Disclaimer: Everything is J.K.'s except Sam and Gem.

For all the conflict and contradictoriness that their outward appearance exuded, Kenna Bergenstrom and Braith Dawkins formed one of the most successful pairings of Heads from different houses that Hogwarts had ever seen. A striking combination of her Slytherin will, ambition and need to succeed by any means with his Hufflepuff determination, hard work and sheer optimism saw the two of them establish a fast and happy professional partnership – far from the rosy picture of evil-snake-lady-slaughters-defenceless-badger-boy being widely canvassed up and down the Hogwarts Express.

The first meeting of their prefect body had all the required amounts of sober responsibility and outright chaos handled masterfully by the duo. While Braith quietly explained to the new Ravenclaw 5th years why it wasn't such a good idea to put simultaneous enlargement and permanent polish charms on one's badge (Rowena's noble raven now wore a particularly seedy grin), the Gryffindor 6th years laughing raucously at them regained some maturity under Kenna's legendary glare. The inevitable scramble for patrolling shifts other than Friday and Saturday night ended in only one black eye and a large amount of hair (sprouting from the ears of one of the luckless new Ravenclaws), a result the Heads were reasonably pleased with in light of last year's all-in brawl.

Half an hour later, Samantha Oakley strolled out of the Prefect carriage with her fellow 5th year prefect Percy Weasley, Kenna's voice still ringing in her ears. She didn't have the faintest idea what those safe stone walls could possibly hold that would require one to "never drop one's guard (even if they're hanging of the edge of said shield and won't let go when shaken, hard)" or that being a Hogwarts prefect was "a job that looked much easier from the outside, (where the claws, horns, dungbombs and tentacula stuck firmly in one's shield weren't as visible)". Still, she had always thought that if one was to patrol the corridors properly it would have to be done with shield in hand. She even had some nice designs in mind that she couldn't wait to try. Professionally, of course. By her side Percy was feverishly running his eyes down the worn manual they had been given earlier that morning. Sam caught what might have been "dungeons", "magenta" and "camembert" in the stream of muttering and grinned. Flashes of brown and darkening green drew her eye past Percy and out the window through which the British countryside was blurring and deepening from smooth pastured green to wild tangled woodland.

"Trolley" she called to her fellow prefect as the lunch trolley trundled towards them, and sidestepping a couple of first years, a yellow rat and a rather feeble chocolate frog she continued down the aisle. Without looking up from his now sweat-stained parchment, Percy followed her path step for step, avoiding brat, rat and toad with a natural air that more than his badge, or frown or list betrayed the real reason why these two had had the title of 'prefect' thrust upon them.

They passed a compartment empty but for two boys, one incredibly skinny with a mess of black hair and the other with hair of the static fireball variety that suggested a minimum of 78% Weasley blood. She turned to ask Percy, saw he was only up to number 142 and continued walking, sidestepping a small girl with buck teeth whose bush of brown hair would, in Sam's private opinion, fit in quite nicely with the shocks of ginger and black they had just passed. But then appearances were always deceiving. She was sure that anyone looking at her and Percy would have trouble seeing them working together. Their lack of conversation, the difference between Percy's nervous march and Sam's casual stroll were all obvious to any observer. The only thing they'd have in common would be that they were walking in the same direction which, thankfully, was all that mattered. But it wasn't only that Sam, with an impervious resilience possessed by very few, could stand being in close proximity to Percy (and more importantly – Percy's mouth) for extended periods of time, and it wasn't really because she balanced out his panicked states with a calm collected cool that meant she worked well with him. It was more that she, and well all four of them really, were all over-achieving, obsessive and slightly abnormal (even) for teenagers.

While carriage patrols had never given the prefects of Hogwarts too much trouble, what with students more concerned with catching up with friends, swapping holiday tales and checking out puberty's latest developments – the start of term Hogwarts Express had always held its own atmosphere. After spending the best part of three months disconnected from their wands, spontaneous magic not seen since childhood had a tendency to crop up in the corridors. The air itself seemed to crackle with repressed energy. Sam ducked as a cluster of miniature purple fireworks erupted over the heads of two hugging second years. With a quick glance at Percy (still reading) she shooed them back into their compartment.

