Samantha had known for a while that she was an accident. She had eventually been able to pry Lily and James's ages and birthdays out of her aunt, and after doing the math, calculated that her parents had been 18 when she was conceived, and therefore just finishing school. She had gotten over that a long while ago.

But she had always assumed they loved each other. That they were in deep love and were the kind of couple you wanted to be. But she didn't want to be like that. Her mom hated her dad, and her dad just seemed desperate.

And then there was the fact that her dad seemed like a jerk. He had done that for his friend's entertainment. Sure, sometimes during Potions Samantha wanted nothing more than to torture Snape, but not like that. Something more simple that would cause slight annoyance, like hexing him so that his words on the blackboard rearranged themselves. Not dangling him upside down in front of the entire school.

It was all Samantha could think about. It had taken up so much brain space that Max had managed to beat her in spells five times in three days, by which point everyone, even the teachers, knew something was off.

"Samantha," Max said to her as she sat in a corner doing homework one night.

She glanced up to show she knew he was there before resuming her writing.

"Samantha, something's up with you. I can never do magic better than you, no matter how much I hate to admit it. Something is distracting you. What is it?" Max asked her.

Samantha shrugged. "Nothing. Just having an off week," she told him airily.

"No, Sam, you're not. What's really going on? You can tell me anything," Max said.

Samantha could hear the sincerity in his voice. She finally glanced up from her paper. "Can we take a walk?" she asked him.

Max looked taken aback for a second but quickly agreed.

"Great. Let's go," Samantha said, and the two slipped out of the portrait hole and into the hallways of Hogwarts.

Luckily it was still early enough to where they wouldn't get in trouble for taking a walk, so they didn't have to worry about teachers.

"So. What's going on?" Max asked Samantha.

She sighed. "You have to understand what I'm about to tell you is really difficult for me to digest," she said, and then explained all about the memory she had seen as they wandered around the corridors.

Max stared at her once she'd finished. "So, your dad and his friends hung Snape upside down in front of the whole school?" he asked.

"Yes."

"That's... crazy. Like, actually crazy," Max told Samantha. The something registered in his brain. "Wait... did you say the other boy's name was Sirius?"

"Yep," Samantha nodded.

Max took a sharp inhale. "And- and what did he look like?"

"Handsome. Kind of... graceful back hair. It fell neatly and effortlessly. Neither Harry's nor my dad's could've done that," Samantha explained.

Max sighed. He had feared this. "There's a prisoner named Sirius Black. He fits that description. He's even that age."

Samantha looked horrified. "What's he in prison for?"

"Well... he blew up a street and murdered a bunch of people," Max told Samantha softly.

Samantha groaned, leaning against the nearest wall. "So, my dad was friends with a murderer in school? That's just great," she said. "I need to sit down."

Samantha led Max into an empty classroom and sat in one of the desks.

She leaned her head on the table, and suddenly started to sob. She wasn't sure why. Maybe because she'd had pictures of her parents in her mind for all these years just to find out her dad was an arrogant bully who was best friends with a murderer and that her parents secretly hated each other.

Max realized pretty quickly what was going on.

"Oh, crap, I don't know what to do, I'm awful when people cry-," he rambled, watching Samantha as she cried into her arms.

She looked up at him, her eyes wet, droplets of water on her eyelashes. She stood up and walked towards Max.

They got close... and then closer... very slowly. Samantha's arms wrapped around Max's back, pulling him in, and his arms went around her neck. Their lips met and connected, holding onto each other. They let it continue for as long as it felt right.

Slowly, the two pulled away from each other. Samantha's breaths were soft and long, and she blinked slowly, trying to get the tears in her eyes to leave. She looked apprehensively at Max.

Max was staring past Samantha as though in a trance. He was barely blinking.

For minutes, the silence between the two seemed to continue. Neither met the other's eyes; neither could.

Eventually, Samantha came to her senses.

"I've- got to go-," she said, and hurried out of the room.

She wasn't quite sure where she was going, just that it wouldn't be back to Max or Gryffindor Common room.

She wandered around until she found the library. Quietly as possible, she crept in and scanned the nearest shelf, finding a mildly-interesting book on Quidditch she could pretend to read.

Silently, Samantha stared at the pages of the book, not taking a word in. Her mind was swirling with images of the kiss, thoughts of how she wanted it again, insecurities that it had been a dumb mistake, and between all of that, she had forgotten to turn the page for a full twenty minutes. Realizing this, she quickly flipped it, but was a little too late.

"I was wondering when you'd finish that page," said an unfamiliar voice with a slight lisp.

Samantha looked up from the book to see a girl about her age standing a few feet away from her. She had long, fluffy auburn hair and grey eyes. Her features were dramatic, making her look older than she was, yet Samantha could tell the girl was not much older than she, if not a few months younger. Samantha thought she recognized her from somewhere but couldn't place it.

