Disclaimer: Do I really have to tell you that this isn't my idea? Honestly, nothing on this entire site is original; it's all copied off someone else. So for the gazillionth time, I am not J.K. Rowling. Wow. It didn't really take a genius to figure that one out, did it?

Author's Note: I'm loving the reviews, and the more that come, the faster the chapters get up. And I want to thank two authors by the pen names of Lindri Night and Isadora Johnson (whose stories you should really check out, by the way) for allowing me to use their real last names… even though they didn't really have a choice in the matter. Anyway, back to James and Lily…

Our end-of-term exams crept up on us far faster than any of us wished. I very vividly remember a Saturday just before our exams, one that seems so long ago now….

Peter clambered through the portrait hole. "James," he said, panting slightly (the climb to the Gryffindor common room isn't exactly an easy one), "Would you help me study? I can't remember half of the History of Magic stuff…."

"Ask Sirius," I said dryly, not looking up from my game of chess with Remus. "He knows everything."

Remus prodded his rook forward to begin beating up my bishop. "He's upstairs, in the dormitory," he added, glancing up.

Peter kind of… I dunno, wilted. His shoulders sagged and his mouth began to curl into a pout. He looked as though he were about to start to cry… as usual. Let me say now that Sirius was the least kind to Peter out of the lot of us. He treated him more like he did Snivellus (I mean, Snape). Remus and I teased him, but we always apologized. Sirius was downright malicious.

Remus did something with his bishop and his queen, and I suddenly found that my king had been checkmated. I looked from the board to Remus and back to the board, unable to figure out how he had done it (or find anything illegal about it). He smiled secretively and shrugged, sweeping the pieces back into the box. I glanced at my watch. "I stayed in the game for eight minutes. That's a record."

Remus laughed and stood up. "Let's go to the library. Admit it, James, you really need to study if you want to pass any of your exams."

My mouth dropped open in indignation. "Me? Need to study? I could recite everything we're going to be tested on, and then I could do it backwards!"

He looked at me skeptically. "Alright, then, in what year did David Williams become Minister of Magic?"

My mouth opened and closed several times, but that didn't mean I knew. I was defeated. As I stood up and shoved my books into my bag, I muttered rebelliously, "But Portia Stevenson invented the Quaffle in 1813."

I went upstairs to get Sirius (he knew more about David Williams' ministry than anyone alive) and came back down five minutes later, a grumbling best friend in tow. He grinned maliciously at Peter, raised his eyebrows at Remus, and led the way out of the portrait hole.

Quailing under the glare of the young librarian Madame Pince, we tiptoed into the library and plopped down at an empty table. Remus began quizzing Peter and me, while Sirius interrupted every now and then to fix a fact that one of us got wrong. It was no more than fifteen minutes before Sirius got bored and began wandering through the rows of books.

He returned five minutes later with a thick, dusty book that had the words A Complete Analysis of the Werewolf emblazoned across the front.

Remus glanced up as he sat down, then did a double-take. He paled slightly, and his next question was asked in a rather high-pitched voice. "What book did Anna Van Engelenhoven write, and how did it influence the society in the mid-eighteen hundreds?"

I looked at him strangely. Peter noticed nothing; he was busy trying to stammer out the answer that he didn't know. I interrupted him. "She wrote a book called Aponi, which awakened more affluent people to the horrible conditions of magic in the streets and stirred them to action. Remus, are you okay?"

"Yes," he said, but his voice was still high.

"No," said Sirius at the same time. "He's not."

"What do you mean, no I'm not?" Remus snapped, a little too quickly.

"We need to talk," Sirius said, slamming the book shut and drawing a glare from Madame Pince. "Outside."

Remus was shaking his head dumbly. I was really confused, and so was Peter, judging by the look on his face. "What's going on?" I asked, looking from Sirius to Remus and back again.

"Follow me," Sirius said grimly, stalking away. "All of you."

Sirius had a way of being very commanding, as though he thought he was the king of the magical world. And for some crazy reason, we always obeyed.

"Sirius," said Remus, standing up, "wait."

Sirius turned around. "What?"

"If you don't want to be my friend anymore because of what you've assumed, then that's fine with me. But I'd rather that you didn't ruin my friendships with James and Peter as well."

