AN: Our favourite Gryffindors' chapter! Have I mentioned how much I love Sam and James? After these next two most of the chapters include more than one house but I do like writing focusing just on one of them. Let me know what you think :) as always; reviews are better than buttercream!

Chapter Eight
Of the Gryffindor Dormitories, Or, More Specifically, the Gryffindors In Them.

Sam's best friend was James. Sam spent all of her free time with James. Sam had absolutely no interest in seeing him without clothes but was perfectly comfortable when he didn't have any on too, not that the occasion had happened more than once; when she'd charged up to the boy's dormitories at the wrong moment in July had been the only time she'd seen that particular part of his anatomy.

So she saw no reason why she had to be stuck in a room full of giggling, perfume-squirting, boy-hungry (James-hungry in particular), ridiculous girls. It wasn't that all of them were horrible people; none of them were really. It's just that they weren't like her. And she swore if one more pleading Gryffindor asked her how to get with James she was going to… Give them some really good advice?

"For Merlin's sake Sally; mention that you're interested- no, not in a hint; he won't get it- look pretty and he'll ask you out." The sad thing was that it was true; James would go out with anyone who flashed him a smile really. It was how their friendship had started after all; he'd asked her out, she'd punched him and they'd both hexed a Slytherin who had the audacity to ask if it was a lover's tiff with a superior voice. She'd sat with him as Madam Longbottom had fixed his bloodied nose and hadn't really left his side since.

She'd been disappointed that even in a completely different society that had magic for Merlin's sake (not to mention new curse words) that she still didn't fit in with the other girls. Not that disappointed, because she had James, but it was still depressing that after she left the Common-Room in the evening she knew she wouldn't speak, or at least she wouldn't speak to someone she wanted to speak to, until the morning.

Her and James were popular and they knew it; the two of them together had quickly caught the attention of everyone in the school for their infamous pranks, 'strange' friendship and, of course, for James' last name. They were admired but she wasn't exactly chummy with all of them. James had made her a bit more friendly out of necessity because he insisted on talking to everyone they passed in the corridors but she wasn't exactly used to being adored.

In primary school she'd got into trouble for fighting all the time. Sometimes it was to protect the little kids (her sister Hayden in particular, who hadn't appreciated the effort); she hadn't exactly grown up in the nicest area, and sometimes it was to protect herself, but most of the time it was for no reason other than the Hell of it. She loved the adrenaline that pumped through her veins in a fight, had got used to the metallic taste of blood on her lips and smiled at the pain in her knuckles that meant she'd landed a solid punch.

Her mother had been beside herself, desperate for Sam to show even a little bit of decorum or girly-ness, but Sam had not indulged her and eventually she'd given up which resulted in a much closer relationship between the two.

Sally wailed at Sam's idea. "But I'm not pretty!" Sam resisted the urge to slap her.

"Not my problem." Josie shot her a scathing look as Sally's expression fell even further and dragged her friend away from the bed.

"Sally of course you're pretty, have you seen yourself?" Sam had to grudgingly admit that Josie was right- when Sally wasn't screaming she was quite the stunner ('stunner' had become Sam's new favourite description for a good-looking person on account of stupefy being an actual thing). "But James Potter isn't worth all this fuss-" Her comment was met with an outcry of incredulity from the others (excluding Sam) in the dormitory.

"Not worth the fuss?!" Olivia Ianson's high pitched voice made Sam really wish she'd learnt the silencing hex before they'd gone back to school. She drew her bed hangings shut with a groan and put her head under her pillow but it was to no avail because the squeals could be heard from the boys dormitories (although they couldn't make out what the squeals meant). She gave up and peeked her head back out of the curtains.

"What about his hair?" Isla Odell asked confused. Out of the other five girls that inhabited her dormitory, Isla was the one she liked the most, possibly because she was the only one that didn't shriek or squeal. She was still as bad as the rest of them, still as girly, but at least she kept her voice at a pitch that normal humans could hear, not just dogs.

"Exactly!" Violet Queen's remark was punctuated by the flinging of her hairbrush as she stood away from the mirror for once. "And his eyes! They're so dreamy." She looked curiously to see where her hairbrush had landed and her eyes widened as she caught sight of Sam's angry blotchy face and the hairbrush-shaped red mark that was beginning to bruise on her cheek. "Sami! I'm so sorr-"

"It's Sam! How many times do I have to tell you- it's fucking Sam! I don't care how bloody dreamy you think my best friend's eyes are; if you don't all start speaking at a reasonable volume I am going to tell him exactly how much you fawn all over him!" Four of the girls gasped in horror; Josie merely looked annoyed. Sam studied her more closely, trying to think of what had changed Josie's mind on giggling about James this year. Then she remembered the July of last year with the disastrous pudding incident… Sam was rather glad Josie didn't know it was her who had dolloped that cream pie all over her hair. She should have known better than to steal all of James' time away from pranks and so Sam had to teach her a lesson. Sure girlfriends were important, but best friends were more so and Sam had yet to meet a girl James would go out with that she liked.

