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Prologue - Memories.

My quarters here at Hogwarts are very pleasant, but I wanted to redecorate my sitting room. Which meant sorting out the bookshelves and going through the boxes stored under the window seat. A wet Tuesday morning, no patients in the hospital wing – a good time to begin. I pulled out the first box and opened the lid.

I’d only dealt with a few papers when I came across the books and letters. The items were carefully tied together with a length of green string. On top, a bundle of letters in a flowing, gracious hand, evidence of a friendship which had grown largely by means of owl post. A friendship cut short all too soon through Gwen’s untimely death.

Immediately beneath them was a slim blue notebook with its contents neatly indexed and a note inside the front cover: "Madam Pomfrey – I hope this may be of some use to you. Gwen Lupin."

The bottom item was a larger green volume, my own writing this time. I flicked through it. Seven years’ worth of notes and descriptions, medical details, library references, sketches, extracts from papers. I’d been so ignorant when it all began, so I’d recorded everything. And then I had kept it up as a sort of diary: my unwritten textbook with all the things I’d discovered, things that healers should know.

Below this bundle I found the calendar. I remembered it well – a really beautiful one, full of pictures of famous apothecary and herb gardens in Britain. The colours were still bright, the flowers and plants moving gently to an unseen breeze. I lifted the first page and the card fell out.

A simple little card with a hand-drawn wreath of holly. I opened it and read the message, the writing very neat and tidy, yet in a still-childish hand.

"To dear Madam Pomfrey. Thank you very much for everything. I hope you have a very happy Christmas. Remus Lupin."

Remus Lupin. Ah, Remus …