"And that," says Sherlock, with the arrogance of someone who knew he was right, "is the worst that can happen."
John looked at Sherlock with smiling eyes. "Okay. But it was pretty brilliant."
"Obviously."
After countless prods, pleas, bargains, and threats, John and Sherlock entered the field together, one nervous but hopeful, the other annoyed and bored.
The professor had smiled upon John's entry, it turning into horror as she laid eyes on Sherlock, who sauntered in and said, "We'd better hurry, John, she has a date after."
"Oh, Sherlock." The professor sighed, with a thin smile. "Let's hope your flying skills have improved."
Sherlock gave her a steely look and opened his mouth, only to have John wearily push him past. "Let's go get our brooms," he said, giving Sherlock a nervous smile, turning around and giving the professor a nod.
John had stored his broom in the Quidditch locker rooms, because where else would he, and Sherlock didn't even care so John put his in there too. But either they were late, or no one else did this (which was unlikely), for there were only two broomsticks in the empty locker room.
Sherlock walked in and only took a couple of steps before he immediately grabbed John's broom.
"That's—"
"I know," Sherlock murmured, running a hand along the broom handle. He pressed his lips together, sighed, and glowered at nothing in particular, before drawing his wand out of his robe.
"You can't—"
"John," said Sherlock.
John bit his lip and mumbled, "No wands during games."
"I know," said Sherlock, exaggerating the drag of the words. "I was the reason they made that rule."
Looking at Sherlock with exasperation, John sat down on a bench and placed his wand, along with his bag, into a locker. He pulled out a combination lock and Sherlock glanced at it with a suppressed smile, not stopping his wand twirling in his hand.
"Well I'm sorry I can't charm lockers to close on their own and even if I did I wouldn't know how to open it again," John muttered in a rapid-fire, snapping shut the lock and memorising the combination before scratching the back label.
Sherlock muttered something that didn't sound quite english. John looked over. "What are you doing?"
Swishes of sparks were spiralling over a broomstick. John's.
"Sherlock," pressed John, "If you're trying to make it fly better—"
"I would never," Sherlock snapped. "So unfair," he added.
"I hope you see the irony in that."
"Charles cursed your broom," Sherlock mumbled distastefully, ignoring John. "I'm counter-cursing it, unless you would like to end up with a concussion halfway through the practise."
John gritted his teeth, opened his mouth, closed it, glared, and suppressed a sigh. "Only enemy I make, and it's a vindictive brat."
"I wouldn't say only," said Sherlock. "Irene Adler. Also a vindictive brat. Possibly more." He handed John his broomstick. "That'll be fine."
"Thanks," John said, a tad distrustfully, and they walked over to the field.
They were a tad late, John noted, as the students were already flying, back and over, in showy loops, and in various other tricks.
John grinned and joined in, doing the best he could, while keeping an eye on Sherlock, who looked like he wanted to set his broom on fire (which he probably could).
After a couple moments, the professor clapped her hands. "Alright, students," she called out, "we're going to start a game—I'll split you up into two groups and assign your positions."
Sherlock and John ended up on different teams; John became a Chaser and Sherlock a Beater. Sherlock looked disgusted as he handled the Bludger and studied it meticulously. John didn't want to know what Sherlock was deducing.
The whistle blew, and the game began.
John had played Quidditch in class many times now. Swooping in the air, flying to the other side, as soon as the whistle blew, he was quickly immersed in his role. After scoring on the Keeper, the Quaffle swooping past and through the golden hoop, John hopefully glanced over to the professor—
Only to find her gaping, completely distracted, by something on the other side.
John turned around, and his job, too, was utterly forgotten.
"You with the fake tan, turn around and cut across, get that Bludger—that Gryffindor, yes, you, the one dating her, get out, no, the other way, are you blind—"
Sherlock Holmes steadied his broomstick with a curse. He caught John's eye and shot him a wink and a smile, before turning back to his teammates and continuing to bark out commands, each one more confusing than the last. The Gryffindor had sent Sherlock a furious glare as the apparently-not-natural tanned girl shared with him a panicked look.
"You're a Beater!" the Keeper finally managed to scream out from the far side of the field, blocking a Quaffle from John, who had absentmindedly tossed it, not taking his eyes off Sherlock.
