Hey!

All I want to say this is in no way connected to my other Harry Potter/Sherlock story, this is just a oneshot idea I had. I do hope to have the next chapter of The Sorting of Sherlock Holmes up soon, but until then, here's a little present.

Enjoy!

When John saw them, he almost missed it. After all, outside the castle, they were commonplace. But here, John had never seem them before. There was simply no point, they wouldn't work. So when John saw a raven-haired Ravenclaw with sky-blue earbuds decorated with bright yellow smiley-faces jammed in his ears, he stopped in the middle of the crowded corridor and took a double take.

Yep, still there. And now as he watched, he noticed the boy's head was bobbing up and down to a beat, a hand lightly tapping out a melody against his thigh.

"John?" A voice drug John's eyes away from the Ravenclaw. He spared a second to identify the person who had spoken to him as fellow Hufflepuff prefect Greg Lestrade. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, fine." He hastily said before turning back to the corridor. It had begun to empty, but thankfully, John could still spot the curly head of the boy with earbuds.

"You don't look fine." Lestrade frowned.

"Do you know that boy?" John asked, pointing to the Ravenclaw just as the boy rounded a corner and gave him and Lestrade a good side profile. It was likely Lestrade would. Being the 6th year Hufflepuff prefect, he had more contacts within other houses than John did, having only been made Prefect this year.

"You mean Sherlock?" Lestrade asked.

"That was Sherlock Holmes?" John's eyebrows shot up. He had heard of Sherlock. Everyone had. He had a reputation around Hogwarts of being insane and a freak, even among John's few Ravenclaw acquaintances. Yet it was also said that on every single test, quiz, and exam, he ranked at the top of his year with a perfect score. Yes, John knew of Sherlock Holmes, but not until now was he able to put a face to the name.

"Why do you ask?" Lestrade asked warily.

"He – he was wearing earbuds." John justified. Privately, though, now knowing who the boy was, he wondered if the rumors about Sherlock Holmes' sanity were true.

"Earbuds?" Lestrade's face twisted in confusion.

"Oh, they're Muggle things. You use them to listen to things. Usually music and stuff." John quickly explained. Sometimes he forgot that Greg was a pureblood.

"Oh. Well, Sherlock is a half-blood." The older boy's relaxed.

"But they don't work here! That's why I don't have them with me." John said.

"Well, go ask him about it then." Lestrade noticed the look on John's face. "Sherlock isn't crazy. He's an arrogant twat, but he's also the smartest person in this castle, bar Professor Dumbledore and perhaps Professor McGonagall."

"Know him well, then?" John couldn't help asking.

Lestrade snorted. "Hardly. The only reason I know him any better than the rest of this lot –" Lestrade gestured to the few students still rushing to class, "- Is because whenever a particularly clever prank happens, he takes it upon himself to show up when I'm assigned to investigate and point all the (air-quote) "obvious" clues of who did it."

The prefect shook his head. "Still, every time he's pointed the finger, he's gotten the right guy. More than I can say for myself."

"So . . . "

"So, Sherlock is smart enough to make these ear-things of yours work if it's at all possible. But the only way to find out about it is to ask him."

John paced nervously at the base of the staircase up to Ravenclaw Tower. His Hufflepuff status gained him a few odd glances from passing Eagles, but his Prefect status insured that they never turned into anything more.

He had been here since the final class of the day, speaking only to a 7th year prefect leaving the Tower as he had arrived. He had asked the lanky, greasy-haired boy whose name he could not remember (Anders? Andrew?) if Sherlock Holmes was in the Tower.

"Looking for the Freak, are ya?" The prefect had sneered. "Well, he's not here, and I wouldn't expect him to be until curfew."

Sure enough, curfew was only a few minutes away, and there had been no sign of the curly-haired Ravenclaw. The Prefect he had spoken to earlier had come back (with a smug smirk and may as well have had the words "I told you so" tattooed across his face), along with what seemed like every other Ravenclaw in the building except the one he was searching for.

Finally, at exactly one minute before 11:00, voices drifted to John's spot by the stairwell, and he stopped his pacing.

" . . . and they like to nest in plants like mistletoe and holly bushes." A female voice said, sounding passionate, but also very dazed, like she was speaking in a dream.

"Hmm. Interesting." A male voice replied, this one crisp, quick, and most definitely awake. "I'll have to investigate the matter back home during the summer. What are their dietary preferences?"

The owners of the voices rounded the nearest corner and stepped into John's line of sight. The male voice, he assumed, belonged to the very same person he was waiting for, Sherlock Holmes. John took this moment to get a good look at him. He had pale skin, like porcelain, high sculpted cheekbones that framed brilliant eyes, and was definitely one of the tallest boys in school, judging from the length of his legs. He wore the typical school robes, but they were of a neat cut with silk trimmings, and were brand new judging from the way they fit him perfectly.

The female voice had come from a girl about a head shorter than Holmes, with dirty blond hair that stretched down her back all the way to her waist and somehow seemed to glow. Her eyes were very large, giving her a surprised and absent look, the finger mindlessly twirling a stand of her hair adding to this impression. She wore some kind of root (radishes? Turnips?) as earrings, a necklace of what seemed to be butterbeer corks around her neck, and oversized male shoes that she almost walked out of every step she took.

