Lesson Seven: From Where I Sit

Remus woke the next morning with the sun filtering onto his face, gently urging him to rise up from his motionless state. He slowly rolled over onto his side, trying his best to ignore this ever-calling demand to get out of his bed as he desperately tried to go back to his comforting dreamland. When he finally came to realize that such attempts at extra sleep were futile, he rose up from the abyss that was his bed only to find that no one else was in the room. Remus sighed slightly, knowing fully that this was most likely James' idea to let him have some rest before they started their day. And as much as Remus appreciated the gesture and was eternally grateful that James had most likely detoured Sirius and Peter from waking him from his pleasant dreams, that he could now no longer remember, he definitely did not want to be late for his first class; or worse: miss breakfast.

So rather than dwelling on these particular thoughts of friendship and food any further, Remus quickly put on his school uniform and made his way down to the great hall to meet up with the rest of his mates. He had just reached the ground floor and turned the last leg of the shortcut that lead to the great hall which he and his friends had managed to find sometime towards the end of the previous year at school, when he saw Peeves picking on some poor defenseless first years. He watched for a bit, torn between wanting to save them from the water balloon rage the poltergeist was now showing them and just letting Peeves have his basically harmless fun. Eventually though, he realized he had to at least walk down the corridor to reach the great hall. Therefore, he slowly started down the hallway with the full intention to just walk past the poltergeist without a word being said to the apparition or the first years. Unfortunately, once he had made his way past the scene of obvious torture he found that he couldn't let it continue any longer, as one of the small girls let out a scream as a balloon hit them square on the side of her face. Remus sighed deeply not wanting to do this but knowing he'd feel worse if he said nothing, and gradually turned himself around to face the translucent foe.

"Peeves, leave them alone," the poltergeist just stared at him with the water balloon in his left hand throwing it up and down menacingly at him, "I mean it," Remus added to try and get his point across.

Still Peeves kept uncharacteristically quiet as Remus stared evenly at him waiting for some form of a snide comment to escape from his vaporous lips. All the while, the three first years stood in mild fear, soaked to the bone, as the apparition continued to calculate his next move as if this next trick were as important as the potential checkmate in professional chess match. Remus was not oblivious to this fact as he watched both Peeves and the young girls waiting for something to happen. Then suddenly the poltergeist dropped his weapon. Remus smiled widely at the being, slightly shocked that Peeves had actually listened to him, and slowly turned around resuming his short trip to the great hall. He had taken a mere two steps in the direction he had wanted to go when something collided with his back and water splattered in every direction about him.

Remus stared down at the ground, the gray stone now generally covered with a thin coat of water; he slowly threw up his hands in irritation as the chilly water soaked into his robes. He then gradually turned back towards Peeves only to see him bouncing down the hallway laughing manically at his newest exertion. Remus glared at the apparition and then turned to the first years who were now cackling at their 'rescuer' who was now soaked almost as badly as they were. He glared at them too, completely annoyed with everything that had just happened. Remus then pulled out his wand and gave the three giggling first years a smug smile that resembled that of Sirius' before he quickly cast a drought spell which, consequentially, completely dried out his clothing. He then waved cordially at the first years that had mocked him and walked swiftly away from them, no longer in any mood to help them, and made his way to his mates.

When Remus finally opened the large entry doors to the great hall he leisurely made his way over to the Gryffindors' table joining his friends at their typical sitting place at the end of the table. He sat down beside Sirius who had a flyer in his hands that he had taken off of the Gryffindor notice board about the Quidditch house tryouts occurring at the beginning of next week. The three boys looked over at him when he hand finally situated himself and kindly muttered their 'good mornings' before they then went back to the flyer, which Remus knew would always be more important than anything in the world of the reality they happened to live in. So, instead of taking his time to call them on this, he held his tongue and simply listened casually to what they had been talking about previous to his arrival. Sirius went on with the urgent issue of whether or not James thought he had any chance of making the position of team Beater, while James gave him assuring news that he was definitely the best they could find with a mix of his own prideful boasting that he was a shoe-in.

"They'd said so when I tried out last year!" Remus just laughed at the comment as he began to eat his breakfast ultimately catching a glare from James for the unwanted gesture, "Laugh it up," James muttered half- heartedly as a prefect handed him and the other three their class schedules.