"Yes, and I, unlike anyone else, am actually doing my job!" Sherlock called back. John tilted his head and looked around, and his breath caught in his throat.
The Bludger zipped, zig-zagged, and bashed his teammates into a daze.
John muttered under his breath. He turned his eyes back to Sherlock, who had started waving his hands in the air before his broom tilted dramatically and he was forced to stop. Sherlock didn't have a wand. But the Bludger was, indeed, moving.
Suddenly, it zoomed towards him; John's face contorted into shock, too dazed to move—
it abruptly stopped, swerved, and whammed into another Chaser beside him. John turned, and his apology died in his throat. John grinned at a cursing Charles. "Hey, Charlie~" John said with an evil grin, wiggling his fingers.
Charles blinked and looked at John with dazed eyes. John laughed and flew away.
John flew around, looking, observing. His eyes caught Sherlock, whose eyes widened as he sharply drew in a breath. "Thorne!" he yelled stiffly, immediately biting his lip after, a hint of panic laced through the words. "North-east!" he hissed.
Thorne, the Seeker, swerved his broom to look at Sherlock. "Pardon?"
"Up; no, 35 degrees, north!" Sherlock snapped, helplessly watching Thorne as he swivelled his head around to no avail.
Sherlock groaned with distraught. "You're only -400 diopters, since when were you blinded?!"
Finally, Thorne saw it, and John did, too: a tiny flash of gold. "Found it!" Thorne called out—loudly. John suppressed a grin.
"Too late, you simple minded gnat," Sherlock muttered. With a loud whoop, John's team's Seeker grasped the fluttering Snitch firmly in his hands.
"Yeah, Zachary!" John shouted to the Seeker, who was beaming, surrounded by congratulating teammates.
"Good game, everyone," said the professor weakly. "I'll have the list up by Friday."
They landed back down, and she turned to the other team, who had all turned on Sherlock.
"Mr. Holmes," she then said, quietly. "I don't suppose you're a coach?"
"I did my job," snapped Sherlock, "and better than all you dimwits."
"Magic during Quidditch is forbidden. You of all people should know that."
"No," replied Sherlock, "it isn't. Wands are forbidden. Magic is not." He smirked. "And to think it was you who made that rule."
"I-You," the professor stammered, face turning red.
"Woah, there," John said gently, jokingly, trying to coax Sherlock away. "Tryouts are over, now, don'cha think?"
"Hey, hold on, you're not going anywhere."
"Ah, we really ought to get going; you don't want to late for your date!" John gave the professor a flimsy smile and grabbed Sherlock's wrist, leading him away.
"He hates your haircut!" Sherlock called out behind him. John squeezed his wrist, and Sherlock rolled his eyes but continued walking with a satisfied smile.
Re-entering the castle, John asked, "How'd you know he hates her haircut?"
"Everyone does."
The days turned to weeks, the leaves began to turn colour, and one day, John watched with a peaceful ambiance as they twirled onto the ground with a soft gust of wind. Autumn was full upon them.
John was much too old to go trick-or-treating anymore, but he still felt the thrill of the holiday.
There was a Halloween Feast, John knew—and highly anticipated. As the days drew closer, he delighted in the small decorations appearing in classrooms, the candles in the Great Hall turning orange and black and pumpkin-and-apple-scented.
And as the days slowly drew nearer, John (perhaps from having inhaled too much black glitter for his hat) had gone a tad overboard and charmed the armchairs in the Gryffindor common room to screech and shriek, whenever sat on—it ended in less than an hour, with the Headmaster trying to hold back a smile as he counter-charmed the squashy chairs, but to be fair, it was pretty great to see the students scream (along with the chair.)
In Transfiguration (fourth-year, one that Sherlock somehow managed to enter), the students had attempted to turn a rat, into a bat. John, after creating a terrifying creature, with short, scurrying paws and wildly flapping wings, finally managed to turn the poor scuttling rodent into a fluttering bat.
Sherlock was busy giving his bat long red fangs and a spiked tail.
Sherlock watched (moodily, but with a lazy smirk) as John continued to turn the bat into a cat, his own "bat" confisticated and nowhere to be found.
When All Hallows' Eve finally descended upon Hogwarts, John woke with a chill in his spine.
