John had had a terrible night's sleep and when he finally gave up and went down to the Great Hall just as the sun was poking up over the horizon, he felt as if he hadn't slept at all. He was worried about whether or not he'd be allowed in, but it turned out that he wasn't the only one that woke up at the crack of dawn, so he sat down and watched Hagrid dragging in the Christmas trees. When Sherlock finally squeezed past Hagrid, John was gazing sleepily into a goblet of pumpkin juice.
'You look terrible,' Sherlock said, plonking himself down in front of John.
'Thanks,' John grunted.
'Trouble sleeping?'
'You have no idea. Do we have Charms today?'
'WEASLEY!'
Snape's furious voice drifted in through the open doors.
'Yes but we're skipping it.'
John grimaced.
'Oh, God, why?'
'We are going to sneak into the Slytherin common room.'
'And by "we", I really hope you mean you and your imaginary friend.'
Sherlock ignored John's comment.
'It's easy. I've already got the password, now all we need is a set of robes and we're in,' he said brightly.
'Right, remind me why,' John said, rubbing his face tiredly.
'We're going to look for some evidence to incriminate Lucy,' Sherlock grinned.
'Oh right. Why can't we tell the police or something? Everyone knows it's her.'
'It's not that simple, John. We're in the magical world now and, while it most likely is her doing it, it could just as easily be someone framing her. Magical law is a lot more complicated than Muggle law. I did ask Mycroft about Veritaserum but apparently it's illegal to use it on a minor without Ministry approval.'
'Veritaserum?'
'Oh, truth potion.'
'Speaking of, where is Castiel?' John asked.
'Oh, he's in the hospital wing. You aren't the only one having trouble sleeping, so he decided to go and get some practice in. Madam Pomfrey seems to have a bit of a soft spot for him,' Sherlock explained.
'See, I told you he'd be in here,' Hermione's voice said. They both swivelled in their seats to see Harry, Ron and Hermione coming towards them.
'All right, Hermione, we already know that you know everything so leave off will you?' Ron moaned. 'All right, John? We wondered where you'd got to.'
'All right, Sherlock?' Hermione smiled. Ron sniggered and thankfully Hermione didn't hear him.
'Where's Castiel?' Harry asked.
'Hospital wing- he's all right,' he added hurriedly at the expressions on their faces. 'He wanted to practice a bit.'
'So how come you're down so early?' Ron asked, sitting next to John and immediately stuffing some bacon into his mouth.
'Couldn't sleep,' John said miserably. This was going to be a long day.
'Did you find anything out yet?' Harry asked.
'About Nicolas Flamel? No, not yet. I recognise the name though, I think I heard Mycroft talking about him once,' Sherlock said.
'Oh good, now we'll never know,' John said sarcastically. Sherlock scowled but said nothing. John was right, of course, when Mycroft started talking, Sherlock very rarely listened.
'What about Castiel, does he know anything?' said Harry.
'I asked him and he's never heard of him,' Sherlock said.
'Oh well. You'll keep looking while I'm away, won't you?' Hermione asked.
'Yeah and you can ask your parents, it'll be safe asking them,' said Ron.
'Very safe, seeing as they're both dentists,' she smirked.
'I'll try and ask Mycroft.'
'Oh and get Castiel to ask his parents too,' said Ron.
Later that day, after John had dozed off during lunch, he found himself sneaking around downstairs with Sherlock, already deeply regretting not going to Charms.
'Why couldn't we wait until after lessons?' he hissed.
'Because there would be more of a chance of someone recognising us. This way there'll only be sixth and seventh-years there, if that, and they can't tell one first-year from another,' he whispered back, pushing John into a shadowy alcove and holding their breath, hoping that Gabriel, who was walking down the corridor, wouldn't see them. Gabriel did, of course, see them, but chose to ignore them. He remembered his own antics as a first-year, that seemed so very long ago, and smiled as he walked past them.
After he was gone, John relaxed somewhat.
'Lucy is a sixth-year,' John pointed out.
'It's ok, she has Transfiguration, I checked earlier.'
They were going down a very sunny corridor and it lifted John's spirits and even alleviated some of his tiredness. They took a right turn by a stack of barrels into another light and airy corridor, where they found the doors to the laundry room.
It was almost the same size as the Entrance Hall. One side was lined with Hagrid-sized wooden barrels while the other was stacked ceiling-high with neatly folded robes. John stared in awe at the barrels as a large pile of dirty robes threw themselves, one by one, into one of the barrels, where they proceeded to be scrubbed clean by large scourers and then hung themselves up to dry on a line at the far side of the room. While John was taking all of this in, Sherlock had already dashed over to the Slytherin stack and was digging through them to find some that would fit the both of them.
