Please Note: Not my characters, I certainly don't own any of the rights to anything, etc. Just playing around for fun. :) Without further ado - please enjoy Chapter 29!
(note at the end)
Harry removed the strange fleshy receiver from her ear, and Lestrade followed her example. He was immediately grateful when two loud pops sounded from the receivers and in the air around them. He'd heard gunshots through an earpiece before; it had left his ears ringing for days afterward.
"Get down!" Lestrade commanded as he acted on impulse, grabbing the back of Harry's neck and forcing her face down to her lap. He covered her body with his own as best he could, leaning over the passenger seat while trying to take a quick look over the dashboard to assess the situation.
He could feel tension in Harry through the muscles under his hand, distantly registering the sensation of her quivering and then shaking as he fought to calm the racing of his heart.
"It'll be okay," he offered her in a soothing voice, hand clamped protectively across the base of her neck. "I don't think we're in the shooter's line of sight." Inwardly he cursed the fact that he wasn't carrying a weapon.
She shook her head and pushed his protective hand away, bursting back to a fully upright position despite his protests. "Sweet Merlin," she huffed – amused and annoyed in equal measure - "There's no shooter! That was just the sound of them leaving!"
Lestrade seemed unimpressed with her actions. He lowered his brows and set his jaw, about to reprimand her disregard of their safety.
"No need to worry," she patted his hand consolingly before reaching for the door handle, "We're perfectly safe now." She grinned at him, "thanks for that, though. Nice reaction time."
Lestrade had slowly relaxed as she spoke, not understanding her explanation, but feeling strangely reassured the danger had passed.
"Come on, then," She chucked him in the arm, "let's go talk to the boys."
Lestrade nodded, deciding this was likely one of those times when he'd be best served by keeping his mouth shut and ears open. He was out of his depth, and as much as he would like to discount everything he'd just heard, he suspected it wasn't a viable option.
As Lestrade climbed the stairs to the upstairs apartment at 221B Baker Street the sounds of John attempting to reason with Sherlock greeted him.
"Because it isn't safe, Sherlock!" The doctor's voice stated firmly, with no little frustration.
"I can handle it." Sherlock growled in response, sounding as dangerous as he'd ever heard him.
"No," John firmly corrected, "You can't."
"But John!" Sherlock sounded petulant, and much less dangerous, now. "There's no reason my abilities shouldn't be the match for my brother's in this instance."
"I'm not saying your abilities aren't a match for Myrcroft's," John clarified, "I'm saying they're not a match for mine."
Lestrade followed Harry into the flat. It felt like the calm in the middle of a shoot-out; time to reload.
Sherlock didn't bother glancing in their direction. John frowned at his friend, then sighed and turned towards them. "Lestrade," he acknowledged with a worn nod. "Welcome back, sis. Any problems with the signal?"
"Oh, don't change the subject, John!" Sherlock complained. "Just erase my memory, already! Just try!"
"None." Harry confirmed, ignoring Sherlock as she knelt behind the couch to produce what appeared to be two novelty ears made of the same material as the strange earpieces she and Lestrade had used to listen in.
"No, Sherlock," John stated resolutely.
"So, it's true then?" Lestrade questioned, finally finding his voice. "Magic?"
John nodded. "Afraid so. You heard it all okay, too?"
"Yeah. Probably wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't." Lestrade agreed, handing him the earpiece. "Handy bit of tech, that," he acknowledged.
Sherlock exhaled dramatically in the background. Harry spared him a glance, but no one else seemed to pay heed.
"Magic, actually," John explained, turning the earpiece over in his hand as he continued his conversation with Lestrade. "It's an updated version of a product called Extendable Ears. In the last model the receiver and the transmitter were connected by a long, rubbery tube, like those tin-can phones kids used to play with."
Lestrade laughed.
"It limited the range a bit," John smiled. "But it was originally developed as a child's prank shop product," he explained "Once other uses were realized, the product was somewhat modified."
"Those are the receivers?" Lestrade asked, pointing to the fake ears. "I would've thought they were some of Sherlock's prosthetics for his disguises."
"Fine." Sherlock continued, ignoring the fact that John had moved on from their conversation. "If you won't do it to me, then Obliviate Mycroft. If he's immune to your memory manipulations, we can assume I would be as well. That way you'll have a larger experimental sample. We'd need to find additional subjects to serve as controls, as well, of course."
John clenched his jaw in frustration. "For the love of Merlin!" he exclaimed, "I am not going to Obliviate anyone! You want to experiment, fine! But leave me out of it!" He roared.
"Ah," Sherlock's eyebrows rose as if in dawning comprehension. "What about Potions, then?"
John sighed. Lestrade looked to Harry and mouthed "Potions?" to her. She nodded her head to the kitchen table, where a handful of empty old-fashioned crystal phials lay, odd-colored film coating their insides near what appeared to be an old fashioned cauldron.
"Yes." John acquiesced, "Fine. Potions. Under proper supervision. You don't know what you're doing, here, Sherlock."
