Chapter 1
"Come on Wormtail, if you walk any slower you'll have to walk the rest of the way there mate!"
"I'm coming, bloody hell, I have shorter legs than you lot."
"And a shorter dick, too..."
"Sirius, will you ever grow up?"
"Of course he won't!"
The Marauders were easily spotted from a mile off. If you didn't see them, you could certainly hear them. And despite the flurry of parents and 1st year students struggling to carry overpacked luggage and overwhelmed pets onto the Hogwarts Express, the world would end before they adjusted their natural way of conversation for anyone.
James Potter sauntered onto the train with calm confidence, his scarf wrapped neatly around his neck and his glasses catching the light of the carriage lamps. Next to him was Sirius Black, the current heartbreaker of Hogwarts with a passion for trouble-making and womanising. Every girl practically broke their necks to look at him in all his Sirius-like glory, with his long dark hair and captivatingly piercing eyes. Even 7th year girls, who were either 18 or about to be, couldn't help but stare. It was classic Sirius. Trailing closely behind them was the less admired, glassy eyed Peter Pettigrew. Nobody knew why the Marauders let him hang around, but the group wouldn't quite be complete without him. He was noticeably stubbier than the others, with mousy brown hair and an overly-round face that seemed slightly too big in proportion to his nose and mouth. But, with the Marauders he belonged, and with the Marauders he stayed.
And last onto the Hogwarts Express was the peculiar Remus Lupin. He was an anomaly in his own right - a little taller, less put together and certainly calmer than the other boys he stood by. That being said, the girls still swooned over him. His face showcased a mysteriously placed scar that gave him a more 'rebellious' demeanour, yet his golden eyes and messy brown hair contrasted the etchings that covered his body. He walked with a little more purpose every year, and now that he was 16 years of age, he was beginning to understand who he really was. And it showed.
"Are there any free compartments down your way, Pads?" Remus called out, craning his neck slightly.
"None mate, fucking 3rd years took the last one." Sirius replied. "Wormtail, any chance you could scuttle down to the end carriage and have a look?"
Of course, Peter ran the second he heard his name.
"Tell you what, you'd think as 5th years and Gryffindor's finest Quidditch players, there would be a compartment with our names on it." James said, looking around with an expression that could only be described as 'pissed off'.
"Yeah well, maybe in 7th year we'll have better luck..." Remus' voice trailed off, "Found one, there's only one girl in here. Sure she won't mind sharing."
Sirius grinned, and barged his way through the line of 1st years towards the door his friend was currently sliding open. Sure enough, as promised, a girl was sat in there.
It was Y/N. The quiet, clever, but slightly fierce girl in their own year at Hogwarts. She was sat reading, with her legs crossed on the seat and her hair pulled up into a loose ponytail. Her wand sat closely next to her, and whilst one hand traced the pages of the book she was devouring, another fiddled with the etchings on her wand.
"Hey Miss Genius, we're going to camp up in here if that's all good with you?" Sirius teased, sitting closely next to her and looking over at the book she was reading. "Potions already, L/N? You know OWLs aren't until the end of the year?"
Y/N looked up slowly, and smiled almost too sweetly.
"Thank you for reminding me Black. Please don't take any offence when I say this, but I think even the Edurus potion is more interesting than listening to what you have to say." She looked up at the other boys in the doorway. "I suppose I don't have a choice over whether or not you sit here?"
James grinned and put his suitcase up on the overhead rack.
"'Fraid not. You'll have to excuse Peter when he gets here though, he's just ran down the carriage and he probably won't be smelling his best."
"What was that James?" Peter appeared from thin air, and clambered over to sit next to Sirius.
"You don't want to know, Peter." Remus said, taking a seat opposite Y/N and nodding at her book. "Edurus potions? I thought our first lesson was on Felix Felicis?"
"It is, but I've already read up on that so I thought-"
"Shit, there's Lily. Hold on lads, I'll be back in a sec." Everybody watched as James shot off faster than a Snitch to follow the red-headed girl. The boys chuckled, and threw around some comments about his 'desperation' and 'wet dreams'.
