Methods Beyond Magic

Default and Forbidden Friends

When he got to the Entrance Hall, most of the students had already left. Some, he noticed, were in their quidditch robes, heading down to the pitch with their brooms to get some practice time in. Sherlock felt bad for leaving Victor there, especially since he had to go so suddenly, but he'd hate to break his promise to John. When he got to his classroom, John was leaning against the wall next to the door, watching Sherlock as he came down the hall.
"I thought you weren't coming." John decided.
"Sorry, I got sort of caught up." Sherlock admitted.
"What, was Snape talking too much at dinner?" John laughed.
"No, I was eating down at the Quidditch pitch with a friend." Sherlock shrugged, opening the door and letting John into the classroom.
"I didn't know you had friends." John decided.
"I do, contrary to popular belief." Sherlock pointed out.
"Who?" John asked.
"What does it matter who it is?" Sherlock asked.
"Well, I can't see you eating down at the quidditch pitch with one of the teachers; they're far too old to be on a friendly basis." John pointed out.
"Well, it's not a teacher, it's a student." Sherlock insisted. "There's nothing wrong with that."
"I never said there was anything wrong with that." John defended.
"You're thinking it." Sherlock decided.
"Well, I don't know, you being a professor and all, aren't you worried they'll take advantage of you for grades?" John pointed out.
"What, because we can have a nice chat means that he automatically passes his NEWTs?" Sherlock asked, crossing his arms with a frown.
"Ya, something like that." John agreed.
"That's rubbish; he doesn't need me to get good grades." Sherlock decided.
"How do you know that?" John asked.
"I thought you came here to fix my record player, not to interrogate me like my mother." Sherlock insisted.
"Your mother interrogates you about your friends?" John laughed.
"No, actually I never really had friends for her to ask about." Sherlock admitted rather shyly, letting his eyes drift out the window so as to not see John laugh.
"I can't imagine why." John decided, moving over to the desk where the record player sat. "This looks sort of muggle, I'm sure I can fix it up." he decided.
"How do you know so much about muggle stuff?" Sherlock asked.
"Oh, the uh, the muggle class, muggle investigation, that was my favorite." John shrugged.
"You mean muggle studies?" Sherlock asked.
"Ya, that one." John agreed.
"If it's your favorite why can't you even remember the name?" Sherlock asked.
"Because it's been a while." John shrugged. He went behind the record player and fiddled with a couple of colorful strings; Sherlock thought the muggles called them wires; of course they always confused him.
"You must be a pureblood then, if you're so fascinated with muggles." Sherlock decided.
"Half blood, actually." John admitted. Sherlock sat on the desk next to the record player, watching as John twisted around some of the copper wires together, looking very concentrated.
"I'm half-blood as well. Both my parents were wizards, but my mother was actually muggle born, so I'm more quarter blood." Sherlock shrugged.
"I don't see why blood matters so much. Some of the best wizards and witches could be muggleborn, and some of the worst can be pureblood." John admitted.
"It's a status thing really. Purebloods are at the top, muggles are at the bottom." Sherlock shrugged.
"Muggle shouldn't count in our world." John decided.
"Then squibs then." Sherlock decided. John sighed, but nodded.
"Squibs have some talents I suppose." John shrugged.
"The only thing that ties them into the wizarding world is their parents and their ability to see magical things. I feel bad for them, it's like being born into a royal family but being forced to be the servant." Sherlock decided.
"You think squibs are like Cinderella then?" John laughed.
"I don't know who that is." Sherlock admitted. John just rolled his eyes, twisting two wires together and causing a little spark to erupt from them.
"There we are." He decided, closing the back of the record player and standing to observe his work.
"It'll play then?" Sherlock asked.
"Well, I think it needs a little jump start, just poke it with your wand or something, add some electricity to it." John decided.
"Electricity is a muggle invention." Sherlock pointed out.
"Then just poke it with your wand, making it run off the power of song, I don't know." John shrugged.
