The Gryffindor Quidditch changing room.
Just as Harry and Ron were about to leave, Sherlock and Hermione burst in.
Harry glanced at Sherlock and found him wearing his usual air of picture-perfect indifference.
Hermione, meanwhile, had both hands twisted around her Gryffindor scarf, looking flustered but resolute.
Watching the two of them, Harry couldn't help thinking to himself.
Truly, life's just a stage, and it's all down to acting.
If he hadn't known exactly what was going on beforehand, even he would have been fooled.
"I want to talk to you, Harry."
Hermione took a deep breath, her eyes fixed intently on Harry.
"You shouldn't have done it—you heard what Slughorn said, it's against the rules."
"So what are you going to do, turn us in?"
Ron sneered and asked.
He cared far less about "the rules" than Hermione did.
Even now, convinced his best mate had drugged him, he still looked thoroughly put out.
Only getting caught counted as cheating.
As long as you didn't get caught, it was a win!
"What are you two even talking about?"
Harry said, turning to hang up his Quidditch robes.
That way Ron couldn't see the smug grin on his face.
"You know exactly what we're talking about, Harry!"
Hermione said, her voice sharp.
"You slipped Felix Felicis—liquid luck—into Ron's pumpkin juice at breakfast!"
"No, I didn't." Harry turned away as he spoke.
"You did too, Harry!"
Hermione said, worked up.
"That's why everything went so well today!
"The weather was perfect, the Slytherin Beaters got hurt so nothing they threw would land, and Ron saved every single shot!" Ron said nothing. He still believed, at that moment, that Harry really had done it.
Without thinking, he glanced toward Sherlock.
At times like this, he always wanted to know what this friend of his was actually thinking.
"Dear Hermione, why not hear Harry out first?"
Just then, Sherlock spoke. His manner was entirely in keeping with his usual composure.
"But I didn't put anything in it!"
Now that the moment had come to reveal the truth, Harry finally let his grin break free.
He reached into his robe pocket and pulled out a small bottle.
"Look!"
Sherlock's face stayed blank. Hermione, deliberately, put on a look of astonishment and snatched the little bottle away.
"The stopper's sealed with wax, and the potion's all still here..."
Hermione gave it a careful once-over, narrating each detail aloud like a piece of evidence—then burst out laughing.
"All right, Harry, I can't keep this up."
Still laughing, Hermione handed the little bottle of Felix Felicis back to Harry.
Sherlock and Harry burst out laughing too.
The changing room was suddenly full of cheerful noise.
Noticing Ron still looked utterly lost, Sherlock shook his head.
"Ron, I don't think you've caught on at all!"
"Caught—caught on to what?"
"I faked spiking your pumpkin juice, and made sure Hermione called it out to your face, all so you'd believe you'd really drunk Felix Felicis."
"There was really nothing in my pumpkin juice?"
Ron said, thoroughly stunned.
"But the weather was so good... Vaisey couldn't play... you really didn't give me the luck potion?"
Hermione cut in. "Of course not, Ron.
"The reason you saved so many shots in that match just now is that you believed you had good luck.
"In reality, every bit of it came from your own skill!"
Ron stood there dazed for a moment, then said, "You actually tricked me!"
"That's right, we tricked you!"
Harry laughed. "Now you understand, don't you—if you believe in yourself, there's no shot too tricky for you to save!"
"But you tricked me... well, never mind, this idea was Sherlock's, wasn't it?"
"Obviously, my friend!"
"Sherlock, you really are—"
Ron said, and drove a hard punch into Sherlock's shoulder.
"Beautifully done!"
With that, he pulled Harry into a tight hug.
"Thanks, mate!"
Two lines of tears slid slowly from Ron's eyes.
"So—does that mean you can make up with Lavender now?" Hermione watched the scene, smiling. "She's been clinging to my arm the whole time up in the stands. I thought she was going to snap it."
