Wow. Seriously, that's all that I have to say in reply to the response this story has gotten. And now I'm just sitting here hoping that it lives up to the hype. Sorry this took so long to get out - between my birthday this weekend and co-running the kitchen at my church's annual Christmas bazaar, life's been hectic. This chapter's main purpose is to give some background, on John and his family specifically. Also, the angst starts here. I really didn't set out with the intention of this story to be as angsty as it is, but...well. It happened. I'm sorry. This is your warning. It ends happy, but there are hella feels to get there. Also, ten points to the Hogwarts house of your choice if you can figure out the real life individual I based one of these characters on. Enjoy and let me know what you think!
Chapter Two
John woke early the next morning despite his late night text, which he had chosen to ignore for the time being when he realized it was from Sherlock and nothing of immediate importance. He, Mary, and the baby were staying with a few friends for the weekend, both as a way to introduce their daughter to them and have willing babysitters for the visit they would be making later that day. John climbed nearly silently from the bed in the guest room, leaving Mary to continue sleeping while he checked on their child. She too lay content and fast asleep in her crib, her eyes darting about underneath her eyelids with enthusiasm as she dreamt. John left her with a quick kiss on her forehead and padded into the bathroom to take a quick shower. As he tousled a burgundy towel through his grey-blonde hair, the memory of Sherlock's message came to him and led him back to the bedside table. He scrubbed at his jaw as he picked the phone up and scrolled through the texts, thoughts more focused on considering whether he ought to bother shaving that morning than whatever Sherlock had sent. Any contemplation of his daily routine, however, instantly fell away once he read the words Sherlock had sent a few hours before.
Sherlock had met McGonagall. Assumedly Minerva McGonagall, headmistress (possibly even former by now; John had been so disconnected from that world that it was entirely possible she'd deservedly retired years before) of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Even at the simple passing thought of the name, John's mind immediately snapped back to memories, many of them overall awful – meetings with the Order, dueling with Death Eaters, watching his friends die. It was a sort of PTSD all on its own, no less significant than that which he'd gained fighting in Muggle wars, but of a different sort, laced with scenes that were dancing with sparks of magic rather than gunfire. There were happy flashbacks in addition to the fear and pain, thoughts of doing homework with friends in the common room, practicing new spells in class, lounging down by the lake once finals were over, but they were far outnumbered by the less favourable ones. It was a world John Watson hadn't interacted with in far too long a time, and he wasn't sure how he felt about being suddenly thrust back into it once more, particularly right now.
"Hmm, John?" Mary's voice, gravelly with sleep, came from behind him, rousing him back from the depths of his thoughts. "Is everything all right? Did Cecy wake?"
"No, she's fine," John muttered, staring down at his phone with a blank expression. The glow of the screen had long since gone dark. "Just…thinking."
"We don't have to go, if you'd rather not," Mary replied in a low voice, sitting up and reaching out to wrap an arm around his chest. He supposed the move was intended to be comforting, but at the moment it mostly felt constricting.
"It's not that," he said, clutching the phone in a tighter grip. "Just something from Sherlock. He sent me a text last night at bloody two in the morning. Shouldn't be surprised, but it got me thoughtful. We can still go. I want to."
Mary nodded, her forehead rubbing against his bad shoulder with the movement. John tried not to flinch, but given where his mind had been, it wasn't a surprise that the motion caused a sensitive flashback jolting through him that he fought to subdue. Luckily he was saved from a most likely uncomfortable discussion of how this trip wouldn't do his still occasionally troubled mind much good by the sounds of a newly waking infant.
"Ah, the princess awakes," Mary said with a chuckle, drawing away from John to draw on her dressing gown and approach the crib's side. "Morning, Cecelia Watson. Are you ready for another day of being spoiled rotten?"
John tried to chuckle along with Mary, but his focus could only be distracted for so long before it meandered back to Sherlock's text. He considered half a dozen possible replies to it, ranging from McGonagall who? to Bit not good, Sherlock. More like bloody fucking hell not good. before sending one out. He kept it simple with a Not now, Sherlock. We'll talk when I get home.
John offered to watch over Cecelia while Mary got ready, a suggestion she readily accepted. Tossing his phone on the pillow as though he could toss away the memories that came with it, he returned to the crib's side and scooped her into his arms, automatically smiling when she gurgled at the movement. Her eyes shone brightly as she smiled up at him, the noises acting as her good morning greeting. Though his daughter had been able to easily alter his mood regardless of the circumstances in the five months she had been theirs, John couldn't keep fight down the dancing touches of reflection that Sherlock's message had given him at bay. The fact that it was July didn't help the matter – not even fully reimmursing himself in the Muggle world could cause John to forget the celebrated birth of the Boy Who Lived. He mentally counted back the years; Harry Potter would be thirty-five in a few brief weeks.
Mary found him absentmindedly rocking Cecelia, his expression distant and unfocused. It took her gentle prod to his arm to bring him back to the present. "You sure you're okay, John?" she asked as they transferred Cecelia from one set of arms to another. "You seem off."
