John's Christmas holiday was uneventful. It was good to be home, he supposed, and yet it felt different. Maybe because the word home now conjured up visions of yellow and black Quidditch pennants and cozy fireplaces surrounded with overstuffed armchairs and a crowd of easygoing, smiling faces. He'd brought a pennant home with him to hang in his room - a gift from Edward Hastings, a third-year who'd sort of adopted John when it came to trying to explain Quidditch - but his mother had taken one look at it and paled.

"For what, now?" she had asked with a frown. He hadn't gotten through two sentences of trying to explain the sport before she interrupted him. "Dear, you can't leave that here!" She glanced at the pennant as though scared it would take off flapping about the room. "What if someone sees it? What am I supposed to say to explain it away?"

John looked at the pennant - solid yellow with a black tip and a black H in the middle - and frowned. "I mean, I didn't think it was that strange," he said softly.

"Well, don't you want it with you at school, anyway?" his mother asked with a nervous smile. "Trust me dear, just take it back with you, all right?" She pulled him close to kiss the top of his head, and left him standing there, feeling like a stranger in his own living room.

He spent most of the holiday trying to ignore his sister's pokes and prods. She seemed to think that if he got angry enough, he would show her a bit of magic. "I bet it's all a lie anyway!" she exclaimed at least once a day. "You're not magical, Mum's just sent you off somewhere to be rid of you and she's too ashamed to tell me the truth."

"I can do magic!" John yelled once, pushed past his breaking point. "But I can't now - they'll expel me if I do it outside of school!" Harry rolled her eyes, smirking in pleasure that she'd finally got the rise she was looking for.

"Oh, is that it?" she scoffed. "Or maybe Mum's had you sent off to a loony bin and we're all just supposed to play along with your delusions. That's more likely. Hogwiggles Loony Bin." She smirked.

"It's Hogwarts," John muttered angrily.

"What's that, Loony-Loo?"

"HOGWARTS!" he bellowed, clenching his fists. "And it isn't a loony bin; you're just jealous that you - "

"John Hamish Watson!" Their mother stormed into the room. "Keep your voice down! Have you forgotten we have neighbors? What if they hear you talking about that - about any of this? Try to act, well -" she hesitated, looking uncertain, "-well, normal, dear - would you please? You'll be back at that school soon enough, but for now, just be a normal boy. Not a wizard." Her eyes were wide and distraught, mouth twisted into half a frown. John could do nothing but nod. "Thank you, Love. Come on, Harry - stop bothering him, would you?" And John was left alone, sitting on his bed and staring at the crumpled corner of the Hufflepuff pennant sticking out of his trunk.

Slowly, he got off the bed and opened the trunk, shifting the pennant so none of it stuck out the crack; when he shut the lid it was completely hidden, along with his wand and a few books he'd brought along for homework and reading. He thought of the chocolate frog he'd brought Harry for Christmas and wondered if he should go and get it from under the tree and hide it, too.

After a few moments, he scowled and reopened the trunk. Rifling through the messy contents, he came up with a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages that Edward Hastings had lent him. He propped the yellow pennant up in the lid of the open trunk and settled into his bed. If he was ever going to understand the most popular wizarding sport, he couldn't take a holiday off. He wondered how long it would take his mum to stop worrying so much.

"It was a disaster," John told Molly in a pained undertone, head propped on one hand. "You should have seen the looks on both their faces."

"They didn't like it?" Molly frowned.

"Harry screamed," he moaned. "Molly, in the Muggle world, sweets don't hop around."

"Well, it's not like all sweets hop around. They're frogs, what else would they do?"

"Molly, Muggle sweets don't move at all. They're just - they're just sweets. They just sit there." He couldn't believe he was having to explain this to someone. "She ripped it open before I could warn her, and of course the frog leapt out, and - Molly, it was awful! They were yelling, and I was chasing the frog, and just when I'd explained it away, my mum picked up the card, and- "

"Oh, the card's the best part," she chirped merrily. "Who'd she get? I hope it was good, her first one."

The ancient librarian swooped over to their table, shushing them loudly. They ducked their heads and continued their conversations in whispers.

John was exasperated. "Molly, you don't understand. She wasn't exactly happy to see the card."

"But why?" Molly hissed with a frown.

"Honestly, Molly." John jumped as Sherlock Holmes appeared next to him. The Slytherin pulled out the chair next to Molly with a loud scrape and flopped into it. "Muggle photos don't move." She opened her mouth, looking frustrated. "No - not at all. They sit there in the frame, and you can poke them and prod them and scream at them all you want, but they won't move." Molly's eyes widened, and she drew in an eager breath. "No, the portraits don't move either," Sherlock interrupted. John nodded, grinning at Molly's obvious awe.