"Oh, Hermione..." Ron sighed. "That's on me, I know. I'll apologize to her in a bit."
Ron said this, but by the time they'd made it back to the Gryffindor common room, before he could get a word out, Lavender's mouth was already on his.
The two of them locked together in front of the whole common room, utterly inseparable—you honestly couldn't tell whose hand was whose.
"Heh, well. Seems I really was overthinking it before."
Watching the scene, Hermione said, a little self-mockingly.
"Sherlock, Harry, you were right—once this match came around, I really had nothing to worry about with those two."
"Hermione, you still don't understand just how important Quidditch is."
Harry sighed and was about to say more to Hermione when he was swallowed up by a crowd offering congratulations.
In moments like this, even Sherlock wasn't as popular as Harry.
The Creevey brothers wanted to write up an exhaustive match analysis; Harry only just managed to shake them off.
Then a whole crowd of girls closed in around him.
Infuriatingly, no matter how boring or off-putting Harry deliberately tried to sound, they burst out laughing anyway, batting their eyes at him nonstop. "He's proven the point," Hermione said, shrugging at the sight. "Well—as long as everyone's happy."
Sherlock gave a faint smile. "Yes. As long as everyone's happy."
Not long after that first Quidditch match, snow began swirling past the windows again.
It beat against the frost-glazed panes. Christmas was drawing near.
As in every year past, Hagrid had single-handedly hauled in the twelve Christmas trees the Great Hall could never do without.
Holly and tinsel wound around the stair banisters.
Everlasting candles flickered inside the suits of armour's helmets, and bunches of mistletoe hung at intervals all down the corridors.
"Slughorn's planning a Christmas party this year."
Hermione looked at Harry's helpless expression with equal parts sympathy and amusement.
"Harry, there's no escaping it this time—he specifically asked Sherlock to find out which evening you're free, so he can be sure to schedule the party on a night you can actually come."
"He really doesn't give up." Ron said, put out.
"It's fine, Ronnie," said Lavender beside him, tightening her grip on Ron's arm. "It's just a party—not going would be fine too!" Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance and sighed.
It was, of course, a good thing that Ron and Lavender had made up. But the price of that change was rather steep.
Whether to make up for the time she'd spent giving Ron the cold shoulder or not, Lavender Brown now seemed to treat every moment she wasn't kissing Ron as a moment wasted.
Since girls could wander freely into the boys' dormitory, she now came up every single morning to wake Ron herself.
Under these circumstances, this girl had abruptly wedged herself right into the middle of Gryffindor's famous quartet.
Harry, too, had a girlfriend in Cho Chang, but she was a Ravenclaw, and had no way of sticking to Harry's side at every hour. Even if she could have, she wouldn't have done it this way.
Lavender's ardour didn't stop at affecting the boys—even Hermione and Parvati, who shared a dormitory with her, found it hard to bear. Whenever Ron was standing with either Sherlock or Harry, the moment Lavender appeared, she'd wedge herself right between Sherlock (or Harry) and Ron, then throw an arm around Ron's neck.
"Well, since that's how it is, let's just go!" Hermione suggested. "Once the party's over, we can head home for the holidays!"
"Fine."
"Oh, and everyone Slughorn invited can bring a guest. You should tell Cho soon."
"No problem."
Harry nodded. Things were different now.
Back at the Triwizard Tournament's Yule Ball, he'd had to agonize before he'd worked up the nerve to ask Cho Chang.
But now that Cho was properly his girlfriend, asking her was the most natural thing in the world.
Overhearing Harry and Hermione's conversation, Ron couldn't help asking.
"Wait, you're saying everyone who's invited can bring a guest?"
"Yes. Why, is there a problem?"
Hermione looked at him, puzzled.
"Sherlock, I've had a brilliant idea!"
Ron turned, eager, to Sherlock, who'd stayed quiet this whole time.
"You and Hermione are already Slughorn's invited guests—if the two of you go together, that's two whole spots wasted! Why don't you each invite one of us instead—me and Lavender?
