he is convinced it is the same person."
Sherlock nodded. "You want me to track down the killer for you?"
"Help track down the killer, Mr. Holmes. Do not make the mistake of thinking you will just be given free reign on this assignment."
"Yes, yes, of course," said Sherlock, nearly waving a hand at her to dismiss the reminder. He restrained himself, but had the feeling that she knew exactly what he had almost done. Even if he weren't in her house, Sherlock knew it was best not to outwardly disrespect the Transfiguration teacher.
"Tomorrow night Hagrid will be going into the forest with two students who have earned detention, and Mr. Lestrade, who has agreed with me to go along so as to assist Hagrid and offer more authority to keep the other two students in check. You are to accompany them and do your best to find out anything that you think would help you discern the person who killed the unicorns."
"I don't work well with others."
"Try to," said Professor McGonagall flatly. "You're not going in there on your own."
Sherlock sighed. "Fine."
"Yes, I expect it to be," she said, giving him a look as she did so. "You are also to tell Hagrid and myself everything that you find. If everything Lestrade has told me is true, this should be right up your ally."
"Excellent," said Sherlock, smiling smugly.
The Transfiguration teacher sighed slightly and regarded him with a beady stare. "Do you have any questions, Mr. Holmes?"
"No, I'm sure I can have them tracked down in a few days, a week at the very longest, but I highly doubt it will take me quite that long. That's the thing with killers like this—they always make a mistake. You just have to catch them at it!" Sherlock said happily.
"If that's all then, Mr. Holmes, then you are dismissed," said Professor McGonagall, seeming to disapprove of his reaction to the task. "Meet Hagrid and the others outside his cabin at nine o'clock tomorrow night, sharp."
Sherlock nodded one final time, and then flounced out of the room with elation. Once he was in the empty hallway and out of Professor McGonagall's earshot, he jumped up off both his feet, making fists in the air. "YES!" he cried. None of his cases so far had been anything like this—this was something that would really stretch his abilities, more than anything that he'd solved last year or in his first week back at Hogwarts. And if Professor McGonagall, of all people, wanted to come to him with a case, that showed just how impressive his abilities were. Of course, Sherlock had known they were the whole time, but coming from McGonagall it was a different thing...her consulting him spoke multitudes.
John's first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson of the year did not go well. The new professor, Professor Ellison, seemed to be on neither of the extreme ends in terms of strictness, but she did decide to have them start off by pairing up and practicing some defensive spells with each other. Of course, John had found himself hovering on the periphery of the class. He couldn't make himself interject to find a partner, but his classmates were already sorting themselves out and one of Sarah's friends seemed to have clutched her arm in a death grip as soon as the word "partner" was out of Professor Ellison's mouth. John had ended up being a third person tacked onto the pair that happened to be standing next to him, since that was where Ellison automatically pointed to assign him when he didn't have a partner. The whole situation made John so uncomfortable, and it came after spending a summer nearly alone in a house that had always been meant to contain parents, separated from Harry by at least one story at almost all times (she had turned seventeen and inherited the house). Combined, all this made John so distracted that his spellwork was pitiful, and he was sure that Professor Ellison was taking due note of this, as she spent a disproportionate amount of time watching John's group of three.
As soon as the bell rang, John ran out of the class and made his way to the Potions room at a pace that was almost a jog. He had no reason to stay anywhere else, and he wanted desperately to be alone. If there was anywhere that was unlikely to attract gaggles of lollygagging students, it was the dungeons right before a Potions lesson.
With this in mind, John fully expected to be the first one in the classroom, but when he strode in through the doorway and finally took his eyes from the floor, he saw that there was already someone there. The student was tall, but in the lanky, slightly awkward way that someone who has just hit a growth spurt is, with the blue hem of his robes' collar peeking out from curly black hair. John frowned; they always had Potions class with the Slytherins, not the Ravenclaws. Could it be that this rule had finally changed? It was about time. It seemed suicide for the school administrators to group the Gryffindors with the Slytherins for classes together, and they never had anything with the Ravenclaws. John thought he could count the number of Ravenclaws he knew on a first-name basis on one hand.
John would have taken a seat as far away from this other boy as possible, but there was one other thing about him that was just too strange to be ignored. He was already working on something, and it looked like a massively challenging and complex potion, too…there were ingredients and equipment spread across all of his table, taking up nearly its entire surface even though each table was meant to accommodate four people and their supplies. Thick, mossy-green steam was billowing up from the boy's cauldron. John approached him slowly, watching as the boy stirred his potion methodically. When John was level with him and standing next to his table, he could see that the boy was staring at his work and barely blinking. He didn't seem to have glanced up at the newcomer at all the whole time. He had a pale face with bangs that casually fell over his forehead, and the eyes that were so focused on his work were green.
"Can I borrow your serrated knife?" the boy said suddenly, making John jump. The boy didn't show any indication that he'd noticed this. "Mine got too dull after cutting all these aconite roots." Indeed, John saw that the ends of aconite roots were scattered to the boy's left and there was a bit of carefully sliced root still sitting next to the cauldron. John assumed the rest of it had gone into the potion, which was now giving off a very faint hissing sound.
