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 Forty Four: The Importance of Meaning
Exactly fifteen minutes after the call, Robert quietly appeared in front of a blue wood panelled building situated right next to a small pier. A young woman wearing an outfit of whites and charcoal greys was standing at the parking lot, studying the restaurant's cartoon logo of a blue-capped seaman holding a red crab of truly monstrous proportions. She twitchily looked back when Robert hovered behind her.
The two of them stared at each other for a long time, both at lost what to do next.
"Want to go inside?" asked Robert eventually, scratching the back of his head.
"Okay," said Jacqueline, looking down and glowing pink.
They wordlessly walked inside the restaurant. Jacqueline wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of seafood and grease. The waitress at the front led them to a small table next to one of the large windows and asked what they wanted to drink. Both Jacqueline and Robert ordered water and stared at brown wrapping paper covered table.
"What do you like to order?" asked Robert, picking up the menu.
"I never ate whole crab before," Jacqueline confessed. "My brother Jason usually makes bisque with them."
"So you probably don't know how to de-shell a crab."
"…There's a way to do it?"
"There's a way to do it fast without cutting yourself," Robert explained. "Uh, don't worry, I can show you how…"
They spent the next few minutes belabouring over the menu, debating the merits of fried crab cake verses broiled crab cake. Throughout the process, neither of them looked up to see the other in the eye. They eventually decided to order the crab basket, though Jacqueline warned Robert she'd probably not be able to finish even the snow crabs, which she happened to like, let alone the soft shell crab and Dungeness crab that was included.
Robert and Jacqueline studied their table after placing the order for another long while.
"So how did you get here?" asked Robert as he contemplated the box of Old Bay seasoning.
"I so rarely want to eat anything, my family members go to absurd lengths to provide when I ask for something," said Jacqueline, turning pink again. "I, um, asked my brother Jason during the lunch hour rush if I could have Maryland crab. He Apparated me here immediately."
Robert stared a bit. "He can do transcontinental Apparition on a short notice?"
"There's very little he won't do for food."
"Wow."
There was another awkward pause.
"Obviously, I was—" Robert started.
"Robert, I—" said Jacqueline at the same time.
The two both stopped and stared at each other.
Then Jacqueline puffed out her cheeks.
"Why," she said almost petulantly, "does that dreaded 'R' word make everything so difficult?"
"Probably because there's so much at stake," Robert mumbled. "It's worse when you've never had a proper one before."
"You don't count your engagement to J as proper?"
"I was pretty much letting her do everything she wanted. That's not proper."
"That's horrible," said Jacqueline with much feeling. "Why did you?"
"Let her do anything?" Robert asked.
"Yes!"
"I didn't know what the boundaries were," said Robert, scratching his neck. "It's not like Hailey—J to you—wanted to have sex after the second date or something."
Jacqueline cringed and shuddered at the same time. "Don't mind me, I just … I don't like talking about it."
"It's okay, I'm the king of Awkward," said Robert, grinning lopsidedly. "You can't possibly do or say something I'll find awkward because I've probably done it already and have done it worse."
"I know," sighed Jacqueline. "I'm not worried about offending you. I only worry that I'll fail to do what is right. For this … conversation to go well, I realise we must be open and honest. But I don't know how this looks like exactly. I hate not knowing what to do."
"You don't do well with failure, do you?" said Robert knowingly. "Well, you have questions. Why don't you ask them and we can go from there."
"And you don't have questions for me?" Jacqueline quipped.
"If I had them, I forgot what they were, like, twenty minutes ago."
Jacqueline scowled.
"Fine," she said tartly. "Robert, why … why did you … why do you …" she made a tiny noise of distress and turned so red a waiter looked at her with concern. "…No, I can't say it. Your thought-hearing; are you using it?"
"I can't turn it off," said Robert, blinking. "How did you know?"
"When you answer to words spoken behind noise-cancelling screens, Robert, there are only two explanations: the noise-cancelling charms are not working or you are using thought hearing spells. The noise-cancelling charms were in perfect working order. Therefore, by process of elimination, you are using thought-hearing spells."
Robert gaped a little. "I thought they were just there to divvy up the space; I heard the instrument sounds."
"You were probably hearing the music the student was making inside their heart."
