There were only two rules for 'dating' Remus Lupin, the first being to never tell anyone you're dating Remus Lupin. To be honest, I never expected I'd be so excited to not tell anyone something.

I first met Remus in my third year but, like everyone else attending Hogwarts, I already knew a lot about him. Or at least, I thought I knew a lot about him. He was one of those rowdy Gryffindor boys – the Potter's Gang we called them in those days – and mystery and intrigue stuck to them like glue, not least of which because of their keen detective work around the school and a certain ability to be places they weren't supposed to be in. That's how I first met Remus – in the girls' lavatory of the Hufflepuff Common Room.

I remember shrieking when I saw him, or possibly it was more of a squeak, and instantly his hand was over my mouth and he had pulled me back into the corner of the room where we would be partially hidden from anyone entering the bathroom. I looked up at him and his mouth was twitching at the corners as he tried to keep from laughing but I saw nothing funny about the situation. He held a finger up to his mouth signaling that I should keep quiet and I nodded slowly, knowing better than to let this opportunity pass. To be included in Marauder shenanigans, no matter how un-importantly, was worth six months of popularity, minimum.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not – nor have I ever – been the type of person to care about popularity but back in those days it didn't come without its perks. The Marauders paraded around the school as if they owned it and, in all honesty, they did. They had nerds to do their assignments, fill-ins willing to sit through class for them, go-fetchers at their beck and call to fetch whatever was needed for the precious Marauders and, to a certain extent, anyone lucky enough to be associated with them.

They had personal House Elves, and a stable of nifflers, and a horde of girls willing to do anything for them. Unfortunately for the girls, the Marauders preferred to work alone, only calling for an occasional fill-in or homework preparer a few times a month. The girls wasted away, waiting eagerly for the day they were called for, and the Marauders seemed more than happy to take the detentions for skipping class. Well, they could let their fortune go to waste, but I wanted a sweet piece of that easy-breezy homework-free lifestyle and I was going to get it.

Remus released me and shooed me away but I just crouched down beside him and waited.

"What are you doing?" he asked, eyes never wavering from the door. I noticed that he kept his wand hand at the ready, as if awaiting an attack.

"What are you doing?" I countered. "You're not even in Hufflepuff!"

Remus shifted towards me and scrutinized me carefully. "We're playing hide-and-seek."

"We?"

As if on cue, the door slammed open and James Potter burst in, holding a creased piece of parchment and wearing a ridiculous grin on his face. "Remus, you dog, I never would have thought you had it in you!" He muttered something under his breath and with a flick of his wrist Remus' wand went sailing over to him. "Hiding in the girls' restroom – have you no shame! I've been searching the Hufflepuff dungeons for nearly an hour; thought I'd made another mistake with the map!"

"The Hufflepuff Common Room isn't a dungeon!" I blurted out, cursing the Hufflepuff Pride that overrode my senses.

James looked over to me, clearly amused. "How so?" I had no immediate answer and he elaborated his question. "Dungeons are underground stone rooms used for the purpose of holding people. In which way does Hufflepuff not fit these criteria?"

"It…erm…." I stammered. He looked down on me smugly and I gathered my (admittedly lacking) wits. "Dungeons are known for being dank, dark, and oppressive," I managed, looking to Remus for encouragement. He hardly knew me but he smiled kindly and I continued. "Our common room is clearly warm, well-lit, and cozy."

Remus turned to James. "Clearly." He plucked his wand from James' hands and rapped him smartly on the nose with it. "You won this round, but next time I get the map."

James didn't say anything for a moment; he was lost in thought. "I'll admit that the term dungeon does have a negative connotation which obviously doesn't apply to the Hufflepuffs' rooming quarters but if it's not a dungeon then what is it?"

Remus wrapped an arm around James' shoulders and steered him toward the exit. "Basements are also underground…" I heard him say as they slipped out the door, along with my hope of a homework-free year. No one was going to believe me.

"No one's going to believe you, you know." Remus said, popping his head back through the door. "It'd be best if you kept this just between us." He smiled and winked at me and in an instant was gone.

And that was the end of it.

I'll admit that in this day and age these 'crazy Marauders' stories are so common that it's likely 4 out of 4 of them are made up but there's a reason behind the madness. Everyone knows the Marauders are big time heroes – they saved the school from some big threat at least once every year they attended Hogwarts – but no one ever found out exactly what they'd done. And Potter and Black had more infractions than all the rest of Hogwarts combined, but not a single one was for being caught out-of-bounds or out-of-bed past curfew. Somehow they managed to sneak around to all the forbidden areas of the castle, winning awards for hexing bad guys and detentions for pranking first-years, without actually being caught in those forbidden areas.

Naturally, rumors started to spread. Some people say they learned to apparate illegally. Bollocks, of course. You can't apparate or disapparate inside of Hogwarts. Believe me, I've tried. Others say they each had an Invisibility Cloak. Or that they were actually ghosts, or animagus, or metamorphagus, or leprechauns or whatever. I heard someone say that Sirius Black was the heir of Slytherin and someone else say that Peter Pettigrew could shrink to a miniature size and crawl through the pipes of Hogwarts. One boy claimed that they each had a sawed-off Shooting Star and that they rode them standing up. He'll tell anyone who'll listen that Dumbledore appointed them to patrol the corridors on their brooms at night and that it was Dumbledore who gave them their Invisibility Cloaks. Actually this was true – or, the broomstick part at least. Remus did have a modified Shooting Star and he did ride it standing up but he never brought it inside the castle.

For all their mischief and rambunctiousness, the boys were actually a pretty private group. James Potter had apparently loved Lily Evans since halfway through his second year but you'd never have known it if it wasn't for that odd outburst he had by the lake during his fifth year. Even afterwards it was hard to tell if he still liked her; he was always playing the gentleman whenever they were together – which was most of the time since they were Head Boy and Girl their Seventh Year.

And you couldn't possibly have known it to look at him but Sirius Black – so handsome and charming – was actually homeless. Well not really homeless (I heard he had been staying with the Potters) but he was blasted off the Black Family Tree and kicked out of his family's home. He seemed to be managing just fine without them, though there was always something especially important he forgot to do elsewhere whenever the topic of family was brought up in conversation.

And as for Peter Pettigrew, well, he certainly was interesting. If you ask anyone who was at Hogwarts with them why the Marauders put up with Peter you'll just get an offhand shrug because, honestly, no one really knows. He wasn't smart, or handsome, or charming and while he was definitely not repulsive there was just something about him which suggested that he could easily become rather nasty if you gave him the chance. Maybe it's because of this that he mostly tried to keep to himself but really, the way he was always babbling on to that rat of his was more than enough to keep everyone else away.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), none of the marauders ever dated, though certainly not for lack of willing witches. I'm sure there was at least one girl who would have been willing to snog Peter, if only for the opportunity to brag about having nabbed a marauder. This is almost certainly the reason why they never dated and maybe subconsciously I had always known it. A marauder was most certainly not going to date a blabber-mouth and maybe that's why I never told anyone about what happened in the bathroom. Instead I kept it hidden away like a little girl storing away a precious trinket, and the longer I kept it hidden the more precious the memory became to me.

And maybe he's forgotten all about it by now, but to me, that's the reason why Remus Lupin sidled up to me one day after Potions and steered me into that broom closet with the hidden panel and made me promise not to tell a soul that from now on I was going to be his secret girlfriend.

So this isn't my firs fic ever but it's my first fic on this site so if I'm doing something wrong please let me know! Also, thanks for reading! Let me know what you think.