Sirius looked rather confused for a moment, but then he realized- unlike Peter and I- what Remus was talking about. His expression softened. "Of course I still want to be your friend, you git, but I want to talk outside. C'mon, it's a really nice day out."

I stood up, my curiosity getting the better of me, followed by Peter and a very tentative Remus, who still looked even more pale than usual, if you can imagine that.

Sirius led us to an enormous oak tree by the lake. The June sun was bright, and students everywhere lounged around, trying to study but not really getting anywhere. No one was within a few hundred feet of us, and Sirius seemed to have selected this spot just for that reason.

I plopped onto the grass next to Peter and Sirius, but Remus remained standing, pacing back and forth in the shade.

Sirius drew a deep breath. "Well."

After a moment of silence, I asked, "Well what?"

He shook his head. "Remus, are you going to tell them or do you want me to?"

Remus didn't look capable of talking. He had gone from pasty white to bright red.

"Alright, then," Sirius said, rolling onto his stomach, "I'll tell them."

"Tell us what?" Peter and I chorused in unison.

He drew another deep breath, and then he began. "Neither of you have failed to notice that our friend here disappears once a month or so."

We shook our heads, enthralled. If my older self had been there watching, it would have sighed in exasperation, thinking, idiot first years.

"Well, we all know he makes up excuses for his absences."

Remus' head jerked up at this.

"Gimme a break, Remus, you don't think we actually believed all those stories?"

He shrugged, plainly embarrassed.

"Even Peter isn't that thick. Anyway, I've discovered where he goes. Or maybe not where, but at least why."

"Sirius," he said, his voice hoarse, "I'll tell them."

"Tell us what?" I asked exasperatedly. "We're not getting anywhere!"

Remus ran a hand through his light-brown hair, continuing to pace. "When I was a little kid," he said softly, "I was playing outside. It was evening, and my mum went in for a few minutes. I don't remember why.

"She didn't know that… that there was a werewolf on the loose. Otherwise she would never have ventured outside. But it just so happened that the werewolf had picked our neighborhood to prowl around in. I remember I was on a swing, trying to reach the ground, when I heard a noise and saw what looked like a tattered dog coming up the street. It had yellow eyes. It saw me, and it started chasing me. I ran, but I was little, I couldn't run very fast. It caught up and bit me."

It took a second for the implications of his story to hit. When it did, my mouth dropped open. "You're a werewolf?"

He nodded miserably.

I pumped the air with my fist. "Wow! I had no idea! That's amazing! A werewolf!"

He looked up timidly. "You don't… hate me for it?"

"Hate you for it?" I said, disbelieving. "Who would hate you for it? What's wrong with being a werewolf?"

"Just that people are scared of him," Sirius said grimly, "because they're afraid that he'll bite them."

Remus scowled. "I only bite at the full moon," he said defensively. "And even then only if I'm around people."

"You don't bite animals?" I asked, intrigued.

He shook his head. "Look, guys, I don't want to talk about it. I'm just glad that you… that you're still my friends." He looked rather sheepish, but the color was coming back to his face.

The revelation that one of my best friends was a werewolf rather dazzled me. I went through my exams in a sort of trance, passing all of them with top marks and not even caring.

And suddenly, the year was over. My trunk was packed, my dormitory straightened up. I was going home for the summer.

The train ride on the way back seemed to go by far too quickly. I didn't want to say goodbye to my friends or go home… home was so dull.

The scarlet steam engine chugged into platform Nine and Three-Quarters. The four of us had a compartment all to ourselves. As the Hogwarts express ground to a halt, I looked at my three friends.

"Well," I said. "I guess we'll see each other next year?"

"Yeah," Sirius said, and if I didn't know him better, I'd have sworn I saw a tear in his eye. "Maybe we'll be able to get together over the summer."

I shrugged. "I can get my dad to bring me over to your house…"

Sirius grimaced. "I don't think that would be such a good idea. You wouldn't like my parents. Or my little brother, for that matter."

"Oh," I said, dejected. "Then we'll all meet at my house and play Quidditch all summer."

Remus grinned as he made his way out of the compartment. "Give me a break. You all know I'm helpless at Quidditch."

"Not as bad as Peter," Sirius grinned.

Peter flushed.

We descended the steps of the train, the last connection to our exciting first year, and turned to face the long, dull summer….