"John," Sherlock scolded as he moved quickly toward the kitchen, and the phials on the table. "Of the two of us, you are hardly the better qualified chemist. I'm assuming you were a mediocre potioneer at best."
John tapped a clenched fist against his hip before seeming to decide to ignore Sherlock and turning his attention back to the DI.
Lestrade offered him a conciliatory shrug. He knew exactly how frustrating it was to be bullied into granting Sherlock access to evidence or resources against his better judgment.
"I'll watch him," Harry offered quietly, patting her brother's shoulder as she moved to follow Sherlock to the kitchen.
The doctor's tensed shoulders relaxed fractionally.
"You still owe me some time in a pub, but I think there are a few things we may need to talk about," Lestrade commented, seating himself on the couch where clients usually perched while they related their cases to the increasingly-famous Sherlock Holmes.
John nodded and claimed his usual chair.
"Boring." Sherlock called from the kitchen where he was trying to swab out samples from the insides of the crystal phials. Harry was providing some kind of commentary on the film coating one of them.
"Rude," John shot back.
"Nah," Lestrade said, "He's probably right. I heard most of it already, anyway. Just tell me I'm not crazy, yeah?"
John huffed a soft laugh, and shook his head. "It's all real, Greg."
"Blimey," Lestrade breathed. He leaned back into the couch cushions and considered John carefully. "And you're the magician, not Himself over in the kitchen?"
John bobbed his head and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, hands falling slack in the middle. "Guilty as charged."
Lestrade ran a hand over the top of his head, back to front. "Somehow that's more disturbing to me. If I'd been forced to guess which of the pair of you had magic, I wouldn't have picked you! No offence, mate."
"None taken," John dismissed any unintended slight easily. "It's a good point, though," he added thoughtfully before leaning over the arm of his chair to call back to the kitchen: "What do you think, Sherlock?"
"About what?" The consulting detective's distracted voice called back from the other room.
"If no one else would expect me to be the wizard out of the two of us, would Moriarty think it was you, too?"
The sound of a chair scraping across linoleum tile preceded Sherlock's emergence from the kitchen.
"Moriarty doesn't know about magic," Lestrade asked more than stated.
"Shut up." Sherlock waved him away, then turned to his flatmate. "John, that's brilliant."
"Hey!" Lestrade objected, "It was my question."
"I'm serious, Lestrade. Shut up." Sherlock snapped at him before turning away. "You're not qualified to speak right now. Your stupidity is blinding me." He ranted before seeming to change his mind and spinning to berate the DI directly. "Moriarty doesn't know yet. He's bound to deduce the existence of magic sooner or later, especially now that he's seen it first hand. He's not simple-witted like the rest of you. I figured it out; so will he. It's just a matter of time. And then he'll have to think about how it happened, and who is responsible." He'd taken up pacing around the room, tapping his steepled fingers against his lips. "But will he figure out it was John?" Sherlock pondered, speaking again only to himself.
"I'm not special," John commented. "You heard him, Sherlock, he's obsessed with you. I'm only worth noticing by association to you."
Sherlock scoffed. "No, you're not special," he agreed, "But you're not ordinary either, and he knows that now that he's met you. He'll be torn – he already thinks of me as a challenge, and initially will suspect I was responsible for shielding the blast. That line of reasoning will eventually be dismissed, though."
"Why?" Harry asked, joining the conversation.
Sherlock pointed to her excitedly, "Because he'll realize that if I had magic at my disposal, our game would have been played by very different rules."
"Unless," John interjected, "He thought you were handicapping yourself. He did accuse you of that already, for helping the police rather than working with him."
"Sorry, what?" Lestrade asked. He knew the reports he'd received from Mycroft's assistant after the pool incident hadn't been complete.
"Shut up!" Sherlock scolded.
"Why does she get to speak?" Lestrade gestured to Harry.
Sherlock glared at him in response. Harry crossed her arms smugly and cocked a hip to rest against the end of the couch.
Sherlock shook his head, returning to John's prior point. "I don't know – I don't have enough evidence to draw a conclusion," he pulled at his hair. "I suspect, based on his level of intellect, resourcefulness, and deductive prowess demonstrated thus far, that he will deduce the existence of magic. I suspect he will initially attribute its use to me, but I believe he will figure out eventually that John was the one who protected us from that blast. He'll undoubtedly put us under some kind of surveillance from this point on, regardless."
Lestrade sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair, from back to front before pressing his palm to his forehead. "You'll need to be careful, then, John."
"Oh, yes!" Sherlock threw his hand in the air in an exaggerated gesture, "Thank goodness Lestrade is here to share his wisdom with us. You'll need to be careful," he mocked, "If you don't want to catch Moriarty's attention, John."
"Sherlock," John warned.
The lanky man flopped into his chair. "Not good?" he asked blandly.
"Bit not good." John confirmed.
Sherlock grunted.
"What was that?" Lestrade asked.
"As much of an apology as you're likely to get," John interpreted.
Lestrade was torn between being impressed and offended.
"You're right, you know." John continued, "But I'd rather he know it was me than suspect Sherlock."
"Don't be self-sacrificing, John, it's become cliché." Sherlock drawled in a disinterested tone.