"Um, sure," said John. He turned away from the boy for a moment to put his bag down on the table next to his and search it for the knife. "Here," he said after a minute, holding it out to him.
The other boy tore his gaze away from the potion for a moment to look at John, and John couldn't help but feel slightly uncomfortable under his brief stare. Then the other boy's eyes were back on his potion. "Thanks," he said offhandedly, extending his hand for the knife rather than taking it himself. John placed the handle in his outstretched hand, feeling just a little offended.
There was another brief pause, and John was just about to turn around again and do up his bag when the boy said, just as suddenly as before, "Lestrange or Dolohov?"
John stared at him, looking at the face that seemed so disinterested, but had just asked such a personal question. He took a deep breath, and looked down at the floor uncomfortably before looking back up again. "Lestrange, but how did you know—"
"Ah, Molly!" The other boy interrupted, bringing his head up as footsteps announced the entrance of a third person, but without turning around at all to face the newcomer. "Your class is five floors above here and you're clearly behind on homework, so what are you doing down here?"
John turned to see that a rather petite girl with light brown pigtails had walked in, her robes hemmed in the yellow of Hufflepuff and her face flushed pink with embarrassment. She was clearly a first year.
"I brought you toast," she said in a small and sort of stumbling way, her voice uneven as she got the words out, but not exactly stammering.
"I hate toast," said the boy, craning his neck regard her over his shoulder. "So sorry. Not sorry. But toast is not for me. Ah ha!" he said excitedly, turning back to his potion as it let out a BANG! and a periwinkle cloud puffed from out from it. "Excellent!"
John decided not to ask exactly what he was brewing, but simply looked from Molly, holding her small stack of dejected toast, to this other boy, who was straightening his robes and then his posture as he picked up his wand to continue stirring slowly. "So," he said, glancing back at John again, then flicking his gaze to his open bag on the table behind him for just the briefest of moments, "good at brewing medical potions? How about healing charms?"
John paused in answering, surprised at where that question had come from. "Very good," he said, facing the boy square on even if he was still concentrated on whatever it was that he was brewing. As he answered, out of the corner of his eye he saw Molly walk out of the room, still carrying the toast.
"And Lestrange...had your fare share of heartbreak, then?" he asked slowly, now turning away from the cauldron to look at John, wiping his hands slowly on the front of his robes. "Experienced violent deaths?" his voice was slow, detached.
"Yes," said John, not exactly sure where this was leading. But there was something about this boy...he was so different from anyone that John had ever met at Hogwarts, so brisk and sure of himself, and for some reason John didn't want to just push him away like he now did nearly everyone else.
"Yes," said John again. "Enough trouble for a lifetime." Other students were finally starting to file into the room now, chatting and picking out tables on which to unpack their potion supplies.
"Want to see some more?"
"Oh Merlin, yes."
The boy gave him a wide smile, one that pushed up his pale cheeks to crinkle his eyes. Then he turned and began tossing things from the table into his bag, sweeping out a clear glass container into which he poured some of his potion. Then he waved his wand, a very long and dark one with some kind of twisting pattern leading to the handle, and vanished the remaining potion. In another deft motion he had jumped over the bench connected to the table and swung his bag over his shoulder. He headed for the door with a swift stride.
John didn't know what to do. He had no clue who this boy was or what he was trying to ask him, but there he was, just bounding off. "Oi, wait!" he called after him.
The boy stopped and pivoted to face John, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
"I don't even know a thing about you, I don't know your name..."
The other students in the room didn't seem to be paying attention to them as the boy took one step closer to John and then stopped. Then, standing completely still and staring at John, he began to speak very quickly. "I know you're name is John Watson and you're a third year here like me, but in Gryffindor, and both of your parents were magical but neither came from any of the old blood lines. I say were because they were killed last year by Bellatrix Lestrange, probably in mid December. You've got a brother who's worried about you, but you won't go to him for help, even though you're having difficulty coping, possibly because he's an alcoholic, more probably because he just dumped his girlfriend. You're good at medical potions and charms, but you're defensive work is shoddy to say the least, or has been since your parents died, at least, and you often can't get the hang of general potions that aren't more specific."
John stared at him, not knowing what to say or think.
"...It's enough to be going off of, don't you think?" the boy said, turning slightly and moving away again with another smile, but this one much more subdued and sly. The boy reached the door and was halfway out of it when he poked his head around again to look at John. "The name is Sherlock Holmes, and the meeting time and place are tomorrow evening, 8:30, room 221B." He gave John a wink, then swept away down the hall and out of sight, his robes flowing out behind him.
John stared after him, standing completely still for a few moments. Finally, he shook his head a little and then made his way back to where he had laid his bag to find that no one else had taken the seats at that table. The other students were leaving him alone, as they always seemed to now. With disappointment, John noticed that they were paired with the Slytherins again, after all. Across from him, the table that the boy, Sherlock, had vacated was still half-covered in scattered bits of ingredients and the students using it had had to sweep them aside so that they could put down their own things.
