The time was 10:16 pm when young Remus Lupin awoke from the sound of his owl, Jasper, dropping a letter onto his desk. On the front "Hogwarts" was embroidered with a large red font and was tied together with a string. Remus jumped off his bed and ran over to his desk and gently opened the envelope. He then took the parchment out and jumped onto his bed in a criss cross position.

     Presented to R. J. Lupin

     We are pleased to inform you that there is a spot for you at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please buy the selected books from the list bellow.

     Sincerely, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore

     He sat there on his bed for a few moments, awestruck. For he never believed that he would be accepted into Hogwarts, considering the fact that he had an "illness" that could be fatal to other students. He was in denial, he couldn't bring himself up to the fact that he got accepted. He could never imagine why they would want a student like him. Why in the world would they even accept him for the monster he is? Did they actually see something in him besides his most major flaw? No, he wouldn't believe it.

     Remus ran down the creaky staircase leading to the living room of his home, and there he saw his mom laying down on the couch, lighting her cigar. He tried to pretend that he wasn't worried at all, but his mom seemed to notice.

     "What's the matter, dear?" She asked in a concerned demeanor, seeing the anxious look on his face.

     "I got accepted into Hogwarts.." he replied with a distraught expression.

     "Well that's wonderful hun, isn't it?" She said, slightly confused.

     She then saw his gloomy eyes drift off to the scar on his arm. "Oh, Remus," she said, now knowing why he had such a worried look on his face. She dropped her cigar into the cigarette bowl, bringing him into a heartfelt hug. It took her a few moments but she finally said something, "They see you for your intelligent mind you have dear, not for the mind you have in the moonlight."

"But what if I hurt somebody by accident!" His eyes pleading for an answer. She gently stood up on the old, creaky sofa and looked him in the eyes.

She continued to stare at him for a moments more than finally replied, "Remus, you have to listen to me, they must have found a way to make it work out, they wouldn't invited you if they haven't." She touched the scar on his arm and continued, every word she spoke was gentle and meaningful, "Our scars don't make us who we are, wether inside or out."

He didn't reply but just stood there in silence with an uneasy expression, trying to avoid further conversation. A voice rang in his mind, who would want somebody like you, Remus, at their school? You're a filthy monster for goodness sake and good for nothing. Bet you'd bite off the heads off half the population at hogwarts! The voice just made him feel worse, a lot worse, as if he was melting into a puddle of fear, guilt, and worry.

His mom finally broke the silence, "Listen, it's late and you're tired, you need some rest." He smiled uneasily trying to hide his emotions and walked up the stairs with his mother by his side.

     They said their good nights and Remus curled himself up into a ball on his bed. You're a monster, you're a monster, you're a monster Remus! Yes I'm a monster, that's certainly what I am. Nobody could change his mind, not even the smartest wizard in the world could. He shouldn't be allowed to go to Hogwarts, he couldn't even imagine why Dumbledore accepted him! There's probably another R. J. Lupin out there! There has to be! No kid was bitten at age five by a werewolf and had to deal with the pain of their father leaving them, so why did he have to? Why does he have to live a life that no other kid does? Why does he have to become a monster on every full moon? Why? Why him? Jasper flew to where the spot he was laying on his bed and gently nuzzled his cheek against the scar on Remus' face. He grimaced slightly but let Jasper do it anyways. For Remus was never fond of his scar, and whenever he just felt the slightest of pain from it it shook him. Even with Jasper's affection he still felt awful, I really am a monster.

     The next day Remus felt much better, but still his thoughts daunted him, but he mainly just tried to push them away. Surprisingly, even though his mom was a muggle she offered to book a few nights at the leaky cauldron so he could go shopping in Diagon Alley for his school supplies. He was extremely grateful that on none of those nights were moony, at least not yet.

     While he was out shopping he passed by Olivanders, he much needed a wand if he was to attend his first year at Hogwarts. Once he entered inside there was a fairly young man rummaging through his wand supplies and sorting them out. The variety of wands was unremarkable, and the vastness that seemed to stretch out forever was unexplainable.

The shop keeper stared at his coat which said "Remus Lupin," "Ah, of the Lupin family I suppose?"

Remus nodded his head absentmindedly, still staring at the shelves full of wands.

The shop keeper stared at him with a curious expression on his face, "By any chance is your dad Lyall Lupin?"

Again, Remus nodded to his question, still distracted by the assortment of wands.

"Yes, yes I knew him," he began. "Very well actually, me and him were in the same head at Hogwarts, although he was a Ravenclaw while I was a Hufflepuff." He seemed to notice that Remus looked quite uncomfortable talking about his father. And the truth is that he was, very greatly in fact. Quickly the shop keeper changed the subject then started showing Remus many different wands, although Remus was barley paying attention, he was lost in his own train of thought. Finally, his mind was back in reality and he was now paying attention to what the shop keeper was saying.

