AUTHOR'S OPENING NOTE:
Once again, and as always, in the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, everything I want to say is in the chapter's end note.
September 1, 1971
I'm writing on the train to Hogwarts now. I got up this morning to discover that mum had gone all out for breakfast: bacon and sausages both, eggs, toast with butter and strawberry jam, sweet buns, milk and orange juice and a banana; I don't want to think about what it cost, but it was delicious. I got dressed in my school robes, said goodbye to mum, who gave me a packed lunch for the train, and reiterated my promise to write her once a week as she made sure my hair was straight and my robes were smooth, and gave me a kiss goodbye. Dad took my trunk then and ahold of my hand and side-along we apparated to Platform 9 and ¾, promptly at 10:30 in the morning, just as the train arrived in station. It was painted a shiny bright red and looked fantastic. There were only a handful of other people there in the station.
"The first carriage belongs to the prefects," dad says, "But you can sit wherever else you like."
I've only been on a train a few times in my life before and was excited. "I'll take the caboose," I told him, "I want the last compartment, in the very back."
Dad laughed. "Why?" he asked.
"So I can see the rest of it ahead of me from the window," I said.
Dad agreed and we headed for the last car. The last compartment was available, so dad loaded in my trunk. "I can stay for a while if you like," he said, "Although parents don't generally stay on the train."
"It's alright," I said. "I'll be fine." I was nervous, but there was nothing he could do about it. Making him stay wouldn't help.
"Alright," Dad said. He paused for a moment and then added, "You know, it's okay to come home if you don't feel safe or if you don't think you can do it. You can come home any time and I'll teach you what I can myself. I won't feel bad about it."
"Right," I said. It made me no less nervous.
"And remember," he added, just making it worse. "Whatever you do, don't tell anyone about… your secret. You'll have to come home if anyone finds out."
"Right," I said.
He pulled a couple of sickles out of his pocket and handed them to me. "This is for lunch," he said, somewhat more cheerfully. "Get yourself a pumpkin juice and something sweet for dessert. And remember that I love you and have fun."
"I love you, too, dad," I said.
"The train should arrive at Hogwarts around seven-thirty," he said. "Good luck."
With that, he left. I watched out the window as the other students arrived with their families. There were so many of them and seeing them made me even more nervous. I've not spent any time around other wizarding children, not since I was infected. I could tell who the older students were; they ran to join up with their friends and those already wearing robes sported their house crest on their chest instead of the school's. The first years, or the ones I picked out as first years, seemed more hesitant and nervous. There were owls and cats and all sorts of animals. The adults were in all sorts of different colored robes. Dad wears robes to work, but they're always black or navy or somber colors like that. But there was every color imaginable on the platform. Some students had tearful goodbyes with their parents while others ran for the train as soon as they reached the platform. There was enough to watch to keep me occupied for the hour.
The train left the station promptly when the clock over the entrance to the platform struck 11:30 and the last few students lingering there raced to get aboard as the engine started to move. I watched the platform slip away and then London. We're in the country now. I wonder if- Hold on, there are people coming into my compartment now.
Later
It's nighttime now and I'm in my dormitory as school, but for the sake of the narrative, I feel like I should pick up where I left off.
I was writing in my journal, nearly an hour from the platform when a girl entered my compartment, a boy following behind her. The boy was in shabby robes. Mine are second hand and look like it, but his looked more like they were third or fourth or fifth hand, faded and visibly patched and stained. The girl was in jeans and a flowered shirt.
"Do you mind if we join you in here?" she said. "All of the other compartments are full and we had to leave the one we were in." They were both dragging their trunks behind them.
"Sure," I said, hastily tucking my journal back into my own trunk. "Do you need help with those?" I asked about their trunks.
"If you don't mind," the girl said, as she struggled with it. She had bright red hair, brushed shiny, while the boy's was black and unkempt looking.
I easily lifted her trunk up onto the rack, then the boy's. He didn't look happy about it, but didn't say anything either.
"Thank you," the girl said for both of them. "My name is Lily, Lily Evans, and this is Severus Snape."
"I'm Remus Lupin," I said. I was glad the boy had an odd name, too. Over the years, I've become used to introducing myself as John to muggles, who always thought my first name was too odd.
"Nice to meet you, Remus," Lily said, taking a seat. "I'm sorry to barge in, but there were some boys in our last compartment trying to pick a fight and we decided to leave."
