They walked down together to the entrance hall, which was deserted, everyone was still at classes. They made their way down to the quidditch pitch, but John stopped as soon as he got out into the open, mounting his broom and kicking off into the sky, not in the mood for walking. As soon as the wind hit his face, a lot of the stress seemed to be left on the ground. He shot around the castle, his friends struggling to keep up with him, weaving in and out of the towers, seeing glimpses of poor students still stuck in their classes. He swooped over Hagrid’s hut, where Care of Magical Creatures was being taught to second years, which awed over the four figures zipping past. He raced around until it was time for lunch, which was maybe two hours or so, and when the second class started to leave he landed the broom near the large oak doors, his headache practically gone. The class was still watching them even though he was done flying, wondering what gave him the right to skip class and fly around, but Dumbledore had said that the whole school had known what was going on with him. They brought their brooms to the Great Hall with them, and John hadn’t realized how starving he was until he sat down in front of all of that food. He started eating things at a rate he didn’t know was possible, it was if he had turned the other night. Had he? Was that how he lost his memory, he might have turned and someone wiped his memory or something, but he couldn’t ask his friends since they didn’t know about his secret. If there had been some type of werewolf attack and he killed someone they wouldn’t want him to know would they. Maybe the other curtain had not another stone student, but one that had gotten mauled by a beast. When he was finally done eating, long after his friends were, they headed back up to the common room and put their brooms back. John’s eyes flickered to the roses that still sat on the window sill. He wondered who actually gave them to him, and if he had a girlfriend no one would tell him about. Maybe it was Mary! Had he actually had the courage to ask her out, after all of these years? He really hoped so. The rest of the day he spent reading Quidditch Through the Ages again, just skimming the text really, he still remembered the entire book. When his mind would wander away from the book, he’d set it down and stare at the wall, trying to keep his mind open that maybe his memories would come back, but at this point he doubted they’d ever come back. At dinner time he and his friends wandered down to the Great Hall again, along with a pack of first years he didn’t recognize. They were very loud, and John walked as fast as he could to get away from them. When they got to the Hall, he saw all of the teachers sitting peacefully up at the staff table. He noticed Professor Holmes had the curse to sit next to Snape, but he seemed lost in his own world. John sat down where they usually sat, and his eyes wandered over to the Ravenclaw table, where he saw the back of a beautiful blond head, which had to be Mary. His heart did a flip flop; he wanted to do something to impress her even though she was two tables away. She was talking with her friends, and he hoped so badly the roses were from her. He didn’t eat nearly as much food as he had for lunch, but he still ate more than his friends. The Great Hall looked the same, except for the first years and Professor Holmes everyone was the same, but they all looked older. Dumbledore didn’t have any announcements, so everyone left for their common rooms to enjoy their free time, which John felt like he had too much of. After learning the new password (UMQRA) they sat in the armchairs and his friends tried to teach him what he had to learn for the classes he had tomorrow, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions, Defense against the Dark Arts, and Ancient Ruins. After a short lesson on dragons, boggarts, and Easter Island, John felt pretty prepared for tomorrow. He didn’t need to learn anything for potions because they did something new every time, just to remember how to mix stuff together in a cauldron. Dragons seemed interesting enough, but they wouldn’t have a live creature to look at which was disappointing. Boggarts, creatures that turned into your biggest fear, seemed amazing, and Professor Tonks had said they would get a live one on Wednesday, which gave him enough time to prepare. Easter Island seemed as boring as ever of course, that class was miserable. The next quidditch practice was on Wednesday too, to give John some preparation time, which he was thankful for, because when he was finally able to find his notes on the drills he had no idea what the lines and arrows and circles meant. The rest of the common room were all looking at him, he could feel their eyes on the back of his head, which made him very uncomfortable. He knew they were all wondering the same thing, how much does he remember? A group of girls were all looking rather hopefully at him, which made him very suspicious. After a while he couldn’t take more of sitting in a chair and staring at the fire, so he went up to his dorm early. He was also exhausted, something had really drained him, but he had no idea what. When he blew out the candle lighting the room, he fell into a deep sleep, not even disturbed by his friends. But he dreamed, which he doesn’t do very much. It was nothing major, flashes of things that didn’t make sense, the dungeon hallway, leading to the potions classroom, but it was brighter, as if he loved it there. He saw grass, the lake, trees, the grounds of Hogwarts, he felt an overwhelming feeling of happiness and love, as if he had met the one person he knew he wanted to marry, which was impossible. The weird dreams must have been the slightest sliver of memories within a memory, something that had happened to his before. Maybe he could piece together the dreams enough to figure out what was going on with him.