"Need to keep in mind when someone decides to sing inside his head," Robert muttered. "You better look at this."
Robert unbuttoned the top button of his pink shirt that had large, white and black half-moon patterns, put his right hand under the left side of the collar and tiled his head the other way.
There, on the crook between his neck and shoulder, was a small ornate tattoo, growing red under his hand.
"…Who did that to you?" growled Jacqueline in a low voice.
Robert blinked at her briefly. "You're very angry."
"That thing is a curse, Robert! Designed to drive the victim mad with the thoughts they will hear in close proximity to other people! Isn't the sound of all the thinking deafening to you here?"
"I've learned to live with it," said Robert as he withdrew his hand. "You can't take it off."
"Who put it on you?" asked Jacqueline again.
"He's dead."
"It doesn't matter. I want to know."
"Doe Hae seunim," confessed Robert. "I was a bit psychotic when I was a kid. I decked his head with a log once when he was supposedly in a state of mu nyum mu sang because I wanted to know if he really had joined the emptiness (mu), therefore above thought and consciousness. It didn't occur to me his body might still get hurt. He put it on me to give me a sense of empathy that I was clearly lacking."
"How old were you?"
"Six? Seven? I don't know how old I am exactly. I only know it was about twenty-eight years ago."
Jacqueline leaned her head against her left hand, resting the corner of her left eyebrow on top of the fingers.
"I can see how it happened," she said, fuming quietly. "I can even picture myself doing it, if pressed to the limits to my patience. But what he did to you was wrong."
"He certainly regretted it when I became even more psychotic afterwards," said Robert. "He taught me a way to cope when he couldn't find a cure. I can turn down the influence to a bare whisper up to thirty hours, but it takes a lot of concentration, so I only use it at work."
"Hence, your 'switch'," said Jacqueline. "Your inability to act like a normal human being except on a phone makes perfect sense." She sighed a little. "Is that why you broke up with J?"
"Ah, no," said Robert, blinking gormlessly. "At the risk of sounding like a sparkly vampire, Hailey was one of the few people I couldn't hear much except what they were actually saying. The other persons are you, Dumbledore and Snape. I actually found this unsettling rather than 'ohmygoshIloveyou'."
"Knowing what the other person is really thinking does have its advantages," said Jacqueline, smiling crookedly.
"And it helped me really consider what I was doing before it was too late," said Robert. "Let me ask you this: do you have something or someone that you can't live without? A something or someone you love so dearly, should it vanish or proven false your entire life would collapse?"
Jacqueline just looked at Robert for a moment with a tiny frown wrinkling her eyebrows.
"…There are a lot of ways to answer that question," she said eventually. "But can you first tell me what is yours so I can get an idea what kind of answer you are expecting?"
Robert smiled faintly. "Of all the people who wanted to start something with me, you and Hailey were the only ones who even bothered to ask me that."
"So what is your answer?" Jacqueline repeated.
"For me it is Jesus," Robert replied. "When I said that to Hailey she gave me the side-eye; didn't understand."
Jacqueline drew back with her lips parting as the statement sank in. The smile on Robert's face grew as she did so.
"How can you share your life with someone who doesn't understand why the most important person in your life is so important to you?"
-oo00oo-
When the waitress came to deliver an order of crab basket to Jacqueline and Robert, the former was playfully criticizing the latter's shirt, and the latter was grinning stupidly back. The rest of their meal had the same kind of easy air about it, Robert dismantling crabs with practiced skill as he told Jacqueline people kept gifting him clothes in hopes he would stop dressing himself so badly and Jacqueline declaring they were solving the problem the wrong way as she forked the crab meat Robert heaped into tiny piles.
After Jacqueline ate far more than just snow crab legs—and Robert still consuming most of the basket's contents—the two walked out to the pier.
"How are you going back to England?" asked Robert.
"Jason is picking me up."
"Should I leave before he gets here?"
"I can't hide you from him," said Jacqueline. "And if you can't even gain Jason's approval, it won't work, whatever it is we want to start."
"We?" said Robert, grinning.
"Takes two to tango, as the cliché goes," said Jacqueline serenely.