"Why were they trying to pick a fight?" I asked.
"Severus said he wants to be in Slytherin and one of the boys there said he wants to be in Gryffindor and decided to make an issue about it. Apparently there's a big rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin, which is ridiculous, because none of us are even sorted yet, but he started calling Sev names and so I decided we should go before it got worse," she told me.
"I think it's a little silly that they sort students at all," I told her. "All it seems to do is create rivalries, from what I'm told."
"All I know is what Sev has told me," she said. "He wants me to be in Slytherin, too-"
"You will be," he said, finally speaking.
"But," she continued, "I don't know how good of a fit I'd be there. What about you? Where do you want to end up? I mean, since they're going to sort us, after all."
I shrugged. "My father was in Ravenclaw," I said, "But it doesn't really matter to me that much."
"My parents are muggles," Lily said. "Sev's mum was in Slytherin, but his dad is a muggle, too."
Severus frowned when she said it.
"Don't worry about it," I said. "My mum's a muggle, too."
"Ravenclaw doesn't sound bad," Lily said. "I wouldn't mind being sorted there. And it's the only one I've ever manage to get Sev to admit that being sorted into wouldn't be awful, if he couldn't be in Slytherin."
"I'd probably fit best in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, I think, from what my dad has told me," I said.
Severus snorted then. "You know that Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are opposites, right?" he said, speaking directly to me for the first time. "Ravenclaw is for the really smart students and Hufflepuff is for the dumb ones."
"My dad says that's just a stereotype," I told him, "And there are plenty of really talented former Hufflepuff students. Besides, the bits about loyalty and conscientiousness and tolerance and fortitude don't sound half bad."
Before he could argue it out, though, there was a knock at our compartment door and a witch opened it up. "Anything off the trolley, dears?" she asked.
"No, thank you," Lily said, but I stood up.
"Yeah," I said. "I'll have a pumpkin juice and a chocolate frog, please."
I traded her my sickles for an ice cold pumpkin juice, which felt good to hold on the slightly warm train, and a boxed chocolate frog.
"If you need anything else, dears," she said, "You can find me at the front of the train."
"Thank you," I said.
"I didn't think to ask my parents to trade some quid for pocket money when we were in Diagon Alley getting my things," Lily said. "I'll have to remember next time. But it's okay, I brought my lunch." She stood on the seat to reach the rack and pulled a bagged lunch from her trunk.
"So did I, for the most part," I said, holding up mine.
The boy turned pink.
"Do you not have a lunch?" I asked.
The boy turned a darker shade, red now, and shook his head. "It's okay," he said.
I thought for a moment. "I'll share mine," I said. "We've got another seven hours or so before the train reaches the school. You'll starve between then and now."
Before he could object, I took my sandwich, cut neatly in half, and handed him the bigger portion. "It's turkey," I said. "Take it. My mum makes good sandwiches."
He took it and mumbled something that might have been thanks.
"Oh, Sev," Lily said, as she took a peeled orange from her sack and divided it in half, passing part of it to Severus as well. "Did your mum forget to pack it?"
Severus shrugged and took the orange. "I've got some carrots, too, if you'd like some," I said, holding the baggie of baby carrots out to him.
He reached out and took a handful. "Thanks," he said audibly but begrudgingly this time.
We ate quietly until I got to my chocolate frog, which immediately tried to hop away as soon as I opened the package. I caught it nimbly and Lily laughed. "Oh wow," Lily said, delighted, "I've never seen anything like that before."
"It's a chocolate frog," I said, as it struggled to get away. I promptly bit off its head, causing it to stop. Lily laughed again. "It's enchanted of course." I quickly chewed and swallowed the head, delicious chocolate, and then looked in the package for the card. "They come with collector's cards," I told her, glancing at mine. "I've got the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, this time."
"Can I see it?" she asked. I handed it over to her. "The picture moves!" she said.
"I told you wizard pictures move," Severus told her.
"But I've never seen it before!" she said.
"I've got more, if you want to see them, too," I told her. I liked her enthusiasm.
"Please," she said.
