Sometimes you worry that if you blink, it will all disappear, because if the world is to be believed you don't deserve anything close to happiness. Sometimes you don't think you do, either. You should be living on the outskirts, like the less-than-human that the Ministry says you are. You've accepted your lot, you know that next year when Hogwarts ends you'll have nothing, but it still touches you how angry Sirius gets when the subject comes up. Listening to his rants, you'd think he could actually do something about the laws and restrictions against people with 'furry little problems', as James calls them, but then you remember that there's nothing your friends can really do, they're just seventeen-year-old boys with a lot to say and no way to say it. It's moments like those, when he looks at you, his chest rising and falling and his grey eyes filled with anger. You read a line in a book the other day – every moment is two moments, you think it was, something along those lines, sort of profound but sort of nonsense – and it makes you wonder how Sirius sees those moments, when you just look at each other and it's so familiar but so new.
Maybe for him there's nothing, but you don't think so because recently there's been a shift in the strangeness between you and Sirius, and now when he looks at you there isn't confusion, or a sudden urge to punch something, or the awful ache in your chest, there's just him and it's like without saying anything, you changed everything. It's just effortless, being with Sirius; everything feels right. For your whole life, it's like you've been an almost-person, but now you feel more and more human every day, wonderfully alive, incredibly real. You're not over-dramatic, you wouldn't say you've 'become someone new' or anything, you just feel like you've become more of yourself. Still Remus, but more so. You feel like more when Sirius is near.
And now you're sitting by the fire in the common room at 2.30 in the morning, not really reading the copy of Anna Karenina in your hands, with a stupid slow smile on your face and his kiss tingling on your cheek. They've always tingled, Sirius' kisses, since you were fourteen, but never has one of Sirius' kisses been so – so very. This one, this one had more behind it. The Marauder in you, the part brought out by nearly six years of pranks and secret passageways and general misdeeds, thinks it should have been two inches to the right, but the part of you which James and Pete fondly refer to as your 'inner prefect', but you think of as your 'inner Remus', that part is much more dominant and is still scared by the idea of kissing anyone, least of all Sirius. Especially Sirius. It's too soon, it all happened so suddenly, this change in the air, even though you know it's been building for months and months and you should have expected it, been more ready for this.
Can anyone ever be ready for it, though? Maybe that's why Lily's still resisting James, even though you know her feelings towards him aren't as hostile as they used to be. The other day, when you were on patrol together and you saw him and Sirius up ahead in the corridor, and the look on her face, the way her cheeks flushed pink and the sudden slight quaver that appeared in her voice, mirrored exactly the flare in your stomach, the light-headedness you always feel at the sight of Sirius Black. And the strange half-smile she tries to hide whenever you oh-so-subtly bring Prongs up in conversation. It was always going to happen, those two. Maybe you and Sirius were always going to happen, too. Maybe. But that still doesn't mean you'll be ready for it when it comes.
It's a sort of joke amongst the four of you, the fact that Remus Lupin is seventeen years old and has never been kissed. It's not as if you haven't had opportunities – there have been one or two incidents in which incredibly drunk girls have hinted that book-loving, jumper-wearing introverts are in fact rather attractive, but there's always a momentary hesitation and a thought of grey eyes, and then that's that. Lily's brought it up, too, with that knowing look in her eye which signals an immediate need to change the subject. You tell them you're just waiting, but sometimes there are nights like tonight, when you get tired of waiting and wish that Sirius' kiss was two inches to the right so that you could finally, finally get it over with. And yet. You still try your best not to think about it too much, because it scares you, the thought of being that close to someone, anyone, Sirius. The chance that you would do something incredibly awkward is about the same as the chance of Pete falling asleep in History of Magic. And if it was awful, and all this build up came to nothing, or if you were wrong about everything because you have a tendency to over-analyse and over-think, especially when it comes to feelings and people. Part of you wants to tell someone, because you need to affirm that this isn't just you, the scenes you catch yourself constructing in your head when you should be studying, that it really is there, that Sirius really is being the way you think he is.
You tried writing him letters, because it's so much easier to organise your thoughts on paper, but the paper was scratchy and the quill kept breaking and you thought it would be simple, transferring the mess of feelings, the careful separation of two Remuses, the dreams you wake from with your heart racing, and all the looks and the butterflies and the maybes, changing them into an eloquent declaration of the kind you read in novels. You want to write Sirius in a novel, one day. But the words you were searching for just wouldn't come. You don't know the right words to describe this. Eventually, your half-written efforts were burnt, and the ashes thrown into the Lake, just to make sure. You can never be too careful when there are three Marauders sharing your room, especially when none of them have any qualms about rummaging through your things. And if Sirius found them, or James or Pete, there would be awful questions and they might hate you and you don't want to risk losing your friends, because they're the best thing that ever happened to you.
He tells you that you worry too much. He wears that dark green jumper of yours so much it's started to smell like him, sort of musky with a hint of dog. He hugs you all the time, even when there's no reason and you don't really want the physical contact. He smokes late at night, sitting on the windowsill in the dormitory with the glass panes open. He steals your food and eats it in front of you. He drinks too much at parties and you have to carry him to the dormitory, ignoring his drunken flirting, ignoring the ache in your chest. He persuades you to let him copy your work. He calls you a girl and makes fun of your journal. He puts things he finds in the forest in your bed. He calls you 'Professor Lupin' whenever you correct his grammar or tell him off for breaking rules. He's infuriating, and frustrating, and exasperating, and you can't get enough of him.
He went to James' last summer, after walking out of Grimmauld Place, but you spent Christmas at his flat. That was where the change started, that holiday, those few days together before Pete and James descended on the grotty flat with badly wrapped presents and loud voices. The nights you spent talking about everything and nothing, listening to the radio, drinking eggnog even though you hate it, shying away from the feelings neither of you were ready to voice. The time Sirius was approached by a pretty Muggle girl, and introduced you as 'my boy, Remus'. The night Sirius finally persuaded you to take a ride on his motorbike, and you flew for miles through the cold air, Sirius' wild laugh in your ears, your arms wrapped tight around Sirius' waist. And it was perfect, and you know deep down that it could be perfect, it could be really easy if only you found it in yourself to say something to him. In the midst of the moment, sometimes your heart races and you stop thinking and open your mouth but you always close it because you're not brave enough, you've got no idea how you'd say it, anyway, and you know that if one of you is going to make something of these oh-so-very kisses and the jumper-wearing and the looks he gives you when you're reading in the common room that take your breath away, it will have to be Sirius because you are Remus Lupin, the world's biggest coward, and as soon as the moment has passed, the idea of saying anything to him is unimaginable. You're used to waiting, anyway, and you don't have to think twice about waiting for Sirius.