Chapter 6

Sherlock picked himself off the floor by pushing against the slick stone with one hand, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his other arm. He ignored the hand that was extended out to him, not meeting the older boy's eyes. A streak of red came away on his right sleeve.

"Okay?" asked the older boy. He was a prefect, a Gryffindor, and there were many other much more specific details about him that Sherlock was starting to be able to deduce.

The younger boy nodded, even though the movement brought sharp pain to half his spine. Where most would have said "thank you," all Sherlock managed was a sort of "mmmhgh" noise.

The prefect seemed concerned by this rather than offended, looking at him with his brow furrowed and lips pressed together. "I think your nose is broken. How long were they at it?"

Sherlock, who knew perfectly well that his nose was broken, answered slowly. "Several minutes. Approximately seventeen."

The older boy let out a low whistle. Maybe seventeen minutes didn't sound very long, but the prefect knew that being punched and kicked against a stone floor in the boys' bathroom by three older students for seventeen minutes straight was no small thing, and it clearly hadn't ended well for this small second year.

"And you don't know who they were?"

"One was the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. Another was his younger brother, who had just come from a detention with Hadaway, and the third was the same boy who broke your telescope last week."

The prefect froze and stared at him. "Gordan? Damn, it looked like him. How do you know he broke my telescope last week?"

"Easy," said Sherlock, wiping his nose again and pulling away yet more blood. He tried to turn up his nose in distaste, but that was difficult in its present condition. "Simple deduction."

"Here, let me do something about your nose," said the other boy. Sherlock nodded once to give him permission. He could tell that this older boy's charm work and transfiguration were good, but that he shouldn't trust him with potioneering. "Episky!" said the prefect, and Sherlock heard a small click and felt his nose realign itself. He put his hand up to it to feel the difference, and felt that it had resumed its normal shape and didn't seem to be broken anymore. But it was still caked with blood.

"I'm Greg Lestrade, by the way," the boy said, holding out a hand.

"Sherlock Holmes," said Sherlock, without taking it.

Lestrade detracted the hand with an awkward smile. "How did you know about the telescope?"

"Simple," repeated Sherlock. "Like figuring out that the other one had come from detention with Hadaway."

"But how?"

"I observe. Just go off the things everyone else sees but doesn't really notice. I also know that your family used to be quite well-to-do within the Wizarding World, but the war has made you less so, though only in recent years, and that you are the reserve Chaser on the Gryffindor team this year, even though you didn't have a tryout."

"Well, you could find all that out from other students, just gossip," said Lestrade, but he was regarding Sherlock critically. "But…I'm wondering…could you help me find out something else? You probably do owe me a favor after a stepped in and pulled them off you."

Sherlock felt annoyance at this. Yes, he probably did owe him a favor, and he hated having to rely on other people or be indebted to them. But clearly Sherlock hadn't been winning any fights recently, and he had in fact been giving up on resisting the other boys by the time Lestrade had shown up.

"You could just tell me whenever you can, once you've found out, if you're so observant. I'm not really in a rush, but…" Clearly not, Sherlock thought, mentally rolling his eyes at the amount of time it was taking the other boy to get the words out. "Could you find out if my girlfriend…. Is she cheating on me?"

"Yes."

Lestrade stared. "But—I haven't even told you her name!"

"I don't need it," said Sherlock. "Yes, she is cheating on you. With a Hufflepuff a year behind you."

Lestrade opened his mouth, staring around the bathroom in agitation. "That gargoyle," he whispered. "But how do you know?" He demanded, looking at Sherlock.

"Your hat," Sherlock said simply, nodding at it.

"My hat?"
"Yes. Clearly no self-respecting girlfriend who still loved you would let you walk away from breakfast wearing it in that state."

"It's not that bad!" said Lestrade defensively.

"Yes, it is," said Sherlock. "At least, in the opinion of the fifth-year girl who you chose mainly out of looks and whom you already suspect of shallow motives. She would have pointed out all the dust and the way your hem is coming away across the side if she really cared anymore. But she doesn't, and you clearly suspect her of cheating if you're willing to ask a second year you just met about it. If it were just a small suspicion, you'd be guarding it more closely. Therefore, the probability that it's true is larger. Not guaranteed, of course, people can be paranoid, but the probability is greater."

"And the fourth year Hufflepuff?"

"I don't always explain everything," said Sherlock, doing his best attempt at dignified mystery while his face was still covered in his own blood and he could barely put weight on one of his legs. "But I'm quite certain that if you look into it, you'll find I'm right."

Lestrade gave him a searching look, then nodded slightly, as if only to himself. "We should get you up to the hospital wing. You clearly need it, Sherlock. Then…I'm going to go have a talk with Amanda." This last part was said more to himself than to Sherlock. Sherlock smirked.