"You wouldn't!"

"Fucking try me. Good night." And with that Sam drew her bed-hangings again and took the momentary lapse in squealing to fall asleep.

James' best friend was Sam. James spent all of his free time with Sam. James had absolutely no interest in seeing her without clothes but was perfectly comfortable when she didn't have any on too; that time over the summer when they'd just had a water fight and she'd stripped off hadn't bothered him in the slightest though he was sure Albus still blushed whenever he saw her.

So James was disgruntled that Sam wasn't allowed in his dormitory even though all the other boys had pronounced her 'one of the guys'. It wasn't as if they were oblivious to Sam's looks like James was, but that they enjoyed her company much more than the potential romance, especially as they knew all they'd end up with was a flattened ego and a broken nose.

Not that James didn't like the boys in his dormitory; he thought they were all pretty great to be honest, although if Ned made one more remark about how hot Sam was James was going to lose it.

"I thought you said you didn't see her like that anymore." James snapped crossly.

"Ooh jealous are we Potter?" James took back his earlier sentiment; he liked all the boys in his dormitory except Max Underwood.

"No; just confused."

"Don't worry your head pretty boy," Ned said, laughing as he tousled James' hair and the Chosen one's son started to the mirror in horror of what he'd done to his precious locks, "I have no intention of asking out Andrews. I just think she's hot is all." The other four boys murmured their agreement. "I mean you hang round with her all day; surely you've noticed." James shrugged.

"She's not my type." The four boys chortled.

"You 'ave a type?" Owen Xylander asked. He was half-dutch half-english but had lived in the Netherlands until the year before. He'd lost most of his accent but still had a tendency to drop his 'h's. James narrowed his eyes but couldn't help the smile that turned the corners of his lips.

"Yes I do thank you very much. It's called 'All girls except Slytherins and Sam'." Quinn threw a pillow at him at this statement.

"You went out with a Slytherin last year, you dolt."

"Did I?" Asked James absent-mindedly. "Ok, all girls except Sam and less than unreasonably hot Slytherins." He grinned. "Oh and Lee."He added as an afterthought.

"What's wrong with Lee?" Owen asked.

"Who's Lee?" Max asked.

"Lee Wright? Ravenclaw? And, well, other than the fact that she beats for the other team, not much." Owen frowned for a moment and then he blinked.

"Oh." James threw the pillow back hitting Max square in the jaw, by accident of course, which started a huge pillow fight that lasted until they heard the familiar shriek that meant the girls were talking about James again. James perked up as he heard Sam's voice that meant she'd finally snapped (like she always did) but he could only catch a few words.

"It's Sam!... Fucking… Dreamy… Best friend's eyes… Reasonable volume… All over him!" James smirked and resolved to ask about it later. Of course, he could get up to the girls' dormitories (who knew that if one of the girls kept skin contact with you while you're riding a broomstick upside-down (he didn't know if that particular bit was necessary but it just so happened to be how he was riding it at the time) all the way up the staircase it doesn't turn into a slide?) but he liked to keep it a secret.

He was used to living with boys because no matter where he was he was always either with Ned, Max, Owen and Quinn or he was at his house in Godric's Hollow with Al-

He tried to cut off the bitter feeling that swelled when he thought of his brother. It didn't work. Al was supposed to be downstairs in the Common-Room, begging for James to show him how to open the wardrobes upstairs (it had taken the now second-years two months). Instead he was somewhere in the depths of the dungeons in some slimy dark green dormitory with Scorpius fucking Malfoy. Why was he a Slytherin? The exact opposite of everything his dad had stood for. Did none of that matter to Albus? Or had his middle name always defined him?

There was a twinge at the back of his head reminding him of Merlin, Regulus Black and Andromeda Tonks but he ignored it, instead focusing on the figures that had ripped away his paternal grandparents and all of his father's parental figures. He felt an ache sometimes when he thought of them- his namesakes and Lily and Albus' first names- of just how upset he was that he never met them. He'd never met Teddy's parents either, but more importantly Teddy hadn't really. Every time he thought that he had to glance at his bedside table where the two small inconspicuous photos of his family were placed, just to remind himself that his parents were fine. One was of the five of them, taken the summer before he joined Hogwarts, and the other was of the DA when his father and mother were still in school. When he was away from home he liked to remember his family like this; imagining all their adventures, instead of their present selves as he knew them, because he found he didn't miss them quite as much when he thought of their younger selves.

Why was Albus a Slytherin? Or, more importantly, why had he picked that over James?