Chapter Thirteen
Sherlock's Promise
John was sitting up in the comfy hospital wing bed doing his Herbology homework Lestrade had dropped off for him when a loud bang came from behind the window. It startled him so much his parchment went flying into the air and landed on the floor, floating down like a feather. He squeezed his arm wrapped in bandages, winching at the pain and stood up to blow his nose. Over the past few days the blood would pour from his unexpectedly, and he had to sit clamping a pearl‒white tissue to his nostrils.
The results of the Quidditch match against Slytherin were a success for John, even after he had blacked out. Since the Snitch had escaped from his weak grasp, Madam Hooch demanded for Irene to fetch it. Both teams had exited their locker rooms by the time the golden ball was caught again, and Irene was seen stomping back towards the castle, furious.
Gryffindor had won their first match 240 to 180. If John hadn't caught the Snitch, Slytherin would have beaten them. Nice way to conclude a first match John, Watson told himself after he woke a few hours later.
The Gryffindor was secretly relieved that he was going to be released from the hospital the next day and resume classes. The smell of fresh flowers on every bedside table was beginning to make him nauseous, and the scent was overbearing. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night, covering his face with the blanket and burying his head into the bulging pillow to prevent himself from passing out again over some stupid bouquets of roses.
The patient placed both his hands on the outside edge of the window frame, scanning in all directions for a sign of something that had knocked against the glass. His question was answered when a brown great‒horned owl flew up to come face to face with him, its eyes staring intensely at him and a letter clutched in its beak. A familiar blue and gold box was tied to its leg. Without hesitation, John pushed the window open a few inches to let Elizer slip inside.
There was no other explanation as to who the letter would be from, unless it was Lestrade who'd borrowed Sherlock's owl. I suppose it could be from Molly, John thought, assuming her cat Tasha couldn't deliver messages for her.
Elizer clipped John's finger roughly. "Ouch!" the boy shouted, looking down at the animal. "What was that for?" Elizer turned his head around completely from his body and sat perched on the edge of the windowsill, just a poof of a bird.
Not a single letter or number was written gracefully on the outside of the note, and Watson looked confused as he pulled off the string binding it together. The parchment was folded in the strangest way he'd ever seen, but when it was totally unraveled, John knew whose handwriting was scripted across the page crystal clearly. He flopped back onto the bed to read Sherlock's short note.
Here's a little treat for you. Don't let it hop away this time…
I'm coming up to see you today at 5:30. I don't care what you say.
Hope you're doing well.
-SH
John smiled when he read Sherlock's initials, and turning back to Elizer untied the Chocolate Frog box from the owl's leg. Without opening the lid all the way, Watson reached his skinny fingers into the container and pulled out the treat, biting its head off quickly so it stopped squirming. The chocolate was sweet on his tongue and crunched between his teeth.
Remembering his first train ride to Hogwarts only a month and a half earlier, the eleven‒year‒old took the dazzling card out from the bottom of its case. He smirked as he knew the name of the professor on the card already, and so it was that Albus Dumbledore would be joining his card collection.
"What are you looking at?" he asked Elizer saucily, who stared down at him with what looked like dark eyebrows around his irises. The owl looked very angry indeed, so Watson clipped off a piece of chocolate and threw it onto the table, which Elizer ate joyfully.
John sucked on his finger that Sherlock's pet had nicked him on. God, too much blood draining from me this week, the Gryffindor mumbled. First my nose, then my arm, now this. Life's full of surprises. And sometimes, unfortunately, life sucks.
John got an unexpected visit from Lestrade later in the day, in which he successfully levitated the patient's tissue box off the table with his wand. The shorter lion chuckled and gave Greg a grin. "Finally managed to cast the spell did you?" The questioner got a 'shut up' look shot back at him for the comment.
"How's Potions?" Watson asked, connecting his fist with his shoulder and rubbing his stinging arm delicately.
"Rubbish," Lestrade admitted, and John laughed. "I got partnered with Moriarty the other day. He complained I wasn't doing anything correctly when I was the one doing all the bloody work. All he did was insult me."
"So just punch him," John suggested, peeling back the paper bandage gently and feeling the hairs on his arm pull on his skin. "I almost did."
