Methods Beyond Magic

There Will Be An Answer...Let It Be

             The sun rose and the castle awoke; the same schedule that Sherlock had followed since he was in first year was upon them again. Except, he had beaten the sun at its own game, because once the first ray of sunlight peeked over the horizon, Sherlock was already out of the Great Hall. It was a Sunday, which was a bit nice, because Sherlock could easily spend his entire day in his classroom, grading papers, making worksheets and tests, studying up on the next topics, or simply hiding from whoever might wander by, looking for a word. Thankfully, as Sherlock was walking up the stairs to go back to his room, the first couple students started to trickle down to the Great Hall, all looking tired and a little bit stressed from the amount of homework they would surely have.Sherlock couldn't take responsibility for all of that stress, he had assigned a paper that Wednesday, and if the students had been procrastinating that badly, they deserved to suffer a little bit in result. Thankfully he ran into neither the caretaker nor the Slytherin, and he was able to walk word free all the way back to his classroom, undisturbed by the few people he passed. The Fat Friar was floating aimlessly down the hall, nodding kind of sleepily at Sherlock as he passed, but that was about it for recognition. So Sherlock walked into his classroom, sitting down once again at his desk and staring at the scarf that still sat there, untouched. It was like it was mocking him, a sign that Victor was still in his life whether he liked it or not. He was too reluctant to move it off of the desk, too scared to somehow hurt Victor's self-esteem or ego by discarding of the scarf once and for all, and much too embarrassed to give it back in person. So there it sat, the green and silver scarf sitting innocently on the desk, the very same scarf that Victor had given him, that Victor had touched, had said it matched beautifully with his eyes....No one had ever called Sherlock beautiful before. It was about three hours until finally someone knocked on his door. Not that he was waiting for them to knock, and not that he wanted a knock to come at all, but there was a knock all the same.
"Come in!" Sherlock called nervously, watching the door to see if that familiar boy would walk in. But instead, when the door opened, John walked in, as jovial and excited as ever, a large smile on his face.
"Hello Sherlock, beautiful day isn't it?" he asked.
"You seem rather...happy." Sherlock decided, not bothering to smile himself.
"You don't." John agreed. Sherlock sighed, casting his gaze almost automatically at the scarf still sitting on his desk. John's smile faded a little bit when he saw it. "That's still Victor's scarf?" he asked.
"He wanted me to keep it." Sherlock sighed. John nodded, looking rather awkward.
"Hey, about yesterday, after the game..." John muttered.
"I don't want to talk about it." Sherlock said quickly, looking up in fear. John looked rather surprised; as if that wasn't the reaction he was expecting.
"Oh, alright, I was just going to apologize for being such a jerk." He defended, holding up his hands innocently. Sherlock breathed a sigh of relief; he had thought that John had somehow found out about what had really happened after the match.
"Oh, oh yes, that's alright." Sherlock sighed.
"What did you think I was talking about?" John asked rather suspiciously.
"What, oh nothing." Sherlock muttered, his head reading in his hands and staring fixedly at the scarf once more.
"Is there something I should know? Did something happen with Victor?" John asked nervously, walking over and sitting on one of the student's desks.
"No, nothing happened." Sherlock lied.
"Then why are you staring at the scarf as if it had personally offended you?"John asked with a nervous laugh.
"I was just kind of wondering if I should even be routing for the Slytherins. I thought that maybe I should stay neutral, being a professor and all." Sherlock admitted, as if that was actually a concern of his.
"Are you worried about me?" John asked.
"Why would I be worried about you? Should I be worried?" Sherlock asked.
"No, I mean, are you worried I'll be mad at you for cheering for them? Because I did a little thinking last night, and I came to the conclusion that your life is your life, and I can't stop you from hanging out with anyone. Victor is a good kid, I guess, and you probably know him a lot better than I do, but I can't stop you, I can't argue with you and try to control you." John decided.Sherlock smiled rather ironically.
"No, I don't think I know him well at all." He admitted.
