.year three.
The train hisses steam along the platform, and John Watson sees Sherlock Holmes with his hands in his pockets as the steam swirls all around his long, dark robes. He's gotten taller, much taller, and the rest of him hasn't quite caught up. One of the porters is hauling Sherlock's trunk up onto the luggage car, and Sherlock's pinched face barks orders at them periodically. A yellow tabby cat winds around the boy's ankles, and the creature is the first one to notice the two new figures walking up the platform.
Sherlock turns his head at last. "John." His voice is deeper, too. He doesn't waste time with small talk, shifting his eyes to the Fifth Year standing beside John. "And Harriet. This is your sister, isn't it?"
The Gryffindor frowns. John sees it and cuts in quickly.
"Sherlock, my sister Harry. Harry, this is Sherlock Holmes. Y'know, the..." They don't talk about the day Jennifer Wilson was poisoned, the day a girl nearly died.
"I heard about Sherlock Holmes," Harry says, eyeing the boy up and down (he's two years younger than her, and he's already gained an inch on her). "I heard he's a weirdo. That he knows stuff about you before you even meet him." Oh, John knows all about that, and he knows the idea Harry is having, and he knows it's a bad one. But no one stops Harry Watson. "So, go on then."
Sherlock narrows his eyes, which flick briefly down to the long-suffering look on John's face, before he smiles smugly at Harry.
"Your name is Harriet, but you go by Harry because you want to appear stronger and less feminine than your name suggests. Maybe because of the loss of a strong masculine figure in your life, more likely because you're more interested in kissing girls than kissing boys. The most recent is a Ravenclaw—"
He stops when Harry gives an angry step closer and raises her fist threateningly. She spits, "Cut that out, you freak!"
And before Sherlock can take a defensive step backward, John is in the space between them, eye to eye with his sister and deflecting the fist that wants to turn Sherlock's face inside-out.
"Don't you dare," John warns her. "Sherlock's my friend, and you'd better stop talking about him like that right now. And I better not hear about you saying anything behind his back, either. Harriet."
She gives a harsh breath through her nose, which wrinkles with dislike when she looks back up at the Slytherin boy. Then, dropping her fist, she twirls on the spot and leaves them behind on the platform. John sighs, scrubbing his hair with both of his hands, and turns to apologize.
Sherlock is giving him the strangest look he's ever seen. He doesn't even know what to call it. Shock? Wonder? Horror? It makes Sherlock's eyes look very bright, whatever it is, and very small.
John blinks too much, trying to understand it, and finally frowns under the scrutiny. "What?"
Sherlock shakes his head and looks away. "Nothing, it's... I've never had a—" He clears his throat. "I don't have friends."
John's frown deepens, and there's a cold spot that's growing in the middle of his chest. His face hurts, and he realizes it's because he's using too much of it, pinching up in growing disappointment. I don't have friends. So, clearly, John can't have been Sherlock Holmes's friend, if he didn't have any. It's certainly a disappointment.
He nods stiffly, accepting Sherlock's choice in the matter, and walks away very quickly. He thinks, for a moment, he hears something move behind him, but he doesn't stop until he's on the train and he's found an empty compartment to hide himself in. Silly John Watson, trying too hard to make friends; served him right, he supposes.
There's a light knock on the compartment door, and his head jerks up (the cold spot vanishes for a moment), but it's not who he'd expected. It's Sarah Sawyer, the Gryffindor in Harry's year who he still hasn't quite gotten up the nerves to talk to. She's wearing a shiny prefect badge on her jumper, and a pretty smile.
"Hello," she says, brushing the long, hanging hair from her eyes. "Do you mind?
"I, uh—no, I don't mind at all."
She shuts the door behind her, grinning as though she's been let in on a secret. "Until they come and fetch me, that is. New prefect, kind of exciting." She takes a seat opposite him. "You're Johnny Watson, aren't you? Harry's brother?"
He can feel his ears betraying him to go a horrible red color. Was she calling him Johnny behind his back? Oh, he was upset with her before, but now he's on his way to livid.
"John's fine."
"I'm Sarah." He stupidly can't find anything to say to that, so he smiles a big, awkward, open-mouthed smile. "I heard about everything you did to help that girl last year. You and your friend, you were quite the heroes."
