Disclaimer: Landed in Kymi and started north. Caught a ride with an olive farmer to Psachna. Not bad but a bit of a bumpy ride. Stayed the night in Psachna and will head our north today. As I still haven't found Eros Sherlock and the others still belong to BBC, for now.

A/N: I know they still haven't actually started out. I told you all I get wordy. I promise they, at the very least, make it to the train in this chapter. And this is the last chapter of the Sunday Blitz. See you all next week, hope you have a good one.

The Loch Ness Monster

Chapter Two:

The Rookery

Chapter Summary: Sherlock and John are swept away to the Rookery. They meet Andromeda Tonks and head off to Scotland and The Loch Ness Monster.

Sherlock flung the door to the flat against the wall in his exuberance and grinned delightedly at Luna. "I have never seen my brother so irritated," he exclaimed. "Good job, Luna Potter!"

"I would say thank you, Sherlock Holmes," Luna gave him a bemused smile. "But I dislike irritating people. I much prefer to discombobulate them."

Sherlock's smile didn't dim a single iota. "You managed that as well," he assured her.

John groaned. "You know he's going to be impossible now, don't you? He already fears Harry and this will only make it worse. He'll have his cameras and his microphones all over the flat by the time we get back. And he'll put then in hard to find places and it'll be weeks before we get them all."

Sherlock waved his concerns away and went to fetch his supplies. "How are we getting to where we're meeting Harry?" He called from his bedroom.

"Bring your luggage to the parlour and I shall show you," Luna called back. "You as well, John. While you're doing that I'm going to watch the Light Warblers." Without waiting for either man to answer she strode to the sofa and flopped down on it on her back her eyes already trained on the shafts of sunlight streaming through the window.

John shook his head fondly and traipsed up the stairs to collect his suitcase.

"Luna?" Sherlock asked quietly once he'd gathered his things. "What do the Light Warblers look like? I keep thinking I can see them on the edge of my eyes but I can never catch them full on."

Luna scooted against the back of the sofa and motioned him over to lie beside her. "You see the sparkly places?" She asked once he was beside her. He nodded. "That's the Light Warblers. They're very small and hard to spot unless the sun reflects off their tiny wings."

"Oh," Sherlock said simply. "I wonder why they're attracted to intelligence."

Luna shrugged lightly. "It's one of the questions I want to ask the Crumple Horned Snorkack when we find it."

"How would the Snorkack know?" Sherlock asked with genuine curiousity.

"Because the Crumpled Horned Snorkacks are the leaders of the Creature Kingdom," Luna explained. "They know everything about every magical creature that ever lived. And they should know quite a bit about the nonmagical creatures as well."

"So that's why you want to find one? To ask it about all the other creatures?"

"Not really. I want to find a Crumple Horned Snorkack because Daddy wanted to find one. It's the perfect way to honour his memory. He wanted to find one because Mummy wanted to find one and so if we find a Crumple Horned Snorkack then I'm honouring the memory of both my parents. I am fulfilling their legacy to me."

"Ah," Sherlock nodded. That made a bit of sense if one was ruled by sentiment. "Have you explained that to Hermione?"

Luna nodded slowly and from the corner of his eye Sherlock caught the sad frown. "Hermione is a being ruled by logic and books," Luna said on a sigh. "Whimsy and fantasy and imagination have no sway over her. It's sad really. Without imagination there can be no discovery, no excitement, nothing new."

Unable to comprehend his own actions Sherlock took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "When we find one then she'll believe."

Luna turned her head and stared at him with those dreamy eyes. "She may believe then but she will still rely on her logic and her books. She has no knowledge that is acquired herself. Only what other people have told her. Her outlook on life makes me sad." She turned her gaze back to the Light Warblers. "I still can't understand how she and Harry are such good friends. Harry is quite aware that belief and imagination make the world spin."

"What do you mean?" Sherlock asked as John came down the stairs. John leaned against the doorjamb having heard some of the conversation and interested in the answer. He couldn't quite understand why Harry and Hermione were friends either. Hermione was so uptight and argumentative and Harry was laid back.

Luna pondered for a moment how to put her thoughts into words. "Harry's home life when he was young left little room for imagination. When he returned to the Wizarding World he was prepared to believe anything was possible. His first classes at Hogwarts only enforced that belief. The fact that all of the adults around him lied to him almost constantly led him to wonder if they were also lying or misinformed about the limitations they placed on magic. Subconsciously, I think he has always believed that anything is possible. Anything at all. He will believe in the creatures I spout off about until they are proven not to exist. He will also not believe in any limitations on his magic. If he can think it he can do it and no one can tell him different." She giggled now. "Believe me many have tried to tell him that something is impossible but it's almost as if he doesn't hear them. He'll nod and make agreeing noises and then turn around and do whatever it is they say is impossible. It's very amusing sometimes."