"Holmes!" hissed Madam Pince, coming up behind him. "I've warned you a thousand times that if you do not keep your voice down, I will have you banned from this library." Sherlock rolled his eyes, raising a hand in acknowledgement, and the librarian swept away.

"What's even the point?" Molly mused, looking distraught.

John rolled his eyes. "They're still pictures, Molly. They just don't move. So you can imagine my mum's surprise when she picks up the card from the floor and there's Harry-freaking-Potter waving up at her. And then he walks right out of the frame, like they do, you know, and I thought she was going to cry. I ruined Christmas Day." He let his head fall to the table.

"Ashamed of you, I suppose?" Sherlock's voice was barely a fraction lower than before. At Molly's confused look, he sighed. "Do you think John's mum enjoys having a wizard in the family? Distrust and fear run both ways, you know. Honestly, Muggle Studies should be a required course. They are fascinating people."

John frowned. "That's my family you're talking about."

"I called them 'fascinating people,'" Sherlock sniffed, "which is better than what I'd say about my family." He cracked a crooked grin. "Anyway, I'm sure by the time term is over, they'll be glad to see you again. Which, again, is more than I could say about my own parents."

"Sherlock!" hissed Molly. "Don't be horrible. You know your parents are always happy you're home. And Mycroft -"

Sherlock snorted. Loudly. "Give it up, Molly. Don't bother trying to defend Mycroft."

"Mycroft?" John frowned. "That Ravenclaw prefect - he's your brother?"

"Unfortunate but true." Sherlock reached up to one of the shelves behind his head and pulled out a moldy volume at random. Puffs of dust rose up with every page he turned.

"What's that?" Molly asked, craning her neck to see.

"No idea, as it's written in Aramaic. I'll have to learn it," he added offhandedly. John shot a glance at Molly, who mouthed brilliant back at him, raising her eyebrows dramatically. Sherlock slammed the book shut, sending up a swirl of decades-old dust. John and Molly leaned back, waving it away.

"Out!" Madam Pince shrieked, loudly for a woman of her age. Moving surprisingly quickly, she snatched the book from in front of Sherlock and clutched it to her chest. "No respect for old books! No respect for me! No respect for silence in the library!" John leapt to his feet, grabbing his bag and sprinting after Molly out of the library. Even Sherlock was running, ducking his head to avoid a swat from Madam Pince's fist.

"Old bat," Sherlock muttered, running both hands over his curly black hair. Molly squeaked. John laughed.

It wasn't halfway through the term before Sherlock had learned Aramaic - or so he claimed. He insisted on reading aloud from the dusty volume he had checked out from the library, seeming to think that if John and Molly heard the strange syllables enough, they would pick up on the language too. Molly was not amused.

"I can not study with that noise!" she exclaimed one afternoon, slamming her Charms book shut and shoving it into her bag. She stood, shoving her chair back as John stared and Sherlock looked on passively. Molly bit her lip, her voice terse. "I heard a rumor there's a test on these Levitation Charms, and I can't make it work even half the time." She hesitated a moment, then spun around and scurried to the door. "Good night!"

"So dramatic," Sherlock drawled, returning to his Aramaic studies. "She's done it correctly the last five times she tried." John nodded, surprised. Sherlock hadn't looked up from his book the entire time they had been studying in the third-floor classroom. He certainly hadn't given any indication that he had taken notice of John and Molly's practicing.

"Well, you know Molly," John shrugged. "She won't stop until it's perfect every time and then some."

"She tries too hard," Sherlock said calmly, flipping a page. "God, this is boring." He chanted a few words in rhythm, flicking his wand so that purple and red sparks fizzed out of its tip. John scooted farther away from the shower of embers. "Worthless spells," Sherlock muttered, flipping through several pages with a tight frown. "All aesthetic, nothing practical. And there's an error!" He stopped his flipping and grabbed a quill to scribble furiously in the ancient volume.

"Are you sure you should..." John's voice trailed off; it was too late to save the book. "Are you sure it's an error? You just started learning Aramaic what - a few months ago?" The look the Slytherin sent him could have wilted Professor Longbottom's whole collection of plants.

"It's an error," he answered flatly. "I've made this potion before, and it requires three grains of powdered octopus, not mushroom spores - which is what this fine piece of literature insists upon." He finished his corrections with a stab of his quill, and John sighed.

After a few moments of silence, John ventured a change of subject. "Have you ever wondered how they turn the octopus to powder?" Sherlock blinked at him.

"You, know?" he said slowly, "I haven't." To John's utter bewilderment, the Slytherin shut his book, shoved it in his bag, and leapt to his feet. "I will find out. Thank you, John." And with that, he strode purposefully out of the room.

John was left staring blankly at the classroom door. "For what?" he asked loudly, knowing nobody was left to hear his question.

