Author's Note: So sorry it's been so long since this story was updated. I'm very busy with university. It is a long chapter, so I hope that makes up for it. Also, I would love any reviews and/or tips you would like to give me!
John's mum was almost as eager for his return to school as John was himself. She walked him to the platform again, helping him with his baggage, and stopped at the ninth platform. "Well, have a good year, love," she said with a half-smile. "I know you're ready to be back."
It was true. John had even started reading ahead in the textbooks he'd picked up on a daytrip to Diagon Alley; he missed magic that much. "It's been good being home, though," he said, trying to make her feel better.
"Well, I'm sure you -" She was interrupted by a loud shout.
"John! John!" He turned around to see Molly Hooper waving excitedly as she tried to steer an overburdened luggage cart with one hand. Balanced on the top of her bags was an open cardboard box with a small gray kitten poking its head out of the top. John glanced back to see his mother's mouth hanging open. "John, how are you? How was your summer? I hope it was excellent! Are you ready to go back to school?" She threw her arms around him, and he stood stiffly and glanced around in panic. He wasn't used to girls clinging to him like this.
"Er - hi, Molly. Good to see you." Finally, she let him go and hopped back, still beaming widely.
"Is this your mum?" she asked, sticking a hand out to Mrs. Watson. "I'm Molly Hooper. It's so nice to meet you." John's mother shook the proffered hand cautiously, then glanced at her watch.
"Well, I expect you two will want to get seats," she said, clearly flustered as she glanced at the kitten, which was trying to clamber out of its box and attracting some attention from nearby Muggles. "Go on, then." She gave John a last quick hug and nodded to Molly, then set off away through King's Cross.
"She's not coming through?" Molly asked as they started towards the brick wall separating them from the Hogwarts platform.
"It makes her nervous," John explained. "And she didn't want to watch me do it, either. Where are your parents?" He closed his eyes as they met the bricks, but of course it was as if the wall wasn't even there. Molly scooped up her kitten and they left their luggage with the porters and went to get on the train.
"Working," she said, rolling her eyes. "They're both in the Ministry, you know. It's been busy all summer; I hardly saw them at all."
They found seats easily enough, and after a few minutes of catching up they were joined by a couple of older Ravenclaws. Molly beamed at them, like she beamed at everybody, and greeted one of the girls by name. The Ravenclaws sat in a tight group, speaking quietly, as Molly turned back to John. He listened to her stories, glancing over to the fifth- and sixth-years across the car.
During a lull in Molly's storytelling, John cut in. "So you know them?" He spoke softly, nodding at their neighbors as he leaned over to rub the kitten's head. It butted at his finger, purring loudly. Molly frowned at him as though she thought he was dense.
"Well, they're in my house. I don't know them well. Why?" The kitten leapt from her lap to John's, and she let out a squeak of surprise. John caught the fuzzy thing and held it in one hand, rubbing under its chin.
"Just wondering. Who's the one with glasses?" John glanced across the compartment. The boy with glasses seemed to be the leader of the group. The others looked to him at breaks in the conversation and to get cues to laugh. It was a subtle dynamic, but it struck John as odd.
"Charles Magnussen," she whispered, frowning. "Can we do this later? When they're not right there?" She widened her eyes meaningfully, and he nodded. They sat in silence a few moments, playing with the kitten.
"So, er, who is this fellow?"
Molly cooed. "Well, she's no fellow. Her name's Doris. Isn't she lovely? My dad -" Doris's life story was interrupted by a crash. Something slammed against the door of their train car. Molly gasped, and the Ravenclaws across the car looked towards the noise.
"A fight," one of the girls said. "Do you need to go sort it out, Charles? She reached out to touch his prefect's badge coyly. Magnussen smiled coldly.
"I'm sure it's nothing that won't straighten itself out." John's mouth dropped open. What was the point of prefects, if they wouldn't even step in to break up a fight? He stood and deposited Doris into Molly's lap. Striding to the door, he flung it open just in time for someone to fall through it, propelled by the force of a punch. John caught him, staggering under the sudden weight.
"Sherlock!" Molly was as pale as a ghost, but she leapt up and helped John drag their friend's limp frame to their seats. John looked over his shoulder, but Sherlock's attackers had already fled. "Charles, what do we do?" The prefect stood, looking slightly cross.
"I'll get someone." He left the car, in no hurry whatsoever. John scowled, turning back to Sherlock. Molly was already dabbing at some of his cuts with a shaky hand. When she pressed at the corner of his split lip, Sherlock jerked and groaned softly. John caught Molly's hand.
"Watch out; this looks broken." John traced the swollen, already bruised line of Sherlock's jaw. Molly whimpered. John looked around. "Where did that prefect go?"
The door flew open and several prefects rushed into the car. Magnussen brought up the rear, standing back while the others gathered around the injured boy. John recognized one of them as Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft frowned deeply as he leaned over his brother. "I'm surprised; Sherlock can usually handle himself. Did anyone see who did this?" John shook his head angrily. Mycroft straightened up with a sigh. "Well, we're nearly at the school. Lestrade, send an owl ahead of us and tell them we'll need Madam Pomfrey. There's nothing we can do for him here." A prefect in Gryffindor colors nodded and left the car briskly.