"I can imagine," John chuckled. The two on the sofa turned their heads and smiled at him.

"Is that what happened with the reporter?" Sherlock asked her suddenly.

"Which time?"

"The coffee mug incident." Sherlock drawled. "Were there others?" He raised a dark brow at her.

Luna flushed faintly. "Oh, yes there were many others but the coffee mug was me. I told him that the mass ratio between a person and a coffee mug was too different for him to be able to transfigure an adult into a coffee mug no matter what that Auror from America told him. So he proved me wrong. How did you hear about it?"

Sherlock snickered. "You're married to him and you didn't know that was a bad idea? Mycroft told us as a warning to how dangerous your husband is."

"It was only for a few minutes. Harrymine would never have left me as a coffee mug forever." Luna protested. "I'd like to know where he gets his information. The only people there were Harry, me, our wyvern, Hedwig and Ginny…Oh! Ginny is such a gossip! Unless, of course the Nargles told him, but Mycroft Holmes doesn't strike me as someone who would listen to Nargles."

Sherlock sat up and then stood, offering his hand to Luna. "No, I don't think he is either. That means that it must have been this Ginny person." He meant to say more but there was a sudden light at the door and then a spectral stag trotted through the door.

The men watched in shock as it trotted up to Luna and opened its mouth. "Lunalove, my dearest, light of my life," it said with Harry's voice. "Stop watching the Light Warblers and get a move on. We're going to be late for the train."

Luna drew her wand, concentrated for a moment and then waved it in a slashing motion. "Expecto patronum," she incanted and a sheeplike creature burst forth from the tip of the wand. The stag and the creature nodded at each other and then the stag disappeared and the sheeplike creature glided through the door.

"What was that?" Sherlock finally breathed out.

"A patronus," Luna answered.

"I didn't think they could talk," John put in. "I thought they could only be used to scare off dementors and lethifolds."

"Patroni can be used for that," Luna confirmed. "They can also be used to pass messages but only if the caster has sufficient strength and mental control. They can also be used to lift minor depression as they are made of happy thoughts."

"Incredible," Sherlock breathed out.

"Is this one of the things that Harry was told couldn't be done?" John asked curiously.

Luna shook her head. "Professor Dumbledore figured out how to do it and taught a select few people. Harry simply saw it done once and decided that he could do it as well. He thinks it's not a matter of power but simply belief like most magic."

"We should probably go," John said. "Where are we going anyway?"

"The walls have noses and they will tell the Lanosrep Recrofne where we're going so I can't tell you," Luna said a bit too brightly for John's comfort.

"You mean ears?" Sherlock asked. "Or eyes, knowing Mycroft."

"I say what I mean and I mean what I say," Luna admonished. She took Sherlock's suitcase, put it in the middle of a clear space in the parlour and then did the same with John's. "An elephant is true, one hundred percent." She waved her wand over the luggage and with a pop it vanished.

"But you are not an elephant, Luna," Sherlock felt compelled to point out.

The blond woman cocked her head to the side. "Very true, Sherlock. Hmm, still I meant that the walls have noses and can smell out deception and so I will not tell you where we are until we are there." She grabbed his hand and then took John's in her other. "Now hold on tight, wouldn't want the Nips to take you in transit."

"What's a—" Sherlock question was never finished as he suddenly found himself spinning in a vortex of colours and sounds. Instinctively he held tight to Luna's hand in his and tried very hard not to be sick. In moments it was over and he found himself flat on his back on soft grass. "What the Hell was that?" He asked harshly as he attempted to regain his bearings before he even gave a thought to standing.

"A portkey," John groaned from a few feet away. "One of the worst possible ways to travel in the Wizarding World."

"There are others just as bad?" Sherlock sounded faintly alarmed.

"Yes," John said as he climbed to his feet. "Believe it or not some of them are worse than what you just experienced."

"Harrymine can't stand portkeys either," Luna bounced to her feet. "So you are not alone. Though, his abhorrence of portkeys has more to do with bad memories than the actual feeling of travel."

"Isn't the travel itself enough?" Sherlock asked, still blinking up at the blue sky above him.

A sun-browned male hand appeared between him and the sunlit sky. "Yes," Harry's voice said. "But when you add in Death Eaters, Voldemort, caves full of inferi and obsessed fans and rabid reporters on the other end of various portkeys then the disorientation and nauseating spinning of the travel itself kind of pales in comparison."

