Disclaimer: If Harry Potter were my world, I would a) be writing Half-Blood Prince instead of this, b) not have killed Sirius, c) not be a teenage American. Since I'm a teenage American Sirius fan writing this, I can assume that I'm not JK Rowling. Since I derive no tangible profit from this (unless you count reviews), I urge you not to increase my lawyer-phobia by suing.

Author's Note: This has nothing to do with another fic of mine— First Year— and they're quite different from one another aside from the starting off point. So while I'm by no means discontinuing First Year, I'm telling two different stories about the Marauder's first year, one take that's Sirius-dominated and one that's Remus-centered. And while if all goes well, this will start a seven part story, First Year is ending at that. And, yes, the title is a little off for the first two parts, because Remus is eleven and twelve, but I'm sure we can handle that. I'm actually close to four chapters ahead of myself, so I can guarantee updates. That explained, I appreciate reviews in all their forms (you flame me and I'll find a way to laugh about it). Cheers! — Loki

"Gerroff," I mumbled, rolling over in bed. My body ached, and I really didn't want to face any of the possible reasons why. On the other hand, the person over me didn't appear to care overly much, and continued shaking me. "Fine, fine, I'm up, dammit," I muttered.

"Considering the date, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. And you don't look like you're up."

"Mum?" I asked groggily, sitting up and regretting it as it shot pain up through my shoulders. The sun was coming in through the windows— probably late morning— and as much as the rest of my body hurt, nothing was as bad as my temples and jaw, the latter of which I began to rub, wondering what I had gotten in my wolfish mind to destroy the previous night.

Mum shook her head. "Now you're up," she told me. "C'mon, Remus, I let you sleep until noon." I mumbled under my breath about how that was really only because I hadn't actually fallen asleep until sunrise. She shook her head and glanced around. "Your father has announced that he'll fix your desk the ordinary way with his 'great' carpentry skills." She snorted, throwing the blinds open after I'd shut them the previous night.

"Give him a break, Mum— you did marry him, didn't you?"

"I forgive many of his faults," she answered absently, turning back to me. "But the man has yet to prove to me he can hold a hammer properly and handle the function of a screwdriver. Therefore my way of forgiving him in this case usually involves not letting him anywhere near the toolbox." Absently she pulled her wand out to fix the doorknob. "If you're not down in ten minutes I'm coming to wake you back up."

I groaned and decided that maybe I'd best get up, which took more effort than I'd actually predicted. Between exhaustion and the headache, I could hardly see straight. Or think straight, for that matter— I realized that when I couldn't find a pair of jeans, clean or otherwise, in a room I hardly bothered to keep at all neat. Since I destroyed it once a month, I couldn't see the point in that. I considered myself to have expended enough energy for the day by the time I'd stumbled downstairs.

In the livingroom, I flopped onto the couch and grabbed one of the papers. Blearily I examined it, trying to determine if it was the Daily Prophet or the London Times. Since I still couldn't see straight enough to figure it out from the heading, I was searching the front page for movement. I didn't see any, and so assumed it was Dad's paper. Wondering absently what Mum had done with the Prophet, I flipped directly to the sports page.

I only followed soccer and Quidditch on a regular basis, and nothing interesting had happened in the Muggle sport. I flipped rather uninterestedly through the rest of the paper— if anything big had happened I'd hear about it sooner or later. I put the Times back where I found it and started looking for the Prophet.

When a yell sounded from somewhere else, I sat up alarm. "What the. . . ?"

Dad emerged from the garage, trying to stop his hand from bleeding. From what Mum had said, he'd gotten it with a nail or the back of the hammer. Everybody said I was the spitting image of my father, but I was fairly glad I didn't suffer from the same shortness he had— I promised to be about average height like Mum— about the only thing like looks I shared with her— and was almost as tall as Dad already. "Maybe she was right about not letting you near the toolbox under any circumstances," I muttered.

"Your mother gave you that, did she?" he asked, faking insult. "She doesn't have a clue what she's talking about— I know exactly what I'm doing."

"That has yet to be proved!" Mum called from upstairs, obviously well aware of what was happening downstairs.

"Neither has her theory that I'll die fixing furniture," Dad muttered under his breath, glancing with mock-exasperation in the direction of the steps. "You did a number on that desk, Remus."

"Well, since I'd already destroyed everything else at some point and Mum had enough sense to keep her owl out of there. . . ." I grumbled, leaning back against the sofa.

