Chapter 14: Let the Games Begin
Molly was surprised to find that John was not extremely nervous about his first Quidditch match. Apparently Lestrade had talked some confidence into him. Molly therefore took it upon herself to be anxious for him. It was the fact that he might get hurt that scared her more than anything. Sherlock not so helpfully told her that this was Quidditch and there was almost a certainty that at least one person would get hurt. A player was to expect injury with the position, so getting worked up about John was only causing her unnecessary harm.
The Hufflepuff was not in much better of a way by the time she was walking down to the Quidditch Pitch with Sherlock. He wasn't in a particularly cheerful mood either, having reportedly engaged in a hurling of vitriol with Gilderoy Lockhart before breakfast. It wasn't much of a shock to Molly, but that didn't stop her from being tired of hearing about it.
They climbed up to take seats in the stands, Molly bearing a little scarlet and gold flag to wave in support of her friend. The Gryffindors and Slytherins were both making an enormous ruckus. The section of the stands which was almost too red to look at was stomping and chanting "Hey! Hey! Gryffindor! Listen to our Pride roar!" which was punctuated by what sounded like an actual lion roar. This was followed up immediately by the section of the stands swamped in green hissing and chanting "Slytherin! Slytherin! We'll throw you in our pit and win!" Molly swore she could hear some people shouting "kick those tossers in the shin" instead.
"This is going to be a bloody fight," Sherlock commented casually and the whole crowd erupted as both of the teams walked out onto the field. They watched as Lestrade shook hands with Jody Jacknife, the Slytherin Captain, and they all mounted their brooms. Molly could see that John was watching the Quaffle very carefully from the start so that the moment after Madam Hooch had thrown it up in the air, he had it tucked under his arm.
"And they're off! Gryffindor's new Chaser, Watson, gets the Quaffle, passes to Prewett, passes to the other Prewett. Black grabs it from him, but oh! Watson nicks it right back! Well done, mate!" the commentator, a chipper and somewhat overexcited Hufflepuff girl in cherry red lipstick, called out, her mane of curly blonde hair quivering as she spoke. John dodged another Slytherin's attempt to take the Quaffle off him and tricked their Keeper just as he had Lestrade in the trials, thus scoring the first goal of the match for Gryffindor. Molly cheered loudly, as did about half of the stadium, and Sherlock simply clapped and turned his attention to the Seekers.
"Moran's just now spotted it. Jacknife will notice in a moment. There you are." Sherlock murmured and sure enough, Moran and Jacknife came zooming past in pursuit of the Golden Snitch, followed by the commentator (Rogers, Molly thought her name was) announcing it. "Moran will catch it within the next ten minutes."
"What? What makes you say that?" Molly inquired, flabbergasted.
"Moran's too quick and quiet for her," Sherlock answered simply. Gryffindor soon scored twice more and the Slytherins were getting rather flustered. "Their plan is obviously to make this a short match to stunt Slytherin in overall points as much as possible. That's cleverer than I would expect from them." The Ravenclaw actually seemed somewhat impressed and Molly scowled at him for being so condescending, but he gave no notice.
"Ooh! Donovan knocks a Bludger into Jacknife's shoulder! It isn't a good day for Slytherin, is it? Wait, but Black takes the Quaffle from Prewett, passes to Craggy, and he scores! Watson has the Quaffle again- oh no!" A loud collective gasp came from the crowd and Molly called out John's name in distress. "A Bludger sent by Adler takes him clean off his broom! Black gets the Quaffle, but Lestrade pulls off a spectacular save." This succeeded in wrenching Sherlock's gaze from the Seekers, who were approaching the neck and neck stage of their chase. John had fallen nearly eighty feet, his descent only a little slowed by Weasley trying to catch him before he hit the grass.
"Oh my God!" Molly cried, covering her mouth in horror.
"Moran has caught the Snitch! Gryffindor wins!" This announcement was met by thunderous celebration, but Molly couldn't so much as smile. John wasn't moving. For all she knew, he could be dead. She saw Madam Pomfrey go out to get him and she did not waste another moment in racing down from the stands, Sherlock at her tail. They caught up with the healer halfway back to the castle.
"Madam Pomfrey, will he be alright?" Molly asked urgently as she looked at John, unconscious on his stretcher.
"He hasn't got anything I can't fix. Don't you worry yourself, Ms. Hooper," the woman assured her. Sherlock did not seem quite satisfied.
