"Er, John?"

John looked up from a book on supposedly simple healing charms he was reading in the library. He couldn't understand half of the words and frankly, it was giving him a headache. The spellwork was well outside of his current capabilities, and he more than welcomed Remus's interruption. He closed the book and smiled at the boy as he sat next to him. It was the weekend after everyone visited him in the Hospital Wing. Remus cleared his throat, avoiding eye contact.

"I, er, I'm not sure if I was dreaming or if this actually happened when I was in the Hospital Wing this past week…" He trailed off, looking at John from the corner of his eye.

"It was real." John responded, gently patting his shoulder. "Did Sirius tell you we were going to try and find the kitchens tonight?" He changed the subject.

"Er, no, I haven't seen him today. Lily was the one who told me you were in here. What are you doing?" Remus moved his chair to lessen the gap between them and allow him to look at the book John had on the table.

"Ah, I was just trying to look at some easy healing spells." He sighed. "I don't know why I even bother, though. It's a load of nonsense to me."

"Do you want to be a healer?" Remus asked, skimming the text himself. It really didn't seem all that difficult, but then, John wasn't exactly the best at magic- especially when it came to some of the wizarding terms that didn't generally get explained to muggleborns.

"Yeah, I always have. My mum and dad are doctors, so I figure being a healer is just being a wizard doctor." John told him. "Plus, well…" His eyes drifted to Remus's scars. "I just thought maybe I could help."

"Oh, John…" Remus smiled at him. "Thank you, but you really don't have to. If the people at St. Mungo's can't do anything…" John sighed.

"Oh." Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"Are you doing alright in your classes?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He lied, a little embarrassed.

Their conversations usually weren't so awkward. Perhaps they'd just struck on the perfect combination of mildly uncomfortable subject matter. They went quiet, not wanting to drag it on any longer. John stood after a moment, giving up on the healing book. He put it away before wandering towards the fictional books, returning to Remus with the first interesting title on the shelf. The summary on the back of the book suggested it to be a coming of age story. John sat down at got reading, but he only half-paid any attention to it. Remus was doing homework.

John left Remus when he spotted his Ravenclaw friend Tate leaving the library. He hadn't particularly wanted to hang out with Tate in that moment, as the other boy had a tendency to ask a great many questions, but he'd been wanting to leave the library and didn't fancy running into Avery or Mulciber alone. The two of them wandered about the castle for a while before deciding it was time to have dinner and making their way towards the Great Hall.

In the Great Hall, James was trying to levitate Slytherin food from across the room. Peter sent nervous looks toward the High Table, and Sirius was snickering at Jame's failure. John sat across from him, amused. When asked where Remus was, he could only say he'd last seen him in the library. James and Sirius got up at the same moment, intending to go fetch him. While they were both surprised the other had stood up, there wasn't much protest to both of them going, so John was left with Peter.

John didn't spend much one-on-one time with Peter. It was sort of awkward. They had no idea what to talk about. He looked over at Lily, but she was busy laughing with her friends. It felt like a long time the other two boys were gone, but it was probably only a few minutes. Remus was forced to sit between James and Sirius and food was piled onto his plate. Despite Remus's visible embarrassment, the only thing he protested was the meat; it was too well done. John wondered if Remus had a preference for raw meat thanks to his werewolf status. He supposed it would be rude to ask. Perhaps Madam Pomfrey could provide an answer?

The group of five didn't stand from the Gryffindor table until Remus had finished eating. The boy was worryingly thin, and they had all begun to feel more than a little protective of him. It was probably going to get very annoying, very quickly. As they walked to the door, they brainstormed ideas on where the kitchens could possibly be. They weren't being particularly quiet about the matter though.

"I can show you to the kitchens." Allie said as she approached, and all of them turned to look at her. "All the Hufflepuffs know where they are." She added, smiling and putting her hands in her pockets.

"And you never bothered to tell me this?" John asked, offended.

