Disclaimer: All the Harry Potter characters you recognise were created by J.K. Rowling and are hers entirely. I owe Sherlock Holmes to Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Russell to Laurie R. King, and the rest to my own imagination.
Chapter Two: I'd Want to Solve the Mystery"Cor, you've had your nose in them Russell and Holmes books forever," Ron commented, squirming sideways in the armchair and draping his legs over one arm. "Where'd you find them?" He upended his bag of crisps over his mouth and shook it to deliver the remaining few crumbs. Gryffindor common room was sparsely occupied this evening, and Ron, Harry and Hermione commandeered the best squashy armchairs in front of the hearth.
"I stumbled upon them in Flourish & Blotts, where they keep the Muggle books they think they're never going to sell," replied Hermione. "I've read everything Conan Doyle's ever written, and Mrs King's books are perfectly in keeping with it," she added, scooping a handful of pretzels from Harry's bowl. "They're very popular, and her fans devour them. Mrs King brings Holmes to life in a way that Doyle never could."
"So how can you get the Great Detective here, alive, from reading that stuff?" asked Harry, intercepting Ron's predatory grab towards the pretzel bowl. "It's too bad, but you can't contact Mrs King and ask her to write another novel putting Sherlock Holmes into the Wizarding World. D'you think she's a witch herself? Anyway, it'll take too long, and those corpses will start to rot. Maggots and beetles," he said with relish.
Ron snorted, and Hermione ignored his comment. "There are a number of fans who write their own stories based on Conan Doyle's and Mrs King's works. They write what they call "fanfics," or fan fiction. When I went to Mrs King's Web site, there was a reference to their publications, which are kept in a Web site called "The Hive." There's one in particular – they all write under pen-names – who I think could write him alive."
"What?" Pretzels and crisp crumbs flew into the air as the young men converged on their friend.
"You're daft," said Ron. "You're going to contact a Muggle author and get him or her to write Sherlock Holmes into real life existence?"
Hermione smiled. "At least I can try," she said. "The Headmaster didn't think my idea was daft, or no more daft than others I've come up with before."
"***
Maura McNicholas saved the elaborate schematic drawing in front of her on the PC screen. Her eyes burned, and she shut them for a bit and shoved her glasses up on top of her head. She'd been at the complex diagram of computer wiring and cabling for Danforth Wickers' new Toronto headquarters building since seven in the morning, with a ten-minute break to bring in the mail and fix herself a sandwich and a glass of lemonade, five minutes at five-thirty to feed the cat, and it was ten o'clock at night.
She rose and stretched. She'd forgotten about dinner, and wandered into the kitchen to warm up some soup. She brought it back into her office, and stared at the moonscape screensaver in front of her. "I should close down and go to sleep," she said to Pumpkin, the large ginger tabby stretched on top of the papers on her desk. "But – he calls…"
Maura clicked onto the Internet and hot-keyed to The Hive, a fan fiction site dedicated to the readers of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes books. She looked to see if her latest pastiche on Sherlock Holmes and his growing involvement with his student and partner, Mary Russell, had been posted: there it was. She re-read it, and read another fan's new posting. She leaned forward.
Wait. What was that stuff on the side of the screen? Strange ASCII characters? They looked familiar. She pressed the Print Screen key, and the text slid out of her laser printer, but the odd characters didn't print. She highlighted them and increased the point size to 16: the text enlarged obligingly, but she was left squinting at the symbols. She right-clicked on the highlighted symbols and tried to Copy them, but her PC dinged at her and nothing happened. She closed The Hive and opened her E-mail account. There were the mysterious characters, on the right side of her screen.She found a pencil, and began to copy the characters into her notebook, one at a time. They weren't difficult to reproduce. She found herself muttering as she wrote: "Tuatha an…"
Maura's head jerked upright. She'd been sleeping at her desk! Her clock told her she'd been asleep for an hour. Her Internet connection had logged her off for lack of activity. Her neck ached. She stretched in her chair, and stared in disbelief at her PC screen.
In large red type: Greetings, 'Mary, called Magdalene,' or should I say, Maura McNicholas. I need your help.
As she watched, the letters blinked, first slowly, then faster.
This could not be happening. She wasn't even logged on, and here she was getting Instant Messaging from someone who knew not only her Hive 'nom,' but also her real name! She hit the Enter key, and then typed, "Who are you? What's happening?" Her heart pounded.
This may be hard for you to believe, but you can help to solve a real mystery. Two people have been killed. We don't have the skills to solve this crime, but we know who does. You and I both know. You can bring him to us.
"Is this a scam? Have you hacked into my computer? I'm not doing anything until you identify yourself and tell me what you want."
By 'scam,' I take it you mean a fraud or illegal scheme. No, nothing of the sort. I've not hacked into your computer; I've made it possible for us to communicate through your brain. I've read everything you've written for The Hive; it's excellent. You can write the solution to our mystery."
"Very clever!" Maura typed. "Is this how you get stories you can publish for your own ends? Whoever you are? Well, I don't write 'to order.' I only write for my own pleasure. Now tell me what you're talking about or you're gone."