A few minutes later a tall, broad-shouldered young man silently walked out from behind the small ice cream shop next to Harris Crab House. He didn't look out of place where Muggles were enjoying the early summer afternoon at the bay, wearing an old bucket hat, ragged cargoes and a threadbare red T-shirt. The only thing that differentiated him from the others was that he had appeared out of thin air only a moment ago without even a pop of displaced air.
Jason Shin frowned at his sister. He then looked at the strange man next to her and raised an eyebrow in question.
"I think I'm going to start dating him," said Jacqueline, pointing at Robert. "Do you mind?"
Jason was completely galvanized. "What … When did … Who are you!?" he cried, flapping his hands.
"Your sister," said Jacqueline.
"Robert Ransom," said Robert, waving twitchily. "I work in this dinky little hospital in the middle of ghetto Baltimore called Johns Hopkins."
Jason opened and closed his mouth. Then he thought for a moment.
"What have you been feeding her?" he demanded.
"Just now, six snow crab legs, two whole Dungeness crabs and half of a soft-shell crab," said Robert. "You need to check her for allergies from a wizard healer specialist, by the way. Magic reacts differently to allergens."
Jason shook his head in disbelief as he gave Robert the thumbs up.
"I approve. He's a winner, nuna."
-oo00oo-
Harry had wondered what his teachers did over the summer holidays. He amused himself once for a moment, picturing Dumbledore, with his long silver beard, full-length wizard's robes, and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion onto his long crooked nose. Then he shook his head to banish the mental image before it gave him sympathetic heatstroke.
Then he found out what Dumbledore did occasionally a few days after Miss Jackie cancelled an appointment on her own initiative for the first time in living memory. He and Sherlock were all geared up to ask her what happened as they headed to Miss Jackie's home at the University towns for his rescheduled violin lessons.
And there, sitting cross-legged at the low table, across from Mr. Shin, was Albus Dumbledore.
Harry just stared stupidly for a moment, wildly noting Dumbledore was wearing a familiar-looking suit of plum velvet and that there was a Wizard chess set between them (the black Queen was wrestling a white Rook off the board). Dumbledore smiled at them both.
"Ah, good morning, Harry and Sherlock," he said, looking up at them through his half-moon glasses with a most satisfied expression. "It has been a long time since I've seen you two together. Excellent, excellent."
For another wild, random moment, Harry wondered what the late Vernon Dursley would say to that. Whatever it would have been, Harry was sure his words would threaten rudeness in every syllable as he decided any man who could look at Harry and say "excellent" was a man with whom he could never see eye to eye.
"Social visit, not the first one either," concluded Sherlock, looking intently at the two old men.
Mr. Shin snorted and Dumbledore beamed.
"Your deductions are as accurate as ever," said Dumbledore pleasantly. "I assume you have concluded the number of my visits from the wear patterns of my one and only Muggle suit, though I wonder how you deduced this is the only one I own. How is John?"
"A non-frivolous academic man like you has no reason to own more than one all-purpose suit. John is doing well, thank you, though complaining a lot more now that Hamish is getting more active."
"Goodness, you're going to name your son Hamish?"
"It's my provisional name," said Sherlock gravely. "John insists on calling him Benedict."
"What a lovely name," said Dumbledore in approval. "And you, Harry? Are you airing out your overstuffed brain?"
"…I wish, sir," said Harry, suddenly finding his voice. "Sherlock's expanding his detective agency and I've been helping him. It takes a lot of brainwork."
"This is for Benedict, I assume."
Harry shrugged noncommittally. "He's taking more small, less-interesting cases. I look over them and try to solve them. Sherlock reviews my results."
"You're getting better," said Sherlock, nodding once. "You have the power of observation and that of deduction. You're only wanting in knowledge, and that may come in time."
Harry felt himself go hot in the face as he looked down, feeling extremely pleased.
"How about Sirius? How is he keeping himself occupied?" asked Dumbledore.
Harry and Sherlock shared a look as they started to chuckle uncontrollably.
"John created a job for him," said Sherlock between his rumbles. "He's enjoying it very much."
"Has it any relation to your expanding business operations?"
"Perhaps."
Dumbledore stroked his bushy moustache as he studied Harry and Sherlock with twinkling eyes.
"Under what circumstances did the job come about?" he asked.
"A rather interesting one," Sherlock replied. "I really can't say more."
