A Study in Magic
by Books of Change
Warning/Notes: This is a BBC Sherlock and Harry Potter crossover AU. The HP timeline and BBC Sherlock's timeline has been shifted forwards and backwards to match up. One major BBC Sherlock character's gender has changed for the sake of the plot. Readers beware!
Chapter Seven: Hermione and the Troll Incident
John was enjoying a cup of tea by the sitting room table when Albus Dumbledore stepped out from the fireplace that roared with green flames.
"Hello John," said Dumbledore.
"Dumbledore!" John said, smiling. "It's been a while. Please sit."
Dumbledore murmured his thanks as John headed over to the kitchen to fetch another cup of tea. He looked around. A small path was cleared so as to make navigation between the kitchen, the first floor exit, and fireplace possible without stepping on the printouts, magazine clippings and newspapers covering every conceivable surface like so much snow. Though it wasn't the first time Dumbledore had seen the flat in this kind of state, he couldn't help but marvel at Sherlock's ability to create it.
"Oh, thank you," John said fervently as Dumbledore put the papers in neat little stacks with a flick of his wand.
They sat by either side of the sitting room table. Dumbledore noted the general air of harassed weariness hovering around John as he accepted his tea.
"Is Sherlock working on a case?" Dumbledore asked.
"No, he is bored," John sighed. "I made the mistake of suggesting he solve the mystery of the magic-immune phone. This is the result."
Dumbledore tried not to laugh. "Indeed. You'll let me know if he makes any headway, won't you?"
"If you like," said John. "Mind, I'm not sure how serious he is about it."
Dumbledore beamed. "Then perhaps Sherlock can look into a little problem I have at hand?"
John was instantly interested. "Which is?"
"Someone let a troll into Hogwarts," said Dumbledore.
John froze for a fraction. Then set the teacup in hand on the table.
"A troll," John repeated.
"A mountain troll," Dumbledore confirmed.
"Anyone hurt?"
"Miss Hermione Granger was in the toilet the troll blundered into. But don't worry, she's fine."
"Good. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to break the news to her parents. They've been calling me for status updates every week since she stopped calling them. How did she survive?"
"One of the teachers found the troll wandering around in the dungeons and informed the residents in the Great Hall. Whilst evacuating, Harry and his friend Ron remembered Hermione was in the girl's toilets the whole time, and rushed to tell her. Hermione testifies the troll was about to finish her off by the time they arrived. Harry and Ron distracted the troll by throwing debris at it, which unfortunately made themselves a target. I'm not entirely certain how it happened, but Harry somehow pulled Hermione out the corner the troll put her in, and Ron cast a hovering charm on the troll's wooden club, which knocked out the troll when the charm gave out and fell on its head."
John stared at Dumbledore. "Harry fought the troll."
"Yes."
"When did this happen?"
"Halloween evening."
"So it's been a whole day and he still hasn't told me."
"It's strange what children choose to tell or not tell you."
"I'm going to kill him," John said in a quiet tone. "He has but hours to live."
"I assume you are speaking out of great emotional distress and not sincerity of motive," Dumbledore said serenely. "Don't be unduly distressed. No children were harmed from the incident, and a friendship was forged from its fire—I have yet to see Harry, Ron and Hermione separately since."
"Really?" said John, eyebrow cocked. "That's funny, because the last I heard, Hermione was giving the boys the silent treatment, and Harry was enjoying it like it was some kind of extended holiday."
Dumbledore's moustache quivered. "Apparently one cannot help but end up liking one another when twelve-foot trolls are involved."
"Or out finding serial-killing cabbies," John muttered.
Dumbledore's eyebrows jumped to his hairline. "That sounds like quite a tale!"
"It is. I'll tell you about it later. Now about that person you wanted me to train…"
-oo00oo-
Hermione tried very hard not to think about the troll, her month-long silence, or calling her parents. She couldn't imagine the conversation that would ensue if she did, especially after Harry told her the number of times her parents had called him and asked if they were still fighting.
