Methods Beyond Magic

More Friends Than The Giant Squid

"Well, uh, do you want to take a walk I guess? If you need someone to talk to?" Sherlock offered, feeling a bit awkward, it sounded a lot like he was asking him on a date.
"See how easy that was? Yes, I'd love to." John agreed. Sherlock smiled awkwardly, deciding that he wouldn't inconvenience John with the fact that he still hadn't eaten dinner.
"Where do you want to go?" Sherlock asked.
"Let's walk around the lake; I've never properly seen the Giant Squid." John decided.
"Oh, it's not that hard to get a good look at him, all you have to do is throw food and he'll slither up from the depths." Sherlock shrugged.
"Brilliant. I should get some food then." John decided.
"We can just take some from the staff table, they won't mind." Sherlock agreed. Perfect, then he could grab himself some food as well. So, after trying to look as inconspicuous as possible while taking out a couple of rolls and chicken wings, they walked out of the Great Hall and into the crisp night air.
"Chilly out." Sherlock decided and they started their decent down the hill.
"I'm surprised, it's only October, you'd think that it would start getting cold later." John shrugged.
"October's not too early. Once it gets into November though, that's usually when it first snows." Sherlock sighed.
"You went to school here then?" John asked.
"Course I did, there's nowhere else to go." Sherlock pointed out. "Did you?"
"Yes, definitely. I went to Hogwarts." John agreed. That answer sounded a little bit scripted, but since there was no other school to go to for wizarding education, Sherlock just let John's cryptic answer stand. Maybe he was a bit nervous to talk to him.
"What year were you in? I feel like I would've noticed you." Sherlock pointed out.
"Oh, it's been two years, but I was in...Hufflepuff, and I kept my head down." John shrugged.
"Having trouble remembering your house?" Sherlock asked.
"No, of course not. Just, not very good with memory, one of my faults I suppose." John admitted.
"That's alright." Sherlock assured.
"You were in, I want to say Slytherin." John guessed.
"Ravenclaw." Sherlock corrected.
"I was close." John decided.
"No you weren't." Sherlock laughed. John rolled his eyes, but looked over at the lake, as if expecting to see an orange tentacle wave hello.
"Did you like being in Ravenclaw? I feel like, from what I've heard, that they're all big egocentric brainiacs." John guessed.
"Unfortunately I fit that description, so I liked it." Sherlock admitted.
"You don't seem too egocentric, I mean, you make time for other people." John decided.
"Not very efficiently." Sherlock admitted.
"You're here now, aren't you?" John asked.
"That's because you looked close to tears." Sherlock pointed out.
"I was not! It's called puppy dog eyes, and my mother said mine were very effective when trying to make people do things for me." John decided.
"You needed to use puppy dog eyes to make me take you on a walk?" Sherlock asked.
"You make me sound like a dog that needs exercise." John laughed.
"In a way, I think you are." Sherlock agreed .The two of them walked along a small path snaking around the lake, on some areas it was very wide, where they could walk comfortable apart from the tree line and the lake, and other times it was so narrow that they had to walk single file in the mud.
"So, shall we tempt the squid?" Sherlock asked, holding up some rolls.
"That's not a sentence you hear every day." John laughed, and Sherlock just rolled his eyes.
"Is that a yes?" Sherlock asked.
"Ya, sure." John agreed with a little smile. Sherlock handed him one of the rolls, watching as John threw it far into the lake, where the squid was bound to see it. For a moment it just bobbed there, a little dot on the glassy surface of the lake, but then a long orange tentacle emerged from the depths and pulled the roll underwater.
"Amazing!" John exclaimed, excitedly throwing another roll into the lake, which shared the same fate as the first.
"It's just the squid, it's not that interesting." Sherlock muttered as John basically hopped up and down as the tentacle scooped away another roll.
"Shockingly, I've never seen a giant orange squid in the bottom of a lake before." John snapped.
"I thought it was a Hogwarts tradition to say hello giant squid. I mean, it must get lonely around here." Sherlock shrugged.
"Aren't there other things at the bottom of the lake?" John asked.
"Well, sure, merpeople, grindylows, all sort of fish." Sherlock shrugged.
"Mermaids?" John asked, his mouth hanging open.
"Did you fall asleep through every lesson?" Sherlock laughed.
"Of course I did, you've seen my attention span." John agreed. "Can we get one to talk to us?"
"They keep to themselves, and they don't speak English." Sherlock pointed out.
"I guess that's a dead end then. Wow, like Ariel?" John asked.
"Who?" Sherlock asked.
"Nothing, famous mermaid." John shrugged.
"Is that the red haired princess?" Sherlock laughed.
"Ya, you've heard of her?" John asked. Sherlock just rolled his eyes, laughing a little bit at John's idiocy.