Sherlock and Harry left the living room right after this, Harry citing his violin lessons and Sherlock to just leave. However, Harry had feeling Dumbledore had a very good idea what the 'interesting circumstances' were…
-oo00oo-
The first time Sirius Black met Mycroft Holmes, he turned him into a pig.
He thought himself thoroughly justified because the man had the nerve to kidnap him off the street. After a botched attempt to have drinks with Remus and Lestrade at the Leaky Cauldron, Sirius had been dejectedly walking back to Baker Street and the public phones kept ringing along the way. He finally gave in and entered the closest telephone booth to pick up the phone. The voice on the other end simply said: get into car, Mr. Black. He was quickly stuffed inside a black car by two burly, black suited men, and then taken to an abandoned warehouse where a smartly dressed Muggle man leaning on an umbrella stood, waiting. The moment Sirius stepped out of the car he transfigured the man into a pig and Apparated to Baker Street directly.
Sherlock bemoaned the lack of video evidence of the event after laughing for over a minute when Sirius told him what happened. John informed Sirius who the man was after giggling for a long time.
"There is something seriously wrong with your brother," Sirius said, glowering.
"It's a family trait," said John. "Go and change him back. He's the British Government. We can't have a pig embodying our government; bad for Queen and Country."
"Do I have to?" Sirius groused. "If he's the British Government, he probably has a squad of wizards working for him illegally already."
"Considering your kind's attitude towards non-magicals, doubtful," said Sherlock. "And don't go just yet. Let him suffer."
"Don't listen to him," said John sternly. "Just hurry up and go. You're just going to make things harder for yourself the longer you stall."
Sirius huffed and Disapparated. He returned a minute later and reported Mycroft Holmes, aka British Government, was his original priggish self. A female agent tried to kill him after he de-transfigured Mycroft, but he avoided the attempt just fine—in fact, it was a nice to risk his life and limb for a change. It was very exciting.
"Bored with your mandatory mucking around having PTSD, aren't you?" John commented.
"Oh, yeah," said Sirius, thinking about the long, empty hours lounging inside the wizard tent John had set up on the roof for his temporary residence because there was no way in hell he'd go back to Grimmauld Place for Kreacher's lovely company after suffering months of it. Harry visited him daily and vice versa, but—dammit!—Harry had his own life, his own friends, to spend his time on.
"I heard you were exceptionally bright as a student," John went on.
"One of the best," Sirius replied.
"Quite the troublemaker too."
"Yes."
"You're used to working around the rules, then, being a rebel?"
"Of course. Yes. All my life, pretty much."
John grinned. "I've got a job for you. Are you interested?"
"Oh, Merlin, yes," said Sirius, grinning back.
The job John had in mind was that of a general utility man for Sherlock's private detective enterprise. In the past, Sherlock worked closely with John for most of his cases, but doing legwork together was no longer possible due to John's pregnancy. Sherlock refused another partner, saying they were either worthless or else biased, and John didn't want him to work alone because Sherlock had a tendency to turn stupid in the dumbest way possible at the heat of the moment (John's words exactly). The compromise they reached— after a lot of shouting— was delegating the routine legwork to agents, with Sherlock focusing on brainwork unless the case required personal touch. Being a wizard and an experienced prankster made Sirius well suited for the routine business of gathering data for Sherlock. For the small cases, he got to work with Harry. For the cases that garnered Sherlock's interest, Sirius worked with Remus and Lestrade to collect the requested data. When he returned to Baker Street to report, Harry and John joined and listened to Sherlock's deductions with rapt attention.
It was like having James and Lily back again, except not really.
"You're acclimatizing to the non-magic world amazingly well," John remarked after Sirius managed to collect a target's whereabouts for the last three months in less than twelve hours.
Sirius shrugged. "I have a strong incentive."
"Don't like the notoriety?" said Sherlock, too accurately.
"Yeah, whatever," said Sirius dismissively, but inwardly he shuttered.
Because it was true; the attention he received whenever he braved the Leaky Cauldron or Diagon Alley was suffocating and often plain frightening. He didn't know why. He used to revel at attention. It was as if the Dementors had sucked away his old personality and left a broken echo that was never to be restored.
"What do you do when you don't know how to act like a Muggle?" Harry asked.