John doesn't tell her that Sherlock's made it clear he doesn't have any friends, that he doesn't really think he's much of a hero, and he doesn't say that he thinks she's very pretty. Partially because he feels rather dumbfounded in her presence, but mostly because half of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team bursts into his compartment and bring a whole lot of noise with them. Sarah excuses herself when they come to collect her to sit with the other prefects, and John can't help but think that he's missed out on an opportunity.
After the First Years have been Sorted, after stuffing himself with food and reconnecting with Mike and Carl, John gets up to head to the common room and get some well-deserved sleep. He nearly walks into Sherlock Holmes, and they both stand awkwardly still in the middle of the Great Hall. A handful of eyes are staring, and someone nudges someone else at the Slytherin table, but for the most part, the world remains the same.
Sherlock frowns as he gathers words in his head, and he finally blurts out: "I didn't mean you, idiot."
John should probably feel offended (most people would have). But he doesn't. Understanding slowly blooms over John's face, and he smiles broadly. He holds out his hand (someone whispers at the Slytherin table, and more of them are looking now, but it's fine). Sherlock sees this as acceptable, and they shake.
Violet grabs hold of John's wrist as she runs by him, pulling him along faster than he's already trotting. They aren't running late per say, but Lestrade hates tardiness almost as much as he hates laziness, so they choose not to chance it even by a minute. It's the end of November, their first match of the year, up against Ravenclaw—who they'd barely managed a victory over last year, and now that Carl's the Seeker and he doesn't have a game under his belt, John's not worried (okay, yes he is)—and it's looking to be a nasty day. The rain isn't letting up, and it won't be the first or last game played in a storm.
Passing under the seats and heading hastily for the pitch, they rush by a figure who makes an odd strangled noise in his throat as John goes by. The voice tries again and this time it's: "John!"
John skids to a halt, nearly yanking Violet off her feet at momentum lost. He blinks several times to be sure he's seeing it right, because it looks like Sherlock Holmes is standing there with a big yellow pin on his robe (which, with a second glance, morphs from plain yellow to a large badger's head), fidgeting and looking severely out of place.
"Sherlock?" Surely it was his mind playing tricks with him.
"Yes. John. Hello." His face attempts something not unlike a smile.
"John," Violet hisses, tugging at his wrist.
John grimaces at the sudden choice, and he rounds on Violet. "There in a bit, just give me a moment."
"Ooh, Lestrade's not gonna like this," Violet warns, giving Sherlock a pleading look before she turns and keeps running without him.
With their audience gone, Sherlock drops his hands and gives a very frustrated sigh. "You don't have to be brilliant to tell I've never been to one of these things, do you?"
John laughs, half of his face curling up in a chiding smile. "Never been to Quidditch? What do you do all the time?"
Sherlock gives him a look that says we don't have the time to go into all of that.
"So why'd you show up to this one?" John asks, not allowing the silence too long to take hold.
The Slytherin narrows his eyes. "Because you're playing." Obviously.
"I've played before. A whole year of it."
"Yes, but." He checks surreptitiously for any prying ears, at which John gives another half-stifled laugh. "But you're my... friend now. I supposed that it was common to show support for your companion's pursuits. Even if—" John hears I don't know how hang in the air, and he's sure he will never hear Sherlock say those words aloud.
John's eye lingers on the pin at Sherlock's chest (he's not seen it before, he must have enchanted it himself), and when he looks up he's grinning determinedly. "Okay, follow me."
He runs up the stairs to the Hufflepuff spectators section, Sherlock in tow, until he finds Mike halfway up. He looks more than surprised to see the both of them, especially John.
"Mike, this is important," John says, and Sherlock is looking fervently at the stairs. "Sherlock's a Badger today, all right? Tell everyone he's my friend, and they'd better be nice."
Mike's eyes are on the pin, and then he nods. And he smiles. John can't remember Mike giving Sherlock a genuine smile in all the times he's seen them together.
"All right, mate, but you'd better win this one."
John practically bounces in place, the excitement of the impending match pounding harder and harder in his temples and his sudden and unexplainable elation filling up the space between his lungs. He claps Sherlock on the shoulder and rushes off down the stairs. He doesn't hear Sherlock tell him good luck because he doesn't say it. But he thinks it. Very hard.
