I am in love with Remus Lupin. It all started in my first year at Hogwarts. Remus Lupin had always seemed to catch my eye, and I could tell he loved me, too. But he had an illness of some sort, which he was very ashamed of.
Now, I’m in my sixth year of Hogwarts, and Remus and I still not have revealed to each other that we’re in love.
“Oy! Anne-Marie! Wake up!” I heard my best friend, Lily Evans, try to wake me up.
“What? I’m awake!” I said, of course I was lying, I was still half asleep.
“Someone sent you a flower! It’s beautiful!”
“Why would someone send me a flower?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day, of course! Now, you really have to wake up!”
“Okay, fine. You win.”
I groggily sat up in my bed, and rubbed my eyes before looking at Lily. Lily pointed at my bed stand. I looked over and saw the most beautiful rose on the table. I picked up the rose and took in its beauty.

The rose was the most magnificent shade of blood red. The stem was a dark shade of green, and the leaves gracefully fell from its sides. A black ribbon was tied around the stem and a note was attached.

I put the rose gracefully on my lap, and untied the note from the ribbon. I unfolded the note and read the small, neat handwriting. It said:

I never felt this way about anyone else,
And I’m sure you haven’t either,
But I love, and I really mean it, I
Love you, and always will.
Forever Yours,
Unknown.

I smiled at Lily, she had a puzzled look on her face.
“Who’s it from? I got a rose, too. Actually numerous roses. All from Potter. How awful is that? Potter, ruining my Valentine’s Day. Sorry, got a little off track.”
“Lily, I think it’s from Remus Lupin. Another one of those Marauders,  he’s part of the gang that James is in?”
“Remus Lupin? Oh, he’s a sweetheart! He’s so kind and considerate! How lucky you are, I wish I were that lucky! But, doesn’t he have an illness of some sort?”
“Yes, but I don’t care! He’s as normal as Severus Snape! Love isn’t based on health, it’s based on how much someone cares for the other! This is true love. I’m in love, Lily! And I’m going to do nothing to stop my feelings!”
“Good for you. You have to get dressed, or we’ll be late for breakfast. I’ll wait for you in the Common Room.”

Lily walked out of the Girls Dormitory with a smile on her face, most likely thinking of my luck. I looked around the dormitory and saw that no one was there. Good. I stripped my night clothes off and examined the scar that ran along my thigh down to my lower leg. It did hurt every now and then, sometimes excruciatingly, so that I’d have to go to the Hospital Wing. I quickly got dressed into my school robes and slipped on some socks and shoes. I grabbed my book bag and ran out of the dormitory. I met Lily in the Common Room and went to the Great Hall with her. We sat down at the Gryffindor table and started to eat our breakfast.  

   “So, Evans! Did you receive the roses I sent you?” I heard James Potter say behind me.
I turned around to see James, Peter, Remus, and Sirius standing behind Lily and me. Remus looked at me and blushed. I shyly looked back, but quickly moved my gaze when Sirius looked at me and Remus.

“I did receive your roses, Potter. But you know, I did not enjoy them at all. They completely ruined my Valentine’s Day, thank you very much!” Lily snapped.
“Oy, Prongs! I think our very own Moony has a crush on a special someone!” Sirius said.

Remus blushed harder then, and my face started to turn a very interesting shade of crimson. James saw that Remus and I were blushing, and started teasing us for it.

“Moony has a girlfriend! Is she blushing as much as you, Moony?” James taunted.

James took my face in his hand and brought it up so that I had to look at him.

“She is! Look at her, Padfoot! Do you think her face could get any redder?” James said yet again, sneering.
“Let me go, you imbecile!” I sternly told James, who still held my face.

Lily tried pulling James’s hand away from my face, but James squeezed my face harder.

“Let Anne-Marie go, Prongs. Don’t make me remove your hands by force. Because I will. You have five seconds to remove your grip on Anne-Marie, or I’ll curse your bloody head off myself.” Remus threatened  James, raising his wand to James’s throat.

James automatically let go of me, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Lily hugged me, and apologized for not standing up for me. She thought if she tried to stop James, James would probably hurt me more.

“Sorry, Prongs.  I just don’t think it’s right for you to touch a woman like that. Still best mates?” Remus apologized to James.
“Still best mates, Moony. You did have me worried for my skin, though. Come on, we’ll be late for History of Magic.” James replied.

James, Sirius, and Peter left the Great Hall, but Remus stayed behind. Lily and I turned around, so we could finish our breakfast when Remus sat down next to me.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” Remus politely asked me.
“No, of course not.” I replied.
“I’m very sorry for James’s behavior. He sometimes can’t control himself. I hope he didn’t hurt you.” Remus moved his hand from his side so that his covered my hand.
“It’s quite alright. Thanks for standing up for me.”
“Sorry.” Remus caught himself and removed his hand from mine.

A single owl flew down from its perch on one of the rafters in the ceiling towards me. It landed gracefully in front of my plate. I took the message that was attached to its leg and the owl flew away.

