Forgot to put this before: I don't own anything except Bekka, Liz, and Alex (who you'll meet later) and the plot. JK Rowling is the creator of all the rest! She is a genius!

Another quick note: I know Bellatrix was older, but she's one of my favorite characters, so for this story, she's the same age as the wonderful Marauders.

"There has to be a mistake," Sirius said. "I liked her. There is no way she could be a Slytherin."

"That has to explain why everyone was shocked when I stood up to help her," James said.

"But she seemed so nice," Peter said. The three boys were sitting at the Gryffindor table, staring at Liz's schedule as if her house would change if they stared at it long enough.

"Blood traitor," a voice said from behind Sirius and James. The boys looked at the source of the voice.

"Bellatrix," Sirius said, coldly. "What do you want?"

"I hear you have my housemate's schedule. I have come to retrieve it," she said, staring pointedly at the schedule on the table.

"What if we don't want to give it to you?" James asked, glaring.

"Then I'll take it from you," she replied, reaching towards it.

"Why are you doing her a favor anyways? What's in it for you?" Sirius asked, grabbing the schedule before she could.

"She is my house mate, we watch out for each other," she said, glaring at Sirius.

"So the fact that she is your housemate is enough to get you to spend this long talking to me," Sirius said, raising his eyebrows.

"That combined with the fact that I want to protect her from being tainted with you. Accio schedule," she said, causing the schedule to fly out of Sirius's hands. She cast one last look at disgust at the Marauders and stormed back to the Slytherin table where Elizabeth was now sitting.

"We have to tell Remus. I know he hates talking about Bekka, but we have to make him listen. We have to warn him that she looks just like her, I mean that it freaked us and we weren't obsessed with her for god knows how long," James said, his tone uncharacteristically serious.

"Let's go now. We'll get your cloak so Madam Pomfrey doesn't catch us," Sirius said.

"But how are we going to make him listen?" Peter asked.

"He's in the hospital wing. He'll have to listen," James pointed out. "Come on." The three boys ran out of the great hall.

Ten minutes later, the three boys were standing next to Remus's bed, still under James's invisibility cloak. "Remus," James whispered.

"James?" Remus asked. "You guys under your cloak? Pomfrey is in her office, so you're safe as long as we don't make too much noise."

The boys removed the cloak, but kept it close in case they needed it. "How are classes?" Remus asked. "Am I missing anything?"

"We haven't been to classes. You'll have to get the notes from my Lily-kins," James said. Remus gave them a disapproving look.

"Don't give us that look. Dumbledore excused us from classes this time," Sirius said. Remus gave him a skeptical look.

"It's true," Peter said, speaking up. "There's a new girl and James volunteered us to show her around."

"New girl?" Remus said, wincing as he sat up. "Bruised rib," he said, explaining the wince. "Now tell me about the new girl."

"Her name is Elizabeth Richards," James said.

"She's really funny and nice," Peter said, smiling.

"She even gave us a few ideas for new pranks," Sirius said, a bit begrudgingly.

"She was fun," James said, frowning. The other two boys nodded in agreement.

"I could even see her have becoming an honorary Marauder given adequate time," Sirius said, matching James's frown.

"She's a Slytherin though, isn't she?" Remus said. The other boys looked at him in surprise.

"How did you know?" James asked.

"Because any other house and that would have been the first thing out of your mouth. Hell, it would have been the first thing out of your mouth anyways, if you didn't like her. But you like her and you don't want to admit that she's a Slytherin, so you avoid it. And the way Sirius talked about her like he liked her, but didn't want to, indicated that she was a Slytherin," Remus said, explaining his logic.

"Moony, stop being so damn smart," Sirius said.

Remus grinned at him and shook his head. "Now tell me what she looks like. I'm actually rather surprised Padfoot hasn't commented on her looks."

The three boys glanced at each other, none of them really eager to tell him. "She's pretty," Sirius said, slowly. James and Peter nodded in agreement.

"She's pretty? That's all I get? What aren't you telling me?"

"See that's what we actually came to talk to you about," James said, drawing it out.

"When she walked into the great hall, she looked vaguely familiar," Sirius added.

"It took us a few minutes to figure out why," Peter continued.

"Mates, just spit it out!" Remus said, getting frustrated with them.