John was laughing at one of Eddie Hastings' stories several days later when a loud voice piped up behind him. "The Reductor curse!" John turned with the rest of the Hufflepuffs to stare at Sherlock, who stood next to their table proudly. "The Reductor curse, John," he repeated emphatically. John shook his head slowly as his ears reddened.

"Sorry, but I've missed something." The other Hufflepuffs were turning back to their plates, scoffing under their breath at the audacity and strangeness of this Slytherin second-year. John noticed Sherlock's gaze flick towards a particularly nasty giggle directed his way. "What about the Reductor curse?"

Sherlock looked, to John's surprise, a little hurt. "Powdered octopus," he said in quiet exasperation. John remained clueless. "You asked how they made the octopus into powder." Sherlock's voice rose a bit. "I found out." He looked at John expectantly, so the Hufflepuff nodded in what he hoped was an encouraging way. "They take it - the octopus - and slice it into thin pieces. It's the tentacles they use, mainly; other parts have better uses. The eyes are apparently very important, so they scoop those out to begin with." This fact was accompanied with a descriptive hand gesture. Next to John, Eddie dropped his spoon onto the table with a loud clang. Sherlock didn't pause. "The slices are dried out, and then they use the Reductor curse to make the dried bits into a fine powder. It's quite interesting, really. Thank you for the puzzle." He grinned proudly at John.

"Er - no problem," John answered with a hesitant half-smile. "Thanks for the answer."

"Anytime." Sherlock nodded and spun around, heading back to his usual end spot at the Slytherin table. Eddie watched him go with a skeptical sneer.

"Hanging around with him now?" John shrugged, picking at his food. "You know, there's plenty of Hufflepuffs to be friends with."

"I know." Across the Great Hall, Molly Hooper rose from the Ravenclaw table and promptly tripped over the end of her trailing scarf. John couldn't hold in a laugh as she stumbled into a passing Gryffindor and gestured wildly in accompaniment to her enthusiastic apology. Eddie followed his gaze and rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Watson; stick with us." He took John's arm and led him out of the Great Hall. "So did I ever tell you about the time I played Quidditch in an enchanted blizzard? Yeah, my mum had a bit to much to drink, you know, and messed up a spell - she was trying to get a little snow for Christmas, but she went a little overboard. Anyway -" By the time they reached their common room, John's cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing, and there was nothing he wanted more than to settle into the cushions of an overstuffed chair and sip hot chocolate while listening to the other Hufflepuff's cheerful conversations and jokes.

John found himself unconsciously following Eddie's advice during the last few weeks of the term. It wasn't so much that he started avoiding Molly and Sherlock; rather, they just never seemed to be around anymore, and he didn't search them out. Examinations were coming up soon, and the amount of homework seemed like it had tripled, and suddenly it just made more sense to spread his books over the carpeting in the common room instead of hunting down Molly, Sherlock, and an empty classroom. He still greeted Molly in the corridors, and it was clear that she had no time for anything other than studying. John squashed his uneasy, guilty feelings by telling himself that she wouldn't want him distracting her, anyway.

He greeted Sherlock in the corridors, too, but the Slytherin's response was really more of an acknowledgement than a true greeting in return. He missed seeing Sherlock in Potions class, but the second-year had been removed from the class after directing one too many sarcastic outbursts at Anderson. As far as John could tell from passing glimpses, Sherlock wasn't taking his banishment too hard. He seemed to have doubled his time spent in the library, and from the look of the books he was poring over, he wasn't studying for his exams.

John did quite literally run into Sherlock on the Hogwarts Express as it was heading back to London. Everyone was in high spirits, with exams over and the summer holiday just about to begin, and John was rushing back to the compartment he was sharing with a few Hufflepuff classmates when he crashed into the Slytherin. They both tumbled to the floor, glass doors sliding open so other students could peer down at them.

"Sorry," John muttered, grabbing Sherlock's bag for him. "My fault."

Sherlock shrugged, brushing some dirt from his sleeve. "Both in a hurry. It happens." He took his bag, nodding at John before hurrying back on his way. John frowned.

"Sherlock!" The second-year turned slowly around. "Are you sitting with anyone? I have a compartment with -"

"No thanks, John. I've got some really interesting reading I want to start on." He thumped his bag. "Here's hoping Madam Pince doesn't do inventory over the summer."

"You stole library books?" John grinned. "You've got to be the only person who would -" A group of rowdy Gryffindor boys barged through, interrupting him. "Well, if you're sure you don't want to sit with -"

"No." Sherlock smiled tersely. "I'll be off, then." Again, he nodded and strode away. John frowned at his back.

"Have a good summer, then," he said loudly. Sherlock raised a hand in acknowledgement.

"Do the same," he called over his shoulder. "See you next term." And he was gone before John could respond.

"See you next term," he said to the empty aisle. Then, shaking his head, he headed back to rejoin the Hufflepuffs.