“Do you mind?” I asked Remus, holding up the letter.
“Not at all.” Remus replied.

Remus poured himself some pumpkin juice while I opened the letter that was addressed to me. The letter was organized, I started reading:

Dear Ms. Brown,
I am extremely unfortunate to give you this news, but since I am head of The Wizard and Witches Death Department, I, of course, had to. I wrote this letter to inform you that your parents, Jane and Wilkins Brown, have passed on. As you know, they were Aurors, and their main duty is to fight He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, for the sake of the rest of the world. They perished in the hands of the Dark Lord himself. Your guardian will now be your Aunt Jucinta.
Hoping you are well,
Jeremy Goshwallop

I stared at the letter, dumbstruck. Dead? How could my parents be dead?  Tears ran down my face, and I threw the letter aside. I put my head in my arms and started sobbing. Lily and Remus took notice and put down what they were eating.

“Anne-Marie, what’s wrong?” Lily asked, extremely worried.
“Anne-Marie?” Remus asked me, also very concerned like Lily.
“Leave me alone!” I shook their hands off my shoulders.

I got up from the Gryffindor table and ran, crying, all the way to the Common Room. I threw myself down on one of the chairs by the fire and continued to sob.  I heard the passage into the Common Room creak open and two voices quietly talking to one another.

“Did you hear? She actually ran out of the Great Hall, crying her eyes off! Her pet guinea pig or something probably died. I mean, I wouldn’t cry at all!”
“She’s a baby! I’m surprised that she hasn’t gotten minor injuries and sent home! She probably couldn’t last a night in the Forbidden Forest!”

I turned around to see James and Sirius. They were the ones talking about me.

“Go make fun of another bloody person!” I yelled at them, my voice hoarse from crying so hard.

James and Sirius stood by the door, partly embarrassed and partly shocked that I was there.

“Skipping out on class, too? It’s always more fun here than the classroom…” James said.
“I would never skip out on a bloody class, and you know it! Now leave me alone!” I  yelled.
“The baby is almost swearing at us! The nerve!” Sirius sneered.
“I am not a baby! Leave me alone, or I’ll…” I thought.
“I think the little baby has run out of things to say!” James laughed.
“Stupefy!” I yelled, my wand pointing at Sirius’s chest.

Sirius shot back about ten feet, when an armchair stopped him from going any farther.

“How dare you!? Levicorpus!” James said, now his wand pointed at me.

I was magically brought upside down, hanging from an invisible cord by my foot. My wand had fallen from my hand when I was lurched upside down, so basically I was defenseless.

James and Sirius laughed at me, then headed out of the portrait hole. I started sobbing again because, now, Sirius Black and James Potter had made my Valentine’s Day miserable. Then I started sobbing harder over the death of my parents.  
A short while after my encounter with Sirius Black and James Potter, Remus and Lily came into the Common Room.

“I’ll check the Girls Dormitory, Remus. Wait here, so if she’s not there we can continue searching somewhere else without getting lost.” Lily said as she headed up the Girls Dormitory stairs.
“I think I already found her, Lily.” Remus said.

Lily turned around, and  looked up to where Remus was gazing.

“Oh, Anne-Marie! Who did that to you?” Lily asked, still concerned about me.
“Potter and Black, that’s who.” I managed to say between sobs.
“Let me get you down from there,” Remus said, “I think I know the counter spell.”
Remus muttered some words, and it felt as if my invisible cord had been cut. I fell from the air and landed in Remus’s waiting arms. I then started crying again and I put my head on his shoulder. He sat down in one of the chairs by the fire with me on his lap. Remus stroked my back and my hair, wordlessly soothing me. Lily watched us, probably wondering why I was crying so hysterically.

“May I ask why you are crying, Anne-Marie?” Remus kindly asked me.
“My parents are dead, my new guardian is my Aunt Jucinta, and Sirius Black and James Potter are ruining my life.” I answered between sobs of grief.
“Your parents are dead?! They can’t be! I saw them before school started!” Lily said, completely shocked.
“A lot of things happened between now and then, Lily. Grief overpowers all that is in it’s way, even the kindest person, like Anne-Marie, and turns their happiness into sadness. You may not like it, but it has happened, and you can’t stop it.” Remus said, sounding like grief had taken him , too, into its evil clutches.
“Anne-Marie, Remus, I’m going to find Professor McGonagall. I’ll tell her what happened, or would you like to tell her yourself, Anne-Marie?” Lily asked me quietly.

I shook my head in Remus’s shoulder, my tears easing up, only just a little.

“No, she doesn’t want to tell McGonagall herself.” Remus whispered to Lily.                                         “Okay, I’ll be back soon. Hey Remus, take her to the Room! That might make her feel better…” Lily said.

Remus must have understood what Lily meant, because he nodded. I heard the portrait hole open and swing close. Remus kept stroking my head, and I felt like the world had turned upside down. My parents dead, my scar hurting extremely badly, having to go live with my terrible Aunt Jucinta, could my life get any worse?