As soon as John sat down, the dungeon chamber's door swung shut with a bang! and the entire class turned. It was the new Potions professor. All the students had seen him at the start of term feast, but not since. His black robes hung over a hunched and brooding frame and matched his dark eyebrows and black eyes that glared at them all over a hooked nose. The room had fallen silent as soon as he had stepped in.
"There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class," he whispered in a voice that carried throughout the dungeon chamber. "I am Professor Snape, and I will be your Potions teacher for this year...assuming any of you have heads half worth carrying around on your over-proud shoulders, and assuming you have the minimum aptitude required for me to be able to teach you anything at all, of course..."
The next day, John set out to find room 221B thirty minutes before the time that Sherlock Holmes had told him to meet there. John had rarely paid attention to the room numbers at Hogwarts, and he doubted that many other students did, either, so he wanted to give himself plenty of time to make sure he found it.
Why he was so committed to being on time for this strange boy—or, indeed, showing up at all, was something that John stopped only briefly to wonder about. After Sherlock had swept away from the potions room so mysteriously the day before, John had thought about him and wondered about him almost constantly ever since. For some reason, he found him fascinating—different, to say the least. John knew next to nothing about him, but he couldn't help but see him as being multifaceted. Someone complex, mystifying, and definitely worth the empty time that John had felt he just had too much of ever since his parents died and he lost interest in so much of his daily life at the school.
John eventually found room 221B, an empty classroom on the second floor and opposite a large tapestry of Amy Baker, a witch from the eighteenth century who was an aged but skilled warrior. In the tapestry, she was depicted facing a large dragon, and after John arrived, a hand curved out from under the Common Welsh Green just as it breathed a spurt of orange fire at Baker. The witch dodged the flame as the fabric was pulled aside and Sherlock Holmes emerged.
"Ah, John," he said. "Good, you're here."
"Where did—there's a doorway behind the tapestry?" asked John.
"Oh, not quite a doorway, but an opening big enough, yes. Found it within my first week here. Anyway, we have a case to work on, shall we go?"
John looked at him in bewilderment. "What do you mean, a case?"
"I'm something of a detective within Hogwarts," said Sherlock. "People consult me with their problems. I solve them. I observe things no one else does, draw conclusions, and find the answers. And right now there's a rather big one that's been brought to me by Professor McGonagall."
Sherlock began to walk towards the beginning of the hallway, and John followed. "How do you...draw conclusions and find the answers?" asked John.
"When we met yesterday, I could read your family history and your spellwork in your posture, trainers, and half-opened schoolbag."
"Yes, and how exactly did you do that?" asked John.
"Simple deduction," said Sherlock, leading him past the various doorways. "The part about your parents was easy. Clearly you've been coping, or failing to cope, with a significant emotional blow recently. The way you held yourself and when you chose to come to the potions room said the trauma happened several months ago—you came to a class that's normally seen as harsh and depressing early, but without friends. The way you didn't try to take a seat and save the ones near you says you don't expect any friends to be coming, either, but not because you're the kind of person who never makes any—because you've lost them.
"I know you're not the kind who can't make friends because if you were so detestable, you wouldn't have been wearing the trainers that you were—they're not new, but hand-me-downs, and they're still in good condition. Your brother gave them to you but not because they were falling apart. He got a new pair, most likely, but was happy to give you the older, still-nice pair because he doesn't hate you. Those shoes clearly haven't switched owners any further ago than a few months, so they were given to you after your parents died, and not a forced gift, then. Older siblings almost always hate the younger ones, so if your brother doesn't, you must not be that bad. So you can make friends, but don't have any now because you lost them while grieving for your parents and pushing them away from you as a result.
"But how do I know the emotional blow was dead parents? Well, you're too young for it to be a breakup, breakups aren't devastating for people at this age, but you're feeling lonely, so someone's obviously gone. No recent student deaths inside Hogwarts in the younger years, and you're not Muggle-born, so it's unlikely it's a friend from back home. But parent deaths happened all the time during the war. Now, someone tried to call out to you when they entered the class, but you either didn't hear them or ignored them—again, a sign that you don't have close friends. They said 'John,' so that's your first name. Then of course you know this next part, the engraving on the knife you gave me. It says 'Watson,' so there's your name. Watson isn't the name of any of the old Wizarding lines, though, but your parents were magical if your copy of 'Intermediate Transfiguration,' which I saw peeking out of your bag, is so old and battered—it came from a parent, not your brother, since its owner was obviously much rougher with it than the owner of the trainers is with their things. The rest of your things show you don't buy second hand, however. Then there's your watch, of course—it's a traditional wizard's watch, and not something that Muggle parents ever buy for their children. So if your parents weren't Muggles, they must have been killed directly by the Death Eaters in the war, not just in mass Muggle killings. There were only three incidents where wizards and witches who weren't Purebloods deemed "bloodtraitors" where killed by Death Eaters directly and towards the end of the war—two involving Bellatrix Lestrange and one involving Antonin Dolohov. So—Lestrange or Dolohov?"