I shoved the rest of the frog in my mouth before it could melt all over my hands and climbed up to my trunk and riffled through for the cards. "I don't have a lot," I said, once I'd swallowed. "We don't have a lot of money to spare for things like this," I admitted. "But I've got all of the Hogwarts founders but Helga Hufflepuff, pluse Merlin, Queen Maeve, Ptolemy, Andros the Invincible, Falco Aesalon, Cornelius Agrippa, Fulbert the Fearful, Gifford Ollerton, Mospus and Newton Scamander."
I handed them to Lily and she shuffled through them, reading. "Wow," she said.
In a sudden fit of generosity I told her, "You can have one, if you want."
"Really?" she said.
"Yeah," I told her.
She started over in the deck, rereading, obviously looking for the one she liked best, while Severus tried to look over her shoulder while not looking too interested. "You can have one, too, if you like," I told him quickly.
I didn't have to tell him twice. He quickly pulled Salazar Slytherin from the deck, setting me back one more on the founders. Lily remained indecisive for a moment and then picked Queen Maeve.
"Thank you," she said, although Severus didn't bother, just slipped the card in the pocket of his robes.
"How do you two know each other?" I asked.
"We live near each other," Lily said.
"We met in the park two years ago," Severus said intensely. "She was performing wild magic, flying off of the swings. I knew she was a witch and so I told her about it, all about magic and Hogwarts and everything. I knew she'd get her Hogwarts letter. She was already so talented, able to control it like that."
Lily blushed. "I don't know any real magic, though, like spells or anything."
"It's okay," Severus said. "You'll learn."
"Severus already knows so many spells," she said. "Do you know any?"
I shrugged. "My dad taught me a few," I said. "Nothing major."
"I've read all of the textbooks," she continued. "I hope that I'll be ready."
"You'll be fine," Severus reassured her.
"I tried to read the textbooks," I told her. "I got through Magical Theory and History of Magic just fine and loved the Defense against the Dark Arts book. I mostly just skimmed the others, though. Except the potions text," I laughed. "It was like Greek to me."
"Severus knows all about potions," Lily said.
He didn't need any more prompting than that. "My mum's a potioneer," he said. He then launched a long monologue which seemed to cover all of the basic points and a few of the major points of potion making. I understood maybe a quarter of it. Maybe if we stay friendly, though, he can help me with my potions homework. It doesn't seem likely, as we were sorted into different houses, but that's getting ahead of myself.
The talk of potions eventually drifted into talk of classes in general and then what sort of magic each of them would like to learn, with mostly Lily talking at that point and me just chiming in when I needed to. Severus didn't seem to open to volunteering what sort of magic he'd like to learn in front of a stranger and it made me wonder if he had more reasons for wanting to join Slytherin house than just his mum. Eventually Lily segued into how her family reacted to her being a witch. Apparently she has an older sister who isn't a witch who is very upset, because she wanted to come to Hogwarts and learn magic, too, but couldn't. Lily is upset that her sister is upset with her, but Severus just shrugged it off. He didn't seem to want to talk about his own family. I listened to what my dad told me and tried not to volunteer much of anything at all.
Finally, the sun started to get lower in the sky. "Do you have the time?" I asked Lily, who wore a watch.
"It's seven," she told me.
"You might want to change into your robes," I told her. "We'll be at the school in half an hour."
"Right," she said. "Where should I change?"
"You can do it in here," I said. "Severus and I can step into the corridor."
"Okay, great," she said.
Severus and I stepped outside. At the front of the car, there were older students being rowdy, but it was quiet in back. "Are you happy to be going to school?" I asked Severus, to break the silence.
"Of course, I am," he said in the same fierce tone he used when speaking of his meeting with Lily, which I wasn't sure was happiness or desperation. "Aren't you?"
"Yes," I said. "But I'm nervous, too. I didn't know if I would be able to come or not for so long." And then I stopped, having already said too much before stepping off the train.
"Why wouldn't you be able to come?" Severus said, curious about me for the first time.
"My mum's really sick," I mumbled, throwing in my pre-planned excuse for going home all the time at the get go.
"Oh," Severus said, effectively ending the conversation. We waited quietly until Lily opened the door. I noticed first that her robes were a crisp, deep black, obviously brand new, unlike mine or Severus'.
We arrived in the station in Hogsmeade a few minutes later. "Do we take our trunks?" Lily asked as we heard the other compartments emptying ahead of us into the corridor.
"I don't think so," I said.
"No," Severus said. "The house elves will get them and deliver them to our dormitories once we're sorted."