Of course, she couldn't avoid it indefinitely. Harry checked his phone that afternoon in the common room and paled.
"It's John," he whispered, staring at a text. "She knows: So what is this thing about a troll?"
Hermione squeaked. "How did she find out?"
"I don't know!" Harry sputtered. "I never said anything!"
They sat there exchanging terrified looks. Ron tried to reason with them.
"C'mon, your parents won't actually pull you two out of Hogwarts, would they? I mean it's not your fault the troll got in."
Hermione fisted her hair. "I don't think my parents would want me to stay in a school where trolls can get in."
"At least they haven't found out yet," Harry said hollowly. "I'm doomed."
Just then Harry's phone bleeped. They read the message:
Conference call at 5PM. Grangers are calling in. Tell Hermione to be there.
Hermione wanted to cry. "No!"
The phone bleeped twice. Harry shakily checked the next two messages:
FYI: Sherlock & Dumbledore suspect foul play regarding troll. Sherlock will text you. Tell him the details.
Also tell Hermione her parents will not pull her out of Hogwarts because of troll. Ditto to you.
Hermione was so relieved she actually did cry. She was still sniffling when they went to visit Hagrid soon after.
"There, now, why're yeh cryin'?" Hagrid asked as he welcomed them in.
Harry explained how he and Hermione had decided not to tell their parents about the troll least they think Hogwarts regularly had trolls rampaging about, that somehow John heard about it, and that they were just told they weren't going to be pulled out of Hogwarts because of it, thus Hermione was crying from relief.
"S'always harder fer Muggle parents," Hagrid said sagely. "They jus' don' know what's normal and what s'not fer magic folk. Mind, a lot o' witches and wizards would get upset if their first-year kid fought a troll."
Ron looked away guiltily.
"Oh, this is Hermione," said Harry as Hagrid prepared tea.
"A new friend?" said Hagrid, eyes crinkling with a smile. "I'm Hagrid, but yeh already know that. So I hear you're the cleverest witch of yer year?"
Hermione felt herself turn burning red. "Well…"
"Would be a shame if yeh had ter leave Hogwarts when yer so brilliant," Hagrid went on. "Professor McGonagall fer one would have words with yeh and yer parents if yeh do."
Hermione thought she'd just catch fire if she turned any redder.
"Same fer you, Harry," said Hagrid. "Tho' if yeh keep walking so close to the forest, Professor McGonagall migh' have differen' words with yeh."
"Oh, you knew about that?" Harry said blushing. Then he told Ron and Hermione about his solo walks on the Hogwarts grounds every Sunday.
"Harry! You're not actually entering the forest are you?" Hermione exclaimed.
"No, no, I never entered," said Harry hastily.
"Why d'yeh keep walkin' aroun' on yer own, anyway?" asked Hagrid.
"I like walking around," said Harry, "John and I used to take long walks together."
"I can't believe you didn't ask me join," Ron said crossly. "I would've come, you know."
Harry blushed again. "Sorry. It's such an old-person hobby, and not a lot of people like it. I didn't think … well, I told Ron about Surrey Zoo bombing. Hermione, you heard about it, right?"
She did. It was all over the news last year—thirteen dead and over fifty wounded.
"You were there?"
Harry nodded.
"Yeah. Anyway, while I was sitting there thinking I was going to die, I kept regretting: why did I waste my time waiting for good things to happen? I could've used that time to savour the good things I do have. Since then I got this habit of just —going ahead."
The hut fell silent at that confession. Hermione didn't know what Ron was thinking, but she remembered thinking some very similar thoughts that fateful Halloween evening when she wasn't paralyzed with fear. She also often wondered why Harry, while clearly making an effort to do well in school, never put that extra effort to do everything perfectly. Now it made sense: he was simply not allowing school work to overtake his life so he could savour life.
"…Thought it migh' be summat like that," said Hagrid gruffly. "Jus' don be too reckless, tha's all I'm sayin'."
"I won't," said Harry. "I don't go looking for trouble. I get enough of that without trying."
