A/N: Here you are, then. I'm not overly confident in the quality of this one and it took a rather unexpected turn after a certain point, but I do hope it meets your expectations.
WARNING: This chapter contains discussion of child death and violent bullying.
Chapter 12: Trials, Part 2
Sherlock was quite annoyed when he found John and Molly following him out to the Quidditch Pitch on Friday night. He wouldn't answer them about what position he was trying for. In fact, he wouldn't speak to them at all. Undeterred, they took seats in the stands and waited, watching various students in blue milling about the pitch. Lestrade, Sally, and Anderson showed up and came to sit with John and Molly. Anderson in particular looked very excited.
"This is going to be good," he told them, rubbing his hands together. They got the answer to the question of why before they could even ask, because only a moment later, a very put out Sherlock appeared on the field followed by none other than Gilderoy Lockhart. The blond swaggered in and smiled up at the stands, winking at Molly.
"Oh, please tell me they're not trying for the same position," she pleaded to her friends, but Anderson only grinned, to her dismay. Soo Lin Yao arrived to take a seat beside Molly, which fortunately temporarily distracted her from her distress.
"I almost forgot it was this evening," Soo Lin apologized, dark eyes briefly searching for Sherlock. Molly was rather glad to see her. They hadn't spoken since the start of term and Molly was interested to know how the first year was getting on. She'd heard that Soo Lin had made a number of friends, including a Hufflepuff named Andy.
"How are-"
"Shush! Trevor's talking!" John hissed and Molly returned her attention to the students in Quidditch uniforms.
"Right. We'll start with the Seekers. Since there are only two of you, we can make quick work of it by using a real Snitch. Catch it before the other and you've got yourself a spot on the team," Trevor announced. Molly and the others could hear this time because they'd had sense enough to sit closer to the ground.
Sherlock and Lockhart stepped forward and mounted their brooms while Trevor let the Snitch loose. Molly and John's jaws dropped. Somehow, they hadn't expected Sherlock to go for Seeker. Now it seemed a fairly obvious choice, especially given how small he was for his age and how quick and observant he was by nature. Next to him, Lockhart looked entirely too sure of himself, such that while Sherlock was preparing to push off from the ground in waiting for Trevor's signal, Lockhart was brushing back into place an errant golden wave atop his head. Trevor sent up red sparks from his wand and the two second year boys shot off into the air. It took Sherlock a matter of seconds to spot the golden speck at the other end of the pitch and about as much time for Lockhart to catch on and follow. The pair raced after the Snitch with astonishing speed. Their passing was enough to rustle Molly and Soo Lin's skirts and hair. Lockhart shoved Sherlock, trying to get ahead, and the raven haired boy calculatedly elbowed the other in the ribs, retaking the lead just in time to nearly collide with a goal post, eliciting gasps from his friends. Lockhart tried to ram him again, but he swerved out of the way and did a tight vertical loop to pursue the Snitch, which had suddenly flitted in the opposite direction and downwards.
"Merlin's Beard!" Lestrade exclaimed in awe. They all watched, enraptured, as Sherlock sped after the little golden ball with a flustered Lockhart now far behind him. The Snitch tried to evade Sherlock by reversing its direction again, but he seemed to perceive its intentions and snatched it up as it flew just below the middle of his broom. His friends cheered and clapped loudly in delight, John and Molly going as far as to jump to their feet. Even Donovan and Anderson managed to look a little impressed. Lockhart, on the other hand, was extremely displeased when he caught sight of Trevor shooting up red sparks again, signaling that the Snitch had been caught.
"Well done, both of you, and congratulations, Holmes. You'll have a job filling Alya Darzi's shoes, but if what I just saw is any indication, I think you'll do just fine. Welcome to the team." Trevor spoke once both boys had returned to the ground and ruffled Sherlock's curls. The other existing members of the team, including the former Seeker's younger sister, Zahra, applauded and beamed at the boy. Lockhart stomped off without another word, apparently livid, dragging his broom along the ground as he went. Trevor watched him go and muttered something under his breath that looked an awful lot to Molly like "smarmy git". She frowned, disapproving of such unkindness.
"Poor Lockhart," Molly sighed, and John raised his eyebrows at her. Like Sherlock, he'd formed negative opinion of Gilderoy Lockhart and didn't understand why the Hufflepuff was so forgiving of him. "I'm glad Sherlock got in, though. He's talented."
"I don't think anyone can deny it," Lestrade commented. "Blimey. How's Moran going to compete with that?"
"He can't," Anderson snickered and Donovan thwacked him upside the head. John chuckled and Molly turned her disapproving gaze on him. He sheepishly tried to force away his smile.
