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. The story was planned and written before season 2 (but incorporating elements of thereof as much as possible). Readers beware!
Chapter Twenty Nine: Family Matters
It was not a usual thing to find Detective Inspector Lestrade and Dr. Watson having a drink at their local. But one only had to know name of their local—the Leaky Cauldron—and listen to their conversation to realize there was something highly unusual going on between them.
"After two terms at Hogwarts and all of a sudden she's not a baby anymore," Lestrade grumbled over his pint. "She even stopped calling me Daddy."
John suppressed a grin. "Girls mature faster."
"That's not it and you know it," Lestrade growled. "Very interesting letter I got from Julia's head of house this past February— something about her receiving a special service award for slaying the mother-of-all serpents?"
John looked sideways. "Um, yeah, there's that too. For what it's worth, I got a letter just like it from Harry's head of house and almost had a coronary."
"Forget coronary, I wanted to pull her out ASAP." Lestrade scowled. "Do you know what she said to me? 'No, Dad, I'm going to stay.' She sounded so much like her Mum I had chills."
John patted Lestrade's hunched back in a consoling way.
"She's growing up. You were expecting that, surely?"
"I knew she was going to grow up too fast since she takes after her Mum, but I thought I had a few more years until … you know …"
"She starts turning into a woman?"
Lestrade groaned and clutched his head between his hands. John laughed.
"Aw c'mon, it's not that bad. You're a great dad, and you're going to have the easiest teenager in the world because Julia is going to turn out just like Jackie."
"Jack might've been a secret rebel as a teen."
John snorted, "Sheeeyeah."
The two took a moment to take a deep pull from their pints.
"So are you showing up at our place this Tuesday or what?" asked Lestrade.
"I'll be there."
"Okay," Lestrade breathed deeply through his nose. "Ellen's going to interrogate you about your bedroom habits. Do me a favour and tell her nothing. I'll be in the flat to look after kids and there is only so much Sherlock-related TMI I can handle. Got it?"
"Got it," said John seriously before adding: "Just so you know, we mostly cuddle na—"
John ducked the shower of peanut shells pelted by Lestrade, who howled: "AUGH, I hate you!"
"So what are your summer plans?" asked a mortified Lestrade. "Ellen wanted to do a fishing trip at Hebrides."
"We're going to Rural Yorkshire to visit Sherlock's parents with Mycroft."
There was a brief moment of silence, during which Lestrade was simply lost for words.
"Don't they live in Edinburgh?" he asked stupidly.
"No, that's where Sherlock's Uncle Claimaen lives."
"…What is wrong with their grandparents?"
"I don't know. Grandmère Eudora Holmes looked perfectly fine and sane to me when I met her two years ago."
Lestrade took a long, bracing swallow from his pint.
"If you two ever decide to have more kids," he declared, "stop the plague at this generation. The names just scream child abuse."
John considered the consequences of saying the first response that came to mind. They were summarily dismissed because the probable reaction was worth it.
"If it's a girl, we're naming her Beatrix; if it's a boy, we're naming him Benedict."
Lestrade almost choked himself to death.
John returned to 221B after resuscitating Lestrade using the Heimlich manoeuvre. At first glance, the sight of Harry (age 12, turning 13 in a few weeks) and Sherlock (mental age: 12) sitting next each other at the sitting room table discussing homework looked highly ordinary. Again, one only needed to actually listen to the content of their discussion to realise it was not.
"…No, no, no! It's not just the actual burning a witch has to avoid, but also the interrogation and jail time!"
"Oh. Right. So the basic Flame-Freezing Charm to prevent the burning and the Confundus charm to get away from the interrogation …"
John took the seat across Sherlock.
"Having fun with the medieval witch burning essay?"
Harry didn't look up from where he was rapidly typing another paragraph to his 'Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless – discuss' essay for History of Magic. "It keeps getting longer!" he complained.
"Weren't you worried about not meeting the minimum requirements?"
"I'm not writing more than two feet," said Harry firmly. "I refuse on principle!"
