John woke the next morning a half hour earlier than he needed to with a roiling in his belly. How was it that it was his sixth year at Hogwarts and he still was nervous to get his classes? Wouldn't that feeling ever go away?

He couldn't get back to sleep, so he got ready and ended up at the Great Hall when it was still pretty empty. He made a beeline for McGonagall at the front of the Hall, who greeted him relatively warmly as she handed him his schedule. Though she was a harsh person in general, she had a fondness for people in her own House and even more so for Quidditch players. So needless to say, she liked John quite a lot, all things considered.

He got all the classes he figured he would and knew immediately he'd be very busy indeed with it all. Though really they were all things he wanted to take. Well, other than History of Magic, but that was mostly because Professor Binns was so boring. He'd hoped in vain his A in that class would make him disqualified for the NEWT course, but apparently Binns took even A's into his class. Maybe because a majority people failed dismally out of lack of interest for his subject.

After he had his schedule, he looked around for somewhere to sit. He only saw two people he knew: Sally at one table and Molly at another. Without pause he headed for Molly.

He'd heard that, before he attended (in his sister's first year and for ages before that) people were always to eat with the rest of their House at meals, but McGonagall decided there needed to be more socialising between the Houses and about eight years back decreed that people could eat wherever they pleased. This rule only didn't apply to the beginning and end of year feasts, since the Sorting and House Cup ceremonies were both House based.

"They get shorter every year, don't they?" mused John to Molly as he watched the first years bumble into the Hall, looking around uncertainly until Head Boy Greg nudged them towards the front of the Hall to get their schedules.

"Maybe," Molly said noncommittally, her nose shoved in the book Break with a Banshee. "Though I'm not sure you or I have much of a right to make short jokes."

John glared at her but she didn't look up from her book long enough to notice, so he grumbled something about not being that short as he scooped himself some eggs.

He felt more than saw someone sit halfway down the table from them and he knew without looking it was Sherlock Holmes. The boy had this strange feel to him, one John couldn't confuse for someone else. John put his head down and so Molly would think he was looking at his plate but glanced over at the newly arrived Ravenclaw. Sherlock had a huge book on the table that he was leaning into closely. His eyes flicked back and forth across the page so quickly that John had trouble believing he was actually retaining any information.

"He's cute, isn't he?" said Molly, breaking John's reverie.

"W—what?" he stammered, looking up at her. She had put her book down and was looking at John.

"Sherlock Holmes," she replied with a knowing smile.

"Erm. Well. I don't know about cute. I'm not gay, after all."

"Of course not," Molly agreed, but she picked up her book far too hastily and then covered her face with it. John kept glaring and she ended up putting the book down again in favour of glancing over at the pale boy once more. "He's quite clever. It's fascinating. He's not as nice as he could be, but there's something… something more to him, you know? I think the coldness is just a wall."

"Yeah," John agreed absently, not really listening. What could he be reading so intently? Was he already working on schoolwork or was he reading for fun? And why did John care so damn much?

Even though he'd barely eaten and would do anything not to have History of Magic next, he felt uncomfortable and ended up excusing himself not five minutes later.

He had only barely just gotten into the Entrance Hall when someone came into stride with him, steps longer but slower than his own.

"History of Magic?" asked Sherlock.

Considering how many things the boy could deduce by looking at you, John didn't bother asking how he knew that. "Yes. With Hufflepuff. You?"

"Transfiguration with Slytherin. Then Defence after that with Gryffindor."

John looked over to Sherlock with his eyebrows pulled together. "But I'm a Gryffindor and I have Defence tomorrow."

"I'm taking it with the seventh years."

"Right," John muttered. How on earth was Sherlock so far ahead?

"What do you have after History?" asked Sherlock.

John almost made a joke about him not knowing already, but was too suspicious to joke. Sherlock did not seem the type for small talk. John felt he had to have been going somewhere with this.

"I've got Herbology next," said John, the wariness shining through in his voice.

"Arithmancy after break?" asked Sherlock.

"Yes. You too?"

"There's only one time slot for that class, so yes," Sherlock said. "I'll see you then."

And before John could say anything else to him, he was gone, nowhere to be seen. John looked around once, twice, looking for a curly head in the crowd, but there wasn't one. Strange, considering Sherlock was tall, so he should really stand out. John shook his head. He was an odd bloke, to say the least.


Sherlock couldn't say he had a great many weaknesses, but he could admit privately to himself that one of them was his propensity for melodrama. Using his original spell—which made him both invisible and insubstantial for just enough time to disappear from a conversation without a trace—for the first time in front of John was only because he was amused by moments of flair such as this. He'd not been able to test it over summer when he used magical theory to create it because of the rubbish rule of underage wizards being disallowed from using magic outside school, but he had to admit it was a work of art. Useless for anything except a dramatic exit, but he had to assuage the tedium of daily life somehow.

"That was impressive," said a derisive voice to Sherlock's left.

Sherlock somehow hoped he'd have a Mycroft-free morning. "Can't you leave me be for a day or two?" he asked blandly.