"Has he got a concussion?" the Ravenclaw pressed agitatedly.
"I'll need to examine him further to determine that, Mr. Holmes. Come by the hospital wing in about an hour and I'll be able to tell you both all about his condition." It was pretty clear that they were only getting in Madam Pomfrey's way, so the pair let her go on with John. They stood silently on the path up the castle, watching her go. For all Sherlock's talk, Molly could see in his eyes that he had not been prepared for the idea of John actually getting seriously injured. That was fine. She hadn't been either and she was the bigger worrier.
"He'll be okay." Though Molly spoke softly, the statement was for both of them. It wasn't long before they heard many feet coming up the path behind them and they looked around to see members of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team.
"Oi! What did Madam Pomfrey say?" Donovan called as the scarlet bunch approached. She was carrying what looked like John's broom. She must have caught it before it could get lost.
"She said she can patch him up," Molly answered.
"He looked pretty banged up," Gideon put in somewhat anxiously.
"Seemed a bit dead from where I was," Fabian added.
"He'll be fine," Sherlock insisted flatly before turning with a dramatic swish of his robes and stalking back to the castle. Something told Molly that it would be better if she didn't follow him, so she hung back with the Gryffindors and tried to get them to refocus on their victory. Most of them went off to Gryffindor Tower to celebrate, but she spent the next hour explaining to Weasley about electricity and cars. She ended up actually being a little late to the hospital wing because of it, if 'late' was to be defined as arriving fifteen minutes after Sherlock Holmes.
John was awake by then, although he was very still as he lay in his bed, perhaps as a way of ensuring that he would not in any way disturb his healing injuries. Sherlock seemed to be in a better disposition now and was talking with his friend about the match when Molly showed up. The blond smiled somewhat sheepishly when he saw her, alerting the other boy to her presence.
"How are you feeling, John?" Molly inquired.
"Like I got hit by a car." That answer sent an oddly uncomfortable shiver down her spine, but she pushed it aside and returned his smile.
"Funny, I was just telling Arthur Weasley about cars."
"Curious chap, that one. Do you know he asked my sister to tell him all about The Beatles the other night and he sat there with her in the Common Room for hours, drinking in every word?"
"What're The Beatles?" Sherlock and Molly asked in unison.
"An extremely popular Muggle band, apparently." Suddenly, the outburst at the start of yesterday's Transfiguration lesson made sense and Sherlock rolled his eyes. Molly sighed and returned their attention to John's condition.
"So...Sherlock, if I know you half as well as I think I do, you interrogated Madam Pomfrey on how John is the moment you walked in, so why don't you share?"
"I didn't interrogate her," Sherlock responded incredulously.
"You did," John reaffirmed with a laugh that was followed by a brief expression of pain. Sherlock scowled but nevertheless gave Molly what she wanted.
"He broke a lot of bones, by Madam Pomfrey fixed all of them, although the two ribs are going to take a couple of hours, hence why he's still lying here. He'll be very sore all over for a while too. Luckily, he hasn't got any bad damage to his head." Well, that was a relief. Still, Molly had an odd feeling she'd be spending the next few years sitting at one or the other of the boys' bedsides because of various Quidditch related misfortunes. Combine that with the fact that the three of them had a habit of walking- or running- or swimming- directly into trouble and it was easy to predict that Madam Pomfrey was going to get to know them very well over the years.
It wasn't more than fifteen minutes before Sherlock and Molly's visit was interrupted by the rest of 'The Pride' showing up to wish their Chaser well and bring him sweets and Butterbeer nicked from the celebrations in Gryffindor Tower. Since Madam Pomfrey only allowed so many visitors in her hospital wing, the pair took this as their cue to go. John promised them that he would see them later.
Over the next week, the weather took a turn for the worse, as did Sherlock's tolerance for Professor Prince. For two and a half months, they had been doing nothing in Defense Against the Dark Arts but reading from the book and taking quizzes, leaving Sherlock in an already irritable mood, but with the continued commentary on the fashion choices of the students and Prince constantly trying to shame Sherlock into doing something about his hair by plucking at his curls and making derogatory remarks, something inside him snapped.
One day, he showed up to class with his hair turned an alarming electric blue and Professor Prince fainted the moment she caught sight of him, as if this was just too much of a crime against fashion for her to handle. For once, Molly could not bring herself to scold him. After the way Prince had been harassing him, this was only fair.
