Title: John, I'm a Wizard
Series: n/a
Fandoms: BBC!Sherlock/Harry Potter
Pairings: Pre-slash and slash Johnlock, established Mystrade, established Drarry
Author: Z-sama (dA user the-lady-harkness) and TWTL
Beta: Phil the Sherlotter
WARNINGS: See first chapter for all the warnings.
MISC: Full-ish explanation for the long delay in the author notes at the bottom... Also, this fic is up on tumblr with BONUS CONTENT. God help us all... sherlockmalfoy . tumblr . com
LAST LITTLE NOTE: Remember... o0o denotes scene changes. the lines across the page denote time period changes. it's pretty straight forward.
"And with that, I'm afraid, I'll have to leave you." She sat back with a self satisfied smirk on her face, looking up to see John standing in the doorway. He'd been there for quite a while, shoulder pressed into the frame, arms crossed over his jumper clad chest.
Harriet pouted, and Hudson sounded accusatory as he waggled a little finger at his aunt. "It was just getting to the good part!"
"What do you mean 'just getting'? The whole ruddy thing is a good part!"
John watched as his sister-in-law and son squabbled, the boy leaning forward, as did his aunt. Harriet sat with her arms around her knees, pouting, when she noticed her daddy standing the doorway. Before she could open her mouth, he made his presence known to his children. "No, I won't be telling you any more tonight."
"But-"
"No buts," John insisted. "It's time for the pair of you to be off to dream land."
Hudson puffed out his cheeks, stamped his foot, and stormed out of the room. John had just enough time to turn and make space for him to pass. Harriet looked nearly like she was about to cry. Her daddy started to come over, but Lily shook her head. "It's a girl thing," she said with a knowing smile and shooed him away. "You go deal with little Mr. Know-it-All."
"But-"
She gave a light laugh. "No buts, John. Shoo. Shoo!" She made the shooing motion with her hands again, causing Harriet to give a stuffy nosed little laugh. Once John had been sufficiently shooed away, or so the girls had thought (he was really standing just outside the room where they couldn't see him) Lily opened her arms. "Come here, my little hedgie." Harriet got to her feet, rubbing at her cheek and climbed up in her auntie's lap. "Now then. What's got you all turned about the wrong end, eh? Is it where I left the story off?"
Slowly, the little girl nodded.
"Well, you've nothing to worry about. You know how it turns out in the end. After all, there's you and your brother. And your soon-to-be little hedgie, and your daddy and your father made you guys happen. So there's really no need to worry about a silly old story."
Harriet sniffled and looked at her aunt like she'd grown a second, and possibly a third, head. "I know THAT!" she snapped.
Outside the room, John had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing at his daughter's tone. It was so very much like her father.
Lily huffed. "Then I don't see why you're so sad. I mean, if you know it's all got a happy ending-"
"It's so terribly romantic!" she protested, her nose stuffy and her cheeks just a little damp at the tops where she'd done her best to keep from crying. "And then there's you and gran and grandfather and uncle Greggy and uncle Crofty caught up in the middle." She crossed her arms over her chest and gave a matter-of-fact nod. "And daddy just has to be told these things, because he's so terribly dense. Father says in the old days, when people would talk and say things about them, daddy always got upset and corrected them. But father corrects everyone about everything, and he never said a word about it. You'd think daddy would have caught on, but he's so obtuse. And then you just blurt it out, because he really needed to hear it and father wasn't going to say it because he's also so terribly obtuse and it's all just coming together so... so..." And that's when the tiny tears finally started.
Lily gave a small little smile. The kind she reserved only for "girl talk time" with her friends. Then she gave a little peck on her nieces wet cheek. "Romantic. In a strange, weird, hilarious sort of way."
Harriet nodded.
"And you got all that, just from these little stories?" Again the child nodded, and wiped at her face with her arms. "Crikey, I sometimes forget you hedgies are just like my brother in the brains."
Harriet sniffled. "Don't let Hudson's hissy get to you," she said earnestly. "He doesn't get it. He just likes the story, and the action and the excitement. He doesn't... he doesn't understand the rest. He's gotta have the facts."
