The Hallowe'en party was a huge blur, and I didn't remember much of it apart from eating a lot of chocolate, snogging Sirius in the dormitory, and extremely loud music.

I woke up at two in the afternoon on the day after the party, and I was in an armchair in the common room. A few other people were still asleep around me, so I moved very quietly towards the portrait hole, then crawled out into the halls.

I had no idea where my friends were, so I walked around the castle alone like a weirdo, hoping I'd find someone to entertain me.

Thankfully, I found Mary, Alice, and Frank sitting in the courtyard, sharing a large cake.

"Hi," I said, approaching them.

"Remus!" Mary cried. "It's my birthday, do you want some cake?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, happy birthday," I said, even if the thought of more sugar made me feel sick. "Your birthday is only two days before Sirius's. Are you fifteen?"

"Yeah," said Mary. "Sirius and I will be the same age for two days."

"Do you know where he is? Or where anyone is?" I asked.

"Everyone's still asleep," said Mary. "Most of them woke up this morning and went to their dormitories. We're the only ones up."

"Where did you get the cake from?" I asked.

"Kitchens," said Mary. "Alice somehow convinced the House Elves to bake it for us."

I took a slice of the cake. It was delicious.

"Happy birthday, Mary," I said once I'd swallowed my first bite.

We only had a one-day break before there was another birthday among my friends: Sirius's sixteenth, on a Monday.

We spent the morning telling him how ridiculously old he was for being sixteen years old, only one year away from coming of age. During our classes, we let every single teacher know that it was his birthday at both the start and end of each lesson.

And that night, there was another common room party, in which there was even more junk food and alcohol.

But the most impressive part was that James had managed to get the House Elves to bake a cake that weighed a stone and a half, meaning there was enough for the entire school, but of course, we shared it between just one house.

The day after Sirius's birthday was painful, as everyone in Gryffindor had to sit through classes while feeling extremely tired and sick, and I could barely concentrate on what the teachers were saying, but I still pushed through because I was determined to beat Lily.

I had my next patrol with her on the first Thursday of November and found that we both had to keep going back to our dormitories to get more layers because it was so cold.

"Ugh, I hate winter," said Lily.

"It's autumn," I said.

"The last month of autumn is practically winter," said Lily.

I laughed. "Where do you want to go first tonight?"

"Uh, not the dungeons and not the astronomy tower," said Lily. "Somewhere warm in the castle."

"Alright," I laughed. "So, how have you liked the sugar rush of the last week or so?"

"Oh, sugar is that sort of thing that is so good in the moment, but afterwards, I always feel so sick," said Lily.

"Yeah, I think that's everyone," I said. "But it's so good."

"Oh, yeah," said Lily. "Definitely. Oh, you know what I'd love right now?"

"What?" I asked.

"A warm, gooey brownie with a huge scoop of ice cream on it," said Lily, smiling.

"Oh, yeah... one of those brownies where if you pull it apart the melted chocolate will come pouring out of it," I said.

"Oh, god, yes," said Lily. "You're a chocolate fan? I mean, who isn't, but are you like, a mega fan of chocolate?"

"Yes." I said.

"Oh my god, me too!" Lily cried. "Alight, this weekend at Hogsmeade, you and I are having a chocolate banquet together."

"Sounds good to me," I said. My mouth already felt like it was watering.

"Are muggle chocolates better or worse than wizard chocolates?" I asked Lily that Saturday, as we sat outside Honeydukes together, gorging ourselves on a ridiculous amount of chocolate.

"Hmmm... about the same taste-wise," said Lily. "But visually, wizard chocolates are a lot cooler, and obviously muggle chocolates usually don't have a magical effect on them.

"What's your favourite wizard chocolate?" I asked.

"Charm choc," said Lily. "Boring, I know, but I'm obsessed. How about you?"

"Choco loco. Favourite muggle chocolate?"

"Oh, it was Nutella," said Lily. "Have you tried it?"

"No," I said. "You said 'was'? What happened?"

"I'm allergic to nuts," said Lily, frowning. "When I was younger, every time I had Nutella on my toast, I'd get a huge rash on my back, but then one day, when I was nine, after I had the Nutella I couldn't breathe, and I had to go to the Hospital, and well, they told me I have a nut allergy and I couldn't have Nutella ever again."

"So, you're allergic to all nuts?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Lily. "I really want to try peanut butter... I've never had it, and Marlene is completely obsessed with it and has it every morning... but obviously I can't have it."

"I've tried peanut butter, it's disgusting," I said. "You're really not missing out on anything."

Lily sighed. "I still want to try it."

I shrugged, then took a huge chunk of chocolate.

During breakfast on the morning of November twelfth, Lily approached me and asked if she could speak with me while I was halfway through my eggs.

I followed her out of the Great Hall, and she cast the muffliato spell over us. Her expression was extremely hard to read, and I had no idea why she felt the need to talk to me with a silencing charm cast over us.

"Remus... Severus keeps saying you're... I... I don't want to believe him, but um... to be honest, I think he's right. And I think I've known for a while. I don't see you any differently, but I just want to confirm... I'm not going to tell Severus, he asked me to ask you, but I will tell him you said you're not, but um... yeah, I know why you couldn't make that patrol back in September, why you disappear every full moon, why you have the... the scars, why your boggart was a full moon, and I'm so sorry for confronting you about it so suddenly, but I just wanted you to know that it's OK, and it doesn't take away from the fact that you're an amazing person and friend, and..."