"What are house elves?" Lily asked.
"Elves," Severus said, "They cook and they clean and do laundry and stuff like that. Mostly only rich people keep them in their houses, but Hogwarts has hundreds of them."
"Wow," Lily said.
I followed them as the drifted into the corridor and off the train.
"First years, over here," a huge man called once we were on the platform. "First years, this way."
"Wow," Lily said, "Look at him!" The man was at least ten feet tall with a wild beard and hair. "Who is he?"
"I don't know," Severus said, sounding a little nervous seeing him.
The older students headed off to the right, where horseless carriages waited. I followed Lily and Severus towards the man, off to the left.
"Is this everyone?" The man asked. He looked around, seemed to decide that all of the first years were accounted for and then continued. "My name is Rubeus Hagrid," the man said. "I'm the assistant game keeper here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and today I'll be taking you up to the school. Follow me."
He set off and the crowd of first years followed. Lily grabbed my wrist to keep me close and pulled me along with her and Severus. The man, Hagrid, led us to the edge of a lake. On the other side of the lake, there was the school. The sun was setting beside it, making a pretty sight. "Ooooh," Lily said, seeing it. She wasn't the only one. Many of the students seemed to be impressed. Even I was impressed and I've seen the school before. There were a dozen boats lined up at the end of the lake. "Come along then," Hagrid said. "No more than four to a boat."
Lily pulled me forward, to the nearest little wooden rowboat. I noticed she had Severus by the wrist as well. No one else joined us. "I guess I'll row?" I said, but as soon as I did, the boat lurched away from the shore and began to row itself. Lily laughed in delight.
"You know," I said, "I've always wondered what's underneath the lake. My dad says there is a giant squid."
"Really?" Lily said.
"Yeah, I heard that, too," Severus said.
The boats took us across the lake to the castle, where we entered through a sally port low on the lake. There were large wooden doors not far inside. Hagrid knocked loudly and they opened, with a rather severe looking middle aged woman on the other side. "Thank you, Hagrid," she said.
"Good luck everyone!" Hagrid called before heading back to the boats.
The woman in front of us looked us over critically and then said, "Welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Head of Gryffindor House, and Professor of Transfiguration. If you follow me, please." She turned and strode away, not looking to see if we followed or not, but something about her demeanor said that we had best follow.
She lead us to a small room, with a door on both sides, one that we came in through, the other through which I could hear the buzz of hundreds of voices. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly," Professor McGonagall, "but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarted yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting. I will return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly."
With that, she slipped out through the other door, the buzz of voices growing louder momentarily before she shut it again.
"Oh wow, I'm so nervous," Lily said, brushing off her perfect robes, before brushing at Severus' and mine, without being prompted.
"It will be fine," Severus said. "You'll see."
After a few moments, Professor McGonagall came back into the room. "Line up, please," she said, "And follow me."
Lily pulled me and Severus towards the queue, placing one of us on each side of her and when the line was formed to her satisfaction, Professor McGonagall led us to the Great Hall. The first thing I noticed were all of the students watching us, seated at the four house tables. The second thing I noticed was the ceiling, wondrously enchanted to show the night sky. We were on a dais, the staff table behind us. Headmaster Dumbledore sat at the center. I caught his eye for a moment and he gave me a small smile. In front of us, there was a small stool and on that stool, there was a ragged looking wizard's pointed hat. Promptly, the hat began to sing. It sang a song about the sorting and the houses and the traits of the houses and such things and I noticed that many of the other first years were shocked by the singing hat.
When it finished, the sorting began. A boy named Eridanus Altair was first. Professor McGonagall called his name, he sat on the stool, she put the hat on his head and then after a moment, it called out "Ravenclaw!" The Ravenclaw table cheered, while everyone else clapped politely. Professor McGonagall moved through the list, alphabetically. It went smoothly until a boy named Sirius Black was called. He went to the sorting hat and nearly as soon as it was on his head, it called out, "Gryffindor!" Surprisingly, the Gryffindor table didn't cheer and there were hisses from the Slytherin table. Sirius Black nearly skipped over to the Gryffindor table, though. Lily was the first of the three of us from the train to be sorted. She stepped forward, took her seat and Professor McGonagall slipped the hat on her head. There was a moment of deliberation and then the hat yelled out, "Gryffindor!"
