Alterations
Remus Lupin wouldn't call his life difficult, nor would he call it easy. He feels that his life lies somewhere in between. He likes to call it intriguing. By calling it that, it gives him a feeling of depth- something most 17 year old boys don't usually have. But then again, Remus knows he's not most 17 year old boys.
This fact, he assumes, becomes painfully clearer every single moment of his life spent with those other three. Those boys. Those… best friends of his. And that's exactly what they are. They're his best friends. He wouldn't change them for the world. Well, no. He would change a few things. He'd like to change how often they spend in detention. While, yes, he has ample time for homework during those long, lonesome hours, he doesn't get to be in the library. That's another thing he'd like to change. He'd love to spend more time in the library. Of course, that's not by fault of his best friends.
Not entirely, at least.
No, no. His friends don't keep him from the library intentionally. It's just that they never want to be there, and Remus finds he misses out on too much when he's not with them. So, it's not entirely their fault that Remus doesn't get to spend as much time in the library as he wants.
What is entirely their fault, though, is the loss of Remus' favorite pin. They destroyed it. They killed it, maliciously, in cold blood. Remus was quite fond of it's message- "Fight evil; read books." He thought it was clever. Apparently his counterparts didn't exactly agree. So there it is- another thing Remus Lupin would like to change. He wants his pin back.
He also wants his chocolate back. It never fails. Whenever Remus finally gets a nice new slab of chocolate, it disappears before he can even get one bite. He tried setting up a trap once. He left the chocolate out in the middle of the dorm room, right in plain sight. Around the chocolate, he cast a sticking charm to the floor. Having tested a sweater, a book, and someone's cat on the area, he knew that it worked. He left for dinner feeling quite content. He came back to a missing slab of chocolate and a pair of empty shoes. The shoes, he quickly realized, were his own, and they came along with a note, "Dear Moony, thank you for the shoes and the chocolate. Ever yours, Padfoot."
At least he knows who takes the chocolate, however much he'd like to change the whole darn situation and just keep it for himself.
Then there are the small things he'd like to change, like the room not smelling like sweaty socks, no more ink stains on the rug, less dust on the windowsill, pages torn from textbooks in their properly-bound places, and underwear no longer hanging from various parts of bedposts.
And just as quickly as Remus finds himself in this reverie, this contemplation of why he is where he is, why he does what he does, he finds himself snapped out of it by a quaffle to the head.
"Moony? You awake? What're you doing over there?"
Remus looks up at his friends, all goofing around their favorite birch tree near the lake. They're happy.
They're fun.
They're, in their own strange way, peaceful, too.
But most importantly, they're Remus Lupin's best friends. And he wouldn't change them for the world.