Lestrade has several new frown lines when John finally shows, and he gives John the briefest lecture in Quidditch captain history ("Don't do it again, Watson, or I'll... think of something awful to do later.") when they walk out onto the pitch to waves and waves of glorious cheering.
He can't see any faces from the ground, but he grins up at the section of solid black and yellow (interrupted only by one speck of green) and waves his arm and bat high in the air. When they kick off, and there's a rush of glorious air in his ears that mixes with the sound of the crowd, he buzzes the Hufflepuff section just once before he clobbers a bludger in the direction of Ravenclaw's center Chaser.
Ravenclaw's offense is good, they're really good. But Hufflepuff has an unmatchable defense, and after four Hufflepuff goals and one for Ravenclaw, Carl Powers shows everyone what kind of Seeker he's going to be and scoops up the Snitch.
Hufflepuffs swarm the pitch and Carl is borne aloft by several of the older ones (he really is very scrawny). John can see that Sherlock thinks he's getting away scot free on the edge of the crowd, thinks he'll be able to slip away just as easily as he snuck in, but John won't let him.
"You're a Badger tonight," John tells him, gripping his upper arm so he can't bolt. "Honorary trial membership. Come on."
Sherlock looks unsure, looking at all the beaming faces around him, cheering and hardly even noticing the Slytherin in amongst them (they all notice, it's impossible for them not to notice, but they do what Hufflepuffs do best and they accept him).
"Where are we going?"
"Common room. A win's no good without a bit of a party after."
It's loud and it's close in the Hufflepuff common room, a stark contrast to the quiet coldness of the Slytherin dungeon; it's pressing and warm and people are offering him biscuits. No one is staring at him, asking him what he's doing here, belittling him. It's baffling. Sherlock has never been unconditionally accepted (and, granted, no one is outright friendly to him, but it's a pervading sense of communal camaraderie that he's most certainly not used to), and he's not sure what to do with the data.
John presses a fizzy drink into his hand. "You look a bit lost."
"It's... not really my area."
"Listen," John begins, snapping a bit of toffee off between his teeth. "Thank you. For coming out, I mean. You're not the sporting type—" Sherlock laughs a bit harshly. "—but it was nice of you to come anyway."
"I don't know much about the sport," Sherlock says, testing the drink and not finding it appalling, "but you appeared to do your part well. And you won. So, congratulations."
John snickers and shuffles his feet, peers past Sherlock to be sure that no one was pointing odd fingers at him, and continues: "Next weekend there's a Hogsmeade trip, and I was gonna make my way out."
"So?" Sherlock asks.
"So come with me," John prompts, beginning to get the hang of speaking to Sherlock Holmes.
A blank slate stares back at him, absolutely unreadable. Sherlock finishes his drink and gives the slightest shake of his head. "No, I couldn't possibly. So many other things to do. Essays, experiments, reading—"
"Yeah, all right," John cuts in, "I get the point."
But the next morning at breakfast, an unfamiliar owl swoops down in front of John, leaves its message and flies off as quickly as it came.
Changed my mind.
SH
John catches the Slytherin boy's eyes from across the Hall and he grins at him.
"Sherlock," John whispers across the table.
"Hm," Sherlock hardly intones, either extremely disinterested in whatever John's question might be or extremely engrossed in the heavy book laid out in front of him.
John waits until a young witch with a book trolley has gone past before leaning in slightly to lower his voice. "Sherlock, what sort of hex would work on a troll?"
"Don't be an idiot, John," Sherlock says barely above his breath as casually as if he'd asked John to pass a quill. The insult from anyone else might have been devastating, but from Sherlock it's somehow almost a compliment. "Don't tell me you're cheating on your Defense Against the Dark Arts essay."
"Not... Not cheating, no," John replies with a pout. "I just thought, y'know, magic's no good against trolls because their hide's so tough, right?"
"Very good, John," Sherlock says without really hearing, turning the page in his book.
John gives a withered sigh through his nose, leaning pitifully on his hand as he surveys the library. John would sit there with Sherlock for hours because Sherlock said he liked having someone to talk to, bounce ideas off of. The Slytherin would use his cat (Felicia, flighty and clever little thing), but she was rarely helpful. And John would sit there for hours without hearing a word pass from Sherlock's lips. Occasionally, Sherlock would smirk without looking up and tell him that he was doing fine.
