"Allow me to clarify matters with some precision. One — there is no brain transplant surgery of any description involved here. My soul has, by some mechanism, intermingled itself with your body. Two — my soul endured a rather prolonged wait before this intermingling came to pass. Which is, I confess, not entirely unwelcome — I must say I find myself quite extraordinarily curious to observe the degree to which science has progressed over the past century, young man." Harry Potter paused theatrically for a brief moment before continuing, casting a look of undisguised contempt around his surroundings.
"Three — you are living beneath a staircase amongst filthy brooms. I can picture us being in what one might generously describe as a warm family home of standard English architecture, yet the workmanship is appallingly crude — a family of decidedly modest means, I should say. I cannot venture outside, as the door is locked from without, which tells me that whoever saw fit to confine you here holds you in rather poor regard. You wear spectacles, and yet your vision remains defective — which means those spectacles do not properly suit you. Negligence, naturally — though that is by no means the only conclusion to be drawn. They extend you just sufficient mercy to procure spectacles, yet simultaneously contrive to render your existence quite thoroughly insufferable. An orphan, I shouldn't wonder, residing with whatever relations remain to you. Given that your clothing is a full two sizes too large, I rather doubt you are the sole male child in this household. Your hair is every bit as lifeless as my own — though when one adds to that what appears to be chronic muscular discomfort and that decidedly juvenile face of yours, the probability of a growth deficiency becomes rather difficult to dismiss. Were I to hazard a guess — and I rarely need to merely guess — I should place you at ten or eleven years of age. Am I correct, Mr. Harry?"
Harry fell silent, and the bewildered voice of a young child was heard from somewhere within his mind.
""Waoww. All of it's right.""
"Harry Potter. Have you truly no fear whatsoever that I have taken possession of your body? I confess — and I find it rather embarrassing to admit — that upon first opening my eyes within your form, I was considerably more frightened of you than you appear to be of me. I was, after all, a handsome, brilliantly intelligent, and exceedingly charismatic detective. The sole circumstance which renders my present situation remotely tolerable is that you are younger than I. The fact that you face all of this with such remarkable composure leads me to one of two conclusions — either you are a thoroughgoing fool, or this sort of thing is not entirely unfamiliar territory for you."
""A detective!.. Actually, I've experienced some strange things before. That's why I wasn't too scared. And I've never talked to anyone this easily before.""
"Very well then — let us begin from the very beginning. My name is Sherlock Holmes. I am the most capable detective in the world, and prior to awakening within your body, I was thirty-seven years of age in the year 1891. If you are not engaged in some elaborate jest at my expense, Mr. Potter, then I find myself at this precise moment a full ninety-nine years ahead of my own time — having only just drifted off to sleep atop a train."
At this point Harry Potter — or rather, Sherlock Holmes — heard approaching footsteps and fell silent.
The footsteps stopped before the staircase.
*pat pat pat*
"I know you're awake, Harry. Come to the kitchen. Now!"
*click*
The moment his aunt returned to the kitchen, Sherlock wasted no time in asking Harry:
"Today is Dudley's birthday. She will in all probability instruct me to prepare breakfast."
Sherlock frowned, but concluded that keeping the matter of having taken possession of another's body a secret was, for the time being, the correct strategy. He therefore determined he would need to act as Harry for a while.
The very instant that thought crossed his mind, he found he could no longer control the limbs.
Simultaneously, Harry's startled voice was heard — though this time it did not echo within Sherlock's head. It was more real than that.
""I can move again.""
Without wasting so much as a single second, Sherlock analysed why the consciousness had retreated into the body's subconscious, and thought the precise opposite of his previous thought — this time, that Harry himself ought to behave as Harry. And once again, the shift occurred.
""I've lost control again. Sir Sherlock, what just happened?""
"Harry, would you kindly endeavour, just for a moment, to think of me behaving as you?"
""I'm trying, sir.""
They were about to conduct a few more small experiments when Dudley began jumping about on the stairs.
Sherlock, gazing at the wooden dust, relinquished the body to Harry for a time and withdrew to think.
""I can control my body again.""
"I know. I shall need you to carry on as though nothing in your life has changed whatsoever, boy. Can you manage that?"
""Of course.""
Harry, with a smile spreading across his face as he turned the mysterious events over in his mind, emerged from beneath the stairs and stepped into the kitchen.
"You're too slow, Harry! Stop smiling like an idiot, hurry up and check on the pancakes."
Harry stopped smiling, and cast an envious glance at Dudley fuming over his thirty-four birthday presents this year — down from last year's thirty-seven — all while tending to the pancakes.
Meanwhile, Sherlock observed everything and began, through deduction, to piece together the dynamics within the family.
He even discerned, from the manner in which Harry's aunt and uncle treated the boy, that the hatred of these two individuals stemmed not from Harry himself, but from Harry's mother. The very fact that they had taken the boy in rather than surrendering him to an orphanage implied that Harry had some form of family backing or support of which the boy himself was entirely unaware.
After all, despite having treated Harry as though he were something to be scraped off one's boot, there was not a single mark of violence upon his body.
They were caring for Harry — but the reason was not compassion. It was obligation.
Although Sherlock Holmes had surmised all of this at a single glance, he continued to observe and analyse every detail — through the bullying, through the trip to the zoo — confirming his conclusions time and again.
The reason a man of Sherlock's almost insufferable level of self-assurance would feel compelled to keep validating his own theory was, in truth, something else entirely.
Sherlock Holmes — a committed atheist who had followed a rigorously rational model of thought his entire life — had found himself, quite suddenly, at the centre of a supernatural event.
He knew all too well that the moment he allowed himself to truly contemplate it — to wonder whether this was connected to the Japanese belief of *ikiryo*, or perhaps to the Buddhist concept of reincarnation — the identity he had constructed over thirty-seven years would splinter apart in a matter of seconds.
And so Sherlock pressed on, thinking of other things, driven by something not entirely unlike fear — until, at last, he began to believe there must be a scientific explanation for what had occurred, and that it fell to him to find it.