"I will," Remus said with a chuckle as he took the schedule from the prefect and scanned it quickly looking for any flaws, in his opinion, namely potions on day one, but quickly found another. He felt his stomach drop as he looked at their first time slot, "That can't be a good omen."

"What?" Peter asked as he had simply stored his own schedule in his bag without even looking twice at it.

"Our first class is Defense with the Slytherins," Remus said bluntly, causing a moan of pain to cross every one of the four friends' lips.

They then subconsciously looked over at the Slytherins' table and stared at Snape, who had apparently discovered the same unwanted news because he was now glaring contently at them. James and Sirius returned the snide gesture and Remus just sighed. Yet again, that prat had potentially ruined his favorite class. It was bad enough to watch him play teacher's pet in the other classes they happened to have to share together but he absolutely loathed it in this class. For the boy was such a suck up that it even made Remus cringe when he, in fact, knew the answer, and raised his own had. The last thing he wanted was to appear to be in competition with Severus Snape. He didn't want that and he certainly didn't need that kind of opinion cast about him by his classmates.

Remus sighed as he continued to absent-mindedly stare at the boy. He hated him as much as the others did, but what was worse, that unlike his other mates, he also hated hating him. If that made any sense at all. The last thing he had wanted was a long-term enemy. He had enough of them located in Knockturn Alley and the Ministry of Magic just being what he was, and he hated that too. And even then, he hated hating any of these things because the last thing he wanted, above all else, was to appear to be a bitter person as so many of the Lycanthropes he had met in his short life had been. He had nothing to be bitter about, he had a family, good friends, money (for now at least), he was at school, and most lycanthropes could barely even find many of these words in their vocabulary because they had been deleted sometime after they 'received the bite' as so many of them stated as a way to lie themselves. So, he had no reason to be bitter, even towards a git like Snape and his friends would never understand any of this.

"Remmy!" Remus jumped a bit at the sound of the unwanted nickname as he began to focus more on the world around him rather than his own thoughts. He turned around to face his cousin and faked a smile finding that his mood had considerably lowered since he'd woken up this morning.

"What do you want?"

"Tell me where the Transfiguration room is," she said fairly fast.

"Ask one of your mates," Kara's eyes narrowed at him as Remus just gave her a blank stare waiting for the comeback that would ultimately follow. She quickly opened her mouth to retort but she was no sooner cut off by Sirius' voice.

"What, you haven't even made one friend," he chuckled a bit at the cleverness of him and instantly went back to his flyer preparing himself to ignore any of the following rant-to-be.

She growled at him in frustration and Remus could tell that she was seriously debating whether or not she should throttle him or just yell at him. He was extremely shocked when she turned back to him and simply repeated her question. Remus sighed and rather than testing the water any further he simply stated the directions very fast so that out of the bulk of the words the only ones one could catch were "Transfiguration" and "stairs." When he finished he looked at her and waited for a moment before he told his friends that they should be heading off to class. They nodded their agreement and the four quickly exited the room leaving Kara completely confused behind them.

When they had left the great hall they quickly began to make their way up the few flights of stairs to the Defense Against the Dark Arts room. Once they had rounded the first corner and had made it to the first floor the silence they had fallen into was broken.

"Why were you so mean to her?"

Remus cringed a bit at the sound of the voice coming from beside him, "I don't know. She annoys me."

"But you were complaining about not being able to be with her yesterday," Peter replied, obviously still confused by the answer he had received.

Remus stopped and sighed deeply. He never knew why he acted so bi-polar with Kara. He always used the night she ruined his life by making him go outside to get her bloody teddy bear and wound up in hospital for the next three weeks because he had consequently been mauled by a werewolf, a valid reason to hate anyone in his opinion.

But unfortunately this reason, the more he dwelled on it, became less likely. It was his fault it had happened. He'd been the daft one that had gone outside to be the "good person." It was his fault, but he would never admit it, "It's just a love- hate thing. You'd understand if you were in my position, Peter, really, you would," he said softly in a resigned sort of way which made his twelve years sound aged by twenty more.

They managed to make the last staircase and hallway in silence before they entered the dark classroom filled with shelves which had assorted dark arts textbooks, and instruments, with the occasional pictures of their teacher's family sifted into the decor. They took a seat at the back of the classroom carefully taking the time to take their books out of their bags as they waited for the bell to ring and for Professor Pike to make his grand entrance. With time the Slytherins also began to filter into the room and the friendly atmosphere the few Gryffindors that had decided to arrive early had made, soon dissipated rather quickly. Finally, once all the second years had found their spots the bell actually rung and in walked Professor Pike in a bit of a rush.