The Hufflepuff stares out across at the other study tables, wondering just how much more he'd rather be practicing with the team than stuck inside again, pouring over scrolls and scrubbing ink stains from his fingers. He catches the big brown eyes of the nearest Ravenclaw peering unwaveringly at their table again, and John doesn't even remove his face from his hand to report it to Sherlock.
"That Molly Hooper hasn't taken her eyes off you the entire time we've been here." He shifts his eyes to Sherlock, who still hasn't looked up, but there's something on his lips like a smirk. "I think she's got it bad for you, Sherlock."
"She's infatuated," Sherlock corrects him tersely, taking a note on his parchment. "Especially since the Jennifer Wilson episode. She's practically worshipping the ground I walk on."
"Well, aren't you gonna let her know you're not interested?"
"She has her uses." He gives an amazingly loud cough to mask the sound of the page he rips out of the book, folding it deftly with a quick quirk of a smile in John's direction.
John is not amused, his face still cradled lazily in his hand but now fallen into a light scowl. He wants to reprimand Sherlock (like he's tried so many times, but the boy never listens, does what he wants and leaps blindly like an animal), but he's interrupted when someone walks into his peripheral vision.
"Oh, Jimmy, hello," John says, offering a smile (not so easy, banishing the expression he'd made for Sherlock so quickly for an about-face). "All right?"
"Just came from Potions," Jimmy says, and his eyes flick momentarily to Sherlock. "Hi, Sherlock."
Sherlock gives the usual noncommittal "Hm," and closes the vandalized book.
Jimmy's face doesn't droop, but his eyes do. He perks up instantly when he turns back to John. "You left this in the dungeon," he says, reaching into his bag and retrieving John's History of Magic textbook from deep inside.
John sits up quickly and smiles. "Thanks! I hadn't even realized—Jim, thanks, you're a godsend. Binns has this bloody awful essay he wants written by Tuesday on the Goblin Wars—"
"Don't worry about it." Jimmy smiles broadly, all his teeth showing. "Got to study. Bye, John. Bye, Sherlock." He does a quick bob and he rushes off. He's still small for his age, rushing away on legs too small and skinny. He comes to a hasty halt beside a tall, square-jawed Gryffindor that John recognizes from the Quidditch team; the Keeper, a Fifth-Year. He thinks his name is Moran, but he can't be sure. Something Irish. Moran scrubs Jimmy's hair fondly, and once he gathers his things, they're off together.
Why can't Sherlock be encouraging to the younger ones like that, now and then?
"You could stand to be nice to someone every once in a while," John sighs, turning back to his friend.
Sherlock gives a humorless laugh. "It's work enough to keep one friend happy. I can't see how you do it without giving yourself an aneurism." He stands abruptly, shoving the folded page in his pocket. "Now, come on, it's nearly time for Care of Magical Creatures, and I have an experiment in mind before we're off..."
Toby comes flying in unexpectedly the day before Christmas holiday, and John reads the letter from his mother with growing horror and dread. The words new boyfriend and cruise jump out immediately, followed by Spain and stay at Hogwarts. Signed away as thoughtlessly as someone might write to a pet.
At first, he goes to Professor Sprout, who says that she can't help him. Then, to Professor Cairnes, who had come around at the beginning of December with the sign-up sheet (which he'd declined at the time, because he hadn't thought he'd be needing to stay at Hogwarts). She said that she couldn't help him either, but she was a kind old soul and it was she who escorted John Watson to the Headmistress's office.
"I know it's last-minute notice, Professor," John says, holding back angry tears as calmly as he can. "But Harry and I don't have anywhere else to go."
McGonagall doesn't sigh like he's thrown another burden on her chest. She doesn't berate him for sneaking another two children to look after on her conscience. She smiles as if he's given her something sweet or shining. She lowers her spectacles to look at him (looking at him like she can't believe how he's lent himself to the delusion of disappointment) and says: "Of course you can stay, Mister Watson."
She pulls out the scroll that Professor Cairnes had brought about at the beginning of December. It's not a long list. He signs the names of two Watsons at the bottom, a sense of dread finality to it. His first Christmas away from home, and it was because his mother wanted a vacation with some man he'd never even met.
"Brilliant," Sherlock says when John tells him the whole story.
John's mouth stays open, wounded but also very confused. "No, it's really not. Sherlock, we're kicked out of our own house. For Christmas."