'Aha!' he exclaimed, pulling some from near the bottom of the stack. He threw some at John, who barely caught them. Without wasting any time, Sherlock pulled off his robes and stowed them in his schoolbag, before throwing the Slytherin ones over his head, doing all of this before John had even registered that he needed to take his clothes off. He copied Sherlock, getting a little tangled in the unfamiliar robes, and finally they were ready to go. They ran as fast as they could down to the dungeons. Sherlock slid to a halt in front of a stone wall and John bumped into him.
'Warn me next time you do that,' he grumbled. Sherlock ignored him and studied the wall for a second before whispering 'Parseltongue' at it. It slowly slid open, groaning as stone rubbed against stone.
They entered the empty common room, bathed in an eerie green light.
'We must be under the lake,' Sherlock muttered. John looked around at the cold, roughly hewn walls and at the ornate ebony fireplace. There were two elegant doors set into the wall at the back of the room. Sherlock examined the one on the left.
'This one's the girls',' he said.
'How do you know?'
'Traditionally, the girls' dormitories are on the left side of the room. It's the same in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Tower and I assume it's also the case in the Hufflepuff common room.'
Sherlock reached for the decorative door silver doorhandle.
'Wait!' said John. 'The girls' dormitory in Gryffindor has this mechanism that makes the stairs turn into a slide if a boy tries to get in- what if it's the same here?'
Sherlock paused for a second, then shook his head.
'I don't think so.'
'Why not?'
'Think about it, John. The girls in Gryffindor protect their dormitory because they believe the boys to be untrustworthy, right? They take trust for granted because they get along well with the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. So what if they can't trust the boys? They'll always have each other, but it's different with the Slytherins. They don't protect their dormitories because if they don't trust each other, who else have they got? People seem to forget that Slytherins are just as, if not more, loyal as the rest of us,' Sherlock explained.
'If you say so,' John said doubtfully.
'We'll see.'
Sherlock grabbed the handle and gently pushed the door open. It opened smoothly and Sherlock smirked as they walked through it and met no resistance. The torches in the wall lit themselves as John closed the door behind them, and revealed a long stone corridor with seven more doors similar to the one they had just come through, spaced at large intervals. Sherlock poked his head through the one closest to them.
'First-years,' he muttered.
'How do you know?'
'No parents to tell them what to do so all of their things are all over the floor. If these are in ascending order then this one up here is the sixth-years'- ha! Here we are.'
He dragged John into the dormitory and cast his eyes about. It was very dark and enclosed, so much so that it caused John to squirm uncomfortably until Sherlock pulled back a silk green curtain to reveal a window set in the wall.
'Aren't we underground?' John puzzled.
'Enchanted windows, same as the ceiling in the Great Hall, they reflect the sky outside,' Sherlock said.
'Which one's Lucy's?' John asked, looking at the long row of four-poster beds, carved from ebony and hung with more green silk. They walked along until they were stood under a small but intricate silver chandelier.
'I think it's that one over there,' said Sherlock, pointing at the one on the very end that was surrounded by screwed up bits of parchment. As they drew closer they could see scorch marks on the stone wall and a small pile of red envelope scraps. Sherlock dropped to his knees at the foot of the bed and dragged out as many balls of parchment as he could find. John picked up a couple and tried to read them but the handwriting was so smudged and scribbled over that he couldn't see any of the words properly.
'I can't tell who these are for, Sherlock,' he said, squinting at the parchment. Sherlock said nothing but examined the remains of a scorched letter. He began to make some of it out by feeling the imprint in the back but before he could find anything incriminating the door banged open and Lucy strode in. All three of them froze and stared at each other and all of the colour drained from Lucy's face. She rushed over to Sherlock and snatched the parchment from his hand.
'What- have you- what have you read?' she stammered. Sherlock stayed resolutely silent.
'Get out,' she whispered. Neither of them heard what she said and stayed rooted to the spot. 'Get out!' she shrieked, drawing her wand. Sometimes a little stubbornness is needed, but this was not one of those times, so John grabbed Sherlock's hand and dragged him from the room, ducking as a chunk of stone exploded just above their heads. They sprinted through the common room, much to the surprise of the few Slytherins that had started to trickle in, and didn't stop until they reached the Entrance Hall, where they knocked Castiel, who was walking miserably through the hall, to the ground and landing on top of him. Sherlock rolled off him immediately and burst into laughter while John staggered to his feet.
'I'm glad that was fun for you, Sherlock,' John grumbled. Castiel sat up and looked around, bewildered.
'What's going on?' he asked. John and Sherlock looked at him and Sherlock burst out laughing again, causing John to crack the faintest of smiles.