"Something bad happens to Harry every time he uses a portkey," an older woman said as Harry hefted Sherlock to his feet. "You were right, Harry. John doesn't look much like Remus but the resemblance is there if you know what to look for." A middle-aged woman approached the four and held out her hand to John. "I'm Andromeda Tonks. Teddy's grandmother and I guess that would make me your mother by marriage." She shrugged complacently. "Doesn't matter much," John hesitantly shook her hand and she moved on to Sherlock while she continued to speak. "It does mean that you are both a part of the family and I, for one, am very happy to have you both. None of us have any other family besides each other so the more the merrier." Sherlock shook her hand and gave her a polite smile.

"Mr. Sh'lock, Unca John!" Teddy cried as he ran from the house and straight into John's arms. "I wanted to say hi! I staying with Gramma this time, but Unca Harry says maybe I can come too next time! Can I?"

John scooped the boy up into his arms. "We'll see. It depends on where we're going and what your grandmother says."

Sherlock tuned them out and stared in appalled amazement at the strange house before him. Well, he thought it was a house but he couldn't be sure. It was very tall and looked almost like a chess rook except that the entire top seemed to have been blown off. "You live here?" He asked Harry quietly.

Harry affected a hurt look as he looked from Sherlock to the house and back. "You don't like it?" His voice was pained.

"So you don't live here then?" Sherlock sneered at him. "You have London dirt on your shoes and the smell of the city on your clothes. I had wondered when I saw this place how you could have evidence of living in London all over you and still live in the country."

"Well," Harry laughed. "It is a mystery. Truthfully, though, Luna and I are thinking about rebuilding this place. It is her childhood home. It doesn't deserve to be left in such disrepair. I own a few other properties but they haven't been lived in since before I was born. I haven't made a tour of them yet, though I should."

"Why haven't you?" John asked.

"Because he's scared," Andi teased. "He's afraid there will be portraits of his ancestors and they'll dislike him."

Harry scowled. "Can you really blame me, Gran Andi? Blood relations and I aren't very good together."

Sherlock snorted derisively. "You don't have Mycroft for a brother," he refuted.

Harry looked at him sharply and then his expression cleared. "True. Someday I'll have to take you to meet my relatives. It's only fair. I have met your brother."

"Mmm," was Sherlock's only comment. He looked forward to the meeting actually. He wasn't a man prone to violence, he left that to John, but in this instance he'd make an exception.

"You lot had better get going before one of Molly's brood decide to take a walk this way and spot you," Andi said. "Are you apparating them to the station, Harry?"

Harry nodded. "I've already taken the luggage to our compartment and warded it from anyone wanting to interfere."

"Do I want to know why that would be necessary?" John asked as he set Teddy back on the ground. The little boy flung himself at Sherlock and Sherlock swung him up and around delighting in the child's laughter.

"Probably not," Harry said cheerfully. "Say your good byes, Teddy. We need to go." Sherlock scowled but set the boy back on the ground. "Bye Gran Andi, we'll message you when we get to Loch Ness."

"You had better, Harry!" The woman shook her finger and then hugged first Harry and then Luna. "And let me know if Nessie knows where to find a Crumple Horned Snorkack."

"We will," Harry gave Teddy a hug and then stood and held his hands out to John and Sherlock. "Grab on. This will be slightly unpleasant. Meet us there, Lunalove."

"Another portkey?" Sherlock sounded both eager and dismayed. Luna nodded, kissed Harry's cheek and disappeared with a crack. "Is that what it sounds like when the portkey activates?"

Sherlock thought that Harry's grin looked just a little bit evil. "No, that's the displacement of the air when someone apparates. Now, take my hand and hold on tight, wouldn't want to splinch you."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Sherlock asked even as he and John took Harry's hands in their own. "What is splinching?"

Harry didn't answer and Sherlock suddenly felt as though his entire body was being squeezed through some kind of tube. He nearly panicked as he couldn't quite catch his breath and then it was over. He drew a deep gasping breath of air and heard John moan. "I hate apparating," Harry said quietly. "I wouldn't have forced you two to do that if we weren't late. Both of you in one piece?"

"I never want to do that again," Sherlock moaned. "Can't magical people come up with a better way to travel?"

"There's always shadow walking but that's illegal in the U.K.," Harry told them. "Floo is just as bad as a portkey. Broom riding is great for short distances."

"Harrymine," Luna's head poked out of a window on the train. "Over here," she waved at them. "Hurry the station is infested with the Eyes of Red Mater. We have to keep a look out for the oldest female. The ticket salesman is her cousin."

Harry's eyes widened and he immediately herded John and Sherlock on board the train. He breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut behind them. Outside they could all hear a woman yelling his name and even though he knew she couldn't see him he cringed back into the shadows of the corner of the compartment.