"I pretend to be foreign," said Sirius. "Locals are generally helpful to explain. I work from there."
"Are most of the locals you talk to young women?"
Sirius looked away, grinning. "Maybe."
"You dog," said John with mock-disapproval. "If only wizards were sensible like you."
"I'm a rare breed," said Sirius proudly.
Sirius talked Remus into doing a flat share with him in 221C after working for Sherlock about a month, convincing his old mate that he should pay most of the rent since Remus was going to spend most of his time at Hogwarts. Mrs. Hudson the landlady was delighted to find someone to lease the old, dilapidated basement flat and happily supplied tea and biscuits when Sirius and Remus started moving in.
"You won't need another bedroom, I suppose," said Mrs. Hudson as she deposited a tray.
"Why do you ask that?" said Remus, frowning.
"In case you're nervous," said Mrs. Hudson. "You don't have to worry, you know. We have all sorts around here. Mrs. Turner next door got married ones."
Neither Remus nor Sirius understood what she meant. They only hoped Mrs. Hudson wasn't talking about wizard and witches in an interspecies relationship, because that would've posed a serious problem. For one thing, John and Harry had declared a blanket ban against using memory charms on the dear old lady, and Sirius was certain John was absolutely serious about taking a gun at him should he fail to comply.
Thus Sirius spent his days, rarely bored or unproductive. Before he knew it, Harry's birthday was almost at hand.
Sirius was contemplating what to get him when he arrived at the crime site Lestrade called him to. He noticed most of the officers were outside the building rather than in, where the crime presumably happened.
"You again?" said Detective Inspector Sally Donovan.
"Just a hapless grunt, following orders," Sirius whined playfully, raising both hands, "and what are you complaining about, you don't have to deal with him."
"I'm starting to miss his freakishness," said Donovan as she lifted the tape to let Sirius in. "But don't tell him that."
"Sure, anything for you," said Sirius, winking.
Donovan huffed. "So where's your boyfriend?"
"Working on his lesson plans," said Sirius mournfully. "He really wants to up the ante of his … A-level classes."
"So hardworking and dedicated," said Donovan in exaggerated dreaminess. "Now that's a guy I can dig for."
Sirius put on an appropriately disappointed face as Donovan alerted Lestrade of his presence over a walkie-talkie. The head SOCO, Anderson, glared at him as he suited up. They didn't exchange any words besides cursory grunts.
Lestrade was alone on the middle floor, studying a body of a little girl with his arms crossed and a grave expression on his face. Sirius closed his eyes briefly at the sad sight. The girl couldn't have been older than ten, and, except for the flies roaming around her long eyelashes, looked like she was sleeping, tucked under a thin blue blanket that had pony patterns and holding a stuffed white unicorn doll as she was.
"Hasn't been that long," said Lestrade without a greeting, "Couldn't have been, not in this summer weather. I didn't see any obvious signs of beating, but I have a feeling the perp dumped the body out of guilt."
"Why do you think it's guilt?"
"The perp took the trouble of covering the girl under a blanket and tucking her favourite stuffed animal. If this was just a regular body dump, the perp wouldn't have done that."
"So it might have been an accident."
Lestrade sniffed. "If killing a child is ever an accident."
Sirius looked away. "So what am I here to do?"
"Donovan and her team are having a devil of time entering; keep remembering nonexistent urgent appointments whenever they get too close."
"Sounds like a Muggle-repelling charm."
"I thought so too, when I had no trouble getting in," said Lestrade. "I'm not up to cancelling that kind of spells yet. There's also a chance the wizard who set it up is the perp, but I'd rather not get the MoM involved unless I absolutely have to. This is Sally's case, not mine. No copper wants a case taken from them."
"Okay," said Sirius, pulling his wand out.
He quietly searched through the building. He snorted when he found a grubby looking wizard on the top floor, sleeping under a cloak propped on sticks.
"Oi, Dung!" he called out. "You're squatting on top of a crime scene!"
"…Huh, what, no! I didn' do nuthin'!" squawked Mundungus Fletcher, jerking awake.
"Yeah right," Sirius sneered. "You're lucky the Muggle law enforcement liaison is a decent bloke, because you'd've been hauled over to a Muggle jail long ago if he weren't. Now move out before you really get arrested."