"And mid December?" prompted John, remembering how Sherlock had even distinguished the month.
"The first of the two events I'm talking about with Lestrange happened in September, before Voldemort fell. Even if you were devastated by your parents' deaths, you may have lightened up some after Voldemort disappeared. Not the case. So it happened after the end of the war, and the second incident was in mid December. Makes more sense."
John had shuddered at the sound of the name, but Sherlock had seemed not to notice. They were now exiting the doors to the Entrance Hall and walking out into the balmy September air, the sky still light due to the long days of the Scottish summertime.
"But the drinking. How could you possibly know about the drinking?" asked John.
"The knife you gave me. There was residue from a wine cork left on it. Not something you did, clearly you aren't involved in that sort of thing, especially since if you had been the one to do it you would have thought to clean off your knife before coming to school. So it's someone else using your things, not your parents, obviously, but your brother. Why doesn't he just use magic? Because he's not just drinking, he's already drunk, and therefore doing things like unstopping more alcohol by hand. Oh, and the girlfriend, too...that was less deduction, more observation. I don't hang around the other Ravenclaws all that much, but I did hear about one of the older girls, named Clara, being upset over being dumped by someone named Harry Watson."
John had to admit that he was impressed by Sherlock's insight, but he also wasn't sure that Sherlock quite understood other people. It was the way he had brushed Molly aside earlier and spoke so brashly about John's parents deaths, and the fact that he even suggested Voldemort's fall might be enough to cheer someone up after losing their parents. Nevertheless, —
"That...was brilliant," said John, looking at Sherlock in admiration.
"You really think so?" asked Sherlock, sounding slightly questioning for the first time.
"Of course," said John.
"That's not what people normally say."
"What do people normally say?"
"'Piss off'," answered Sherlock, smiling again with a small snort. John couldn't help but give a small smile too.
"So where are we going?" he asked.
"Hagrid's cabin," said Sherlock. "There have been some dead unicorns recently, and Hagrid and McGonagall want to know who's doing it. Well, I suppose there are a few other people up at the school who want to know, too."
They crossed the grounds together, following the path down the slopped land. As they passed the vegetable patch, Sherlock spoke again. "So, did I miss anything? I didn't expect to be spot on about everything."
"Just one thing," said John.
"Oh?" asked Sherlock.
"Harry is short for Harriet."
Sherlock stopped still in his tracks, then made a disappointed sound and grimaced. "Your sister! I always miss something! Your trainers are unisex after all, aren't they? Ugh, women normally buy women's shoes."
John laughed, and it felt like his face lightened as it moved muscles he felt he hadn't used in a while.
"Your sister!" Sherlock was muttering to himself. "Of course, if I'd been named Harriet, I'd go by Harry, too... Did I get everything else, then?"
"Yeah, the rest was right," said John. "I'm impressed."
"Oh, don't be," said Sherlock nonchalantly. "We're coming to the impressive part in just a bit." He smirked.
John shook his head slightly at Sherlock's arrogance, but his was smiling too, and his smile was a little warmer than Sherlock's had been. They had finally reached the cabin, where two other people were already standing outside waiting.
"Good evening, Sherlock," said Lestrade politely.
"Lestrade," acknowledged Sherlock, nodding to him. "He's with me," he said, with a flick of his head in John's direction.
"Who is he?" asked Lestrade, looking at John and then back to Sherlock.
"Er, hi, I'm John W—"
"I said he's with me," said Sherlock shortly, narrowing his eyes at Lestrade. Lestrade held up his hands and raised his eyebrows as if to admit defeat and accept John's presence.
"Sherlock!" boomed Hagrid, leaning down to sweep Sherlock into a tight hug. John couldn't keep himself from wincing and tensing up as he watched—it looked like Hagrid could crush Sherlock's thin frame if he wasn't careful.
"I 'preciate ya comin' out here to 'elp, Sherlock," said Hagrid, looking down at him kindly. " 'Specially since I ain't seen ya all summer!"
"Should be fun," said Sherlock, smiling up at him contentedly.
"Fun?" exclaimed Hagrid. "Not a' all! We got three unicorns dead! An' more, if we don' catch whoever's don' it!"
"I'm sure the unicorns will be fine," said Sherlock calmly. "They always migrate if there's a serious threat to their habitat."
"Not if there ain't 'nuff of 'em to keep the herd goin'," said Hagrid darkly. "An' it's a crime ter kill a unicorn, ya know tha'? We got an' evil one 'mong us for sure, Sherlock. An' even you should be worried 'bout that," he said with a nod down in Sherlock's direction.
"Remember that you're not here for fun, Sherlock," said Lestrade seriously. "If we don't catch the killer, Hogwarts could lose its unicorn herd, and the reason they're killing them could be worse than that. It may not just be a student, you know, it could be someone outside the castle with much more sinister motives or much more powerful support."
"Yes, I'm well aware of the possibilities, Lestrade," said Sherlock. "Where are the others? Shouldn't they be here too, so we can leave?" he asked impatiently.
