This is my first try at a Sherlock fanfic, so please don't flame! It is detailing a year of Sherlock's childhood, and I will try to update as often as possible. Please review! Thank you x

Two boys sat alone in a large, white room. One was about eight, with short black curls and piercing blue eyes and the other perhaps fifteen with smooth brown hair and skin lightly smattered with the typical teenage spots.

"Sherlock, what are you doing?" The older boy asked the younger. Sherlock, the younger, was staring intently at the small, plain blue rug on the floor.

"Mother bought a new rug. Yesterday there was a darker blue stain in the corner, and it hasn't been washed off – I looked closely and the stain was embedded into the undermat. Why did she buy a new one when she could simply have left the old one with the stain? No one would notice unless they stared at it."

The older boy, Mycroft, sighed. His weirdo little brother was deducing again.

"Oh, shut up Sherlock."

A brief, uncomfortable silence lay like a coating of dust over the room for a few moments until the door opened and a tall, bony woman with fine brown hair and a sour expression walked in.

"Hello, boys."

"Mother, why did you buy a new rug?" Sherlock carefully stood up from his previous seat on the white tiled floor, and brushed himself off. He wore a crisp white shirt, a plain red tie, black blazer with a red ribbon-type edging and black trousers, and looked very much his part of the private school student.

The woman sighed. "Just go and put these in your trunk, Sherlock." She thrust a large paper bag at Sherlock, and watched him closely as he lightly walked upstairs.

"Mother, why is Sherlock so odd?"

The woman looked sadly at Mycroft for a few moment before smiling, "Is your trunk all packed for St John's? We'll be leaving in an hour."

St John's was a private school for boys and girls aged between 3 and 18, with some additional University courses. Both Sherlock and Mycroft attended, and both enjoyed it for different reasons. Mycroft liked it because his friend Greg Lestrade also attended, and because he was constantly surrounded by other people his age who he could discuss his worries with, and find they felt the same. It was all very relaxing. Sherlock liked it for the lessons: Chemistry, Physics, Biology, French, German – and when you were six, you got to pick an additional vocational subject to learn. Sherlock had picked codes – a subject taught at no public schools, only private. He loved codes, mainly because of the obvious underlying symmetry of the codes, the beauty of the numbers behind it all...

The uniform was nice as well. The junior school's uniform was black trousers, a white shirt, black leather shoes, a tie in your house's colour and a blazer trimmed with the same colour. The senior school uniform was a white polo shirt (with all buttons done up, of course), a jumper in your house colour, black or your house colour trousers and black leather shoes. Because they were brothers, Mycroft and Sherlock were both in the same house: Shark. The three houses were Shark, Whale and Dolphin, with the house colours of red, blue and yellow respectively.

Mycroft and Sherlock had both started attending St. John's when they were three, and would continue so until they were eighteen. Their father had died shortly before Sherlock's birth, and Grace, their mother, had sank into a deep depression. Mycroft already attended St John's as a day student, so it was all to easy to pack him off there permanently, and when Sherlock was three send him there as well.

1984, the 1st of September. Mycroft would be entering Year 11, and Sherlock Year 4. Grace gave Mycroft a pat on the shoulder, and Sherlock a small smile. Both boys shared one immense personality trait: they hated being touched. It unnerved them.

"Goodbye, boys."

And so she left. Mycroft, as a new prefect (prefects were students in years 11, 12 and 13, and he had been picked), had to find their head of house and get a list of dormitories, so that any student who needed to know which dorm they were in could ask a prefect. He and a girl called Melanie, who was the female prefect for their house and year, quickly got their lists and started to direct people.

Room 17 – Year 4 Dormitory

Students:

Abbot, Archie

Carter, Milton

Holmes, Sherlock

Richards, Robert

"Room seventeen, Sherlock."

"I know. Last year I was in room 15 and the year before 13, so it was natural to assume that I am in 17 this year. Obviously."

The boy gripped his trunk in one hand and suitcase in the other and walked to his new dormitory, bot caring that his brother was rather angrily staring after him.

The dormitory was a pleasant room, with two sets of bunk beds. It was painted a pleasant light blue, and the floor had a deep velvety blue coloured carpet on it. Four writing desks sat in the room, each with a small box on them. Two large wardrobes sat against one of the walls, with a window in the wall in the gap. Under the window were four book shelves, each already equip with the school books that each child would need (each shelf was labelled with a name) and a bible. The room was one of the nicer ones. Sherlock was quick to unpack: all he had were his clothes, a mass of books and the bag which his mother had shoved at him earlier that day, which contained a dark, sticky cake, a bottle of lemonade and a large bag of pick-and-mix sweets. A kind of peace offering – herself and Sherlock had had an argument about how many books he was taking which ended with her slapping him and storming out. Just as Sherlock had finished, the door burst open, and there stood Archie, Milton and Robert, all scarlet faced and snorting with laughter. The faint smell of mud followed them into the room.

"We're with you, again?" moaned Archie angrily, kicking one of the legs of the nearest bed. He didn't like Sherlock, for several reasons. The main one being that Sherlock had caught him stealing a bar of chocolate from the kitchen and had told on him when he refused to put it back. Milton and Robert, being his faithful friends, had naturally also taken against the boy.

"Seeing as I have unpacked, I'd assume that that was fairly obvious. The situation doesn't delight me any more than it does you."

Archie was a big lad for eight, with a rounded stomach but hard fists and sharp kicks. Sherlock had fallen foul to him several times, and had suffered a beating at his hands at least five times in his five years at the school.

"Shut your mouth, Holmes."

"Your violence won't get you anywhere, Archie." Sherlock pleasantly replied as he placed his dark green pyjamas under his pillow. A sudden hand took hold of his collar and dragged him backwards, making him fall back onto the floor and hit his head hard on the other bunkbed.

"You're such an idiot, Holmes. If you'd just play nicely then none of this would be necessary." spat Archie. With that, the three stormed once more from the room, leaving Sherlock to pick himself up. Delightful, another year of those idiots.

Or would it be?

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