"Ooh, it's the girl from the train." Soo Lin suddenly spoke up and diverted the others' attention to the familiar blonde with a pink ribbon tying back her hair. Jennifer Wilson was trying out for the open Beater position. It turned out that she had quite a mean swing. One of the targets completely exploded from the impact of the Bludger Wilson had sent at it. Since the other candidates couldn't produce something similar, she too made it on the team. She bounced a little when the captain announced it and walked with Sherlock to join the group in the stands. Sherlock seemed to have become rather friendly with Jennifer. Molly theorized that it was because he liked people who were different and who showed him respect. Jennifer was exactly that way. He obviously didn't approve of her passion for all things bright pink, but the fact that she had the courage to be herself seemed much more important to him. That thought warmed Molly's heart such that her face hurt from smiling so completely at him when he came to sit on Soo Lin's other side. He appeared to be a little unsettled at her affectionate aura, so she forced herself to drop the smile and pay attention to the Chaser trial, which Victor actually got up in the air to conduct.
One of the candidates managed to accidentally collide with the very poll Sherlock had avoided earlier, another nearly fell from his broom in throwing the Quaffle. Eventually it was a robust sixth year boy who managed to meet Trevor's standards. Soo Lin said she recognized him from an altercation she'd witnessed between him and a couple of Gryffindors. Sherlock didn't seem at all pleased as he went back down with Jennifer to the field.
"I think that one's got a bit of an unpleasant reputation," Soo Lin informed Molly quietly. This filled the Hufflepuff with an uncomfortable sense of foreboding which she tried to ignore in favour of being happy for Sherlock and his success at becoming Seeker, a decision she would later come to regret.
As autumn came upon them, Molly found herself spending less and less time with her two close friends. Usually, one or the other of them was at Quidditch practice and she more and more frequently spent her evenings alone. She missed the days when they'd all go down to the lake to swim together, the days when Carl Powers' murder wasn't hanging over them and they'd all just been happy to be back at Hogwarts. That joy seemed to be dying along with the leaves on the trees.
Professor Prince wasn't making things any easier on them. By the end of September, Molly had found an article in one of Sherlock's Daily Prophets by the woman which discussed how the way the students and staff dressed was, in short, 'an utter travesty' and how she planned to fix this. Not long after that, Prince began issuing each student a personalized list of things they should do to improve their appearance. Molly received one telling her that she needed to bob her hair and buy some new, pointier toed shoes so she didn't look like she'd 'stepped out of a squalid Muggle orphanage'. The girl ripped the parchment to tiny bits and sniffled the moment she got out of class. Sherlock whipped out his wand and incinerated his.
"What did yours say?" Molly asked.
"'Cut your hair and comb it to the right' followed by a list of name brand potions that would straighten and keep it in place," Sherlock replied rather venomously. When the subject was brought up with John, the Gryffindor went off like a firecracker about Professor Prince. He went on and on about how she was a privileged old bat who ought to be sacked for harassment.
"Honestly, she's making people cry! Why did Dumbledore even hire her? What qualifications has she got? All we do in class is sit there and read!" John fumed one October evening as the three of them walked back to castle from the Quidditch Pitch, where Sherlock and Molly had come to meet John after practice.
"We know, John. I've been asking myself the same questions since the start of term," Molly returned, a weary tone in her voice. She briefly glanced back along the path at the sound of distant laughter and saw Lestrade, Donovan, and Weasley walking along together. This reminded Molly of something she'd been meaning to ask John.
"Do you know why Lestrade's hair lost its colour?" The boy shifted his grip on his broom uncomfortably at this before answering.
"He doesn't like talking about it. He was the one who found Powers. He saw something near the shore of the lake when he was coming back from the Quidditch Pitch and went to have a look. It was pretty gruesome. It was such a nasty shock for Greg, his hair turned like that over night," John informed them somewhat reluctantly. "Just don't tell everyone about it, yeah?"
"Wait, what kind of gruesome?" Sherlock inquired, seeming genuinely quite interested in the topic. Molly could see a glint of excitement in his eyes.
"I dunno. Drowned person gruesome. He didn't really say," John responded agitatedly.
"I suppose the best person to ask would be the person who actually saw it." Sherlock made to turn back towards Lestrade and the others, but John and Molly grabbed his arms.
"No no no, you can't do that, Sherlock," Molly told the Ravenclaw sternly, which greatly confused him.
"What? Why not?"
"Because you will get hexed in the face," John assured him as they dragged him onwards with them.
"Why?"
"Because it's not nice to just ask people about their traumatic experiences," Molly explained, sounding much more gentle this time. She understood that Sherlock wasn't the best at knowing and comprehending the feelings of others.
"How are we supposed to find out more about it, then?" He was frustrated and a little vulnerable for not knowing what to do. Molly could see that, so she did her best not to make it worse.