"Looks like there's Filch bringing them down now," said Lestrade, pointing to the castle. Indeed, Sherlock could see the bobbing light of the caretaker's lantern and three silhouettes following it. One was the stooped figure of Filch, and the other two were clearly students who looked to be about John and Sherlock's age, though it was difficult to tell from such a distance.
Once they arrived, John saw that they were both Slytherins, one of whom he recognized as Philip Anderson, a boy with a pale face and small, dull eyes, who was in the same year as John. Last potions class, John had noticed that Anderson's babbling beverage seemed to be issuing the most acrid smoke of all the acrid smokes the third years were creating that day. The other was a girl with curly brown hair who was shorter than Anderson and John didn't recognize from their year. He guessed that she must be a year or two younger.
"Alrigh' then," said Hagrid. "Seems that all of us's here now. Thanks fer bringin' 'em down, Mr. Filch."
"I'll be back in a couple of hours, then," said Filch in his nastiest tone. "To collect whatever's left of them."
"Tha' won' be nec'ssary," said Hagrid gruffly. "I'm fully capable 'a bringin' 'em up meself, Mr. Filch. And we're not goin' too far, they're goin' ter be fine."
Lestrade was looking at Filch with distaste, and Sherlock wasn't trying to hide his impatience with the others at all, so John was happy to see the back of the caretaker as he hobbled away.
"Alrigh', then," the gamekeeper said, hoisting his crossbow up from the ground where it had been lying beside him. "So, you two know what you're 'ere for," he said, looking at Anderson and the girl. "And you'd be Philip an' Sally, righ'?"
"Yes," said Anderson sullenly.
"Good," said Hagrid. "Well, towards the end 'o August, I found a dead unicorn in the forest. Dead unicorns like tha', they're rare, so it wor'ied me. Few days la'er, there was another one, and then I found one again jus' yesterday. Seems to be sommat in the forest tha's killin' 'em off, or else someone who's been goin' in ter the forest to do it. So right now we're goin' ter go in to the site o' the last one and check it out together, see if there's anythin' that we can use to find out who's done it. So it'll be the two o' you, Lestrade here, who offered Professor McGonagall ter help, and then Sherlock here who she got ter come out, too, an' 'is friend, erm...what's yer name again?" he asked John.
"John Watson," said John. "And I'm, er...not really his friend, I just met him, and...now I'm here...," he trailed off lamely, looking up at Hagrid nervously. He sneaked a glance at Sherlock, whose face flickered briefly from its look of boredom as he drew his lips together slightly. If John didn't already expect different of him, he might have said that the expression on Sherlock's face, for just a fraction of a second, had been hurt.
"Well, we're glad ter have ya, John," said Hagrid, clapping him on the back. John felt his trainers sink into the soft summer ground a few centimeters, but he smiled up at Hagrid gratefully all the same. The gamekeeper had just made him feel slightly more at ease. To his left, however, he saw the girl named Sally mouth "friend?" to Anderson, and her tone was mocking even if she wasn't speaking aloud.
"So it'll be all o' you, and then me an' Fang," Hagrid finished, gesturing to the boarhound by his feet. "Alrigh', then, let's head in," he said, turning to face the forest and beckoning to them over his shoulder.
The party walked for some time, following Hagrid and Fang at the front of the procession as they wound their way between the tree trunks. John noticed that at first they followed a path that had already been worn down on the mossy ground, but after some time they branched off from it and the trees started to grow even closer together. John inched just a little bit closer to Sherlock, who was walking next to him as they made up the back of the pack. Everyone walked in silence, listening to the sound of the leaves rustling overhead and the occasional owl's hoot as it perched in a tree or flew above hunting for rodents. At least, John was listening to the forest sounds. Whenever he glanced at Sherlock, the other boy seemed to not be paying attention to any of his surroundings, just marching in step with them blindly as his mind focused on a million other things.
Eventually they came to a small clearing, barely more than a large gap between trees, where a unicorn was spread out on its side on the ground. Even as it lay dead upon the forest floor, John could tell that in life it had been a magnificent creature. He'd only ever seen pictures of unicorns before in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but here was one in the flesh, its coat silver and opalescent, long white hair streaming out to form its mane and tail. If not for the askew positioning of the legs and the eyes (deep pools of black that stared up at the sky emptily) it may have almost looked peaceful. The sight sent a shiver through John as he stared down upon it.
"Hmm," said Sherlock quietly from where he was already bent over the unicorn to inspect it. As soon as they had come to the clearing, he had strode over to it purposely, his robes sweeping out from his slight frame for a moment as he did so. The others hung in a sort of circle around him and the unicorn, Hagrid keeping up a low, but steady, monologue to Lestrade about how terrible it was that the unicorn had died while Lestrade stood next to him with his arms folded, watching Sherlock carefully and saying "mmm" and "yeah" periodically in order to be polite to Hagrid. Anderson and Sally were regarding Sherlock with distaste and derision, but John didn't think that they themselves were actually doing anything helpful, just hovering there. Which made him think that he, of course, should be doing something helpful. But he wasn't exactly sure what he could do, so he just stood near the unicorn as Sherlock circled around it and occasionally touched it to inspect something.
