It was Saturday and very early in the morning, so Lily Evans was not expecting anyone else to be out and about. It had become somewhat of a ritual for her. Ever since the ridiculous lakeside run-in between James and Severus last year, she had been torn between two worlds. Being out on her own gave her a chance to do some thinking.

On one side, there was Severus Snape, who had been Lily’s friend for over six years. He cared about her a great deal, and he would have given anything for her to feel a fraction of that in return. But he had done something for which she could never, in good conscience, forgive him: he had called her a Mudblood. For the first time since she started attending Hogwarts, he had made her ashamed to be Muggle-born.

And then there was James Potter. He was arrogant, and he spent all of his time with that pretentious git, Sirius Black. The other two in their little gang were okay, but James and Sirius were just the absolute limit. For Merlin’s sake, James had only asked her out to annoy Severus! How much more ridiculous he could be was beyond her.

Amongst Lily’s internal musings, a sound caught her ears. It sounded almost like…panting. Did someone let a dog into the castle? Cautious as to the possible nature of the sound, she warily peered around the corner in the direction of the noise. Never in all her life could she have prepared herself for what she saw.

There was a sweaty James and Sirius, supporting an unconscious Remus Lupin between them. To say that Remus looked like he had been through the ringer was an understatement. He had deep gashes on his limbs, which looked hideously like bites from a large wild animal, countless bruises, and his clothing was in shreds. Sirius was mumbling reassurances to Remus as they guided his limp form in the direction of the hospital wing—and they were coming right at her.

Just as Lily was drawing her wand to cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself, she found herself unintentionally face to face with James. For once, he didn’t wear that obnoxious look of superiority or try to taunt her about being friends with Severus. He just looked…tired.

“Wh-what happened to Remus?” Lily dared to ask.

James and Sirius exchanged a look, and for a moment, Lily was sure that they weren’t going to answer her. She almost jumped when James spoke in a worn voice that she would never have guessed to be his. “Go see Dumbledore.”

Without another word, they continued their long trek, leaving Lily with more questions than answers.

“I’m afraid that we’re in a difficult predicament, Miss Evans. Mister Black and Mister Potter were not even supposed to know about young Lupin’s condition, but as they have been silent so far, he’s been able to stay.”

Lily tried very hard not to glare at Dumbledore for his vague answer. “But what’s wrong with Remus, sir?”

Dumbledore raised a brow. “You mean you don’t know?”

“No, I don’t, Professor. He just looked like a large dog attacked him. Is there some sort of disease that does that?” She was frustrated by the Headmaster’s refusal to give her a straight answer.

“Can you think of nothing?” Dumbledore turned his back to peer out a window. “It was a lovely full moon outside. Did you see it?”

Now Lily was completely boggled. “Well, yeah, I guess. Never really thought about it.” And that was when Lily really did think about it. To herself she muttered, “Dog bites, full moon…”

A realisation hit her like a speeding train. “Remus got attacked by a werewolf? There really are werewolves in the Forbidden Forest?” But that still did not explain what Dumbledore had meant by ‘condition’.

In her concentration, Lily hadn’t noticed that Dumbledore was now standing right in front of her now. He was staring at her intently, as if hanging on her next word, expecting her to figure out one more detail.

“Remus wasn’t attacked by a werewolf, was he?”

“For all intents and purposes, no.”

Lily was confused. “But, surely, you don’t mean…oh, Merlin!” A werewolf had not attacked Remus; he was the werewolf. How could he live such a normal existence with such a horrendous affliction? How long had it been going on? And how the hell did she not know about it?

“I’m sure you have questions, Miss Evans, but I’m afraid that I can’t give you answers. That is up to Remus to share if he wishes.” Dumbledore resumed his post of gazing out the window at nothing in particular.

“C-can I see him? He must be so…so scared.” Lily could not even imagine what Remus would be feeling at a time like this, completely drained by his transformation the night before.

Dumbledore nodded. “Of course. Just let Madam Pomfrey know that I sent you.”

But Lily barely heard him as she sprinted down the spiral stairs out of the Headmaster’s office and toward the hospital wing. The first stirrings of life were emanating from Ravenclaw Tower, which she passed on her way there, but she merely pushed her way past the sleepy breakfast goers.

At last, the doors to the hospital wing came into view, and Lily slowed her running. She was gasping for breath, and her heart was pounding; she could not even conceive how Remus could survive one single night of it, let alone do it once a month.

She pushed the door open, and she was promptly met by Madam Pomfrey, pushing her out the door.

“Miss Evans, I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later. This is not a good time.”

Lily, still struggling for air, said, “I already know, Madam Pomfrey. Dumbledore sent me.”

