I woke up about dawn on September first. I knew better than to wake up my parents— to say the least, Dad wasn't a morning person, and as for Mum, I was under threat of the bat-bogey hex if I disturbed her for anything but a Chimaera attack before eight.

Quite predictably, I buried myself in a book— Combating the Dark Arts. I'd wheedled Mum into getting me a few more wizarding books, and I was particularly interested in Defense Against the Dark Arts, which when I bothered to think about it was to a certain extent ironic, considering that in most people's eyes I was a Dark creature myself.

Mum found me at about eight-thirty curled, fully dressed, on the couch with it, and announced that even though Dad hated it when she did it, she was spelling the stove to make breakfast and fighting him on the issue of getting out of bed, as she didn't have nearly enough energy to do both. "And if you smell anything burning, Rem, you are to get out of that haze and rescue it," she added as she wandered back upstairs.

I nodded distractedly and turned the page.

Mum's normal cooking abilities weren't all that great, but nothing burned as far as I could smell it— and my nose is better than most people's. Fifteen minutes later she wandered back down. "And I think you're bad after the full moon," she muttered, wandering past.

As if to confirm her grumblings, Dad emerged a few minutes later, obviously not in the best of moods. "It's not eight-thirty," he told me groggily, joining me on the couch.

"'Course it isn't," I told him with a grin. "It's nearly eight-forty-five."

"Someone tell your mother I will never get out of bed willingly?" he asked softly.

"And you actually expect to ever get that point across?"

He mumbled something dark and announced that he was going to get the paper. I shrugged and turned the page, paying him no more attention than I did Mum. It took Mum a full minute and a half to get my attention to tell me to come eat, after all. "He's his mother's son, alright," Dad muttered when I finally came in. "Never understood how the two of you could get that buried in what's practically a textbook."

"Well, Henry, in the wizarding world, your basic instruction manual to Muggles looks and sounds a lot like a textbook— they're our instruction manuals to wands," Mum answered.

Dad muttered something incoherent under his breath and reached for the coffee pot.

He didn't start to get a little irritated until we were in the car on the way to King's Cross, and Mum and I were talking nonstop about what Hogwarts was like when she was there. Well, Mum was talking nonstop; I kept steering her talk off boys and back to classes and teachers. "Is this all I'm going to hear about during Christmas and Summer holidays?" he asked finally.

"Relax, no," Mum muttered. "Now, can you get onto the platform?" she added, more than half to herself.

"I hate to bring this up," Dad told me at the next stop light. "But you do know what they're doing to . . . keep you safe . . . during the full moon, don't they."

"They do," I muttered, more than a little sullen. "No one's bothered to explain it to me, though."

Mum explained"There's an old, abandoned house up at Hogsmede— it's not condemned," she added when Dad raised his eyebrows. "They've built a tunnel to it from the Hogwarts grounds, and put a Whomping Willow at the etrance to keep other people out when Remus's in there."

"And you didn't tell me this before because. . . ." I prompted.

"You never asked."

This started an argument about whether or not I needed to actually ask about things like that, especially as I'd given up on Dumbledore's handwriting about five minutes after Mum had originally read the note and ahe knew it. "What's a Whomping Willow?" I added sometime into it.

"Herbology is not going to become your favorite subject, I guess," Mum answered. "It's a tree that beats anything that comes close to it."

Once at King's Cross, Mum instructed me to walk into the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Both Dad and I looked at her like she'd just lost her mind. "I have not," she answered, too used to the look to mistake the question. "It's just how you can get on; it's behind the barrier."

"Mmm-hmm," I murmured, skeptical.

"You'll be fine, I promise," she assured me, a little irritably. "I'll go through it first, if you two are really that nervous," she added.

"Nothing can entice me to walk into that barrier," Dad announced.

"Then wait for us outside," Mum answered resignedly, rolling her eyes. "You are hopeless, Henry."