It took her a moment to realise that she was feeling oddly relieved. Spotting trouble, diffusing tension she reckoned she could probably handle but the latter half of the procedure, the half including serious voices, rule quoting and point deduction was firmly in Percy's hands as far as Sam was concerned. She was perfectly happy standing by, the image of understanding respectability –

SPLAT. Sam swore. A small something had slapped her sharply in the face and burst in a shock of water. Glaring through the dripping ends of her hair at the two fourth year boys Sam shook out of her slouch and unfolded to her proper height. So perhaps there was always room for an exception or two. "I've got no problem with the two of you wetting yourselves but use these in the corridors again and," she paused for effect, (i.e. thinking time) "you'll be covered in something else. For now, I'm confiscating this." Shooting a drying spell at her hair she bent down to pick up the now resealed and refilled water balloon.

"How come you can do magic in the corridors then?" shot a Ravenclaw, in what Sam thought was a snide nasal voice. His friend (poor bugger, thought Sam) nudged him in the ribs and nodded towards the prefect badge pinned to Sam's robes. Snide boy's mouth formed a soundless "oh" and then a mask of terror when he saw Percy Weasley start to open his mouth. Percy looked slightly affronted as the boys sprinted into an adjacent compartment, then shrugged and returned to his ream of parchment. Sam hardly noticed, focusing more on keeping her face as straight and sensible as possible while her insides did a vigorous happy dance of pride and guffawed at her intimidating punny genius.

At three to twelve, when Percy and Sam would be replaced by their sixth year counterparts, Sam glanced at the next carriage in passing, and did a double-take. The compartment held a boy who, from his heavily creased forehead, mussed hair, uncontrollably shaking leg and expression of deadest focus suggested a mental condition somewhat tipped towards the unhealthy side of any scale. Opposite him sat a girl already dressed in her Hogwarts robes, this element of order set off spectacularly by the inflatable muggle floating ring hoisted jauntily on her waist and her decidedly manic grin. They were also arm-wrestling. Sam looked down at the dull shine of her prefect badge, sighed, and pushed the compartment door open. It was going to be a long year.

"Do you really think re-enacting the 1894 Bolton Banshee attack is going to win you an arm wrestle Gem? You know you haven't beaten me for three years."
"SHEEEEEEEEE'L BE COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN SHE COOOOOOO- shut up history freak I beat you five minutes ago."
"You cheated!" Oliver Wood hissed between his teeth, "Anyone's muscles would momentarily spasm if their opponent's hair decided to suddenly act like seaweed."
Sam raised her eyebrows appreciatively at the locks in question, which were gently weaving and swaying to the, ahem, 'tune' of Gemima Understone's 'song'. Sam grinned down at the water balloon in her hand and gave her wand a little flick.

SPLAT. Gem and Oliver sprang apart with a gasp, large amounts of soapy water and a flurry of yellow bubbles that caused their hands to slip out of contact. Sam grinned at their sopping wet faces.

"SAMMY!" cried Gem, pushing Oliver unceremoniously to the floor while she enveloped Sam in a very wet bear hug. "Ah I missed you too Gem" came Sam voice, somewhat muffled in Gem's dancing hair.

"Nah you already hit me," Gem replied. Sam released her best friend with a squelch and a groan, falling down beside Oliver. "Oh come on you two, lameness won't get you hurt," drawled Gem. Oliver lifted himself to his elbows, his eyes narrowed.

"It'll only – "

"Geeem," warned Oliver.

"get you CRIPPLED!" shouted Gem gleefully, ducking the next second as Oliver pegged the Resealable Water balloon back at her head.

Percy, opening the door at precisely that moment looked up to see the wobbling mass of water speeding towards his face but before he could react, a dull red mist had appeared before him and the balloon had bounced harmlessly to the floor.

Percy's hand hadn't moved. Gem and Oliver whipped their heads around to look at Sam, who put out her empty hands.

"It wasn't me."

"But, but the shield, where'd it come from?" spluttered Oliver.

Sam ran her eyes over Percy, he looked perfectly normal. The same as he had looked for years now. Except, of course, for his new prefect badge. Which was glowing.

Gaping, Sam pulled her own badge off of her robes and ran her fingers over it. It twinkled innocently in the lamp light.

"Perce," said Sam, hoarsely. "There isn't a section on badges in that manual is there?"

Percy snapped out of his mask of bafflement to rifle quickly through the wad of parchment, stopping a fair way into the tome.