John sat with his back up against the rough bark of the tree, looking out over the grounds as the February snow fell in delicate flakes and twinkled in the sunlight all around him. The cold bit at the tips of his nose and ears, and even though he'd been sitting under that same tree for nearly half and hour, he felt no desire to get up and go back to the castle or to find his hat and scarf. John just stayed there, ignoring the wet cold that had been seeping into his clothes, ignoring the occasional shouts from the students who were closer to the lake. The past few months, ever since Voldemort's downfall, had been especially cheerful all throughout the school, but this didn't affect John anymore. If anything, it could only make him feel more acrimonious. There was a book in his bag next to him, but it was the same book he'd checked out of the library a month ago and hadn't even opened yet, and he didn't feel anything close to a desire to reach for it.

The snow falling around him would have been enchanting a year before, when he'd had snowball fights with the other students. Sometimes the tips of the waves travelling across the Black Lake's surface would glint in the sun, and as he gazed out over it John saw a fleshy pink tentacle rise out of the water near the shore and students immediately running towards it and shrieking in excitement. John barely blinked, and he sighed slightly out of his nose. Were two of them Harry and Clara? He couldn't tell from here, but he decided that they were, anyway. Let them have their fun, he thought bitterly, remembering one of the few times he'd talked to Harry within the past two months, just after they'd both been given the news.

He'd been sitting on top of the rumpled covers his bed in his dormitory, pulling his knees up closer to his face and hugging his folded legs tightly to keep in the small pool of guilt and loneliness that was puddling up inside his stomach, to stop it spreading. No, no, no, no, no, no…. how could it have happened? He'd barely written to them that year, and over the summer he had wanted so badly to leave them and get away to Hogwarts, and now they were gone…maybe, if he'd held on closer, written them more, just said "I love you" one more time….maybe….

There was nothing he could do now. There was nothing he wanted to do, no where he wanted to go, no one he wanted to see, nothing that would make this any less real or make it stop. John could barely remember what had happened after he heard the news from Dumbledore's own mouth in his circular office, with he and Harry sitting in chairs side by side as the headmaster looked at them gravely over his half-moon spectacles. The Watson parents were dead.

Death Eaters…right after everything had been changing, everyone starting to breathe again and reveling in the fact that Who-Know-Who was gone, right when they'd all been starting to feel safe. Mr. and Mrs. Watson, as well as some other Aurors, including a couple named Longbottom, and another man whose name John didn't remember or particularly care about, had all been there too, cornered by the Death Eaters, tortured and killed. John had been going to see them in three days when Christmas break started. Now he would never see them again.

The dormitory door had creaked open, and John heard a floorboard squeak with a single footstep. All the other boys had left him alone in the room the entire evening, either out of respect for his grief or because they were avoiding him, not knowing how to behave in front of someone who has just lost both their parents. "John?" said a voice softly.

John didn't respond. There was a pause, and then Harry made her way over to sit on the end of his bed, in all the space John had left as he pulled himself into a smaller and smaller ball near the headboard. Harry didn't try to say anything, just frowned at him, her face sad. Her eyes were dry. How much had she cried earlier? Or had she not cried at all? Don't think that, John, he thought to himself. We both loved them, even if we didn't always say it…she must have been crying...

"John…," Harry reached for his hand, but John only gripped his own legs more tightly to keep them away from her touch.

"I don't want to talk to you right now," he said, his voice breaking and harsh.

"Why not? You obviously need to talk to someone," said Harry, looking at him worriedly.

"No, I don't!" John yelled. He didn't know why he was being so rude to her, only that he didn't want to talk, didn't want to sleep, didn't want to do anything. Because he didn't know what to do.

"John, you can't just hide away like this!"

"And what have you been doing?"

"Well, I've…I've been with Clara—but now I'm trying to talk to you!" she said angrily over the sound of his snort when she mentioned her girlfriend.

"Well I don't want to. So go back to kissing Clara."

"Maybe I will!" said Harry, standing up and leaving the room, not bothering to close the door again behind her.

John didn't know what made him say it…he knew she hadn't just been snogging Clara all evening, clearly she was upset too…they both were…and now his sister had left, too….Don't overreact, John, it'll all be okay with Harry... But it just so wasn't. And why had he acted like that?

John finally released his limbs, all aching from how tightly he'd been holding on, and rolled over to lay down with his face in the blankets, beginning to sob into them.

