It was interesting to note that Remus was actually quite easy to befriend. Despite his initially distant personality, stubborn pursual of his company made him much more friendly. Everyone in the first year boy's dorm of 1971-72, save for a certain Peter Pettigrew, was quite stubborn. By the end of the year, Remus had practically been forced to be friends with his dormmates. Not that he minded too much, but he tried to keep himself somewhat distant for fear of his… condition being revealed. The mischievous James Potter and Sirius Black seemed suspicious of him, but John and Pettigrew were somewhat oblivious. Luckily, the others had all summer to forget about his oddly routine disappearances. Remus returned home from his first year at Hogwarts in quite good spirits, spending his summer in a pleasantly anti-social bookworm sort of way. The sending of letters was his only form of communication with the outside world.

John, on the other hand, spent all of his summer outside of his house with Allie. His best friend had somehow managed to stay the same height as when he last saw her, and she was extremely curious as to how his schooling went. She was quite disappointed by her friend's vague answers until she somehow managed to get him to tell her all about his crush on Remus. He refused to talk about him any more after that, however, and Allie gave up on teasing him. Momentarily. The two of them proceeded to waste their time running around and playing silly games, and John almost forgot to do his summer work for Hogwarts, barely finishing before September 1st. He got his trunk together, more than ready for his second year at the famed school for Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Unlike last year, John was early to arrive at King's Cross station. He had time to marvel at the beautiful train before making his way on board. Walking down the aisles, he peered into the different compartments, searching for his dear friend Lily. Sure, he was quite close to his dormmates, but he didn't have quite as much time to spend with the redhead. Seeing the blurry heads of red and black through the glass, he slid the door open. He was welcomed by a hug from the redhead, and a half-hearted wave from Severus. The Slytherin had managed to get over his grudge against the other boy, though this only happened after John told him he was gay. The trio proceeded to talk about how their summers went, though they mostly focussed on John and Lily's silly misadventures. A lurch told them the train had begun to move, and after a few moments, the compartment door slid open. John blinked in surprise.

"Allie?"

"John!" The short redhead nearly tackled her best friend. "I thought you were a muggle!"

"I thought you were a muggle!"

"This is John's not-girlfriend?" Lily asked, laughing slightly.

"That's me! You must be Lily and Severus! John mentioned you two in his letters." The brown eyed girl frowned. "Now that I think of it, I should have guessed he was a wizard. It's not like owl post is common for muggles."

Allie was quickly adopted into their small friend group, and began asking them about classes. John immediately jumped at the chance to talk about Transfiguration, but was silenced by Lily's claim that he was awful at it. He blushed, mumbling to himself. His childhood friend started saying something about irony, but shut up after a quick shake of the head and nod towards Severus. John may have confided in Lily about his gender identity, but he would certainly prefer less people to know he wasn't born male. As far as he was concerned, his redheaded friends, Professor McGonagall, and Headmaster Dumbledore were the only ones who needed to know. The conversation returned to its original topic, and John admitted that he was much better at potions and herbology. It wasn't that he was particularly bad at transfiguration! Lily confirmed that he was awful, causing him to pout. It wasn't his fault he felt bad about turning a rat into a cup! Severus spoke up, saying he should just stick to potions. Allie mentioned being interested in care of magical creatures, and the trio-turned-quartet continued speaking of various topics for the remainder of the train ride, only stopping when the food trolley appeared and to change into their robes.

Unfortunately, they had to separate from Allie, as she was a first year. John told her to look for the giant squid in the lake. Him and his two friends followed the larger crowd, securing a self-drawing carriage for themselves. The journey from Hogsmeade station to Hogwarts castle was cozy, and brought up the curious topic of why hogs seemed so important to British wizarding culture. Upon arriving at the Great Hall, Severus left for Slytherin table. John and Lily seated themselves as far away from James as possible. Unfortunately for him, that meant being quite far from Remus. He said nothing in hopes of avoiding teasing. Thankfully, it worked. Idle conversation twittered throughout the Hall as the awaited first years took the boats to the castle. Before anyone could die of boredom and become one of the multiple ghosts floating about the castle, Professor McGonagall walked through the large double doors, paying no mind to the enchanted ceiling the children behind her were staring at in awe. Not that John should've been thinking of them as children. They were only a year younger than him, and Allie was among them. The two exchanged smiles after making eye contact, and the Sorting Ceremony commenced.

It was quite interesting to be an onlooker to the ceremony he had participated in only the previous year. Allie seemed quite excited, and John idly began to wonder which class she would be in. Definitely not Slytherin. She wasn't the cunning sort. Ravenclaw didn't seem like a good fit for her either, as she wasn't one for pursuing knowledge. That left Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Both seemed like viable options, though he selfishly hoped she would join the house of the lion. He nearly missed it when her name was called.

"Whitney, Allison!" The short-haired girl trotted up to the stool with confidence, and John suddenly realized she was soaked from head to toe, but didn't seem to be shivering. It wasn't long before the hat called out-

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

She sent a sort of wave to her best friend and walked over to the yellow table. Her last name being so late in the alphabet meant that the Sorting had all but concluded, and after a short speech from the Headmaster, the feast appeared. Allie seemed unfazed by the sudden appearance of food, and John concluded that she was certainly not a muggleborn. He wondered if that was why he'd never seen the inside of her house? It would certainly explain several mysteries surrounding her. One very filling feast later, the students were dismissed, and John sleepily made his way to the second year Gryffindor boys dormitories. He and his four dormmates barely had the energy to wish each other sweet dreams before passing out, heads filled with dreams ranging from dancing food to armies of mice.

Word Count: 1,207

I really have no standard I'm holding myself to when I write this. The chapters are much shorter than the usual for Another Chance (my Fire Emblem Awakening fanfic). Anyways, here we have the start of second year! Allie is now attending Hogwarts, we're gonna do some skipping around, and I've basically no idea where I'm going with this fanfic. The only events I can think of are like... Remus being discovered as a Werewolf and the Marauders becoming Animagi. I'll probably spend more time on 5th and 7th year (6th is unimportant) and proceed to do after Hogwarts stuff? I'm tempted to write a sort of 'sequel' thing where he's an adult and gets to meet Harry and the others, idk. Tell me if I should? I can tell you he'd be Madame Pomfrey's assistant if that ends up being what I do!