Hi, folks! I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated. It's been a very difficult year. BUT have no fear, I am still writing, slowly but surely, and I will be updating again! Now, on with our story!

October 1977

Rosalee woke up that night in the Hospital Wing, not sure what time it was. Groaning at the aching that she was sure reached every muscle in her body, she opened her eyes and was startled to find herself surrounded by the four Marauders. James said cheerily, "About time you woke up! You missed the Halloween Feast, but don't worry. We saved you a huge plate of all your favorites."

Rosalee glanced around, confused by the suspicious looks on Sirius and Remus and the upset expression on Peter's face. Sirius added, "Oh yeah, and we were hoping you could tell us what the hell it is you think you know."

Rosalee frowned, deciding to try to play it off as she remembered her latest slip of the tongue. "What do you mean?" she asked, trying her best to sound innocent.

Remus answered, his voice rough and slightly hoarse, "You said to me before you passed out that you were sorry I had to go through that every month. What did you mean? What do you think is going on with me?"

Rosalee looked around the room until her eyes landed on James, trying to keep the desperation off her face. Faced with the possibility of having no choice but to tell them the truth about herself, the resemblance between James and his son who had once been her friend was so striking that she could feel. James sighed. "Just tell us, Rosalee. We're your friends. We just want to know we can trust you."

Something about the mention of trust made Rosalee bristle. "I thought I could trust you, too," she snapped. "But you didn't trust me to handle myself, to know what the rest of the school thought about me. Why should I treat you boys any differently?"

"Rose, please," Remus choked out. All the anger inside Rosalee deflated as she heard the intense emotions in his voice. "Please, we're sorry. You're right, and we should have known that you could have handled a few gossipy girls calling you names. But please, this is so much more serious. We need to know whatever it is that you know." Rosalee couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze, but Remus wasn't about to let her get away with that. He grasped her chin, firmly but still gently, and brought her brown eyes to his green ones. "I need to know," he begged. "Please."

Rosalee took a deep, ragged breath. Hoping the boys wouldn't press too deeply, she sighed. "Ok, fine. I know you're a werewolf."

Remus's hand instantly dropped from her face. Slack-jawed, he recoiled from her as though she'd slapped him. When it became clear that Remus wasn't going to say anything, Sirius pressed, "What makes you think that?"

Rosalee bit her lip hard before replying. "I had a teacher who was a werewolf back home," she said slowly, balancing on the precipice between truth and fiction as best she could. "I'm just pretty familiar with werewolves, so I could just tell." She couldn't tell if Remus was going to yell or cry, so she continued, "I don't care, though. You're a good person, Lupin, and I don't think being a werewolf changes who you are."

Rosalee reached for his hand, but Remus stood from his chair beside the bed and took a step away. James put a hand on Remus's shoulder. He flinched but didn't push James away. James said softly, "Come on, Moony; you know she was going to have to know eventually. It's better this way, and she clearly doesn't care. She likes you."

"James," Remus groaned.

Sirius sighed. "He's right, Moony. She's officially a Marauder now; well, she won't have a nickname like ours, but still."

Piping up for the first time, Peter added, "Prongs and Padfoot are right. She likes you, Moony, fully knowing everything about you, just like we do. I think you should trust her."

After thinking it over a moment, Remus turned around with a sigh and looked at Rosalee, her eyes wide with anxiety. "You know everything about me, then," he almost seemed to accuse. Not trusting her voice, Rosalee simply nodded. "Then I trust that you'll keep my secret safe." Rosalee released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, relieved he wasn't pressing more into how she knew.

A sly grin on his face, Sirius said, "Moony, maybe there's another little secret that you should let Rosie Posie in on too?"

Remus sputtered, turning bright red, "What - I - you - shut, shut up, Padfoot."

Rosalee cocked her head to one side, watching Remus getting more and more nervous with a mix of confusion and amusement. "What am I missing?" she asked curiously.

James teased, "I've got a feeling that if you thought a little about it, you'd already know, given certain recent events." Remus elbowed James as hard as he could in the stomach, making him groan and bend over, clutching his abdomen. James moaned overdramatically, "Moony, that was a touch unnecessary."

Remus rolled his eyes as Rosalee gasped. "Oh, wait. You mean Honeydukes?" At this point, Remus was tomato red, pulling at a loose thread on his Gryffindor sweater. He opened his mouth to say something, but then apparently changed his mind, turning and rushing out the door of the Hospital Wing. Rosalee frowned. "What'd I do?" she asked.

Sirius shrugged. "He's just a bit dramatic," he said. "You guys need to talk about this, though, so I suggest you go after him and hurry before he disappears into a secret tunnel."

