A.N.: Thank you to Ariane De Vere for her transcript of Hound of the Baskerville, cause otherwise I literally could not have written this chapter.

Warnings: Character death (sort of), mentions of bullying and child abuse

Chapter 2 – Professor Holmes

The door of the Defence Against the Dark Arts room was closed at seven o' clock on Thursday evening. Molly stood before it, staring up at it, and wondering if Sherlock was already here or not.

She looked both left and right, but there was no one coming down the corridor. She almost wondered if he was coming at all. It would not be beyond him to have found something more to his liking to do with his time, and to cancel at the last minute without even telling her.

"Are you waiting for someone, girl?"

Molly jumped at the sound of the voice, twisting round to see where it was coming from. Her eyes settled on a painting on the wall behind her. It was of a wizard who was dressed in Muggle military uniform from the Regency period. He had short brown hair and a glorious grey moustache, and was standing with a perfectly straight back. The background of the painting was a large field filled with poppies that made it seem like his torso – clad in its red jacket – was blended into the surroundings.

"Um," she squeaked, in shock from this sudden intrusion on her thoughts. "Y-yes."

The figure in the painting smiled. "He's already in there," he gestured to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. "Saw him go in about fifteen minutes ago, asked me to send you in. Terribly sorry I'm a bit late, I was over there." He pointed to his left, and Molly followed with her eyes to a painting of the inside of a pub in which several wizards were repeatedly downing foaming pints of lager. "Dreadfully fun bunch of lads, I should say!" the military wizard grinned. He stared at the drunkards longingly for a moment before snapping back to his senses. "Anyway, you should be going in."

"Thank you," Molly nodded, tearing her eyes away from the pub painting; one of the wizards had now fallen off of his bar stool and placed his mug on his head – throwing the contents over himself in the process – and was giggling uncontrollably. She turned to the door and made to push it open.

"Ah, young love!"

Molly turned sharply to the military wizard, who was again smiling warmly.

"N-no!" she exclaimed. "That's not… that's not what we're doing!" She felt her cheeks darken. "He's tutoring me-"

The military wizard held up his hand to silence her. "Don't worry! I won't tell anyone!" He tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger and winked knowingly.

Deciding that it wasn't really worth getting into an argument with a painting, Molly opened the door to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and closed it quickly behind her.

The classroom was laid out exactly the same as it had been for her lesson a few days previously: the tables and chairs were Vanished, and the case containing the Boggart was thrashing wildly as the creature inside ached to be let out. Sherlock – looking every part the proper professor, despite his school robes – was standing behind the case.

"Good evening," he nodded, sounding as though he didn't really want to be there.

"Hi," she greeted, taking a tentative step forward. "How did you… get the classroom like this?"

Sherlock smiled that smile that he always did when he knew he was better than you. "I… charmed Professor Boaz."

Molly blanched. "You cast a spell on the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?"

"No. I have a way with words," he smirked. "So," he began, straightening up and pulling his wand from his pocket. "Ready?"

Molly sighed and moved closer to the bucking case, apprehensive to have to face that Boggart once more. She retrieved her wand and took a deep breath to calm her nerves. She nodded. "I'm ready."

Sherlock tapped the case with his wand, and the Boggart climbed out.

The Boggart that emerged had the appearance of a man wearing Muggle clothes: brown trousers with especially dull shoes, a gingham work shirt and a green jacket with suede elbow patches. He wore rectangular horn-rimmed glasses on his sharp but wrinkled face and his short brown hair was brushed into a meticulously smart style. He took a step towards Molly with a look of pure disgust on his face.

"FREAK!" he screamed. Molly instinctively took a step back. "A WITCH? I HAD SUCH DREAMS FOR YOU! WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO TELL PEOPLE WHEN THEY ASK WHERE YOU ARE HALF THE YEAR? ALL WE WANTED WAS FOR YOU TO BE NORMAL! BUT YOU'RE NOT! NORMAL, IT SEEMS, WAS TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR!"

"Molly, don't listen to it!" Sherlock shouted, but she could barely hear him over the Boggart.

Molly gulped and raised her wand. "R-Ridikkulus!" she exclaimed.

The charm did nothing.

"YOU'RE A FREAK! A MONSTROSITY! AN ABOMINATION!"

"No…" she gasped, her hand shaking. "Ridikkulus!"

"It's not real!" the Ravenclaw was saying, but his voice was lost under the Boggart's.

"Ridikkulus! Ridikkulus! RIDIKKULUS!"

"I WISH YOU HAD NEVER BEEN BORN!"

"RIDIKKULUS!"

