"Hey, Remus?"

"Yeah?"

It was dinnertime, and my dad had pulled me aside.

"Those two girls... Dorcas, and the blonde one, oh, what's her name... Marlene. Are they the queers who were written about in the Daily Prophet?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, feeling myself tense. "Why?"

"Oh, I... I didn't know you were friends with them," said Dad.

"Oh, yeah... well, they're nice," I said. "I mean, they're not in my year, so obviously I'm closer with James and Peter, and... and Sirius."

"Well, what do you think about it?" he asked. "Them being queer?"

"I, um... I think it's fine," I said. My mouth was dry. "Erm... yeah, so I think it's fine, er... yeah. Erm, what do you think?"

"Well, it is a little strange," my dad said, looking over at where Marlene and Dorcas were sitting, eating their chips. "But I suppose it's OK. People protest about the rights of queers."

"Oh, yeah..." I said. "So, you... you think it's OK?"

"Yes," he said.

"Oh, alright, that's cool," I said. "I'm going to go get some chips before they're all gone."

I walked back to the group and sat next to James, reaching out for a handful of chips, feeling overly stressed and relieved at the same time.

The next morning, we all woke up bright and early to watch the sunrise behind the horizon. It was freezing before it rose, so we were all bundled up in our duvets, but soon enough we were throwing them back into the house, as the sun finally came and warmed up the entire beach, and we all went to the ocean for an early morning swim, and I ended up talking to Lily's sister.

She was a bony, blonde girl called Petunia, and she didn't seem to be enjoying the trip very much. She complained to me about how it was unfair that her family was spending the summer with Lily's friends, and usually their summers were spent with Petunia's friends.

"Ugh, and I have this wonderful boyfriend called Vernon," she was saying, "but I won't be able to see him all summer because I'm stuck here. I'm sixteen years old, I'm not a child, like, why couldn't I just stay with Vernon this summer?"

"Oh, yeah, that's a shame," I said, but I honestly couldn't care less about what she was saying, I was just being polite.

The next day was Sunday, and we all spent the day in a small muggle beach town, and some people insisted on looking at the shops, so we were all dragged in to look at clothes and swimsuits.

"Oh Lily, I think this would really compliment your figure," said Mary, holding an orange bikini out to Lily.

"Mary, I can't wear orange," said Lily, gripping the bottom of her dark red hair and waving it around.

Once we'd gotten out of the clothes shops, James found a telephone box, and immediately ran over to it like an excited toddler and began playing with the dial.

After the belly-loan visit, we all went to a muggle café for lunch, then went back to the beach and spent the afternoon there.

As the beach trip went on, I found myself desperately missing Sirius, and worrying if he was OK. I couldn't write letters from the beach because we were a long way away from any wizard post offices, and no one brought their own owls. I'd let Sirius know that I didn't think I'd be able to write to him while on the trip, so, as much as I was enjoying myself, I really wanted to go back home so I could write to him.

But I did try to enjoy myself and not worry about Sirius. I ate loads of sugar and ran around, swam every day, and finished the trip with sunburn and one of the happiest attitudes I'd ever experienced.

On the day I got back, the day of the full moon, I wrote to Sirius immediately.

To Sirius,

It's really sad that you missed out on the beach trip! It was loads of fun! I'm so sunburnt now, and my skin is red and very painful, but it was so worth it! The beach was definitely just as good as last year, if not better. How have your last two and a bit weeks been?

From Moony

I rushed to the wizard post office and got the letter delivered straight away, dying to hear from Sirius.

I heard back from him the next day, after the full moon, and as soon as I saw the envelope sitting on the kitchen bench, I ripped it open way too eagerly.

To Moony,

It is such a shame that I couldn't come to the beach. Sounds like you all had loads of fun. I hope your sunburn isn't too bad. My summer has been very quiet, and I've been spending most of the time in my room, reading the textbooks for fifth year. They look so hard! O.W.L.s are going to be hell. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer.

From Sirius

The rest of the summer was fairly dull. We went to Diagon Alley in early August, and when I got home I looked through the textbooks. Sirius was right. It was a ridiculous workload. I was not ready for the O.W.L.s at all.

"So, there are six possible marks for each class," my dad said one night at dinner when I'd asked him to explain how the O.W.L.s worked. "O for Outstanding, E for Exceeds Expectations, A for Acceptable, P for Poor, D for Dreadful, and T for Troll. Each class that you select in your sixth and seventh years requires a certain O.W.L mark to get into. Most classes require at least an A. And you choose your sixth and seventh-year classes based on what you want to do after school."