"He looks like he forgot where the room was," James said with a chortle that the other three echoed.

Indeed the new professor looked a bit flustered as he held a number of books under his arms coupled with a few scrolls of parchment. The man's light hair was a bit messy and fell in his eyes but once he had reached the front of the room he set his belongings down on his desk before he turned to the class and clapped his hands together. Within that one motion all previous accusations of whether or not the man actually knew what he was doing left them for the man's face changed to one of friendly determination.

"Another year and welcome," he smiled at the class as a whole before he continued, "First things first, stand up all of you," the students did what they were told rather reluctantly, "To the back of the room," the students that had taken the time to take their books out put them away and, again, followed the directions that were given.

"I'm sorry to do this to you, but do to certain events that I have been filled in concerning last year we will continue this year with a seating chart," he glanced over the class as if he were looking for the four boys and returned his attention back to the class as a whole, "That sounded like it worked well enough last year for Professor Malvitz," he added finally more to himself than anything else.

He then moved over to the first row of tables and began to assign the seats. Each student waited patiently for their name to be called and once it had, they moved to the appropriate seat.

"Remus Lupin."

Professor Pike pointed to the second row, third back.

"Lily Evans."

He pointed to the seat beside Remus'. Both of them moved rather slowly to their seats and sat down as they tried not to bother one another while they re- took the books out of their book bags. Remus managed to receive a small "hello," but he knew that it would most likely not become much more because one: Lily was a good student and would not take well to being bothered during class and two: his association with James and Sirius would not give him any bonus points. He smiled slightly to himself as he thought of the utter detest that she had grown for them by the end of their first year. If only she actually understood why Snape and James had begun a war with one another, but then again, he didn't really understand it either so the mystery would forever continue.

"-Knott, Sirius Black."

Remus felt himself cringe at the bad situation Professor Pike had just created for himself. If he were trying to force Sirius to be nice to a Slytherin he was not only going on a futile mission but he was also not exactly going about it in the right way.

"That's not good," he muttered absentmindedly, as he opened his Defense book to the page that was designated on the front board.

"What?"

Remus looked up from his textbook and glanced over at Lily rather confused and then realized suddenly that he had spoken out loud, "Er, Sirius and Knott together. It's not exactly a bright idea."

"Oh," she said quietly before she too turned her book to the correct page for today's lesson. They had both begun to scan through the chapter having nothing better to do. Carefully, writing down the answers to the review in their notes, assuming that it would be homework anyway.

"-Potter, Christopher Weasley."

Lily chuckled a bit, "Poor Chris," she muttered and in return received a chuckle from Remus, which seemed to shock her a bit, "What, do you agree?"

"Yeah, Snape is sitting in front of them. James is bound to do something stupid and get the two of them in trouble."

"But they're your friends. Why aren't you standing up for them?"

Before Remus could answer Professor Pike was back up at the front of the room telling them to open their books to the first chapter. He then began to talk about a variety of spells that they were going to learn this year to avoid possibly bad situations in their life after Hogwarts. In that hour discussion he talked of the three main spells and how they were rather useful to all wizards, for protection and sport. This particular statement eventually led their slightly mad Professor to compare himself to the infamous wizard that had tried to blow up the Quidditch World Cup a few years back. Then he went on to state how his students could actually produce the amount of damage the man had wanted to do with a fairly simple spell. He even gave away the book it was in. Granted it was in the restricted section but still, it wasn't really smart to say that. Of course he made it a little better by adding the warning that they shouldn't try it, ever.

Remus chuckled to himself. How they had gotten on this particular subject, Remus had no clue, but it was definitely extremely funny. Not only was it funny, but it was they type of thing that seemed reminisant of the dreaded "Malvitz Factor." A term Remus and his friends had given everything extremely strange that had ever left Professor Malvitz's mouth. Which was actually quite frequent.

Unfortunately, though, the bell rang and the students picked up their belongings and began heading out the door as their Professor Pike assigned the twenty-question review for Section One of the first chapter due the next time that they had class. Still it was a very small assignment where homework was concerned at Hogwarts.