'What's so funny? Why are you wearing Slytherin robes? You'd better hurry up and get your things, the carriages will be leaving soon,' Castiel frowned, getting to his feet.
'Are they really? Where's your luggage?' Sherlock asked.
'It's already in the carriage, I came to get you.'
'Oh, all right. Merry Christmas, John,' he said before dashing away up the staircase. John watched him go before turning to Castiel.
'Going home for Christmas then?' he asked.
'Yes. Father says he wants to see me about my first term,' Castiel replied.
'Cool, well Merry Christmas then,' he smiled as Gabriel appeared and steered him away for fear that he would miss the carriages.
The days leading up to Christmas passed in a haze of snowy tiredness for John and on Christmas morning, he was to be found snoring softly in a squashy armchair by the fire.
'Oi, wake up!' said Ron, wacking him with the sleeve of something woolly.
'Whassappening?' he said groggily, looking around at Harry and Ron.
'It's Christmas. I brought all your presents down for you,' Ron said, dumping a small stack of parcels into his lap. 'Go on, open them.'
'What's the rush?' John moaned.
'I'm hungry, come on.'
'All right, all right,' he grumbled. He opened a large, brightly coloured box first, which turned out to be several fluffy jumpers from his mother. Right at the bottom of the box was another present wrapped in newspaper with a letter attached.
Dear John,
Merry Christmas! How's your first term going? I hope you're learning lots! I found this in the basement while I was looking for my knitting needles. Now that you're at Hogwarts, there's not really a lot to do around here, especially since Harry spends most of her time at her girlfriend's house these days. She'll come round eventually dear, don't you worry about her. I do hope you're behaving yourself. Anyway, I saw this and thought you'd need it more than I would.
Lots of love, Mum xx
John unwrapped the newspaper and uncovered a photograph in a simple wooden frame. It was a photo of his parents smiling at the camera. His mother, a small, willowy woman, had one arm wrapped around his father's waist. He was in military uniform, this must have been the day he went to Afghanistan. Riding on his shoulders was a dumpy little seven-year old Harriet, and in his arms was a tiny toddler waving his chubby little fists.
'Aw, that's adorable.'
Fred's voice behind him made him jump and he blushed.
'Shut up,' he said, shoving the picture back under a pile of jumpers.
'That's not very polite,' said George.
'Get lost,' Ron snarled.
'Ok, we're going,' Fred grinned, catching sight of Percy.
'Open the rest, John,' said Harry.
John got a bar of chocolate and a 'Merry Christmas' scribbled on a scrap of card from his sister, a box of Chocolate Frogs from Hermione and a box of Every Flavour Beans from Castiel.
At the bottom of the pile was a thin, neat box with a note saying 'To John, From Sherlock'.
'Git. I've known him his whole life and he's never got me anything,' Ron grumbled. John opened it curiously and choked trying to laugh. In the box were two silk ties, one was the crimson and gold of Gryffindor and the other the green and silver of Slytherin.
'Why has he got you a Slytherin tie?' Harry asked quizzically.
'We er, broke into the Slytherin common room,' John laughed.
'You did what?' Harry and Ron exclaimed. Up until that point, John had completely forgotten to tell them.
'Remember the last day of term when Sherlock and I weren't in Charms?'
'Yeah.'
'Well, we were down in the Slytherin common room, looking for evidence against Lucy.'
'How did you get in?' Ron gaped.
'With the password,' John grinned, 'and some Slytherin robes that we stole.'
For a while, they passed around a box of Every Flavour Beans until Ron mistook a pepper flavoured bean for a strawberry one, then they finally went down to the Great Hall for Christmas Dinner. John and Harry were absolutely blown away by the scale of the Hogwarts Christmas. There was so much food on the tables and the Christmas crackers made loud bangs like cannons going off and instead of the feeble plastic toys and flimsy paper hats that came with ordinary Muggle crackers, they got a burst of fireworks whenever they pulled one, a magical toy came out and a very large, very over the top hat came out. Dumbledore had immediately swapped his pointed wizard's hat for a flowered bonnet and looked as though he was thoroughly enjoying himself. John was having great fun until he was showered in live, white mice from one of Harry's crackers and decided it was time to go to bed. Harry and Ron waited for a while before they followed him up. Ron, who was stuffed full and warm and cosy, fell asleep immediately. Harry, however, couldn't sleep. He couldn't help but think about his new Invisibility Cloak. The note had said 'Use it well' but what could that mean? Suddenly an idea occurred to him. Excitement coursed through him as he carefully pulled the Cloak from under his bed. He put it on and grinned down at the empty space that should have been his feet and left the room. In his haste, he didn't notice that John was missing from his bed, nor did he notice that John wasn't asleep before the fire either.