Molly froze as the Boggart was silenced, a look of pure fury on its face. The spell had hit it squarely in the back, and it rounded on the Ravenclaw in anger, whose wand was raised to it.

"Ridikkulus!" Sherlock said with confidence.

The Boggart fell into the case, and the Ravenclaw locked it. The creature inside began to fight against its container once more.

A silence filled the room so thick it could have been cut with a knife. Molly's hand was trembling. She was, on some level, glad that Jim and Sebastian were not there to laugh at her; but Sherlock was gazing at her calculatingly and in all honesty she wasn't sure which was worse.

"I-I'm sorry." She squeaked, and turned quickly on her heel and ran through the door.

~{G}~

It had been decided that the first lesson had been a disaster. Yet – for some reason – Sherlock remained hopeful that with further practice the Boggart could be vanquished. Molly suspected that his drive was fuelled by boredom and that in the absence of a case, anything was preferable to dealing with whatever black hole his mind-numbing boredom sent him to. So they continued with their lessons on a weekly basis, meeting in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom every Thursday at seven o' clock.

The second lesson went only marginally better than the first. While Molly managed to hold up against the Boggart for a few more minutes this time, the end result was the same: a quick apology and a bolt out the door.

The third lesson was better still. While not actually banishing the Boggart, Molly did manage to silence it for a few seconds before it continued its hate-fuelled ranting.

By the fourth lesson, Molly was no closer to banishing her Boggart; she was, however, finding that she was becoming less scared of it. Repeated exposure to it had dulled her fear of the prospect of the shouting figure, even though her spellwork still left a little to be desired.

By the fifth lesson, she was merely frustrated at her lack of progress.

"Ridikkulus! Ridikkulus! RIDIKKULUS!" Molly screamed at the Boggart.

"FREAK! ABOMINATION!"

Molly growled in frustration, stamping her foot on the floor as she glared at the Boggart.

"Bugger off!" she shouted, thinking that it was at least worth a try. Needless to say, it made no difference.

"Only one emotion works against a Boggart," her teacher warned her, his voice calm but raised over the Boggart's shouting.

"Well, that wasn't working, so I thought I'd try something else!" she snapped, turning from the Boggart to Sherlock.

"Ridikkulus!" the Ravenclaw waved his wand at the Boggart and it retreated back into its case, thrashing wildly against the lock.

Molly sighed and began pacing. What was she doing wrong? Why was this so difficult? In the background, she was aware of Sherlock talking.

"Calm down, you're doing better than before-" She huffed sarcastically. "-and it doesn't matter that you're not getting it just yet."

"Oh, doesn't it?" she chuckled humourlessly, rounding on Sherlock. "I suppose you got it right first time, did you? Mr Ravenclaw I'm-so-much-smarter-than-everyone-else! What am I doing wrong? It's useless to tell me that I'm doing something wrong then suggest to fix it with practice, cause I'll keep on doing the same thing wrong again and again!"

Sherlock looked at her emotionlessly. It was a moment before he spoke.

"Molly…" he began. It seemed that whatever he was going to say was going to be painful for him to admit. "You're wrong."

"Of course I am! I'm always wrong, everyone is, because you're the great Sherlock Holmes and everyone is an idiot-"

"Molly."

She stopped abruptly, stunned into silence by the softness of his voice. "What?" she spat.

Sherlock gulped. "I… didn't get rid of my Boggart the first time." He spoke quickly as though if he were to allow himself any gaps he would stop altogether and take the secret to his grave.

Molly's eyes widened as she straightened herself up. She wasn't sure she was hearing right. "I'm sorry?"

Sherlock sighed and closed his eyes. "Not being able to perform a spell does not make you stupid. The practical side of magic is less to do with intelligence and more to do with physical ability: the precise wand movements, the correct pronunciation, and – what is probably the most likely issue with your spellwork – a certain amount of confidence, a belief that you can do it which becomes a working spell external to the mind.

"While intelligence relies on knowing things – facts, figures, the way events and pieces of information link together in the bigger picture – the practical side of magic can be hindered by more than simply not being smart enough to remember that it was Zeleophahad the Zealous who campaigned for goblin rights in the sixteenth century; practical magic can be hindered by emotions, which is why we practice fighting Boggarts in lessons in the first place, because their unique power is one that plays so heavily on our emotions." He opened his eyes slowly.

"I thought you'd deleted all your emotions?" Molly asked quietly.

"I am finding that it is a long process," Sherlock told her.

A moment passed in silence. "How did you get rid of the Boggart? In the end?"

"Practice," he said.

Molly chuckled slightly. "Can you show me, please?"

Sherlock's brow furrowed slightly. "Show you what?"