"You don't know how to get it started?" Sherlock laughed.
"I know how to get it ready to get it started, but I don't know the spell." John admitted.
"Victor said he knew how." Sherlock pointed out.
"Who?" John asked.
"Victor, my friend. He said his mother had one of these in her kitchen." Sherlock pointed out. John seemed to stand up a little bit taller, looking down on the record player with confidence.
"Well, good for Victor." He muttered with a bit of sass in his voice. Sherlock sighed, tapping the record player with his wand as if that were supposed to do something. Nothing happened, of course.
"Piertotum Locomotor." Sherlock muttered, poking the record on the machine. Suddenly, the disk sprang to life, rolling around on the record player very quickly.
"There we go." John said with a smile, pushing the needle down on the disk to produce a soft violin song.
"Beautiful." Sherlock decided.
"Sounds sad to me." John muttered, picking up the stack of records that Sherlock had collected and flipping through them.
"That's the beauty of it, the sadness. Violin music doesn't exist to make us happy; it's supposed to calm us down when we're sad, or to give us something to listen to while falling in love." Sherlock said with a sigh.
"You seem to have given a lot of thought to violin music." John guessed.
"I'm a fan, I actually play the violin." Sherlock admitted.
"Are you always sad, or are you just always falling in love?" John asked.
"I can't say that I've ever been in love, but I'm not always sad either. I've sort of gotten used to the sadness, now it feels, normal." Sherlock admitted.
"So you're not happy here?" John asked.
"This is the happiest I've been in a while. It feels odd to feel this way, but just being back in the castle, walking the grounds, even making new friends, it feels nice." Sherlock admitted.
"You say friends as if you have more than one." John guessed.
"Well, Victor, and maybe I've gotten on first name basis with Professor McGonagall." Sherlock shrugged with a little laugh.
"You're lying." John decided.
"I am." Sherlock agreed.
"We're friends, aren't we?" John asked.
"I didn't want to be the one to propose such a ridiculous idea, but yes, I suppose we are." Sherlock agreed.
"Well, we're the only new teachers, only ones here above the age of seventeen but under the age of fifty." John laughed.
"Are you saying we're default friends?" Sherlock asked.
"That's exactly what I'm saying." John agreed.
"Unless you wanted to make friends with some of the seventh years." Sherlock pointed out.
"Not really my thing and I don't really want to get in trouble." John admitted.
"You can't get in trouble, there's nothing wrong with friendship." Sherlock pointed out.
"Yes, I know there's nothing wrong with friendship. If it had been a girl that you were down at the pitch with..." John started.
"That would be different, but it wasn't a girl, that would be obscene." Sherlock pointed out, cutting him off.
"I didn't even say what year she was in." John insisted.
"You were implying that she would be a student." Sherlock defended.
"Are you saying that the idea of being with a girl is obscene?" John asked with a laugh.
"Are you hoping I did?" Sherlock defended.
"I was saying that if you had been down there with a seventh year girl, that things would be a lot different." John decided.
"What, because I'm a man I can't control myself around women?" Sherlock asked.
"That's usually how society makes us out to be, yes." John agreed.
"Well, if you must know, I'm pretty sure every girl in my class above third year has been giggling uncontrollably whenever I so much as glance in their direction during the lesson, and you don't see me having dinner with every single one of them." Sherlock pointed out.
"You think that the girls all like you?" John laughed.
"That's what Victor said." Sherlock agreed.
"Oh, well if Victor said it, it must be true." John said with an overdramatic tone.
"Is that jealously I hear?" Sherlock asked with a laugh.
"I'm not jealous of him." John defended with a scowl. 
"You seem to be." Sherlock guessed.
"Why would I be jealous of him, that's pathetic, I haven't even met the guy." John defended.
"You want me all to yourself." Sherlock guessed.
"That's absurd." John insisted.
"I rather hope it is." Sherlock agreed.
"No, but, if I were to look for this Victor, what would I look for?" John asked, poking at the edge of the desk innocently.