"You got that one right," Ron said, chuckling. "I haven't had so many things happening to me my entire life until I met you. So far we've accidentally opened the out-of-bounds corridor and fought a troll without meaning to. Wonder what we'll end up doing next?"
"You sound like you look forward to it," Harry said.
"Well, yeah, it's really exciting," Ron said.
"…Excuse me," Hermione interrupted. "But did you just say you two opened the out-of-bounds corridor?"
"It was an accident!" Harry protested. "We thought it was the door to the charms corridor!"
"Yeah, we never went back since then!" said Ron.
Hermione could only shake her head. It appeared she was going to live a very dangerous and exciting life as long as Ron and Harry were her friends. But she didn't mind. She wouldn't trade this warmth and welcomed for anything.
-oo00oo-
…Except perhaps getting yelled at her parents in front of her new friends.
The conference call was a miserable affair: Hermione's mother told her off for being so stubborn, and her father chided her for not writing. They brushed aside Ron's apologies for making her cry and Harry's insistence he had been a prat, saying that was entirely beside the point.
"Now, I don't another episode like this," said her mother sternly. "I know you were lonely and upset, but that doesn't mean you can be passive-aggressive. Am I clear?"
"Yes, Mum," Hermione said, wiping fresh tears.
They left Hagrid's soon after the call. Harry and Ron stared at each other awkwardly for a beat.
"I don't feel like going to the Great Hall," said Harry at length. "Want to go to the kitchens?"
"Yeah, that's a good idea," Ron said quickly.
Hermione sniffled. "You've been there before?" She wasn't sure if going to the kitchens were against the rules, but she didn't fancy showing up for dinner all red-eyed and blotchy.
"No, but we know where it is," said Ron. "Fred and George told us last week. Let's go check it out."
The kitchens were in the dungeons, but unlike the underground passageway which led to potions classrooms, the stone steps they took brought them to a brightly lit, broad stone corridor decorated with cheerful paintings that were mainly of food.
"Look for a door or a painting big enough to be a door," Harry said. The twins hadn't told them the actual entrance.
They found a painting showing a gigantic silver fruit bowl. There weren't any other doors.
"Usually you have to tickle the right spot for doors like these," said Ron. "It should be eye-level. C'mon…"
They tickled every fruit they could reach, and hit jackpot when Harry tickled the huge green pear. It squirmed, chuckling, and suddenly turned into a large green door handle.
"Don't you think it would be great if there was a 3D map of Hogwarts?" Harry said as he seized the door handle and pulled. "Tells you how to open a door, where you are, how to get where…"
"It would definitely stop you from opening forbidden corridors thinking it's the Charms classroom," said Ron. Then he stopped. "Whoa…"
Beyond the painting was an enormous, high-ceilinged room, large as the Great Hall above it. Mounds of glittering brass pots and pans heaped around the stone walls, a great brick fireplace was at the other end and four long wooden tables were positions exactly beneath the four House tables above in the Great Hall. But what grabbed their attention were the hundred or so tiny creatures beaming, bowing and curtsying at them. They all seemed to have long, bat like ears, enormous tennis-ball-shaped eyes, and short and skinny limbs. Another common feature was their uniform: a tea towel stamped with the Hogwarts crest tied like a toga.
Harry blinked several times. "Hello," he said.
"What are you?" Ron blurted out.
"House-elves, sir," squeaked one of the creatures. "We is just house-elves."
"…Oh," said Harry. He looked as lost as Ron and Hermione felt.
"Is there anything we can do for you, Sirs and Miss?" asked another elf.
"Oh, um," Harry started scratching his head. "Well, we were hoping to get an early dinner. So if you don't mind and if it isn't too much trouble for you—"
He didn't get to finish. The house-elves happily ushered them to a small table. Once they were seated, six house-elves came bearing a large silver tray loaded with food, a large pitcher of pumpkin juice and three goblets.
"Good service!" said Ron in an impressed tone. The house-elves beamed and bowed again before retreating.
