Remus had had girlfriends. By the time he was seventeen, he felt it was safe to say he had had at least three, two of whom were fairly serious. There was Arabella Bledley, a Gryffindor two years older than him, who he had dated in his third year. He had been fourteen, she a young sixteen, and dating for them had mostly consisted of studying together, holding hands, and occasionally kissing in the library. It was very chaste, their romance, but had lasted from just before his fourteenth birthday, in March, all the way through the summer between his third and fourth years. Though they had written to each other quite feverishly at the beginning of the summer, as July waned into August, the letters had slowed down, and by the time they met up on the Hogwarts Express on September first, they really only had the formalities of splitting up left to do.
Next, he had spent two months snogging a Slytherin girl, Maggie Brooks. James and Peter had mocked him relentlessly the whole time. They spent January and February warming each other up, in hallways, tucked into corners of the library stacks, out on the freezing grounds, before Maggie had confessed to him that she had fallen in love with a Slytherin boy, and it was getting serious. "We can still be friends, if you like," she had said, and then promptly stopped speaking to him.
Then there was Krissy Sephero, a muggle-born witch in Ravenclaw, who was in his year. For all of the last half of his fifth year, Remus had pined after her, the only other student who could keep him on his toes academically. They had spent the last five years fighting to be top of the class, and by the time sixth year had rolled around, and both had gotten their nearly perfect O.W.L.s, Remus was completely smitten. He finally asked her out one day as she teased him for missing a question on their Ancient Runes test (by that point, they were the only two students left taking the class in their year). Right in the middle of her laughing, he had blurted out, "Would you go out with me sometime?" and she had given him a very cheerful, "Yes!" without even thinking about it.
They spent the rest of the year completely intertwined in each other. They studied together, of course, but it was more than that. Krissy joined in with most of the Marauders hijinks, enjoying their jokes and pranks. She teased James, and mothered Peter, and adored Remus. While Sirius never seemed to quite warm up to her (he never seemed to warm up to any of Remus's girlfriends), she got on brilliantly with Lily. Remus was mad about her. He pictured their life together. He saw the house, the kids, Krissy and him side by side for the rest of their lives. She had caught on rather quickly that his monthly trips had nothing to do with his mum, and when he had confessed to her, in a whisper, out on the grounds one night, where he really went once a month, she didn't recoil in fear, or run away in horror. Instead, she kissed him, and said that she loved him.
It wasn't long after that that they slept together for the first time. Remus felt awkward and scared, but elated and proud as well. It was quick, and not entirely the way he had imagined it, but they felt safe and warm afterwards. It was even worth the trouble of having smuggled her into his room, and the teasing he had to endure from James and Pete afterwards, teasing that Sirius adamantly refused to join in on, insisting that who Remus shagged or didn't shag was entirely Remus's business, and no one else's.
In was in the middle of his seventh year that everything with Krissy fell apart. She was distant, saying she was studying, and he was as well, claiming to be studying when he was really sitting in his room, brooding about the future. The world had looked bright and shiny in sixth year, with Krissy at his side, everything at once exciting and safe. But the war had hit for real now, and people were dying all around them. As if that weren't enough, Remus couldn't help but focus on how difficult it was going to be to get a job after graduation. Perfect grades or no, he was still a werewolf. He knew he was unhirable.
It was his birthday, March, of their seventh year, when it all fell apart completely. Krissy kissed Seth Gregory at one of Slughorn's parties, one Remus had missed because of the full moon. She confessed it to him, tearfully, but not until four other people had already told him what had happened, including Lily Evans. He felt nothing as he stood there, watching her cry to him in the Ancient Runes hallway. Just a little tightening around the heart, a dull ache in his stomach. He had been foolish to hope for the future. This only served to hammer that point home. It was the first time in his life he skived off a lesson with no excuse, walking away from her without a backwards glance, even as her sobs followed him down the corridor.
So Remus had had girlfriends. He had kissed girls besides just those three, as well. Clara McSomething-or-other, the summer between second and third year, a muggle girl from back home. Sasha Sales, a Hufflepuff (Remus took house unity quite seriously), who was two months younger and half a foot shorter than he, who he kissed two weeks before getting together with Krissy. He'd had a few shots of firewhiskey at a Gryffindor party, and ended up out on the grounds, where a group of Hufflepuffs were playing a loud drinking game near the lake, out of sight of the castle. He had been jovially waved into the game, which had complicated rules he had never quite grasped. All he could remember was that it involved a deck of exploding snap cards, an orange, and one of the boy's toads. He could remember the kiss, in a hazy sort of way. The way Sasha's curly hair tickled his cheeks. The way she tasted of butter beer and rum. The way she giggled. They hadn't spoken again after that night, but the kiss had been nice enough.
Yes, Remus had had girlfriends. He was well acquainted with girls. Kissing them, touching them, even flirting with them. While his friends all thought him rather shy, even they had to admit that Remus had a way with words. Girls tended to listen to him carefully, in a way they never did with James or Sirius. While the two black haired boys had all the bravado and swagger, Remus was there with a quick-witted, quiet joke, the one that made the girls snicker into their transfiguration notes, even as Professor McGonagall peered at them sternly. Remus felt comfortable with girls, even the ones he wasn't dating. Lily and Remus got on well even before she started hanging around with James, and could often be found sitting in front of the fire well after bed time, quizzing each other on incantations and charms, or chatting about their families. It was boys that Remus sometimes couldn't quite relate to, in spite of his three best friends. Their pranks and jokes he could get on board with, but the swagger, the bragging, the bravado – he never could quite see the point of it all. With older boys in Gryffindor, or boys in other houses, he sometimes struggled for words, stumbled over the joke so they all just stood and stared, or else chose the wrong boy to tease, so everyone around got offended. He was grateful to have been practically handed his three closest mates, ready-made the first day of school, right there waiting for him in his dormitory, because it turned out he wasn't the best at relating to other blokes. Girls, Remus Lupin could handle, and handle well. Boys were a different matter.
Which is why, when Sirius Black kissed him, full on the mouth, tucked behind a corner of the quidditch stands, Sirius with his uniform still on, broom in one hand, the other curling into the hair at the nape of Remus's neck, Remus felt completely frozen, unsure of how to react. He stood, feeling rather too large for the space, like a giant or an out of place oak tree, not sure what he should do, other than hang onto the bleacher he was pressed up against and keep breathing.
Sirius had pulled away moments later, looking up into Remus's eyes. Sirius wasn't smiling, quite, but he wasn't entirely not smiling either. It was more like he was asking for permission to be happy with what had just happened. Remus couldn't quite seem to remember what happy felt like. It seemed like ages since he had been truly, genuinely, actually happy. But standing there, the taste of Sirius on his lips, the smell of him in the air, well, it seemed as close to happiness as he was likely to get. So he grabbed hold of it with both hands, and leaned in for another taste of his best friend.