As Remus set his textbook back inside of his book bag when his mind was lead back to his unfinished conversation with Lily. So, as she set the last bit of her notes into her bag he answered her question, "I do stand up for them when I have too. But since it's true that he probably will get into trouble with Chris going down with him, there really isn't a need to, is there?"

Lily listened to what he had said and eventually nodded her head, "I guess, but still, I figured you'd deny it or something."

He shook his head, "Nah, there's no point in that," he fell silent for a while thinking silently to himself, before he continued, "I'll probably get another fifty detentions by the end of the year too," he laughed slightly remembering how his dad had been shocked by the detention report his son had given him upon returning home for summer holiday.

"I don't understand why you participate in it. You seem nice enough," Lily said as the two started to walk out of the classroom, "It doesn't make sense to me how you can be such good friends with them and yet, from what I've seen, you're nothing like them."

Remus stopped when they had gotten just outside of the door he ran his fingers through his hair and looked over at the window, across from Professor Pike's room, where his friends had gathered around patiently waiting for him to come out of the room. He had now become aware that they were now looking at him in extreme wonder, similar to if he were fraternizing with the enemy. Remus just smiled a bit at the thought and continued his conversation.

He sighed deeply knowing that his answer was going to confuse her greatly, "See, I am a lot like them, but at the same time I'm not. I enjoy doing the pranks but I don't exactly hate Snape. Yet, at the same time, I somewhat agree with the things that they do. But then at other times I loathe some of the other things they do to him. It's complicated but they are my mates and I wouldn't trade them for the world."

Lily frowned a bit at what he had said before she answered, "I think I understand, even if I think you could do better in your choice in friends," she sighed a bit and then looked over at James, Sirius, and Peter, before she went on, "I think your friends want you. So, I won't keep you any longer, I have to find Chris anyway," she started to walk away but then she quickly turned around, "And even though I don't completely agree with you, I still think you're a nice guy." With that she did turn around and left to go to their next class.

Remus stood there for a second before the three sets of eyes that had followed Lily down the hallway had now fallen on him and immediately began to stare at him. He smiled at his friends, knowing that he was going to get scolded for being friendly to her, and just laughed at the idea. He loved them but they definitely needed to give each other a little space in the friends department. The only person that should have even been remotely upset by his obvious befriending of Lily Evans would have to be James, because they had been friends first. And now, she disliked him, and Remus was sure that James was still fond of her even if he would never even admit it to their group. Sirius just disliked anyone that hurt James, and Peter, well he seemed to always follow the majority vote.

Remus slowly made his way over too them and smiled widely, "Why'd you talk to her?" James asked.

"She's nice and we're partners. Might as well be civil to one another, right?"

"I disagree," Sirius said promptly, "I'm partners with Knott and there is no reason to be civil to him."

Remus just laughed, "I'll give you that one, but Lily is nice, and she hasn't technically done anything wrong. So, I don't think we have to go and relinquish our wrath on her by showing her in her knickers singing 'Help' in front of the whole school, now do we?"

His three friends stared blankly at him as this statement began to register within the confines of their brains. And suddenly James and Sirius burst out laughing as the image of Snape singing help in a towel resurfaced with the fresh tide of their thoughts. Remus joined in as Peter chortled slightly at their sides just mildly understanding the bluntness of Remus' comment. Sirius slapped Remus on the back in a friendly manner as he laughed occasionally saying "help" as if it were the funniest word in the world.

"That was our best wasn't it?" James said as he put his arm around Remus' neck and began to lead him down the stairwell towards the Transfiguration room.

"I believe so."

"That's a shame," James said with a chuckle as Sirius mumbled a: "help" from beside them as they again fell into a fit of laughter, "Ah, well, maybe we'll beat it yet," the others nodded their agreement as the alpha of their group continued.

"But we should probably get to class," Remus said softly as they passed Kara with one of her new friends as they exited the classroom.

She glared at him for giving her cruddy directions to her class and he just laughed and waved at her nonchalantly as he and his mates entered McGonagall's room. They took their typical seats at the back of the room. Remus sat down next to Peter and started to take out his Transfiguration book. While they continued to joke about possible pranks they could try out this year he smiled widely at the idea of a possible prank. He slowly began remembered his first Transfiguration class last year, and smirked to himself as he looked up at McGonagall who was sitting at her elevated desk. Oh, the possibilities for this year were immense and he couldn't wait to see what was to come from it.