"You know they don't actually look like that? They're actually really ugly, with tentacles for hair, semitransparent fish skin, and they have these nasty iron tridents, they're really scary." Sherlock insisted. John's face dropped, and he looked at the lake with a little bit less enthusiasm.
"Well, that's a bit of a shame." He decided.
"There's plenty of other creatures out there as well, not just merpeople. In fact, the muggles got the unicorns spot on." Sherlock decided.
"Unicorns are real; I guess I should've seen that coming." John decided.
"So you skipped Care of Magical Creatures? I thought Hagrid liked to bait some unicorns in for the lessons." Sherlock sighed.
"Nah, he never showed us one of those." John shrugged.
"What did you learn about?" Sherlock asked. John shrugged, rocking back on his heels and looking confused.
"Oh, well, um, something about, creatures, that were magical. I can't really remember." John admitted. Sherlock gave him a suspicious look, but continued walking, deciding that if they wanted to make it around the lake before curfew then they should start to get a move on.
"So, how's Victor?" John asked, hopping along beside him.
"Still on about Victor then?" Sherlock asked with a laugh.
"I'm sorry about last night; I guess I kind of got carried away." John admitted.
"You think?" Sherlock laughed.
"Ya, I know, it's kind of, terrible, to accuse you of liking a student. And liking me, that's pretty obscene." John decided.
"I'm just not the type for romantic attachments, I assume it would slow me down, distract me from my teaching and my life." Sherlock shrugged.
"That's a boring way to live life, there's no thrill in that." John decided.
"You're saying that you need love in your life to make it meaningful?" Sherlock asked.
"No, I'm not saying that, but it makes life a lot more interesting when you're chasing after a girl." John admitted.
"You seemed to be convinced that I wasn't after girls last night." Sherlock pointed out.
"I didn't know what I was talking about. But, you know, either way is fine, I don't judge people." John admitted, shoving his hands awkwardly in his pockets.
"Neither do I. Everyone is different, and that's what makes life interesting. Not chasing after some stupid girl." Sherlock agreed.
"I guess my days of chasing girls are over though, there doesn't seem to be an overabundant supply of available females around here." John shrugged.
"Well, I'm pretty sure, if you ask Professor Sprout really, really nicely..." Sherlock started, but John just slapped him with a laugh.
"I'm not asking Sprout on a date!" John insisted.
"Moaning Myrtle is always available as well." Sherlock pointed out.
"No way, she's really annoying, and seems to have a blood feud against the caretakers." John muttered.
"Well, Filch tried to get rid of her when he was here, said she caused too much of a distraction." Sherlock shrugged.
"Filch, the old caretaker right?" John asked.
"You can't tell me you forgot Filch. He's like, the terror of all the students. Or at least he was." Sherlock shrugged.
"I didn't forget Filch, I knew who he was." John insisted.
"You don't parade the halls at night, do you? Making sure students are in bed?" Sherlock asked.
"God no, I've got to get my beauty sleep." John insisted.
"Speaking of sleep, it ought to be getting late." Sherlock decided.
"I've got a watch, it's around eight." John shrugged.
"Why've you got a watch?" Sherlock asked.
"Why don't you? How else are you going to tell the time?" John asked.
"That's a muggle thing really." Sherlock shrugged.
"Well, maybe muggles are more practical than wizards. A lot of the students wear them too, it's not uncommon." John defended. Sherlock sighed, looking at John peculiarly and trying to figure out just what he was. For a wizard that seemed to know nothing of Hogwarts, he was very odd indeed. Unless he went to another school, and was embarrassed to admit it. That must be it; he could've gone to a foreign school and didn't want to make Sherlock look at him in a negative light. They finished their loop around the lake quietly, sometimes striking up a conversation, but their words would be cut off after a while. Sherlock took to looking at the stars, which were mirrored perfectly on the still lake. The only drawback to stargazing while trying to walk was when he would accidentally run into John, usually when there was a turn or something and he'd walk right into the other man. Of course, apologies were thrown about and John would call him some sort of name, but they'd continue walking in the end, and Sherlock would look at the ground instead. When finally the made it to the Hogwarts grounds, they hiked up the hill to the castle, taking a short break to catch their breaths in the entrance hall.
"Well, it's my job to shut these doors at night; I might as well do that now." John shrugged.
"Should I help?" Sherlock offered.
"No, it's alright, I've got it. You scurry along; you need your sleep as well." John assured.
"Alright, well, thanks for the walk I suppose." Sherlock shrugged.
"Anytime. And if you feel like talking to someone your age, I'm always here." John offered.