John read what Harry had written so far:
To understand the topic, one must realize the witch-burnings of the fourteenth century were politically motivated. Most leaders of non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) simply disbelieved in witchcraft and sorcery as superstitious folly. Therefore it is unlikely witch-burnings of the fourteenth century were a serious effort to purge the community of real witches and wizards. It is far more likely the common Muggle person's inability to distinguish superstitious practices from actual magic, coupled with cases of Muggle-baiting, had led to an over-reaction against any and all activities that appear to be magic, which in turn led Muggle commoners to press authorities to act against them. In the case of the Madonna Oriente, the Muggle Inquisition of Milan was not sure what to do with two women who in 1384 and in 1390 confessed to have practiced 'white magic' (the wording itself leads the writer to believe the two woman were just Muggles imitating their Witch or Wizard neighbours). The women were released with advice to avoid superstitions. Other cases of witch-trials have a similar vein, with people accused of witchcraft being feared and persecuted not based on their ability to do magic per say, but the moral panic that rose against a witch or wizard's potential to do harm. The witch-burnings in the Fourteenth Century therefore was more of a placating gesture than an actual effort to eradicate magic people.
At any rate, the rare occasion Muggles did catch a real witch or wizard and convicted him or her, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises. Others were caught for more noble reasons, such as releasing their Muggle neighbours falsely accused for being witches or wizards.
One must note, though the burning of witches and wizards are a popular notion of the medieval world in general, in reality burning witches alive were exclusively practiced in France. In England, convicted witches were usually hanged before having their bodies burned and their ashes scattered. In Scotland, the convicted witches were usually strangled at the stake before having their bodies burned—though there are several instances where they were burned alive. It is far more likely a real witch or wizard escaped during the "swimming" test — a common test of innocence or guilt for associating with witchcraft, which is based on the misguided belief a guilty person floated and refused to sink when placed in water — via Apparition or Relashio charm…
"It's pretty obvious you're copying and pasting stuff from Wikipedia," John concluded.
"But Binns doesn't know Wikipedia!" Harry protested.
"I'm not letting you develop bad scholarly habits," said John firmly. "Go to the sources, Harry."
Harry scowled, but nevertheless looked through the Reference section of the Wikipedia page for witch-hunts. He sighed deeply when he saw the length of the list.
The three of them spent several quiet hours like this; John writing up a case, here and there asking Harry a word or phrase he would use for a particular scene, Sherlock scouring newspapers, online news and the like for current crimes and info, and Harry working his essay for History of Magic.
The silence was eventually broken by the sound of a rooster crowing. Harry pulled out a clear glass case that had the same dimensions of an iPhone and had green flames burning within from his pocket. The holographic image of his best friend, Ron Weasley, sprung to view once he tapped it with his wand.
"Hi, Harry! Did you read the news?" said Ron excitedly.
"I haven't read any Wizard News beyond the fourteenth century," Harry replied.
Ron looked horrified. "Why are you working on History of Magic for? We're on holiday!"
"I have to get the essays done before we go to Yorkshire. Anyway, what's up?"
"Dad won the annual Daily Prophet draw! He won seven hundred galleons!"
Harry grinned. "Really? That's brilliant! So what is he going to do with the gold? Splurge a little?"
"We're touring Egypt for about a month. You know, where my brother Bill works at. We'll miss birthday, sorry, but I'll send your present by Owl-post. Anything you fancy?"
"Just get something funny and useless. Thanks Ron—and congrats!"
Ron's holographic image did a thumbs-up before vanishing. The green flames inside the glass casing turned blue and shrunk into the size of a tiny bell.
"Egypt, huh?" said Harry wistfully, putting glass case—a Magical Mobile phone—aside, "Sounds like fun."
"Mmmhmm," said John, reaching for their unread copy of the Evening Prophet. Both Harry and Sherlock crowded over to read the relevant article:
MINISTRY OF MAGIC EMPLOYEE SCOOPS GRAND PRIZE
Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office
at the Ministry of Magic, has won the annual Daily Prophet
Grand Prize Galleon Draw.
A delighted Mr. Weasley told the Daily Prophet, "We will be
spending the gold on a summer holiday in Egypt, where our
eldest son, Bill, works as a curse breaker for Gringotts
Wizarding Bank."
The Weasley family will be spending a month in Egypt,
returning for the start of the new school year at Hogwarts,
which five of the Weasley children currently attend.
Beneath the article was a moving photograph of all nine Weasleys waving furiously, standing in front of their home in Devon: Plump little Molly Weasley; tall, balding Arthur Weasley; six sons; and one daughter, all (though the black-and-white picture didn't show it) with flaming-red hair. Right in the middle of the picture was Ron, tall and gangling, with his pet rat, Scabbers, on his shoulder and his arm around his little sister, Ginny.
"Nice," said John, then the article on the next page made the absent smile fade.
FLOO NETWORK AUTHORITY vs. JACQUELINE SHIN
HEARING TO OCCUR IN A WEEK
Ms. Jacqueline Shin, newly appointed music instructor of
Hogwarts, is scheduled to appear at the Wizengamot next
week to answer the Floo Network Authority's accusation
that Ms. Shin had created a private Floo-network in direct
violation against ministry regulations.