                Greg shook him awake that morning, saying something about class. John got up as fast as he could, throwing on his robes and racing down the steps to the common room. He wasn’t late to his relief, but they had to walk swiftly down to the Great Hall to eat breakfast, taking all of their stuff with them in their bags for Care of Magical Creatures. When they got out to the grounds the chilly wind made them shiver, fall was definitely upon them. John looked around, the grounds were different in his dream, the trees were still kind of green, and the sun was starting to go down. He wondered what it could mean, if they were his memories, maybe not everything had left his brain. Hagrid was standing on his steps, his boarhound, Fang, was sitting on the ground looking at the class without much interest. Hagrid smiled kindly down at John and his friends, who smiled back. The rest of the class came down, and to John’s disappointment they had to share the class with the Slytherins. They came down in a pack, led by the two worst kids in the school, Jim Moriarty and Irene Adler. They came down and smiled tauntingly at John, they knew what happened, and he was sure he would hear about it more from them.
“Everyone listen up, today we will be learning more about dragons…” Hagrid started. The rest of the class was looking through their books writing down answers to questions Hagrid asked, it was actually very boring considering it was Dragons. John now knew a lot of useless rubbish about dragons, and was very relieved when Hagrid dismissed them. The Slytherins caught up to John and his friends, who were trying to walk fast so they didn’t have to talk to them.
“Hey Watson, remember me?” Jim called from behind them. John and his friends ignored them, picking up their speed even though they were going to the same place.
“Oh don’t tell me they took your hearing too!” Irene said. They got through the oak doors and went down to the dungeons, waiting in the hallway and making sure to ignore all of Jim and Irene’s further comments, which got worse and worse as time went on. Finally all of the students where there, waiting for Snape to open the door. John looked around the hall, it wasn’t as bright as in his dream, and it was still dark and depressing, meaning he was going to have to suffer through another potions lesson. The door slapped open, making John jump back even though Snape did that every time. He scowled at them as usual, and without a word went back in the class, leaving the door open. The students flooded in, and John followed Greg to their table, which he hadn’t remembered since they picked it that year. The classroom was the same horrible place; the only new thing was a desk to the left of Snape’s, smaller than Snape’s desk of course. Sitting in the chair with his feet on the desk was Professor Holmes, reading some book, seemingly unaware of anything that was going on. There was a violin sitting on his desk too, as if he had played the instrument and forgot to put it away.
“Instructions on the board.” Snape hissed, and sat in his desk without another word. The black board was now filled with chalk writing, telling them how to make a very complicated potion, one that would put someone into a deep, dreamless sleep. John and Greg did their best, but John accidently chopped a chunk of his snail off when he was trying to scrape the slime off, and his bat wing was cut poorly. They forgot to add the cowbane and added too much goosegrass, so the should-be dark blue potion turned a muddy brown and fizzed oddly. After a little bit Professor Holmes walked around the classroom, helping students out with their potions. Snape still sat at his desk, writing stuff down without paying attention to anything going on in the room. When their potion was done, nothing changed, and by the time Holmes got to them he looked at the potion with disgust.
“Obviously you did something…” he looked up to see who he was talking to, and stared right into John’s eyes. He stopped what he was saying for a moment, as if trying to remember what he was even saying. John felt extremely awkward, Holmes was staring at him and looked transfixed, but also sad, as if it hurt to see John.
 “Wrong?” Greg guessed. Holmes blinked, remembering what was going on.
“Yes, wrong, you did something wrong, a lot of things actually.” He said extremely fast, mixing the words together so John had almost no idea what he said.
“Well, John doesn’t remember being here, as you know.” Greg pointed out.
“I’d say you need a little help, you can’t learn potions in a book, how about you come down after dinner?” Holmes asked him. John panicked; he did not want to be stuck in a room with such a creep, staring at him all night while he fails to make a potion.
“Um, sorry, I can’t, I have some Care of Magical Creatures help I need to go to.” John said quickly.
