A/N: And we have a long chapter one! There was honestly no good place to stop. And then there's the fact it doesn't feel long.

Thanks to my lovely beta, old ping hai.

Sherlock was sulking in his room, deliberately not packing for school. He stared at all the things he was forced to leave behind: the snow globe of the London skyline; a dark, charcoal-grey coat that his father gave him last Christmas; his violin; and the microscope. All too precious to leave behind and yet he could not take them.

There was a small rap on his door and he dully called out, "Come in."

The door opened to reveal his older brother Mycroft. Sherlock's eyes darted over the tall, auburn-haired man. He was seven years older than Sherlock and built on a stockier frame. The younger of the two sighed.

"Where have they gone this time?" he asked. His parents were always going someplace, and his mother would send him a snow globe from every location. His favorite was still the one from London.

Mycroft sighed and ran his fingers through his neatly-trimmed hair, his dark-blue eyes drifted closed. "I honestly have no idea, probably somewhere warm judging from the clothes they took. I have no doubt that in a week, we'll get the usual postcard telling us where they've gone."

Edward Holmes was in the Foreign Office, constantly being called away from home, often at the drop of a hat. As soon as Mycroft was old enough to take care of Sherlock, Odile Holmes went with her husband. Sometimes it was her skill as a mathematician that called them away from their children. They loved their children and honestly wished them well. Theirs was a case of benign neglect.

Mycroft took in his brother's room, noting the distinct lack of activity. "Why aren't you packing?"

"I'm not going," came his brother's petulant reply. Sherlock flopped on the bed face first and continued to mutter.

"It's either return to Westminster Private Academy or come to London with me and I will tutor you. And believe me when I say that you will be ready for Oxford come Christmas."

Sherlock groaned and rolled over on his back. "Isn't there somewhere else I can go?"

"Sherlock, may I remind you that you have either been thrown out of every other fine learning establishment or they refuse to take you. Especially after what happened to the Gibbons boy."

Sherlock sat up, his face no longer merely cloudy, but a veritable storm. "That was justified and you know it," he growled.

Mycroft raised his hands in surrender. "I am aware. But until you tell your side of the story, everyone will assume you are the aggressor."

Sherlock pulled his knees up his chest. "They wouldn't have believed me, anyway," he murmured into his knees.

Mycroft sat on the bed next to him. "I know, Lockie. I do. But you have to go back. It would be better for everyone involved. Also, you wouldn't want mummy to worry, would you?"

Sherlock shook his head. "They all hate me."

The elder Holmes boy put his hand on his brother's knee. "I'll see what I can do. But I can't make promises. But couldn't you try to make friends or at the very least not be so antagonistic toward certain people?"

"Goldfish," Sherlock muttered.

Mycroft chuckled.

Sherlock knocked on the door to the office of the Dean of Admittance and received a bid to enter.

"Oh, there you are, Sherlock. There are some things I need to go over with you," she said, a large folder on the desk in front of her. She was an older woman with greying blonde hair and wearing a prim purple dress. Her hands were neatly tucked on her lap and her lips formed a thin line.

"Hello, Mrs Hudson," Sherlock muttered as he threw himself into the nearest chair.

"Don't be so rough on the furniture, Sherlock," she admonished.

"Yes, Mrs Hudson."

She sighed. She flipped open the folder and glanced over its contents. "I see Mycroft has been listed as your parental guardian again this year."

Sherlock's hands wrapped around the ends of the arms of the chair tightly, but gave no response.

"Where have they gone this time? Last year it was the Balkans, wasn't it?"

"They're in Indonesia this time," Sherlock said with a shrug. As Mycroft had predicted, they had sent a postcard a couple days ago.

"Well that's nice, isn't it?" She looked at the pained expression on his face. "Isn't it?" Sherlock just shrugged again.

She sighed. "Sherlock, you know this level of recalcitrance isn't helping. In fact, it was one of the reasons you're on probation for this term. You'll only land yourself into more trouble, and you will be kicked out."

"They all hate me. Especially the teachers. They don't like that I'm cleverer than they are."

"Well, we have some new ones this year. Maybe it won't be so bad. And a lot of the students that bullied you graduated last year, so maybe you can make some friends."

Sherlock just stared at the floor.

"Well, to help facilitate the process, you will, for the duration of your probation, mentor our latest transfer student, John Watson."

"You mean my babysitter," the boy huffed.

"No, I mean you will be his mentor. Granted, your fate is tied with his. If he gets into trouble, then so do you and vice versa. I realize that boys will be boys and he may accidentally run afoul someone he shouldn't, so we are giving you three chances."