"Do you know how much trouble I'd get into? Professor Snape would kill me! Especially with that death stare…He's bad enough as a teacher, I bloody well do not want to get on his bad side —"
"Okay! Okay…" John smiled to himself and indicated in his tone for Lestrade to calm down. He regretted pulling the bandages back and hastily wrapped them back around his injury. The skin was a bubblegum pink color and small patches of new, ghostly white cells were mending over his muscles. There was a lovely black and purple bruise forming near his wrist bone, so he did his best to avoid sleeping on it during the hours of the night.
John gulped down a sip from the glass of water on his bedside table and took another bite of his Chocolate Frog. "Hey, you mind taking this down to Professor Sprout later today?" he asked, blowing one last time on his homework to check that the ink was dry. Lestrade held out his arm, taking the short essay on Dittany in his grip, a useful plant used in healing wounds.
"No, it's not a problem. I'll take it down to the greenhouses. How do you write so neatly? Yours is definitely more thorough in detail than mine…" The blond‒haired boy shrugged his shoulders.
"I've got skill," the eleven‒year‒old remarked, knowing it was a dumb response. "I'm left‒handed. You have it easy. I have to make sure I don't smudge it every time…"
The Gryffindor Seeker soon got bored sitting on the bouncy mattress doing nothing, so he cuddled on top of the covers with one of his favorite Muggle books from the outside world. He extracted the TARDIS bookmark from the depths of the pages and set the Doctor Who marker on the table.
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien was always one of John's favorite books to entertain himself and grow up reading when he was a kid. His mum had first read it to him when he was a young boy, maybe seven years of age. He'd always catch himself tracing the mountains and rivers on the earth‒like colored cover before opening its pages and smelling the fresh scent of a good book. Whenever he bent the spine, he felt himself traveling alongside Bilbo Baggins on his journey to the Lonely Mountain.
He was interrupted a few minutes later by voices shouting outside in the hallway. From the sounds of it, Professor Snape and McGonagall were having a vicious fight about, from the snippets John heard, the dementors of Azkaban.
"Severus," Professor McGonagall's rigorous voice rang out, "a student was almost attacked today! Surely you can believe these dreadful creatures must remain here?"
"It is the only way the school will remain protected against the Death Eaters!" Snape sounded like he would blow up any second. Death Eaters? John could hear their roaring voices outside in the corridor; the door at the end of the hospital wing was wide open. Madam Pomfrey, the only nurse in the school, muttered some words and came out from her office at the end of the ward.
"What are they bickering about!" she shouted, crossing straight through the room without glancing once at Watson's bed. She grabbed the door and closed it behind her, but the lock didn't click so it swung back open a few more inches. John opened his ears, knowing it was rude to eavesdrop but did so anyway.
"Would you mind!" The nurse's voice was muffled behind the large, curved doors. "I have patients who need care! Take your conversation somewhere else!"
"Poppy, this is a matter of importance!" Snape bellowed again, and John could identify the distaste that was always in his tone. "The school is —" The professor was cut off as a pair of light footsteps were heard coming up the marble staircase outside.
"Holmes!"
Snape snarled, and John gripped the bed sheets in fury. If he insults Sherlock…All the teachers outside the door must have froze, staring intently at the younger Holmes brother; for the silence lingered on for what seemed like minutes. All that was heard was the distant exhales of air through the teachers' and student's mouths.
"Pardon me," Sherlock excused, addressing the staff members in the politest way he could. Seconds later, his long fingers curved around the massive door and his head peered around the entrance to the hospital wing. He closed the door behind him, drowning out the voices that now blurted out once more.
The brunette rolled his eyes as he made his way over to where John sat on his bed. The Gryffindor marked his page and set his book on the table, pulling one knee up to his chest and relaxing the other. Sherlock pulled up the closest chair and sat hunched over, his elbows digging into his kneecaps.
"How have you been?" he asked awkwardly. "I haven't seen you since the match, so —" He made a flicking motion with his hands and looked up at the boy with his eyes only.
John sighed and bent his head down in shame. "Been doing okay," he answered the question shyly, gesturing his head at the bandages covering his forearm. "Hurts," he added, mumbling. He squeezed the wound for the fourth time that day, applying pressure and cringing at the pain. Holmes leaned in closer, stretching his arm to rest on the bed just in case. "Don't do that," the Ravenclaw told him, forcing John's left arm off his bad one, which was locked on the cast.