"No, I mean: Brilliant, you can stay with me. I've really grown tired of the monotony and barely-concealed hatred associated with Christmas dinners at home. So I'll be staying." He's on his feet and moving; he hardly ever stops, some days. "I wasn't looking forward to running my experiments alone. You know, I think I've rather gotten used to having you around, John."
John hangs his head, and he's not sure why, but Sherlock's made him feel better about the whole situation. "Next year, if mum's there next year that is, you can come 'round to ours. Christmas dinner, that is."
Sherlock looks as though John has hit him with a truck. He seals his lips tight and nods once.
They get up to very little trouble once all of the other students have gone, though Sherlock does set fire to one of the twelve enormous evergreens in the Great Hall. Twice. One time John whips out his wand and shouts Aguamenti! before much damage is done, and Flitwick gives Hufflepuff an extra ten points for the save and for the impressive use of the high-level Charm. The second time, Hagrid the groundskeeper is there himself to throw his heavy coat over the flames and pat them out. By all means, he should deduct points from Slytherin, but Sherlock is the only Slytherin who doesn't show him outward aggression. So he lets it slide.
John is the only Hufflepuff left over the holiday, and it feels strange to have the normally-packed common room all to himself. Harry has Clara, whose family doesn't like to have her back for the holiday (would probably like to have her at Hogwarts the year 'round if they could), and John has Sherlock. Only two other students aside from the four of them stay for winter holiday: Anderson, the Slytherin who took a beating out on Sherlock the first day of second year, and Moran (Sebastian, John learns over holiday, is his first name), the Gryffindor Keeper.
He wakes up Christmas morning with several presents piled at the foot of his bed, grinning sleepily as he gathers them and waddles full-armed out into the common room. He's not really surprised to find Sherlock already there, he's guessed the password three times before already. He's sunken into the biggest armchair and writing fiery letters in the air as he waits (BORED BORED BORED), bolting upright when John enters.
"John. Happy Christmas. You're still in your pyjamas."
"Yeah, well, I just woke up, didn't I?" He curls up on the floor by Sherlock's chair, spreading his presents out around him. The Slytherin has three packages of his own. "You want to go first, or should I?"
"It makes no difference to me," Sherlock says, but John can tell he's itching to open them just as much as he is. So John nods in deference.
Mycroft's is first (John can tell the professional, careful handwriting anywhere). Some sort of spyglass that he's sure is more than it seems, but Sherlock doesn't say anything. Then, it's John's turn. He opens two for Sherlock's one, he has a fair bit more. A packet of chocolate frogs from Violet and a jumper from his mum (very impersonal, but it's warm and he slips it on over his pyjamas). Sherlock gets a letter from Mummy which expresses general distress over his absence from Christmas dinner, as well as a pair of even-more-impersonal socks. Sherlock frowns and tosses them aside. John opens Harry's present, and he nearly falls over sideways laughing: she's been to the Weasley shop and stuffed a box with Wildfire Whiz-Bangs and a note that says "I expect a party." It must be her way of making up with him.
Sherlock is peering at his last present, turning it over in his hands carefully as if measuring its weight. John scratches at the neck of his wool jumper and cranes over to peer at the present. "Who's that one from?"
"I don't know," Sherlock answers cooly. It brings a strange smirk to his eyes. "Let's find out."
"Wait, Sher—" But it's too late to warn against mysterious packages, because Sherlock tears into the wrapping to reveal a small, unmarked box. John stands warily and circles around behind Sherlock's chair to get a better look at it.
Inside the box is a tiny vial of liquid and a note. It's clear by the label that it's a love potion, and John utters a short snicker that he quickly swallows at Sherlock's serious look. The Slytherin's fingers carefully extract the note, and he unfolds it.
Thinking of you, handsome. XX
"Two kisses," John utters with a barely-containable laugh. "Who wants to bet it's from Molly?"
"It's not her handwriting," Sherlock bites back with a frown. "And it wasn't written by any sort of self-dictating quill, those don't leave ink splotches like that one there." He holds the note up to the light, but it's normal parchment and normal ink, so far as he can tell. "The handwriting is fairly asexual, leaning to the masculine. Hard to tell much beyond that, the note's too short."
"Well, you've got a secret admirer, whoever it is," John notes, leaning on the back of the chair to pick up the potion. "This one's Weasely as well. Maybe it was Harry."