"I know, I'll keep that in mind. I'll see you around." Sherlock decided. John nodded, and with a smile Sherlock hopped up the stairs to his classroom. Sherlock walked alone back up to his classroom, the torches were now the only source of light since the sun had officially gone down outside. Sherlock opened his door and found that his classroom was completely dark, which was a little bit creepy, so he took out his wand and lit it, walking around by the pale blue light and lighting some of the torches that hung on the wall. When he was done making his classroom a little bit lighter, he walked through the darkened office to his bedroom, where he lit a couple of torches and extinguished his wand, changing quickly into his pajamas and checking the window for Billy. When the owl didn't show, Sherlock got into bed and flicked his wand at the newly lit torches, extinguishing those as well and plunging his new room into darkness. 

        When Sherlock woke up in the morning, it was actually on time. He wasn't ridiculously early, nor was he terribly late, and he considered that an accomplishment. So he changed hastily into his robes, yawning and rubbing his eyes, rummaging through his drawers for things like socks and shirts. It was a dark morning, the sunlight was visible but the sun itself was still settled behind the mountains, making a halo of morning light. So Sherlock lumbered down the stairs, still a little bit tired, and was happy to see that there were crowds of students going down to the Great Hall as well, so he was right on time. A lot of the students said hello to him as he passed, some giggling girls waved at him from two stories down, and he even got a nod from one of the burlier Gryffindor boys, which shocked him. It seemed to Sherlock that these people actually enjoyed his class, enough to actually acknowledge his presence outside of the classroom. The Great Hall was packed, students of all years at all of the tables, ladling eggs onto their plates, buttering toast, pouring pumpkin juice into their goblets, it was a typical morning in Hogwarts. 

"You know, you don't have to walk down through the students. There's another door in the back." Professor Sprout said when Sherlock sat down. He shrugged, grabbing some pancakes and lathering them in butter and syrup.
"I don't see why my presence has to be a secret." He shrugged.
"I don't really like going through the students, I feel like they're all laughing at me." Professor Sprout admitted.
"They wouldn't dare laugh at you, not when you have the ability to send the Venomous Tentacula to send on them." Sherlock assured, and Professor Sprout laughed in agreement.
"Dumbledore wouldn't let me threaten the students." She shrugged.
"Dumbledore doesn't have to know everything that goes on around here." Sherlock assured. Professor Sprout laughed, but went back to her oatmeal, as if Sherlock's advice had rather cheered her up a bit. Snape was silent on his end, unfortunately the potions master was present, but he was staring moodily at some sort of omelet on his plate and not contributing to the conversation. When Sherlock was done with his breakfast, he went down through the students again, ignore Professor Sprout's suggestion to go through the back.
"Hey, Professor!" called Victor's voice from the crowd. Sherlock turned to see Victor dropping a forgotten piece of toast back onto his plate, running up to where Sherlock stood.
"Hello." Sherlock said with a smile.
"Hey, are we still on for flying this weekend?" Victor asked.
"I don't see why not. It's not like I'm terribly booked up." Sherlock admitted.
"Brilliant. That should be fun." Victor decided.
"Yes, I rather hope so. Flying does seem like it could be a lot of fun, except dying doesn't seem like all it's cut out to be." Sherlock admitted. Victor laughed, walking with Sherlock up the stairs.
"You won't die, it's a bit scary the first time, but once you get the hang of it, well, it's amazing." Victor admitted.
"Maybe you can bring that...the red ball, quarter, um..." Sherlock muttered.
"The quaffle?" Victor asked with a laugh.
"Ya, that's the one." Sherlock agreed.
"Maybe we should wait, you have to throw and catch that thing, so you can only ride with on hand on the broom." Victor pointed out.
"Oh, that's...terrifying." Sherlock decided.
"Well, the quidditch schedule has been posted; we've got our first match coming up in a month, and I hope you'll be there." Victor insisted.
"Wouldn't miss it, of course. Who are you guys playing?" Sherlock asked.
"We've got Gryffindor right off the bat; they should pose some good competition, except they lost their best beater last year." Victor shrugged.
"Did you guys have some major losses?" Sherlock asked.
"Not really, but we're an old team, next year they'll struggle to fill our places." Victor decided.
"Ya, I saw some of the kids I think, hovering over the quidditch pitch, I thought you might have been among them." Sherlock said.
"Where were you last night?" Victor asked.
"Oh, I took a walk around the lake with John." Sherlock shrugged. Victor rather tensed up a bit, looking stiffly ahead of him and keeping a smile plastered forcefully on his face.
"Oh, that's nice. That caretaker, he seems alright." Victor shrugged.
"He's nice, maybe a bit childish, but there's a charm to that as well." Sherlock admitted. Victor nodded, and Sherlock could tell that there was something bothering him about knowing what Sherlock was doing out of the classroom.
"Well, I'm off to transfiguration, what do you say we meet up for lunch outside?" Victor asked.
"That would be great, a little bit of midday leisure will be perfect, especially since I've got some second years second period." Sherlock agreed.
"Great, I'll meet you in the entrance hall then." Victor said with a smile.
"See you then." Sherlock agreed, and with that, they went their separate ways.