The other students took to Sherlock's example and soon every student who had ever been heavily criticized by the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, which was a lot of people, began showing up to class bearing the most unusual, anti-Prince fashion statements. A Slytherin fifth year spiked and dyed her hair in such a way that she looked like a flaming porcupine. A Hufflepuff boy apparently came in wearing immaculately applied emerald green lipstick. John claimed that one of his fellow Gryffindors had come to class with her face painted half blue, half white and carrying a claymore, which was promptly confiscated by McGonagall when she heard. Two days in, Molly was complimenting Victor Trevor on his newly maize yellow fingernails (to which he replied that they were very difficult to maintain, what with the roughness of Quidditch, but completely worth it). Some people chose to accentuate the very things Professor Prince had admonished them for. Jennifer Wilson enlarged her pink bow to the point where it obscured the view of others. The smile she wore when Prince gaped at her told Molly that whatever cramps the Ravenclaw was getting from having that enormous thing on her head did not bother her. Molly, for her part, decided to put stripes in her stockings just like the witch crushed by the house in The Wizard of Oz.
By the end of the week, the student body had worked Connie Prince into quite a state. Professor Dumbledore made an announcement that Friday before dinner informing them that their DADA teacher had fallen ill and requesting that all outlandishness for the sake of shock and awe be put to an end. He also reminded them that students caught violating the dress code would be penalized, which put an end to Molly's stripey stockings.
She honesty felt kind of bad that they'd driven Prince into ill health, but part of her still argued that the woman deserved it for terrorizing her students. That was the part that remembered Jennifer's tears and the look on Sherlock's face every time he'd been touched. By Saturday afternoon, all of the more eye popping physical features had disappeared, including the electric blue of Sherlock's curls. Trevor decided that he'd keep his yellow nails until the polish wore off.
The following week, Molly and John didn't see much of Sherlock outside of class. The Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw match was right around the corner and Trevor was not going to let a little thing like the constant torrential rain stop his team from getting a leg up on Hufflepuff. Twice, Sherlock showed up in the disused classroom soaked to the bone and covered in mud. He promised his friends that the captain was having them take potions so that they wouldn't get sick, but John and Molly could both see that Sherlock was extremely tired. In the delirium of fatigue, he once refused Molly's suggestion that he go off to bed, saying that sleep was for the weak and that she obviously wanted him to be weak so that Hufflepuff would win on Saturday. She and John had then dragged him all the way to the entrance to the Ravenclaw Common Room. The knocker glared at them with its soulless avian eyes before it gave them the riddle.
"What hunts but has no mouth to bite? Magic in make and always two in number, with these roaming free, never shall you slumber." Molly and John frowned at this puzzle, but Sherlock laughed scathingly.
"Simple. Boring. The answer is plainly Bludgers," he drawled and the door swung open, allowing the exhausted second year to shamble inside, not even deigning to reply to his friends' goodnights.
In Herbology one morning, Molly was witness to Professor Sprout trying to rally some support from the Gryffindors for the match that weekend by doling out house points rather freely. John was definitely pleased by this as he earned five points practically just for potting his Mandrake while Sprout was looking. Only Molly knew that it would take more than that to make John Watson pick a side. His two best friends belonged to the apposing houses.
"I'll be happy either way, really," he told Molly as they left the greenhouse and removed their earmuffs. "If Ravenclaw wins, Sherlock will be in a good mood, and if Hufflepuff wins, you'll be happy and I'll have something to rub in Sherlock's face when he gets overly pleased with himself."
"Honestly, I feel sort of the same way, but don't tell anyone I said that or I'll never hear the end of it," Molly admitted and John grinned broadly.
They didn't see Sherlock at all Friday night. According to Soo Lin, Trevor was now insisting that his team get plenty of rest before the big match tomorrow and so Sherlock had been confined to Ravenclaw Tower. They saw him decked out in blue along with his teammates the next morning at breakfast. Surprisingly, he did actually look well rested. Molly spotted Darzi passing him a plate piled with his favourite foods before Meena nudged her to get her to stop staring at the Ravenclaws.
"Tell me you're not rooting for Ravenclaw over Hufflepuff."
"Of course I'm supporting Hufflepuff," Molly replied, sounding scandalized. She neglected to mention that she was also supporting her friend. Nobody needed to know and it wasn't like it was a big deal, right? Why shouldn't she be happy if her best friend won his first match?
"Well then why are you staring at the Ravenclaw team?"
