Title: John, I’m a Wizard
Part: 13/30
Fandoms: BBC!Sherlock/Harry Potter
Pairings: Pre-slash and slash Johnlock, established Mystrade, established Drarry
Author: Z-sama (dA user the-lady-harkness) and TWTL
Beta: none
WARNINGS: slash, mentions of mpreg, sherlock holmes being sherlock holmes, super awesome adorable Watson-Holmes children cuteness.
MISC: horizontal lines across denote time period changes (going into and out of the bedtime story) and o0o denotes scene changes (both inside and outside the story)

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“Dead end, mate,” Teddy said, gasping for breath. Sherlock raised his wand as they neared the end of the passage. “Bombarda,” he said, blowing a hole into the wall. He jumped out first, casting a protection shield instantly to block the hexes cast his way as Teddy came out of the hole behind him into the parlour.

Sherlock’s eyes were hard as he looked beyond his shield to the woman holding the gift box. When had she left the dining hall?… “Isolde Thorton,” he growled.

He heard something else… someone else.

“Confundus!” Teddy shouted before Sherlock could stop him.

But it was too late. The spell backfired, sending Teddy back into the hole in the parlour wall.

Sherlock couldn’t lower his shield to disarm the woman standing behind Isolde without risking getting hit with backlash himself. And he certainly couldn’t push too hard… He couldn’t risk using wandless magic with no way of focusing it, of controlling it. His only alternative was to… attempt to negotiate. To stall for time.

“Pansy Parkinson,” he said and the woman in black robes smiled behind his own former arranged fiancé. “Take your associates and leave. These people have nothing to do with this.” He licked his lips, trying his hardest to remain calm. His heart hadn’t been beating so hard and so furiously since the rooftop. Since The Fall…

It all came back to then… “It’s me you want. Leave the rest and take me.”

The woman glared, and with a wave of her hand Isolde was forced to step aside. Sherlock watched her, taking in every scrap of evidence he could. His mind soaking up the dead look in her eyes. The rigid way she stood and the stiff hold on the box as now the searing cold of Dementors flew up out of it in a flurry of black and sorrow. “We’ve gone beyond that, Severus. I’m here for your mate.”

Behind him he could hear Teddy as he started to come to.

“If I can’t have him, I’ll kill everyone here. Your family-“

“Despise them all,” Sherlock interrupted her. “I suggest you start with my brother first.”

“Your friends.”

“Family friends. None of them mine.”

Her pale face cracked as her lips pulled into a cruel smirk. “My Lady will have her revenge, Severus. Your mate’s life to pay for both of her’s!” She raised her wand as Teddy pulled himself back to his feet, gripping the exposed bit of wall tightly.

He had no choice. Not with Dementors on the loose as well… It was either break the Imperius curse on Isolde Thorton, leaving himself exposed to Parkinson’s attack, destroy the blasted two-way box in her hands and again leave himself open… or ignore her completely and attack Parkinson, the last of the death eaters, directly, leaving himself open to whatever came out of that box from hell.

“Teddy, when I open my mouth, get down,” he said, hoping his godsibling had heard him. Then, with as much power as he could muster in his voice, he shouted. “Expulso Maxima!”

o0o

John was pacing. Just… pacing. He couldn’t do much else as the witches and wizards locked in there with him were on edge. Waiting with wands out and for the doors to crash in. Waiting for another fight to begin. He was a soldier, and a doctor. He wasn’t supposed to sit back on his haunches and just… wait.

Finally he kicked one of the chairs in frustration before throwing himself into another. He rubbed at his wrist through his cuff, feeling the cold metal chaffing at his skin. He’d not thought about it since Sherlock slapped it on him. He hadn’t noticed it but maybe once or twice since. Remembering what he’d been told it was for, he hadn’t thought it important to have it removed until they left this place anyway.

But now he rubbed at it, because it was either that or thrashing the furniture.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced up into the face of Lily. “Are you alright?” she asked him, summoning the chair across from him, the one he’d kicked, closer to her.