Lily's expression softened. Her niece and nephew were far smarter than she'd ever given them credit for. And far more different than was obvious. "That's because you've both got your father's brilliant, wonderful brain," she said. Then she reached up and tapped her niece's chest, right in the middle with a kind smile. "But I think you've got more of your daddy in you than people think."
John chewed his lip in thought as he listened, the pair of them moving from that topic to something far more cheerful. As quietly as he could, he slipped away to go check on his son and make sure he was getting ready for bed and not trying to sneak about to the attic again. In the forefront of his thoughts, he couldn't help but fit the pieces together. A lot of Hudson's quirks now made much more sense. He'd thought, originally, that it was just the two were at the age where they would begin to be their own people rather than a matching set. Now he was a little more worried. Harriet seemed alright, if only a little extra sensitive really. But that was alright. It made sense, since she usually knew where the boundaries were and didn't cross them. She'd get close, she'd push, but knew when to just stop if things were getting bad.
He'd always believed Hudson was just fussy. Complaining because he didn't get his way. And his deducing fits that could bring adults to absolute tears, he'd thought, were just his way of acting out.
Now he realized that was not the case. The boy honestly just didn't get it. He honestly didn't understand. Just like...
"I think I'm going to need help with this one," he sighed as he made his way towards the children's room to poke his head in; make sure Hudson was getting along alright. Yes. A nice long conversation with Harry would be ideal - especially since according to Lily the newest addition would be just as bad, if not worse.
Well, at least his daughter had a good grasp on human emotion and social protocol, even if she was only five.
o0o
John spent the night fetching Sherlock all manner of useless items. Things he insisted he must have. Yet the moment he had them in hand, he no longer wanted them. That was, until John had set the skull on the bedside table in precisely the position Sherlock had insisted upon. Its macabre grin and sightless eyes facing the bed as Sherlock had settled back into a comfortable rest.
His muggle sighed, letting Sherlock drape limbs across him and steal the blankets in the night to cocoon himself like a burrito. Unable to sleep himself, he thought about the conversation he had overheard passing between his sister-in-law and his daughter. For as young as she was, she knew her parents far better than either of them had realized. Certainly she picked up more on common sense and social interactions than Sherlock did.
"You're thinking too loud. I can't sleep," Sherlock muttered, turning his head to stare into the darkness at his husband.
John didn't need light to see that Sherlock was quite annoyed with him. "Sorry love," he said, turning onto his side to face him. "It's just..."
"You're clearly not worried. But something is weighing heavily on your mind. You won't be able to sleep until you have fully processed it. And because you can't sleep, I won't sleep." He shifted in his blanket burrito until he was able to prop himself up a bit on his pillows. "You might as well tell me about it while I'm disposed to listen."
"It's nothing."
"Wrong. If it were nothing, you would be snoring into my ear right now with your hand down the front of my pants. This is clearly something." He crossed his arms over his chest, and John felt his penetrating gaze fall upon him. "I am losing what little patience I have left."
John sighed, reaching out to lay a hand on Sherlock's thigh and missing by just over an inch. So he scooted closer and tried again. This time he found his mark, leaving it to rest on top of surprisingly cool silk. "You know if you took the cooling charm off your trousers you wouldn't need all the blankets."
"Don't change the subject," Sherlock replied testily. "And if not for my current problem of producing twice as much body heat due to your parasitic spawn currently using my abdomen as his place of residence, then I would clearly not need the additional help with temperature regulation."
John gave another sigh, this time a tired and resigned one as he gave a gentle squeeze to Sherlock's thigh. "Alright, alright. No need for that." He pulled his hand back and shifted to sit up some so he wouldn't strain his neck trying to look up at him in the dark. When he was settled, he still felt the piercing gaze upon him. "I... Lily was telling the kids the story earlier."
"I had gathered that. They demand it of anyone who will take the time."
"Well, it really upset Harriet, the part she told them." He paused, then thought he'd better clarify and quickly added, "But in a good way. At least, I think. I don't know..."