"Oh! And this one here.." he trailed off as he met Remus' eyes, "Do you not like this one? I could find u another one.." before Remus was even able to reply he was already looking through the different isles of wands.

     "No need! It's fine!" Remus said quickly, shaking his head and trying not to waste the shop keeper's time. "Don't bother I can do with that one," pointing to the one that the shop keeper had shown him before. Remus liked it, for it wasn't extraordinary but it wasn't that bad, it suit him.

   "Alright, that will be thirty galleons," he said while already packaging it up for Remus.

    Remus frowned while checking his pockets, "Do you have anything cheaper, maybe half that price?" For Remus wasn't rich, quite the opposite in fact. Ever since birth his family had been poor and their pockets were almost always empty. Although, he was quite used to it, and it was normal for him to have raged clothes and worn out, beat up shoes.
     "Of course, of course," the shop keeper replied then went into another room to look for a cheaper wand.

     Remus waited patiently until finally the shop keeper returned with a old, oddly shaped wand that seemed like maybe a wizard in the olden days might have used. Although Remus liked it quite a lot though, he didn't need anything special to preform spells.

    "Will this do?" He looked at Remus, waiting for a reply. "Only fifteen galleons!"

     Remus nodded his head and looked in his pockets for the fifteen galleons, which was almost all his money. The shop keeper then began wrapping the wand in a thin plastic and gently put it in a box and handed it over to Remus. Remus thanked the shop keeper greatly and it was merely seconds before he was heading out the door.

     The shop keeper called out to him just right before he was gone, "Just one more thing, which house do you think you'll be in?"

     This entirely stopped Remus in his steps, for he had never actually thought about it until now. He opened his mouth slightly then snapped it shut. At a young age Remus' father often told him stories about how their whole bloodline were Ravenclaws, so he doubted that he would be in any other house.

     Remus looked thoughtful, "Gryffindor would be nice...but my luck tells me that I'm destined to be a Ravenclaw, my whole family was on my dad's side,"

     "You never know, you never know. Welp I hope the best for you, you better being going now," he said in a kindhearted tone, waving Remus goodbye.

     Remus walked out, and as soon as he did he felt the warm sunshine making his skin glow and his soul at peace. He stood there for a few moments, enjoying the warm sensation, until a random boy bumped into him.

     The boy spat, "Move it you git." He looked around the same age as Remus was and had black, greasy hair that dangled over his eyes. Another person the same age as Remus, a girl with red hair, was flanked by his side looking greatly annoyed with the boy. Although Remus took no notice of the rude gesture of the boy and just continued on, enjoying his walkthrough the different kinds of shops.

     There was a vast amount of shops that Remus walked through, and he couldn't help but go to every single one just for the fun of it. He then walked into Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and glanced at the different types of robes. I don't need anything expensive, he said to himself, I just need something that I can wear to school. For he spent way to much money at the wands shop, at least for him, he couldn't risk wasting all the money he barley had. He found a robe that had the Hogwarts crest on it, it looked fairly old but he didn't mind at all. This will do, this will do. He then grabbed it and walked over to the counter, but before he could he was stopped by someone, and by the chances of it it was the same boy as earlier.

"You're buying that old filthy thing! What a waste of money," he glared at Remus in utter disgust, his face as if he smelled something foul.

Another boy, yet again around the same age as them both walked over and glared at the other boy with hatred. He was very handsome to Remus, he had long curly hair and bright emerald green eyes that seeped into Remus' soul. "As a matter of fact, no, he is isn't, keep away from him"

    The boy guided Remus to where some of the most expensive robes were, leaving Remus very confused. "Which one would you like?" He said while tilting his head ever so slightly.

     "Pardon?"

     He repeated what he said a second ago, "which one would you like? I'll buy any one you want."

     Remus felt extremely awful, why would someone waste their money on me? He couldn't just let somebody do that, I mean I know he's trying to be nice but I don't want him to be! And he shouldn't be in the first place, he should be spending his own money on his own wants and needs! Although Remus did feel terrible, he didn't want to turn down the offer and make the boy think he was ungrateful. I'll just try to pick out one that's not to expensive.

     Remus didn't know what to say, "Erm, this one's nice" he said while pointing at a robe that wasn't to expensive. And he was telling the truth, it didn't look bad at all. It looked way better then the robe he picked out earlier, while not being very expensive.

     The boy looked him in the eyes and smiled, "It would look great on you!" Remus felt his face flush with red but he payed no attention to it and quickly followed the boy to the counter.

     Remus was already grabbing some money out of his pocket when the boy looked at him and shook his head, "No need, I can pay for all of it."