"Oh no," Severus groaned, now beside me.
I became more and more nervous at the list slipped towards L. "Lupin, Remus!" Professor McGonagall called finally. I went forward and sat on the stool and she placed the hat on my head. It was too large and slipped over my eyes, blocking my view of the great hall. Then suddenly, there was a voice in my head. "Well, well, well, you are an interesting one, werewolf," it said. "It's rare to find a student who would do well wherever I put him. You have the intelligence, the curiosity, the thirst for knowledge of Ravenclaw, the conscientiousness and loyalty of Hufflepuff, the cunning, even the ruthlessness of Slytherin. But you, you're going to need all of the courage that you can get, aren't you? And you'll get it in Gryffindor."
The last word echoed in my ears and also across the great hall. The Gryffindor table clapped loudly, although there were few cheers. I suppose I'm not much to cheer for. I wonder at the logic of that hat, though. Sort me into the house that I have the least traits to go with? What nonsense is that?
"Over here, Remus," Lily called as I approached the table. There was space cleared in the middle, flanked on both sides by prefects, that the first years were gradually filling out. I sat next to Lily, across from the boy named Sirius Black. I gave him a small smile and a nod, while I noticed other people at the table still giving him unfriendly glances. "What's that about?" I asked softly.
"The whole rest of my family is in Slytherin," he laughed.
"Ah," I said.
The sorting continued. Several girls joined us and then we got into the P's and another boy, short and chubby, named Peter Pettigrew got sorted in Gryffindor as well. He was followed by a boy named James Potter. Lily hissed when his name was called. "That's the boy from the train," she said. The hat called out Gryffindor before it was even fully seated on his head.
He joined us, sitting between Sirius and Peter, right across from Lily. "Good job, Pete," James said to the chubby boy. "I didn't think you had it in you." Then he looked to Lily and smirked. "Not joining your pal in Slytherin, then?" he said. She gave him a dirty look.
The sorting continued. Professor McGonagall reached Severus Snape and he was promptly sorted into Slytherin, nearly as promptly as James was sorted in Gryffindor. The Slytherins slapped him on the back, but he shot a longing look over to Lily. There was another big reaction to the name after him, "Stark, Eleanor." The common room went abuzz and I realized that she must be Meriton Stark, the murdered Auror's daughter. She was also sorted into Gryffindor. In all, we ended with ten of us, six girls and four boys in the house. When the sorting was done, Headmaster Dumbledore made several announcements, including introducing a new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Etollius Gamp. He didn't look particularly friendly, but I suppose fighting the Dark Arts isn't a friendly thing. The prefect beside me muttered, "That's a different one every year that I've been here."
The food came next, tons of it. I couldn't decide, so I went with both pork chops and beef wellington plus mashed potatoes and green beans and chips. When the main course was done, it switched over to an equally fantastic table full of desserts. I took both chocolate cake and raspberry sherbet. In the meantime, the other three chattered excitedly with each other, while Lily talked to some of the other girls and me and the prefects. "Remus," she said, "There are ghosts! Do you see the ghosts?"
The prefect beside me, a fifth year named Brandon Tintagel said, "Each house has a ghost. Ours is Nearly-Headless Nick."
"Nearly-headless?" Lily asked.
"Yes, well, apparently someone tried to chop off his head and botched the job of it," Brandon said.
When the feast was over, the first years followed Brandon to the Gryffindor common room. It was up in a tower, behind the portrait of a fat lady. The password was "Lionhearted." "Girls' dormitories are up the left stair, boys are up the right. First years will be the very first landing," Brandon told us once we were in the common room, which was filled with comfortable looking red upholstered chairs and couches as well as several small tables for studying and a large fireplace. "Your trunks will already be up there. Breakfast starts at seven," he added, "In the Great Hall. Don't be late, because you'll get your class schedule there. The first period of classes starts at eight. The house elves will switch the crests on your robes over to Gryffindor tonight if you leave them out. Best get up there now and pick out your beds."
The other three boys raced ahead, up the stairs. "Good night, Lily," I said, holding back.
"Good night, Remus," she told me. "I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow."
"Okay," I said.