"I'm starting to think something happened. Did you two have a falling out? I mean, I pretend to be upset, but I'm really not." John decided with a guilty little smile.
"I'm not sure what we had, maybe a little, disagreement." Sherlock shrugged.
"About what?" John asked. Sherlock didn't answer, that was about as much as he wanted to go into that. If he said anymore, John was certainly going to catch on; somehow he was particularly good at guessing.
"What brings you to my classroom?" Sherlock asked, sitting up a bit straighter in an attempt to change the conversation.
"Boredom, I guess. I mean, I don't need a reason do I? That's sort of what friends do." John shrugged.
"Ah, well, I wouldn't know much about that would I?" he sighed.
"I think you know more than you give yourself credit for." John assured. Sherlock just shrugged, wondering if all of his 'friends' only hung out with him in hope that someday they could be more than friends. Of course, Sherlock wouldn't mind all that much with John, he was rather attractive... Sherlock blinked a couple of times to get his mind on track. Crazy, now he was just acting crazy.
"You alright?" John laughed.
"What, yes, I'm fine, why?" Sherlock asked.
"You look like you just had a revelation." John decided with a laugh.
"I didn't, I'm fine." Sherlock muttered rather quickly. "I'm fine." He muttered again, more to himself.
"Well, so do you want to spend this lovely Sunday with me, or would you like to stare at this scarf and blink wildly for the rest of the day?" John asked.
"Little bit of both, possibly." Sherlock admitted with a forced laugh.
"I'm surprised that little quidditch star isn't here already, maybe he had a late night." John laughed.
"I'm sure he's fine." Sherlock lied. Victor probably wasn't in the partying mood after whatever Sherlock had said to him out there. It had all been kind of a blur, Sherlock almost lost consciousness after Victor had gotten so close...he just knew he had to run.
"So, do you want to play some wizard chess?" John asked.
"Wizard chess...yes, alright." Sherlock agreed.
"I only have the muggle version, it's a bit dull actually, the pieces don't move, they just kind of sit there and mock me as I make all the wrong moves."John laughed.
"Oh, consider that a positive. The wizarding pieces yell at you and scream if they think you're a rubbish player." Sherlock insisted, getting to his feet to go get his set.
"Alright then, sounds very peaceful." John agreed with a smile.
"It really isn't, entertaining though." Sherlock decided, running off into his room. A moment later he returned with the chess board tucked securely under his arm, John sitting on the floor next to the desk cross legged.
"You want to play on the floor?" Sherlock asked in mild surprise. John shrugged, but stayed seated.
"I figured it's better than playing in chairs." He decided. Sherlock nodded in agreement, not really favoring either option, so he set the board up and sat down on the other side of John, sitting cross legged as well and setting up his little white pieces.
"So, you know how to play I presume?" Sherlock asked as John made sure all of his pieces looked alright.
"Oh yes, I played all the time in muggle school, I was part of the chess club and everything." He agreed.
"Chess club? Sounds exhilarating." Sherlock laughed.
"Oh ya, chess club got you all the girls. Nah, it was pretty lame, but I was captain and everything, so I'll give you a run for your money." John insisted.
"Well, the only person I've ever properly played with was myself, halfway between a game I'd usually try to curse my brother." Sherlock shrugged.
"That's depressing. Don't you have other friends though, that would play with you? Have you and Victor played together?" John asked.
"You spat his name out like it was a swear word." Sherlock observed.
"It is, you know I don't like that kid. But then again, I can't do anything to prevent you from liking him." John insisted. Sherlock sighed, observing his pieces and debating whether or not to tell John what had happened down at the lake. Then again, it wasn't really John's problem, and if Victor wanted him to know, he would tell him. It also wouldn't be fair to go blabbing before he knew the whole story himself, even though Sherlock knew exactly what had happened at the lake, he doesn't know exactly what was going on in Victor's head. He might have just been doing that on a dare, or he had been so thrilled with winning the game that he had lost his head, he didn't really know what he was doing or why. Because no one could ever like Sherlock, right?