"I have to," the younger wizard interjected, releasing his grasp and biting back the tears that were welling up in his eyes. "Madam Pomfrey's orders. I have to check on it every hour or so."
"You're just going to torment yourself even more than you already are…" The hold on John's wrist was fixed, and he felt his pulse beat against Sherlock's palm. The thick veins in his arm were bright blue, and Watson found himself breathing in short, quick breaths. He blinked twice, feeling the tears swell behind his eyelashes as a selected droplet slide down his face.
Sherlock got up from his sitting position, still clutching the shorter boy's wrist. He didn't seem like himself; he kept fidgeting and flinching at any sign of movement. He let go and settled himself on the bed, his ribs brushing John's bent knee and his hip resting against his friend's outstretched leg. Reaching over his friend's leg bone, Sherlock managed to pluck a tissue from the box on the bedside table. Crumbling the thin paper into a ball, Holmes raised the towel to Watson's face. Patting the younger boy's puffy eyes, Sherlock carefully wiped the tears from his buddy's cheeks.
"Don't cry…" he whispered, moving his hand to John's other eye. When he removed his palm from the strong‒hearted boy's face, John's piercing eyes gazed at him. "It's okay, John," Sherlock said, feeling the softness of his cheek while adjusting and flattening the sandy locks in his hair. "Nothing will happen to you."
"You promise?" John asked. There was a pause, and Sherlock smiled at the unexpected question, letting his brilliant green eyes scan the younger boy's face.
"I promise," he insisted, grabbing his best friend's tiny hand in his and placing both of them over his heart.
John was released from the hospital wing mid‒afternoon the next day, and he kept his injured arm hidden under his robes' sleeve as he roamed the halls. The only time he revealed the bandages was when he cut up some porcupine quills for his potion during his last class of the day.
Moriarty stood close by and whispered into the lion's ear halfway through class, teasing him. "How's your arm? Irene didn't get a scratch on her." He snickered along with a few of his demon friends and John gave him a threatening look.
"Ignore him," Lestrade supported, returning to stir the orange potion counterclockwise. The bell rang to end class twenty‒five minutes later and the two Gryffindors gathered their things in shorter first year caught a glimpse of the Slytherin sticking his tongue out at him, and John felt Lestrade's hand pushing against his stomach before he could take off after him.
The two boys met up with Molly outside the Great Hall for an afternoon snack. She was panting as she'd just rushed from the Charms classroom and was determined to meet them on time.
"Happy Halloween!" She managed to say between gasps, and Greg checked the date on his watch.
"Is it really the 31st?" he asked, looking taken aback. "Blimey, it is."
"Where's Sherlock?" John asked, immediately noticing the tallest of the four friends was missing. He has Charms with Molly today. Watson knew Holmes's schedule by heart and found it odd that he wasn't around. He probably singled himself out from the world again and is hiding in the library, he thought.
"Um, I don't know," Hooper said, staring over her shoulder nervously. "He was right behind me a moment ago..."
"Hey, John." A new voice joined into the conversation; a high‒pitched, girly voice. John turned to see who had announced his name and found Mary Morstan waving briefly at him, passing by with a group of Hufflepuff girls. Watson awkwardly gestured back while blushing, giving her a small smile as she headed away from where their small group stood in the center of the entrance corridor.
"Don't worry, John," Lestrade said, punching his shoulder. "You'll see him at the Halloween feast tonight. I'll be baffled if he doesn't show up."
"Yeah…" John sighed and turned back to face his two classmates. "I suppose. Let's go back up to the common room. I want to send a response letter to my mum and dad."
"He's not here."
John had scanned every visible head sitting at the Ravenclaw table, but none of them had brown, messy curls. Even the seat behind his bench was occupied by four sixth year girls.
"You probably missed him," Lestrade said, digging into a piece of grilled chicken. The golden goblets were filled with various types of fruit juices, and the dishes held mounds of chicken, steak, and roast beef. Thousands of floating carved pumpkins had replaced the normal flickering candles, their faces in all sorts of demented expressions.