"Hi, I'm Arabella Radford. Call me Bella," the girl introduced herself, holding her hand out for Samantha to shake.

"Samantha Potter. You can call me Sam or Sammy or whatever," Samanthat told Bella,

Bella smiled. "I've seen you before. We have Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts together," she said.

Samantha stiffened. "You're in Slytherin, then," she stated. She hadn't meant for it to be mean, but somehow it was, because Bella's eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly when she said it.

"I am. Is that a problem?" she asked, folding her arms over her chest.

"Not at all," Samantha replied, raising her eyebrows the tiniest bit. "So, is there something you wanted to talk about?"

Bella took a deep breath, in and out. "I just wanted to say, I thought you were supposed to be intelligent, then I saw you spend twenty minutes on two pages that are mostly blown up pictures of Snitches," said Bella.

At first, Samantha wasn't sure how to reply. Then she saw the faint smile on Bella's face and smiled too, and slowly the girls started laughing, tears coming to their eyes. They only stopped when the librarian, Madam Pince, came over and reprimanded them for being disruptive.

The girls smiled at each other again, and sat down in chairs at the table Samantha had been at.

"So, Samantha, tell me about yourself. You seem interesting. I want to get to know you," Bella said.

"Well... my middle name is Lily. My brother is Harry Potter, you know, vanquisher of Voldemort," said Samantha.

Bella didn't flinch when she heard the name. Samantha liked that.

"We also have a younger sister Lauren. We live with our mom's sister and her husband, and their son, Dudley. None of them are magic. They hate it, actually. And Harry and Lauren don't know about it. The magic. Our aunt and uncle didn't tell us. They banned me from talking about it," Samantha told Bella.

"Crazy," she muttered, a light smile floating to her lips.

"I know. I didn't even have too much to go off of. I had no idea Harry was so... well-known," Samantha said.

"Yeah. No, everyone with wizard or witch parents knows Harry's name, whether they associate it with good or bad. Voldemort had a lot of supporters; some went to the wizard prison Azkaban. Some died. Some are still free, either because they haven't been caught or they lied their way out of it. Lucius Malfoy, for one, said he was under the Imperius Curse the whole time, but there's absolutely no way that's true," said Bella.

"Imperius Curse?" asked Samantha.

"Oh, you don't know what it is. Well, it's one of the three Unforgivable Curses. It basically makes whoever cast the Curse able to control the person they cast it on. It's not unlikely that Voldemort and his followers used it, but not on Lucius Malfoy. He would've come on his own accord," explained Bella.

"What are the other two Unforgivable Curses?" asked Samantha.

"The Killing Curse and the Cruciatus Curse. The Cruciatus Curse causes extreme pain. If it's used enough times consecutively on one person, they'll go insane, won't be able to remember who they are or anything, can't live on their own. The Killing Curse does what it says; it kills. Quick and painless, I've heard. It's really hard to deflect. I mean, you could dodge it, and there are a few ways to get away from it, but it's not just your everyday curse. Only one person has managed to survive it, and that's-"

"Harry," Samantha finished.

Bella nodded. "Yeah. No one knows how he did it," she said. She paused for a moment as if debating whether or not to continue, and then went on. "Do you remember anything... from that night?"

Samantha racked her brain. She'd never thought this much about it before. "I remember... panic. I remember being scared. I remember my mom running, my dad hiding me... I remember screaming, but not coming from me. I remember wandering around looking for my parents. I remember crying. I remember waking up and seeing people I had never met before. I remember... being on a porch," Samantha spilled out memories she didn't know she had to someone who was almost a stranger.

Bella looked at her, concerned. Samantha suddenly looked lost.

"Hey, I didn't mean to... I'm sorry I asked you, that's gotta be... painful to relive," she told Samantha awkwardly.

Samantha shut her eyes and shook her head. "No, it's... I didn't know I remembered that, is all," she told Bella.

Bella nodded understandingly.

Samantha took another moment before speaking again. "So, you didn't tell me about yourself. What's your family like? You're pureblood, right?"

Bella nodded. "Yep. I mean, by some people's standards I'm not, my great-grandpa was a Muggle-born, and to some if it's that traceable you're not pureblood, but technically I am pureblood. My mom is part of a long line of pureblood wizards. A lot weren't very supportive when she married my dad. He's technically half blood."

"Huh. I think blood status is stupid. Like, what does it matter if you are from a long line of wizards or if you're the first one in your family? Is it really so important?" Samantha asked.