The rest of the train ride was spent in silence. Magnussen and the other Ravenclaws left the compartment, John and Molly sat looking down at Sherlock, and Mycroft gazed out the window at the passing scenery. When they finally reached Hogsmeade Station, the four of them were rushed into the first horseless carriage and reached the castle well ahead of the rest of the students. Madam Pomfrey, Headmistress McGonagall, and Professor Anderson were waiting for them.
John's head was spinning from all of the questions by the time he and Molly were released from McGonagall's office. Sherlock was taken up to the hospital wing, although Madam Pomfrey assured them he'd be in perfect health by morning. When he and Molly had assured the headmistress that they had no information, they were sent off to the feast. The Great Hall was buzzing with excitement.
"Did you hear?" Eddie asked John before he had even reached the table. Eddie pushed gently at a tiny new first-year until the girl scooted over to make enough room for John.
"Hear? I was there; where do you think I've been just now?" He helped himself to the dishes that covered the table, trying to keep his voice from becoming too cross.
"No, I mean about who did it." John looked up immediately, and Eddie continued before he could even voice his question. "Two seventh-years - a Ravenclaw and a Slytherin. They ran right through the next car after they beat him up, so it wasn't hard to figure out who did it. Not very smart, was it? They've already been expelled, of course. I bet they'll stand trial, too; the Holmes family has connections, and lots of them, at that." Eddie licked his spoon clean, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
"Seventh-years?" John asked, dumbfounded. "And in different houses? What would they want with Sherlock?"
Eddie snorted. "Oh, please. You honestly believe there's a person in this school he hasn't insulted? Well, there's the new first-years, but give him a week and they'll all want him beaten, too." John scowled.
"Getting mad at someone and beating them up aren't exactly the same thing," he pointed out. "And you'd think a couple seventh-years would be patient enough, knowing they're nearly done with school."
Eddie shrugged. "Well, ask him when he wakes up, would you? I want to know just what he said to them, to deserve that." He stood up, ignoring John's furious gasp of breath. "Prefects are getting up. I'm going to beat the rush of firsties to the common room." John gulped down a few last bites of supper, then joined the crowd leaving the Great Hall. He waved off the Hufflepuffs who swarmed him in the common room, hoping for gossip about the events on the train.
"I'm too tired; no, I don't want to talk about - stop it, okay!" He shook his arm free of a fifth-year's grip and stomped into his dormitory. Flopping onto his bed, he sighed. The year was not starting out quite like he had hoped.
Sure enough, Sherlock was up and running the very next day, and after a few weeks, everything was back to normal. The other students stopped pitying him after a few of the usual cutting remarks and returned to treating Sherlock as an unpleasant yet inevitable part of life. Sherlock, to John's surprise, had no idea why the two seventh-years would want to beat him up. Unsurprisingly, not knowing was driving him mad.
"I've never spoken to either one of them in my life," he exclaimed loudly one day when he and John and Molly were studying in a third-floor classroom. "It makes no sense! Something is missing!"
John sighed, used to these outbursts. This conversation had been replayed over and over in the past month, even as rumors about supposed motives became few and far between. "Maybe it was just a random thing," John suggested. "I mean, there are bullies everywhere. My sister used to come home with black eyes from this one girl -"
"No, he's right!" Molly exclaimed, shutting a book gently. Interrupting was very unlike her, and John noticed she looked tired and sad. "It doesn't make sense! Roberta Bennett was so nice. None of us Ravenclaws can understand why she would do something like..." She trailed off. "It's just so strange. I guess you never really know people." John frowned.
"Well, she can't have been that nice, can she?" he asked cautiously. "I mean, if she just turned around - before the school year even started, mind you - and attacked a third-year?" Molly scowled.
"That's what I'm saying. It makes no sense." John nodded silently, but thought privately that Molly needed to work on judging people. Sometimes assuming the best was not the smartest thing to do.
"Well, I'm off," John announced, shoving books into his bag as he stood. Molly waved a hand at him, already engrossed back into her studies. Sherlock even nodded goodbye. John stepped out the door, closed it behind him, and turned towards the staircase. Before he had even taken a step, however, there was a deafening bang and a jet of blue light streaked past his ear, illuminating the dark hallway and sending a searing pain across the side of his head.
John cried out, ducking forward and clapping a hand to his head. As he stumbled, scrabbling about in his pocket for his wand, his foot slipped over the edge of the first step, and then he was tumbling down flights of stairs. His world was a spiraling, jarring series of bounces on stone, and all he could think was that he would roll off the side of the staircase or through a trick stair, and who would find his body the next morning.
It felt like he fell forever until he was able to stick out an arm and catch hold of a railing to stop his fall. He lay there, sprawled across the stairs and unsure of which way was up. His head was spinning and he was too rattled to move, but through the ringing in his ears he could barely hear Molly calling his name.