“Anne-Marie? Would you like to go to a secret room that very few people know about?” Remus asked me.

I nodded my head, yes. Remus picked me up in his arms, and put me down so I was standing.

“It would look a tad awkward for someone to see me carrying you around the school. Do you mind? Or do you want to wait for later to go to The Room of Requirement?” Remus affably asked me.
“I’d like to go now, if you don’t mind.” I answered quietly.
“Let’s go. Just follow me, beware for teachers, other students, ghosts, and Peeves.”
“Oh did you hear? Peeves gave Sarah Vane a lot of trouble last week. He started flinging dung bombs at her, and she was blamed for the mess.”
“Really? I didn’t hear about that. Anyway, ready? Let’s go.”

I followed Remus out of the Gryffindor Common Room, we cautiously looked around and saw no one on the seventh floor. We went down the moving staircase, skipped the third one down, that was the trick step. The trick step, if you stepped on it, would have you caught, until someone pulled you out.  When we reached the sixth floor, we stopped.

“It usually turns up around here.” Remus said.

Remus started pacing back and forth between two pictures, one picture was of three trolls in tutu’s and the other of a hippogriff, flying off into the night.

‘There we go!” Remus exclaimed, as a large door began appearing in the wall.

As soon as the door completed forming itself, Remus pulled me inside behind him. The room looked like a completely normal room, not like those from Hogwarts. There was a blue, pink, and lavender embroidered rug on the floor, a blue couch, a single pink flowered armchair, a writing desk, a bookshelf, with many books in it, and two bean bags on the floor.

“Welcome to The Room of Requirement, furnished to our exact needs.  Or should I say, to your exact needs.” Remus welcomed me.
“How did it know that I needed this stuff? Bean bags and soft chairs…” I said.
“Well, did you notice the two portraits outside this room? Well, if you pace three times between them, while thinking of what you need at that moment, The Room of Requirement gives it to you. Except food. It will link you somewhere that supplies food, but it can’t supply food itself.”
“How did you know that I needed this kind of stuff to comfort me?”
“Because, when my parents died, I needed a place where I could be comfortable and not bothered. This is what I thought of. Except that pink flowered armchair, I didn’t think of that when my parents died.”
“Your parents died, too? I’m sorry.”
“Yes, my parents died, also. You’ll get over your parents passing, soon it will become part of your everyday life, and basically, you’ll forget.”
“I’ll forget? That seems awfully difficult. They were an important part of my life, even though they never really spent time with me. Remus? How did you get over it? How did you deal with your illness when no one could take care of you?” I realized my mistake, “I apologize, I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”
“It’s fine, Anne-Marie. You don’t have to feel bad about mentioning my illness. I eventually just forgot my parents. Well, I didn’t forget them, but as I said before, their passing just grew into my everyday life.”

Remus and I took a seat on the blue couch, next to each other. Tears were still trickling down my face, but Remus made me forget, somewhat, about my sadness.

“Remus? Did you send me that rose that I received this morning?” I asked.
“Yes, I did. I really mean what I said in the note that I included. Anne-Marie, I’m afraid that my…illness… means for me to be kept apart from the rest of the world. I don’t know if our relationship could work.” Remus told me unhappily .
“Remus, I don’t care if you have an illness, I love you.”

Remus opened his mouth to say something, but closed it and thought better of what he was about to say. Remus leaned closer to me, and I leaned closer to him. Our lips met for about five seconds when we heard the door open.

“Prongs! Look at this! Remus and Anne-Marie are actually snogging!” Sirius said.

Remus and I ended our romantic kiss as soon as we heard James speak.

“Moony! Finally got your first kiss! But why her? She’s so… drab! Seriously, you have to get better taste in women!”

Remus stood up, I could tell he had had enough of James and Sirius.

“I have had enough of your condemning people, just because you don’t like them! You have never gotten to know anyone you make fun of and you don‘t care about their lives!” Remus was letting out all of his anger, and he didn’t care who heard his livid words.
‘This is when I’m supposed to step in. Hopefully Remus won’t bite my head off, too.’ I thought to myself.

Remus and James were arguing pretty badly now. I quickly got up from the couch and speed-walked to where Remus was arguing with James.

“Boys, stop it.” I said, miraculously, they stopped arguing. Looks of hatred were on each of their faces.
“Oh, so now you have a girl standing up for you, Remus? Even more of a weakling than I thought you were!” James yelled.
“Leave her out of it! She has never done anything to you and you start picking on her!” Remus yelled back.
“Mate, Moony is right. You should listen to him.” Sirius said to James.
“So you take his side?” James yelled at Sirius.
“I’m not taking sides! I just think Moony is right, Prongs! Please, Prongs, let’s just go back to the Common Room.”
“I’m sorry, Padfoot. It’s too late for that.” James replied.
“What do you mean?” Sirius asked.
“I mean…This! Stupefy!” James’s wand was pointed at me.

I tried blocking the spell with Protego before the spell hit me. I failed. Before I blacked out, I saw Remus say ‘Expelliarmus!’ and hurry towards me.