Rosalee nodded, quickly grabbing her wand from the nightstand beside the bed and running out into the dark corridor after Remus. She looked around for him but didn't have a clue where he could have gone. Taking a guess, she headed for the nearest secret passageway up to Gryffindor tower. When she reached the correct suit of armor, she tapped it three times with her wand, and a door opened in the wall behind it. Slipping inside, she whispered, "Lumos." A bright light from the tip of her wand filled the dark tunnel, revealing Remus sitting on the marble staircase ahead of her. "Hi," she said softly.

Remus sighed heavily. "Hi." He looked up at her, something sad in his eyes that made Rosalee's stomach twist. "How did you find me?"

She shrugged. "Honestly I just guessed and went the shortest way I knew to the common room." Remus nodded, not bothering to question how she even knew about the secret passage. She crossed the short space and sat down beside him. "So, Honeydukes?" she pressed.

Remus smiled slightly, tapping his wand nervously against his ankle, tiny little white sparks shooting from the tip and scattering across the marble floor. "Honeydukes," he said wryly. "Sirius really should learn to keep his nose out of other people's business."

"Probably so, but I think we both know that he never will."

Remus's smile grew a little bigger. "True," he conceded. Taking a deep breath, he admitted, "Ok, Honeydukes. I'm sorry I kissed you. I shouldn't have done that."

Rosalee's face fell slightly. His words hadn't been quite what he'd expected. "Oh," she breathed. "It's ok." They sat in silence for a couple minutes, before she mumbled, "You know, I, umm, I didn't mind, you know."

Remus's head jerked up, swinging around to look at her. "You didn't?" Rosalee shook her head. "B-but you knew what I am?" She nodded. "Then why aren't you repulsed by me?"

Rosalee looked at him, surprised. "Why is it that you can accept love and friendship from your boys, but if a girl offers you the same love and understanding you think you're too much of a monster to accept it?"

His eyes grew wide in shock. "I - I…"

Rosalee continued, "Lupin, I've met a werewolf like you before. He was my teacher, and he fell in love with this beautiful younger witch, and she loved him too. He refused to go out with her though because he didn't feel like he was worthy of her. He made excuses that he was too old for her, too damaged, too dangerous, but she didn't care about any of it. It took a full year for them to get together, only for a stupid war to tear them apart after they finally got together."

"What's your point?" Remus snapped, the wand light shining on his scarred face making him look like he was a good five years older.

Rosalee flinched at his tone. "My point," she said, a little more irritable. "Is that it doesn't matter if you're a werewolf or not, you should snatch up every moment of happiness you can, or the chance will disappear."

Remus shook his head, a bitter chuckle escaping his throat. "Rose, I'm a werewolf," he said with a bite of sarcasm. "If I snatched up every happiness I wanted, half the population of Hogwarts would have disappeared by now because I would have eaten them every full moon for seven years."

Rosalee sighed. "I know you don't mean that. If that was really what would make you happy you'd have never bothered to come to Hogwarts. You'd have just run off and started attacking defenseless little kids in Muggle neighborhoods, just like the one who turned you."

Remus raised his voice. "Don't pretend to know what happened to me. You don't know me."

"I do know you," Rosalee replied hotly, standing up and turning to face him. "You love books and chocolate and sweaters and tea and plants and magical creatures and defense against the dark arts. You love your friends and your family, and you would do anything to keep them safe and make them happy. You're good and sweet and kind and brave and loyal to the end; even when all the evidence says you should give up on someone, you hold out hope for them. You're patient and give good advice. You love to help people less fortunate, even when it means that you'll lose something for doing so. You're incredibly smart and clever."

"Stop," Remus growled. "Enough. Enough already with your sweet little fantasy of who I am. Ok, so maybe I am those things," he said as he stood up. "But there's a whole other side of me that you don't know." He crossed the short distance between them and pushed her roughly up against the stone wall of the passage. "I'm a werewolf. I'm fierce and dangerous. I'm a Marauder; 80% of our pranks are my idea, and 60% of the execution is from me." One of his hands gripped her hip, pulling her flush against him, and the other he placed beside her head on the wall. "I enjoy making the people who hurt my friends hurt. I enjoy getting into a good fight. When I'm a wolf, I love to go hunting; I love the thrill of the chase and get a sick little rush from killing little wild critters. It's the closest I can get to killing people, which would probably bring my adrenaline to an all-time high." His green eyes flashed as he leaned in closer to her, breathing on her neck and making her tremble under him. "In fact, that's the only reason I want to become an Auror, so I can hunt down bad people and catch them, put them in Azkaban where they can't hurt my friends anymore. I want to put criminals where they'll hurt more than any pain they could have caused any of us."