After just a few minutes, Sherlock stepped away from the animal, looking satisfied with himself.
"What do you think, Sherlock?" asked Lestrade, interrupting Hagrid's speech.
"The unicorn was killed here, but this isn't where the killer first ambushed it. See, streaks, cuts, across its side. A little far down, so not something you would notice at first, but unicorns are extremely well-balanced, graceful, it wouldn't have scraped itself on branches as it moved through the forest if it were moving on its own, especially not in these places. No, not at all, so that means that the killer took it here, it was probably weakened or incapacitated first. Or she, I should say, not it, because this is clearly a female unicorn. And there, if you take a look at the mouth. Sores. This unicorn wasn't killed by the Killing Curse, that never leaves any marks, it was poisoned. There are several fast-acting poisons that would do the trick, even for an animal of this size."
"Brilliant," said John, looking at Sherlock with an amazed smile. Sherlock gave him a lazy one back.
Lestrade cleared his throat. "That's all very interesting, Sherlock," he said, and Sherlock eyes flicked over to him from John. "But how does it help us find the killer?"
"I'm getting there, and there's more," said Sherlock, holding up a finger and then going back to the unicorn. He was brusque, to the point, but to John he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.
"I said this unicorn is female, but what's more, she's just given birth. Extra fat around the womb area, typical in mammals that have just had young. Unicorns don't reproduce very often, of course, so they generally nurture their young for several months as they grow before the mother and the foal separate. So since the young foal isn't here with the mother, it must be with other members of the herd, and I'm sure if you were to find the herd, Hagrid, you would find a newborn foal with the others."
"I've been meanin' ter check on them, o' course, after all o' this," said Hagrid, gesturing at the felled creature. "I'll hafta keep an eye out fer it, then."
"Big deal," drawled Anderson, speaking for the first time since they had reached the clearing. "So there's a baby unicorn somewhere. So what?"
"Anderson, don't speak out loud. When you do, you lower the IQ of the entire castle," said Sherlock, not even turning to face him. John suppressed a laugh.
"But what does the foal mean, Sherlock?" asked Lestrade with a weary sigh. It seemed to John that Lestrade must be fairly used to dealing with Sherlock.
"Don't you all see it?" asked Sherlock, looking around at them all standing there and looking slightly bewildered. "Obvious. Why would someone kill a unicorn? Healing properties. Yeah, your soul gets tarnished forever and all that, but really, those healing powers are desirable. And in a young foal, they're even more concentrated and powerful per kilo of bodyweight, blood, whatever, so the killer would be much more interested in the foal than the mother. So if he kills the mother, he takes away the foal's main source of protection. Even if the foal's with the rest of the herd now, the other herd members aren't likely to be as protective of the foal as the mother would be."
"Tha's true," said Hagrid, nodding into his beard. "Very true. An' if the foal gets separated, it'd either be easy prey for the killer, or jus' die on its own after a while."
"Brilliant," said John again.
"Exactly," said Sherlock, and it was unclear whether he was responding to Hagrid's comment or John's. "So the killer's going to go for the foal next. Oh, this is almost like a serial killer," he said, rubbing his hands together. "I love this, so much fun," he said with relish. The others were giving him odd looks, except for Lestrade, who was kneading the bridge of his nose with his fingers in a weary sort of way.
"If we find the foal, then, and watch it, we'll eventually be led to the killer," Sherlock continued, sounding much more logical again.
"That's incredible!" said John.
"Do you know you do that out loud?" Sherlock asked him.
"Oh—er—sorry," said John meekly.
"No, don't be," said Sherlock.
"So that's what you think we need to do, Sherlock?" asked Lestrade pointedly, trying to bring him back to the matter at hand. "Find the foal?"
"Yes," said Sherlock. "And if you watch it long enough, the killer should turn up. Unless he already has. In that case, get me again, I'd love to investigate it and see the new body."
There was something not quite right about how excited Sherlock was getting over the dead unicorns, John thought, but he still couldn't help but be left in awe of what was happening all around him. John had never seen this side of Hogwarts before.
"Well, o' course, I'll be doin' tha'," said Hagrid. "Gotta head in ter the forest tomorrow, then, it seems."
"Tomorrow?" said Sherlock. "Oh, it'd be much better to do it tonight. Much closer to the time that the mother was actually killed, you don't want to wait to tomorrow, especially since we already delayed some in coming out here tonight." Before anyone realized he was about to do it, Sherlock bounded off past them and into the trees.
"Wait, what—?" said John, staring after him in bewilderment.
"Yeah," said Lestrade. "He does that."
"No, 'e can't, not this time!" said Hagrid, looking alarmed. "'E can' jus' run off in ter the forest like that! That's dangerous, that is!"
Lestrade looked like he was about to say something else, but Hagrid cut him off.
"No, I'm goin' ter have ter go after 'im. You four have ter head on up ter the castle, you hear? All four o' you, now. Lestrade, you lead them, and make sure ya don' lose any o' them. You remember the way we came in?"