"That way Lavender and I could go to the Christmas party too!"
When Ron finished, Sherlock's expression stayed as unruffled as ever, while Hermione couldn't help herself.
"Ron, you really are a genius."
Harry gave Ron a helpless look, at a loss for what to say.
Ron ignored the remark entirely and just kept his eyes fixed, bright and hopeful, on Sherlock and Hermione.
"So? So? You don't want your good mates to get laughed at by everyone else, do you?"
Sherlock nodded. "All right."
A flicker of delight lit up Ron's face, and he and Lavender turned expectantly toward Hermione.
"Sorry, Ron, I've already invited someone else." Hermione said it flatly.
"Wh—what?"
Ron's chest took the blow like a punch. "You—how could you?!"
Hermione stared at him, at a loss for words. "Why couldn't I? You never even told me ahead of time."
"I only just thought of it..." Ron mumbled. "Er, fine. Who did you invite?"
Hermione said, offhand, "Luna."
"Luna?" Ron blinked, stunned. "You invited a girl?"
"You could've brought anyone!" Lavender looked even more shocked. "Anyone! And you picked Loony Lovegood?"
"Hey. Don't call her that, Miss Brown."
Ginny happened to be walking past just then, and hearing Lavender say that, spoke up, clearly annoyed.
Lavender was about to snap back, but Ron pulled her back and turned to Ginny instead.
"You haven't invited anyone else yet, have you?"
Ginny raised an eyebrow. "What, planning to hit up your little sister again?"
"Come on, please!" Ron pressed his palms together, begging.
Ginny frowned, and Lavender jumped in quickly.
"Sorry, Ginny, that's on me—I really shouldn't have said that about Lovegood!"
Ginny knew perfectly well that, deep down, Lavender still thought Luna was a loony—that the apology was only a way to pry the precious spot out of her hands.
But looking at her brother's pleading face, and worn down besides by weeks of being pestered by a pack of boys, she gave in and nodded. It looked like a happy ending for everyone—until Parvati Patil found out, and wasn't happy about it at all.
Because she, too, had very much wanted to go to Slughorn's party.
She'd just never imagined her own roommate would manage to snag a spot right out from under her.
Now that Lavender had beaten her to it, she was more than a little put out.
"She could always ask Neville!"
It was nearly eight in the evening by then, and Sherlock, Hermione, and Harry had gathered in the common room.
Hearing Hermione bring up the whole business, Harry couldn't help chiming in.
Then he caught Sherlock and Hermione both giving him a strange look.
"What? Did I say something wrong?"
"Dear Harry, I have told you more than once—you really must pay closer attention to what goes on around you."
Sherlock said, smiling. "Neville's already invited Abbott."
"Abbott? Hannah Abbott, the Hufflepuff prefect?"
"That's right," Hermione put in. "You share a dormitory with Neville—I'd have thought you'd know that."
"I honestly had no idea."
Hermione teased, "Typical. I suppose Cho's the only thing on your mind these days?"
"That's not true!" Harry protested.
"Mm. And Voldemort," said Sherlock.
"Hey!"
Harry said, put out.
"Come on, Ron and Lavender are here!"
Hermione pointed.
Lavender had her arm looped affectionately through Ron's, practically pressed flush against him.
"Honestly, you two..."
Ginny came up from behind them, sounding thoroughly unimpressed.
"Could you at least give Slughorn some grace? Anyone who didn't know better would think one of you two was the one who got invited." Ron cleared his throat, let go of Lavender, and went to stand beside Ginny.
Lavender, reluctant as she was, had no choice but to fall in beside Sherlock.
By the time they reached the entrance hall, an unusual number of girls were milling about there.
Cho Chang and Luna were standing together, talking about something.
The moment Harry laid eyes on Cho Chang, his face lit right up.
You can read more than 40 chapters on:
patreon.com/MikeyMuse