Methods Beyond Magic

The Gay Guessing Game

    That relief didn't really last long. To be honest, the more the week went on, Sherlock regretted his words more and more. At first it was great, no more giggling girls to worry about, they were all sort of staring at him, perplexed, trying to see how in the world they had missed his sexuality. Of course, Sherlock was only saying that, he wasn't actually gay, he wasn't anything really. He was just Sherlock, and he would be Sherlock alone. But every time he would call on a guy, they would get all awkward and blurt out the answer fast, huddling together in packs whenever Sherlock passed them in the hallways, and making sure to stare determinedly at the floor whenever he walked by. This made Sherlock even more annoyed, now he wasn't the cool teacher that told stories any more, he was that creepy gay teacher. And instead of the girls betting on who would hook up with him first, the guys were probably betting on which man he would come onto first. And that was humiliating. The only two people that seemed to be happy about this new rumor were Victor and John, for totally different reasons. Whenever John saw him, he'd burst out laughing, pretending to be terrified of Sherlock, skirting around corners and making sure to break eye contact in the middle of their conversation, as if Sherlock's new rumor was making him uncomfortable. Even though Sherlock continually denied the claims, John still made sure to 'leave room for Jesus' when they walked together in the hallways. Victor, however, didn't seem to find it funny at all. Sherlock's second period class was made up of Slytherin and Gryffindor seventh years, and for once, the two houses weren't quarreling. Instead, both genders of both houses were looking up at Sherlock in confusion, Irene was among the girls that were rather sulking, no longer bothering to giggle and brush their hair in his presence. The guys were sitting in one big pack, and whenever Sherlock would merely look at them a quiver would go through the group, as if they were trying to polish their basketball shoes and making sure that they sprayed extra axe spray on, just to maintain their aggressive heterosexuality. Victor sat a seat over from the big group of guys, right next to the window, and whenever Sherlock would look over at him, he would smile sweetly, as if encouraging Sherlock to simply go on with the lesson and not pay attention to his horror struck classmates. So Sherlock went on, of course, they finished up their lesson on Unforgivable curses (with a test the next class), and ended on starting an essay about what they already knew on werewolves. So Sherlock sat behind his desk, reading his new copy of the Daily Prophet and trying to ignore the continuous whispering rippling across the classroom. Sherlock wanted to stand up and deny everything, insisting that he wasn't gay and that the guys didn't have to be so terrified, but then again, that would be drawing even more attention to the matter. Everyone knew what was going on, of course, but Sherlock didn't want to poke the bear. Either way, the more he pretended he didn't notice what was going on, the faster the whole thing would fade away. So when the class was over, the students hurried out the door, as if Sherlock would rope one of the boys in and force him to enjoy a candle lit dinner. Everyone except one.
"Class seemed a bit tense today." Victor guessed, standing near Sherlock's desk with a smile on his face.
"Yes well, you've heard the news I assume." Sherlock sighed, folding his newspaper and setting it nicely on the desk.
"Is it true?" Victor asked.  
"What do you think?" Sherlock asked with a neutral expression on his face. He wanted to see what Victor thought of him.
"I've never been able to decipher your interests Sherlock; you're just a very complicated person that way." Victor sighed.
"If you had to guess?" Sherlock asked.
"I'd say that they're true." Victor decided. Sherlock smiled a little bit accusingly, looking down at his newspaper with amusement.
"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do." He decided, standing up and walking around the desk.
"So, you're not gay?" Victor asked, his face sort of falling. Whether that meant he was upset that he got it wrong, or simply upset because Sherlock was straight, Sherlock couldn't tell.
"I'm Sherlock, I'm not defined by my sexuality nor does it affect my life." Sherlock sighed.
"So, you're asexual?" Victor asked.
"Like I said, I don't know. I suppose, for now, that would be the best term to fit my interests." Sherlock decided.
"For now?" Victor asked.
"Well, if someone catches my eye, whether they are a woman or a man, I'd have to make some adjustments to my classification, wouldn't I?" Sherlock pointed out. Victor sighed, but nodded.
"I heard it was Irene Adler that cornered you in the library; she couldn't stop telling the story, over and over again. Of course, she made sure to mention that she knew all along, because no straight man would ever be able to refuse her." He sighed. Sherlock just laughed, shaking his head.
"Awful girl, it's she?" Sherlock agreed.
"She asked me out in sixth year, said I had the sort of beauty that she was looking for. I turned her down, of course." Victor agreed.
"I thought no straight man could ever refuse her?" Sherlock asked, and Victor just shrugged.
