"What did you do to your face?"
Remus froze. For a moment, six years of practiced answers seemed to vanish from his brain as he felt the girl's eyes on his newest scar- a gash that sliced through his forehead all the way to his chin. The look she gave him replaced any logical explanation with one horrifying question.
How does she know?
Remus looked around for his mother, but she was already at the back counter, quietly but sternly speaking to the clerk about something. Keeping his eyes on the floor, he managed to reorganize his thoughts and mumble out his well-rehearsed response.
"It was an accident."
Technically, it wasn't a complete lie. For all anyone else knew, his scars came from particularly angry pieces of the now-shredded wall in the old bedroom. For all he knew… well, it wasn't as though he could stop himself.
"An accident." The girl obviously wasn't convinced.
"Yes."
"What were you doing?"
Why do you care? Remus thought. You're either looking for another excuse to call me a freak or you actually want to help me, and nothing good can come of either situation. He stayed silent for a moment, hoping that it might convince the girl to stop asking questions. When she didn't leave, he looked around the store for something that might give him an idea for an explanation. His eyes landed on a tin of biscuits decorated with a picture of a boy and a girl playing alongside pretty blue waves.
"I… I was at the beach."
"What were you doing?"
His eyes remained fixed on the biscuit tin as he blurted out his next answer.
"I was with a friend."
The girl paused for a moment, looking confused.
"You don't have any friends, Remus."
Remus mentally kicked himself. A part of him wanted to tell her that just because she was normal didn't mean she had to rub it in his face, even if he was a stupid rotten liar and a monster to boot. But he kept quiet, like he always did, and scuffled his shoes over the stone floor as he tried to finish the story.
He didn't even realize that he hadn't told her his name.
"I was with my friend, and we were..." He tried to remember what the friends in his books did. They talked. They played Wizard's Chess and Gobstones. They went on adventures together. And it was sunny. Yes, that was essential.
"...we were at the beach, and it was really sunny. And we were playing on the rocks..."
"Do you talk about stuff with your friend?" She may as well have said 'imaginary' from what Remus heard. He bit his lip in embarrassed frustration.
"Yes."
"What kind of stuff?"
"Just...stuff. Like books and what we did this weekend and Gobstones..." Oh no.
"Gobstones? What's Gobstones?"
"A game we…made up."
"Oh."
"Yeah. So we decided to go climb on the rocks. And while we were climbing, my foot slipped, and when I fell, I hit my head on one of the sharp points and got this scar."
"Were you okay?"
What part about ripping your face open sounds "okay" to you?
"Yeah. My dad fixed it."
"Oh. That's good. What's your friend's name? Do I know him?"
"Er…" Remus tried to think of a name, but all the names that came to mind were from his father's astronomy charts and his own history book about the witches and that muggle king…
"James," he said.
"James who?"
"You wouldn't know him. He doesn't go to your school."
"Oh."
She looked at the floor, and Remus took advantage of the lapse in conversation to look over at his mother again, who was now paying for their groceries. He turned back to the girl, who looked at him with a curious expression on her face.
"Can you teach me to play Gobstones?"
The question took Remus so completely by surprise that he almost answered truthfully.
"Well, er…"
His mother's hand on his shoulder finally saved him from his lie. "Remus, we need to go," she said. He nodded, holding in a sigh of relief.
"Well, bye," said the girl. She had a strange softness in her voice.
"Bye," said Remus, letting himself smile as he followed his mother out of the store. He didn't look back, but he could tell that the girl kept watching him until they reached the end of the street.
Later that night, when he should have been asleep, he heard his parents discussing something in rapid whispers. Remus didn't even need to listen to know what they were saying. He'd known it was over the moment he smiled at her.
Three days later, they packed up to move again, this time to a little house in the middle of country. Remus was used to the routine by now, and usually didn't mind moving around. A house was just a house, and he never got close enough to the neighbors for them to even notice his absence.
But this time felt different. He'd come so close, so close to a real friend. A strange kind of disappointment replaced his usual indifference. But that disappointment gave way to an even stranger feeling. The feeling that maybe this time, things could be different. Things could be better. As their train meandered through the rolling hills, Remus leaned against the window and smiled as he watched the stars slowly disappear to reveal a brilliant red sunrise.