"How you got rid of the Boggart? So I can see what I'm doing wrong?"

"I have already told you what you're doing wrong," he explained, confused. "You don't truly believe that your spell will work."

Molly shifted slightly. "Please?"

Sherlock regarded her for a moment. "Fine," he sighed, and took his place before the writhing case. Molly walked round to the side of it, ready to open it with her wand. She looked over at the Ravenclaw inquiringly; he nodded.

"Alohomora," she said, and the case clicked open.

The Boggart – perhaps assuming that it would be facing the same opponent – emerged in the form of Molly's Boggart, its mouth already open to continue its tirade of abuse. When its eyes fell on its new adversary, however, it regarded the Ravenclaw carefully as it decided what to become. Suddenly, there was an almighty crack and the form of the Boggart changed.

It was still a human, but whereas Molly's Boggart had been 'alive', the person it now took the form of was lying on the ground with wide, dead eyes.

Molly recognised the person the Boggart represented, though she had never actually met him; the only reason that she knew what he looked like was due to his frequent photographic appearances in the Daily Prophet: Mycroft Holmes.

Yet what struck Molly most about the Boggart was not the identity that it took, but rather how he appeared to have died. There was an ugly hole over his heart, seeping crimson onto the floor. It was a wound that could only be made by one thing: a Muggle gun.

She glanced up at Sherlock with an inquisitive expression on her face. The Holmses were probably the most pureblood family in Britain – maybe even in the Europe – so how did Sherlock know what a Muggle gun was, let alone the damage that it could cause? Molly was ready to ask him this, but was shocked into silence by the look on the Ravenclaw's face.

He was staring down at the Boggart wide-eyed and – for Molly could think of no other word for it – scared. Yet he forced his expression back to its usual emotionless state, and raised his wand at the Boggart.

"Ridikkulus!"

Crack!

The form of the Boggart changed, but it was by no means gone. Its new form was also of a dead body; this time of the seventh year Gryffindor John Watson. The prospective Healer was lying perfectly still, a pool of blood collecting underneath his head.

"Ridikkulus!" the Ravenclaw shouted, his voice sounding slightly manic. The spell worked this time, and the Boggart was banished back into the case, which Sherlock locked with another flick of his wand.

A silence descended on the classroom. Sherlock looked up at Molly, glaring, as though daring the Hufflepuff to say anything about what had just happened.

"That should be enough for today," the Ravenclaw said stiffly, and with a few more flicks of his wand the case zoomed back into the cupboard at the front of the classroom and the tables and chairs re-emerged in their original positions. "Good evening."

Sherlock turned on the spot and swiftly exited, leaving Molly shocked, confused, and alone. She had known the Ravenclaw for three years now, and in all that time he had never shown any true form of emotion. Well, not emotion as was understood by most other people, at least. She had surely never seen him scared before; all evidence pointed to the fact that he was above such weaknesses.

Molly stood in the Defence Against the Dark Art classroom with the images of the Boggart in both its dead forms revolving around her head for at least fifteen minutes before she realised that she had been staring into space. She shook her head violently, snapping herself out of it. She tried to forget about the look on Sherlock's face when the Boggart had taken its shape. She wondered if it was a look that she would ever forget as long as she lived.

Yet as she reflected, she realised something: Sherlock had been truly scared. He probably still was, and no matter how startling it was that he was capable of such things, it was not something he should have to face alone.

Molly – filled with a sudden new surge of energy – bolted for the door, expertly dodging tables and chairs and throwing herself through the door and out into the corridor beyond. She instinctively took a left-turn, but was called back by a seemingly disembodied voice.

"Miss! Miss!"

Molly turned on the spot, before she realised that she was once again being addressed by the military wizard painting. She ran back down the corridor to him.

"He went that way," he offered helpfully, pointing in the opposite direction to the one Molly had been heading in.

"Oh!" Molly gasped. "Thanks!" She took off down the corridor.

"No problem! You go get him!"

Molly checked every door that she passed, seeing more empty classrooms than she thought even the massive castle could possibly hold. She was almost about to give up, sure that Sherlock had returned to Ravenclaw Tower, when she caught a glimpse out of the window into the grounds.

A light was flickering on the bank of the Black Lake and two people were sitting by it, a boy and a girl – sixth years by the look of it. The light from their probably completely-against-the-rules campfire illuminated the entire bank and, about fifty feet along was sat another: a fourth year Ravenclaw with jet black hair, sitting looking out over the surface of the Lake with his knees drawn up to his chest.

Her footsteps loud against the stone floor, Molly practically ran to the oak front doors, rushing through them and straight towards the Lake. When she was twenty feet from the Ravenclaw, she paused.