“What are you talking about John; you’ve got nothing going on!” Greg defended, making John want to strangle him at the moment. Holmes was looking at the two of them with curiosity.
“Okay, I’ll be her.” John mumbled. Holmes nodded and moved onto the next table.
“What was that for?” John hissed at Greg.
“You obviously need help in potions, more than ever now.” Greg pointed out. John looked over his shoulder to make sure Holmes wasn’t listening.
“I don’t want to be down here, alone, with creeper man.” John hissed.
“Creeper man?” Greg asked.
“He’s creepy, did you see him staring at me just then, he was zoning out!” John defended.
“He’s not creepy, trust me, just go tonight, and if you don’t like it we’ll have to do something else to help.” Greg offered. John groaned he didn’t have another option at the moment; he had to go down here. Holmes made him very uncomfortable, was he someone of John’s early past that he didn’t remember? He was a professor, what’s the most that could happen, helping John not mess up on a potion? John hated people looking at him, but publicly staring into his eyes and stopping what they were doing was a whole another level of creepy. When potions were over, John tried his best to get out first. Not only was he hungry, he wanted to leave the gaze of Professor Holmes. He and his friends walked up to the Great Hall, John leading hurriedly. When they sat down at the table the Hall was just starting to fill up with students all coming from different classes. The food selection was pretty much the same as yesterday, but John didn’t eat nearly as much.
“So, how’d you do in potions?” Sara asked him.
“Terrible, and now I’m trapped in extra potions.” John groaned.
“Trapped?” Mike asked.
“You said Professor Holmes helps out?” John asked.
“Yep.” Sara agreed.
“He scares me! You should’ve seen him then, he came over and started to criticize our potion, but then stopped midsentence and stared at me for ten seconds before Greg said something!”
“That’s not that creepy.” Mike shrugged, a bit forcefully.
“He stared right into my eyes!” John defended. Had his friends gotten a million times more stubborn or was it just him?
“I told him if he doesn’t like potions tonight he doesn’t have to go again.” Greg said.
“That sounds fair, unless you fail completely again.” Sara agreed.
“I don’t want to go once, not twice, never!” Joh debated, taking another bite of his roast beef sandwich.
“Well, tonight’s your night I guess.” Greg shrugged. John groaned, finishing his sandwich and glancing to the staff table. To his relief, Holmes was absent, though he wondered why he wasn’t eating. When they were done with their food, they went down to Defense Against the Dark Arts, where they learned more about boggarts. They lived in dark places, and they changed into the thing you most feared, to beat it you had to turn it into something funny, laughter is a bogart’s biggest weakness is laughter. John wondered what his biggest fear was, he was curious yet nervous, what if it was a full moon? Wouldn’t that give away the whole werewolf secret? And what if it was embarrassing, like Mary turning him down or something like that? He would just have to make it funny apparently. After Defense Against the Dark Arts they went down to Ancient Ruins, where John practically fell asleep, looking at the same rocks for an hour and a half. When that was finally done they went down to the Great Hall, John was hoping he’d fall down the steps or something, anything to get him out of extra potions under the intense gaze of Professor Holmes. He ate as slowly as he could, but somehow the time flew by, and before he knew it he was being pushed off into the dungeons by his friends, who were promising it would be okay and fun, which he seriously doubted. The hall was still dim and menacing as he walked slowly to the door, hearing some type of music drifting from the room. It was beautiful violin music, making him want to stay outside of the door and listen all night, but he had to get this over with. He knocked on the door nervously. There was obviously someone in the room, and it was most certainly Professor Holmes because John doubted Snape played violin. The music stopped abruptly, and Holmes called for him to come in. John opened the door and shut it with a snap, standing awkwardly in the doorway. Professor Holmes was standing near the window of the dim room. The torches on the walls provided light, but there were slivers of moonlight shining through thin windows, shining down on Holmes as he stood with his violin. Instead of robes, the professor was wearing a purple shirt with a black jacket and black slacks, which was very odd for a wizard to be wearing, they were muggle clothes.
“Hello John.” He said, putting the violin bow on Snape’s desk and trading it for a small cleaning cloth.
“Hi Professor.” John muttered, settling in the farthest desk from the front of the class as possible. Holmes cleaned the violin strings with the cloth slowly, elegantly.
“You came for potions help then? No more Care of Magical Creatures?” He asked with a small smile. John looked down at his potions kit, trying to avoid eye contact.
