I'm sure many people had very strong opinions, but no one spoke up.
"Right, the majority of my time in the muggle world was spent chasing down murderers, thieves, kidnappers, and various other heinous criminals. Something I've learned about the criminal side of the muggle world is that they can be much more... creative in their methods of murder and torture and the like. The main reason being they have more methods to choose from. In the wizarding world, if someone wanted to kill someone effectively, they cast a killing curse and that's all there is to it. In the muggle world, you can choose to poison, stab, strangle, or shoot and each method could be just as effective as the others, depending on the circumstances. Once I caught a woman who killed all her husband's lovers with rose thorns. Fascinating case, elegant execution but not very challenging. She obviously didn't care if she was caught. Practically left a signed confession on the bodies. Actually, she did. She took a piece of skin from the forearm and carv-" Oh god. He's going on a gory tangent in front of children. I should have seen it coming when he started to mention the baker's dozen lovers case. I guess I must've been too caught up in these papers to catch it in time.
"Sherlock. Children." I remind him, wearing my 'bit not good' face.
"Oh?" His head shifted half an inch in my direction. "They can't be that squeamish. I'm not even telling the detai-" He tries to protest, but I'll have none of it.
"I told you, no murder cases in class. Not after you made that first year girl vomit." Sherlock's shoulders descend fractionally, signifying his defeat. I smirk to myself and turn back to the stack of scrolls I've been grading. Sherlock had them write 14 inches on their experience of breaking into a house common room that wasn't their own. It's really interesting to read about their different tactics to get around the magical defenses. Some of them managed to break in through windows, a few bribed people from a different house to just leave the door open and one Hufflepuff who was handy with sewing remade her uniform into a Slytherin's so they wouldn't notice when she followed another group inside. She wrote that she wishes she chose a different common room as the Slytherin dungeon is apparently really scary.
"Anyways, my point was that a muggle's methods of fighting is infinitely more unpredictable than any witch or wizard's and in the event of getting into a fight in their world, it's important to understand those differences. The first and most obvious are the preference in weapons. If someone threatens you or pisses any of you off, the first thing you do is reach for your wand. It's the most convenient and effective weapon you own." There's an audible eyeroll in his words, as if the entirity of magic society had a collective brain fart when they invented the wand. A thin stick that can create or destroy anything with just a flick of the wrist? How boring. I smirk and watch him walk out from behind his podium and up in front of it.
"Muggles have a vast assortment of weapons ranging from their bare hands to nuclear missiles. Today, we'll be doing a quick overview of the more casual forms of muggle weaponry. And we'll be starting with the bare hand." He thrust his hand out in front of him, rolled up into a fist. A ravenclaw raised his hand.
"No disrespect, but what is the point of all this? I'm in muggle studies and the textbook clearly states that muggles are all helpless against magic, and thu-" Sherlock stretches his neck and puffs out his chest in that peacockish way he does when he's irritated before he cuts the student off mid-sentence.
"John! We'll be needing another demonstration. Toss my wand this way and take your position on the white X." I sigh wearily and haul myself away from the stack of papers, picking up a nearby stick thing at throwing it at Sherlock.
"Sherlock, how many times do I have to beat the crap out of you before you realize this isn't a good idea?" I take my place at the white X. "You know I don't actually enjoy beating you up, right? All that stuff about wanting to punch your teeth out is just at joke between me and lestrade."
"Of course." Sherlock smirks at me as he crosses the room to the white X at the opposite end of the room. He whips the wand through the air and strikes an offensive pose. I take a slightly defensive position. Making it easy for me to dodge anything he throws at me, but making it clear that I have no intention of attacking.
"I'm not falling for it this time, Sherlock. Nothing you say is going to make me fight you today."
That slappably smug smirk twitches upwards as he flicks his wand and I find myself staring straight down the gaping throat of a five foot long snake. I dive to the side as it hits the ground, scrambling to get my feet out of the way when it lunges. Eventually, I manage to get its head trapped firmly in my hand. It wriggles in my grasp and wraps its body around my hand, but I don't let go. I pry as much of it off of me as I can and hurl it against a wall. While it's disoriented, I grab a jackknife from the wall, causing the stack of papers it was holding up to flutter to the floor, and fling it at the quickly approaching snake. The knife kills it with a sickening crack.