Very well, said a voice in her ear. Maura started violently. We can converse inside your head, if you prefer.
"Get out!" Maura shouted, terrified.
All right, I'm sorry I frightened you. Allow me to introduce myself.
The screen cleared, and Maura was looking at a young woman's face. She was plain but pretty, with long curly brown hair and very dark brown eyes. She smiled, and two deep dimples pocketed her cheeks. It's a TV film, thought Maura.
The picture's voice came out of the PC's speakers: "I'm Hermione Granger. If you look behind me, you'll see the walls of my room at Hogwarts, with all my books and stuff."
"Are you live? Is this part of a film?" gasped Maura. "How can you see me?"
"Yes, I surely am alive, and no, there's nothing to do with films here," said the face. "It's a bit complicated to explain how I see you, but here, now: do something with your hands and I'll do it back, so you'll know we're real-time."
Maura put both hands into her disorderly mop of thick, straight auburn hair and pulled it up on top of her head.
"Brilliant!" exclaimed Hermione. "It's driving me crazy hanging about my shoulders." She put her hands into her hair, pulled it up on top of her head and held it with one hand while she rummaged about for something to tie it with, finally locating a ravelling ribbon.
Maura put her elbows on her desk. "You're real," she said faintly.
"Yes, I am that," answered Hermione. "Now I'll do something, and you do it back." She crossed her eyes right into the corners of her nose.
"My mother used to say I'd freeze like that if I did it!" cried Maura. She crossed her eyes, and the young woman on the screen yelped with laughter.
"All right, Maura, I'll tell you all that's happened," said Hermione. A broad, furry head with a whiskery, flat face peeped into the corner of the screen, then monopolised it. "Oh, this is Crookshanks, my familiar. Do you have one?"
With that, Pumpkin roused himself, put his nose on the monitor screen and yowled. Maura lifted him away. "That's Pumpkin," she said. "He's pretty familiar, I'd say."
****
"It's getting light," Maura said, looking out of her window. On the screen in front of her, Hermione Granger yawned widely into her hands.
"I know. I've got to get ready for class, and you've got a workday ahead of you. Maura, does everything I've said make any sense?"
"Yes, it does," answered Maura. "There really is a Wizarding universe. I'm a Muggle, of course; I would never have known anything about this. You of the Wizarding World keep it hidden too well. From what you've told me, I could probably write fan fiction about you as well."
Hermione's already large eyes widened. "So that's why we have alternative universes. I don't think I want to know them, certainly not now. But that must be why your work spoke to me, why I felt that you were the right author, of all that I'd read on The Hive."
"It would never have occurred to me to put the two worlds together, but I think I'm up to it." Maura thought, Am I biting off more than I can chew? "But, Hermione, if I were writing a story, I'd want to solve the mystery and draw everything to a conclusion. If I understand you correctly, you just want me to get Sherlock Holmes to Hogwarts, and let everything develop on its own."
"Yes, I think that would be best. Can you do it?"
Maura considered. "Yes, but – well, I'll never know how it will come out. I won't be able to write the ending."
"Oh," said Hermione, "I think you'll know. Good-bye now, let's meet tonight."
"Good-bye, Hermione," said Maura. The screen cleared, and her schematic filled it.
Good God, thought Maura. They're real. I can't let on that they're fictional characters; since they're real to themselves. This is crazy. They know that Sherlock Holmes isn't real, though. Should I tell them not to tell him that he isn't real? However can I keep all of this straight? I have to make him as real as they are. Crazier and crazier!
Do I want to involve Mary Russell? All my other Hive fan fiction had both of them, not to mention various other characters I created. Many other Hive writers have everything occurring inside of Holmes' head; meditations, if you will, but I like him in interactions, particularly when he gets into high dudgeon. And Russell puts him there so beautifully…
I have to transport him from the world he lives in, Great War-Georgian England. The Potter universe is indeterminate in time; it feels like the Eighties (in the Muggle world, anyway). I don't think I want to mess with technical time transport, so I'll have to do it another way. Holmes is accustomed to his era's technical advances; the telephone, the gramophone, automobiles, electricity, but those are still new in his time. I think he'll be okay with Hogwarts' candlelight and quill pens.
Maura carried her change of clothes into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. She often got her best ideas while washing her hair. As she scrubbed, she considered the transition. Can't have Holmes arrive in Hogwarts so befuddled that he can't function. But he was such an advanced thinker that he could easily have accepted the idea of another universe, one where magic was commonplace. Hmm, she thought, rinsing off conditioner, would he hate it, since logic and reality are his tools in trade?
Wait a minute: this is the chap who loves disguises; who thinks Houdini is a genius; who enjoys Mme. Blavatsky although he denounced her as a charlatan, and holds forth on Hermes Trismegistus as the inventor of alchemy. She turned off the water, groped for a towel and threw it over her head. She put on her terrycloth robe and stepped out of the tub, rubbing her hair. He'll fit in quite well with the sort of mediaeval atmosphere of Hogwarts. And I can just see the first meeting between him and Snape…. She chortled and began to get dressed.