"How long have you known?" I asked, knowing exactly what she was talking about. My mouth felt dry.

"So... so you are? You are a... a..." she started, but I didn't finish the sentence for her. I wanted to see if she could say it. "You have lycanthropy."

"Yeah..." I said, suddenly finding myself not able to make eye contact with her.

"Oh, well... that... OK... it's OK." Lily was looking at the floor as she spoke to me. "I'll tell Severus you're not, though. I won't tell anyone at all."

"Thanks," I said, and she released the silencing charm, then walked back to Snape. I felt my stomach do a flip, and as I made my way back to the Gryffindor table, my legs felt like lead. She'd said it was OK. So, it would be OK.

On Friday, I found myself dreading the patrol I had with Lily that night. I hadn't seen her outside of class after Wednesday morning when she'd told me what she knew, and even during class, we didn't speak to each other.

"Have you broken up with Evans or something?" Peter asked me on Friday afternoon while the four marauders were in the common room together. Sirius and James both gave him a look at this remark.

"We're still friends, but um... well, it's kind of awkward between us now, because well... she knows. She told me she knows..."

"Knows what?" Sirius asked, suddenly turning his head sharply to face me.

"What else?" James said, rolling his eyes at Sirius. "She knows about his condition. How did she take it, then?"

"She was nice," I said. "Said she's known for a while... but y'know, you find out for sure that one of your friends is a... that... it's going to be a bit awkward."

"When did she tell you she knows?" Peter asked.

"Wednesday morning," I said.

"So, you reckon your patrol tonight will be awkward?" Sirius asked.

"Probably. Hopefully, it won't last long, and we'll be back to normal soon enough," I said.

As I'd predicted, the first half hour of the patrol that night was spent in almost complete silence, apart from a few attempts at small talk.

After half an hour of silently patrolling, the ice finally broke, and Lily asked, "When were you bitten?"

"Sixteenth of February 1965," I said. I may as well just let her know whatever she wanted to know. "So roughly three weeks before I turned five."

Lily gasped. "You were so young... do you remember it at all?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Tell me to shut up if you don't want to answer anything I ask, but I have like, a million questions," said Lily.

"Uh, sure," I said. She already knew, I didn't have anything else to hide.

"So, do you know who bit you?" she asked.

"Yeah... Fenrir Greyback."

"Do you like your condition?"

I laughed at the stupidity of her question, then said, very bluntly, "No."

"So, um... do you, like... hurt yourself when you're a wolf?" Lily asked.

"Yeah, well, I don't really have any control over what I do," I said. "I guess I'm sort of possessed? I dunno."

"I'm sorry," said Lily. "That sounds awful."

"Please don't treat me any differently, though," I said. "Like, don't be all sympathetic or anything..."

"OK," said Lily, and she looked like she was trying to think of something else to say. "So, what do you think will happen in the year 2000?"

"Mate, that's twenty-five years away, I haven't given it a single thought," I said, glad for the subject change.

"I suppose, but it's still really hard to imagine," said Lily. "My sister reckons the world will end."

"Well, we'll be what, forty... so we will have lived a long and colourful life by then," I said.

"Forty is still a young age to die," said Lily.

"Yeah, but it would be better than dying now, at fifteen," I said.

"Well obviously," said Lily. "But still, I want to one day be an old grandma."

"And you will be because the world isn't going to end in the year 2000," I said, and Lily laughed.

"Remus..." she said. "Since I know your secret, can I tell you something?"

"Yeah?"

"I find Potter attractive."

I wasn't sure if I'd heard her right. It was so out of the blue, and after years of her rejecting James, she was now telling me she liked him?

"Please don't tell him," she said. "Um... yeah, it's really recent... I mean, he's always been good-looking... but he's still an arrogant toerag, no matter how hot he is."

"So, you don't want to go out with him?" I asked.

"No," said Lily, "I couldn't deal with him. He's just really, really cute. But I swear to god if you tell him, or anyone, but especially him..."

"I won't tell anyone," I said. "Promise."

"Thanks," said Lily, smiling.

The next week was completely hilarious. James was still trailing after Lily, but I watched as she blushed to herself when he finally looked away from her. It was incredibly entertaining.

"Are you sure you don't want to go out with him?" I asked Lily during our next patrol, on the second last Saturday night of November.

"Yes, I'm absolutely sure," said Lily.

"Mm, sure..." I said, grinning at her as we walked out into the grounds to patrol there. God, it was fun to get invested in other people's love lives when they didn't talk about it twenty-four hours a day like James did.

"Just because I find him good-looking doesn't mean–"

She stopped speaking suddenly and looked up. I followed her eyes and looked ahead. One of the bushes was rustling.

Lily and I looked at each other, then drew our wands and began walking slowly towards the bush.

We approached the bush, then looked ahead to see two figures running away from us. Lily pointed her wand towards them, and cried, "Petrificus Totalus!"

The two of us walked towards the figures, who were now lying on the floor, their arms and legs bound together by an invisible force. When we were close enough to see them, I lit my wand and found myself letting out an uncontrollable gasp.

It was Mulciber.

And Mary Macdonald.