They sat there munching on sandwiches and shepherd's pie. As they ate, a troop of house-elves placed plates, soup pots, ladles and cutlery on the four long tables, while the rest prepped the food. With a snap of a finger, the platters and pots were filled with food. Another snap and the whole lot vanished, presumably appearing on the tables above.
"That was amazing," said Harry, wide-eyed.
A red blushing tide spread across the elves. One of the stammered, "This is nothing, sir! Just a simple spell!"
"No really, I mean it. You lot are amazing," Harry insisted.
A few of the house-elves actually burst into tears, so touched were they at the compliment. The rest were bowing so low they noses were touching the ground.
"I think you should stop, Harry," said Ron, grinning. "You might give them a big head."
"What else do you do besides kitchen work?" Harry asked as the elves took away their plates, and placed different kinds of desserts.
"We take care of the castle, sir!" squeaked a house-elf. "Just little things like cleaning, airing and the laundry!"
"Ooh, so you're the ones taking care of the laundry, I wondered about that," said Hermione.
"Yeah, didn't seem like a job for Filch," Ron said thickly (he started on a cream cake).
"Oh no, sir, no. Mr. Filch only cleans the halls," said the elf from before (Hermione wondered he/she/it was a spokes-elf of sorts). "We is responsible for the classrooms, common rooms, dormitories and the fireplaces."
"Do you take care of the food stock, too?" Hermione asked.
"Yes, Miss!" squeaked the (hypothetical) spokes-elf. "Mr. Hagrid and Professor Sprout grow the vegetables, and we take care of the produce!"
"What about the meat?" Ron asked.
"We get a shipment every week, sir."
"I see," Hermione said. She never thought this was how Hogwarts operated on a day-to-day basis. She had always assumed there was a human staff working behind the scenes, just like the Muggle counterparts, except they used magic. Obviously she was wrong.
"Is there anything else we can do for you, Sirs and Miss?" asked the spokes-elf.
Harry was about to shake his head, when Ron nudged him.
"Didn't you want to ask them about that pizza thing?" Ron said.
"Oh! Well, yeah, but it's kind of—" said Harry.
But the elves already heard them. They clamoured around Harry asking what Ron meant by pizza. Harry showed them a photograph from his phone.
"I had this every weekend in London," Harry explained. "I love your cooking, I really do, but I do miss this."
"That's a lot of pizza, Harry," Hermione remarked.
"I basically lived on takeaway," said Harry ruefully. "Sherlock thinks eating is a nuisance, and John only eats to stave off hunger. Neither of them cooked. If it weren't for Mrs. Hudson, I wouldn't have had any homemade food."
"That's kind of sad," said Ron.
"I don't mind. I'd rather spend the rest of my life eating takeaway than not live with Sherlock and John," said Harry, very seriously.
The ferocity in which Harry said those words made Hermione wonder what kind of people Harry lived with before John and Sherlock. Harry certainly never spoke of them. In fact, he treated his life before John and Sherlock as if it didn't exist. Clearly those years weren't happy ones.
As for the elves, they did a curious thing: they asked permission to tap Harry's tongue so they could get a sense of the taste he was seeking. After doing so a few times, they told Harry they would have it ready by next week.
"I really appreciate this," said Harry. "What are your names, by the way?"
The spokes-elf's name was Blippy and that was about the only name and face they remembered after Blooper, Keepy, Snoopy (really?), Plocks and Cobby. When they were done, Harry's eyes were completely glazed over.
"Right. Thank you so much everyone," he said.
They said good-bye to the elves, who pressed in upon them with extra snacks and cakes to take back upstairs. Then the little elves clustered around the door to bid them good night with many more bows and curtseys.
"You know," said Ron as they climbed the stairs back to entrance hall. "I've heard about house-elves before, but I've never actually met one until today. Weird things, aren't they?"
"It was a bit uncomfortable, all that bowing and curtseying," said Hermione. "It was like they were servants and we were their masters."
"They were definitely happy to serve," said Harry. "I wonder if they can really make a pizza just based on my memory of its taste. I mean, everyone remembers taste a bit differently, don't they?"