Bella shook her head. "No. Who your parents are has nothing to do with your magical abilities. Some purebloods are absolute rubbish at magic, some Muggle-borns are the best in the class. It's just people's way of making themselves feel better, more powerful than others. Besides, there are so few true Purebloods left it's almost impossible to find one you're not related to. I'm pretty sure every Pureblood is related, whether by blood or by marriage," Bella said.

"So, it's a bunch of incest just so people feel better about themselves?" Samantha joked.

Bella smiled. "Basically."

"So... what's your family like?" asked Samantha.

"Well, I have an older sister Eleanor. She was also in Slytherin. My dad was in Ravenclaw and my mom in Slytherin. I explained a lot of the blood status already..." Bella paused. She wasn't sure what else to say.

"You don't have to go on," Samantha smiled warmly at her.

Bella sighed. "I hate my house. I can't wait to move out. I'll get my own house, something pretty and small, but not too small. I'll have a dog, and do whatever I please," she said, a dreamlike expression on her face.

"That sounds wonderful," smiled Samantha.

"It does, doesn't it?" said Bella. She bit her lip for a second. "So, er, why were you staring at that page for so long?"

Samantha took a deep breath. She had been so happy with Bella, she had forgotten about her worries with her parents and her kiss with Max. "There were a few things... this really hasn't been my week," she explained.

"Wanna talk about it?" asked Bella.

"Wanna hear it?" Samantha said apprehensively.

"Yes," Bella nodded, a light smile on her face.

"Well, I... saw this... well, memory, I guess, of my parents, they seemed about fifteen, sixteen maybe... and my dad was taunting people, hanging them upside down for the fun of it... my mom seemed to hate him, she called him a... what was it? oh, arrogant toe rag," said Samantha.

Bella chuckled slightly, making Samantha smile in spite of herself.

"Yeah... anyways, now... well, now I feel like my dad tricked my mom into it, into having sex, having three kids... he seemed desperate, you know? And... I mean, my parents were eighteen when I was born. I always knew I was an accident, but... I just thought my parents loved each other, and seeing that..." Samantha said.

Bella sighed, placing her hand gently on Samantha's shoulder. "Well... in your memories... your parents were together, right? Like, you said you were looking for your parents, and your mom was running away, your dad was hiding you... that seems like they were together, right?" she said, biting on the side of her lip. "Look, people are idiots as teenagers. I'm sure your dad changed, and I'm sure that's why your mom got together with him, because he became a better person."

Samantha looked into Bella's eyes and decided she could trust her. "Thanks. That helps, really," she told Bella. "Also... there was another reason I wasn't reading," she started. "I... well, I kissed this... boy, just before I came here" she said.

Bella raised her eyebrows. "Really? You kissed someone? That's sick, now you can say you've had your first kiss! Assuming this was your first kiss," Bella said.

"Well... I mean, yeah, that was my first kiss, but... I'm really close friends with him. I don't want to ruin that. And... I don't know, I mean... I don't know if he likes me like that. I don't know if kissing him was a stupid thing to do," Samantha confessed.

"Did he kiss you back?" Bella asked.

"I... I don't... I think so..." Samantha answered.

"Hm," Bella said. "Well, I think your best bet is to talk to him."

"But... I don't want to be embarrassed," Samantha confessed.

"You're in Gryffindor, aren't you? You're supposed to be brave. Just, talk to him, okay? You won't regret it," Bella told her.

Samantha smiled. "Thank you. You've been amazing," she told Bella.

"So are you," she smiled.

The two girls hesitated for a moment before hugging.

Max hung back after Samantha left. He stayed, standing completely still, until his brain finally reconnected to his body and he sat down in a desk, running his hand through his hair.

After a few minutes of that, he decided to go back to the Common Room and talk to Samantha about what had just happened. When he got there, however, Samantha was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he found Leslie doing homework in the far corner.

"Hey, Les. Did Samantha come in here? Is she in bed?" he asked her.

"No. I thought you two went on a walk. Why, did something happen?" Leslie asked.

"Er- we, er, got... got separated, and I was wondering if she had come back here," Max replied anxiously.

"Oh. Well, she hasn't been here. I'm sure she'll turn up eventually, I mean she can't be lost forever. Plus, it's Samantha. We all know how amazing her memory is. She'll be back in no time," Leslie said.

"Yeah... yeah, thanks," Max said, and then rushed off.

He didn't leave the common room, however, because some boys he shared a dorm with pulled him away as he walked towards the portrait hole.

"Hey, Max, come play some Exploding Snap with us!" Elias called. Max walked over to join them.

Soon enough, Max was so wrapped up in the game he forgot about Samantha and the kiss. The four of them were laughing their heads off, and once they got bored of playing Exploding Snap, they practiced spells they hadn't yet learned from their books on each other. Max and Damon got them after only a few tries, and Elias and Connor took a little more book studying before successfully completing the spells.