"I don't know, we'll think of something. Come on, let's go to the library and we can talk about it there." Sherlock silently nodded at this and didn't look back at Lestrade and the others again, much to Molly's surprise and mild delight. It was nice to know that he trusted her judgement on this matter. It was one of the highest compliments he'd inadvertently given her. Once they'd gotten to the library and begun their discussion, he surprised her again.
"We need more information, but we've examined all of our options. We've found nothing around the lake. No one who knew Powers has been helpful. We can't talk to anyone involved in the official investigation, nor can we bring it up with the person who found the body. The only way forward I can see is breaking into Gregson's office," Sherlock put forth and John scowled.
"The last time we broke into someone's office, Molly got ink all over her face," he complained.
"But we got valuable information."
"We're talking about an Auror's office, Sherlock."
"An incompetent Auror."
"Boys!" Molly hissed, getting their attention and hopefully not Madam Pince's. "I've been thinking. We've looked around the lake. What if we looked in the lake? There're Merpeople in there, yeah? What if they know something?" This instantly brought an expression of elation to Sherlock's features and he grabbed her shoulders so that he could pull her closer and kiss her cheek.
"How did I not seen it before? You are brilliant, Molly Hooper!" he exclaimed as she looked back at him.
"I am?" she asked, stunned and blushing.
"Of course!"
"Hold on, we're not allowed in the lake, remember?" John put in after recovering from witnessing Sherlock kiss Molly on the cheek.
"Well, we'll just have to do it when no one's looking, won't we?" This earned the Ravenclaw John's classic 'you're not helping me understand' look.
"Oh, I didn't think about that part..." Molly muttered and Sherlock sighed exasperatedly, clearly unimpressed with their imaginations.
"We can't do it during Quidditch this time, obviously, so the next best thing is during the Halloween Feast. We'll just sneak out to the Black Lake while everyone's in the Great Hall. If we're lucky, we could be back in time for pudding." This did nothing to stifle John's incredulity, which was, in true Gryffindor style, more about the logistics than the danger.
"How are we even going to breathe underwater?"
"That is simplicity itself, John. We're going to nick some Gillyweed." Molly instantly perked up at the mention of the plant.
"Oh! Of course!" she gasped, grinning.
"You two, I swear," John grumbled and Molly began to feel a little guilty for not making things clearer for him. "What in Merlin's name is Gillyweed?"
"It's a plant that can make you breathe underwater when you eat it. I saw some in the Greenhouses once and I asked Professor Sprout about it," the Hufflepuff answered proudly and Sherlock smirked. The explanation worked wonders for relieving the tension in John's brow and he unfolding his arms to smack his palms on the table.
"Right then. Now that we're all on the same page, whose job is it going to be to pilfer the Gillyweed?" Sherlock gave only a scowl of deep thought in response to this.
"Well, clearly I should do it," Molly put in and both boys looked to her in shock. "I know where it is and what it looks like, and on top of that, it doesn't seem nearly as suspicious for a Hufflepuff to be wandering around the Greenhouses as would be if either of you were seen."
"You're rather on top of things today, Molly," Sherlock commented.
"I'm just trying to help." Something about the way the dark haired boy was looking at Molly made her turn pink again and she hastily diverted her gaze to her lap, on which rested her fidgeting hands.
"Well done. It seems that we've found ourselves a way forward." That was the last overtly positive thing Molly heard Sherlock say for a good long while. His general mood took a turn for the worse immediately the day after. He began to talk to her less and less, to the point where he only did it if he had to. His nights off from Quidditch practice were apparently spent in Ravenclaw Tower instead of with Molly. She wondered if she'd done something wrong, but John told her that Sherlock had been this way with him as well, so it couldn't have been just her. They both knew that something had happened, but they had no way of knowing what. They certainly weren't going to get it out of him. Whatever it was was making him more aggressive too. John reported that Sherlock had snapped rather viciously at Sally Donovan one night during Astronomy when her only offense was to accidentally bump his telescope (for which she did apologize).
Further light was shed on the problem when Sherlock arrived to Potions class with a split lip and a particularly foul temperament.
"What happened to your lip?" Molly asked him after Professor Slughorn had finished giving instructions for the day's lesson.
"Quidditch accident," Sherlock answered tersely as he flipped through the pages of his textbook without even glancing at her.
"You should have Madam Pomfrey put something on that. It looks painful," Molly suggested.
"I'm fine."
"I think I might have some salve in my bag that could help, if you don't want to go to Madam Pomfrey. It's mostly for paper cuts and the like, but-"
"I said I'm fine!" The force of these words nearly made Molly jump and she took a step back from her friend, who was now glaring at her. "You're always trying to be helpful, but did you ever consider that sometimes your help could be unwanted?" That bit deep, but Molly knew he didn't mean it. He only ever acted like this when he was feeling defensive and didn't know how to deal with his emotions. She'd spent enough time around him to see that.
"You can work with me if you like, Hooper," Gilderoy Lockhart interrupted from the adjacent table. "You'll find my manners a great deal more civilized and together we'd certainly have our elixir perfect long before anyone else."