"John! John! Oh God! Sherlock, he's fallen!" The stairs shook with her footsteps as she raised towards him. "Are you okay? What happened? Oh God, blood!" He slowly moved the hand closest to his head and felt a sticky pool of liquid above his ear. He tried to sit up, or raise his head, or maybe just to speak, but a wave of intense dizziness rushed over him and he fell back.
Molly reached him, scrabbling to a halt and dropping to her knees to lean over him. "It's okay, it's okay," she repeated under her breath. She looked frantically around, spying a scarf peeking out of John's schoolbag. "Oh, I'm sorry about the scarf. We'll scourgify it later." She dabbed the fabric against John's head. "It'll be okay. It's okay. We need a teacher." She turned to peer up the stairs. "Sherlock! We need a teacher!" Then she turned back to John. "How do you feel? It's not so bad. Can you speak? It'll be okay."
Shut up, John thought through the swirling fog in his head. He closed his eyes to try and stop the world spinning, but somehow even with them tightly shut he could tell it hadn't worked. He didn't try to answer Molly, scared the bile rising in his throat would escape.
"Sherlock!" Molly screamed. "What are you doing? Help me!" Footsteps pounded closer on the third floor, and Sherlock came into view.
"I couldn't find anyone up there," he gasped, launching himself down the stairs. "Why aren't you-" He broke off, cursing as he saw Molly and John.
"He hasn't answered me yet," Molly cried. "I think he's awake, but he's not even moving. Where are all the bloody teachers?" Her voice rose with every word, getting closer and closer to hysteria.
"Keep pressure on the wound," Sherlock ordered. "Stay calm, Molly, and I'll be back." He launched himself over the railing of the stairway and took off at a sprint.
Molly continued her panicked murmurs, and John kept on praying that the world wasn't just going to spin right out from under him, until Sherlock returned at the same pace at which he left. He came to a stop next to them, clinging to the rail as he gasped for breath. "Well?" Molly demanded, "where's the teacher?" Sherlock just pointed, too winded to speak, and sure enough more footsteps were approaching on the first floor.
"Move, move now! Let us in!" Professor Longbottom leaned over John, gently teasing one of his eyelids farther open. "John, can you hear me?" The professor's face swam double or triple across John's vision. "Hospital wing, as quickly and carefully as possible. Molly, run up there now and tell Madam Pomfrey that we're on our way. And ask her to give you something calming." Pale and shaking, she obeyed. "Sherlock, help me here, would you?" He waved his wand so that a pad of gauze appeared and pressed itself against the wound on John's head.
Soon John was floating on a conjured stretcher, trying to lie as still as possible as the stretcher bobbed gently up and down through the corridors. He clutched feebly at the sides of the stretcher, but it didn't help. "Almost there, John," Professor Longbottom murmured. Sherlock jogged ahead to tug the door of the hospital wing open.
By the time Professor Donovan, John's Head of House, and the headmistress arrived, Madam Pomfrey had John in a bed and back to a more permanent state of consciousness. Most of the fog was gone from his head and the room around him appeared to at least be fixed in place.
"Concussion, broken rib, laceration across the temple, he'll have bruises everywhere for a week," Madam Pomfrey kept up an angry mutter as she bustled about the room.
"Thank you, Poppy," Professor McGonagall said gently. "We'll be speaking to John now, if that's all right." Madam Pomfrey scowled.
"Just for a while. If anyone ever needed rest, he does." The headmistress nodded.
"Just tell us what happened, Mister Watson," she urged quietly. John cleared his throat and recounted what he could remember.
"I'd just left the room where we were studying," he said, squinting through the headache that was beginning behind his eyes. "There was a bang right after I closed the door, and a flash of light - I think it was blue - that went right by my head. And I guess it knocked me down, or I fell, and went down the stairs. I never saw anyone, though. Sorry."
"Don't apologize, Watson," Professor Donovan snapped. John winced.
"Shh, Sally," Professor McGonagall warned. She turned to Molly and Sherlock. "And you two? Did you see or hear anything different?"
"Not - not really," Molly whispered. She clutched a mug of steaming hot chocolate. "We heard the bang he just mentioned and went to see what happened - well, Sherlock went looking, and I went to John."
"I didn't see anything," Sherlock said. "I looked all along the east side, but no one was there. I didn't realize John was so hurt - I would have gone for Professor Longbottom sooner."
"Well, it's all right now." Professor McGonagall sighed. "It is disappointing that no one saw anything, but it can't be helped. Rest up, John. And you lot," she added, turning to Sherlock and Molly, "walk with us, please. Professor Longbottom, escort Miss Hooper to her dormitory, please. I will walk Mister Holmes to his." Professor Longbottom nodded.
The whole group stood and Madam Pomfrey led them out and extinguished the lamps with a wave of her wand. John lay alone in the dark, head spinning for a whole different reason than before. Nothing made sense. He was at school, after all. People don't just get attacked walking down a corridor at school. Not at normal schools. His eyelids drifted shut of their own accord and he fell into a deep, potion-induced sleep.