Lily

October 9th

Dear Diary,

The homework I'm getting right now is just beyond all imagination.

I'm buried under it; I think that they'll have to dig me out of my pile to find out where I am.

I have to write an essay for each of my classes at the moment, as well as practice the charms and spells we are being set to do. It's horrid, and I'm working really hard, yet for some reason, there's always something else to do. I'm a dork, yes, I know, but I have to do well on these tests; my life will be over if I don't. I think I have two or three essays due next week and a rather large and nasty one due tomorrow; slowly, I think I might be losing my mind.

I also have prefect duties to adhere to; as if I didn't have enough to do already. Prefect duties aren't too bad though; I just patrol the hallways for a little while for a couple of nights a week. Remus is a prefect as well, which is a good thing; I like having some time to be alone with him.

Tonight, we had to patrol the fifth and sixth floors together after nine; we were supposed to catch all the miscreants out of bed and hand out detentions. I didn't like doing that and neither did Remus; we usually let them go. Prefect duties were more like times to chat with Remus, if he was feeling up to it, and I was going to use them just for those purposes; kids would be kids, and there were plenty of teachers anyway.

As we paced around the fifth floor, I realized that I had not talked to Remus at all since we had gotten to school. I looked over at him, and smiled.

"Remus, have I even spoken to you since we got to school?" I asked. I had to make sure, after all; what if I had said something to him before, and I'd just forgotten?

He shook his head. "No, you haven't."

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "How are you, then?"

He shrugged indifferently. "I'm fine, I suppose."

"How was your summer?"

"It was nice."

"Anything else?" Remus was so quiet; it took a bit of artful poking-around to get an answer that was more than two or three words out of him.

"No, not really," Remus said. "I went to Spain though."

"Well, see, there's something," I said. "Where in Spain did you go?"

"Seville."

"What did you do there?"

Remus shrugged again. "My mum shopped a lot, and my dad was looking at all the historic landmarks they had to offer."

"What about you?"

"I was out and about," he said. "Seville is a great place to just watch the citizens."

"Oh Remus; I know you must have done more than that," I said, playfully smacking him. "You have to have more to say."

"I don't though," he said, giving me a half-smile. "You tell me about your summer; I'm sure you did more than I did."

"I was at home, watching television," I said, laughing at the memory of it. "I was bored most of the time. Kyleigh and Leila came over for a little while."

"Well, what did you do with Kyleigh and Leila?" he inquired.

"We walked around the creek near my house a lot," I recalled. "Kyleigh loves to run around in the creek itself and get her feet really dirty. Leila likes to sit on the side and dip her feet in. Kyleigh pushes her in, and drags me in as well; we complain, but we enjoy it anyway."

"Is that so?" he asked, smiling for real. "That sounds like fun."

"It is," I said. "But Seville must have been more interesting than me and my friends getting wet." I knew this tactic; he was trying to change the subject back to me so that he wouldn't have to talk as much.

"It rained a lot in Seville," he said. "More than they're used to. But I liked it; it was soothing, and also gave me an excuse to stay inside."

"You have no business being inside when you are in such a beautiful place," I scolded with a laugh. "What would you do inside?"

"Watch the rain, read a book," Remus said. "I don't need much to occupy myself."

I smirked. "We should have switched summer holidays; I would have killed to be in Seville instead of at home, trying to find something to do."

Remus shrugged again, and checked his watch. "Lily, it's nine thirty; we had until ten, didn't we?"

"No, nine forty-five," I corrected. "We get forty-five minutes a night every other day."

"I see." He fidgeted a little, and sighed. "This is going to be very boring for you; I don't have much to talk about. Least of all to you."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I was feeling a bit hurt; why couldn't he talk to me like he could to anyone else?

"James likes you," he said simply. "I try to stay away from people James is interested in."

"James likes everyone," I said impatiently. "You'd have to stay out of touch with everyone in this school, if that's your reasoning. Besides, I'm not interested in him."

"I still don't like socializing with someone that James likes," Remus said. "James gets a little…furious…if he finds a girl he likes talking to someone else."

"To hell with him!" I burst out. "Do what you want; don't let him control you."

"He doesn't control me; I just follow along out of common courtesy."

"He does control you, Remus; you need to do what you want, and not what he wants you to do." I hated how James lorded it over everyone in his life; Remus especially deserved a bit of freedom.

"I do what I want, Lily," he said tiredly. "Relax."

"I just don't want James to have an influence on you," I said, embarrassed. "He does it to everyone around him; you're clever, and I would hope that he doesn't do this to you too."

"I'm fine," he said shortly. "Don't worry about me."