“It isn’t right,” he said, looking at her. “Hiding in here…”

She nodded, understanding how he felt. Though born after the last great wizarding war, she was the child of its greatest hero. She was a warrior from the cradle. And she didn’t like this anymore than he did. “He’ll be alright,” she said. “If anything, they’ll run away screaming when he starts to deduce them to death.”

John wanted to smile… He wanted to laugh, and could hear Sherlock’s voice in his head doing just that. Deducing the dark wizards to death. But… he couldn’t.

Lily sat, looking at him and keeping a hand on his arm. “Look at me,” she said. He just stared at her hand. “My brother is brilliant. He was top of his class at Hogwarts. And according to your stories, he’s outsmarted the planet’s most evil, psychotic criminal mastermind. This… This is just a walk in the park for Sev.”

“I can’t just sit here.”

“There’s nothing you can do out there. You’re a muggle. You don’t even have a muggle weapon. Here you’re safe. And knowing you’re in here, he can do what needs to be done. That’s what matters,” she said, letting her hand slide down his arm to rest on his wrist. Her fingers felt the bracelet and her expression softened. “Trust me,” she said, trying her best to sound reassuring. “Everyone else in this place my brother wouldn’t life a finger to save, except mummy. But you John… He’d do anything to keep you safe.”

He nodded, but couldn’t help thinking about the battle outside. Knowing he was useless to them, but wanting to be out there just the same. To help Sherlock and the others in any way he could.

Then… looking to his wrist, to Lily’s hand there he got an idea. He pulled his arm away and unbuttoned the cuff of his sleeve, pushing it up his arm. “This,” John said. “Lestrade’s got one just like it, Sherlock said. It’s supposed to show I’m a muggle, right? A special muggle. A guest of your family or something.”

She nodded, watching his hand closely. Eyeing that bracelet.

“Sherlock also said it’s so I don’t get accidentally hexed or cursed or whatever. What does it do?”

She frowned then, looking from his wrist to his face. Clearly she didn’t like what he’d said. “You don’t know?”

He shook his head. “No. He just slapped it on me a few days back. Right before that party. What, exactly, does this thing do? How does it help me? Clearly if I’ve got it covered up, you lot still need to have a way of knowing it’s there so I don’t get turned into a toad.”

“John,” she said seriously, searching his face carefully for any sign that he knew more than he claimed. Any sign of deception. She only saw his confusion and his worry. At last, she took him by the wrist, more forcefully this time, and traced over the designs etched into the metal. “He really didn’t tell you anything more about this?”

“No,” he snapped, a little more harshly than he’d intended. “If he did, I’d have said.”

She continued to examine the bracelet, studying it carefully as she spoke. “It’s imbued with very powerful, very ancient protective magic. Greg does have one, but it’s different from this. Mycroft had it made for him. This one is… older. Much older.” She looked at his face again, studying it to see if he honestly did want to know what it was. If her brother hadn’t told him the truth, he must have had a good reason. He’d never done anything without a reason. Finally, she nodded.

John frowned. “Lily?”

“It’s a binding bracelet,” she said at last. “It protects the wearer, and allows one with no magical blood to see our world. See the things that we keep hidden from your kind. We only give them to muggles we intend to…”

John’s eyes widened, but he had to know. He had to hear it. If not from Sherlock himself, then someone else. “Intend to what? Tell me?”

“It’s not my place,” she said. “He didn’t tell you, so he must have had a good reason-“

“Tell me,” he demanded. “Or I’ll open the bloody doors and find him myself.”

“Open those doors and we’re dead.”

“We’ll be dead anyway, trapped in here like this,” John replied with surprising, and dangerous calm.

She knew he was right. She knew he’d also do just as he’d said. In the short time she had gotten to know this muggle, one thing was very clear to her whether John realized it or not. Her brother would die for him… and he for Sherlock. “You have a plan, don’t you?” she asked. “That’s why you wanted to know about it.”

