Author's Note
I don't own any of the Harry Potter or Sherlock universe
Chapter 10. Falling
Hermione POV
We start heading back to the house soon after the police arrive and start photographing and documenting all the evidence for the murder. Later that week we see it in the paper, but by then it had become almost irrelevant to the case. All of us walked silently, deep in our thoughts and opinions, trying in our own way to make sense of this all. Sherlock's eyes keep hardening and he keeps clasping his hands open and closed into a fist. His pace is much more deliberate and forceful, not bothering even to look or care what's going on around him. He's caught up now in his world, and he doesn't care for this one anymore. I've never seen him this angry before, no, it's not just fury, there's fear fueling that anger. Something he saw there, he saw something there to scare him to be this angry. John looks apprehensively at Sherlock, and I know he's worried. He keeps nudging him and whispering something in his ear, but I don't think Sherlock hears it. I don't think Sherlock hears anyone now.
I keep staring at Sherlock without meaning to. I just can't help it, what is he hiding? He must be hiding something, I saw him take that paper out of that dagger, I saw how he reacted, how his eyes widened with pure fear. I saw how his hands shook when he read that paper over and how quickly he tucked it into his coat, not even daring to look me into the eyes when he knew I saw it. A part of me desperately wants to know what it said on there, what made a person like Sherlock shake so hard like that. But then again, I don't know if I can handle the truth. After all, what could scare someone like Sherlock, a teenager who does murders for fun?
"I'll acquire and connect the data at home. Come on John, you too Hermione." I pause my train of thoughts, looking up to him. Did he really just say that? Did he say my name? Does he want me there again?
"Oh stop staring at me like that. I do know your name after all. John was going to invite you anyway, I was just saving him the trouble." Sherlock said, rolling his eyes. Of course, that's why he did it, the git.
"Fine then, I'll come, only since John wants me there so badly," I say, and turn my head high. Sherlock only rolls his eyes again before whispering something to John. While things now seem far from perfect and the world, in fact, is crumbling at my feet, I can't help but smile because he said my name.
XXX
I arrive at the Holme's house half an hour later, after collecting and taking down all the various files, books, and notes I had collected over the past few weeks. I then put them into huge bins and toted them off with my old waggon still in the garage, much to my parent's surprise and confusion at the huge mess of a room I left as a result.
I still hesitate when I stand on that wooden patio, though, staring a little too hard at the chippings on the door. It's pointless to stare at them anyways, I've already memorised them by heart because I spent so many times here. I sigh, this house just so full of memories of my childhood, even though it lasted a year it felt like so much more. And now, he's a part of my life again, or at least it feels that way. What could I even say what he thought about me? I don't think anyone except him knew that, and I'm sure he's not going to tell me anytime soon. What could he see, the genius who could read me so well yet I couldn't even read an inch of him? The boy who held so many thoughts and wonders on the tips of his fingers, who could be cold and harsh yet so broken and kind too. While he's certainly not the boy from my childhood he still made me wonder as much as that boy did when I was that girl. He's still the same person who challenges me, pushes me, and makes me think and then rethink, and that's why I've always liked him. He's pushed me when no one else had dared to.
The door opens and Mrs Holmes stands there. "Oh, Hermione dear, I didn't expect you, though I supposed I should have considering the ruckus Sherlock is making in his room." She said, chuckling to herself.
"How have you been dear? How are you?" She looks genuinely kindly at me, I miss someone looking at me like that.
"I've been okay," I lie.
"May I come in?" I said, motioning to the waggon.
"Oh, of course, dear! Please, be my guest. I've already set up a tea tray, you and the boys can share it. Make sure Sherlock eats one." She says lightheartedly but from the underlying tone, I know she's probably worried half to death about him. What mother wouldn't be? Even though Sherlock looked better than he did in the lab he's still probably too thin and pale for Mrs Holmes not to notice.
As she stands in the kitchen, putting the last cookies on the tea set I can't help but stare at the photos across the mantlepiece. There are a lot of photos of Sherlock and Mycroft when they were little, a chubby one-year-old Sherlock snuggling against a bee pillow twice his size, a two-year-old toddling around the house in a giant pirate cap, a three-year-old smiling excitedly at his birthday party with his first ever microscope, all of them seemingly happy. As he aged though the pictures progressively got more sparse and in between. A five-year-old Sherlock dressed as an elephant, staring into the distance at a boy dressed as a pirate dancing on the stage, a seven-year-old Sherlock playing in the park with a bunch of other children, but strangely none seem to be close distance to him, a 10-year-pld Sherlock in his 4th grade graduation, already towering at a head taller than most, keeping his head down and scowling at the camera. Each time the photos get unhappier, and he gets lonelier.