     Remus looked crestfallen, "Surely at least let me pay for some of it! You shouldn't be spending your money on a complete stranger in the first place!"

     The boy again, shook his head, "I have enough money to pay for all of it, and anyways I already bought all my stuff for the upcoming school year."

     No matter how hard Remus attempted to persuade him into paying at least part of it, he always failed. Remus saw the other boy, the one that had been rude to him, in the back of the store scowling at them.

"What's the matter with him?" Remus asked, tilting his head in confusion.

"Everything," the boy replied, shaking his head furiously. They were soon at the counter, where they came face to face with a middle aged lady, who Remus presumed was the shop keeper. She seemed friendly, and overall had a pleasant demeanor that seemed like it could light up the darkest of places.

She smiled kindly at them, "forty galleons for that right there." Remus felt even more bad that he was letting the boy pay for him but it was to late, the boy had given her the money and she was already packaging it. They were soon walking out the door together, in sync with their steps.

"I can't thank you enough," he said while staring generously into the boy's eyes.

"No problem.." he replied, his eyes shifting to Remus' coat, "Remus Lupin?"

Remus nodded his head, "I never did ask, what's your name?"

Finally after what seemed like hours he finally replied, "Sirius..Black." Remus heard some nasty things about the Black family, like how they were blinded by their obsession with being pure blooded. But Remus didn't care if he was of the Black family. for Sirius was different, very different.

     Remus had a genuine expression on his face, "Sirius is a nice name, actually no, it's amazing!"

     Sirius seemed confused and ran his hand through his long, curly black hair, "you don't mind that I'm a Black?"

     Remus smiled, "Not at all, just because you have the same surname as someone else doesn't mean you act like them, and you've proven to me that it's true."

     Sirius kicked a stone while walking, "They're disgusting, they can't seem to get over the whole pure blood thing."

    Remus nodded emphatically but decided not to reply, soaking up the peace of the silence.

    Sirius finally spoke, "Are you here with anybody else?"

Remus shook his head, "Nope just me, my mom's sick and my dad's.."

Sirius quickly realized that Remus was uncomfortable and interrupted him so he didn't have to continue, "if you want you can tag along with me and—er—my friend over there." He was pointing to a kid who was trying to flirt with a girl, but failed rather horribly. "Yup that's James."

     Remus was quite surprised that Sirius asked him to hang out with them, he was very confused on why in the first place somebody would.

Remus nodded his head, "I would love to, and anyways I don't have anywhere more important to be."

They walked over to meet James, who was rather quite annoyed, "Sirius what took you so long?" His head then turned and he suddenly saw Remus and his face softened, "Oh well hello there."

Sirius rolled his eyes at James then began speaking, "He said that he wasn't with anybody so I offered for him to join us."

Remus saw James talk in a hushed tone to Sirius, so Remus could only pick up a few words of what he said, "Isn't that the boy that you said was.."

Although Sirius ignored him and turned to Remus, "Where would you like to go?"

    Remus shrugged, "Anywhere you guys want to go is fine with me."

    "James?"

    "Oh erm well I have to go to the restroom," James said while winking at Sirius.

     It was rather quiet for a few moments until Sirius broke the silence, "Sorry."

    Remus was slightly confused, "About what?"

    Sirius laughed, "James, he can be such an asshole sometimes, but you'll learn that sooner or later."

    Remus chuckled with him, "It's okay I honestly don't really mind anyways." He stopped talking for a few moments but then continued, "if you don't mind me asking, why did you invite me to hang out with you guys? Surely I'm not that special."

    Sirius looked at him genuinely in the eyes, "Remus, you are special, you're different then most people I know, you're nice, which I admire about you a lot."

    Remus was lost for words and couldn't think about anything to say so he just stayed silent. Remus stared at Sirius for a few seconds, his long curly hair was hanging over his shoulders and his bright emerald green eyes were shining. Still the question Remus asked before was hanging around in his mind, why would someone want to be friends with someone like him? Well Remus did have to give to the fact that Sirius didn't know he was a werewolf, thank god, but if he did know what would he do? Would he still end up being friends with Remus? And besides being a werewolf Remus was didn't even look that appealing, he often wore old, dirty clothes because his family was to poor to afford anything at least decent.

"Would you like to look at a few places while we wait for James?" Sirius asked while running a hand through his hair.

Remus nodded happily, "I don't see why not."

Soon they walked into a diner that was decorated with all different kind of muggle things, including broken TVs, damaged radios, and DVDs decorating the walls. There were also old vinyls with people that Remus had never seen in his life and vintage magazines with ads for motorcycles. Sirius seemed to be staring a electric guitar at the corner of the diner.

     He tilted his head to examine it, "What's this?"