"Then again, she's asked out the entire population of boys, even the more attractive first years." He pointed out.
"First years are attractive?" Sherlock laughed.
"I think they're all snot nosed little cockroach clusters, but don't bother reminding her of that." Victor insisted.
"Well, she's just a bit of a, well, not a role model let's just leave it at that." Sherlock decided.
"You didn't have any interest in her? None at all?" Victor asked.
"Why, do you?" Sherlock asked.
"No, of course not. What if she wasn't a student?" Victor asked.
"I feel like this is a test." Sherlock decided.
"You're the professor; you're supposed to be giving the tests." Victor pointed out.
"You're trying to figure out if I really am gay or not." Sherlock decided.
"I'm just asking fair questions." Victor insisted with a guilty shrug.
"Well, you better get off to lunch, don't want you to starve." Sherlock decided, shuffling Victor out the door.
"What, aren't you going to come?" he asked.
"Oh no, I don't really want to sit next to Professor Snape when these rumors are flying around. Not quite anxious to find out what he thinks of the matter." Sherlock admitted.
"Why don't we eat outside then?" Victor offered.
"You want to be seen eating alone with me?" Sherlock asked.
"I'm alright with it if you are." Victor agreed.
"Let's wait for the fire to die down Victor, although the offer is tempting." Sherlock decided.
"Alright then, well, I'll see you around." Victor decided. "Don't flirt with any boys until I get back." He insisted with a smile.
"Oh don't worry, I don't have plans to." Sherlock agreed, and with that Victor disappeared out the door, leaving Sherlock alone once more. Sherlock had no intentions of going out to the Great Hall; in fact, he didn't really have any plans to eat at all. This drama, these rumors, he has been so stupid to start them, there had been thousands of other ways to get rid of Irene and of course had to pick that one. The one that would single handedly turn the entire school against him. So Sherlock spent his lunch break grading the essays that his classes handed in, on the unforgivable curses and on dragons. It was dull work; of course, if the papers were flawless then they were miserable to read. If they were terrible they were more entertaining, but it also made it painful to see how none of his information was penetrating those idiot's thick skulls. Being a teacher was all fun and games until you had to grade papers, and he had a test to make for tomorrow, for both classes. He had been wasting so much time prowling around with Victor and John; he had almost forgotten that he actually had work to do, commitments that had to be filled in order to keep his job. Sometimes Sherlock forgot that teaching at Hogwarts was actually a career. It felt more like a privilege, like he should be paying the school to let him teach there instead of the other way around. It seemed like the meals and the rooms were enough to get him by, but no, he got a good heap of galleons at the end of every month, but what to buy with them when you're stuck in a castle the entire day? Of course, he could always go down to Hogsmeade if he wanted to, but it would feel weird being there without groups of students mingling around, it would be better to wait until the first trip left. Of course, that wouldn't be too far off; usually they start up the trips to the small town after the first month of school, to let everyone get situated with their classwork and schedules. When his next class came in, it was fourth years, all looking very nervous to sit down, as if his 'gayness' was an infectious disease and they'd all be checking out the guys in the school if they got too close. Sherlock sighed, continuing on a rather awful paper about dragons, which was going on about how dragons were indestructible and lived for millions of years. What an idiot, this paper was probably written at two o'clock in the morning after too much butterbeer. When the class filled in, Sherlock set down his quill silently and looked around at the terrified faces.
"See, everyone used to smile back." Sherlock pointed out. The class managed some terrified smiles, looking more like grimaces. "Well, alright then, this will be your last lesson on dragons, and tomorrow we will be starting stunning spells, which I'm sure will be great fun for you all, especially when you've all managed to stun each other a couple of times." Sherlock decided. "Now that I think about it, that's probably not the best idea..." Some of the kids chuckled nervously, muttering to their friends with words he couldn't understand. And so the lesson began, for the younger kids he did a review game, a trivia game where teams would answer a question, and if they got it right they could try to levitate a paper ball through Sherlock's makeshift quidditch hoop, which was just a line he traced in midair with his wand. Even though it was probably the worst review game in the history of all mankind, the kids seemed to enjoy it. He played some music on the record player, and by the end of the class, the kids were smiling and carrying on, seeming to have forgotten all about Sherlock's supposed sexuality. Sherlock considered that an achievement. When the class was over, he rewarded the winning team with small candies that he had found at the bottom of his trunk, just some stupid chocolate frogs or Fizzing Whizbees, nothing overly exciting, but they were thrilled. So Sherlock was left, for the first time since the weekend, feeling accomplished, as if he had actually gotten over such a barrier in his reputation. This all changed, of course, come his next class, where some very timid looking sixth years creeped into the classroom, skirting around Sherlock's desk. He ignored the very strong urge to scream the truth at them, but alas, he just sat quietly at his desk and graded more papers. When they all took their seats, Sherlock set down his quill once more and looked on their somber, terrified faces.