I headed up the stairs. The dormitory had four four-poster beds in it, with red hangings. Red and gold are the Gryffindor colors, of course. The other boys had already claimed their beds. My trunk was waiting by the door and I took the last bed remaining, on the end, closest to the bathroom. Sirius Black was next to me, then James Potter, with Peter Pettigrew by the door. Sirius was sitting on his bed, pulling his robes out from his trunk. Like Lily's they were all crisp and new. So were James' and Peter's. He looked up at me when I sat my trunk down at the foot of my bed.
"Remus Lupin, right?" he said.
"Right," I answered.
He pursed his lips and thought hard for a moment. "Lyall Lupin's your father?" he asked then. Apparently he'd been trying to place me. "Researcher for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures? Mum's a muggle?"
"Yeah," I said. "How'd you know that?"
"My father's got his book on boggarts," Sirius said. "Says the whole Lupin line is full of awful blood traitors, but he knows more about boggarts than any man alive." I frowned and the other boy quickly caught the insult in his statement. "Those are my father's words, not mine," he said. "I don't think that."
I thought for a moment, pulling in my knowledge of magical history. "Any relation to Damocles Black?"
He laughed. "Yes," he said. "I can claim history's least popular Minister for Magic as an ancestor. I've got the least popular Headmaster of Hogwarts, too."
"I see," I said.
James Potter called him over then, though. I set to getting my things ready. I pulled out the picture of my parents and my alarm clock and put them on my bed side table, my parents smiling and waving at me from the picture, tucked my chocolate bar inside the drawer there, put a roll of parchment and a fresh quill and a bottle of ink in my school bag to be read for morning and then laid out my school robes over my the foot of my bed for the house elves to change the crests overnight. Since the other boys looked like they would be talking for a while, I think pulled out my toiletries, towel, and pajamas and went for a shower. I brushed my teeth, came back in my pajamas, laid out the set of robes I'd been wearing and pretended to go to sleep, tucking my bed hangings around me. The other three boys talked for over an hour. Apparently James and Peter have known each other since they were toddlers, they grew up near each other, but James doesn't seem to think much of Peter, who, admittedly, from their conversation, doesn't seem to be exceptionally brave or bright. For all that Slytherin is known as the house that stresses blood purity, all three of them are purebloods. James and Sirius are also apparently quite wealthy. James seems like he's very spoiled. I think perhaps my father was right about the arrogant bit, too, for Gryffindors. James more than once declared himself a paragon of Gryffindor virtues and that he'd be the best wizard since Godric Gryffindor (he 'graciously' told Peter that he could be his sidekick) and went on and on about how he was going to be the best at everything in school. I waited until their voices died down and one of them put out the candles to take out my journal and write this by wand light.
I'm not sure how I ended up sorted in this house.
AUTHOR'S END NOTE:
I like the idea of Remus starting out in the orbit of Lily and Severus and slowly transitioning from associating with Severus to associating with James, Sirius and Peter, for a variety of reasons, so that's what I'm going with. I think it fits very well to cannon (from what we actually see of the characters themselves, rather than other people's rather biased descriptions of them) that Severus is generally unfriendly to anyone but Lily, due to a lifetime of not fitting in/only having one friend, and that James is a spoiled bully with an ego the size of a house. James will improve with time and the ameliorating effects of other people's company, as often happens with spoiled children, while Severus will get worse due to a combination of James' abuse of him and his exposure to radical pro-Dark Arts and anti-muggle sentiments in Slytherin. My sympathies are naturally with Severus, although Remus will eventually chose James' side, for entirely selfish reasons. I never thought that James was the kind of person that Remus would have a natural affinity for, though, and I'm going to write it that way. I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's opinion on that matter, though, so if you have something interesting or enlightening to say on the subject, please include it in the reviews.
Yes, I realize that in cannon, it was Damocles Rowle, not Damocles Black. I like him better as a Black.
If you have anything to say, good, bad or indifferent, I'd be happy for reviews.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.
AUTHOR'S NOTE ON THE MODIFICATION OF THIS STORY:
This story initially began on Remus's birthday (Which I changed to August 6th, or rather, had initially decided was August 6th, for the purposes of him both being born on the full moon and having the full moon reoccur on his eleventh birthday, before JK Rowling put out the character's birthday officially. I decided I liked my version better and kept it that way.) and the first chapter was ten thousand words worth of the twenty-five days that came before him going to Hogwarts. Unfortunately, they were a very slow ten thousand words, mostly setting up details for later, which, from the reader stats that provides, 90% of readers didn't make it past. I decided to delete the first chapter therefore, and go ahead and start the publication on September 1st. I may publish the first twenty-five days separately later, in case anyone is interested in slogging through it.