On the end of the mantle, though there's a single photo of Sherlock and me. I think it's the only documented evidence of us together besides the Halloween photo. It's the one on Christmas morning, I had spent it with the Holmes because I had wanted to see him receive his present firsthand so badly. It was taken right after Sherlock had given me my gift, a beautiful song that I loved so much. I remember being so happy at that moment, so full of bliss there with him. And even though they weren't my family it was one of the happiest moments of my life. Even Sherlock seems happy, half smiling at me, completely oblivious to the camera, still wearing his bee sweater I gave him. I laugh, if I didn't know better it's almost as if he had a crush on me back then.
"I remember that day, it was one of the few days I had seen him smile so much. He loved that sweater to bits and pieces you know, practically wore it every day, staining it, and poking holes in it constantly, but always wanting me to fix it because it was from his best friend, Hermione." Mrs Holmes says, handing me the tray. She looks at the photo smiling fondly at it.
"He smiled so much back then, I wish he smiled like that again." She said to herself, she then looks up at me.
"Give him the tray, and make sure he eats, and make sure he smiles." She then left for the kitchen, humming to herself.
XXX
When I enter his room it's already vastly different than his usual hodgepodge of an organised mess he kept around. Most of the lab equipment is still in boxes, presumably from Molly's lab as he had moved most of his stuff there for his research. All the other scarce data files he did have were now being pinned onto the wall, with the help of John of course. The science posters still hung, but now were covered with hundreds of scrawled and scribbled down notes and data that I could barely read. The hundreds of books that used to line the shelves were now reduced to only about twenty, sorted in a random order I can only assume by relevance. His desk still is messy, but instead of random notes and papers, it's more books, opened to various pages, dog-eared in some corners, and highlighted and marked in on various paragraphs. I start to manoeuvre towards his bed and set down the tray, turning to look at John and Sherlock.
John turns to look at me. "Oh good, you're here. You brought the files, right?" I nod, rolling in the large waggon.
Sherlock greedily snatches them from there, skimming four files at a time until he's finished, which only took him a minute or two. "This will be somewhat helpful to fill in the times and dates of these victims, which can then help with correlation. You can start putting up the data on the walls, and we can then begin connecting it." He said, motioning to the remaining blank wall space. John then starts picking up the files and slowly starts to reassemble the data with me.
After we do all the boxes in the waggon we slowly move to the other boxes in the room, until John finds one tucked in the corner, covered with blood and stains, taped down firms with duct tape. "Sherlock, what's this?" John asks.
"Don't open it, it's just a couple files I collected from Molly's lab. I'll sort it out later," Sherlock said.
"Well, we can just do it now. I mean, it's not like the mess of your room is going to go away anytime soon." John says.
"I said don't open it!" Sherlock shouts, running towards the box, but it's too late. John had opened the box and now slowly examines everything in there.
I look inside the box with him, Sherlock doesn't move to try to stop us. His eyes now are downcast and he doesn't bother to even look at us while we examine everything in there. He doesn't even move, he's frozen in shock. His hands are shaking again, but he still remains standing. What could be in here? What secrets could Sherlock have? I pull out the files one by one. It seems to be at first glance a box full of letters, but when I tried to read them I realised they were all encoded, with descriptions, red underlined words and blacked out other ones, jumbled words that made no sense, various languages and puzzles, most of them completely solved. The disturbing part though is how relevant they seem to the case. There's a line about a scientist travelling to Egypt and being killed by his own artefact, a picture of Cruella de Ville with the dalmatians attacking her, dying from the beast within. All of them are from children's stories, each with pictures cut out from them and descriptions scarily like our murder case, and the stories always with the same meaning. A monster killing the victims for wrongdoing, just like a valiant knight in a fairy tale. Who's the other writer of these? Who could have possibly known and written all this? How did Sherlock even get his hands on this? What does this all mean, and why didn't he say anything before?
John's voice shakes as he starts to stand up. "Sherlock, what, what is all this?"
Sherlock doesn't answer, only turns to look away. "Bloody hell, Sherlock! What is this! Who are these from?!" John is yelling now, and he's shaking Sherlock back and forth.
"I don't know!" Sherlock says, shoving John onto the ground.
John looks up in disbelief before Sherlock breaks down, and when he speaks his voice is weak and quiet. "I don't know, John."
"When did this start?" I ask.
He takes a deep breath in, though his voice is still shaky. "When I was 11, there was a lady who we took a case from, but soon we found her dead in her home. While at the crime scene though I noticed something odd about a photo on her mantelpiece. I know I shouldn't have but curiosity got the best of me and stole it to examine it later. Upon examination, I discovered a hidden message tucked into the picture frame, written in code. I easily decoded it and followed the instructions our of curiosity to see what would happen."
"Sherlock!" John shouted, looking him straight into the eyes. Sherlock doesn't look back, he doesn't look at either of us.
"I thought nothing of it really until I got a message back 2 weeks later. Soon, this killer and I began to have a sort of routine, decoding the other's message before sending a coded one back, each trying to outdo the other. It last for about a year, and then suddenly the messages stopped with only a single phrase. "until we meet again SH-" Then nothing. Soon after I gave up on it, packing away all the letters and taping it shut, forgetting about it after a year or two. Then he started again for some reason, and now he's given me this letter to start." He said, pulling it out, his fingers shaking.