"So, today we have a choice. I played a rather successful review came with the fourth years, and for the seventh years, we simply refreshed unforgivable curses with some fun worksheets." Sherlock said with a smile. The class didn't move. "May I add that neither of the options includes me flirting with any one of you." He pointed out, and some of the kids actually smiled. "Well, since none of you have any opinion on the matter, I'm sure you'd love to start on some fill in the blank papers on..."
"We want to play the game!" insisted one of the girls in the back.
"There we go someone with a voice! Do you all agree?" he asked. They all nodded aggressively, finally able to express their opinions for some reason.
"I must warn you that my only incentive is some melted chocolate frogs. They might still hop, but they'll look awfully depressing when they leave their gooey legs behind." Sherlock added. This time the whole class laughed, but all nodded. So they played the same game, but the sixth years were a bit more competitive with each other. Honestly Sherlock didn't really see the joy in being able to levitate the ball through the hoop, it all depends it they were good with spell work or not. Some of them were able to flick the paper with a wave of their wands, others steadily hovered it through, some weren't able to control it and just let it fall down on the desk, and there were a select few that were able to figure out that they could just throw the thing and it would work just as well. In the end, Sherlock handed out chocolate frogs to the winners and waved them all out of his classroom, all considerably lighter than they had been when they came in. Sherlock sighed, deciding that he couldn't starve himself forever, and he might as well get to the Great Hall as soon as possible, to possibly avoid Snape in the process. At least some of the kids would have a good word to say about him. So he got up and walked down to the Great Hall, not really sure how he felt about not bumping into either Victor or John along the way. He never really got to tell John the whole story, and Victor would of course want to stay with him the whole night, possibly help him make the rests, but that would definitely be an unfair advantage, but then again he was feeling awfully lonely, with the whole school turned against him. He wondered if the rumors had hit the staff room yet. When Sherlock walked down the hallway, thankfully no one gave him a minimum safe distance, as if they had forgotten all about the drama, or simply didn't realize he was there. Probably the latter. The Great Hall was just starting to fill up, and to Sherlock's dread, he saw the Professor Snape was just walking over to the table as well, so he'd have forceful conversation with him once more. So he walked rather reluctantly to his chair, his stomach rumbling in anticipation, and sat down. Snape didn't acknowledge him at first, but Sherlock could feel those beady black eyes watching him as he scooped some mashed potatoes onto his plate.
"So, Mr. Holmes, our new celebrity." Snape muttered.
"Nice not having the worst name in the school, is it?" Sherlock asked.
"Quite nice, yes." Snape agreed, the insult not fazing him one bit. Sherlock sighed, starting on his meal and trying to ignore him. "I heard the story reached everyone, even the Headmaster knows about your, well, I say secret." Snape laughed.
"Well, no one knows the whole story, but I'd be delighted to hear the version you heard." Sherlock decided.
"I heard something along the line of you admitting your little secret in the library, to a group of seventh year boys that were unfortunate to have to share a table with you." Snape decided with a poisonous smile.
"Well, you'd be wrong. In fact, a seventh year girl had practically cornered me and was flirting endlessly. There was no other way to get out of it without making up some sort of ludicrous story." Sherlock shrugged.
"Oh, so you're not actually homosexual?" Snape asked.
"Of course I'm not." Sherlock snapped.
"Hm, I know one member of our staff that would be...disappointed." Snape sighed, his dark eyes looking over at the other end of the table.
"What, Flitwick?" Sherlock asked in surprise. But as he looked more carefully, he saw that little Professor Flitwick wasn't the only male staff member at the table, John was sitting there as well, struggling to put together a sort of makeshift hamburger. Sherlock looked at Snape in surprise, who was sitting there very innocently, cutting his chicken into bite sized pieces. So Sherlock followed his lead, not saying anything else on the topic, but couldn't help glancing over in John's direction and wondering, would he actually be disappointed? Sherlock's question wasn't answered at that meal, and of course Snape would say no more, even if Sherlock did try to start a conversation with him. So Sherlock finished his dinner and headed back up to his classroom, dreading the thought of having to make two tests in one night. Procrastination at its finest. So he sat at his desk, the feather on his quill tapping his cheek lightly as he thought up the next question to scrawl down about dragons.