Madam Pomfrey’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know about Remus. I just wanted to check on him.” Lily watched as the look in the matron’s eyes went from suspicion to shock. There was no denying her entry now. As the older woman moved to the side, Lily swept past and rushed toward Remus’s bedside.

He looked so small to Lily, like a child, but for his face. It was so old and worn by what he had just endured, what he had been enduring. It made her heart ache.

James and Sirius were there, too. Each of them slept in a chair on either side of Remus, and, somehow, Peter Pettigrew had ended up there, as well, sleeping in the adjacent bed. If the situation wasn’t so dire, it would almost been comical. But there was nothing funny about it, about Remus being consumed by a monster within.

Peering around to make sure that she was alone, Lily knelt at the foot of the bed, closed her eyes tightly, and turned her face toward the ceiling.

“Um, hello, God. It’s Lily. Lily Evans.” Her speech was awkward, but she decided to press on nonetheless. “I know that I said you didn’t exist, and that there was no way that you could, but if you are up there somewhere…”

Lily opened her eyes and looked sadly at Remus. “Please help him find some peace. He’s a good person, and he doesn’t deserve this.” She rested her forehead on the wooden bedstead. “He doesn’t deserve this.” Warm tears dripped from her cheeks and onto the stone floor. It was the least she could do.

It was then that she heard it — a low, pitiful moan. Lily peeked around Madam Pomfrey to find Remus looking right at her.

“So, you know, then?”

There was a matter-of-fact tone in his voice, which told Lily that he had had this conversation before. But this time, she was not going to be like everyone else. She had heard from other students how werewolves were received by society, how they were treated as if they were less than human beings because they had a disease. Idealist that she was, Lily had assumed that such behaviour had gone out with the Dark Ages, but, in fine fashion, the wizard world was far behind in the times.

“Yeah, Remus. I know.”

Remus closed his eyes and turned his face away from her. “Well, let’s have it, then. What have you got to say to me?”

The cold derision that came from him was palpable. He was expecting her to scorn him and to insult him. Did he not know her better than that? She was not some hideous person, some prejudiced monster. The idea that he thought that of her made her angry. “Is that what you really think of me, Remus?”

That was not what Remus had been expecting her to say. He turned his head back toward hers, only to find anger sparking in her eyes. How dare he imply that she was that shallow! “I’ll tell you one thing right now, Remus Lupin. I have not, nor will I ever, belittle someone for something that they can’t help. I came here to see if you were all right, but instead, you insult my character.”

By that point, Lily found that she had risen to her feet, and her voice was probably louder than was wise, but she did not care. “I am not a bigot, and whatever anyone else has called you in the past, you can’t let it affect you and how you see other people.”

Remus was gobsmacked. “I, er…what?”

Lily crossed her arms and gave him an incredulous look. “You heard me, Remus.” A cool silence passed between them before Lily spoke again. “So, how did this lot find out?”

“Well, it’s hard to keep secrets from the people you share a room with. It took about a year and a half before they figured out why I disappeared once a month. I told them that it was because of a medical condition I had, which forced me to go to St. Mungo’s once a month for treatment. That’ll work on an eleven-year-old for a while, but it didn’t take long before they made the connection between the lunar cycles and my mysterious ‘treatments’.”

Lily sat on the bed next to Remus, all traces of anger gone. “Oh, Remus. That must have been so hard for you, lying to your friends, thinking that, if they found out, they’d hate you.”

Remus shook his head. “It’s not the hating part that I can’t stand. I can deal with it if people hate me. It's just when people are afraid of me...” Again, Remus looked away, but Lily was sure that she spied a deep well of hurt, unleashed from far within him. “Even when I was a child, everyone that lived around my neighbourhood knew about my… affliction. Every time I came near them, they would shrink away like I was some sort of troll, like I was going to turn into a deadly freak at any time and tear them to ribbons.”

The bitterness hummed in the air. “Oh, my God! Tell me that isn’t true, Remus.” His eyes held her answer, and something inside her was aflame with outrage for the little boy who was treated like a leper. “How can people be so cruel?”

“I suppose we’re all afraid of what we don’t know. I’m scared to death of this thing, because each time I turn into this…this thing, I have no idea what I’m doing or who I’m going to hurt. If it wasn’t for these three,” Remus gestured toward James, Sirius, and Peter, “I probably would have killed myself by now—or worse—someone else.”

Lily looked at James, his sleeping form the closest to her, with a new-found respect. She had thought that he was incapable of caring about anyone but himself and his precious best mate, but the evidence could not be denied. He was not what she thought he was, and that changed everything.

“He likes you, you know.”

Her brain was snapped out of its musings by Remus’s quiet words. “What?” Lily had heard what he said, but she could not quite wrap her mind around it.

Remus rolled his eyes, seeming like his normal self for the first time since she had arrived. “I mean he fancies you, Lily.”