Ms. Shin's family, which includes Grandmaster Shin June
Hu, defended Ms. Shin's creation of the Magical Mobile
Network (MMN), arguing the only point of similarity between
the regular Floo Network and the MMN is the fact Floo-powder
is used. Meanwhile, the popularity MMN continues to grow.
"Why didn't Jackie tell me about this?" growled John. Ever since Magic became a shared secret between Jackie, Ellen and John, the three of them started meeting separately on top of the regular Tuesday small group meetings to talk about the wizarding world and their magic children/magic careers.
"Probably decided to just let the Floo Network Authority have its way," said Sherlock, looking disgusted.
"But she worked so hard on it! Why would she do that?" said Harry indignantly.
John sighed deeply. "Because it's too much work."
"But Miss Jackie likes working so much, she—"
"If working began and ended in doing first-class research, Jacqueline would be the finest and most prolific scholar that ever lived," said Sherlock. "But Jacqueline has no ambition and no energy beyond that. She won't even go out of her way to formally present her own solutions, and would rather give her work away than take the trouble to prove herself right in front of a panel. Her peers and even her mentors used to exploit this tendency and steal her work when she was still in school. The whole thing went public eventually and Jacqueline received her due credit, but the resulting scandal was so big she had to leave academia. Even now, she's incapable of laying out her work before other people."
Harry gaped. "So when she said she couldn't do the scholar route, it's because she couldn't deal with other people?"
"Pretty much," said John. "Sherlock, wasn't it you who triggered the scandal?"
"I came across one of her research articles six years ago. It was published under someone else's name, but the reasoning process and wording was densely similar to two separate articles in completely different fields. Those articles were also published under different names, and none of the bibliographies sited each other. I eventually figured out the supposed researchers took Jacqueline's work without bothering to cross-check her other projects. I posted my findings in an internet forum, and the online community did the rest. Quite a few heads rolled in the aftermath."
"Serves them right," said Harry savagely. "That's the worst kind of stealing."
"Yes, I agree."
John texted Jacqueline while Harry and Sherlock soundly abused the non-magical academic world.
Jack, if you don't defend your work against the Floo Network Authority, I may do something drastic.
The reply came a lot quicker than expected.
Not you too. Why is everyone more worked up about this than I am?
Because it's not right. Just go to the hearing and explain what you did. It must be pretty obvious if your brothers can tell your network is different from regular Floo.
I suppose it's extremely unlikely the Floo Regulatory Panel uses an Asus Laptop to regulate their network usage.
"How the bloody hell did she managed to connect magical phones to a laptop?" John said incredulously whilst texting: How does that work?! Jack, explain this to me!
John groaned when Jack replied: Too long for text
Fine. Have brunch with me this weekend? Ottelonghi at Upper Street. It's a date ;)
Jack didn't hesitate to reply: Ok
"Got a brunch date with Jack this Saturday," John informed the other two. "Don't blow up the flat while I'm gone."
"Are you going to video tape the explanation?" Harry asked too casually.
"Of course not," John huffed. "I'll just look clueless and she'll use her funny little analogies to help me understand. If I happened to relay the info to other people—say, Dumbledore or Jeremy— that's my business."
Harry giggled all the way through the remainder of his History of Magic essay.
-oo00oo-
For Harry, the visit to Sherlock and Mycroft's parents' residence in Yorkshire was the most mind-numbingly boring and nerve-wracking trip he'd ever had. There was nothing to do there except eat, sleep, read or go out for walks. It was unsettling to see Sherlock wear anything other than Bespoke, but apparently even Mycroft dressed casual when visiting their parents' home. The first day Sherlock showed up wearing jeans and t-shirt, John muttered "I'm a cougar," after staring at him for several beats. Sherlock retorted the way John chose to dress sometimes make him think he'd married a five-year-old whose parents had given up on, which would make him a paedophile. Jonn slugged him for that remark.
Sherlock's parents turned out to be quite normal, personality-wise. If Harry didn't know who their sons were, he would've thought they were a normal retired couple living in the country, which made him wonder how Sherlock and Mycroft turned out the way they did. They were far from stupid, though. Harry had a tough time dodging their questions, because they were rarely satisfied with generic answers and had the inconvenient habit of remembering everything he said in perfect chronological order. Harry thought he'd blown it when Mr. Holmes pointed out he'd said he went to local comprehensive, but then later said he spent most of his time in Scotland.