To summarize what happened, though, for those of you who are not interested:
Remus received a journal for his eleventh birthday from his mum, which he promises to write in every day. His father is opposed to the idea of a journal, because writing down the whole werewolf things seems like a terrible idea to him, but he relents to his wife and instead puts a whole bunch of spells on it so no one but Remus can open it or read it. Since I made the full moon on his birthday, he also had a transformation at the time. He visited Hogwarts with his father to become familiarized with the preparations made there for the full moon. He also received advice from his father on school, including warning him away from both Slytherin and Gryffindor (as he was a Ravenclaw himself, at least in my version, I don't recall if JK Rowling ever specified and Slytherin and Gryffindor are always notoriously at odds with each other), telling him to avoid both pranksters and bullies, advising him to pick a Quidditch team to pretend to support, as many boys his age are obsessed with Quidditch and he doesn't want him to stand out (He picks the Caerphilly Catapults because Dai Llewellyn was their most famous seeker and the bit ward that saved his life when he was attacked as a child was the Dai Llewellyn ward.), and also to avoid making close friends, because people won't notice you're missing if they don't miss you, and to finally, never under any circumstances let on that he's a werewolf. His father also taught him several spells, including Lumos, Nox, modifications to make Lumos brighter or dimmer, the Emergency Flare Spell and Expelliarmus. Besides that, there was some on his mum being ill, lots of book reading (The Lord of the Flies and Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea are the ones that come up again later, I believe) and watching television. Also, there was a recount of a few Ministry worker disappearances and the murder of an Auror, one Meriton Stark, all unsolved over the preceding spring and early summer.
AUTHOR'S ORIGINAL FIRST CHAPTER END NOTE:
I've had this in my head since I read the Harry Potter books as a kid. It wasmostlyin line with cannon then, but as JK Rowling has put out many details about the books since then, it no longer lines up quite as well, since I changed to her details where I preferred them and kept my own where I liked them better (starting with his birthday, as I wanted the date of his birth both out of the school year and on the night of the full moon, and moving on from there).
The focus is, of course, on Remus, although I've tagged Sirius, James and Lily, too, as they're the most major frequent reoccurring characters. I've rated T for infrequent (in terms of the daily entries, it might be more frequent in terms of chapters) violence. For those of you who favor content warnings, there will also be regular descriptions of bullying and infrequent bad language, as well as very infrequent objective pondering of the issue of suicide (which I would consider unavoidable if I were a werewolf). If I keep going past first year, romances will eventually be included, but not yet. They're only eleven after all. If I keep going past the first year, the rating might also go up to M for subsequent stories.
I, of course, own nothing that belongs to JK Rowling, although I made up some of the supporting characters and details myself. I particularly filled in details of wizarding culture and society as I saw fit, extrapolating from what was available in the original books.
I am American, so while I've tried to use British words where I can, I imagine that I mostly fail. I tried my best to make things historically accurate to real life, though, so I have, for example, followed a 1971 and 1972 calendar for reference, along with Wikipedia's recollection of the historical events of those years, including current music and movies and such, as well as the BBC's archive of their televisions schedules (which is to say, to the best of my ability, everything Remus watches on television was actually shown on that day in history).
There will literally be a journal entry for every day, as Remus promises his mother in the beginning, so things may be somewhat slow at points (although I'll try to make it as interesting as possible; things will pick up once he gets to Hogwarts [NOTE: ALL ENTRIES BEFORE HOGWARTS HAVE NOW BEEN OMITTED]), and also, this will end up very, very long. I have this written up to November 4 at the time of publishing the first chapter. It is currently 100,000 words long. Be warned. Some postings will be longer than others, put together however I feel like making the chapters.
Also, because this is so long, I've only done a once over for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and so forth. I did a good faith effort with that once over, but I know that I have missed many corrections that I might have made. I chose to continue writing instead of doing a more extensive edit. I don't want to hear about it, either. If it bothers you, just tell yourself that most people don't edit their journals. If you have anything else to say, however, good, bad or indifferent, I'd be happy for reviews. If there is interest, I'll update regularly.
Thanks for reading.