Halloween decorations had been scattered all over the Great Hall, with fake spiders crawling on the table, the Hogwarts ghosts floating all around the room, gliding through people and giving them shivers, and real live bats circling the enchanted ceiling. The night sky was clear except for a few clouds while bunches of stars twinkled above their heads. Lestrade turned around in his chair to see Molly flinch multiple times at the bats flying through the ceiling arches at the table for badgers.
"I'm telling you he's not here," John argued, not wanting to lose the fight. He stood up over the crowd of students but still hadn't found a sign of the younger Holmes brother. "I don't know where he could be. He wouldn't skip a meal, even if he wasn't hungry." John swiveled back around on the bench, staring at his plate and eyeing the roast beef hungrily. His stomach grumbled, but without Sherlock there he had no interest in eating whatsoever.
No one paid the slightest interest that Sherlock wasn't sitting at the Ravenclaw table. He hadn't made any friends from his own house, so nobody knew he was missing. Sally Donovan was secretly glad he wasn't around to make fun of her, and John shot her a look across the table. She rolled her eyes at him and muttered something about the name 'psychopath'.
The eleven‒year‒old was reminded of the day of his first Quidditch match as Lestrade kept encouraging him to eat, pointing his fork at John's empty plate. Not wanting to, the blond shoved a few bites of beef into his mouth, feeling the chewiness of the meat against his gums. He swallowed hard, causing some of the food to get stuck in the back of his throat, so he coughed and re swallowed with a huge effort.
"You go." John shooed Greg away up the marble stairs. "I want to discuss something with Hagrid first." Lestrade gave a small nod, confused, but skipped up the marble staircase with the rest of the students nonetheless.
He really didn't want to talk with the Keeper of the Keys. John just wanted some alone time. I need to find Sherlock, he told himself. Since he was on the first floor, he figured searching all the halls was the best place to begin.Sherlock wouldn't be outside, John considered. He never goes outside unless I force him to. He hates nature.
All the corridors in the dungeons were deserted except for the last of the Slytherins making their way to their common room. On his way back up the staircase to the entrance hall, John ran into the teacher he least wanted to get caught by while roaming the corridors.
"Mr. Watson," came the cold, snarling tone of Severus Snape. John stared up into his pale face. His nose was quite hooked on the end and his hair was shiny because it was covered with so much slime and grease. He could pass as a vampire if he tried hard enough. Snape held his hands in the way he always did when he was about to humiliate one of his students; hooked together, elbows locked against his ribs, fingers intertwining.
The head of Slytherin house flicked his thumbs together, and John waited for his detention to be assigned. "What might a short first year be doing lurking around in the dungeons after dinner?" He teased the suspect, his lip curling into a wicked grin.
He called me short…That was offensive.
John tried to cover his lie as best as he could without showing it on his face. "I was walking down with a friend and didn't realize I was going the wrong direction."
"A reasonable explanation." The professor's robes were so black they blended in with the walls. He looked like his head was floating in mid air along with his hands. "Move along, Mr. Watson. Don't let me catch you wandering around again in the dungeons randomly, or it will be a night of scrubbing ruined cauldrons with me. I'll let it slide this evening, as it is a holiday."
"Yes sir," John said, bowing his head down slightly and sliding past him. He passed the head of the serpent house without glancing up at his face and hurried along the corridor, his school uniform swishing behind him. The entrance hall was deserted when he stepped into view, and the lights from the floating pumpkins in the next room casted a spooky glow as he ran past the dining hall. The ghosts continued to float over the house tables, chiming different chords to the chorus of a lousy song as they passed over the pumpkins.
His feet sent echoes on the marble stairs as he ascended back to Gryffindor Tower on his own. John had to wait patiently as one of the first staircases shifted under his feet and began to move. After a dreadful time waiting and listening to a nearby portrait crack bad Halloween jokes, he continued up the floors of the castle level by level, waiting for the painting of the Fat Lady to appear at the end of the east corridor on the seventh floor.
Before he came to the correct hallway, John's feet shuffled to a stop. He thought he heard a strange noise coming from somewhere to his right. He became curious and adventured down a corridor he didn't know existed. Watson found nothing but a strange drawing of an unknown wizard in a frame and a door that looked like it shouldn't have existed. It was smack dab in the middle of a stone wall, and its color was black with small dots bordering the hinges were rusty and the barrier looked extremely old.