Mundungus Apparated away, grumbling and taking his improvised tent with him. Sirius cancelled the Muggle repelling charm and returned downstairs.
"Found a wizard squatting upstairs," said Sirius. "He's not the perp. I know him. He doesn't have kids to beat."
"Good to know," Lestrade grunted. "Is the spell gone?"
"Yep, I got rid of it."
"Thanks. Appreciate it."
Lestrade and Sirius left the building together. Donovan and her team entered shortly afterwards, Donovan thanking Lestrade on her way in. Lestrade told Donovan to take good care of the girl as he left.
"I'd offer to drive you back, but I have to go the Ministry," said Lestrade after they were a good distance away. "Hey, you like Quidditch?"
"Love it," said Sirius, looking at him curiously.
"I've got more tickets to the Quidditch World Cup finals than I know what to do with. Want some?"
"Want some? Hell, yeah, I do!" Sirius exclaimed. "How did you get them? They're supposed to cost a sackfull of Galleons each!"
"Did the guys at Magical Games and Sports a huge favour," said Lestrade, grinning. "Everyone was at their wits end trying to figure out how they're going to host the world cup incognito. Their department head was just brushing the issue aside, saying the deserted moor they'd selected would keep everyone well hidden, but you need an excuse for why a hundred thousand magic-people are heading to an empty moor, yeah? I gave them the perfect cover."
Sirius was intrigued. "What is it?"
Lestrade's grin broadened.
"I told them to rent out all the surrounding camp sites for the International Magic World Enactment Festival."
Sirius almost collapsed to the ground laughing.
"Is that brilliant or what?" crowed Lestrade. "Now everyone can look and talk as wizard as they like, and the camp managers would think they're just being in character."
"That was genius," said Sirius fervently.
"Thank you. So how many do you want?"
"Three," said Sirius eagerly. "Thanks a lot, Lestrade. This is going to be the perfect gift for Harry."
"Oh, yeah, it's coming up, innit?" said Lestrade, pulling out a thick bundle of parchment tickets. "Are you planning something special?"
"Can't beat watching the Quidditch World Cup finals," said Sirius, pocketing the tickets Lestrade gave him.
"No, I guess not. Okay I better go. See ya."
They parted ways. On his way back to Baker Street, Sirius heard his Muggle mobile phone ping.
Get Thai on your way back. SH
Sirius snorted as he carefully pecked up his response:
Fine. Anything else, your Lordship?
Sherlock texted back immediately.
John wants iced Chai Tea. Harry requests Pad Kee Mao. SH
Sirius dutifully stopped by at Mr. Pran's tiny Thai restaurant to pick up the requested food. He was wondering if Remus would like to try Chinese beer when someone walked up to him, tapping his umbrella.
"Good evening, Mr. Black," said a familiar supercilious voice.
Sirius immediately reached for his wand as he turned to face Mycroft Holmes, who was as poshly dressed as he'd last seen him. Mycroft didn't even have the decency to look surprised. He merely smirked and slowly spread a hand around him, reminding Sirius he was in Muggle London, where he must stay incognito least a hidden camera record his actions.
"That's better," said Mycroft in smug satisfaction as Sirius drew back his hand but not his wand. "I should also mention to prevent you from taking, ah, aggressive measures against me, I've taken some insurance."
"Like what?" Sirius demanded.
"I had the entire incident taped. Rather embarrassing, but quite necessary. You don't want the video leaked, now, do you?"
Sirius glared at the man for a long time.
"What do you want?"
"This isn't a good place to talk."
Sirius stubbornly planted his feet. "Your brother is expecting me back soon. You know how he's like."
"Considering I've known him since he was a squalling, red-faced infant, yes, I do," said Mycroft. "Do come along, Mr. Black. I shan't delay you for long."
Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Fine. You'd better pick up the tab, too."
-oo00oo-
Final Notes: When I was crafting Robert's character, I wasn't even thinking about Twilight. Having not read it (and never will), I don't know what it involves except some vague factoids I heard from the other people who had. The telepathy and sparkling properties I learned after I finished crafting Robert, and I decided neither applied. Robert is Awkward King in human flesh. He needs all the help he can get, including telepathy (even with it he fails!).
Merry Christmas!