“But I thought that was only because he wanted to annoy Severus.”

“Maybe at first, but…” Taking a deep breath, Remus sighed. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but this idiot never will.”

Now Lily really wanted to know. “Tell me what?”

Remus rubbed his face with his hands in exasperation, wincing when he touched the gash on his cheek accidentally. That did not, however, keep him from continuing. “To be honest, when we were all first-years, James thought you were a bit… annoying.”

That comment rankled. “Well, if he thought that I was so damned annoying, then why did he persist in sticking his nose in my business so much?”

“He did it because he wanted to know what kind of girl could ever like Snivellus.” At Lily’s glare, Remus amended, “Severus. What kind of girl could ever like Severus.”

Lily shrugged. “I’ve known him since we were little. He’s the one who told me I was a witch and that I could do so many things with my magic. He…” She bit her bottom lip before she added, “He had a tough home life. His parents were poor, and they fought a lot because of it. The only place he could get away from it was the park nearby where Tuney and me played every day.

“And, when we came here, we were put into different Houses, which probably delayed the inevitable. The two of us are just so different, but he didn’t see it. He didn’t want to see it. And then, that thing between him and James last year…” Her voice trailed off as her conflicting emotions fought for control of her insides.

Remus’s hand covered Lily’s, and he gave her a weak smile. “For what it’s worth, I’m ashamed of myself because I did nothing to stop what happened by the lake. I could have at least tried—“

“No,” Lily said, stopping Remus’s self-recrimination in its tracks. “That was no one’s fault but theirs. Both of them are stubborn, arrogant, and impossible to change, so I’m not going to bother trying.”

“James isn’t who you think he is, you know.”

Lily’s eyes strayed once more to the unconscious James and truly looked at his face for the first time. She had really only dealt with him during his confrontations with Severus and occasionally in the Slug Club. At those times, he was what she would call his ‘usual’ self: superfluous and mischievous. But now, without those unsavoury qualities to mar his surprisingly attractive features, his glasses askew, and just a hint of drool at the corner of his lips, Lily had a hard time connecting him to the person that she knew him to be when he was awake. He just looked so peaceful and sedate. She wanted him to stay like that; it suited him.

“I don’t know. He’s just like a giant child sometimes, and I don’t know if I can deal with that.” There. Lily had finally voiced her largest concern about James. He was so close to adulthood, yet so far away from growing up. But after knowing the part he played in taking care of Remus when very few others would, she was hard-pressed not to change what she thought she knew of James Potter.

A yawn from Remus told Lily that she had probably stayed longer than she should have, but she still had so many questions for him — about his condition, how he dealt with it, about James. But those would have to wait for another day. “I’ll go now, Remus. You should be resting, not listening to me mooning—” The corners of her mouth twitched. “Probably a poor choice of words.”

Remus chuckled, but it turned into a wince as his wounds revolted. “I hope I see you again. My next transformation is during the Christmas holidays, but maybe after that?”

To Lily, he looked so hopeful that she would accept, and she knew she had to do this. No matter how early she had to get up or if she would have to miss breakfast, she would make the time and effort. During his lycanthropic state, he had three unlikely heroes in James, Sirius, and Peter, but afterward, when they needed rest, it was up to her to fill in the gap.

Lily leaned over and kissed Remus on the forehead. “Of course I will. I would love to.” She raised herself from her perch on his bed and smoothed the sheets. “Now, you get some sleep. If you don’t, I shall know.”

But Remus was already asleep, or at least, his eyes were closed. His face, much too careworn for a boy of sixteen, did seem to have lost a fraction of its pitiful state. It was all the confirmation that she needed that she was doing the right thing. After smoothing the stray fringe from his face, Lily turned to leave, but as she walked away, she heard a voice.

“Lily?”

When she turned to see who had called her, she was surprised to see James’s eyes, barely open, but looking right at her. “What is it?”

James yawned and stretched his arms in an effort to regain his full faculties. “I thought I heard your voice. At first, I thought I was dreaming.”

Something about James’s casual mention of dreaming about her captivated Lily. She had a pretty good feeling that he would have rather died than admit it whilst fully awake. That did not, however, mean that she was not going to take advantage of it. “Dream about me often, Potter?”

“No,” James said hastily.

Lily knew that it was, of course, code for ‘Yes, yes, oh, Merlin’s most shaggy beard, yes!’ “Whatever you say, James.” With a soft chuckle, she left the hospital wing and a sputtering James behind her.

Several things had happened that morning: she learnt of Remus’s disease, she grew closer to him, and she knew for sure now who, between Severus and James, was the better man.

Things were going to change now, and, for Lily, change was a welcome companion to accompany her on her Saturday morning stroll.