"How far did she get into the story?" Sherlock asked, his tone one of consideration.
"When she... Well, after I found out about your magical marking of my soul."
"Oh, that," Sherlock said as if this were the most mundane idea he had ever heard. "From your mood I had thought it were something more serious."
"This is serious," John said. "The fact that we don't communicate upset her."
"Ah..." Sherlock said and John could hear the faint smile in his voice. "She got as far as blurting out my feelings for you. Well, that certainly would upset someone as sensitive as Harriet. Hudson, I imagine, was more upset that the story was not continued."
"I... well..."
"And now you're worried that Hudson's lack of social and emotional understanding is a preliminary sign of a greater psychological problem inherent in my genetic material."
He scratched his chin, translated that from Sherlockain to English in his head. "Well... I suppose. But your social awkwardness has an explanation. It's part of your creature thing."
"Quite."
"And Hudson isn't a creature."
"No, he is not."
"So-"
"Too early to tell. He does express emotion, and no he doesn't mimic it. He has minor difficulty translating proper social protocol due to his two very different examples on the subject. Harriet has obviously taken you as her dominant example in these matters. Not surprising since you subconsciously assumed the domestic caretaker role in our relationship. She has shown early signs during play and in her development of wanting both a family and a career. Once more, in this respect she has taken you as her prime example. Whereas Hudson-"
"Okay," John interrupted, turning to face him and knowing that in the dark it was pointless to give him an annoyed look. "Did you just in a roundabout way call me a mother hen?"
"Don't be so pedestrian, John."
"Right. Obviously-"
"Despite my biological role, I lack maternal instincts. Your natural affinity for taking care of others, which is one of your greatest assets may I add, has filled that need."
"So basically you're saying I'm a mother."
"What exactly do you find so offensive about that? The most powerful wizard to exist since Merlin is, in fact, a mother. My mother, actually. There is nothing wrong with being a mother."
He didn't have an answer. It wasn't offensive, really. It was just... Well... John had never really thought of himself in terms like that.
"And now you're thinking back on our relationship with the children and realizing that I am right. Let's skip this argument and move on to the original problem weighing on your mind shall we? Before I get bored with this and kick you out of bed." Sherlock paused long enough to give John the impression that he was waiting for an actual answer. So when one was started it was rudely cut off. "As I stated before, Harriet sees you as her primary example of behaviour. Her natural sensitivity to human nature draws her attention to you more than it does to me. Whereas Hudson lacks the depth of her emotional understanding, therefore he turns his attentions towards me, and uses my behaviors as a basis for his own. The flaw is that there is a reason for my lack of understanding. I simply lack the capacity to connect with others outside my own instinctual bonds. He does not have this impediment.
"I suggest to correct this before it becomes a problem for him later in life, we allow him to interact with other children his own age as well as with other adults who display a wider emotional range than myself. There are other children in Godric's Hollow. Take them to the park and let them seek out their own age appropriate peers in the safety of a well warded village rather than the dangers of London."
Sherlock reached over to give John's arm a gentle stroke before sliding back down to stretch out and curl up under his blankets. "Problem solved. Now go to sleep."
"But-"
"Sleep. Or I will kick you out of the bed."
o0o
Lily had stayed for much of the following day to ensure her brother kept from using magic for even the simplest of tasks. And the story had been forgotten, for the time being, as John took the children out each day after to the park.
As they made friends with the other children of the village. Taught the wizard children muggle games while they taught wizarding ones of their own. At first Sherlock accompanied them, not wanting to remain home more than he had to. But as time passed (and his abdomen grew) he stayed back more and more. His attitude also became harder and harder to handle after the day the twins presented a boy they'd befriended at the park and demanded he come home for dinner.
Poor John had to explain carefully why that wasn't such a good idea for Eustace to be anywhere even remotely near the cottage. Something to do with Sherlock, nesting, and wanting to hex strangers or some such nonsense.
Not anything he hadn't had to deal with the first time around. Just a bit more intense was all.
