A/N: Just to clarify: Some dialogue is specifically taken from various Harry Potter books. I'm not just randomly plagiarizing because I can't come up with my own dialogue. Anything you recognize was worked in on purpose.

Dialogue: Still don't own 'em. This is getting really old really fast.

He had been one for a very long time. Eleven years, in fact. Then, as if that miserable existence before Hogwarts had been some terrible dream, there were four of them. Remus couldn't quite understand it. Friends seemed to spring into being from thin air, and he still wasn't sure exactly how. At first he'd thought it was Dumbledore, assigning a few luckless boys the task of making him feel wanted. He'd never felt that in his entire life, even before he was bitten. Perhaps Dumbledore, who knew so many things, knew that as well. But as time passed and they didn't desert him; didn't get bored and wander off, Remus had to believe that, for some unknown reason, they actually wanted to stay. He had three best friends who hadn't abandoned him, even when they knew his secret. He would never be alone, they told him. He'd believed them. For a time, he'd felt that this was all too good to be true. Now he knew that it was. And he was back to one again.

When the owl that told of his friend's deaths reached him, he'd stared at the parchment for half an hour without really seeing it. "James and Lily were gone...but that would mean--Sirius? No, Sirius would never...but James and Lily were gone." Around and around, the thoughts chased each other. It was impossible, but it was true. It couldn't be true; and yet somehow, it was.

As he sat there, trying to wrap his mind around this unsolvable problem, another owl was heading his way to tell him about Peter. Remus was terribly ashamed. He was ready to hand in his wand, in fact. Peter had done what he, Remus, hadn't been able to do. Because he'd thought about it, he'd just been too afraid to do it. He should have been out there helping Peter, but instead he was hiding. He was doing exactly what Dumbledore had told him to do, like the cowardly prefect that he was. The one time James wasn't around to tell him to break the rules was the one time it really counted. And because of him, Peter was dead.

It still took Remus by surprise, sometimes. He'd save up a joke or a particularly good hex to tell James and Sirius about when he next saw them. Then he'd remember, and he'd try one more time to convince himself that it was true. Because he still didn't believe it, really. James and Sirius had always been there; would always be there. He remembered moments from their days at Hogwarts. He'd see them both throw back their heads and laugh uproariously as they told everyone what they'd done to some poor Slytherin that day. When he saw them like that, Remus knew that they were immortal. He'd chuckle at the good joke they were having at his expense, and wait for them to come bursting through the door, laughing, just like he remembered them.

"All right, Moony?" Sirius would ask. Then James would notice the look on Remus's face and ask incredulously.

"You didn't really believe I was dead, did you? Me, James Potter? I'm quite insulted, actually. I was sure you'd see right through it." Then Sirius would add,

"Yeah, Moony, I'm rather hurt as well. You didn't really think I would ever..." and Sirius would trail off looking upset as Remus tried to justify his lack of faith.

He'd made up hundreds of those scenarios. The only one that came true was the only one he'd refused to consider. That he really was back to one again.