"Ahem, badge maintenance, badge replacements, aha – badge properties and history. Over time, the prefect badge grew from a simply symbolic and aesthetic representation to a functioning asset assisting the regulatory work of each prefect. After the unfortunate incidents of 1873, when a number of student leaders were required to control various levels of mutiny and rebellion from their school mates (see: the uprising of the fourth years of 1873 p 41, Jervis Bones p 891 and the Horseradish Nostril hex p112) the then Headmistress, Professor Shaunley, imbued each prefect's badge with a resistance to all minor hexes, curses and charms performed by fellow students with an intention to harm. The badges' defensive mechanisms have since been tweaked and improved over the years and now originate only as a foundation, learning throughout and over the years to gain particular protection to the popular hexes of the day.

"That is so awesome," breathed Sam, some awe definitely colouring her voice.

Percy however, was frowning slightly. "But you just got hit in the face with one of those! A prefect badge can't be that inconsistent in its properties, its magic wouldn't be that variable," he muttered, rereading the paragraph.

Gem broke into a grin. "Merlin, I've missed you Perce."

"Here!" said Percy, having apparently not heard Gem. "The shield's only produced when the item is wielded with the intention to hit a prefect, so with a goal to harm," he looked up at Sam, who nodded. "Otherwise all sorts of things would get messy, imagine a prefect playing Qudditch!"

"A bludger-repelling Chaser! Imagine that" moaned Wood.

"Yeah, but she'd be a quaffle-repelling Chaser too" cut in Sam before Oliver could slip away into dreams of unimpeded Chaser plays.

"So how comeI could never get those pansies to stick on Avery's hat last year? Pansies never hurt anyone." Gem mused out loud. "Bloody unfair if you ask me."

"I'll say!" broke in Oliver. "My Captain's badge's lousy. Doesn't do anything."

"Oh I don't know about that, I swear it gives you automatic Sonorus charms whenever you're on the pitch."

"Nah, that's just me."

"Hm, fair enough" said Percy.

"Quite the contrary my dear boy, it is the lack of fairness under consideration here old fellow" Gem put forth, putting her thumb behind imaginary suspenders and puffing on a liquorice wand pipe.

Sam broke off a bit of liquorice and chewed it thoughtfully.

"You need a monocle Gem."

"Good gosh! You appear to be right" exclaimed Gem, pulling off her bathing ring and tapping it with her wand.

Percy rolled his eyes, pulled the Prefect manual towards the nearest seat and continued to read. Oliver gave a loud "hmph!" and pulled out the latest copy of Which Broomstick. Sam settled herself in the window seat.

"Do I want to know why an inflatable swimming ring was present on the train?"

"I was just practising" replied Gem, sweetly.

"And now you're practicing something entirely different," said Sam, raising an eyebrow. "Is this because we're prefects now?"

Gem glanced up from the paperclip she was transfiguring into a pocket watch.

"Hm? Why would that change anything?" she trilled breezily.

Oliver snorted, loudly. "Oh please, you were bouncing around the entire compartment, for the most part the wrong way up, worrying if she'd be the same person, whether she'd be no fun, and of course whether she'd be contagious. You then convinced me that you required an emergency life ring and that the only course of action left was to go swim after the first year's boats and start all over."

Gem shot a look that said, in no uncertain terms, I-know-precisely-where-industrial-grade-tar-and-shears-may-be-found-and-oh-would-you-look-at-that-I-also-know-where-your-broom-is. Oliver, highly adept in the reading of Gem's eye language, buried his face in his magazine.

"Ahem, so yep. No changes," Gem continued.

Sam grinned and turned back to the window. It was true though. In any other group the announcement that two friends had been made prefects would have been met with congratulations, either out of politeness or genuine appreciation. The complete lack of praise or surprise here was a mark of how perfectly the four of them pulled off dysfunctional unity. Sam and Percy's new positions were not envied or hated, used or abused, they were simply expected. For five years now, the four of them had excelled in their own endeavours to an almost alarming degree. What they all shared was (ironically enough) a certain independence, obsession and level of brilliance hardly matched throughout Hogwarts. They also held a mutual competitive streak bigger than the English Channel.