Sherlock was staring out at the Lake, as though transfixed by the moonlight glistening off of the watery surface. His grey-blue eyes were glistening with what looked like tears, and his pale skin shone brightly in the darkness.

She stepped forward tentatively, trying to be as quiet as possible. He made no move to acknowledge her presence, though Molly was certain that Sherlock knew that she was there. She neared the Ravenclaw and noticed that he was shaking – only slightly, but the trembles were definitely there.

Molly sat down next to the Ravenclaw in silence, staring out at the Lake the same. She wasn't sure if she could speak; it was such a strange situation to find herself in. Sherlock was the epitome of emotion control; he never let anything get to him, let alone a Boggart. But at the same time Molly couldn't forget those two pairs of dead, glassy eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling. It chilled her more than the January air ever could. In the end, she just had to know.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered quickly. Too quickly.

Molly was stunned into silence for a moment. "Are you sure?"

"I'm fine," Sherlock insisted. Molly risked a glance at him. The colour of his eyes was intense, glowing with the sheen of tears that refused to fall. The shaking had not stopped, but he kept tensing in an effort to make it cease. He looked angry, his features fixed in a scowl that hadn't been there before, but Molly suspected that he was more angry at himself than at her.

"Sherlock," she began, "you don't look okay-"

"THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!"

Molly jumped. The couple further down the bank of the Lake looked over at him, but after a moment of silence they soon went back to their campfire.

"I am fine! Do you want me to prove it?" He snapped his head round to her, with a look of anger mixed with a kind of delusion that seemed to border on psychotic. Molly was almost scared. "Let's try them, shall we?" he pointed over at the campfire couple. "The new couple where all the boy wants is sex and the girl with the British Blue called Merlin who just wants to get over her ex."

"Wh-" Molly looked over at the couple. There was a large box of chocolates sitting between them, half empty. The girl seemed to be eating most of them, though the boy kept stealing glances at them almost longingly. The boy was also wearing a garish cloak, white with an ugly red and green pattern on it. She knew that Sherlock could deduce all sorts from this, but Molly couldn't tell a thing.

"How do you know that?" Sherlock said in a false falsetto, making fun of someone other than himself – Molly guessed that it was probably her, but it could easily have been anyone that didn't share his intellect which, from past experience, she knew to be everyone bar his brother.

"Look at the cloak he's wearing," he explained in a quick, almost frantic voice. "Hardly worn. Clearly he's uncomfortable in it. Maybe it's because of the material; more likely the hideous pattern, suggesting it's a present, probably Christmas. So he wants into his girlfriend's good books. Why? Almost certainly sex.

"He's treating her to chocolates, but has hardly had any himself. That means he's probably putting his hopes in the aphrodisiac properties of the cocoa bean."

"Well, maybe he just doesn't like chocolate," Molly suggested, still staring at the couple.

"No, look at the way he's staring at the uneaten chocolates. Plus he's got saliva on his hands where he's licked the chocolate off of his fingers. He loves chocolate, why is he letting her eat the lion's share? Because he's looking to get lucky tonight - you can tell that by his dilated pupils and attempts at an alluring smile.

"How do you know that she's his girlfriend? Who else would give him a Christmas present like that in school? Well it could be a friend, or an elder sister, but girlfriend is more likely.

"Now, he isn't a virgin. He's comfortable in such an intimate situation and that alluring look has been practiced as well; he's been changing it slightly each time to suit her preferences in such an area. But he's nervous, which suggests that he's been single for some time. He's just got a new girlfriend and is hoping to score tonight. 'New'? Yes, obviously. She's got a boy's name tattooed on the side of her neck - not that boy, because every time he sees it, he glares a little. Clearly her ex's. Such a tattoo is easily removed with magic. She could get rid of it, but she's kept it - it's too soon after the breakup and she still has feelings for him. This relationship is just a rebound; probably won't last.

"Now, the cat: tiny little hairs all over the bottom of her robes, where it scent marks her, dark but still visible against her robes, suggesting that it's a Blue. In fact it is - a British Blue called Merlin. 'How the hell do you know that, Sherlock?' Cause she sits on the Ravenclaw table with me and I've heard her calling its name and that's not cheating, that's listening, I use my senses, Molly, unlike some people, so you see, I am fine, in fact I've never been better, so just Leave. Me. Alone."

Molly found herself stunned into silence. She turned back to the Ravenclaw, who was glaring at her angrily. He really did seem to believe that he was fine, that he had in fact 'never been better'. Molly could almost laugh; for a Ravenclaw who professed to having such intellect that all others' paled in comparison, he really was an idiot.