    Remus laughed and started to explain, "It's called a guitar, a guitar is a kind of instrument muggles use to make music, mostly rock."

     "What's rock?" At this point Sirius seemed even more confused.

     "Rock is a type of music muggles play, for example that vinyl over there is a rock one, well most of them are in here anyways." Remus said while pointing at an assortment of vinyls.

    Sirius couldn't stop asking questions, "What's a vinyl?"

    Remus took a deep breath in to stop himself from laughing, "A vinyl is something that can play music out of it if you put it on a record player." He stopped for a second just to make sure Sirius was listening, "and before you ask, a record player looks like that over there."

     Sirius laughed, "My family wouldn't approve, which just makes me like it even more."

    Soon a waitress greeted them and asked for their orders, "What would you like boys?"

     Sirius tilted his head, as if thinking for a second, "A butterbeer would be nice."

    "What's butterbeer?" Remus asked curiously.

    Sirius laughed, "I guess we both have things to teach each other. Butterbeer is good, you should try it."

    Remus nodded, "Alright then, I'll have a butterbeer as well."

    Sirius then seemed to realize that James wasn't with them, "and can you add an extra one? We're waiting for somebody."

     Remus looked at Sirius, "you'd think he'd be here by now, wouldn't you?"

     Sirius shook his head, "if anything he's probably found a girl to flirt with. The usual."

    Remus nodded and noticed that Sirius had already drank half of his bottle before he even got the chance to open his. He slowly put the butterbeer to his mouth and felt a great sensation of a crisp, sweet feeling touching his tongue. He was shocked about how much it amazed him, for he never even knew it existed until that very day. Little did young Remus know that in years from now whenever he would drink butterbeer he would often think of Sirius.

"Delicious, right?" Sirius said while leaning against his chair.

"Extraordinary"

At that very moment James walked casually into the diner, as if he wasn't gone for thirty minutes leaving Remus and Sirius alone. He walked over to them and took a seat, "Sorry I was—erm—"

Sirius cut him off before he could even finish his sentence, "Talking to a girl?"

James rolled his eyes, "for fucks sake, It's not like every moment of my life I'm trying to flirt with a girl!"

"Seems like it"

Remus looked around, again he saw that one boy with that red haired girl sitting right next to each other a couple seats down from them.

"Hey do you know who they are?"

"The one that looks like someone poured grease on head is- snivellus- and the redhead Ms Perfect over there is Evans, Lily Evans." James replied with a sickening expression.

Remus saw nothing wrong with the girl known as Lily, she actually seemed okay, at least to Remus, not James. James' loathing seemed to good to be true, as if his disgust for her was merely just to cover something up. Remus saw James staring at her with a pure look of hatred on his face, what could possibly be so bad about her? But Remus decided to keep quiet and not say anything.

    James loosened his face and turned towards Remus, "Hey you're going to Hogwarts right? Me and James are going."

     Remus nodded his head, in a moony kind of way, as if he was lost in thought. He then heard James and Sirius fight about if there really was gonna be a giant squid inside the lake at Hogwarts, but Remus took no notice of it and continued to stare off into space. His eyes then drifted to the window, where a sunset was gorgeously painted against the blue sky that was there a second ago. Remus was barley thinking, he just couldn't take his eyes off the beatiful view.

    He then turned back to reality when he heard Sirius say, "Oh yeah, I heard there's going to be a blue moon tonight."

    Remus swallowed. His face went cold and he could barley feel his arms and legs, for they went numb with tension. He sat there motionless for a few moments, to stunned to speak or even get up. How could he forget? He was supposed to keep track of one day out of a month, one day, but he failed. How could he? It's not like he could just walk off on them, oh well I'm a werewolf, have a nice day! But he had to leave, for he couldn't stay, it was already getting darker with every thought passing through his mind.

    Remus abruptly got up, "Erm—I just remembered I have to give my mom her medication!"

    Sirius tilted his head, as if slightly confused at first then responded, "Oh well then—we'll see you tomorrow— you know on the Hogwarts Express."

    Remus nodded and ran out the diner as fast as he could, not looking back even for a mere second. He had to get home. I have to get home. He had to get his mom and go back home, he couldn't stay at The Leaky Cauldron, he just couldn't. All his thoughts were streaming through his head in an endless flow of emotions. A bitter voice said in his head, I wonder what Sirius and James think of you now. He just couldn't think about what they thought of him, especially what Sirius probably thought, for Sirius was his first real friend, and he didn't want that friendship to end so quickly. And it all would have ended because of him, because of Remus, because Remus couldn't remember a stupid moon cycle. He was most likely overthinking the whole situation, but he couldn't stop himself. He could feel the blood rushing through his ears and his head felt like someone was pounding on him with a hammer.