"Yeah, I do," said Lestrade. "Okay, don't worry about us, Hagrid, I'll get them back. And if we run into to trouble, I'll send up red sparks to alert you or someone else at the castle, alright?"
"Righ'" said Hagrid. "Good idea. I'll leave Fang with ya, then. Stay, Fang. Now I gotta go find 'im, so stick together, you four!" He shouted after them, already on his way deeper into the woods to go after Sherlock.
"Alright, you three, this way," said Lestrade authoritatively, beckoning and leading them back through the trees the way they'd come to get back to the castle, the opposite direction from the way Sherlock and Hagrid had gone. Fang the boarhound whined after Hagrid, but once it was clear they were all leaving he started trotting alongside Lestrade. To John, it seemed a big risk for them to be splitting up and going by themselves, especially since they'd had to deviate from the path in the first place just to get to the site of the dead unicorn. The way might not be entirely clear if it wasn't clearly marked out, and the dog wasn't much comfort. However, Lestrade seemed to have a good idea of where they were going, and he didn't hesitate when he changed directions as he lead them onward.
"Bloody idiot," Lestrade muttered under his breath once they had left the clearing, rolling his eyes.
"Who, Sherlock?" asked John.
"Yeah," said Lestrade, with something close to a wry laugh. "That fool has to just go running off into the Forbidden Forest all by himself, of all places."
"Does he do stuff like that often?" John asked curiously.
"Well, the Forbidden Forest is new, as far as I know, but yeah, he likes to just rattle off deductions at me and then just run away because his attention's switched to something else."
John smiled. "So you—er—work with him often?"
"Yeah, I bring him cases and stuff, whatever you want to call them. People come to me with problems a lot, and if I don't know, I just pass them on to Sherlock. He seems to enjoy it, alright, and he's bloody brilliant at it, even if he is crazy."
"How do you know him?" asked Sally from behind them, and John turned to face her, falling behind Lestrade a little so that he could speak to her. "He doesn't have friends. So who are you?" she asked belligerently.
"Why do you say he doesn't have friends?" asked John.
Anderson snorted. John decided that he liked him even less than he already did.
"I said, how do you know him?" asked Sally pushily.
"I just bumped into him yesterday. I don't really know him well at all."
"Hmm. Well don't," she advised him. "Don't get to know him. Stay away from Sherlock Holmes."
"Why?" asked John.
Sally looked at Anderson as if disgusted by John's ignorance. "He's crazy, that's why. You see all this? He likes it. He gets off on it. And one day, just being there isn't going to be enough for him. One day we're going to be looking at a body, and maybe not a unicorn body this time, and it'll be Sherlock Holmes who put it there."
"Donovan, I think that's enough," said Lestrade flatly.
"Why would he do that?" asked John. He was still judging this Slytherin girl much harder for being so rude about Sherlock than he was Sherlock for the things she was saying about him.
"Because he's a psychopath, that's why," she said. "And that's what psychopaths do."
"Donovan, I said that's enough!" insisted Lestrade again from the front. John turned away from Sally and Anderson and picked up his pace so that he could rejoin Lestrade. He and the prefect didn't talk for the rest of the walk back, but John could hear Anderson and Sally muttering to each other in nasty whispers behind them. He did his best to ignore them.
It came as a relief to John when they reached the end of the forest and came out near Hagrid's cabin at almost exactly the same place as they had entered from. He hadn't entirely doubted Lestrade's ability to find the right way, but following him like that had made John a bit nervous, even if they did have Fang. Upon clearing the trees, Anderson and Sally immediately took off for the castle.
"Hey, you two! You—," Lestrade broke off, sighing yet again for what seemed like the tenth time that night. "Oh, whatever," he muttered. "McGonagall or Snape can deal with them."
Fang quickly left Lestrade's side too, whining and trotting over to Hagrid's front door. When it became clear to him that his master wasn't home, the boarhound curled up on the steps to the door to wait there. Lestrade looked at him glumly. Then he turned to John, who was still standing there.
"We should go up to the castle now, then," he said.
"What about Sherlock and Hagrid?"
"Don't worry about them," said Lestrade. "Hagrid knows his stuff if anyone does, he's sure to get Sherlock out of there in no time. If he can't take care of the two of them, then no one can. Well, except maybe Dumbledore."
"Right," said John, feeling reassured. He knew it was silly to doubt Hagrid for something like this. Sherlock's head start had been only marginal, and the gamekeeper certainly had much longer legs.
John fell into step with Lestrade again so that they could go up to the castle together. After a few moments of walking in silence, Lestrade spoke.
"Look, I don't have to like Sherlock to see that he's a genius and he's dead useful," he said to John. "But I'm not going to deny that he can be a right pain in the arse."
"I suppose I can see where you might get that," said John.
"Yeah. Well. Like I said, he's a lot to keep up with. And maybe he's not who I'd choose as a friend or whatever, but you don't necessarily have to take what those two think to heart, Anderson and Donovan, I mean. They're not exactly the prime cut of Hogwarts, either. But just be careful, I suppose I'm saying. Don't get too wrapped up with him...like I said, he's got an attention span about this long," said Lestrade, holding up two fingers extremely close together. "And he's not exactly the most gentle of people, either."