"Now do you see? Now do you see the grave I've dug for myself? Now do you know, Hermione, why you must still get out of this case while you still have time when you still haven't been taken over like me?" His voice shakes so hard when he says this, and it makes my heart ache to hear him like this, to see him like this.
"Why didn't you say anything before?" I ask, my voice breaking.
"He was going to kill you if you knew. He's going to kill you now that you've discovered it. He made it clear the first time he sent the letter it was only a game between him I! You were never meant to play the game, no one else was! It's a game between God's of minds, that's what he called it. Don't you see, a game for God's, he's going to kill you both now!" Sherlock said, standing up.
"Well it's too late now, isn't it? I can't just stand here watching you idiotically risk your life trying to outsmart this person! Whoever he is, no matter what, he is or knows of the murderer. It doesn't matter anymore if my life is in danger, I already knew when I was handed the case my life was going to be in danger! I've been living with danger since I've been eleven, and I've already promised too many people I would do them justice and I am! He killed Molly's dad, I want to at least have something to show for that! I want to serve her justice!" I yell.
"I don't even know who he is, Hermione. Yet he already knows of you 2. He already is winning the game."
"Then we're just going to have to catch up then, together. We've already made it this far, and I want to beat this bastard, too." I say, grabbing his hand.
He looks like he's about to say something, but then freezes, staring at my hand in his palm. He's frozen again as if he can't believe this as if he can't believe I'm real. As if my existence is nothing but a dream. I freeze too, staring at him. I can feel his hands, they're so cold against mine. His expression now has softened, and he's not shaking so much, his breathing's lowered too. He continually stares back and forth at me and his hand, trying to process everything in front of him, trying to understand everything, trying to see and understand me. Why does he have to try so hard like this to see me? Why does it look like he believes I'm a dream? Why can't he just see me like he sees John or others? And why does my heart keep beating faster the longer he stares at me like that? Why is my heart racing a hundred miles when he's touching my hand like this? Why is it different with him?
He then wraps his hand around mine, gripping it so hard it nearly hurts. He's pulling me in, holding me so tightly, like an anchor. He's gripping me so hard as if forcing me to not disappear. He's gripping me like he's afraid I'm not going to exist again like this will be the last time he's going to see me. I grip his hand hard too, making sure he knows I'm there and I'm always going to be there. I'm not going to disappear on him, I won't let it. I won't put him ever again in that sort of pain. "Okay," he whispers.
"Okay," he whispers.
"Okay," I said.
John then coughs. "Alright, um, glad you 2 made up and all but can we work on the case with the new clues now?" John says, slightly smirking.
"What? Yeah, of course." I say quickly, shoving myself away from Sherlock. I shove him so hard he falls off the bed, looking at me annoyed, returning to his usual self. John's smirk only grows wider.
John POV
We start to put the new evidence onto the wall, though both of them are doing it half-heartedly, too distracted with their own thoughts. Hermione keeps staring at the wall so hard you might think lasers would come out of her eyes and blast the whole thing into oblivion. Her face which was tinged pink is now bright red and I can practically feel the electricity coming off her hair. Her feet stand still and she's completely frozen in place. I don't think even if I wanted to I could move her. Besides it's probably best to leave her with her thoughts considering what I just saw.
As if Hermione's bad enough she's nothing even close to Sherlock, I think he's completely lost it. His brain is trying to think of a logic for explaining what just happened, and now his brains gone into overdrive trying to completely explain this scientifically, and he might fry it if he continues trying to. He just sits on the bed, his eyes completely confused on what just happened, the only thing he does seem to be moving is his hand where Hermione's was, opening and closing it, and examining it, not daring to look up at me, or her.
I shake my head, honestly, these two are too much. They've spent weeks hating each other and suddenly are back to liking each other again. No, liking each other was an understatement, I would say they almost acted like a couple. I chuckle to myself. If they only could see how the other thought about them then they could actually potentially be a normal couple instead of having these awkward love/hate moments. It's cute and painful to watch at the same time, not to mention hilarious for Sherlock still being confused about it. No, I doubt it's going to happen now though if it ever happens at all. Both are too prideful to admit to the other their feelings and much too stubborn to ask, not to mention they're completely oblivious about how the other feels normally. Besides, I don't think they even understand what they feel about the other yet, even. Well, I'll just have to wait and see I guess, hopefully, it's not going to be this painful during the whole summer, though.
Author's Note
I love writing this chapter so much, the chapter was honeslty a bit cute. It's a little divergence off the plot but I hope you don't mind! Poor John, having to witness that, unfortunately I don't think they're going to get much better after this, they are after all a bit awkward. Anyways, I hope you guys liked this as much as I liked writing it and please review!