"We tried sending him to a local comprehensive, but it was completely unsuitable," Sherlock clarified.
"Oh," said Mr. Holmes, blinking his blinded eyes (the War, Mycroft said), "Why Scotland and not Harrow?"
"His biological parents made arrangements so Harry would attend their old school in Scotland. We thought it would be a waste not to use it."
Sherlock sat Harry down and worked on his cover story after this exchange. Harry felt like a spy training to infiltrate hostile enemy territory as Sherlock grilled him over the details until he was satisfied Harry knew them all by heart. Harry kept his story firmly consistent afterwards, but from the sly, reptilian look on his face, Harry could tell (with a sinking feeling), Mycroft knew exactly what he was really doing.
The above episode turned out to be the most interesting thing that would happen to Harry in Yorkshire. Sherlock degenerated from irritated-bored to lethally-bored in 24 hours, so John had to constantly distract him before he started concocting dynamite for kicks. It was difficult to talk to Sherlock's parents, because their idea of small talk involved topics such as the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus and the relationship between the ancient Cornish language and Phoenician tin traders. In two days Mr. and Mrs. Holmes ran out of things to talk to Harry about, and just hovered awkwardly. Harry spent a lot of time roaming the deserted moors and heaths of Yorkshire, because the alternative was reading books in the Holmes private library where Mycroft was often found.
As expected, sharing in the same breathing space as Mycroft Holmes was as much fun as listening to Professor Binns drone on about goblin rebellions and as harrowing as double potions with Snape. Once Harry let it slip he played chess with his friends at Hogwarts, Mycroft always brought out the chess set when he stayed in the library. As he was defeated in five moves or less (usually less) for the umpteenth time, Harry wondered if he should take a leaf out of Sherlock's book and start blowing things up.
"It's so boring here," Harry complained to Julia over the magical mobile phone in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep. "I can't wait to get back to London. How was fishing?"
"Really nice. The waters were really clear, and there were a lot of fish to catch. We let most of them go, but Daddy kept a couple for dinner. Uncle Jason made Bisque. I gave mine to the dog."
"You didn't eat it?"
"I'm not putting fish in my mouth."
"Herbivore."
"City-boy."
"I'm no such thing, but whatever. How did Miss Jackie's Hearing go?"
"The Wizengamot ruled to her favour as soon as she showed them the laptop — tell your Mum thank you for the illustrated analogies, by the way, they really helped make her case — but now the Floo Regulation Panel is saying Aunt Jackie illegally charmed a Muggle artefact to create MMN. Never mind the only thing she'd done to the laptop magic-wise is to make it magic-free. The case is with the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office now, and it's not going to move forward until Mr. Weasley returns from his holiday."
Harry clicked his tongue irritably, "Sounds like they really don't want her to have the MMN, doesn't it?"
"Well, it's making a lot of money," said Julia reasonably. "There are already two hundred customers, and that's just Hogwarts students who signed up for the basic subscription of five Galleons a month. At the rate the customer base is growing, Uncle Jeremy says revenue's going to double by the end of this year. Can you imagine how much you would make if every wizarding household in Great Britain had a magical mobile phone?"
Harry did the calculations in his head, and came up with a figure around several hundred of thousands of Galleons.
"No wonder they want a piece of it," he marvelled.
"Mmhmm. I'm pretty sure the Department of Magical Transportation is trying to replicate what she did. I say good luck—they're never going to figure it out until they learn how to operate a Microsoft SQL Server workshop."
They laughed. Julia entertained him by imitating the expressions on the Wizengamot members' faces when Miss Jackie told them pretty much all there was to know on how to create MMN.
"His eyebrows went like this, and then he pulled this kind of face," said Julia gleefully, putting on a gaping, highly baffled look. "It was funnier because he didn't have any hair."
"So you got to watch the hearing?"
"No, I wasn't allowed. I got to see the court room when Aunt Jackie activated a mobile phone to demonstrate."
They talked about what they were doing with the paychecks they got for help setting up MMN. Ron had used most his to buy a wand — fourteen inches, willow, containing one unicorn tail-hair — and then a gently used second-hand upright piano. Harry didn't know what to do with his, so he kept it in his Gringotts vault. Hermione exchanged hers to Muggle money and gave it to her parents.
"I think I'm going to buy a broom," said Julia. "My birthday is coming up, and Dad usually gives me money to buy myself a birthday present."
"No birthday party?"
"If only the criminals of London were so kind as to not commit serious crimes on the last week of July."