"The word you're looking for, Karen, is 'sane;, not hopeless," he answered dryly. He gave me a one armed hug and told me that I'd better write or he at least, was going to get rather worried. After I'd said goodbye to my father and turned to her, Mum sighed and pushed through the barrier. I followed, apprehensive.

She'd been right, of course— the train was there and bright red, and the little sign read platform Nine And Three Quarters. Dad must've been just a little unnerved about now. Mum was waiting for me. "I told you, you'd be fine," Mum answered me. "You've got everything?" she added.

I nodded, and knew full well that they'd send me anything I didn't anyway.

"Good." She glanced back towards the archway that would lead to the Muggle train station and turned back to me. "I'm just a little nervous leaving you here by yourself. . . ." she muttered.

I shrugged. "Sirius said he'd see me on the train, so it's not as if I'm going to really be alone."

"No, but he is another eleven-year-old boy and the two of you would have ended up in a whole lot of trouble at Diagon Alley if someone hadn't been there to pull you back out," she pointed out. "Besides, now I'm worried about the conductor. . . ."

I let her carry on that train of thought for awhile, suffered with no small amount of patience through her hugging me and telling me to write just as soon as I got a chance— something I came very close to reminding her I'd already gotten from my dad.

When she let me go, I got on the train, looking for someone I knew— preferably Frank or Sirius, the two people I knew I might find. Frank was with a group of his own friends, blocking the path through the car, and it took me a little while to find Sirius. He as in a compartment by himself, playing solitaire when I came in. "D;you mind. . . ?" I stared softly.

He looked up. "Hullo, Remus. 'Course I don't. I think I was the one who told you I'd see you here, wasn't I?" he added.

I nodded and sat down beside him. "How's it going?"

"My mum is so much harder to ditch when Dad and my brother are around, you know that?" he asked. "I actually had to sit through that lecture. . . ." He shuddered. "I'll go mad in a heartbeat if I wind up in Slytherin, you know that?" he asked. "My whole family's in there, except one, and I can't stand anyone but Andromeda."

I nodded. "I think my mum and uncle were Ravenclaws, but I can't remember anything else about the Houses," I admitted.

"Well, I'm hoping Gryffindor, but you can't tell til you get there, can you?" he asked.

Apparently the cards he was playing with were Exploding Snap, because a moment later they caught fire in a blaze that startled the both of us. Sirius absently started drawing a picture in the ash with his fingers. His artistic abilities were not the most brilliant I'd ever seen, to put it mildly. "What's that supposed to be?" I asked him eventually.

"A dog," Sirius answered. "It looks like a dog," he added. "Are you blind."

"No it does not, and I have more than enough experience with the dog family," I answered. "If it's a dog, for one thing," I added, reaching out and drawing it with one hand, "it needs a muzzle. And a face."

"Now you've messed it up," Sirius announced mock-irritably, shoving me playfully and smoothing the ash again so it was a drawing board again. He started again.

"Still drawing a dog?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Now it looks kind of like a deranged horse," I announced cheerfully. "I'm not sure that's quite the effect you were going for."

"Oh, shut up, Rem, it's not done yet."

"I don't think it's salvageable," I replied with a grin. "Forget in need of completion. Draw it a mane and call it a deranged horse."

"Um . . . do you mind if I join you?" a soft voice asked. We both looked up to see a short, chubby boy, with mousy-brown hair and a tentative smile on his face.

"Nervous?" I asked automatically.

He nodded. "Well, do you?"

I shook my head. Sirius was still half-distractedly drawing. "If you'll tell me what this looks like, sure," he announced cheerfully.

The boy looked over and grinned. "It looks like a deformed rodent with its whiskers cut off."

I laughed. Sirius sighed. This was certainly going to be an interesting train ride.

Author's Note: Okay, now there's only one Marauder left . . . and a train ride and a feast in which I can introduce him! Btw, to answer one quick comment— Padfoot1987, don't be nervous reviewing me because of Fan Fiction 101— your reviews are really pretty good! As usual, though, anyone who has CC will be appreciated for giving it! Cheers! — Loki