The opportunities for more stories had dried up as well. More and more of their dad's free time was spent taking them out to the park, or the shops, and looking after their father and his delicate condition. It was not until January that things began to settle down, and the family had been in the cottage for a solid three months, that the opportunity once more arose for the twins to hear the next part of the rather long tale of their parents' second Christmas.
But in all that time, they never forgot a single piece of what they had heard so far. Harriet and Hudson often argued into the night over what their dad had done when finally he knew their father's feelings. Each knew of John's temper, once he lost his seemingly eternal patience. And they also knew well Sherlock's ability to easily lie and put on an act. After all, they had learned from the best. They knew, of course, that by the next winter holiday the two men were married and expecting - it was just how they had gotten to such a state, or rather, the beginning of how they had gotten there, that eluded them.
Harriet argued that the two men had finally had a confrontation, wherein Sherlock was forced to speak his heart while John had been forced to closely examine his own. Hudson was for a theory that involved Mrs. Hudson, a potted rosebush, and veritaserum in John's tea.
Just when the duo had finally come to the decision to pester their parents about it John had called them upstairs, where their father was sitting on the bed and balancing a bowl on his stomach filled with his disgusting curry, ice cream, pickles, and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.
"I know we haven't exactly been giving you two much attention for a while," John said guiltily as Sherlock, between bites, motioned for the twins to join him in the mountain of pillows on the bed. "And I'm really sorry-"
"Don't be. Aunt Lily told us-"
"I don't care what she told you. You're five and you need your parents more than we've done."
"Not as if I could do much in the state I am in," Sherlock said, taking another bite. "Especially with this thing using my internal organs as his playthings."
John sighed and moved some to make a bit more room for the children amongst the pillows. "And truth be told, we weren't sure exactly how to move on from-"
"When Aunt Lily shouted that father loved you," Hudson interrupted, and his sister nodded.
John rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks turning a bit pink. "Yes. Well... There was that..."
"Yes. I have a theory," Hudson said.
Harriet nodded again, her curls bouncing about. "As do I."
Sherlock licked his spoon before setting it in his empty bowl. "Would you care to explain?"
"Of course not!" Hudson exclaimed as if offended. "I've not enough data to form a sound hypothesis. Until then I'll keep my theories to myself rather than sound like an idiot if proven wrong."
Sherlock smiled. "And you say I'm a terrible role model," he said, this dig directed at his husband.
John the Long Suffering gave a long suffered sigh. "No. You're the one who keeps saying that. I'm the one who reminds you you're being an idiot."
After listening to their parents banter for a while longer, the twins finally managed to draw them out into what they were determined to hear. The Story. To their surprise, it was not their dad who began, but their father.
"I believe," he said, "John has told me your aunt had so cruelly left off at the point where she had revealed my motivation for having safeguarded your dad for so long. What she did not know at the time had been that while she had been with John, your uncle Mycroft had drawn me away under the guise of a conversation wherein we hypothesized the most efficient manners in which one could achieve world domination. It was a game between us, you see, to pit two imagined dictators against one another in a bid for power. A strategic and tactical exercise that kept our minds sharp. In the wizarding world, there are always those who see to follow the footsteps of Grindlewald and Lord Voldemort. Therefore, the exercises are both educational and practical should the need ever arise-"
"You're straying from the point, love," John said playfully.
Sherlock nodded. "Yes. Quite right. Mycroft had drawn me away under such a pretense. Gregory had accompanied us, no doubt unnerved by our conversation choice. However soon it was clear, once my brother had drawn me well away from John, that he had decided to meddle into my personal affairs..."
A/N - Okay, so here's why we were so behind on this one. There's been 2 engagement announcements, a grandmother in the hospital over Christmas, job searching, commissioned work, the making of Christmas presents, five different people coming down with the flu, and this last monday (Dec. 31) one of us went to see the Hobbit and was Hobbit!locking all day afterwards. So... yeah. Oh, and a serious war between cousins (but not the writers of this fic, thank goodness!) that forced us to drop down to using one computer for a while. So yeah, there was that little war amongst the family crisis going on at Christmas. We'll do our best to get chapter 27 up a bit quicker! Also, happy belated new year!