The following Monday, when John descended sleepy-eyed from the dormitories, he found a group of excited students milling around the bulletin board in the common room. Spotting Sarah, he made a beeline for her.

"What's all the hubbub about?"

She smiled at him. "First Hogsmeade date. You were wrong-only two weeks."

"Blimey, that's right!" John exclaimed. "I had forgotten that it's November already. Ah, well, can't say I'm upset to be wrong."

"Really?"

"Really," he assured her, returning her grin.

"What do you mean you've never been to Hogsmeade?" John, sitting with Sherlock at the Ravenclaw table for breakfast, appeared horrified.

Sherlock ignored the people who had turned to look at them, and calmly replied, "What did you expect? It's not like I usually go to school events."

"This isn't a school event, though!"

"Well, most of the school will be there, and I prefer to remain where most of the school is not."

"You should at least try it. You don't need to socialize. You can come with me."

"Aren't you going with that Sawyer girl?" Sherlock asked, surprised.

"Well, yeah, but it's not like it's a date or anything…" he said uncertainly. "She probably just wanted to make sure she wasn't there alone. I'm sure she won't mind."

"Okay, but if it's boring, I'm leaving."

"That's fine, it's not like you need to stay all day."

The boys were soon distracted by the arrival of hundreds of owls sweeping down upon the students, showering them in parcels and envelopes.

While John began reading some letter he had received, Sherlock was surprised to see a little piece of parchment rolled up and tied with a purple bow land in his cereal.

"What's that?" inquired John, looking up.

"An invitation to Slughorn's first dinner party," he replied in a monotone voice. "Honestly, I'm surprised it took him this long to plan one. Am I free tomorrow evening? Damn. I am."

"Does he usually send them by owl?"

"Yeah, he likes to be as classy as possible. Oh, look. You're invited too."

John leaned in closer to get a good look. "Why did he put it on the same invitation?"

"He probably didn't want to waste his fancy paper. It's heavy, very good quality…probably Czech."

"Of course it is. Well, I'll have to plan something for that night."

"What? Why aren't you coming?"

"Because you're always complaining about these stupid little parties," John reminded him.

"I agreed to go to Hogsmeade, so you need to come to this. It's only fair."

"I don't need to do anything!"

"Oh, it looks like Sarah has one too..."

"…fine, I'll come. But if it's boring-"

"Yes, yes, you're leaving."

John and Sherlock met each other halfway to Slughorn's office that night-John was wearing dress robes, while Sherlock was just wearing his school ones, with his shirt collar unbuttoned.

Sarah and a few other people were already seated around an oval table when they arrived. John, panicking at the last minute, sat a couple seats away from her with Sherlock. Sarah smiled at him, but looked slightly crestfallen.

Slughorn welcomed them in his booming voice, and informed them that they were just waiting for two others, and then they could indulge.

One of these two turned out to be a Hufflepuff girl with light brown hair she wore pulled back in a ponytail. She gave Sherlock a shy smile, which he seemed not to notice, and sat down on his other side.

"Hello, Sherlock."

Sherlock nodded at her, and turned to John, determined to initiate a conversation with him.

"Going to introduce me?" asked the other boy, before he could.

"This is Molly Hooper. Hufflepuff. She was here last year."

"Pleasure," said John, giving her an encouraging smile. "Shit," he hissed a moment later.

"What?" Sherlock looked up.

Jack Collins had entered the room, the boy whom Sherlock had decimated in their earlier duel-and he took the only available seat, directly across from the curly-haired prodigy.

"Is it just me or did it get suddenly cold in here?" asked Sherlock.

In response, Collins shot him a nasty glare that could have made anyone flinch-anyone other than Sherlock Holmes, that is.

"Er, yes. Well, why don't we get started then?" suggested Professor Slughorn.

It was soon very easy to become distracted by the food-the table was laden with a variety of meats, potatoes, vegetables, and all sorts of exquisite dishes as well as butterbeer and pumpkin juice. Sherlock was particularly taken to the butterbeer, which he had never had before. He figured it would be worth going to Hogsmeade with John and Sarah just for that.

Sherlock made a point to look up at Collins as little as possible, and the other boy seemed to have the same idea. However, on the rare occasion that their eyes met, they would stare each other down until someone looked away-that someone always being Collins.

However, when the two boys weren't having childish staring contests, John and Sherlock were deep in conversation about some new spells they had learned in Defense Against the Dark Arts that day.

"Don't you think it's a bit morbid to teach that in a classroom?" John insisted for the second or third time.

"Well where else are we going to learn it? It's better that we're supervised-imagine if everyone tried teaching themselves at home?" Sherlock countered, ever the logical one.

