I woke up alone.

The
dormitories were completely empty. The only living soul inside it was
me. I glanced at my watch. It read 9:37.

Crap. I was an hour late for
school.

For
a second, I actually wondered why Lily and Molly hadn't woken me up.
Then I remembered they weren't friends anymore. They were just people
I knew. An old friend of mine.

I crawled out of bed and got
dressed. Pulling my hair in a ponytail with a toothbrush in my mouth,
I tried to recall the dream I had had.

Remus. Me. Alone. Broom
closet. Him whispering something I couldn't quite hear. Me smiling.
More whispering. Then – kissing.

God, I hate dreaming.

And I have a good excuse. My
dreams – well, they tell the future. Every dream I have ever had
told me about something that was about to happen. Not always about
me, though. One time, I had a dream my great aunt Sophia tried to
kill a Muggle. A week later, Nana Sophie's picture was in the Daily
Prophet. She was in Azkaban.

That
was why I could almost never
sleep at night.

As I walked into the common
room, I found a few house elves dusting around, sweeping, doing what
house elves do. They glanced at me and went straight back to work.

I was able to find a biscuit
in the Great Hall, and ate it on my way to my second class,
Transfiguration.

I was five minutes late. I
shuffled into a seat in the back row, pulling out my book from my bag
and trying to ignore all the stares in my direction.

Without trying to, I found
the Marauders in a corner, James leaning back in his seat, loosening
his tie, Sirius turning around to wink at me, long black hair flying
about, Remus with his head on his desk, quill scratching, and Peter
dozing off onto a girl's shoulder.

I found Lily, Molly, and
Alice, also, as we had Transfiguration with Ravenclaw. They were all
scratching their quills ravenously, and every once in a while one of
them would glance back at me, and then they would whisper and roll
their eyes.

As hard as I was trying to
listen to Mrs. McGonagall, I kept glancing up at Remus, or one of my
friends. Remus was doing the same, he would glance back at me and try
to stare, but then I would glare at him until he went back to his
work.

Remus looked extremely sick.
He had dark circles under his eyes, his hair looked more like a
bird's nest than a head, and he looked skinnier than usual.

I shouldn't have noticed
this, and I wouldn't have, if I hadn't kept staring at him.

The thing was, I regretted
yelling at Remus as soon as I had done it. Seeing him sob the way he
did, begging, pleading, I almost couldn't handle it. And as soon as I
laid down in my bed in the dormitories, I lost it. I screamed into my
pillow and clawed and thrashed and sobbed, but Lily and Molly didn't
say a word. Neither did any of the other girls. They completely
ignored me while I bawled into my sheets. They knew what it was
about, of course. That was part of the reason why they had ignored
me. They had warned me, and I hadn't listened.

Soon, the class was over. I
got my books together and walked with the rest of the Gryffindors to
the next class, Charms.

Remus looked back at me with
those sunken eyes. I almost felt bad for him, until I realized he was
a Marauder, and that I should never feel bad for a Marauder, and
looked away determinedly.

Charms was just as bad. We
had to find a partner, and Sirius chose James, Remus chose Peter, and
Molly chose Lily, so I ended up with this freak named Carlos Asher,
who just stood there while I did the charm.

That day wasn't eventful at
all, except a few glares from Lily or Molly, and hopeful glances from
Remus, and flirty winks from Sirius.

I lay in bed that night,
feeling just as horrible as I had the day before.