“It was, canceled.” He muttered.
“Of course it was.” Holmes decided, putting his violin on Snape’s desk along with the bow and getting the case from the floor, opening it and putting the violin in. Take your time, John thought, annoyed. When the violin was finally away he walked over to John’s desk, which made John fiddle with the potions kit strap, hoping Holmes would keep his distance.
“So, it’s the dreamless sleep potion right?” Holmes asked. John nodded shortly and watched as the blackboard was filled again with chalk writing, on how to make the potion. He got out his ingredients, light a fire under the caldron, and got to work. He went to cut the fluxweed, but found that he had no knife. Holmes was sitting on a stool in front of John’s desk, which made him jump a bit, he didn’t remember the professor sitting down, and somehow he had snuck up on him.
“Um, Professor Holmes, I don’t have a knife.” John said. Holmes got up swiftly, going to the cabinet and picking a knife out, taking it to John and setting it on the table next to him. Holmes sat back down on the stool across from John, watching him work, but not with the intensity of the stare in class. John cut the fluxweed and put it in the caldron, then went on adding all of the other ingredients. When he got to the slime from the snail, his least favorite part, he held it over the caldron and started to scrape the sides with the knife, which was just plain nasty.
“Do you want to know a trick?” Holmes asked, making John almost drop the snail in the pot, Holmes had been so silent he had forgotten he was there.
“Sure.” John shrugged. Professor Holmes got out of his chair and circled the desk so he was next to John. He took a pair of tweezers from his coat pocket and took the snail from John, which was still hanging above the cauldron.
“Snape taught you to scrape the slime off, but if you need the slime there is an organ in the snail that holds all of the slime.” Holmes said, placing the snail on the cutting board and cutting it in half with one clean stroke of the knife. “You just have to find it and not break it open.” He dug around with the tweezers in one half of the snail’s body, then pulling out a small black thing from inside, holding it up for John to see.
“There, just break that open overtop of the caldron.” He instructed, handing the tweezers to John. Their hands brushed and Holmes paused for a moment, sadness in his eyes. John squeezed the tweezers so all of the slime fell into the potion, which bubbled and started to turn the right shade of blue. John smiled up at Holmes, who was still standing up next to him. The professor was very tall when he was standing, and when John was sitting on a bench he was towering over him, but still looking down on John as though he was a proud parent.
“See, so much easier.” Holmes said happily, but instead of sitting across from John he sat in the stool next to him, making John very uncomfortable. He didn’t know what was up with this professor; he wasn’t like this to everyone else, what made John different? John could smell a strong whiff or what smelled like his mother’s kitchen from when he was little, spices and garlic, that smell had been an obsession of his when he was there, he tried to capture the scent in a jar one time, to open when he was sad, but it didn’t work unfortunately. John wondered how in the world Professor Holmes could smell like his best childhood memory, but the Wizarding world was full of surprises, memory loss being one of them. He managed to finish the potion, which looked like it probably should, dark blue, like the night sky or whatever. Professor Holmes had his chin resting on his fingertips, lost in thought apparently. John wondered nervously what he was thinking about, but wasn’t quite sure he wanted to know.
“Professor, I’m done.” He said, trying to get Holmes out his head and into the real world. Holmes blinked and rose back up sitting up strait in his chair again and looking into the caldron.
“Very good John!” He said proudly, getting up out of the chair quickly and getting a flask from his desk, handing it to John. Once again their hands touched, and John wanted to pull his hand away as quickly as possible. He took the flask and dipped it into the potion, taking a sample and handing it to the professor.
“Thank you.” Holmes said rather forcefully and took it to Snape’s desk. “It looks like an A potion, but Snape will unfortunately be the judge of that.” he said.
“Why is that unfortunate? It either works or it doesn’t.” John pointed out. Holmes stood at the desk and looked down at John, his expression unreadable. He looked neutral, but his eyes shone with unknown sadness, sadness John could never think to bear, as if the one thing you love most in the world has been ripped from you. Holmes moved behind his desk and sat down, taking out an eagle feather quill, which was very beautiful.
“You may go.” He said with a kind smile.
“Goodnight Professor.” John said, packing up his stuff and leaving the room as fast as possible, not being around long enough to see a tear run down Holmes’s face.