"I would worry about you too much were I to do that, brother mine." Sherlock didn't grace that sentence with a response and his brother knew he wouldn't. He barely paused before adding, "John Watson? That's who you choose?"

Sherlock smirked. He'd been waiting for that. "Something wrong with him, brother dear?"

Mycroft's short silence was all Sherlock needed to know that Mycroft was fuming. He answered calmly though. "I only wondered if this sudden interest in John Watson is going to be anything like what happened last year with Irene Adler."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Right, that's what worried him… "No, it won't be, because I doubt John Watson is looking for a room that doesn't exist."

Mycroft looked over to Sherlock patronisingly. "You don't mean the Room of Requirement, do you?"

"Of course I do. Keep up with the conversation, will you?"

"The Room of Requirement does exist, Sherlock. Come now, you must have realised that by now. It's never been officially confirmed, but it's obvious Harry Potter and his friends would've needed such a room to do what they did. I thought you would've realised as much long ago, with your partiality for finding forbidden locations in the castle."

Sherlock had never once considered it was real. A room that appeared and gave you whatever you wanted hidden somewhere in the castle? It sounded like such an outrageous lie that he never looked into it. But if Mycroft believed it, it had to be true.

Sherlock was intrigued. Without further ado, he sped up and left Mycroft in the dust.

Sherlock glided through the hall towards NEWT Transfiguration, which would be a very nice place to sit and think. Professor McGonagall proved to be the only professor in the school that could truly shut Sherlock Holmes up. She took none of his nonsense and had threatened to expel him if she caught him being a nuisance while she was in the room. He had to admit that he didn't really want to leave Hogwarts, so he had to be careful around her.

He suspected that he and McGonagall both had a grudging respect for each other. When he first had her, she was amazed by how quickly he learned things, said something about being quicker than Hermione Granger. It took less than an hour for his personality to shine through and her fondness to vanish into nothing, but she'd managed to get him to stop misbehaving in her class before the end of his second year, so now he always stayed silent and observed, learning the spells without bragging. Which he was capable of, of course, but it was much more fun to make fun of everyone else for being so slow or ask loudly who had cheated on that Hufflepuff girl that was crying in the back of the room.

So he sat down and McGonagall started class, and Sherlock mused on the little details he'd picked up about his brand new interest: John Watson. He walked like he had chaffing, but Sherlock had a feeling that was his normal gait. He was rather more observant than the average person. For seeming so friendly he was not a fan of small talk. He had clear trust issues that competed with a fierce sense of loyalty. He had an even clearer fascination with Sherlock—a trait Sherlock had never encountered in a person before and was admittedly intrigued with.

As it was his fifth year at Hogwarts, he'd experienced pretty much everything it had to offer. All the classes, of course—though he was finally starting his NEWTs, which he could only hope might be some sort of challenge. But also all the meals, all the passageways (both public and secret)… there wasn't very much left.

He had a few goals this year, however. To sneak into the Gryffindor Tower and Slytherin Dungeon was on his list. He'd found the Hufflepuff common room easily, and explored it in the dead of night before anyone could catch him—especially that dreaded Filch and his bloody cat, whose life goals were to bore Sherlock to death by keeping him in his common room the whole night. Nobody at this school seemed to understand that he didn't need to sleep as frequently as dull people, so he didn't get any special treatment.

Now he even had a new thing to put on his list of things to do while he snuck around: finding this Room of Requirement. His other goals consisted of getting a sample of every Herbology plant in order to do experiments on them, exploring the depths of the Forbidden Forest for an entire weekend, meeting every ghost at Hogwarts, and proving that the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was actually a Dark Wizard (though he'd had that goal since year one).

But ever since last year, Sherlock realised something. One thing he hadn't experienced was the people of Hogwarts. Which he'd done on purpose, originally, because stupid people were dull… but not every person on the planet could be dull, right? So last year, it started with Irene, which hadn't ended very well. Sherlock thought after her that he would swear off people once more.

But this John character… he proved promising. Mycroft, of course, would hate it. Even more than he had Irene, because John was Muggleborn. Mycroft figured that people with their social standing shouldn't converse with Muggleborns. Mycroft wasn't nearly as bad as their parents, admittedly, but was instilled with more of their values than Sherlock was—as Sherlock had been only four when they died and Mycroft had been almost seven.

Which was part of the reason why John being his new object of study was a brilliant idea. First, John was actually interesting from what Sherlock had seen so far. Quite different than other people at this school—a compact wad of contradictions shoved into amusingly small packaging, one that would take actual effort to understand. And also, Mycroft would hate it, which made it all the better. He hadn't liked Sherlock's Irene phase either, but at least she'd been a respectable Slytherin.

So Sherlock was actually pretty excited to see John in his Arithmancy class in the afternoon. Or maybe before? He had to stave off boredom somehow, and until he figured out where the Room of Requirement was or how to sneak into the Forbidden Forest for an extended period of time without anyone noticing, John Watson would just have to do.