"I still don't see why we need to learn how to cast them in the first place."

"Because, it's easier for us to defend ourselves against them if we know them, of course."

"I don't see how. Knowing it's a curse that'll break all of your bones isn't going to help you cast a more powerful shield charm."

"Well," put in a shaky voice to Sherlock's left, "if we know how to cast them we should be able to recognize the wand movement-so we'll identify the spell much quicker and be able to determine if we even can block it, or if we should just try to dodge it."

The boys looked over at Molly in surprise. "Precisely, thank you, Molly," Sherlock supplied, before turning back to John as if the girl hadn't spoken.

"Anyways, I'm sure Professor Nevamann knows what he's doing."

John however, had his doubts. He didn't at all like the idea of some of the Slytherins knowing how to perform such macabre curses-people who couldn't control their emotions all the time, who had high opinions of themselves, and who were too good at certain spells for their own good-people, although John hated to admit it, like Sherlock.

"So, tell me something," began John. They were lounging in the library the day after the slug club party; Sherlock was pouring over an Arithmancy book, while John was leaning back in his chair, homework long forgotten.

"Hm?" acknowledged Sherlock, not looking up or breaking concentration.

"I don't mean to bring up sore topics….but what exactly happened between you and Jack?"

"Who?"

"Collins."

"Oh. I beat him?"

"No, I mean, before that. You must know him from somewhere. I mean, you were gentle in the beginning of that duel, Sherlock. And then suddenly you were vicious. It was kind of scary actually. That was a lot of emotion to show towards someone you've never met."

Sherlock pursed his pale lips together. Normally John wouldn't push a touchy topic like this with the dark-haired boy, but he felt as if they were somehow closer than when he had first asked him, after it had happened. It had been only just over a week or so, but it was as if something had shifted.

"It's a long story."

"It's not even lunch time yet."

The boy sighed, closed his book, and leaned back in his chair. He ran a pale hand through his curls, and observed John through his half-closed, slate-colored eyes.

"Our families know each other. Our parents. They were good friends."

"Oh. So you and Collins were friends, too?"

"I wouldn't say "friends". Acquaintances. Colleagues. If you can use that word-it was before Hogwarts. When our families got together, we would go outside before and after dinner and practice spells. We'd "duel" each other-it was really just shooting sparks though, and seeing who could master a spell first."

"How did you do magic?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you didn't have wands, did you?"

"We would borrow our parents'. But just for some things. Other times, we wouldn't use them."

"You would do magic without using wands?" John was aware that Sherlock was an exceptional wizard, but doing magic without a wand seemed a bit of a stretch. And then there was Collins, who was no more than an ordinary wizard at best.

"You know how young wizards and witches can accidentally make magic happen in desperate situations?"

"Yes."

"It was like that. Sometimes kids have a reasonable amount of control over it. You can't do actual spells, with incantations, but if you convince yourself it's a desperate situation you can sometimes make it happen. It's very difficult of course, and it only works when you're young. We managed to make it work every once in a while, but overall we were all dreadful at it."

John contemplated that in silence for a moment. "Wait a moment. 'We all?' Who else was there? Does Collins have a sibling?"

"No, I do. My brother."

"You have a brother?"

"…yes." Sherlock was nonplussed. As far as he could see, this was nothing to be quite so shocked about.

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"There was never any reason to."

"Well tell me now. Is he a twin? Is he in our year? What house? What's his name?"

"Calm down," Sherlock commanded. "There's no need to be so excited. He's a bit of a tosser, really. His name is Mycroft. He's a seventh year, in Slytherin House."

John wrinkled his nose. "No wonder you haven't brought him up before."

Sherlock sniggered. "You've probably seen him around. He's head boy."

"Speaking of, I'm a bit surprised you aren't a prefect, with your perfect marks and conceited manner."

The boy glowered at him.

"I'm just saying, those are usually the ingredients for a prefect. Not that self confidence is a bad thing, of course," John added hastily.

"I am a prefect."

"Come again?"

"I'm a prefect. I just don't wear the badge. Besides, all I really have to do is make sure the younger students are following the rules, which is something I tend to take into my own hands anyways.

"Really?"

"Not always. Only if they're being annoying, which rule-breaking usually is."

"Oh. Wait, we got off topic. So what happened between you and Collins?"

"Later. It's time for lunch, and I'm starved."

John figured it best not to argue, but made a mental note to continue the conversation on a later date. If anything, the young prodigy was more of an enigma to him than ever before-a mystery he was determined to solve, and the most logical way to approach that would be to start, well, at the beginning.