“Excellent deduction,” John said, realizing only after he’d said it how it sounded. “Is there a way for you to see what kind of protections are on it, exactly? You said powerful and ancient. Anything else? Anything at all?”

She glanced to the others briefly before nodding, but changed the subject… It was not her place to tell him more. “If you go out there, you’ll need help.”

“No. It’s faster if I-“

“You’re not going alone. You’ve got no magic. No weapons. You get hurt and my brother will destroy me and anything in his path.”

“He won’t-“

“I’m not kidding. I’ve seen the terrible things he is capable of when you are in danger. It nearly killed Mycroft and I the last time. Severus can’t… If he loses control… He’s a living bomb, John. Even Voldemort would wet his robes if he had to face Severus in the middle of a panic attack.”

o0o

Teddy had thrown himself to the floor, narrowly escaping the backlash created by Sherlock’s spell, which knocked the man backwards. He’d positioned himself so that he would slam against the wall rather than back into the hidden passage.

Parkinson’s laughter was like a murder of crows, crying into the air as she unleashed a wordless curse. “Weak… And I thought your kind were supposed to be strong. It seems I’ve been misinformed about your skill,” she said, pointing he wand right at Sherlock’s heaving chest.

He laughed. He couldn’t help it. To him it was so obvious the choice he had to make. It was so very… very simple. “You’re an idiot,” he said between breaths. “A complete and utter idiot. Anderson is better than you, and he loves dinosaurs!”

There was a cracking noise. Then, dust sprinkled down as the ceiling above began to buckle. Sherlock’s eyes cut to where his wand had fallen. Silently he summoned it to him and then, where she couldn’t quite see his hand movements, he hummed a small reducto.

“Teddy!” he snapped as the box in Isolde’s hands shattered, causing splinters to fly in every direction. She screamed as the ceiling began to cave in. When Sherlock had shouted, his godsibling had gotten back to his feet to run, the barrier broken by the force of the expulso spell. He tackled the possessed and screaming woman, just as the ceiling caved. But before it could crush her, the last Death Eater apparated.

“NO!” Sherlock howled in rage, more that he could not capture her and question her and demand more about her so called Lady. He knew who it was, of course… But how had the woman gotten word out from Azkaban?…

“Sherlock, help me!” Teddy called, even as Sherlock climbed the heap that had been the parlour ceiling, parts of it still crumbling in as he came back down the other side. There were more important matters at hand. Dark wizards were still loose in his parents’ home…

And he’d seen dementors come out of that damnable box! Wand clutched tightly in his hand he made his way back through the hallways, throwing every door open as he passed in search of Parkinson. In the back of his mind, he knew John was safe. John was in the library. The library was impregnable. And even still John was unknowing, insofar as Sherlock knew, in possession of the very rare Nysae Colafus.(1) The most powerful protective artifact he had been able to find in his travels.

Knowing all of this to be fact, knowing John was safe… He had to keep reminding himself of these facts. Had to keep telling himself that nothing could happen to his blogger. As long as he believed that he could keep a clear head. Keep his calm.

o0o

The plan was simple. Lily would remain behind. She had to. But another would go with him, Astra Longbottom drew the short straw. But she was fast, Neville had assured him. And her knowledge of counter-curses and healing spells was better than most. She was training to be a healer, so she would have been much better help than the others.

She and John would go out to, using the bangle on John’s arm to shield them, as they took care of the injured. Lily didn’t like it. She knew it was far too dangerous.

John had made it quite clear that he wasn’t going to just sit around on his arse and do nothing. Wait to be attacked. Wait to be slaughtered.

They were about to leave the library, after discovering the wards on the room would not allow apparition into or out of it. It was a blessing, they realized… as otherwise they would all be dead or dying by now. Lily had a shining cloak over her arm. She presented this to John. “Take this,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Mummy’s cloak. Well… Sev… Sherlock’s cloak now I suppose. He keeps stealing it.” She held it out to him. “He must have left it behind one night… Use it. If they can’t see you, they can’t attack you.”