Out of the corner of his eye, John saw movement behind one of the pillars extending up to the ceiling. From behind the column, the shape of a black shoe shifted and slid across the floor. Then another came to rest on top of the first, and the two feet struggled as if they were in danger. Calves poked out from behind the blocking pole, and a set of knees became exposed to match.
Tiptoeing, John went around the column while staying as close to the far wall as possible, aware that it might be someone he didn't know. His hand scanned over the smooth surface of the stone, sensing the dents in the bricks as his fingernails collected dirt and dust.
As he turned the corner, John found the one person he least expected to see; the person who had been missing all afternoon. Sherlock Holmes was curled in a ball, hands gripping his hair in anger. No, fear. He shifted his feet so they rested side by side on the gleaming floor, and his forehead was buried into his knees as his brown curls brushed his pants.
"S‒Sherlock?" John was so startled he didn't know how to address his best friend. He stuttered to find words, and Sherlock barely moved an inch when he heard John's bold voice. And then as if someone had pressed a play button to his life,his hands pressed over his ears and slowly like a snail, Holmes raised his chin.
The eagle's stunning green eyes were filled with hurtand a stormy touch of grey circled his pupils. He was shaking from head to toe, his fingers resting on the back of his neck. The centers of his eyes were tiny, and a dark shadow from the kerosene lamps made half his long face covered in a shadow.
"Sherlock…" John said again in a whisper. He pushed off from the wall and started towards the older boy's curled figure, hunched in the corner with his mouth just barely agape. Sherlock didn't move as John lowered himself onto the floor next to the Ravenclaw, kneeling down and gripping the brunette's left , without even believing John was there, Holmes placed both hands on his cheekbones, exhaling deep breaths with sweat dripping down his forehead.
And then, as if someone had removed the fright from his brain, Sherlock slowly turned his head to face the only friend he had. Violently, John found his wrist being grabbed on for dear life, but when the older boy spoke his voice cracked significantly.
"John…"
Holmes shuttered once more, his spine weaving and twisting like a cat. His head became lead and it fell into the blond's chest, and Watson pulled him in close, muttering small but comfortable words.
"Sherlock…" John managed for the fourth or fifth time since he'd found him. "Sherlock," he said, forcing the Ravenclaw to face him with his shoulders square, "what happened?"
Sherlock Holmes is afraid…Afraid. John couldn't believe the sight he was witnessing. The strongest boy he knew was breaking down right in front of his eyes, shaking uncontrollably and losing his mind. Gathering the dreadful thoughts Sherlock didn't want to, he told his loyal friend the horrifying moment he'd experienced an hour ago, yet the words spilled from his mouth in gasps and stumbles.
"I‒I…" He changed his sentence and John shook him when didn't continue.
"Come on, Sherlock…" The older of the pair let out a sort of cry before beginning his story.
"I…It was the —" He paused again.
"The what? What? Sherlock, please tell me. I want to help."
His spine shuddered again, and Sherlock dreaded saying the name of the creatures. "Dementors."
"What!" John nearly screamed and fell backwards in a panic. He regained his composure and tried to stare back into the brunette's green eyes.
"It…it was horrible," Sherlock explained, continuing on with more violent chokes of breaths. "I‒I felt like, everything I ever had, every happy memory in my brainwas taken from me…"
"What did they try to do? Sherlock…"
"They…they tried to attack me. Luckily Mycroft was there at the right time and came to rescue me." John sat stunned, his mouth open and his heartbeat racing inside his chest. Sherlock's blue and bronze tie sat unnoticed on the floor, and he'd taken off his robes and grey sweater to release some of the heat he was racking up.
John couldn't think of anything best to comfort his friend except to encircle him in a hug. He felt Sherlock tugging at the bottom of his sweater, his hot breath escaping from his mouth and skimming over the fabric, spreading germs onto the edge of his clothing.
Sherlock broke away after a few minutes and sniffed his nose. He didn't show his emotions much, but he'd obviously been knocked up big time. Even though no tears had swelled up in his eyes, he couldn't stop shaking.
To try and continue the weird conversation, John asked the only question that was spinning in his brain. "So what do we do?"