Y/N sighed and turned her attention back to her book, finding the conversation just as boring as she'd expected. As the train began to move off and minutes started to tick by, the grey views of London soon turned into fresher, greener countryside. And whilst the Marauders carried on with whatever topic they were focused on, Y/N blocked out their voices and began twiddling her hair around her finger absent-mindedly. However, as she read through pages of protection spells and disgustingly cliche love potions, she couldn't help but feel a certain pair of eyes fixated on her.
"Earth to L/N? God, you'd think she was deaf." Sirius was waving his hand by her head slowly. "Oi, is anybody in there?"
"I'm not deaf, I just don't care." Y/N snapped, pulling her hand away from her hair. "What is it?"
"So you do care." Peter snorted. She ignored him (most people did).
"Anything interesting to tell us about your summer? Any new boys or one night stands you want to share with the class?" Sirius smirked, looking over at James who had just returned from his love-sick quest and winking. Remus sat attentively, watching the new topic unfold and keeping his eyes focused on Y/N, as if trying to gauge a reaction.
"Oh Black, wouldn't you just love to know!" she mocked, shuffling her legs so they sat neatly in front of her.
"Well, well. Wouldn't have taken you as a player. Thought you'd be locked in your room reading bullshit books on 7th year DADA." James snickered.
"Yes well, unfortunately I do have a social life as well, Potter." Y/N cast a quick glance at Remus, who quickly diverted his gaze to the floor.
She found him odd. He didn't quite fit in. After 5 years of observing and never getting involved with the 4 boys around her, she'd become acute to his mannerisms. He was often playing the more silent role - when James or Sirius spoke, he'd stay quiet. When James or Sirius decided to pull a prank, or torment Serverus Snape, he'd stay silent. It was baffling, truly, how someone seemingly as smart as him could stand to be around them. But he did, and Y/N disliked him for that. He wasn't as unbearable as the others, but his quiet nature made him seem more cunning and wicked than his friends. You could never tell what he was thinking, but you knew he constantly was.
"Want to elaborate, then? Are we in the presence of a girl who spent her summer giving out handjobs and kissing men in the street?" Peter squeaked.
It didn't just surprise Y/N, it surprised them all. The compartment fell silent for a moment. Remus shuffled in his seat, his knee touching her's lightly. Sirius coughed, hiding a laugh, and James raised his eyebrows inquizitively. Perhaps it was the shock of such a vulgar comment coming from the boy's mouth, or maybe it was the anticipation of finding out whether she really had been doing any of those things in the weeks they were away.
"God, Pettigrew, those are some big words for you. I honestly forgot you could speak." Y/N sneered, getting more agitated by the second. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going back to my book. Perhaps, Lupin, you could also use that mouth of yours to divert this whole chat." She huffed and turned her back away from them, once again attempting to block them out.
James let out a long whistle, and Sirius leant over and hit Peter on the head faintly.
"Bit too far, eh Wormtail?"
Remus sat with a small smile on his lips, finding her reaction amusing. He knew she had a temper, most people did. But he'd never sat so closely to her before. Her body language and voice fascinated him, and her obsession with anything academic was somewhat inspiring. Of course, they all knew she was lying when she said she had a social life, but he didn't care. He took her closed off posture as an opportunity to study her face. It always confused Remus how she wasn't more popular. She had a pretty face. She wasn't drop-dead stunning, like other girls he knew, but she was classically pretty, like an old movie. She must really not care for friendships if someone as good looking as herself was known as a social reject.
His more 'wolfy' instincts told him she smoked (something she shouldn't be doing, but he did too), but the smell was faint compared to the smell of fresh shampoo and daisy-smelling perfume she wore. It was a strange mix. A mix he was surprised he'd even noticed.
"'Oh Remus, why don't you use that mouth of yours to tell your mates to shut the fuck up?!'" Sirius mocked, putting on a high-pitched voice. Remus snapped out of his observations and chuckled.