"I'm just a little worried for Sherlock. The weather is absolutely horrid out there today and I really don't want to spend more time sitting beside a bed in the hospital wing," Molly confessed. She knew Meena would understand that much. The older girl nodded and gave Molly a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"I'm sure he'll be fine. He may be a tiny chap, but from what I've heard, he's far from made of glass." Molly didn't reply to that, silently thinking about how Sherlock was a lot more fragile than most people realized. It was possible that she and John were the only ones who had any idea of how soft and sensitive Sherlock could be. Meena implying that he was unbreakable didn't sit right with Molly. Still, she pushed it out of her mind and finished her breakfast.
Outside on her way to the Quidditch Pitch, it took only a couple of minutes for her to become completely soaked to the bone with icy cold rain water, the very same that pelted her face and stung. Nobody she passed seemed to care overmuch about the conditions. They were all excited about Quidditch. Molly found it astounding that people could put sport over their own comfort. Fortunately, when she got to the stadium, she found John, who had a large windproof Gryffindor umbrella under which they could both huddle while they watched the match.
It was difficult to see clearly with the heavy rain and the mist created by the crowd's breath, but they could still make out both teams trudging out onto the field, especially the Hufflepuffs in their canary yellow robes. All of the players appeared to be wearing goggles to aid visibility. The smallest figure on the field stood second in the Ravenclaw line and looked rather like an insect with his goggles and thin frame. This was obviously Sherlock. Victor Trevor reached back and ruffled his sopping wet curls. The display of affection was probably for encouragement in this case and Molly was finding it harder and harder to want her own team to win.
It took all of them a bit of effort to get into the air what with the mud, but soon they were up and the match had begun. Lightning flashed in the sky and thunder cracked and resonated through the pitch. Molly could feel it in her chest.
"And they're off! Hufflepuff Chaser Diana Jones takes the Quaffle; that's my girl!" Rogers' excited tones boomed out in commentary. If Molly recalled correctly, the elder Jones sister was Rogers' girlfriend. "Passes to Knight, but oh! Trevor blocks the attempt to score!" Now that she got the chance to really pay attention to Victor Trevor, she saw that Sherlock had been joking when he'd said the captain was a brilliant Keeper. Hufflepuff could not get a single shot past him.
The Beaters had to target him for a full ten minutes before they were able to make their first score, while Ravenclaw had already gotten thirty points by then. Zahra Darzi and Jennifer Wilson were having a time keeping the Hufflepuff Seeker busy whilst Sherlock scoured the pitch for any hint of that tiny golden ball.
"It can't be too easy for either of the Seekers in this downpour," Rogers called and there was a series of flashes that lit up the sky and the pitch. In that sudden, intense light, Sherlock must have seen what he was looking for because he abruptly changed course and went shooting off towards the opposite end of the stadium. "Looks like Holmes has spotted the Snitch!" This clued in the Hufflepuff Seeker, who dodged another Bludger and immediately began to pursue Sherlock. She was just at his tail when he reached out for the Snitch. Molly's heart raced as she watched. Sherlock was so focused that he didn't see the Bludger coming at him and it struck him square in the shoulder.
"Sherlock!" Molly gasped, hands flying up to cover her mouth as he careened into the other Seeker and they both went tumbling backwards. Sherlock nearly fell from his broom, but he managed to clamber back into position. Unfortunately, in the moment of chaos, the Snitch had been lost. Since the Hufflepuff Seeker was still trying to right herself, he took a moment to touch his shoulder. It looked to Molly like he had cried out in pain, a theory which was backed up when he began to fly one handed, his other tucked tightly against his chest.
"Jones scores! Hufflepuff are catching up!" Rogers crowed, but then she made a slightly crestfallen sound and continued. "Not that it matters much, because Holmes just caught the Snitch, so Ravenclaw win." It seemed that in her momentary distraction, Molly had failed to see Sherlock hastily rediscovering the Snitch and going hands free to grab it by the very tips of his fingers. The Ravenclaws went wild and she couldn't say that she was saddened at all, especially not when she and John found Sherlock getting his shoulder quickly fixed by a soggy Madam Pomfrey and he was grinning from ear to ear. Molly could not think of anything that made her happier than seeing Sherlock full of such glee.
A/N: Sorry for the overabundance of Quidditch in this chapter, but I hope you enjoyed it. Things will take a turn towards the holiday season next with some things you might not have expected.