A slow clapping breaks the gasps and stunned whispers in the room. "Admirable work, John. Couldn't have done better myself." He drawls through his cat-like smirk, flicking his wand at the snake corpse pinned to the floor and causing it to vanish. I stomped out of the room to keep myself from punching that bastards lights out. "Any questions? No? Good. Now, the bare hand. I could spend a full week on various forms of muggle hand to hand combat, but as we don't have the time or attention spans, all I'll say is 'Muscle doesn't necessarily equal strength'. A three hundred pound beefcake who lifts weights every day could very well have not even the slightest idea how to use the muscles-" And that was all I heard as I slammed my door on the way out.
We had a fight. Of course. I won't let him hurl a magical snake at me for his own entertainment without a good fight. My point was obvious. Friends don't fling live snakes at friends. His point was slightly more obscure and completely insane. He claimed he had done nothing wrong and I was over reacting because I was in no 'actual' danger. Although, my cardiologist would definitely disagree. But, being the stubborn ass he is, he refused to admit he did anything wrong. In fact, he got bored of fighting after a few minutes and refused to do it. So most of the fight was me arguing at a practically comatose Sherlock until I got frustrated and made tea.
And now I'm drinking that tea while intently watching the clouds pass through the window. Pointedly slurping my tea in the way I know irritates Sherlock.
A knock at the door breaks the tense post-fight silence. A firm knock. Probably a professor.
"Sherlock, could you get-" I find that he had slipped into his mind palace during the silence. I sigh, resisting the urge to pour the near-scalding liquid over his head, and pull the door open.
"Aren't you a clever kitty! Opening the door all by yourself. Isn't that just adorable." At the door is a bespectacled, bearded old wizard with eyes made of glitter. I recognize him immediately as the headmaster Dumbledore and smile past my discomfort at his pet talk. Just play along with the game, Watson. It's just a game. "Is Holmes in? Or did he run off and leave his pretty kitty all alone in the big bad world?" He cooed at me.
"Yeah... well." How do you explain when someone's physically awake and in the room but mentally dead to the world? "He's... not really."
Dumbledore nods in understanding. "Ah. Would you mind terribly if I wait for him?" He says, as if he's already walked in and taken a seat. "There's quite a bit for us to... discuss." There is the slightest edge to his voice, as well as a tinge of disappointment. Well, whatever it is, it's Sherlock's problem. I shrug and allow him to step inside.
"Ah. Such a lovely view from this side of the castle." He sighs, glancing out the window. I nod and smile as I lift Sherlock's feet from the end of the sofa, take a seat where they used to be and let his feet fall into my lap. Dumbledore sits back in the armchair. We spend a long moment just staring at Sherlock, waiting for him to snap out of his mind palace. It looks a bit like he's trying to solve a sudoku puzzle on the ceiling.
"He use to be much worse, you know." Worse? I've never really seen this as one of his bad qualities. Just a bit annoying and disorienting. Sometimes he'll zone out in a doorway and act as a roadblock."Back when he was in school, his eyes would go blank and wide and his jaw would go slack. He felt dead. It terrified all of us because you could see in his eyes that he was trapped in there. Lost in his own head. I always hoped he might find some relief in the muggle world..." He turned back to me and the melacholic nostalgia faded from the air. "So how long have you-"
"We just live together. Back in the muggle world. We're not like... that." Dumbledore smiled knowingly at me. Amused, but unconvinced.
"That's fine. But I was about to ask 'how long have you known him'." I grimace at my mistake and he chuckles lightheartedly.
"Uh... that depends actually. I met him... five years ago? But there was a few years in between when I didn't know he was alive. I didn't even know he was a wizard until he dragged me out here. To tell the truth, I can't be sure if I actually know him now." I feel oddly at ease with the old man. He knew Sherlock when he was worse and doesn't hate his guts, so he must be an alright guy.
"Knowing how much Sherlock despises ignorance, you must know him fairly well." The thing about Sherlock is that the more you think you know, the more there is to learn. As soon as I felt that I knew his true nature as a crime-solving machine, he leaps off a hospital with a phone in one hand and the other reaching out for me. The second I begin to allow myself to accept his death, he turns up on my doorstep. Once I feel like I understand him as a human being, he reveals he's actually a wizard. In some ways I think I knew him best before he told me his name. "For awhile, I was afraid he had kidnapped a muggle off the street for some game of his."
