The School and the Sociopath {Revised Edition} ~teen!potter!lock~

Chapter 5: Shunned For the First Time in My Life

A/N: Warning: Self-harm comes up in here later. If you aren't okay with things like that, you might want to skip. I give my personal apologies to NarwhalBlobfish! ~Kate

I sat at the edge of the lake, looking down into the murky depths. I thought I saw a flicker of a mermaid's tale, but I was too down to care. I lay back on the grass and stared up at the sky instead. It was full of white, plump clouds, those big balls of fluff.

A ball.

A red ball.

A red ball I had failed to catch.

I sighed. For the past week, I had tried to forget that horrible game. I was supposed to be one of the better players. I was the one everyone was counting on to make sure the quaffle went through the opposing hoop as much as possible, but I had failed them at the moment my help was most needed. I hadn't spoken to any of my teammates all week, or anyone on Gryffindor at all, for that matter. Gryffindor had been on a winning streak, and everyone had been happy to rub this victory in everyone else's faces. But now, it was they who were being riduculed. And that was my fault. It was. I closed my eyes and tried to hum some happy tune, but then I started humming the Gryffindor team song. That didn't help. I stopped and let out a long breath. Would they even let me get on a broomstick again?

Suddenly, I felt a body lay down beside me on the grass. I supposed it was Sarah. She was a Hufflepuff and quite a good friend of mine. She was the only one who would even look at me anymore; not even the Ravenclaws would speak to me, if it was just to make fun of me. I actually would have liked the jeering better than this horrible silent treatment I was getting. Heck, I would pay money for it, and I didn't really have much of that.

"Hey, Sarah," I said, glad to make conversation with someone. She shifted at my side.

"I would prefer it if you got my name right," said a deep voice. My eyes shot open, and there was that tall, pale, curly-haired Chaser again.

"Sherlock?!" I cried, starting to sit up, but a thin hand stopped me. 

"I want to talk." I stopped, but didn't fully lay back down.

"I'm sure you have enough people to talk to, Sherlock. After all, you're the hero of Ravenclaw. You beat the undefeated," I said, not without a nasty venom in my voice that made my own skin crawl. 

"John. It was just one game."

"Oh, that's all it was to you?!" I was almost yelling.

"That's not what I meant. I didn't mean to win -"

That was it. I started shouting at him. "Don't fuck with me, Sherlock Holmes! I know perfectly well how popular you are now! I know perfectly well you like it, how could you not? Oh, you didn't mean to win. Okay! Fine! I don't give a fuck about what the bloody hell you meant! Just fuck off, okay? Bloody prick." I stormed off. My face was red with rage, not embarrassment. I had had enough of all the 'Sherlock this,' and 'Sherlock that.' That shit comment just sent me over the edge. I suppose I was jealous, but all in all I was fed up. I was fed up with everyone expecting me to be amazing. I was fed up with everyone waiting for me to make them proud. I was fed up with everyone being disappointed in me for losing just one game, because it wasn't entirely my fault. Sherlock was right: it was just a game. So why did everyone treat it differently? 

I was lying in my bed with the curtains drawn, staring up at the top of the canopy, which my sister had enchanted to show constellations back at the beginning of my first year. That was so long ago. I watched the pinpoints of light dance on a dark indigo background as the image swept over the skies. The enchantment usually made me smile, as it brought back memories of Harry from before she left the family for wherever she was now. But tonight, it only made me sadder. I was falling apart from the silent treatment. I don't think anyone worked at it anymore: it had become a routine to ignore John Watson, King of Failure. It had been three weeks since that day by the lake, and even Sherlock hadn't tried to speak to me again. I could tell he was sorry, but I knew it wasn't really his fault. It was mine, mine, mine.

If I told someone my story, they would say it was nothing but a mistake, one bad day. A single lost game didn't really matter, did it? The entire team lost together. Don't blame yourself.

But if I told them why I lost, would their reaction be totally different?

When I was going for the quaffle, I had one thought on my mind: get it. When I held my hand on the ball, I still had one thought on my mind: Sherlock.

I was hopelessly in love with Sherlock Holmes. I had tried to deny it for a while, but after a while you can't lie to yourself anymore. His hair, his eyes, his skin, his height, his grace, his voice, his intelligence. I was in love with it all. I was an idiot.

I had tried to convince myself it was nothing but infatuation, but that plan failed the second he touched me. I completely forgot what I was there for, completely forgot that I still had a game to win. I just stared at him like a bloody fish. But then he turned those lighthouses of eyes on me, and I went completely blank. A second later, the quaffle was gone, and Sherlock was gone, and the game was gone. Five minutes later, my friends were gone, my popularity was gone, my only support in this bloody hell of a world was gone.

Maybe I was spoiled. I had always been so well-like all my life. Sherlock, he was never liked. But now I was the one without any friends and he was the one with everyone falling over him. Was it some sort of punishment, supposed to teach me a lesson? If so, I had learned long ago, and now it was just ruining me from the inside out. I relied on those people who were once my friends to hold me up. They were something I used as a grappling hook to continue up the steep rockface called life. Without them, I was hanging without any ability to move up, and the rope was thinning. A week ago, this would have been a silly thing to think. But now, it wasn't silly. It was true. I was hurting. I felt like I was drowning, or falling. I looked down at the scars on the inside of my upper arm, where no one would be able to see them underneath my robes, and sighed. They were redone so often I doubted they would ever heal. I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands before drifting into a restless, nightmared sleep.