They both let themselves laugh for quite a long time.
"Oh," John says, snapping to attention. "Bollocks. Hold on a sec, right back." John disappears down to the dormitory, reemerging with another wrapped package in his hands. This one's wrapped messily in old pages of The Daily Prophet, and John plops it unceremoniously in Sherlock's lap. "Got it while we were in Hogsmeade. It's not much but..." He shrugs the end of his sentence away.
Sherlock stares at it like John's dropped a bomb on his lap. He unwraps it just as carefully. It's a brace of new quills, sturdy and reliable rather than beautiful (John had seen an incredibly fancy peacock quill and had considered it for exactly three seconds before laughing aloud in the shop) and Sherlock is blinking far too much. If John had to describe the expression, he might say flabbergasted.
Sherlock gets up without a word and leaves the common room, leaving everything but the quills behind. John doesn't see him for the rest of the day.
Just when he's worried that he's done something or said something to upset Sherlock, John finds him at the Christmas dinner. It's a small affair, with only six students and four teachers (McGonagall, Flitwick, Trelawney and Hagrid, all of them in ridiculous paper hats), but with more food than will ever be necessary piled high on the table. Sherlock stands hastily when John appears in the Great Hall, and every student there gives him a horrible look.
He meets John halfway, holding a package (also wrapped in the Prophet) out between them like a peace offering. He looks incredibly nervous when John takes the package from his hands (now that they're empty, he doesn't know what to do with them so he kneads his fingers together).
"I'm not in the business of finding presents for anyone. I wasn't sure what..." Sherlock frowns and stares at the package rather than the extremely confused Hufflepuff. "Well, open it, for God's sake."
It's a box full of tea. Proper tea, Muggle tea, the kind that comes in bags and fills his senses with a wonderful earthy smell.
John looks up to see Sherlock peering at him like a dog expecting to be struck. So John gives an amazingly wide smile, which prompts Sherlock's to twitch up at the edges.
It's nearly June, and it's too hot to study in the library, so they've taken their books and scrolls to the Great Hall. They're neck-deep in piles of papers when someone approaches from behind John and stops to stare.
Both John and Sherlock look up at the same time. It's a Gryffindor girl, one that John has seen in the hall but never directly spoken to. Probably a sixth or seventh year. She's staring past John and right at Sherlock, whose face betrays nothing. John frowns.
"Can I help you?" he asks shortly. It's too warm to deal with drama (especially since Anderson had tried to trip Sherlock and a pile of books down the main staircase yesterday and John had to be restrained to keep from socking him).
"Hot, isn't it?" the girl says. Her eyes look oddly lazy, as if she's not using them properly.
"Yeah, it is," John says, even though she's still looking unblinking at Sherlock. "We're studying right now, if that's all right. Sherlock can get back to you in an hour or so."
"Good job on my first riddle, Sherlock," the girl says, and this time Sherlock's face twitches into some form of expression: interest. His shoulders and back straighten, and whatever he's been working on is long forgotten. "I thought I'd make the first one easier for you. Get your muscles working." The girl smiles now that she has Sherlock's attention. "Did you like your present? I would have loved to see your face when you opened it. Kiss kiss, love."
Sherlock's eyes dart around the Great Hall. No one is even looking in their direction, let alone suspiciously. The Gryffindor girl gives an airy laugh.
"Oh, I'm not here. Good luck finding me, though. I'm a good hider, Sherlock." She winks playfully. "I think I'll come up with another little puzzle for you, something to keep you busy."
With that, she turns and walks briskly through the main doors. John misses the look of hearty anticipation that flashes in Sherlock's eyes before he's shoved off from the table and sprinting after the girl. Sherlock's calling after him, but John doesn't stop until he's caught the girl (who struggles against him, but he's got a powerful grip on her arm). He shouts at her, gaining the attention of several people around them, to her cries of I don't know what you're talking about until Lestrade finds him and asks him just what the hell is going on.
In a tense meeting with Professors Slughorn and Flitwick, they find that the girl's had a powerful memory charm set on her, and the entire meeting with Sherlock and John is gone (including several hours previous). She's crying big, fat tears and John can't help the strange feeling pounding at his ribcage.