"Just the date, I suppose," John replied with a tired smile. "It's always been one of the harder ones, among others."
Mary shot him an understanding smile. "Go on and get dressed while I get Cecy settled. We'll head out to the spot whenever you're ready. We've got time."
"Yeah, I know," John sighed, digging through one of the suitcases for a pair of jeans. His head shot up with a frown from where he knelt, lines of wrinkles forming between his eyes. "Actually, Mary, I hate to ask it, but…you think I could head out on my own today? Just today, I promise. We'll stop by with Cecy tomorrow, but I think I'd rather be on my own this time round."
"Of course. Don't worry about us; we'll find something to amuse ourselves, won't we, Princess?" At the question, Mary grinned down at the baby and rocked her a few times, causing Cecelia to giggle happily. John chuckled at the sound as he finished dressing, but his heart wasn't in it. He snatched up his cell as he made his way from the room, calling out a goodbye to the two as he went. By taking the spare back stairs, he managed to avoid interacting with anyone he'd rather avoid at the moment and make his way to the car they decided to rent when they arrived. Silently as was possible, he settled himself in the vehicle and made his way down the drive toward the cemetery.
John's father was originally born in the small town just north of Bristol, growing up there and raising his children in the same home he was born in. How he managed to get out enough to meet a young woman, let alone one from Scotland up north, was always a tale that led to a few laughs as it was retold down at the pub over evening drinks. Síleas had been beautiful since the day she was born, hardly even appearing as though she aged even at the time of her death. The lives of the Watson family were surprisingly happy ones given where they all ended up in later years, up until the day of John's eleventh birthday at the very least.
John drove steadily down the familiar gravel roads, still covered in the same patterns of rocks and roots he remembered from his youth. The town only had two cemeteries, having finally outgrown the plot in the east when John was in the military, and he had distinct memories of dares with his friends to enter the area at night, made eerie by the lack of street lamps and massive trees turned murderous by starlight and moon beam. It was beside one of these enormous trees, an apple that had stopped properly flowering long before the plot was purchased, that his parents resided.
The road, if the hole laden and pitchy patch of gravel could even be considered that, halted just before the cemetery's rusted gate. John parked beside it and climbed out, taking a deep gulp of faintly sea salt tinged air before proceeding to the creaky opening. The sound of the gate's entrance unfastening echoed across the patch of land, though the birds and various other wildlife who called it their home hardly paused in their noise to pay any mind to the long familiar sound. John's sneakers swished through the overgrown grass when he made his way inside, eyes casually flowing from one gravestone to another, taking in names both familiar and otherwise. His parents' graves were farther into the centre, so there were various memorials to pass before reaching the one he sought. A few had flags or other similar badges of honor, indicating military service and accolades, proclaiming how one sacrificed oneself for queen and country. Many had flowers, occasionally fresh but mostly long dried and dead, and John briefly considered whether he ought to have brought some himself before he laughed bitterly at himself. If he really wished to leave a gift at the grave, he had the means to do so.
John suddenly came to an abrupt halt when he reached the bottom of the last sloping bit of hill right before the graves. The headstones were still intact, dull grey against a sea of darker grey over browning green, but they were not alone. A solitary figure stood between the two recently replaced headstones, shoulders hunched so far forward that the head topped with a mass of russet curls could barely be seen over them. John briefly considered whether he ought to come back later when his choice was made for him. The woman turned and met his eyes, navy meeting navy.
Harry Watson was technically two years older than her brother, but life and alcohol had aged her enough that she looked to be nearly ten years more than that. Though the curls on her head still had a touch of their old crazed life to them, John's memory of their madness from their youth helped him to realize just how dull, lifeless, and thin the strands had become. Wrinkles lined her eyes and mouth, her skin even paler than it was naturally, and her clothes looked as though they barely held together enough to stay on her limp and once curvy frame. The only jewelry she wore was her former wedding ring, though it looked cheap and paltry with the jewel missing from the center. The lines at the corners of her eyes, lines that ought to have been a result of laughter and joy, became even more pronounced when they narrowed at the approaching man.
"John dear," she said when he stopped only a few feet away. "What a pleasant surprise. Lucky me, to finally get to see the golden child, even if it's not me you came to visit."
"Come on, Harry, leave off it," John replied with a sigh and a hand running through his short hair. "You've been invited to visit from Mary more times than I can remember, provided you're sober. It isn't all my fault."
"Oh, of course not," she said, turning back to face the graves. Her voice rang thick with painful sarcasm. "Heaven forbid you take all of the blame."
John forced himself not to shoot back a retort, clenching and unclenching his fists as he strode to her side. Even though they were technically side-by-side, an awkward emptiness resided in the foot of air between them. Before John got his letter, such an occurrence would have been unheard of.
Neither chose to speak for several minutes, instead opting to stare down at the lettering on the graves at their feet. The matching death dates, exactly eighteen years before, seemed to shine out from the material more prominently than anything else. Eventually Harry squatted down on creaking ankles, balancing herself on the balls of her feet as she reached out a hand to trace the numbers in the carved stone.