"Remus, stop," Rosalee whispered.

"No," Remus snarled. "You need to hear this. You need to know the truth about me. You need to know that I'm not a good guy. I'm dangerous, and you should keep a certain distance from me, and stay even further away from me around the full moon."

"No," Rosalee replied firmly.

Remus growled in response, deep in his chest, then said, "I mean it, Rose. For example, right now the full moon is four days away, and it's all I can do right now to keep my hands as still as they are. You know, ever since I hit puberty I've been dealing with some lustful thoughts around the full moon, but ever since you bloody got here it's hit an all-time high. I want you, dammit, and it's not fair to you, so stay away from me. I don't want you getting hurt."

Rosalee frowned. "Oh ok, I see."

Remus pulled back, surprised by her sudden change. "You do?"

Rosalee glared up at him. "Yes, I see. Because based on the way James and Sirius talked, I was beginning to think that maybe you had feelings for me, that you wanted a relationship with me. Of course, now that you've explained so thoroughly to me that I'm nothing but a skirt to chase when the full moon makes you horny, I'll be sure to stay as far away from you as I can."

She shoved hard against his chest, and Remus was so shocked that he stumbled back a few steps, and Rosalee ran past him and raced up the stairs. When he regained his composure, he chased after her, calling, "No, Rose, wait! That's not what I meant!"

She yelled back, "No, don't bother. I see how things are now."

He insisted, "That's not all there is to it, though. I didn't mean -"

"Of course you didn't mean that," she sneered, pausing on the steps and leaning over the stair rail as it turned the opposite direction so that she was looking down at the werewolf on the set of steps below her. "That's never what you boys mean to say, but you certainly do say what you mean."

Remus sighed and argued, "I didn't mean it like that though! That's not all that attracts me to you. You're smart and brave and kind and…"

"Now it's your turn to stop," Rosalee snapped. "After all, why bother? You wanted to push me away, right? Well, now you have. I'll make sure to keep clear of you from now on."

"Rose, please," Remus pleaded as she turned to keep running away from him and he started chasing after her again.

He skipped steps and easily caught up to her as she reached the exit of the passage. He grabbed her by the arm, and she instinctively whipped around to face him with her wand pointed at him, the light from it nearly blinding him. Rosalee said, "Please, don't say anything else. You've said what you needed to say to keep me away from you. Your goal has been achieved. Don't insult me by trying to take it back now; if you keep trying to say that there's anything more to your feelings for me than sex then I'll never believe it." She glared up at him. "Please, if it's even a little bit true that you might feel something for me, then stop talking and let me go."

Remus hesitated for a moment, then released her arm. "Ok," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

Rosalee whispered softly, "So am I," then she turned and ran from the passage.

The next morning, James sat down beside Rosalee at the Gryffindor table for breakfast. She looked up at him, surprised because she'd already spotted the other three Marauders sitting considerably further down the table. She raised an eyebrow at him, but all he said was, "Morning, Rose."

She tilted her head to the side as she grew even more confused. "Potter," she said suspiciously. "What do you want?"

James frowned as he gathered for himself a plate of pancakes and fruit. "Remus told me about what happened last night."

Rosalee sighed and stabbed viciously at the French toast on her plate that was slowly growing soggy from the maple syrup. "I see."

"I don't think you do," James replied easily. She glanced over at him as he ate a strawberry. Swallowing, he continued, "He's falling for you, you know. Head over heels, madly in love with you."

Rosalee snorted. "That's not what he said."

"You know good and well that he's just afraid of getting close to people, just like you are. He doesn't want to hurt you."

"So what if I do know that?" she said snippily. "Sure, he's keeping me from getting hurt by his condition when he pushes me away, but doesn't he realize that he's hurting me far more by keeping me at arm's length?"

James sighed. "Yeah, he does, but I think he realized that a little too late. He's very upset with himself for it."

"Well, he should be," Rosalee muttered, taking another stab at her French toast.

James placed a hand on her shoulder. Rosalee glanced up at him and thought that he looked rather sad. "Rosalee," James said. "You're both really hurting, and I don't like seeing my friends hurting."

"What exactly am I supposed to do about it?" Rosalee asked before taking a bite of syrup-drenched French toast.

James shrugged. "Talk to him?" he suggested as he cut himself a bite of pancake.

"And say what exactly?" Rosalee said, furrowing her brow as she stared down at the French toast that was now too mushy to eat and squished it with her fork. "I already tried to talk to him, and he just argued and pushed me away. Obviously, whatever feelings he has for me aren't strong enough for him to want to be with me, so why should I try to push him into something he clearly doesn't want?"