"If they can, it would be a really amazing bit of magic," said Hermione. "Extracting regular memory is complicated enough, but just sense-perception memory! House-elves are really amazing creatures. It makes you wonder why they aren't mentioned in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."
"Perhaps they're beings?" Harry said.
"Maybe," said Hermione, thinking hard. "But Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them mentioned other beings too."
Just then Harry's phone bleeped. Harry took a look at the new text and turned grim.
"It's Sherlock. He wants the details."
"What kind of details?" Ron asked eagerly.
"Who came in after the troll got knocked out and what they did."
"Well, that's straightforward," said Ron. "McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell came in after we knocked out the troll. McGonagall blew a gasket. Quirrell kind of whimpered and sat down."
"And Snape," said Harry grimly. "Had a bite mark on his leg."
-oo00oo-
"Excuse me, Minerva, but I can't help but notice the distinctly international flair of the Gryffindor table's cuisine."
That was Professor Flitwick's squeaky comment on a Saturday afternoon about a week after the troll incident. Professor McGonagall looked over to her house table and saw Harry Potter eating a large slice of margarita pizza.
"I believe Potter and his two cronies have discovered the kitchens," said Professor Snape as he glared at the Gryffindor table, where Dean Thomas was flapping his hand in front of his face, teary-eyed, after putting a large spoon of spicy korma into his mouth. "Potter and Weasley have been caught handing out pastries more than once. What we see right now is no doubt the result of Potter making special requests to the house-elves."
"Well, what's wrong with that?" said Professor Sprout indulgently as Ron Weasley prodded a plate of Pad Thai with a dubious look on his face. "Entering the kitchens is not against the rules, and it's difficult for students to leave without treats once they do. And Mr. Potter no doubt missed the exotic food he had in London."
Snape gave a baleful look at Sprout, but didn't say anything. McGonagall noticed he was again drinking a cup of black aromatic liquid that was definitely not tea.
"Speaking of international cuisine," said McGonagall. "What are you drinking, Severus?"
"Coffee," Snape answered.
"I've been wondering why you stopped drinking tea," McGonagall remarked. "Why change?"
"You've stopped drinking tea?" cried Flitwick. "What's wrong with the traditional British morning cuppa?"
"It doesn't wake me up," said Snape, as if that settled the issue.
While the teachers debated the merits of tea verses coffee, Justin Finch-Fletchley and several Hufflepuffs came over to the Gryffindor table. They were waving cricket bats. Dumbledore, who had been dividing his attention between an article on a rather lurid case of Muggle-baiting and the students, smiled as Dean Thomas jumped to his feet with a football clutched to his side. He and Seamus Finnigan joined the throng of Hufflepuffs, hollering at Harry and Ron to hurry up. Ron dived under the table and pulled out an oblong ball as Harry wiped his mouth.
Dumbledore remembered the loud argument that broke out between the Muggle-raised Gryffindor and Hufflepuff first years and their Magic-raised counterparts on Muggle sports: Justin extolled the virtues of cricket, Dean raved about football, and Harry exerted his continued fondness for rugby despite his new fascination for Quidditch. The students from magic families, Ron in particular, couldn't see what was exciting about games that only had one ball and no one was allowed to fly. Apparently the first years had taken Harry's suggestion that they all see for themselves the merits of Muggle ball games to heart.
"Come on, Neville, Hermione, you too!" rang Harry's voice.
Hermione sighed and put away her book. Neville Longbottom hesitated for a second before getting up. The first years ran out of the Great Hall like a tidal wave. Dumbledore caught a glimpse of Neville's side profile before they made a complete exit. The boy's round face was shining with joy.
Dumbledore returned his paper, smiling. It wasn't very often he saw something so beautiful these days.
-oo00oo-
Final Notes: Hermione's part was rewritten four times. I just couldn't make it interesting enough, though I was very fond of some individual passages. The above was the best I could do. As always, thank you so much for your kind reviews. Your thoughts, comments and criticism mean a great deal to me.
ETA: Merry Christmas, everyone!