"These are new," she stated, her tone on the verge of conversational. "Business with the consulting lunatic really going that well?"
"Wedding gifts, actually. Sherlock's brother gave them to us. I was surprised at the sentimentality – it's not usually the Holmes sort of thing, and Mycroft and I aren't exactly close, but it was a lovely gesture anyway. You like them?"
Harry shrugged and straightened back up, hands diving into the pockets of her jacket. "Better than the single one from before, at least. They deserved to each have their own."
"It was the best we could do at the time, you know that," John muttered, attempting to disguise his low simmering resentment. He'd been employed as a Junior Healer at the time and hardly had enough cash on his own for his single room flat, let alone funeral expenses for two. The fact that all of Harry's cash went to booze didn't exactly help matters.
"And by we you mean you, naturally," she said bitterly. She was trying to conceal the hurt in her voice, but John had known her his entire life and was closer to her than anyone at one point; he could pick up on his sister's emotions better than his own at times. "It's not like I was exactly helpful at the time."
"If you're the one to say it," John replied before he could stop himself. He mentally cringed as Harry spun to face him, her dead eyes now lit with fury and sorrow.
"Oh yes, because perfect little Johnny was the selfless one, going off to that fucking school and learning all his wizarding shit while Harry sat at home and drank herself stupid when she wasn't getting fired from yet another job. How was it being the ideal child, John? Not only talented in the usual sorts of ways but a bloody wizard to top it all off?"
"Harry, please," John begged, reaching out to grasp her elbow. She nearly lost her balance from how quickly she moved away to avoid the touch. "Can't we meet up for once without bickering? Particularly on today of all days. Mum hated it."
"Meet up," she scoffed. "You say that as though you didn't purposefully avoid phoning me to ask if I might want to come down with your wee perfect family to see our parents' graves on the day they died."
"If I'd known you remembered, I bloody well might have! Jesus, Harry, do you have to be impossible all of the time? I'm sorry, all right?"
Harry snorted like a bull on the attack and paced over to lean against the tree's rotting trunk. "Yes, because you're always to be the one to apologize, you're always the one to take the blame for everyone's faults. You have to be the sacrificial lamb at the altar as well as fantastic with everything else besides."
"I might as well, since no matter what I say or do I'm the one you see in the wrong!" John's temper had finally risen from a dull simmer at the back of his throat to a roar barreling through his chest. "What do you want from me, Harry? I can't win with you. It's either you're angry with me for being the one actually in the wrong or pissed that I take the blame! No matter what, it always ends with us angry and no longer speaking, so why should I fucking try?"
For a while neither of them spoke, John standing soaked in his fury and Harry waiting for it to die back down. When she did speak, her words were the complete opposite of helpful. "This never would have been an issue if you hadn't turned out to be a ruddy wizard."
John had no response at first but to gape over at his slightly shorter sister, completely thrown by her words. "You're joking," he muttered, his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. "You must be fucking joking. Are you seriously trying to place this blame on me, the deaths of our parents, on the fact that I was born a wizard? Which, I'm inclined to point out, is entirely out of my control! Mum and Dad weren't wizards, none of their families were wizards, so it's not as though it was passed down to me and shirked over you. And given all of the trouble its caused, I should think it's rather obvious that I'd rather not have the gift at all, thanks very bloody much." John's voice stayed steady and low, reverting to the darkly analytical tone he used when questioning a suspect on a case. On the last sentence, however, he was unable to keep the somewhat choked ache out of his voice. "I would give anything, anything, to trade my powers for having Mum and Dad back. If you haven't realized that in the past eighteen years, Harriet, you're even greater a disappointment of a big sister than I ever could have expected."
Once finished, John's back straightened into military rest and he cleared his throat, sniffling the touch of tears from the back of it. Without looking over to see if Harry noticed, he spun and began walking away, his stride steady. The scuffling of her boots on the grass told him she had followed, and he clenched his eyes shut in a fight for control over her inevitable tirade.
"John, wait." Harry reached out and snatched at his elbow in a mirror of his previous move, causing him to jerk harshly away and tense in preparation for a physical altercation. She released him almost instantly, realizing how the action may have seemed, and held up her hands in a sign of surrender. "John, seriously, that's not what I meant at all. You know how I am – my mouth speaks before giving my brain the chance to tell it off, it always has. Your powers are amazing…I've been jealous since the day that letter arrived, wondering why I wasn't good enough, why no matter how hard I tried it was always you who was the best of us, the smartest, the kindest…I'm sorry, really I am, I just meant – "
"I'm sure we both understand quite well what you meant," John interrupted in a clipped voice. "I'm done here for the day, but I plan on bringing Mary and the baby round tomorrow afternoon before we head back to London. Do me the favour of being gone by then, if nothing else." He continued to make his way back to the car, the shouts of Harry calling his name carrying across the cemetery long after he was gone.