"Have you thought about what you might want to do after Hogwarts, Remus?" Mum asked.

"Er, I want to be a teacher," I said. "At Hogwarts."

"That sounds cool, what class?" Dad asked.

"I'm not sure, any class would be fine," I said.

"What sort of teacher would you be?" Mum asked. "Strict? Funny?"

"I'd just act how I want a teacher to act. Relaxed, but still knows what's going on," I said.

"Don't you think you'll get sick of the students?" Dad asked.

"Maybe," I said. "What classes do I need to do well in this year, then? To become a teacher?"

"I don't know," Dad shrugged. "I suppose whatever class you want to teach."

"Am I allowed to drop classes I don't need or want to do?" I asked. Dad nodded. "OK then. Well, I'm dropping Potions."

"Do you still have Professor Slughorn?" Dad asked.

"Yeah," I said. "He's not the problem though, the biggest problem is we take the class with Slytherin. And I don't even like the class anyway."

"Ah, since I was in Ravenclaw, I took the class with Hufflepuff," said Dad. "I didn't have to deal with the Slytherins."

"Oh, yeah," I said. "When you were in school, did you have Professor McGonagall!?"

Dad laughed. "God no. She was in the year above me in school. Professor Dumbledore taught me Transfiguration. I had Professor Slughorn for Potions though. I had Professor Binns, too... d'you have him?"

"Yeah," I said.

"I think other than that all my teachers would be different from yours," he said. "I was in school twenty years ago after all."

"Did you know what you wanted to do when you were going into fifth year?" I asked.

"I had no clue," said Dad. "Didn't know until I was in my early twenties."

"What about you, Mum?" I asked.

"Well, it had been my dream to be an actress since I was a little girl," said Mum. "But back when I was leaving school and wanting to join the industry, it was all about having a curvy figure to be a successful actress, like Marylin Munroe. But I was just skinny, which is what they want in young actresses now, but I'm not young anymore... anyway, none of this relates to you since you're not a muggle."

"I suppose not, but I'm still interested," I said, as Dad pulled out his wand to clean our plates, and made them fly over to the cupboards and put themselves away.

On the last day of the holidays, I received a letter from the school, which at first made me panic because I'd gotten my booklist at the start of the summer and I couldn't think of what else the school could possibly be writing to me about other than expelling me.

What had I done wrong? Sure, I'd broken some rules at school, but I didn't think I'd done anything bad enough to get expelled. Was it because of my condition? Had they finally decided they couldn't deal with a werewolf being in the school anymore?

Taking in a long breath, I slowly opened the envelope, preparing for the worst.

Dear Mr. R Lupin,

You have been selected to be the fifth-year Gryffindor prefect for the 1975-1976 school year, alongside Miss Lily Evans.

This is a two-year commitment, as you and Miss Evans will be prefects for the entirety of your fifth and sixth years at Hogwarts.

Your duties include giving the Gryffindor first-years a tour of the school after the welcoming feast tomorrow evening, then bringing them to the common room.

After the first evening, it is your job to patrol the school with Miss Evans one night every week. It is also your job to help Filch check the permission slips of students going into Hogsmeade and help third-years find their way into the village.

As a Prefect, you are given the right to take points from and give points to, and give detentions to students who misbehave, however, if you are found to be abusing this power, your prefect badge (which can be found in your envelope) will be taken from you and given to someone else.

You are expected to meet in the Prefect's carriage at 12 pm tomorrow, where all the prefects will discuss rosters for night patrols and the sixth-year prefects will give you more information on your role.

Kind regards,

Professor M. McGonagall

(Head of Gryffindor house)

A prefect. I was a prefect. I was surprised and not surprised at the same time. Surprised because I knew the options were out of all four marauders, and out of the four of us I was not the best leader: James was. But I wasn't surprised because James and Sirius spent a ridiculous amount of time in detention, so of course, they wouldn't get the badge, and Peter... well, Peter just didn't strike anyone as the sort of person to become a prefect.

I reached into the envelope and pulled out a red badge with a 'P' on it, stunned. A prefect.

"Mum! Dad!" I cried out. They came rushing into my room within thirty seconds, both looking at me in alarm.

"Are you OK!?" Mum asked.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine, sorry..." I said, feeling guilty for worrying them. "It's not that big of a deal, I was just going to tell you I've been chosen to become a prefect."

"A prefect!?" Mum cried, her face lighting up. "Oh, Remus, I'm so proud of you!"

"This calls for a celebration," Dad said. "I will go into the nearest sweets shop, and I'll buy us all chocolates to have tonight. I'm so proud! My son's a prefect!"