James said, "But he does want it. He's just too stubborn to admit it. He thinks he's protecting you."

"You mean the way he protected me from those gossip girls? Because that worked out so well."

James sighed, putting down his fork on his plate. "All right, so all four of us screwed up there. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't at least give him a chance."

Rosalee grabbed her bag and stood up, ready to head to Divination class. "I'm not saying I won't give him a chance should he ask for one, but I'm not going to put myself through hell chasing after him if he doesn't think dating me would be worth the risks."

James sighed. "Fair enough."

"Good," Rosalee mumbled. "Then I'll see you later." She took off quickly down the hall, heading to Divination class. She slipped into the classroom quietly and took her seat beside Sirius, who was unusually early to class. She raised an eyebrow at him as she asked, "Why aren't you sneaking in just after class started?"

Sirius grinned. "I might have wanted to talk to you."

"About?"

Sirius chuckled. "As if you can't guess?" Professor Murray called for their attention, instructing the class to look for the future in their scrying mirrors, and when they were done, to write three feet of parchment on the history and invention of scrying mirrors and how they evolved into psychomanteums. Rosalee sighed, then turned to the handheld scrying mirrors on their table. Sirius whispered, "Remus is falling for you, you know."

Rosalee sighed. "Then he should be telling me that himself."

"You told him not to."

"Because he was being an overprotective, horny, ridiculous ass."

Sirius snorted. "He's always overprotective of the people he loves, and he's only occasionally a horny, ridiculous ass. I'm pretty sure he'll work past that for you."

"I'm not," Rosalee muttered, annoyed. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to focus on our assignment now." Sirius nodded, and the two turned to their mirrors.

Rosalee stared into the glass of the mirror, but she didn't expect much. Other than that one instance at the start of the year, she hadn't displayed much of a talent for Divination, which helped things feel back to normal. As she stared into the mirror, though, she found herself shivering, goose bumps rising on her skin. The ornate silver handle of the mirror felt like ice in her hand. Black smoke swirled in the glass of the mirror as sound faded from her ears, growing more and more distant. Suddenly she was falling through the smoke, landing hard on her butt in a filthy, dilapidated old house. Glancing around, she realized that Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley were all behind her, looking quite frightened. In front of her, Professor Snape had Remus Lupin and Sirius Black at wand point. Snape was rambling, "How I'd hoped I'd be the one to catch you. I told Dumbledore you were helping an old friend into the castle, and now, here's the proof."

Sirius sneered, "Brilliant, Snape. Once again, you've put your keen and penetrating mind to the task and, as usual, come to the wrong conclusion. Now if you'll excuse us, Remus and I have some unfinished business to attend to."

Snape raised his wand to Sirius's throat, and Rosalee gasped. She stood up and tried to run to them, but the smoke returned and engulfed her. When the scene emerged again from the smoke, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were pointing their wands at Peter Pettigrew, who was cowering and sniveling in fear. Remus said quietly, the tone of his voice making even Rosalee shudder with fear, "You should have realized, Peter, if Voldemort didn't kill you, then we would. Goodbye, Peter."

Rosalee screamed, "No, Remus, don't!" She tried to jump between Peter and Remus's wand, but instead of the floor, she stepped into a pile of smoke, falling through it with the sensation of dropping into a bottomless pit.

Suddenly heat shot through her arm, making Rosalee hiss with pain, and she felt a sudden jerk inside her own mind. Sound flooded into her ears, startling her, and she realized that the heat was from Sirius's hand around her arm that was holding up the scrying mirror. "Rose," Sirius whispered. "Come back to me. Are you ok?"

Rosalee stared at Sirius blankly, her mouth hanging open in alarm. She'd temporarily forgotten the horrors that Sirius was doomed to endure in the future, and Remus too, for that matter. She'd forgotten how much older they'd been when she'd been so much younger. The one thing she wasn't sure of was how she'd gotten into that scene, seeing as the last time she'd experienced this was what she'd thought was an incredibly vivid memory, but this was different. She hadn't been there for that. She shook her head as she suddenly dropped the mirror, terrified. "What's happening to me?" she whispered, barely loud enough for Sirius to hear it.

Sirius frowned. "What do you mean?"

Rosalee buried her hands in her hair, twisting her fingers around the brown roots and holding tightly. "I'm rubbish at Divination. What are these things? What's going on with me?"

Consoling her as best he could, Sirius rubbed her shoulder blade and asked, "What exactly is happening?"

Rosalee sighed, then shook her head. "Nothing. Forget it. Let's get back to work, yeah?" Sirius eyed her suspiciously, but then shrugged and went back to staring hard at an empty mirror.