He grinned ironically— somehow as long as I hurt nothing alive the broken furniture could become a joke. I'd rather it stay that way. "I can put it back together, but I can't sand down all of the bite marks."

I mumbled something probably irrelevant. "What'd Mum do with her paper?" I asked to change the subject.

"If I had any idea, I'd tell you," Dad answered, glancing around the living room. Mostly everything was in place, but anything that wasn't obviously wizarding— a couple of magical cookbooks and Mum's cloak— had been tossed haphazardly where they lay. I got my organizational skills from my mum. "Why?" he added.

"Scotland played France in Quidditch last night," I answered with a shrug. "Obviously, I missed the score, assuming it's over by now."

Dad nodded— even though pretty much all he'd managed to grasp about the magical world concerned the truth about werewolfism, the fact that the owls were not going to stop swooping in through the window every morning, and the general idea that Quidditch was a sport. I'd tried to explain the details of the last one several times but continued to fail miserably.

After a moment, he drew the Prophet out from under the tv guide. "Wonderful place for moving photographs, Karen," he mumbled— generally we tried to keep Mum's pictures and papers out from where Muggles might find them, and it was generally Muggles that came in the house.

It took a minute of shuffling through it to find the scores. "Damn, France won. I think that puts us out of the cup again— Mum, has Wales lost yet?" I called.

"I don't think so!" Mum hollered back.

"It would be nice if you had that discussion when you didn't have to shout," Dad commented absently, heading into the kitchen to find bandages for his hand. I started flipping through the tv guide, wondering at how I could have a month left to the summer and already be bored out of my mind.

"Karen, couldn't you have built the perch for these damned birds outside?" Dad hollered after a few minutes. Another owl must have swooped through the kitchen window, and while he'd learned to handle them I was under the impression they still made him nervous.

"No," Mum called back. In the kitchen, the owl hooted indignantly.

After a moment or so, Dad emerged from the kitchen with a yellow colored envelope and tossed it to me. "It's got your name on it."

"Huh?" I hadn't broken through the window last night— I'd definitely have remembered that— so it wasn't another warning about controlling myself from the Ministry of Magic. I glanced down the green ink it was addressed in and wasn't able to find a return address, so I flipped it over to see the Hogwarts seal. "They're letting me go?" I asked, half in shock.

"Why wouldn't they?" Dad asked.

I lifted an eyebrow and muttered something about fur. Dad said something about a point as I ripped the letter open, deciding to tell Mum as soon as I was sure of what was inside. " 'Dear Mr. Lupin, you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,' " I read aloud. "I just want to know how. . . ."

"How what? I'm going to handle both members of my family doing something I don't really quite understand?" Dad asked good humoredly.

"You've handled my obsession with Quidditch," I pointed out, sticking my hand back in the envelope to attempt to find what might actually explain why. As far I as I knew, Dad had wondered off to find Mum. I found a supply list and another letter, this one written on an entirely different type of parchment, probably so as not to get mixed up.

I was in the middle of deciphering the second letter, which was written in loopy handwriting which generally got on my nerves, when my parents came back down. Mum was as excited as I was beneath my shock— Dad was trying not to laugh from her reaction. Apparently he'd drawn the conclusion that since his wife was a witch his son must be a wizard, which wasn't the most accurate conclusion but had worked.

"What's that about?" Mum asked. She'd already picked up and scanned the first letter I'd drawn out, and was now glancing over my shoulder at the second one.

"Something about taking the necessary precautions," I muttered. "I can barely read it."

I got a face full of dark hair when she leaned over to look at it. "Wow. It's got Dumbledore's signature on it," she told me. "D'you mind if I. . . ?"

I shook my head, bumping into hers, and she took the letter, scanning down it. "Ah— the explanation of what they're going to have to do with you at the full moon."

"What?" I asked automatically.

"When we get your Herbology book, I urge you to look up the Whomping Willow," she answered absently, being of absolutely no help and handing it back.

"If you two are going to discuss magic, I'm going to get back to that desk," Dad announced, making a move to leave.

"Henry Lupin, you have just torn off half an inch of skin with a nail! There is no way I'm going to let you continue to hang around sharp objects," Mum started, following him in the direction of the garage as if to stop himl, although I had my doubts she really would.

Shaking my head at my parents' banter, I went back to flipping through the letters. I was really going. . . .