"Each?" Sherlock asked, sitting up.

"No."

Sherlock slumped back into his chair.

"You are excused, Sherlock."

The tall, lanky youth threw himself out of her office and into the hall. There were a few students waiting outside for their turn and Sherlock scanned all of them. He had picked his choice, when the boy in question stood up to greet him.

"Hi, you must be Sherlock. John Watson, pleased to meet you," he said. Sherlock was surprised to say the least. Here was this boy, whom Sherlock fully expected to be…well, more like himself really. A pretty, rich boy, who had been kicked out of one of the finer institutions and sent here. But instead…instead, there was John Watson. There was something about the boy that defied categorization.

Sherlock was determined, however. The new boy's blond hair was cut short, his dark-blue eyes bright with intelligence and perhaps a little mischief. He was definitely an athlete of some sort, tanned. A warm smile and a ready handshake. And there it was, John's category. He was good. Not nice. But good. Sherlock couldn't help but wonder how long he would stay that way here. Until his need to be liked became the need to be popular.

After all, everyone leaves in the end.

"Hello," Sherlock replied, his thoughts having taken a mere blink of an eye. "Well, John, has our situation been explained to you?"

"Yeah, a bit high fantasy, ain't it? This whole 'your fate is tied to mine' crap." John shrugged. "If it means that you stay out of trouble till Halloween, and I don't mess with the school bullies, then whatever, mate."

Sherlock stared at him in shock. "You honestly don't care that I could really mess things up for you, do you?"

John grinned. "Looks like I'll just have to make sure you don't," he winked.

Sherlock realized it wasn't a threat, the blond actually wanted to spend time with him.

"You don't know me; I could be a serial killer, for all you know," Sherlock said.

"That would only make you more interesting, honestly. I'll just have to make myself so useful that it would be pointless to mark me as your next victim. Though, I bet your victims are those that think themselves above everyone else, those that think they can do no wrong, and when you capture them, you slowly take away that superiority bit by bit."

Sherlock's eyes went wide and his mouth hung open. John nudged him in the shoulder.

"Good thing you're not, eh, Sherlock? A serial killer, I mean," John said, a grin on his face.

Sherlock took in a moment to realize the boy was joking before giving in to a weak chuckle.

"I'm supposed to show you around the school, but as that would be dull and if you aren't intelligent enough to find your way, then you are far stupider than you look," Sherlock explained.

"Fair enough. Though you are going to have to show me your favorite places, so I can keep my eye on you," John said with a wink.

A warm feeling spread from Sherlock stomach to his chest. He fought it down; he had walls for a reason.

"All right," Sherlock conceded. "I'll show you the dorms last, so we can give the porters time to bring your luggage up to your room."

"We have porters? Wow." John was more than a little impressed.

"We have the full complement of porters, groundskeepers, cooks, cleaning staff, stablehands, and laundresses, in addition to the administration and faculty,"

"No wonder this place is so posh," John whistled. "But hold on, stablehands, really? This place has horses?"

"Yes," Sherlock said with a smile, "would like to see them?"

"That depends," the blond said.

"On?" Sherlock frowned.

"On whether it's one of your favorite spots, otherwise I can look later."

"I see. Then we'll go there first," Sherlock smiled.

They stepped outside and again John whistled. "We have to walk all the way out there?" He pointed to the one-hundred yards of manicured park expanding before them. He could see a series of large buildings just beyond where the road curved to the right. The road was lined with trees on both sides. At the center of the park there was a statue and beyond that, he assumed, was the main school.

"Yes. They do love their intimidation techniques," Sherlock said leading them through the park.

Now John saw that in addition to the trees, there were ordinary shrubs and topiary of different animals. Apparently one of the under gardeners had a sense of humor, as there was a lion looking like he was ready to leap on a deer that was grazing nearby. There were benches placed along the paths.

"This is where most students have their lunch on warm days," Sherlock informed his companion. "While you are required to have breakfast and dinner with your house, lunch is a bit more lax."

"Nice to see this isn't all for show then," John muttered darkly.

Silence stretched, until Sherlock was forced to break it or he'd go mad.

"We have both an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a lake that is used for boating, swimming and fishing," Sherlock gave him sidelong glance before adding, "It's also where most people go for a shag."

John's eyes went wide and then he began to laugh. "Good to know."

Sherlock's face transformed as a small, shy smile graced it. John decided it look good on the taller boy.

They had barely reached the middle when John huffed, "Jeez, why is the main school so far from the admin building? Aren't they afraid that the students will take a runner before making it to the Headmaster's office?"