"Back off, you slimy little toad," Sherlock hissed, whipping out his wand to point it right between Lockhart's eyes. The blond's smirk almost instantly dropped.
"Mr. Holmes, what on Earth are you doing?" Professor Slughorn inquired from across the room. It seemed that he'd looked up from helping Cassandra and Caroline Gentry (who had inexplicably liquified their ladle) in time to see Sherlock's little outburst. Sherlock grimaced and lowered his wand as the teacher approached, for which Lockhart appeared to be quite grateful.
"It's alright, professor. There was just a misunderstanding," Molly assured the Potions Master, not wanting to see either of the boys get into to trouble.
"Be that as it may, you are not to point your wand at another student in my class. I'm afraid I'll have to take five points from Ravenclaw." With that, Slughorn had them all get back to work and Sherlock was left in no better of a mood than before, though now Molly had much more solid suspicions as to what was going on with him. He was being bullied again, but why he was shutting his friends out was somewhat of a mystery to her. They could help him. He knew that. Maybe he was trying to handle it himself out of embarrassment. But surely he would ask for help if he was getting beaten to a pulp all the time. Then again, he was rubbish at asking for help and something like this would only make it harder for him. Molly's first instinct was to write to Mycroft, but by chance and the grace of Ravenclaw prefects, she happened upon the resolution to the situation before she could even ask to borrow Gladstone from John.
Molly was walking across a courtyard on her way to the Greenhouses to get the Gillyweed they needed for Halloween when she heard shouting, a loud bang, and the gasps of bystanders. She spun around to see Sherlock lying at the foot of the center statue in his Quidditch robes with the new Ravenclaw Chaser pressing his foot down on the boy's chest and brandishing his wand at his head.
"Stop muttering your little lies, Freak!" the sixth year barked. "Don't think 'cause you're Seeker that I won't bloody you up!"
"Expelliarmus!" someone out of Molly's sight bellowed and the Chaser's wand went flying. Victor Trevor stalked into view looking absolutely furious. "Step away from Holmes or I'll stun your arse faster than you can blink. Then you can drool on Flitwick's desk while he's deciding how much detention to give you," the prefect threatened and he was reluctantly obeyed. Darzi, who had arrived with Trevor, helped Sherlock to his feet and let him use her shoulder as a crutch until Molly remembered how to use her legs and rushed over to replace the Beater, at which point she rounded on Sherlock's attacker.
"You would find my bat in your face if I had but a shred less of decency, Edgar," Darzi told him before she took him firmly by the arm and dragged him in the direction of Flitwick's office.
"Anyone else want to have a go at my Seeker?" Trevor called and the rest of the students in the courtyard remained in stunned silence. "Good. Carry on." He then turned to Sherlock and Molly, looking a bit weary. "Dammit, Sherlock. What did you tell him?"
"Why does it matter? Whatever Sherlock said, he shouldn't have been attacked," Molly cut in, frowning. Sherlock wiped the blood from his mouth on the back of his hand and didn't say anything. Trevor sighed and nodded, seeing the Hufflepuff's point.
"Yeah, you're right, there's no excuse to thrash a twelve year old like that," he agreed.
"Gave you a valid reason to kick Edgar off the team, didn't I?" Sherlock spoke with a strained voice and Trevor laughed at his words. Clearly Edgar hadn't been very popular with his teammates (Soo Lin had said before that the bloke was a known dickhead), but Molly couldn't believe Sherlock would willingly get beaten up over it. She saw right through him, saw that he was just trying to put Trevor at ease. The Keeper told them he'd let the others know what happened when they came down and let Molly and Sherlock head off to the hospital wing, where Molly voiced her concern.
"Sherlock, why are you letting people hurt you?" she asked once Madam Pomfrey was out of earshot. The boy fixed her with his blue stare for a long time before apparently deciding that she could not be lied to.
"I'm not letting them. I'm just...I don't...it's my problem, okay?" he admitted awkwardly.
"Sherlock, asking for help isn't weak," Molly told him and he scowled, though John arrived before he could say anything.
"You alright, mate? Mike said you got jinxed at a statue," he called, almost out of breath by the time he came to Sherlock's bedside.
"I'm fine. I can go in a few minutes. Molly, stop being overly worried about me and go before you miss your opportunity to snatch the Gillyweed." She knew he was trying to get rid of her, putting off their conversation, but he was right.
"I'll see you both later, then." She only left because she at least knew no one would bother bullying Sherlock now that the Ravenclaw prefects' display was buzzing all around the school and he'd be more compelled to tell John the truth because she would if he didn't.
A/N: So yeah, that wasn't nearly as funny as I wanted it to be. That was actually kind of angsty. Apologies. Anyway, I hope it wasn't too bad.