"Cliché or not, I can do things you can't. I don't want him trying to out powers you don't have by putting you into jeopardy." John replied.
Visions of the smoldering remains of bombsites danced before Lestrade's eyes. "Sounds about like something he'd do," he reminisced with a grimace. "Why were the Aurors so disinterested in your help?" he changed the subject, "They didn't seem concerned about being able to handle him."
"They underestimate Moriarty because he isn't a wizard." Harry commented.
"They have magic." Lestrade replied. "Should they be concerned?"
"How do you function?" Sherlock complained. "Of course they should be concerned."
Lestrade rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored the comment. "But, if they have magic and he doesn't…" he persisted, "How is he a threat to them?"
"The wizarding world is full of bias," Harry explained. "He's dangerous because they can't imagine a muggle they can't handle. When he arrives on the scene, they'll have no idea how to respond or what to do with him."
"In many ways that makes him worse than the standard dark wizard," John nodded in agreement. "All he needs is one wizard willing to work with him and the statute of secrecy would be blown wide open."
"Is that a bad thing?" Lestrade asked. "Why stay hidden?"
"The statute protects us all," Harry said. "The last time the magical and muggle worlds tried integration, the witch hunts ran rampant for centuries to follow. Muggles are jealous and mistrusting of wizards and witches. They don't understand that magic doesn't fix everything, then come to blame it for their problems."
"It's lead to a lot of resentment and anger in the wizarding world, too." John added. "There are pureblood supremacists who have hunted muggles for sport. They regard the non-magical world as completely inferior to the point of thinking ordinary people are less than human. The statute keeps the dangerous sorts on both sides from coliding."
"Yeah, nevermind," Lestrade frowned. "I can see how that would be bad. So, what do we do? You make it sound like Moriarty getting access to magic is inevitable."
John and Harry exchanged an uneasy glance.
Sherlock broke the silence. "I need to go there," he stated as he stood once more.
"No," John quickly responded, just as Harry said "Good idea." They glared at each other.
"It's too dangerous." John shook his head. "I can go. I know how to blend in better, anyway." He sat up straighter in his chair, resembling a solider at attention.
"Oh, quit it." Harry scolded. "Sherlock's more than capable to fit in, and you're not nearly clever enough to look for the things he needs to see."
John frowned at his sister. She smiled mockingly right back.
"Go where?" Lestrade asked.
"The Wizarding World." Sherlock declared with no small glee, eyes dancing with excitement.
Lestrade opened his mouth hesitantly.
"And no, it's not actually another world." He rolled his eyes dramatically.
Lestrade shut his mouth again.
John pressed his lips together, as though biting back a comment.
"You know she's right, John." Sherlock needled. "We should go together. I'll have better access to the data I need, and you could ensure my safety while we're there."
John knew he was being manipulated. Sherlock played the keep-me-safe card on rare occasion, but it always forced John's hand. He was going to give in.
"Fine, fine. What do you need?" John asked instead of arguing against it.
"We need to identify resources, build a network to alert us of news in the Wizarding underworld. Start paying attention to Wizarding politics," Sherlock rattled off.
Harry nodded. "You could check in with some old friends, Johnny," She tossed the comment out carelessly, but watched his response carefully. "Sounds like something The Order would be good for."
Surprisingly, it was Sherlock who objected. "Is that necessary?" He sounded nearly jealous.
"Hardly." John commented, crossing his arms stubbornly.
"Ron's well connected in the DMLE," Harry argued. "And Hermione's an integral and important part of policy development at the Ministry these days."
Sherlock seemed to weigh this information against his initial objection.
"And I'm not going to jeopardize their success," John stated.
"What's 'The Order'?" Lestrade asked, lost again in the conversation. It wasn't that he wasn't sharp enough to keep up, it was just too much new information and too many unknown references to absorb that quickly.
"Group of vigilantes from various walks of life and key professions who were helped fight the last Dark Lord to threaten the freedom of Wizarding Britain." Harry explained.
"Sound like dead useful friends to have," Lestrade acknowledged, turning to John.
John rubbed his fingers against his forehead.
"Just reach out to them," Harry pleaded. "It's been a while. Just let them make up their own minds."
John looked to Sherlock, who raised an eyebrow at him in response.
"Fine." John sighed again, sounding defeated. He was giving in far too much these days. "We can warn them about Moriarty."
Harry clapped her hands in glee.
"But," John continued sternly, holding up a single finger to make his point.
"There's always a but with him," Harry groused under her breath.
John glared at her over his finger, "I'm not trying to rekindle old relationships. I'm just warning them about the danger."
Lestrade couldn't help but notice how that stipulation made Sherlock smile. The man was positively beaming.
"Good." Sherlock clapped his hands. "So, when are we going?"
AN: Thanks for sticking around for chapter 29 - too many talking chapters in a row! This one particularly got complicated with everyone talking over each other...I hope it read alright, it really was challenging for me. As always, please let me know what you think. I love your feedback, it helps me think things through and often gives me new insight into the story. Any thoughts on getting ready for the Wizarding World?