"It's nearer to the road for the ease of access for the parents who just want to get in and then out without having to see their offspring. The Headmaster's office and his rooms are in the main building, and all teachers have a small office connected to their classrooms. You only really go to the administration office at the beginning and end of every term. Plus, it's like I said earlier, they do love their intimidation tactics."

"Consider me suitably cowed," John murmured.

They made it to the stables passing between the pool and rugby and football pitch. The stables were attached to a large paddock where a few of the horses were milling around. Sherlock jumped up on the fence and let out a long, piercing whistle. A black horse with a bright white blaze in the center of its forehead and two white socks came bounding up to the curly-haired youth.

"This is Silver Blaze, he's mine. Well…when I say mine…" Sherlock said.

"He's gorgeous,"

"He's a dressage horse. I compete with him every spring,"

"Oh wow!"

They talked about the different kind of events for horses before they moved on.

"Where to next?" John asked, dusting off his hands.

"Well, there's the dance studio, but I doubt you have any interest in that," Sherlock murmured.

"Well, maybe not in the studio, but what kind of dancing do you do?"

"Ballet," Sherlock said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Oh, so you're a danseur noble, then?"

Sherlock chuckled. "I love that you not only knew the term but assumed that I was the lead."

"My sister Harry did ballet for a bit and I figured you would never do anything by halves," John said with a shrug.

"But, yes. I am the danseur noble," Sherlock smiled.

"Where else?" John asked.

"Well there's the library…" Sherlock said, warily

"I bet it's fantastic. The library at my old school was dreadful. It had a couple of outdated history books, a 1971 copy of "Grey's Anatomy, and the third Harry Potter book with the last two chapters ripped out."

"So the poor reader was left wondering what happened after the Dementors' attack?"

"Exactly!"

They reached the library doors. "Then, you'll like this!" Sherlock shoved open the heavy doors to reveal a book lover's wet dream. There were stacks and stacks of books as well bookshelves fill to the brim lining the walls.

"Amazing!" John whispered. "How does anyone leave?"

"Apparently there are a vast number of people, from parents to teachers and administration that frown on skipping classes," Sherlock retorted.

John nudged him in the shoulder, "Sounds like you're speaking from experience."

Sherlock winked. "A bit."

He let John wander the stacks for awhile before he steered the other boy toward the dorms.

"Curfew is at ten on school nights and midnight on the weekends. Also there is mandatory church service for two hours on Sunday morning," Sherlock explained.

"I saw that, I hoped it wasn't as staunchly enforced as it was implied in the acceptance letter."

"Ah, no. It is very rigorously enforced."

They reached the first dorm. "You have housing units. Three for students and one for teachers. You have Victoria for the ladies," he said pointing to the first house. "Belgravia for the teachers," he indicated the next building. "The next two are for the boys, Marylebone and Paddington."

He looked over at the other boy, "Which one are you in?"

John pulled out a small paper out of his pocket and looked at it. "Marylebone."

He stopped short. "Wait, are you telling me that in a school named after a borough of London each of the dorms is named after a district in that selfsame borough?"

Sherlock turned to face John. "Very good, John. Most people don't make the connection until they get into the dorms themselves."

John started walking again and Sherlock fell into step next him. "Why's that?" the shorter boy asked.

"Because each of the floors above ground floor are named after a street in each district."

John rolled his eyes, "Please tell me you're joking."

"Nope!" Sherlock popped the 'p' at the end.

"Right."

They reached the third building and Sherlock showed him in. They made passing glance at each of the nurse's station, laundry room, the dorm head's quarters and dinning hall. They completely pass the rec room.

"Why aren't we going in there?" John asked the taller youth.

"You asked me to only show you my favorite places. That is not one of them."

"Not your scene?" John asked.

"Not welcome," came the short reply.

They went up the stairs. "Which level are you on?" Sherlock asked as they reached the first floor. There in brass letters read 'Bentinck Street.' John squinted up at and then pulled out the paper once more.

"'Baker Street.' What does the 'B' at the end mean?" he asked.

"The floors are split into two. Twenty-four on the front side looking out over the park, which is 'A,' and twenty-five overlooking the forest behind us, which is 'B.' The first floor is one-hundred series, the second floor is two-hundred series and the third level is three-hundred series."

"I guess that makes sense. It's weird, but okay. I've got 221B Baker Street."

Sherlock started. He ran up the rest of the way and down the hall to the room in question. There in the metal slats for the occupants' names were 'Holmes' and 'Watson'.

"Oh cool!" John said when he caught up. "Looks like we're roommates!"

"So it would seem."

Thank you, Mycroft. I owe you.