Chapter 12 (otherwise known as chapter 11 part 2)

"John! Johnjohnjohnjohnjohn!"

There was a hyper torpedo at the door to greet him when John got home. A hyper torpedo wearing large round glasses with dark frames. They looked…well…John would be lying if he said he'd have chosen them himself. They seemed to dominate Harry's small face. John bravely attempted a smile and prepared to lie.

"Look! I have spy glasses, like Sherlock, and he said Sherlock needs some and Sherlock says he's an idiot, and he had an owl so I got a disguise!"

This was all said in one breath and John was only halfway sure he'd heard everything correctly. Arms still full of Harry, he looked at Sherlock and waited for him to translate.

"Do you like the frames I picked out?" was all Sherlock said, his expression innocent and guileless and completely wrong from how he looked when he was actually being clueless. Sherlock had chosen hideous frames on purpose. He was up to something.

"Do you like them, Uncle John?" Harry's expression, on the other hand, expressed an odd mixture of barely contained giggles, anxiety, and sly interest. Correction, they were up to something. But Harry still wanted a real answer.

"Well…" John answered, "They are very…round. Are these the frames you wanted, Harry?"

"They are no-tice-ab-le," Harry answered, carefully pronouncing the long word.

"That they are. Very very noticeable. Just what I was thinking. Sherlock…why do Harry's glasses need to be noticeable?"

"If you had listened to Sherry earlier, you would know exactly why."

"Five, Sherlock."

"Necessary, John."

John hesitated, finally taking the time to stop reacting to everything and actually think. There was only one reason Sherlock could expect John to waiver the 'his name is Harry' rule.

"…We're going to the magical world…and…the glasses are…to stick out?"

"Brilliant, John!" Sherlock actually looked delighted, rather than sarcastic, as he said this. He always did like it when people managed to think something out for themselves. Unfortunately for Sherlock's delight, John had to keep talking.

"You want him to be noticeable?" Then, of course, came the expected 'how can people be so stupid' look.

"Of course not. I want his glasses to be noticeable. A prominent and disposable feature." Harry tugged at John's shirt, pulling his attention back to him.

"My name is Sherrinford Watson Holmes," he told him, beaming proudly. And for the first time since the whole name business had begun, John suddenly found himself thinking that the name change wasn't so bad. Smiling softly, John shifted Harry's weight so he could offer him his hand.

"Hello, Sherry. My name is Dr. John Watson. Nice to meet you." Harry hid his pleased giggle in John's shirt collar, letting John shake his hand vigorously.

"Alright, Sherry," Sherlock said, looking ridiculously pleased at the way this was going, "Let's show John your real glasses."

The new glasses were nice. Slimmer than the monstrous pair Harry had first been adorned with, though sturdy enough that they wouldn't easily twist or break. They were flatter on top, rather than the perfect circles of the first pair, and green rather than black. They fit his face well. They also made his eyes look huge somehow, and twice as vulnerable while Harry waited on John's verdict.

"Brilliant. You look sharp, Harry." At John's soft but genuine assertion, the vulnerability melted away into excitement once more. No doubt, Sherlock had been fuelling him for the last hour or so on a mixture of sugar and stories of the adventures that awaited them once John got home. John knew he really should ask about the owls. Why did Sherlock want an owl, why did their ophthalmologist have an owl, where would they even find one?

What he actually said in the end was, "So, Harry…what was this about Sherlock needing glasses?" Revenge was sweetest when it was well deserved.

It took them another hour to get ready for the Magical World, during which Sherlock expertly applied prosthetic skin over Harry's scar (harder to accidently remove than make up alone), Sherlock produced his glasses monstrosity to match Harry's disguise, except of course the glass in his wasn't meant to correct his vision (because he did NOT need glasses, John, and what kind of eye doctor can't tell the difference between bad eyesight and dysle…never mind. John never did get the full story there.) and the story about the owls was finally explained.

"Dr. Prewett has an owl," Harry told him gleefully, his eyes huge behind his new glasses, while Sherlock attempted to apply makeup over the fake skin on his forehead, "His name is Gideon and he's brown but also gray and orangy and dark brown but not black, but almost all the way brown and he has big eyes like my new glasses! And Dr. Prewett says he is a postman but he's a postbird and he's family…"

"A familiar," Sherlock corrected, "Now turn your head to the left…other left…still other left…thank you. Hold still."

"He's a famil…family familiar, like a pet, but he isn't a pet because he's smart and knows every single place everyone lives inside his head. And animals can be famil…family…"

"Familiars, now tilt, and stay still."

"Fam-il-yars, and it means they are like family, like you and me and Sherlock and Grandma Martha…"

"Who?"

"He means Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock."

"Oh…right. Tilt the other way now, Sherry…and stop. Good."

"…And Uncle Mycroft, and Aunt Harry, and Uncle Greg, and everyone! And we need more family, and owls are beautiful and they can be postmen and glutinic people have magic owls, and being glutinic is good because people are all different, and we need an owl."

"I see." John suspected he ought to be protesting somewhere in all these preparations to go find an owl. Gaining a pet, or a familiar, or a living specimen for an experiment, or whatever this owl was meant to be was the sort of thing that really should be discussed beforehand. He really shouldn't just give in.

"John," Sherlock said quietly, his voice serious, "John…it's part of his community. It's…we wanted him…I mean…they have bonds. I just wanted to know…it is for Harry."

Harry tugged at Sherlock's sleeve, then when he had his attention said, "Sherry," quite sternly, in exactly the same tone John used when Harry started to dart ahead too close to the traffic when they walked somewhere.

"I stand corrected," Sherlock said with a smile, while John resisted the urge to bang his head against a wall. And then Harry's eyes were on him, wide and innocent.

"Please?"

Half an hour later they were on their way to Diagon Alley.