From the ripe old age of nine Percy Weasley had had a dream. A dream that had blossomed from the finely-wrought depths of his much-matured mind. And that dream was about sheep. Some sheep, the young Percy realised, spent their lives keeping their heads down, grateful for any grass and clover available for grazing and continued on so for the remainder of their lives, never wanting anything different. There were, however, fleeced farm animals who pushed their heads above the flock, sought out higher pastures and all the views that came with them. These were the marvellous mammals that heralded change, led the way and were where he wanted to be. These were also the first hints that Arthur Weasley's fondness for salvaging scraps of Muggle fairytales and nursery rhymes to read aloud to his children may have had some slightly unhealthy effects.

If there happened to be a wolf in sheep's clothing in this particular amalgamation of tales, it would have to be Gemima Understone. The best weapon that evolution ever bestowed upon nature's predators was camouflage. And so it was with Gem who, through extensive research, had developed for herself the reputation and appearance of a normal girl. Though this facade had the tendency to crumble when viewed for long periods of time (ten minutes) or confronted with various topics (high heels, pawpaw, plush toys, to name a few), it had more or less convinced the majority of Hogwarts' inhabitants that she was nothing but average. And once this had been achieved, Gemima Understone was capable of getting away with practically anything. The prey Gem stalked in the wild corners of the night was that wily foe ... peace – unravelling order and planting chaos were her specialities. She was unbeaten in the underground world of pranking. Not that her highly successful exploits went to her head, as such. Though she was prone to targeting any would-be upstart prank-lords, she had never required public fame to go along with her personal knowledge that she was, quite simply, the best.

Something that Oliver Wood, to a somewhat lesser degree, shared. What Oliver's brain, muscles and non-existent shame worked towards was that final scorecard – not the subsequent glory. There was not much that Oliver would not do for Quidditch. In his first year, resigned to the fact that he was approximately 20 times smaller than the then Keeper, he appointed himself as Undercover Team Captain and took it upon himself to personally sabotage the infamous Ravenclaw move of '87 (the "claw core"). Pinpointing that the entire operation relied on a series of eye signals, discovering the hay fever problems of one Chaser O'Reilley and sacrificing all dignity by serenading said Chaser with copious bunches of flowers over three successive weeks were all things that Oliver Wood very easily did and that Gem was rather proud of. More than the promise of any praise, more than the sting of any insult, Oliver Wood played Quidditch to see his team win.

If everyone who knew Oliver Wood frequently saw him doing anything and everything to win, those who knew Sam regularly saw that Sam was winning but it was sometimes hard to tell at what. She was smart without sitting on top of the class, good at Quidditch without ever wanting to trial for the team, easy to go to for help without feeling that she was going to be smug about it for the next month. In fact, Sam was one of those people who was annoyingly good at most things you put in front of her and most annoyingly of all, you could never really be annoyed at her about it because she barely thought about it herself. It so happened that what Sam really wanted to be was slightly impractical and improbable in the twentieth century. Sam wanted to be a hero. She wanted a sword. And slow motion battle scenes. During her last year in primary school Sam had been a class representative and one lunch had personally fetched a crying Rebecca Langley's brand new basketball from the clutches of a group of much bigger boys. While Rebecca had come out of it thinking what a nice friend Samantha was and the teachers ended up thinking how mature and responsible she was, Sam had thought how cool it would be if she could always stride down corridors accompanied by epic soundtracks, smoking footprints and sparks. A hundred miles away Professor Dumbledore had sat and chuckled to himself at the ways in which underage witches were expressing their magic these days, trembling a few feet away the group of boys had been significantly less amused.

The four of them functioned strangely enough as a group. For large chunks of the term one or more of them might not be seen for days, absorbed in their own projects. That was not to say they wouldn't worry if one of their number meant missing, they each had areas where they were more or less going to be found, but there was an almost unspoken acceptance that each person would be following their own

So it was that the four of them, out of the magnetic properties of insanity, had identified with each other from the first days of their schooling lives. The obsessive mania that regularly came over any one or more of them meant that absences from evening gatherings in the common room or mealtimes or (for Gem) classes were common rather than a cause for worry. That was not to say that they did not care or worry about each other, there would be a great deal of concern and very thorough search parties if Oliver had missed a training session or Gem a meal, it was just that they knew each other well enough to not feel pressured to spend more time than was feasible between people who shared stubbornness and competitiveness rather than interests and principles.

While every other compartment along the Hogwarts Express rang with laughter and general chatter, four fifth years settled into their own spaces reading and thinking in silence. Well, it wasn't quite silence. Even though words were few and far between, a pleasant sort of contented hum seemed to radiate throughout the train and in no other place was it more obvious than between these four friends.