"Are you going to go slip something into his pumpkin juice?" Sherlock asked.
"More like make sure he's not up to no good." John decided.
"What could he possibly be up to?" Sherlock insisted.
"I don't know!" John defended.
"Already trying to protect me from the big bag wolves of the school?" Sherlock laughed.
"Just what does he look like?" John insisted.
"He's a seventh year, he's got brown hair and blue eyes, and he's a chaser on the Slytherin team." Sherlock shrugged.
"He's a Slytherin?" John asked.
"What's wrong with that?" Sherlock insisted.
"I thought Slytherin were supposed to be the bad guys of the school?" John asked.
"They're not all bad. At least, he's not." Sherlock decided. John shrugged, not sounding convinced.
"You're so over protective, what if I'm up to no good?" Sherlock pointed out.
"What could you possibly want from a student?" John asked.
"Oh, I don't know, what if I want him to put a good note in to Dumbledore for me, ensure that I get invited back next year to teach?" Sherlock asked.
"That's a stupid defense." John decided.
"And you've got a stupid theory." Sherlock agreed.
"You could just be looking for easy hook ups." John said in an almost quiet voice. Sherlock looked at him in surprise, as if not able to believe what he was hearing.
"You're saying I'm gay now?" Sherlock asked.
"I'm not saying that." John defended.
"You're hoping it." Sherlock guessed.
"I am not!" John insisted.
"Well, I'm the only one here 'above seventeen and under fifty', who else are you supposed to go out with?" Sherlock pointed out. John just laughed defensively.
"You think I'm coming on to you?" John asked.
"Yes I do." Sherlock agreed.
"Well, I'm not, that's pathetic." John decided.
"Good." Sherlock agreed.
"Are you trying to use reverse psychology to come on to me?" John asked.
"You hope I am." Sherlock decided.
"No I'm not! You're probably too busy planning your next date with Victor to even think..." John started.
"Alright, no record player is worth this torment, get out." Sherlock decided, standing up and pointing towards the door.
"Well, good, I was just planning on leaving." John agreed.
"You were not, not without a goodbye kiss." Sherlock insisted.
"What, you want one?" John snapped.
"No, I don't, leave." Sherlock insisted. John rolled his eyes, but with that he dramatically walked out of the room.
"Good thing you've got violin music, so that you can fall in love in peace!" John yelled back through the door, and with that he was gone. Sherlock couldn't even believe what he had just heard, opening his mouth, but closing it when he realized there was no one to tell. John had just accused him of being both in love with Victor and in in love with him, this was madness. Sherlock took the record off of the record player, shoving it back in the little slip of paper and setting it on top of all of the Weird Sisters albums. Planning a next date, as if... Sherlock walked over to his room, where the window had been opened and Billy was sitting on the bed post, hooting innocently
"How'd you get in here?" Sherlock asked. Of course, Billy didn't respond, and Sherlock could only assume that he hadn't latched the window properly in the morning. Sherlock sat down on the bed, letting Billy hop down onto his lap and look up at him curiously.
"Am I getting in over my head already?" Sherlock asked. Billy's big yellow eyes stared up at him in confusion. "Is it wrong to be friends with a student?" Of course it wasn't wrong; John was just trying to scare him. Victor and Sherlock had been in school together two years ago, they could've been friends then as well, and there was nothing wrong about that. Now, two years later, John was just trying to scare Sherlock into being exclusively his friend. There was barely an age difference between the two of them; there was nothing creepy about that. So Sherlock just sighed, pushing the owl off of his lap and changing into his pajamas. How typical, the first friend he made in his entire life was now supposed to be unethical. But who needed John and his opinions, he was being selfish, he wanted his default friend to himself, and that was it. That stupid caretaker and his muggle knowhow was probably going to try to convince Sherlock that being a half blood was wrong too, or having an owl, or teaching at Hogwarts. And there was nothing wrong with any of that, and there was especially nothing wrong with befriending Victor.