Friendship
By: Purple Lavenders
Disclaimer: Characters and places belong to J. K. Rowling, the plot is mine =D
A/N: I love Remus Lupin! *-* Hope you guys enjoy this story =D REVIEW!
Ps: If you have an account at SW, I'm SilverBlue there, and yes I published it there too as an original. =D It was written as a fanfic, though.
We were something of a legend at Hogwarts. The four terrible, damned pranksters. It didn't take long for us to be called 'The Marauders'. There was awe in the whispering of the name, respect in the controlled screams, admiration on the hidden smiles.
We'd been attending for only four months, but people in the upper years already knew us. They respected us, and tried hard not to get on our bad side – they knew they would be pranked if they did.
Our teachers were kind of terrified of us, imagine that! Four eleven years old! What did we know that they didn't? But I could see on the condescending smiles that Professor McGonagall gave us every now and then that we were loved, no matter what.
Our brilliance at school started showing as well; well, maybe except Petey – not his fault, you see, but dear Petey always had a terrible memory, maybe thanks to his habit of walking with his head on a cloud – No, Peter, I don't mean it the way it sounded. I meant that you are really easily distracted. Please, don't take it bad.
People commented on how James did well on sports, how he and Sirius were so good at school when they were never seen studying or doing their homework… – my fault, I suppose. I really shouldn't have let James copy my Potion's composition, I'm still amazed Professor Slughorn didn't notice when all four of us presented the exactly same work. Maybe he was tired… or drunk. You never knew with him, really.
I will never understand how we came to be, though – we were all so different. James, with his charming charisma and personality, Sirius, the loyal friend, a rebel without a family, Peter, the quiet, shy boy who is a very good listener, and me.
Me. The quiet loner. The monster – quite literally a wolf in sheep clothing.
Why? God, I tried so hard! I really wanted to keep my distance, to not be friends with them, but I just… couldn't. They were kind to me, they talked and laughed with me… they didn't run making accusations or pointed their fingers at me and said that I shouldn't be living in the first place.
It's all my fault, really. If I had listened to my parents, like all good five year old should, I wouldn't be there in the first place – on the wrong place, on the very, very wrong time.
I've learned then that rules exist for a reason, and that I'll never ever disobey another one of them.
At least, that was until I met the Marauders. James, Peter and Sirius already made me bend and break more rules than I care to remember on most days. Do you know what the worst about it is?
The worst about it is that I don't know how I lived so long without these guys. They make me laugh when I want to cry, they make me forget, if only for a few precious seconds, that I am anything else but an eleven year old boy just like them.
When I told this to Professor Dumbledore, he smiled kindly to me, and said that 'this is what a friendship should be about, Mr. Lupin. And when time comes, and you decide to tell them everything, you should remember that good friends don't care about each other's past mishaps. They will find out that you are their friend Remus because of these mishaps, seeing as, without them, you wouldn't be yourself. The things that happen to us, independently of our age, they change us, Mr. Lupin. They leave scars that never heal. Your friends will help you to live with these scars since they'll know the most important thing: you only are who you are because of the happenings of that day in the past, when you were only five years old…'
I understand and agree with everything that Professor Dumbledore said, and I told him so. But there will never be a day when I will tell my friends what I am – I could never look at them after it, and I just know that they will hate me. How could they not? I'm a monster!
What if they know it and never want to see me again? What if they tell it to the whole school? God, what if they hate me, for living with them so long? I mean, I'm a lower species, am I not? The other schools said so when I wanted to try to matriculate…
It doesn't matter anyway. I wouldn't want to stay here all alone, being seen like the plague or something equally as dangerous and contagious.
No, Professor Dumbledore. I'm sorry, but I'll never tell them the whole truth. Never.