"You never asked." Allie responded, also offended. Well, not really considering the laughter.

Allie led them down to the kitchens, explaining they had to tickle a pear in a painting of a fruit bowl. The boys let their mouths fall open at the sight of shrivelled little elves with huge eyes bustled about, preparing all sorts of food and tidying up. One of them approached the group and asked if they needed anything. John noted that its voice was very squeaky, and James easily asked for chocolate. The elf scurried away and returned with several bars of chocolate, as well as mugs of hot chocolate. They found themselves sitting at a small table, Allie leaving them to discover the joys of the kitchen as she went off to teach herself sign language, or something of that sort.

"What are they?" John asked, watching the wrinkled creatures bustle about as he ate his marshmallows separately from his drink. James watched him do so with distaste.

"They're called house-elves." Sirius provided. "They're a race of servants, basically."

"Is that humane?" John asked, frowning.

"Well yeah, they like being servants." James rolled his eyes, as if John should've known that.

"Oh…"

"Only rich wizards have house-elves." Peter mumbled, eying them with some form of envy.

"Yeah, but they get treated horribly." Sirius said. "At least, Kreacher does. Mind you, he's a nasty bit of work regardless. He deserves it."

"I'm sure the house-elves here are treated well." Remus said, sipping his hot chocolate. He'd already eaten his chocolate bar. "They looked well-kept, at least."

"We don't treat Mipsy like rubbish." James said.

"How strange." John said, commenting more on the concept of house-elves as a whole than the specific treatment of them.

The five of them enjoyed themselves in the kitchens before heading up to Gryffindor tower. James and Sirius lamented the fact that they'd just been shown to the kitchens, and decided to go out exploring that night anyways. When John asked them why they were exploring, they said they wanted to make a map of the school. They apparently had magical ideas for it, but they said they'd explain later as they disappeared under James's invisibility cloak. He'd gotten it from his father over the summer vacation. It was somewhat difficult to fit more than two people under it without their feet showing, but the three remaining boys didn't want to get caught out of bed after curfew, so they generally didn't mind.

John, not wanting to touch the homework he had to do as it made no sense to him, dug through his trunk to pull out his Etch A Sketch. He wasn't good at drawing or creating pleasing images on the toy, but it was much better than doing nothing (or homework). Remus and Peter spoke amongst each other, but John paid them no mind. He was busy trying to draw a cauldron. It wasn't turning out very well but he didn't care.

"Why don't you ask John for help? He's better than I am." Remus's voice made it through to John's ears and he looked up to watch Peter shuffle over.

"Er, could you help me with the Herbology homework?" Peter asked.

John blinked at him, startled by the request. Nobody had ever asked him for help in schoolwork before. He glanced at Remus, but the other boy had already returned to his own work and wasn't looking at the two of them. John agreed to help Peter, and when James and Sirius returned from their exploration, the two of them were still on the floor, talking about plants. They'd finished the Herbology homework long ago, but John got distracted talking about extra information he knew that related herbology to potion-brewing and healing. His eyes were bright and there was a smile on his face. He had a lightness in his chest and he didn't even realize until later that it was the happiest he'd been in a while.

Peter had seemed happier as well, when they'd finished. John had avoided asking for help in any of his classes, embarrassed by his poor understanding of just about every magical concept, but that little tutoring session was making him rethink his habits. He approached James, having accepted help with Transfiguration last year when he'd offered. In class, the spells came just the slightest bit easier, and Professor McGonagall smiled at him. John asked Lily for help with Charms, and Flitwick's excited clapping when he successfully cast the feather-light charm filled him with pride. It was the beginning of December before John realized something.

"Remus, you're good at Herbology." John said as they sat together in the library, revising each others essays for the subject.

"I'm no better at Herbology than I am at most other subjects." He deflected.

"No but- you always said yes to Peter asking for any help." John put his quill down. "You never turned him away until that weekend we found the kitchens." Remus avoided his eyes.