"Well, how would you feel if someone asked you how many girls you've fucked his summer?" he replied.
"C'mon Moony, we all know he'd love nothing more than to boast about that." James said, scoffing.
"Hm, good point. Should we bring up the mummy issues?"
"Don't have any Moony, I love my mother more than life itself. Such a gentle, caring woman..." Sirius' sarcasm coated every word.
"A true lady!" James piped up.
"A real looker, too." Remus joked, stealing another quick glance at the girl opposite him, who was once again too observed in her book to hear or even notice the boys.
"Oh, don't you know it."
The Hogwarts Express continued its long journey to Scotland, and Y/N was left in peace for the remainder of the ride. At one point, she felt herself drifting off to sleep, her head nodding to the movements of the train. Of course, Peter's squeaky commentry slapped her out of that, and she forced herself awake with another book on magical creatures. The trolley lady made her rounds around the cabins, giving the boys the opportunity to eat as much as they could and leave their empty wrappers on the floor. James even offered Y/N half of a slightly melted chocolate frog, to which she politely declined, but other than that she managed to avoid any more verbal contact with the boys until they arrived at Hogsmead.
As the train pulled up, Y/N quickly rose and grabbed her trunk from above her. Before any of them could say anything to her, she brushed past Remus' legs and hurried out, without a word. All she wanted to do was get into her dorm and sleep, without any human interaction if possible. Her year hadn't quite started off the way she'd planned, having to share her usually pleasant journey to Hogwarts with 4 village idiots, but with a good night's rest she could salvage that.
Once she'd made her swift exit, the boys saw their chance to throw her name around.
"You know, I actually like her." Sirius announced, grabbing his cloak and pulling his bag out of its storage, "I mean, she might be a bit snappy and fucking oblivious to the world, but she's sharp."
"She's just Y/N. I don't think she'll ever change. The only thing we know about her is she'll pass every exam with an O." said James, wrapping his red and gold scarf around his neck and scanning the queue outside for any sight of red hair.
"You've got to wonder why she ended up in Gryffindor and not Ravenclaw..." Peter pondered, pushing his way out of the door so as not to lose sight of his 2 friends. Remus followed him, stretching his arms up with a slight groan.
"I think it's quite obvious, she has the temper of a lion. Even Azkaban's Dementors would be scared of her." he said, as he entered a crowd of students in the corridor.
As the 4 boys made their exit, the conversation moved from Y/N to their plans for the year - pranks and Quidditch and of course, tormenting Severus Snape. For the time being, any thoughts of the peculiar girl were put aside and the interaction was soon forgotten about.
Apart from Remus, who, when the rest of his friends were all (finally) asleep by 3 a.m, found himself thinking about her, and wondering why she seemed to dislike him as much as she did. His tossing and turning burnt the fresher scars on his torso, and his body ached with the remnants of the last full moon. He contemplated over her smell, how his wolf-instincts picked up on something so subtle...but he blamed it on the moon, as he usually did. It had been a week since his last transformation, which gave him 3 weeks before the next. It was no wonder his senses were so heightened. Yet no matter how hard he tried, every time he closed his eyes he thought back to the train, and wondered why such a small interaction was engraved so deeply in his brain.
"Weird girl." he muttered, turning over for the last time before forcing his eyes shut and eventually, after hours of trying, falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Meanwhile, Y/N slept soundly in the dormitory opposite. Her brain ticked like clockwork with images of her summer, her parents, and strangely, her train journey. Flashes of Peter's unsightly face clouded her dreams, alongside Sirius' aggravating laugh and James' overpowering aftershave. Her bewilderment at Peter's comment, and Remus' soft voice. Nothing else, just his voice. It burned through her mind. But she didn't once wake up, and as the night drew on, the dreams stopped and left her in peace, where she found the most solace in her life.
But as the sun rose on the first day of school, Y/N was met with the feeling that her solace would soon be disturbed by events that awaited her 5th year at Hogwarts.