"If he makes things that much more difficult for you, then why do you put up with him?" John asked.
Lestrade sighed yet again. For someone so young, he seemed to be under a lot of stress. Then John thought of himself, and for a fleeting moment he wanted to laugh sardonically.
They had reached the castle doors. "Because Sherlock Holmes is a great wizard," said Lestrade, opening the door that had been left unlocked for them and stepping into the Entrace Hall, still facing John. "And one day, I think, if we're very very lucky, he might even be a good one."
John stood there frowning as the prefect turned away from him and walked off for the marble staircase, hands in his robe pockets. After a few moments, John too entered the castle and closed the door behind himself, deciding to finally make off for the Gryffindor common room. For a brief moment, he wondered if he should go to Ravenclaw tower and wait there instead for a little while to make sure that Sherlock got back, but then he dismissed the idea. He was sure that Sherlock would be fine, and he was half convinced that he was with Hagrid already.
It wouldn't have surprised John if it took him hours to fall asleep that night, but, funnily enough, within a few minutes of pulling the covers around him, he was fast asleep, dreaming of the dark night wrapped in the silver satin of mystery.
"Oh! Er—hello! I didn't expect to see you here," said John in surprise.
"Obviously," drawled Sherlock. "Take a seat, then, John, you're holding up the class," he said, pulling John down into the seat next to him by his robes.
"Er, sorry," said John, shifting himself in the chair to get more comfortable and out of Sherlock's grip. "So Gryffindors have Charms with the Ravenclaws this year?"
"So it would seem," answered Sherlock. He had been reclined back in his chair just a minute ago as if it were a sofa in a common room rather than a straight-backed wooden chair in a classroom, but after seeing John he sat up and seemed to be injected with energy and purpose.
"So you got out of the forest alright?" asked John, turned to face him. Today, he noticed, Sherlock's eyes seemed blue. He wondered why that was, did they change color?
"Yes, quite," said Sherlock, looking slightly miffed. "Hagrid found me in about fifteen minutes. I think he gave me a lecture about not wandering off, but I wasn't paying much attention. Seems logical to assume that's what it was about, as I am fairly certain he was talking. No matter. Anyway, I didn't make it to the herd, which means that I haven't been able to find the foal and come up with any way of monitoring it. Hagrid said he'll look for it, and Hagrid's generally good at his job, but we're going to keep a look out, anyway."
"We are?" asked John.
"Of course," said Sherlock, waving a hand at him. "This afternoon we'll go to Hogsmeade together. Of the places the herd frequents, the one closest to the village is near the Three Broomsticks, so we can watch for the unicorns from there."
"Wait, but Hogsmeade visits don't start for another few weeks. Aren't the other people in Hogsmeade going to be suspicious of a couple of Hogwarts students are hanging around there?" asked John. The first Hogsmeade visit he would ever be allowed to go on was on Halloween that year, more than a month and a half away.
"Not the barmaid at the Three Broomsticks. I got her out of a tight spot a little while back, so she'll let me in, no problem," said Sherlock nonchalantly.
"Okay, I guess so," said John slowly.
"Excellent, we'll go down once classes end today," said Sherlock. He leaned back in his chair again, pressing his hands together and closing his eyes. To someone else, it may have seemed as if he were in prayer, but John could tell that Sherlock was thinking. He frowned. It was as if Sherlock were in his own little world and had only decided to check in with the real one briefly to get the response he wanted from John. Then he had checked right back out again.
"Now, welcome back, class!" said Professor Flitwick's voice from the front of the room. "I hope you haven't forgotten everything we did last year over the summer!" he said by way of beginning the lesson.
Charms class while sitting next to Sherlock was different from Charms class while not sitting next to Sherlock. John had always thought his charmwork was rather good, and, indeed, it was normally some of the best in the class, but Sherlock kept giving periodic criticisms.
"Oh, for God's sake, John, do you always try and hold the wand like that for this movement?" he asked at one point. Then, without any kind of request for permission, Sherlock grabbed John's arm, rearranged his grip on the wand, and moved it in what he seemed to think was the proper motion. "There. Do it like that."
At first John had found him overbearing and kept wanting to send back his own snappy responses, but soon he began to realize that Sherlock's way often worked much better than whatever he'd been doing before. They spent the class period reviewing charms from the previous year, and John knew that he was regaining the feeling of the spells much faster than he had last year when they reviewed after the summer holidays. It seemed that Sherlock, however, was doing less spell-casting and spending more of the class period with his eyes trained on John.
When the bell rang, Sherlock was the first out of the class. John had been going to say something to him along the lines of "see you later!" but it seemed that the other boy didn't find this necessary. John looked at Sherlock's empty seat for a moment, then back at the door where he had vanished.
"Look sharp, John!" said Professor Flitwick. The last of the other students were just leaving through the doorway.
John heaved his bag over his shoulder and left the room, still puzzling over the strange character that was Sherlock Holmes.