"Er, I just wanted to focus on my own work…" He tried.

"Why'd you tell him to ask me?" They made eye contact.

"... I thought it'd be good for you." Remus whispered. "You always get upset after quidditch games, and I thought maybe that's what was affecting your grades, and I know I always feel better about myself when I tutor someone so I just thought…" He looked away, realizing he was rambling and scratching the back of his neck.

"I get upset after quidditch games?"

They stared at each other, and John wondered if he'd honestly been that oblivious to his own mental state. It seemed so obvious now. His grades had dropped in the week leading up to them learning Remus was a werewolf. That had been directly after the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw game. He'd even avoided thinking about quidditch as a whole thanks to the nasty feelings in his gut every time he watched any of the Chasers score points. For some reason, there were only six quidditch matches a year, so he was generally dragged to each one despite only three of them being Gryffindor matches. It was slightly less worse to see people who weren't James score, so John was glad the next Gryffindor match wasn't until March.

"God, I'm stupid." John slapped his palm against his forehead. Remus laughed, and it made his heart flutter as he joined in his laughter.

"No stupider than everyone else can be sometimes."

"Well… thanks." John picked his quill back up. "It helped. I've got to stop getting stupid with quidditch."

"Now that you know, I'm sure everything will be fine." Remus reassured him.

Lily spotted them in the library and decided to sit with them, pulling out her own Herbology essay after they told her what they were doing. It had been a somewhat sudden moment, as the three of them hadn't spent a significant amount of time together before. The boys didn't mind, however, and Lily helped them both immensely with their Charms and Potions work after they finished Herbology. The time seemed to fly by as they joked and giggled as quietly as they could, getting shushed by Madam Pince several times as they worked.

It became an unofficial routine of theirs when she showed up and joined them their next study session the following Wednesday as well, and the Wednesday after that. Their study group was small but effective, and loads of fun. Despite it being a study group, the three of them were still children who giggled at the most ridiculous things. Once, on the subject of pranks, Remus suggested cutting all of James's hair off. Lily had laughed so hard her hiccups had required attention from Madam Pomfrey.

Spending time in the library with Lily and Remus was a nice change of pace from the antics Sirius and James liked to rope them into. John found himself very busy, and the study sessions were also the only thing making sure he stayed up-to-date on his classwork. He found himself friends with more people than he realized and when he wasn't with his fellow Gryffindors, he was off with Allie and her Hufflepuff friends, or Herbie and Tate. Without Remus and Lily, he probably wouldn't have passed most of his classes. It was all incredibly fun though, and he loved every moment of it.

As the winter holidays approached, John couldn't help but feel excited. All of his Gryffindor friends would be staying at Hogwarts over the break, even Lily! He wasn't sure about his friends in other houses, but he didn't think time could pass fast enough. This year, he was going to be ready for Christmas and his friends would all get presents from him.

Word Count: 2,314

This chapter is somehow extremely short and yet a lot of time passes. I know I'm speeding through things kind of fast, but there really isn't a huge mystery every single year the Marauders at Hogwarts so covering everything that happens would just be a bunch of pointless detail about their school life that I don't want to get into, and isn't relevant to my overarching plot. I'm not trying to have the same pacing as the original Harry Potter books, because each Part of this series with John Smith covers the span of at the very least 4 years.

I originally didn't have anything else planned for second year, but I've just thought up a plot involving Professor Vertstone that I believe will be very important to John's character growth, so there's a few chapters yet. Maybe three? Next chapter will obviously be the winter holidays, then some other stuff, then maybe the train ride back? It's not solidified but I have plans I swear

Now, I actually do have enough DADA professors for the rest of this Part of the series, which I believe is wonderful. I don't have many ideas for Allie's story though, so if you're interested in reading about her stuff, by all means, go ahead and check that out and leave me some suggestions

Anyways, I love all of you and it would mean so much to me if you could leave a review and give me some feedback. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you next time!