The other boys exchanged one last look. James dug out the sketch book and flipped it open. "She looked exactly like this," he said, holding it out. He wouldn't meet Remus's eyes.

"This isn't funny," Remus said, staring at the sketch.

"It wasn't supposed to be," Sirius said, staring at his hands.

"How did you get this? I destroyed this," Remus said.

"You dropped that one and I saved it," James said.

"Why would you do that? I wanted these destroyed. I let go of that dream," Remus said, quietly.

"We know. I'm sorry I kept it. I don't know why I did. But we just wanted to warn you, that she looked a lot like your drawings. We thought you'd freak out the first time you saw her otherwise."

"You want to know the crazy thing? When she saw the picture she got all freaked out because it's apparently exactly what she looked like two years ago," Sirius added.

"You showed her the picture?" Remus said loudly. They heard Madam Pompfrey's office door open and the three boys vanished under the cloak and Remus stuck the sketch book under his pillow, just as Remus's bed came into her view.

"Everything okay, Remus dear? I thought I heard you yelling," she said.

"I'm fine. I was just, erm, sleeping, and I, erm, had a bad dream," Remus said, "Thanks for checking on me."

Madame Pompfrey looked suspiciously around the room, but finding nothing amiss, nodded her head. "Alright dear, would you like me to give you a dreamless sleep draught?"

"Um, that's alright. I'm going to try and get some more sleep on my own first. If I can't fall back asleep, maybe," Remus said.

"Ok, well just give a holler if you need anything," she said, walking back towards her office.

As soon as she was out of sight, the three bows removed the cloak. "That was close," Sirius said.

"Good job, thinking of a quick lie like that," James said, grinning at Remus.

Remus glared back at him, "I was kind of hoping it was just a bad dream."

"Come on, it's not that bad," Sirius said.

"Not that bad?" Remus whispered angrily. "I thought this was destroyed, but turns out my best mates were just hiding it from me. And then to find out they showed it too some girl I've never even met, just because she looks like her. She probably thinks I'm some creepy stalker."

"Of course she doesn't mate, she understood after we told her the story," James said.

"You told her about Bekka?" Remus said, angrily.

"Moony, calm down, you're turning red. You look like you're going to explode," Sirius said, taking a step away from him.

"Do not tell me to calm down," Remus said, punctuating every word. "Since you seem to love spilling my secrets to this new girl, did you happen to tell her I was a werewolf as well?"

James looked at Remus a little hurt, "Remus, we would never do that. You know that."

"Do I? I thought you would never tell anyone about Bekka and you obviously did. Leave me alone, I don't want to talk you right now."

"Remus," Sirius started.

"Madame Pomfrey!" Remus yelled. James, Sirius, and Peter barely had enough time to get under the cloak, before she came bustling in.

"Did you change your mind about that dreamless sleep draught?" she asked.

"Yeah, I did."

"Must have been a real bad dream. You get comfortable and I'll go get some for you. Be back in a jiffy," she said, smiling at him. She turned and disappeared around the corner.

"Unfortunately the bad dream will be waiting for me when I wake up," Remus muttered, sending a glare to where he knew his friends were standing.

He got a whispered, "We're sorry," in response.

With a wince of pain, Remus turned and laid on his side, his back to his friends. Madame Pomfrey came in seconds later. "Here you are dearie."

"Thanks," he said, taking the potion without a second thought. Within moments, he feel into a blissful, dreamless, sleep.

Outside the hospital wing, James, Sirius, and Peter removed the cloak and stuck it in James's bag. "That went well," James said, sarcastically.

"Do you think we shouldn't have told her about his childhood friend?"

"What difference does it make of what we should or shouldn't have done? We can't change what we already did."

"We have to find a way to fix things. I've never seen him this upset with us."

"I suggest we start by going to class and taking the best notes ever. That might get him to forgive us."

"It's worth a shot. We have to hurry before we're late though." The three boys raced through the halls and got to Transfiguration just as it started.

The next couple of days, passed rather quickly for the boys. They took the best notes of those lives trying to get Remus to forgive them. They tried to visit him in the hospital wing using James's cloak but he would refuse to talk to them.