I bit my lip, but Remus left before I could say anything else; it was before nine forty-five, but I had obviously upset him, and he didn't want to be near me. I patrolled alone, completely miserable, until nine forty-five, and went to the common room to finish some more homework. I actually didn't even do the homework; I just pulled you out, diary.

What am I supposed to do? I want to be a friend to Remus, but I can't because of bloody stupid James Potter. He ruins my life - truly, he does - and I can't even try to have a life. I hate that; I hate my helplessness, and the helplessness of the people around me. Why can't anyone just stand up and beat the crap out of him?

Maybe I'll do that one of these days; just run up to him and smack him in the face.

But then again, I can't get too hopeful; I'll probably never be able to.

James

October 11th

Dear Diary,

I just got back from another midnight escapade! Tonight was great; we were all over the grounds, and Peter scared Professor McGonagall when he scampered at her as a rat…it was hilarious!

But wait; I'm getting ahead of myself. Now, it's a good thing this diary won't get into anyone else's hands, because this is top secret information. Remus is a werewolf; he was bitten when he was really young, and he transforms at the full moon. He tried to keep it a secret from us, but we figured it out; actually, Sirius did, but Peter and I took credit as well. Haha. But we thought that his being a werewolf was pretty cool, though it was painful for him on a lot of different levels. We decided to become Animagi as well; it took us ages to figure it out, but we did it. I'm a stag, which is why I'm known as Prongs, Peter is a rat, hence his name is Wormtail and Sirius is a black dog, which is why we call him Padfoot. Every month when Remus transforms, we follow along with him; we know more about Hogwarts than anyone else that has probably ever gone here does. Its good fun, and we just had a particularly dangerous time – it was excellent.

This time around, we went to the Forbidden Forest to transform instead of the Shrieking Shack to make things a little more interesting, but Professor McGonagall was hanging around there! We couldn't believe it; she never had duty near the forest at that time of night, which was part of the reason we chose it. Remus and Sirius went hunting for a bit of fun (and also because they might have murdered McGonagall if they hung around), but I stayed with Peter, trying to make sure McGonagall left. Since Peter was the tiniest, he ran around McGonagall and frightened her to death. It was the best form of entertainment that could be given; she shrieked in the strangest way before running off. I could have died just laughing at her. Peter and I transformed into humans for a moment to high-five, and we laughed at McGonagall some more until Padfoot and Moony came back.

After a couple of hours, Moony insisted that we go back to school; apparently, it was too dangerous to be running around. Sirius told him that he was insane and we did this all time, yet nothing had happened, but Moony was insistent. To humor him, Peter, Sirius, and I decided to go in, but we had never actually promised that we'd go to bed. Peter pointed this out once we got into the deserted common room, making Sirius and I grin wickedly.

Sirius suggested that we look for secret passages, and since we could think of nothing else that would overrule this idea, we went straight to the fifth floor. I won't go into the details, but pretty much, we had to dodge the new caretaker Filch and his infernal cat, Mrs. Norris, constantly while trying out every nonsense word we could devise to find a passage. Peter reckoned that there was something odd about the statue of the one-eyed witch, and we should try messing around with it to see what it was all about; we did, but to no avail. Sirius was pretty pissed that nothing had come out of the expedition, and decided that we should sneak into the kitchens and eat. Peter agreed wholeheartedly, and since I could think of nothing better, I followed along.

Once in the kitchens, we asked the house elves to give us something to eat. All of them were pretty exhausted and were unwilling to help, but the moment Sirius hinted that he might force one of his socks on them, they were cheery and gave him a chocolate éclair. Amused by the quick service, Peter requested a milkshake. Within thirty seconds, he had been provided with what he had asked for, and informed us that it was the best he had ever had. Sirius said that the compliment was a huge credit to the house elves; Peter had consumed many, many milkshakes in his life, and for that to be the best was quite an honor.

I decided not to trouble the poor creatures, even though I had wanted to taste a milkshake of my own, but Sirius and Peter didn't operate that way; we left the kitchens with Sirius and Peter puffing and panting under the weight of the chocolate they had taken. We went upstairs and began to eat it – it was fantastic, and we were so hyper off the sugar that we didn't sleep all night. We slept during class instead, and I copied the notes from the girl who sat next to me in all my classes, Regina Masters, later on. Regina was a popular girl who nobody truly liked, but she seemed to not mind me, which worked to my advantage. She was an excellent note-taker too, which made my life easier. Sirius and Peter, in turn, copied my notes; we duplicated a copy of mine to give to Remus when he recovered from the full-moon-itis. Sirius, Peter, and I toasted ourselves a few minutes ago for a night and day of fine work – whether not it was ours, Sirius had added jokingly. We drank some butterbeer, savoring the joy of a job well done.

Over all, I'd say that it was a very satisfying night-time exploit – which included chocolate!