"My Boggart is my father," she began, in as calm a voice as she could muster after his, in all honesty, quite frightening display.

Sherlock snorted. "Yes, I did manage to figure that out."

Molly scowled a little, but paid no attention. "When I got my letter, I couldn't believe it. I finally had an answer to all the weird things that had been going on. Like when I was seven and I was worried about the fox eating my rabbit, and the next morning there was a gust of wind that blew the neighbour's bin over and spilled all the prawns in it out onto the street. The fox got such a taste for them that he never came back into our garden again. Or like on my ninth birthday when a girl in my class had her party on the same day as mine, and when we drove passed her venue the day before, a water pipe burst and they had to cancel. My parents had just dismissed it as a coincidence, or a stroke of luck. But I never quite believed it. So when I got my letter, I was ecstatic that my parents had been proved wrong.

"But… the thought of having a witch for a daughter didn't excite my parents as much. Particularly my dad. He wanted to believe that the letter was a hoax. He did as well, until two Ministry wizards arrived to explain the situation."

Molly paused, remembering the awful night when the two nice, blue-robed wizards had arrived on her doorstep and explained to her family that she was, in fact, a witch, and had proved the existence of magic by turning her father's bowler hat into a pigeon which stole all of the cherries from the fruit bowl in the kitchen and flew out of the window.

As she had been talking, the look of pure rage had slowly melted off of Sherlock's face, yet while he didn't interrupt her, he still didn't seem particularly interested. Despite all this, Molly knew that he was listening to every word.

"My father threw them out and started calling me a freak. He said he couldn't figure out how this could have happened, and that he'd almost asked the Ministry wizards to take me with them. I often wonder if it would have been better if I'd gone," she added, chuckling humourlessly.

"I stay at the castle during the Christmas and Easter holidays. When summer comes round, I dread the thought of going home. My dad hasn't used my real name for three years. If he must address me at home, he calls me 'you' or 'freak' or… other things. He terrifies me, just like your Boggart terrifies you."

Sherlock opened his mouth to protest, but Molly cut him off.

"I know what that look is, the one in your eyes right now. You say you're divorced from your feelings, but that's not the case; you just don't understand them. You're scared, and it's okay."

The Ravenclaw had a strange look on his face. He seemed to not want to believe her, while it was the most important thing in the world that he did.

"I assume…" he began slowly, licking his lips nervously, "that you know who my Boggart became? Firstly?"

Molly gulped, unsure of how to answer. Sherlock had a tendency to be temperamental, and she had no idea how he would react. "I do. But… he had a gunshot wound. How do you even know what a gun is, let alone what it can do to someone?"

Sherlock smiled slightly, though it lacked any real emotion. "My brother practically is the Ministry of Magic. As a result, he works quite heavily in wizard/Muggle relations. Our parents were not entirely happy with his frequent contact with Muggles, but nevertheless were proud of his political career.

"I know what a gunshot wound looks like because my brother does. He was never very good at Occlumency, and I vowed to master Legilimency when I found a book about it in the library at home. I saw it in his mind, and realised that something similar could easily happen to him."

He lapsed into silence, almost seeming embarrassed at his confession.

"You never talk about your brother," Molly commented quietly.

"No," Sherlock agreed.

"Do you… not get on?" Molly wasn't sure why she was asking all these questions, but she figured that if Sherlock was willing to divulge secrets, then she wasn't going to waste the opportunity.

"Not really. Caring is not an advantage." He lapsed into silence, and Molly knew that he was not going to say anymore.

"You do, though," she mumbled a few moments later. her voice sounded far off, and she almost doubted that it had been her who had spoken at all. Sherlock turned to her.

"I'm sorry?"

Molly blanched, mortified that she had said those words out loud. "Um…"

"I do what though?"

She gulped. "Care. You do care. Otherwise your Boggart would be something selfish, like the fear of getting bitten by a venomous spider, or a snake, or falling from a great height."

"I am scared of none of those things," he said matter-of-factly, his brow creasing in confusion.

"No, I just mean…" She sighed, pausing. "You obviously care about your brother. And you obviously care about John Watson. Otherwise your Boggart would not have made you think that you had lost them. You're scared of losing them, and that fear could only have come about because you care about them." She forced herself to meet his eyes. He was looking at her as though he couldn't quite believe that he did in fact still have emotions.

He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. He looked like a lost puppy. The hopeless, helpless look on his face inspired her to do something that she never expected she would ever have the confidence to do.

She leaned forward and kissed him.

He made no noise of protest, as he had expected, but when she pulled back he was smirking. She blushed furiously. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's… fine."