James walked the castle halls with remus that night as he had been doing since the beginning of the school year. Since remus had assumed, along with everybody else, that he would be the head boy he would have had to do this anyway so he didn't mind much. James had to do it alone on the full moon, though. Remus was obviously out of the picture and he couldn't ask sirius or peter since they would be with him. Remus had spent those nights alone for far too long for james to do that to him again now.

"Thanks again, mate." james turned to remus

"Not a problem. I like doing this, anyway. The castle at night is just so big and quiet it seems like it's a totally different place." james looked around, seeing what he meant. He had never really thought about it very much before. James wasn't an incredibly thoughtful person. Not like he didn't think of others or he was stupid, no nothing like that. James was just one of those people who enjoyed having a blank mind when nothing was pressing on him. His nights walking around the castle usually held thoughts of quidditch or lily or the other marauders, not so much the differences in how big something looked when it was empty vs crowded. That was definitely more remus's strong suit. He was the philosophical one. If one of them was to invent something extravagant or design a building it would certainly not be james.

"I'm going to miss this place." james stated sadly. It would be an incredibly strange experience to leave at the end of this year and know that he would never come back. At least not as a student. He might come back to see a professor or something of that sort, but no. never again as a student. Unlike what people may have thought of him, james quite enjoyed school. He had quite a good audio memory so what people perceived as laziness when he wasn't taking notes was just focusing on listening. When it came time for the test james could hear the teacher's voice perfectly in his head. What most people didn't know was james was actually in the top ten percent of his class. He didn't like to put it out there. People tended to treat you differently when they knew you did well in school. They saw you talking about it at all as bragging.

This was something he had discovered back in primary school. He used to get bullied quite a bit. He was the kid with the neat clothes and the big, thick glasses that got an A on every test. He was the chubby outcast that nobody would dare been seen with. He was the kid that was bad at sports and the slowest runner when they ran track. When he came to hogwarts he was determined to be different. He was careful not to let anyone see his grades or his papers, or even let them see him working on them. He would stay up late nights in the common room after everyone else had gone to bed or sneak into the library early in the morning. He messed up his hair every ten seconds and took off his glasses as much as he could, even though he was practically blind without them. He dressed sloppy with rolled up sleeves and a loose tie. He tried out for quidditch. He thought he would be horrible, but as it turns out if his feet weren't on the ground he was actually pretty good. He worked out every day and hit on girls.

Somewhere around third year he had even become the bully. He didn't know how it happened but it happened, nonetheless. Slowly. He used spells on innocent slytherins, and didn't even know why, outside of their house, of course. He especially liked to target severus snape, although he knew why that was. He had been jealous. Severus snape was a nasty boy who hated muggle borns and hung around with death eaters, and for some reason lily still liked him more than she liked james. Severus made james feel like the fat kid that had to sit alone in the lunchroom again. So james turned the tables. He and severus engaged in a full out war. Attacking each other with spells that they made up themselves, each a little worse than the last. They picked on each other and called each other names. But that day severus snapped at Lily down by the lake james woke up. He tried his hardest to be a better person. He didn't know why he hadn't decided to before then. After all, he should know how horrible it was to be bullied, right?

Remus felt similarly.

"I'm going to miss it too." he mused "it's the only place anyone's ever accepted me."

"What about your parents?" james asked. Remus didn't usually talk about his insecurities or his 'condition' so james was trying to ask questions without pushing.

"My parents do try. I know they do, but they haven't acted the same around me since… it happened, i suppose. They just try to pretend i'm not what i am. They act like nothing happened and every month i don't turn into a monster. They just pretend that i can't control my own actions and i don't remember what happened in the morning… they pretend that i don't wonder if i've killed someone when i wake up." he stopped walking and took a minute, staring at the ground. "You and sirius and peter," he continued "you three are the only people who have ever… liked me for what i am. Bloody hell, you joined me. You risk your lives for me every month and what do i do for you? Walk around the castle with you at night?"

"Remus none of us want anything from you. That's what having friends is all about. We do things for each other when we need it."

"That doesn't stop me from feeling guilty sometimes. I feel guilty when people like me… without knowing what i am. they deserve to know, james."

"Remus, if someone has a prejudice about what you are and they don't like you because of it then they're not worth your time anyway. Besides, what happened to you doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you a good person that something bad happened to. The wolf isn't who you are remus. Not even close." he offered a smile but remus didn't look very reassured. He just nodded, still staring at the ground and slowly began walking again.

More than anything james wished he had a way to show remus how much they all cared about him. How much they truly loved him. No matter what they did remus just wouldn't believe them.