Harry smiled ruefully. "There's that. Hey—" he sat up straighter, "if you do end up buying one, d'you want to stop by and fly around a bit? This part of Yorkshire is pretty deserted and there're plenty of trees. I'm sure we won't get in trouble as long as we don't fly too high."
Julia looked excited. "Hebrides is pretty deserted too; Uncle Jeremy says you can fly here as high up as you want."
"Oh, that's perfect! We can take the Knight Bus to get there. The fare's only eleven sickles."
They promised to meet up in two days. Harry realized after ending the call he didn't know how he could go about asking permission to travel up to Hebrides. John and Sherlock rarely said no to his requests except when flying was involved. Then the answer was usually no, because John was tetchy about his EIA. Harry was certain he would be fine—he'd added both a warming charm and a water-repelling charm to his face mask. There was also Sherlock's parents and Mycroft to consider; Muggles didn't do day trips to Hebrides unless they were exceptionally motivated.
Harry pondered the problem until an idea came to mind…
-oo00oo-
Sherlock was reading the Daily Prophet while John napped next to him. He looked grim as he read the headlines:
BLACK STILL AT LARGE
Sirius Black, possibly the most infamous prisoner
ever to be held in Azkaban fortress, is still eluding
capture, the Ministry of Magic confirmed today.
"We are doing all we can to recapture Black," said
the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, this morning,
"and we beg the magical community to remain calm."
Fudge has been criticized by some members of the
International Federation of Warlocks for informing
the Muggle Prime Minister of the crisis.
"Well, really, I had to, don't you know," said an
irritable Fudge. "Black is mad. He's a danger to
anyone who crosses him, magic or Muggle. I have
the Prime Minister's assurance that he will not
breathe a word of Black's true identity to anyone.
And let's face it— who'd believe him if he did?"
While Muggles have been told that Black is carrying
a gun (a kind of metal wand that Muggles use to kill
each other), the magical community lives in fear of a
massacre like that of twelve years ago, when Black
murdered thirteen people with a single curse.
Above the article was a large magical photograph of a sunken-faced man with long, matted hair, who blinked slowly at Sherlock. Sherlock took a pair of scissors and snipped off just the article. He then set the copy of Prophet aside and pulled out a two-inch binder that served as his index for Magical World. He flipped over to the Fall of LV section and ran a long finger down the meticulously annotated timeline until he reached the section detailing Hagrid's account of the fateful Halloween.
"…I picked him up meself. The house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. Young Sirius Black lent me his flying motorcycle. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."
He then moved to the Aftermath section. It only contained a few pages, and all of the paragraphs were about what happened to the followers and suspected followers of Lord Voldemort after he vanished. Under the B subsection, there was an entry for Black, Sirius:
Incarcerated in Azkaban on account of killing thirteen people with a single curse and for betraying James and Lily Potter's safe house location; betrayal considered particularly heinous due to the fact Sirius Black was believed to be James Potter's closest and most trusted friend; Snape states the friendship was merely based on mutual enablement of each other's bullying activities—considering the source, must be discerning.
Sherlock had just finished gluing the article under Black, Sirius when there was a knock on the door. Sherlock shut the binder and hid both it and the copy of the Daily Prophet under the covers.
"Yes?" he snapped.
The door opened and Madeleine Honouria Holmes, affectionately known as Mummy Holmes, peered in. Sherlock scratched an unwashed armpit rather pointedly.
"Yes, I know you're very busy," said Mummy Holmes calmly. "I hope you're almost done, because we have bit of a situation."
"How can we have a situation? Nothing happens here."
"That might be the problem," Mummy Holmes replied. "Harry has been a dear, but I think he reached his limit when it comes to boredom. He's taken matters into his own hands."
Sherlock frowned at her.
"He replaced himself with a living mirror-copy of himself," she explained. "He's also moving around in Hebrides at impossible speeds. Plausibility of these acts aside, I'm pretty sure you didn't give him permission to do them."
-oo00oo-
Final Notes: I almost didn't make it this week. I was deeply distracted by two side-stories for ASIM. One I may post, the other I never will. They are around 4000 and 5000 words long respectively. 9000+ words I could've used for ASIM, but since when did creative process work like that? ;)
Harry is a teenager. Alas, poor Sherlock.
I'd like to take the time now to say a huge thank you to all the readers who reviewed ASIM. I'm always encouraged when readers take the time to remark upon my stories. I'd love to respond individually, but most of my spare time—and not-so-spare time—is taken up on writing ASIM. I'll be out running a half-marathon on the second week of October, so don't be surprised if I don't update that week. Happy Reading!