"Do you really think so little of me?" He said, twiddling his toes in my lap.
"Oh. Look who's returned from the dead. Could you kindly get your feet off me?"
"You're the one who decided to sit under them." He mumbled, heaving himself into an upright position with a groan that would have impressed an octogenarian giant.
"To tell the truth, yes. I didn't expect much of you when you arrived. For all I know, you could be exactly the same boy who left these grounds 20 years ago. Or worse." Dumbledore answered his question, solemnly.
"And you decided to allow me to care for children for a year. Have you gone senile or have you always been insane and I just failed to notice." Sherlock showed no sign of actually meaning offense and Dumbledore showed no sign of taking any.
"I expected the worst and hoped for the best. Luckily for all of us, I'm not quite the old fool I expected to be in giving you this position. But even so you-" Sherlock cuts him off just as he starts to get into a reprimanding speech.
"I'm not apologizing, if that's what you're here for." Sherlock growled, defiantly.
"I'm not. I'm here to warn you. What you did today was dangerous. More dangerous than you realize." Sherlock slouches back into the sofa, rolling his eyes so hard you could swear he turned into an abnormally tall teenager. This must be about the snake incident in class. Finally, another person on my side! "I told you to keep your 'cat's' identity a secret for a reason. I can't have you dragging an innocent muggle into wizard affairs like this." Oh. It's about the clothes.
"Oh this is just stupid. This is a school. Full of children. I believe our chances of being lynched are quite low."
"Those children have parents. Some of which are known death eaters. Once they get word, there's no telling-" They argue as if I'm not here. But from the sound of things, it's all about 'wizarding affairs' that I won't really understand.
"Which makes it all the more important that the children be taught that their parents are wrong! If every generation of wizards are allowed to cling to the previous generation's fallacies, the wizarding world will always be infested with this racism." Sherlock seems to be pretty big on activism for someone who has lived in a different world for decades.
"Yes, that's all true. But that aside, this isn't his fight. I can't let you push him into our battles for your own causes. I shouldn't have even let you bring him here. I think it's best if he leave before any more damage is caused." The room goes cold. Leave? I don't want to leave. I've only just gotten the hang of navigating the castle! I haven't seen half of it yet. But... I don't even know why Sherlock brought me here in the first place. God knows, I'm out of place here. Just a few hours ago, I had a magical snake thrown at me.
"No." The entire room shifts at the word. "He's not leaving without me. Or rather, I'm not staying without him. So unless you want to hire the werewolf, a.k.a. the murderer's best friend, John's not going anywhere."
"Actually... Sherlock." A look of horror crosses his face. Slowly, Sherlock turns to me. "I'm not sure I should've ever come."
"No." He breathes. "You really think we shou-"
"Not we. Me. I know you won't actually leave, you still have a murderer to catch."
"John. Please." Oh god. He looks like I've betrayed him. Like I've just handed him over to Moriarty. Maybe I should take it back. "Please don't. If this about the snake, I swear I-"
"Sherlock, it's not the snake. Well it is, but it's also the robes and the moving portraits and the feeling that any given 12 year old knows more about all of this than I do. I don't belong in your world. I think I should go back to mine."
"You think this is my world? I told you I left for a reason. Every dark corner of this blasted castle contains bad memories. Every portrait's stare is just another reminder of how much I don't belong here. I can do magic, but I was never a wizard. Don't leave me to be the only non-wizard in Hogwarts. Please." I just can't say no now. He said please twice. Twice! Not only would he be the only non-wizard, he's also Sherlock. The man who could hide in empty white room but couldn't blend in if his life depended on it.
"I-I need to think about it."
I'm getting a little sick, so to cheer myself up, the next chapter will be sickeningly johnlocky. I'm honestly thinking of having them kiss. That is, if I haven't done it in this chapter already. This note was/is being written before I wrote/will write the end of the chapter, so things are/were awkward. I feel a bit like a time traveler that way. Don't ask me how.
By the way, Dumbledore snuck out of the room while Sherlock and John where caught up with each other.