The girl was about to reply to Holmes' question, but she caught sight of John, and instead simply said, "I think you have a guest."

Sherlock turned his eyes from the girl's face and looked John up and down as the distance between them grew to almost nothing.

"What do you want?" He bluntly asked.

John blinked. "I – I just wanted to ask you about something."

The girl he was with walked right past John and stood on the bottom step of the staircase. She look inquisitively at Sherlock, asking him a silent question.

Sherlock looked like he sorely wanted to join the girl in ascending to their common room, but he sighed and waved her on. "Go on, Luna. I won't be more than a few minutes. Begin practicing the warding charm I've been teaching you. Not on your trunk yet, though, we don't need it exploding."

"Alright, Sherlock." Luna smiled vaguely. "Have fun."

Sherlock scowled, but Luna simply continued to smile and waved good-bye to John as she turned and began to climb.

"I'll ask again." Sherlock returned to John. "What do you want? I'll inform you now, I'm not interested in doing your homework for money, candy, or protection."

"What? No, nothing like that." John waved his hands in front of him, as if to clear the air of the idea. "No, I just – I saw you earlier today, in the halls, and you were wearing earbuds."

Sherlock blinked. "Did you?"

"Yes, I did, and I wanted to ask why."

"I was listening to music." The Ravenclaw didn't say the word Duh, but it was definitely implied.

"That's not possible, though."

Sherlock's lips quirked in what might have been an attempt at a smile. His hand reached into his pocket and pulled out a Muggle MP3 player, he earbuds wound tightly around them. Sherlock unraveled the cord, and powered the small device up. To John's shock, the MP3 didn't exploded; the screen lit up with a flash of a logo, and a menu followed it up.

Sherlock held out one of the buds, definitely smirking now. Rising to whatever challenge Holmes seemed to be throwing at him, John grabbed the earbud and positioned in his ear. Sherlock pressed a few buttons, and soon "You're the Voice" was playing inside John's ear.

"Incredible." John breathed, dropping the bud. "But how?" He asked as Sherlock began winging the buds back around the player. "It's not possible."

"Obviously it is." Sherlock tossed the evidence up before catching it and stuffing it back in his pocket. "And it's not like it was difficult. Any idiot could do it if they just thought about it."

"But how –"

"I simply converted it to run on magic-filled batteries instead of electricity. I was also able to make it so it would draw power from the magic in the air, so it never loses a charge here at Hogwarts."

"That's brilliant." John proclaimed, staring unashamed at the – the genius standing in front of him. "That's absolutely brilliant."

Sherlock blinked again, once more surprised at the Hufflepuff's reaction. "You really think so? People don't usually say that."

"Of course I do! Who could think otherwise?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Usually people just tell me to sod off."

"Well, they shouldn't." John said bluntly. "That's amazing, and you could make a whole lot of money selling those."

"Me? A salesman?" The Ravenclaw scoffed. "Boring."

"Boring?" John sputtered.

"Yes, Watson, boring. Now inventing, I could see, but this is hardly an invention, merely a modification anyone could make if they weren't so dull."

"But – wait, how do you know my name?"

Sherlock cocked his head. "The same way I know about your intent to try out for Keeper this year, your recent break up with the third girl you've dated in as many months, and the sprained ankle you got tripping over Mrs. Norris while running to the Herbology class you were late to."

Stupid question. John berated himself. He kept forgetting that he was a subject of the school grapevine of gossip after being made prefect. But . . .

"Hey, I didn't tell anyone about how I sprained my ankle." John realized.

Sherlock smirked. "No, you didn't."

"Then how –"

"That would be telling, wouldn't it, Watson?" Sherlock wagged a finger.

Lestrade was right. Sherlock is an arrogant twat. But, John couldn't help adding, he is the smartest person in this place.

"Now, if you will excuse me, it's past curfew, and I'm sure that Anderson –" A note of contempt couldn't be kept from this name, " – is waiting up just waiting to slap a detention on me."

"Oh, yeah, I met him." John assumed that this was the prefect he had talked to earlier. "He didn't seem to like you." He admitted.

Sherlock nodded. "He hasn't, not since the fall. Actually," Sherlock corrected himself, "he's never liked me, but he's hated me ever since I revealed to the common room that he's been sleeping with Professor Donavon."

John's eyes grew wide. "He has?" He had heard this rumor, but he thought that that was all there was to it – a rumor.

"Either that, or he's suddenly developed a taste for female deodorant and Professor Donavan enjoys scrubbing floors with him during his detentions that don't appear on any of the notice boards." Sherlock said smugly.

"Well," John tried to push the disturbing image out of his mind, "if he tries to give you a detention, tell him I kept you past curfew. If he still does, I'll complain and waive it."

" . . . Thank you." Sherlock said eventually.

The Ravenclaw then turned on his heel, his robes billowing dramatically in a fair impression of Professor Snape, and climbed up the stairs to the Tower without another word.

So? Like it, hate it? Leave a comment below, favorite, just give me some idea of how it is.

Thanks for reading,

Blue