Max was busy trying to do Petrificus Totalus on Connor when Samantha finally walked in. At first, he took no notice to her. Then she walked by him to Leslie, and all of the memories came flooding back, causing him to be hit by Connor.

"I did it! I beat you!" cried Connor.

"Only because I was distracted," said Max defensively once he had been unfrozen.

Damon raised his eyebrows. "By what? Or... who?" he added.

"I, er, thought I saw an owl," Max said.

"In the Common Room? You're not facing a window. Someone distracted you!" Damon said, pointing at Max.

"No! No, no one distracted me!" shouted Max, blushing.

"Not helping your case, buddy," Elias said, putting his arm around Max's shoulders.

"Ugh, you guys are so annoying," he joked, pulling out of Elias's grasp.

Damon gasped dramatically. "Well, that's a tad rude! I shall have to report your ruthless bullying to Professor McGonagall, and see what she has to say about this!" he said, making as if he were walking towards the portrait hole.

"Oh, shut up, you're fine!" Max laughed, pulling Damon away from the portrait hole.

"Oh, physical contact, that shall be another five points from Gryffindor! Physical contact is not allowed here, Maxwell Langbert!" Damon cried, making all three other boys laugh.

"At this rate, we won't have any points left to take away!" Max cried.

"We can have negative points," Connor pointed out.

"Can we? Huh. I wonder who was so awful that they had to allow negative points," Elias asked.

"I don't know, but they must've been pretty awful," Damon replied.

"Probably my dad and his friends," Samantha said casually as she walked over.

"No offense, but I thought your parents were killed when you were a toddler. How do you know if him and his friends were troublemakers?" Damon asked Samantha.

"I've heard stories," she replied coolly. "Anyways, Max, I wanted to talk to you, can you come take a walk with me?"

"Uh... sure," Max said slowly.

"Great," said Samantha, smiling, and she led Max out of the Common Room.

The two of them walked a little ways away from the Common Room before stopping to talk.

"So," Max said, leaning casually against a wall.

"So..." Samantha said. She was biting her lip and sounded nothing like the cool and confident Samantha she had put on in the Common Room.

"What- er- what did you want to talk about?" Max asked, trying to break the silence.

Samantha, who was staring at her feet, moved her eyes up to Max without lifting her head. She gave him a stare, which, without speaking, told Max he knew exactly what she wanted to talk about.

"Oh. I was kind of hoping that it would be about Quidditch," Max said, smiling faintly.

Samantha raised her head now, looking at him. The corners of her mouth twitched. "I kind of wish it were Quidditch as well," she confessed, then resumed chewing the corner of her lip.

They sat in the silence for a while. Finally, Samantha decided to start the conversation.

"I... I've never done this before. I don't really know how to start this kind of conversation," Samantha said nervously.

"Yeah. I've never done this either," agreed Max. He took a deep breath. "Well, how about we start with... er, well, I turned twelve two months ago, and you're eleven-"

"I turn twelve next week. November 22nd," Samantha interrupted.

"R- right... Anyways, my point is, we're young. We... We have a lot of time ahead of us to- to decide on... everything, I mean, well, we don't have to let our choices at twelve years old affect us for life, like, do you understand? I mean, we don't have to pretend anything, or-," Max rambled.

Samantha cut him off, smiling softly. "Do you like me?" she asked. "As more than a friend."

"I- what?" Max asked.

"Do you like me as more than a friend?" Samantha repeated.

"Um... yeah, I guess. Do you... do you like me as more than a friend?" Max responded, blushing.

"A little," she smiled. Max smiled too. "If we both like each other, then... What do we do? Are we supposed to become boyfriend and girlfriend?" she asked, looking Max right in the eye.

Max shrugged. "We're kind of young. Want to just... see what happens? Like... kind of, not label anything," he suggested.

Samantha smiled. "That sounds great," she told him.

"Nice," replied Max.

The two stood in a comfortable silence for the next few minutes before deciding that they should head up to the Common Room before they got in trouble.

They smiled at each other, understanding the other through their eyes. Samantha slipped her hand into Max's, and they set off down the corridor.

Unfortunately, they were met by Professor Snape along the way.

"Ah. Miss Potter, Mr Langbert, wandering around the corridors after dark, how..." he trailed off, seeing their hands linked together. He raised his eyebrows. "Are you the new lovebirds on campus? A bit young, don't you think? Ten points each from Gryffindor," Snape told them.

Samantha wrenched her hand out of Max's grasp. "Twenty points? How in Merlin's name is that fair? All we're doing is walking around at eight thirty, we're barely breaking one rule!" She cried.

Snape gave them a blank stare. "Get yourselves to your Common Room before I make it twenty points each," he said.

Samantha exhaled sharply, but she and Max continued past Snape, not linking hands again.