Sherlock raised his head from the Gryffindor's chest, mulling over the thoughts in his mind. Something clicked in his brain, because Watson could see the invisible light bulb above his skull go off. "Fear is optional," he stated, and John agreed by nodding his head. "The only way to defeat fear is…to fight it."
Five bodies stood before the mysterious black door in the stone wall, all positioned as if doing a photo shoot. Sherlock stood in the middle, with two schoolmates on either side of him, forming the shape of a 'V'. Three Gryffindors, one Hufflepuff, one Ravenclaw. Three boys, two girls.
Closing his eyes gently, Sherlock focused on the door in front of him, making sure he got what he wanted. Satisfied, he made his way up to the entrance, holding out his arm from his body. Creak. The steel handle was cold against his palm, and when he pushed the door open a known place came into view.
The room seemed both physically and mentally impossible to exist, because it was bigger on the inside. When Molly stepped inside, she found the left wall extended farther than the actual wall outside did. It was very long and rectangular, with a hint of blue about the room and two large mirrors in all four corners. The roof was high and arched, and on two of the side walls there were towering bookshelves. The books had both fragile and new bindings, and scattered among the shelves were strange wizard tools no one had seen except Sherlock.
Straight ahead from their path was a fireplace, but no flames flickered or roared sprouting from the logs. The room was completely blank of furniture and exposed a wide open area. The five students stood in a line parallel to the wall from which they'd just entered, all looking extremely confused except the leader.
John Watson, Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes, Mary Morstan, Greg Lestrade.
"May I ask why we're here?" Greg questioned before anyone else could. "You said we were going to do something important, but why bring us here? Where even are we?"
"Well, Lestrade," Sherlock sighed, stepping forward and turning to face the other first years, "we are in the Room of Requirement."
"Does this room not have a specific occupation or something?"
"It does what the title of it says. Whatever you need, and if you ask politely, the castle will give it to you. For example, if you really needed a place to sleep because you couldn't get back to your common room, the place would mold into a bedroom."
"Well, that's nifty." He grinned in appreciation.
"Magic," John inputted, a smug grin on his sealed lips as he nodded his head generously.
"But I still don't understand." It was Mary's turn to inject her voice into the conversation. "Why are we here?"
"You have not yet heard, except John..." The shortest boy in the room hid his embarrassment. "But a few days ago I had a little…incident." He removed his wand from his pants' pocket and waved it at the door, which swung closed on its hinges. Holmes bounced twice on his feet, grasping his hands behind his back and then continued on. "It has come to my attention that the dementors of Azkaban that guard our school are gradually trying to attack the students."
Lestrade coughed on his own spit and gagged. Morstan spoke for him as he tried to clear his throat. "What?"
"There have been two attacks at once a few days ago, which is not normal for the creatures." He answered the Gryffindor female's question before she could add a ridiculous comment. "Dumbledore would not allow the dementors to harm his students; therefore, someone is ordering them to slowly destroy the school." Mary gave John a nervous glance down the line, and her male housemate shifted uneasily on his feet.
"How do you know that?" Molly asked cautiously, lifting her hand and fumbling with her fingers.
People sometimes, Sherlock thought, controlling himself not to roll his eyes. "Is there any other logical explanation?" Molly went silent and stared at the ground.
"Then, what do we do?" John asked his first question. Obviously he knew the answer from Halloween night, but he asked just to make Sherlock get to his point.
"There is only one thing we can do. Since we have to be prepared in case they do attack us, we need to learn how to fight them; to protect ourselves." Lestrade grinned in a pleasing way and slipped his hands into his pockets. "I did a little research," the only Ravenclaw told them, remembering the things he'd read about the spell. "A dementor can only be affected by what is called a Patronus."
"What's a Patronus?" Mary interrupted. Her blonde hair was groomed flatly against her skull, and her scalp was barely visible in the mass of hair.
"A Patronus is a spell, almost like a shield, that comes between yourself and the dementor. It pushes off the creature, saving your life." John crossed his arms, squinting his eyes ever so slightly, listening to Sherlock deeply.
"Then again," the tallest male continued, raising his eyebrows for a dramatic effect, "a Patronus is one of the most difficult spells to produce properly."
The level of hope from the first years in the Room of Requirement seemed to drop about 98%.