The first Quidditch match of the New Year blustered in on the back of a thunderstorm in mid-February. Still, Sherlock found himself in the crowded stands watching John referee while the sky pissed on him and wind howled. Someone screamed a cheer at the crest of a gale and Sherlock shivered to himself.
Oh, Sherlock…
He looked around at the sing-song voice in his ear, trying not to convey the alarm on his face even as a fresh gale of wind broke out around his stand. Students were huddling closer together, unaware of the imminent danger; Sherlock stood up and forced his way back to the grass, pulling up his collar against the wind and rain. If something was to happen to him, he might as well prevent more students getting mixed up in -
A single voice screamed horrifically over the sound of cheering students and roaring wind, magically amplified into a howl of hell-hound-like proportions. The crowd fell silent and the players hesitated on their broomsticks. For a moment Sherlock could see John, hovering near the Ravenclaw goal hoops, whistle likely dangling from his lips. Then a bolt of lightning cracked the air itself - a charge even seemed to hum through Sherlock’s very veins - and suddenly John’s body was illuminated as it fell from his broomstick.
Students screamed as their favorite professor plummeted toward the field; Sherlock pulled out his wand and slowed John’s fall as he ran out to catch him, kneeling in the muck and the wet with an arm around John’s shoulders. He was unconscious, a hole burned into his robes and the flesh beneath, directly over his heart. “John! John!” he croaked with and rain blinding him, trying to shake the man in his arms awake.
Dark figures swarmed them, and for a moment Sherlock almost fought them off, but realized he had abandoned his wand somewhere along the way to John’s side. That, and the people surrounding them were other professors.
“Sherlock, you need to let go so we can get him inside,” Molly said, crouched at his elbow. John was turning blue; that was the only reason Sherlock didn’t insist on taking him up to the hospital wing himself. John, brave John, loyal John, John who had nearly been moved to tears over the image of himself in Sherlock’s mind, didn’t have time for petty disagreements. He was dying.
They rushed him to the castle and the Quidditch match continued, even with Sherlock crouching, paralyzed, on the field. He could hear laughter in his ears.