The memory of that scene made John frown, casting his glance away from the giant squid in the lake and glaring down at the snowy ground in front of him. He was ashamed of the way he had treated Harry, but no matter how much shame and regret bundled up inside him, he still never went to Harry to apologize. They just didn't talk. And John didn't want to lose her too, but he felt that there was a current making him drift further and further away from her.

John didn't know how long after that it had been when crunching footsteps alerted him that someone else was walking towards him. He looked up and saw that it was Sarah. John supposed that he should stand up to greet her, but he ended up just staring at her making her solitary way towards him for some time before he pushed himself up from the tree.

"Hi, John," she said tentatively.

"Hi," he said back, then coughed into his gloved hand to clear his voice. It also broke the uncomfortable eye contact, and when he looked up again she was looking at him quizzically.

"Um," she said. "Well. I was just wondering…if you wanted to play chess this evening. Or now. Maybe. In the common room."

She's being sweet John thought to himself. At first he wanted to say no. Well, it wasn't so much that he wanted to, as much as that was what he assumed he would do. But hadn't he just been thinking that he had been wrong to yell at Harry and shut her out? When was the last time that Sarah and he had done something together, besides sharing the same table in class and transfiguring the same teacup? Didn't he owe her a little more attention, when he had been one of her closest friends for the past year and a half?

"Um, okay," said John, shyly, almost. "Do you…" he cleared his throat again. "D'you want to go now?"

"Sure," said Sarah, nodding with a small smile that was caught somewhere between hesitant and pleased.

So John reached down for his bag and the two of them started off towards the castle together. At first they didn't talk, and John felt like he wanted to say something, but he wasn't sure how to start.

"Have you played chess in a while?" Sarah asked.

Maybe this is how she's a Gryffindor, John thought to himself, noting how her outreach to him showed a different kind of bravery than the kind that the house normally gave the most attention.

"No, not since…I guess the last time we played. That was probably in…early December?" he responded.

"Mmmm….I think so," answered Sarah. "But I got a new set at Christmas, so we can try it out together. I've played with it a bit, but they're not really broken in yet."

"That's good," said John. "They, er…probably don't know you so well yet."

"Exactly," said Sarah. There was a lengthy pause after this, and John thought that maybe he was supposed to say the next thing.

"How's Quidditch been? I missed the last match."

"Still not so great. You remember how we lost to Slytherin in November, and last month Ravenclaw beat Slytherin, which won't mean good things for Gryffindor."

"That's true," said John. He looked up to see they were almost at the Entrance Hall doors, and felt slightly relieved. The sooner they got to the common room, the sooner he wouldn't have to talk and they could play a game of chess more quietly. "Was it a close match, though?"

"Not really. Not the way matches can be, but Ravenclaw didn't crush them. It was something like forty minutes before their Seeker caught the Snitch, and the scores weren't super far apart before that."

They entered the castle and talked a little more about classes before they had made it to the Fat Lady's portrait in front of the Gryffindor common room.

"Bugul noz," said Sarah, and the portrait swung open to admit them. Once they had crawled in, Sarah said "If you go find a chair, I can run up and get my set."

"Okay," said John. He did as she had asked, waiting patiently and hoping that he was making the right decision. But what else would he have wanted to do that day?

When Sarah returned with the chess set, she smiled at him slightly before taking everything out to set it up. John smiled too, albeit a small one, but she had already looked away and was putting all the pieces in place.

"Do you want to be white or black?" she asked.

"Um, I don't really care," said John.

"Then I'll go first, and you can have the black pieces," said Sarah, smiling at him teasingly. He smiled back, felt the atmosphere between them brighten just a little bit. Just a sliver.

Their first game was short, since John lost pretty quickly, but Sarah suggested that they play again and the next time John did much better. They played a third game after that, and even though Sarah won again, it took her over and hour to do it, by which time is was time for dinner. This time, it was John who offered that they go together, and Sarah jumped up with a smile for them to do so.

It wasn't like it had been. And John kept finding himself drifting away, and staring off sadly at something else in the hall. Everything they said to each other was much more formal than they'd ever been together. Sarah had other friends at dinner who kept wanting to talk to her, and John could tell that she was paying less attention to them than she normally may have since she was trying to keep John involved.

But it was better. A lot better than the past two months had been. Maybe things could go back to what they used to be a bit more? John wondered to himself. Maybe? But as he crawled into bed that night, John realized that even spending a few hours with Sarah, talking more than they had in the past few days combined, didn't mean that they would be on the same terms again anytime soon. And it didn't change the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach that John had been carrying around ever since that news from Dumbledore. It didn't chance the fact that now that the war was over, everyone around him was starting to recover, like green shoots and leaves sprouting from overturned soil after a long, long, winter, while John just hung around the edge, feeling that nothing right would ever happen to him again.