They wanted to talk to Liz and apologize, but it felt like she was avoiding them and she was doing a pretty good job at it. They would see her in the hallways, but as soon as she saw them, she'd turn and hurry away. They'd chase after her, but she always seemed to disappear into thin air. In classes they had together, she would come in just as the professor was starting class and she was the first one out the door.

The evening after the full moon, Remus was walking the halls, doing prefect duty, when he spotted Liz staring out a window across the great lake. Even after being warned, he was still surprised at how much she looked like his childhood friend in the moonlight. He stared at her in shock as she started to hum a soft tune that sounded vaguely familiar to him but he couldn't place it. He listened for a moment, before clearing his throat. Liz jumped and immediately stopped humming. She turned and looked at him.

Surprise crossed her face, before quickly changing into a smile, "Oh, hello. Can I help you?"

"It's after curfew, it's my job to enforce it," Remus said, "You must be Elizabeth Richards."

She nodded her head in confirmation. "How did you know?"

"They told me you look like a girl I used to know," he said, softly. "My name is Remus Lupin. My friends are the one that showed you around your first morning here."

"Oh… I don't think they like me very much," she said, looking down at her feet and fidgeting.

Remus looked at her surprised. "Are you kidding? They couldn't shut up about you when they first told me about you."

She looked a little surprised about this. "They also said I was a foul and disgusting, not to mention a disgrace to witches and wizards," she said, fidgeting even more. Remus had only ever seen one person fidget that much and that was when he was in primary school and was sitting in the headmaster's office.

"Why would they say that?" he asked, confused.

"Potter said it was bad luck to that I had all classes with Slytherins and Sirius said that when I asked why," she said, simply.

"But they couldn't have known they you were a Slytherin when they said that," Remus said.

Liz looked up at Remus as a tear slid down her face. "I wish that were true. But you see Dumbledore announced it to the whole school when I first arrived. Right before Potter offered to show me around the school."

Before Remus could stop himself, he reached out and wiped away the tear. "I'm sorry. They're idiots sometimes."

"It just really sucks because I really liked them. They were sweet and funny until they said those things. I mean my new friends are alright I guess. Alex is cool, but she's just all about the parties and drinking and ditching classes and that's not me. And Bellatrix… she's interesting… a little on the crazy side though. And Regulus is strange, I get the feeling from him that he's hiding something; I'm just not sure what. And Severus is probably the one I get along with the most, but he's a strange fellow as well. And they're all so gun-ho about joining with that guy who believes that muggleborns and muggles are the worst things in the world, and I'm not sure I even agree with that. Plus, I don't understand what the big deal about this whole house rivalry thing is, I mean they would kill me if they found out I was actually having a conversation with you and not just sneering and calling you names. Plus this stupid castle with its moving staircases, that I'm constantly getting lost. I mean I was in the library and I was just trying to get back to my dormitory and I ended up here… wherever here is," she said, leaning back against the window. "And now I'm ranting about all my problems to a guy I hardly know. Sorry."

"It's okay. I'm a good listener," Remus said, giving her a comforting smile. "Besides, no one has to know about this conversation but us, so you don't have to worry about your housemates finding out. And I would have to agree with you that this house rivalry is a bit ridiculous, but as much as the professors have tried to put an end to it, everything they try usually ends up making it worse so they've just given up." He leaned his shoulder against the wall so he was facing her. "As for the castle, just stick with your housemates until you got it down. You'll get used to it."

"I was at the library, I'm pretty sure Severus is the only one that actually knows that there is a library in this place. And I was with him, until he went chasing after some redhead that I swear he stalks."

"That would have been Lily Evans. They used to be friends until he called her a mudblood, now he's constantly trying to get her to forgive him. I doubt that'll ever happen though," Remus said, shaking his head.

"The name sounds right. But I better getting going, like you already pointed out, it is past curfew. So if you just point me in the right direction, I'll be on my way. And I really am sorry for dumping all that on you," she said standing up straight.

"It's not a problem really. But one thing before you go?" he said, uncertainly.

"Hmm?"

"I know my friends told you about my childhood friend…" he said slowly. "I was just wondering if you mentioned it to anyone else."

"It wasn't their secret to tell, just like it isn't my secret to tell. You should be the only one telling it. So I haven't and I never will," she said, shrugging.

"Ok, thanks for understanding," he said.

"Can I ask you a question though? And it's alright if you say no or say yes then don't want to answer it," she said, biting her lip.

