Born to be Wild {Remus Lupin}

Chapter One

"Remus! Remus, stop it, that tickles."

"Well, that's usually what tickling does, Lana." Remus said.

"Just because you're my best friend, along with Lily, doesn't mean I'm gonna let you do this."

"But," He pouted, "pretty please?" He kept tickling his friend, even though she was yelling at him to stop.

"Stop, Lupin, or I swear, I will punch you somewhere so hard that you'll regret ever touching me."

"Wow, Phillips. Angry today, are we?" He stepped back, obviously not wanting to get hit.

"Yeah, Lupin. But only because you started this."

Remus and Lana were on the train back to Hogwarts for their fifth year, joking around and eating Bertie Botts beans. While Remus was still very close to James, Sirius and Peter, he decided to sit with Lana on this trip to the school. Also because he couldn't find the other boys.

Lana suddenly began to speak again, "Can you believe we've known each other three years now, Remmy."

He nodded, "Yeah, it feels like longer though, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does. We became a great team, didn't we, Mr. Lupin?"

"We surely did, Ms. Phillips."

They laughed together and continued to tell each other stories about their summers. Lana had gone to Romania, while Remus had only gone to Diagon Alley.

"But why doesn't your family travel, Remus? You look like you're well off enough to be able to pay for hotels and such."

"We are, Lana. But we just can't. My dad, um, works in the summer. We can't really go anywhere unless he takes his, um, vacation days, and he only has, um, three of those. He usually takes them up during the year, not in the, um, summer."

"Oh," Lana replied, but she didn't look very convinced with Remus' story. "So you're dad's a pretty busy guy, huh?"

"I guess," He shrugged.

They rode in silence for a while, their playful nature disappearing. It made Remus nervous that Lana didn't seem to believe his story, while Lana was just annoyed that Remus would lie to her.

"I-I'm going to go find Lily." Lana got up from her seat and left the compartment. She slammed the door without even listening to Remus' reply, if he had replied at all. She left Remus to sit by himself, probably wondering what he had done wrong this time.

After walking a bit of ways, Lana found Lily's compartment. She was sitting with a another Gryffindor in their year, someone who had, presumably, been Lily's friend for as long as Lana had been. There was also another girl in the compartment, who Lana recognized as Olivia Harper, a Hufflepuff, and Sirius Black's latest flame as far as the end of fourth year. While most girls in Lana's year swooned over Black, Lana didn't see the appeal of him. Sure, he had long hair, and he was handsome to some extent, but he also had a rotten personality when it came to girls. For the last four years that he'd been at Hogwarts, he'd probably had more than 20 or even 30 girlfriends, and each one only lasted about two or three weeks, at the most. All of the students in Lana's year were surprised that he had lasted more than three months with Olivia, and were waiting for the unraveling of the relationship to begin.

Sirius Black was also Remus' friend, but Lana had never spoken to him by herself. She knew that Remus had other friends, just as he knew Lana had, well, Lily.