John nodded and took it from her. Astra watched as he draped it over his shoulders, then pulled it up over his head, disappearing completely. “How do I look?”

“You don’t,” Astra said. “Budge up. Won’t do any good if they can see me.” She felt around where he’d disappeared and found the cloth. Lifting it up she scooted under it with him. “Okay. Where first?”

“The way we came in. Direct path to the dining hall where it all started,” John said.

Lily waved a couple of men over. One of them was a Hawthorne, John remembered. An auror, if he’d heard Sherlock right. “Open it up and cover them. We’ll count to five and shut the door. Any longer than that…”

“We’ll make it through,” Astra said, grabbing John’s hand in an attempt to calm herself down. John gave it a squeeze back. Through the sheer fabric he saw Lily nod and the doors opened a crack. Beyond the man they’d left outside was still fighting, but flagging now. If there were more time, he’d have told him to go in. Told him to head for cover. As it was…

They scooted through and the doors slammed shut behind them. Before them were bodies. Most of them shrouded in black robes, but dotted among them as they made their way down the hall…

---

“…As we made our way down the hall…” John trailed off as he yawned, stretching some then rubbed at his face. “I think that’s a good place to stop tonight, don’t you?” He looked across to Sherlock who was leaning back against the wall, eyes half closed. He’d gotten comfortable since his last portion of the story, though it wasn’t that long ago.

Harriet rubbed at her eyes, but Hudson… Hudson was pouting. “But-“

“Listen to your dad,” Sherlock muttered sleepily. John was glad to see him tired for a change, but knew it wouldn’t be long before the man would pass out cold wherever he was. Then it’d be hell trying to get him to go to the bed proper.

John leaned over some to kiss his little girl on the side of her head, then stood with another yawn and stretched, arms reaching for the ceiling. His jumper rode up just a little, showing the waistband of his favorite sweats. Sherlock opened an eye, brow raised as he took in the sight before the jumper fell back down again and John laid a kiss to his son’s forehead. “Get to sleep you two,” he said.

Sherlock closed his eye back, hoping John hadn’t seen him looking as the soldier took both his hands and pulled. Hauling him up off the bed. “As for you, bed.”

“Sleep is boring.”

“I know,” John said as Sherlock draped an arm around his shoulders, leaning as if to make John carry the bulk of his weight. “But you need to sleep.”

Behind them the twins yawned and snuggled up under their blankets. “G’night, daddy,” Hudson said, with his sister following. “G’night father.”

Their parents turned off the light on the way out and shut the door. Sherlock, lazy as ever, made John practically carry him downstairs. Once they were in bed, and John just on the edge of sleep… Sherlock poked him in the arm.

“John.”

He purposely didn’t respond, hoping that whatever it was Sherlock would just give up and go to sleep like a sort-of normal person.

“John,” he whispered, poking again, harder this time.

John screwed his eyes shut tighter. He was going to ignore his husband until one of them passed out cold.

Poke. Poke. “John. I want ice cream.”

Poke. Poke.

Poke.

Shove.

“For the love of god Sherlock, you know where the bloody kitchen is.”

Sherlock huffed in the dark, and John could feel his glare boring into the back of his head. “Curried ice cream.”

“It’s too early for bizarre cravings. You’ve still got a few weeks before that.”

“Jaaaawwn,” he whined. “I really want it.”

Throwing the blankets off John growled and muttered something under his breath. Whatever it was, it made Sherlock smirk. After John was out of the room, he turned on the bedside lamp and pulled his book into his lap. He was tired, but he was actually hungry. And Sherlock had learned the first time around that if he pestered John enough, annoyed him enough, there was nothing that man wouldn’t do for him.

Sometimes, just sometimes, pregnancy was very convenient.

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1. Nysae Colafus - Latin - Nyse Cuff
Nyse is a mythical region associated with nymphs. Specifically those who looked after and raised Dionysus.
Yes. this name was picked because the translation sounds like “Nice Cuff”