Introduction
Remus had not stepped foot in Britain since he was a baby. Now, at eleven, he was preparing
himself for another baby step: his first year at boarding school. He was nervous, as all new
students normally are, and had taken extra steps to make sure he was well-received at his new
school; that he was liked. He had never had a friend before, outside of a small, lanky red-
haired girl whom he had as a pen pal, and to whom he wrote to every week. He had never
actually met her, but she was a wizard, too, and had been the first person who had told him
about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The red-haired girl he had never met had a name. Lily. He had thought it was marvelous and
made every attempt he could, while writing to her, using her name. "Dear Lily", "Lily, did I tell
you the time I spilled motor oil all over mothers flowers?" or, "Remember the story I told you
once, Lily, about the badger, the cat, the salamander, and the old maid?" Yes, Remus loved
the name, and was now finally hoping to put a face to it.
What had made their friendship so difficult was not lack of interest, or parental problems, but
that Remus lived in a townhouse outside of Paris, while Lily lived in a two-story flat in the heart
of London. Even the fact that he was a loup-garou, a French strain of werewolf lycanthropy,
had not deterred her from writing to him and being his cross-channel companion. It was this
acceptance of his, what a friend would later describe as his "furry little problem", that meant
the most to Remus. For, it was the fact he was a werewolf that he had never had a single
person his age to whom he could call a friend. It was also this reason that Remus was not
going to Beauxbatons Academy in his native France.
His inclination to attend school across the Channel was spurred not because of the false rumor
that Beauxbatons was an all girls school, or that fact the Remus hoped to make new
friendships, but by the High Wizarding Council of Frances' strong dislike of werewolves and
other "unnatural amalgamations between man and beast." It was also this same council that
acted as the board of regents for Beauxbatons. Sadly, for Remus, the discrimination he already
had endured as a child werewolf in France would have done nothing but have gotten worse
had he stayed. So, here he was, the country he was born in but did not remember. A country
as foreign to him as the concept as friendship. Yet, here he stood, stepping off the ferry on one
of the dozens of docks that dotted the Thames. The sky was cloudy, and the air smelled of
refuse and salt. It was 1971, and in England, Remus J. Lupin had just arrived.