The fact remains that someone erased the girl's memory, and someone has threatened Sherlock Holmes. John hardly lets the boy out of his sight the rest of the day, and insists that they study in the Hufflepuff common room instead of in the open when evening sets in. But neither of them can really focus on the task at hand, the girl's words sticking in both of their minds.
Eventually, John snaps his book shut and gives up.
"What did she mean, first riddle?"
"Don't be dull, John," Sherlock says, pressing the tips of his fingers together. "She didn't mean anything. She was under the Imperius Curse, it could have been anyone in the castle. And whoever is holding the wand poisoned Jennifer Wilson."
The color drains from John's face. An Unforgivable Curse at Hogwarts. On a student, no less, and meant for Sherlock. "That was a riddle? She nearly died!" He tries to get some sort of grip on the thought. "And... and she—er, they?—said something about another puzzle. D'you think...?"
"Another poisoning? Probably not. They've done it before, no need to get regular." His eyes shift to John's, analyzing but not scrutinizing. "I have some questions to ask." And he's up without another word, rushing off on long legs to leave John behind in the dust.
John isn't sure why he feels so abandoned. After all, what use would he be in a line of investigation, especially tagging alongside someone as smart as Sherlock? He still feels the sting of it in the back of his throat as his head droops involuntarily. Sherlock's even left all his things, the untidy git. So John stands and starts to clean up so he can forget the feeling of being left behind.
There's a noise behind him, and John turns to see Sherlock leaning casually on the door frame. "You're good with Charms," he says as if he's just noticed John. "And you spend your summers at St. Mungo's, so you know a bit about maladies."
John nods. "A bit, yeah."
Sherlock's eyes narrow knowingly, lips pressing into a thin smirk. "Would you like to come?"
"God, yes!" John grabs his wand and leaps from the chair after him.
They end up in the library anyway, and John doesn't ask why Sherlock knows the Gryffindor girl will be there, but she is. And he finally remembers where he's seen her (Mary Morstan, prefect from the train who broke up the fight) and now he feels even worse for her.
The three of them find a nearby empty classroom and Sherlock asks all the questions. John is sure that she's already answered all these questions for the Headmistress and Professor Flitwick, but there's something different about Sherlock and the way he processes information. She tells them everything she remembers about that day: breakfast with the other Gryffindors, Divination, deducting five points from Slytherin for Anderson's crass mouth outside the third-floor hallway; but everything between lunch and being bullied by John is gone.
But Sherlock doesn't ask for the facts of what's missing. He asks for what it had felt like. And her eyes go far away as she tries to pull the memories out of nowhere. Like she was watching herself do things, lying on a cloud and not caring where she was going or who she was speaking to. Not scared in the least. Which was the most frightening thing of all.
John's not sure what Sherlock hopes to gain from interrogating someone who can't remember anything. There's absolutely no way of telling who cast the spell on her, and they can't just go around testing the wands of everyone in the castle (surely one of the professors could, if they'd wanted to, but the Headmistress had balked at Sherlock's suggestion of the Imperius Curse). John wonders if they should leave the investigation up to the adults, but he realizes late one night holding his lit wand aloft for Sherlock to examine something on the floor of the dungeon, that he loves this. Loves the running and the mystery, and he's sure that Sherlock loves it too.
But exams are over before long, and they're on the platform at Hogsmeade, unsure of what to say in lieu of the revelation of a new riddle looming on the horizon.
"Listen," John says at last, "if something comes up, if anyone gets in contact with you about this riddle thing, send me an owl. And if... Well, if nothing happens, send me an owl anyway."
Sherlock nods absently. "I will."
John holds up his pinkie finger between them, his face deadpan and serious. For the first time since Mary Morstan spoke someone else's words in the Great Hall, Sherlock laughs and it's not at all uncomfortable. "Really, John?"
"Oh yes," John assures him that this is in all seriousness.
So Sherlock links his pinkie with John's and they shake on it.
AN: Oh right, there's a plot. THE PLOT BEGINS! I am so ridiculously excited, I am loving this beyond all reason and I wish I could do nothing all day but write this fic. Oh, and I have reasons for putting Moran in Gryffindor and I'll explain if anyone wants me to. Thanks so much to everyone for all the love you're giving, it makes my tiny heart glow. A million hugs to beta Lady Dan, and thanks so so much to everyone for reading, leave us some love, and STAY AWESOME!