"Sure, go ahead," Remus said, shrugging.

"Why did you stop looking for her?"

"It had been the nine year anniversary of the day I went over to her house and she had just disappeared without a trace. I went over every to her house every day and looked in the window to see if she had come back. She had been gone for about a month when a new family moved in. I tried to make friends with the two girls that had taken over her bedroom, but they weren't anything like her. They just wanted to play dress-up and have tea parties. I swore to myself then that I'd look for her and find her. After all I promised I'd marry her, but after nine years I came to realize that was the dream of a child. And I had changed so much in the nine years that had passed and realized she had to have too. For all I know she could have become exactly like those two girls wanting to play dress up all the time. So I accepted that it was time to let go of the dream and move on with my life. James, Peter, and Sirius didn't understand at the time, and I still think they don't. And I don't really expect you to understand. But it was my life and I couldn't keep living in the past," he said.

"I do understand. My best friend at my last school, she and I were practically the same person, was always going on and on about finding this boy from her childhood because they were soul mates and they'd find their way to each other somehow, but she let go of that dream, just as you let go of yours. I may not know how hard that must have been, but I do understand," Liz said.

"At least, someone does," Remus said. "However, it is getting late and we both need to be getting to bed. The Slytherin common room is down that hallway, take the 3rd left, go down 5 flights of stairs, make another left, and then an immediate right, go about 5 feet and you're at the entrance."

"Thanks," she said. "For everything." She gave him a smile before hurrying away.

Remus watched her leave before heading towards his own dormitory. Once he arrived there, he realized his roommate were still awake and apparently waiting for him. "Hey Moony, you want the notes? We took really good ones for you," James said.

"I already got them from Lily," Remus said, still angry at them for telling Liz about Bekka. He crawled into his bed still in his school uniform and closed the curtains, preventing any more conversation. It wasn't long before he was asleep and dreaming of the past.

A six year old Remus sat in the Headmaster's office next to his best friend. Bekka kept playing with her fingers and swinging her leg as they waited for the headmaster to arrive. They had been talking during a test and their teacher had assumed they were cheating. They didn't have long to wait. "You two are still young, but you're old enough to know cheating is bad and will not be tolerated at this school," the headmaster said, walking in the door and around his desk. "What do you two have to say for yourself," he asked, sitting in his desk chair.

"Sir, we weren't cheating, I promise. We were talking, but it wasn't about the test," Bekka said, staring at the ground and picking frantically at her clothes.

"Then what was so important that you were talking about it during a test?" he asked, sternly.

"Our camping trip this weekend," Remus said, excited by the chance to talk about the trip.

"And what's so special about this camping trip," he asked.

"Our parents are letting us camp by ourselves," Bekka said, still fidgeting with her clothes and looking at the floor.

"Look at me when you talk to me," the headmaster reprimanded her. She looked up at him, but that only caused her to fidget more. "And where are you guys going camping?"

"In my backyard!" Remus said.

"It's super pretty and fun back there," Bekka added, a little less fidgety now.

"There's lots of trees."

"And even a little river to get our feet wet."

"We were talking about what we needed to take with us," Remus continued with a huge grin.

"And the adventures we are going to have," Bekka said, matching Remus's grin.

This went on for a few minutes, the two going back and forth, switching every time one stopped to take a breath. Finally, the headmaster held up his hand to silence them. They stopped talking immediately. "I'm going to let you off with a warning this time, but no more talking during tests. Next time, I will call your parents, do you understand?" he asked. The two kids nodded their heads. "Good. Now off to class both of you." The two stood and headed quickly for the door. "Remus, Bekka," he called, before they left. They turned around slowly, worried he might have changed his mind about letting them go with a warning. "Have fun on your camping trip and make sure you take a strawberry for each of you," he said, smiling.

The two exchanged troubled looks. "Why?" Remus asked.

"Because as long as you have a strawberry on you the river monsters will leave you alone. If you don't have that strawberry, they'll attack. Because their favorite thing in the world is yummy six year olds and I'd hate to find out they got you two," the headmaster replied, looking very serious.

Remus and Bekka exchanged fearful looks. "We promise we won't forget the strawberries," the said together, before racing out the door, leaving the headmaster smiling in amusement.