When the Feast finally dawned upon them, John was delighted to find it not disappointing, nor overrated, in the slightest. The Feast was absolutely wonderful. John had never seen one that had even come close to anything like it. The ghosts swooped around them, howling in harmony, wailing out a ghastly tune, the candles flickering, wildly blown. The food was pure heaven—John had never had such a feast in his life.
It had even gone as far as allowing the students to sit wherever they wished to sit. A bit of a mistake, John thought as he maneuvered the crowds, ears ringing. Deafening, boisterous crowds of friends swarmed the Great Hall, as live spiders and bats scuttled and swooped in cages—some out of them. John had taken extra care to avoid the spiders.
After an hour or so, John wound up in a corner, chatting to one or two people and also some of the ghosts, watching on as some kid chugged down half a gallon of Butterbeer, and mostly just hanging about. Things were good, he thought, a bit drowsily.
And then everything went to hell.
One moment John's sipping his pumpkin-spiced-butterbeer, the other everyone's screaming. Starting near the doors, it slowly spread like wildfire.
John craned his neck, tingles shooting down his spine, but only saw hundreds of heads, armed with each and every one of their screams.
Anderson, with his askew hat and less-than-formal attire, stood up on a table, cast a spell that made everyone's ears pop, and cupped his hands to his mouth.
"Everyone, stay calm!" he shouted, voice amplified by a hundred. The Great Hall almost immediately dwindled down to a dead silence.
Anderson hopped down, and the next thing he said was so quiet, no one would've been able to hear it if not for how silenced the entire room now was. "Hello," he said tightly.
John gritted his teeth and jumped up and down, stretching his neck.
He came down with huge eyes and a pounding heart. A glimpse was all he needed.
Molly Hooper lay unconscious on the floor.
Her hair was singed, tips blackened, as was her clothes. Her eyes were closed in an eerie peacefulness. And what stood before her… John gaped and tried not to whimper.
The half man, half house whinnied. "If it wasn't Molly, I wouldn've risked this." She prodded the floor and gazed at the crowd with obvious displeasure. "Found her in one of those firebush caves. Should've foreseen it… I thought you took care of your students."
He snorted and turned around, breaking off into a trot.
"Wait!" Anderson shouted out, shattering the silence. But it was too late. The centaur galloped away at full-speed, leaving behind a sprawled and burnt Molly.
"Recap everything," Sherlock pressed on.
"I'm sorry," Molly mumbled, twiddling her bandages. She took a breath and blinked hard, clasping her hands together.
"I love Herbology, and the Forbidden Forest is brimming with plants. I go there, secretly, a lot. All the creatures there know me. I used to purposely get detentions, just for the sake of exploring. But I've learned that no one really notices when I'm gone."
John bit his lip and looked at Molly with a mix of pity, sympathy, and anger, but her eyes were closed. "I don't really like the Feasts," she said plainly. "I wanted to see the forest."
"I didn't know it would happen. I think I heard something… like a thud? So I wandered into one of those caves, but I've done it before, you just have to be a bit careful around them." She frowned slightly. "If it weren't for Titania, I could've died."
Molly shivered. "I might've tripped. Into the fire? I can't remember, I really can't. I'm sorry."
"You have nothing to be sorry for," John said, and Molly smiled nervously (John's assumption of her when they first met, seemed to be correct). What she was about to say next was cut off as the nurse hustled in.
"Time's up, boys!" she said, clapping her hands. "Molly needs to rest."
John rose from his seat with reluctance. He gave Molly one final look, and followed Sherlock out of the room.
"Got anything?" he said tentatively, as they walked down the hall.
"Never speculate before the facts are clear."
John rolled his eyes, and then frowned as he looked around his surroundings, which wasn't near any of their dorms, but still somehow seemed strangely familiar. As they turned a corner, John realised: it was the portrait, the secret passage.
Whispering something to the portrait, it swung open, and Sherlock stepped in halfway. "Anderson's given me permission," he said before John could ask.
Sherlock peered at John, tilting his head slightly.
"You like mysteries?"
"Love 'em."
A slight pause, and then Sherlock turned to face John fully, with a very faint smile.
"Want one in real life?"
"Oh, Gods, yes," uttered John, and he hustled into the portrait.
