AN: QLFC Season 5, Round 3 entry. My prompts this go around were cinnamon, regret, and rabbit (8, 11, and 14). I was intentionally vague about the timeline of events, but for the most part it follows canon - Snape finds out Remus is a werewolf, James saves him, afterwards James and Lily get together. This story is set a bit after James and Lily finally get together.

I tried to challenge myself by not using the word 'regret' in this story, since it was an emotion that I was supposed to convey. I'm not quite sure if I like how it turned out, though. And sorry if the ending seems rushed. I, quite literally, can't write anymore. This story is too close to the maximum word limit for a more decent, drawn out ending. This story is also pretty dialogue heavy, which is something I don't usually do, but I think it was the best way to show what kind of friendship these dumb boys have.

Finally, the title of this story comes from From Eden by Hozier.

Word count: 2982 (according to Google docs)

"- then I was going to bring her to the Astronomy tower for dinner under the stars because Mom told me that was the date that Dad brought her on to propose - obviously it wasn't in Hogwarts, but I want it to be just as romantic - "

"Merlin," Sirius groans, rolling over in his bed to smother his face in his pillow. He should have left an hour ago like everyone else in their dorm did. "This is just your first Valentine's with Lily, you're not going to bloody propose," he says, voice muffled.

James rolls his eyes, momentarily looking away from the Charms book that he's looking through for ideas. James has been planning this dinner for about a month now, and really he had everything he needed. He just had to 'absolutely see if there really wasn't an alternative to bluebell flames that would provide light but wouldn't overpower the stars or the mood, you know?'

"You're probably the most unromantic person I know," James declares, flipping a page. Sirius pushes himself up on his elbows to give James a dirty look.

"Excuse you," he says, "I've dated dozens of people and there's definitely more people in Hogwarts that would totally date me."

James looks up from his book to give Sirius a flat look. It's ruined by the thick blue cream that he has on his face ('"It's a face mask, Padfoot," James had said when he first put it on, "I can't have pimples on Valentine's.") and the comical way his hair sticks up more than usual.

James is surrounded by books and papers with scribbled notes on them, and at the foot of his bed his clothes for tonight are carefully laid out, pressed and no doubt spotless despite the ink Peter had accidentally spilled on that shirt a fortnight ago. Everything around him in that moment is for Lily.

Honestly, Sirius thinks that if Lily knew half of the effort James went through on a regular basis for her, James wouldn't ever have to worry about whether or not Lily would like whatever he's planned. She'd love him just for how much he thinks of her, every second of his life.

"You're only charming when you're convincing people to date you," James says, "and then after that you're kind of a prat."

Sirius frowns, thinking back. He flops onto his back, staring at the canopy of his bed. "You really think so?" He isn't James-levels of romantic, but he likes to think of himself as suave.

James snorts, "You forgot Genevieve's birthday, even though she told you a week in advance." He turns back to his book, flipping another page.

"Only because it was the day after the full moon and Moony needed someone to make sure he actually rested!" Sirius defends himself, flushing lightly. He remembers vividly how upset she was about that.

James makes an agreeing noise, which Sirius takes to be the end of this frankly somewhat embarrassing conversation, but James goes on.

"But there was still that time you stood Michael up on a date to Hogsmeade that you asked for. You sent Peter down to tell him you couldn't make it!"

Sirius looks over at James. "Okay, not talking to Michael myself wasn't the best move - "

"You made yourself look like a complete prat -"

"- but! That day Moony was really upset because of that drivel the Prophet wrote about werewolves and I couldn't just leave him."

James looks up, startled. "What? Why didn't I know about this?" he asks, lowering his book for the first time in - Sirius checks his pocket watch - a full hour. "What happened?"

Sirius waves his hand, turning slightly so he could look at James properly. They're lucky their beds are right next to each other, or these conversations would be a lot more uncomfortable.

"It was the usual bigoted speeches, but you know Remus takes it hard. He didn't say anything, but I could tell he was upset. He didn't finish his chocolate pudding." Sirius says. "So I went after him when he left to go to the dorms and we just - well, okay I made a complete fool of myself until he felt better."

"You could have told Peter and I," James says. "We could have helped cheer him up."

Sirius shakes his head. "No, it's fine, I liked being able to do that for him," Sirius says, sincere. "Not that I liked him being upset in the first place, I just like being able to help Remus," he hastily adds.

James frowns. "Okay," he says slowly. Sirius can tell by the crease between his eyebrows that he's thinking about something, turning it over in his head. "Okay, how about when you dumped Lisa? On Valentine's day last year."

"I didn't like her anymore," Sirius says, shrugging as best he can while lying down. "She was really clingy."

"Oh," James says, sounding disappointed.

Sirius groans, rolling his eyes. "Look, she didn't like that I spent so much time with you guys. She kept saying that I paid more attention to you than her."

James looks at him contemplatively. He tosses his book to the pile on his bed and crawls to the edge of his bed closest to Sirius, leaning over as he asks, "Did she really say that? Did she say anything about Moony?"

Sirius blinks. "Moony? Uh, yeah, actually, how'd you know?"

"What'd she say?" James presses, intent.

Sirius scowls, but he and James had a pact of complete honesty with each other after the incident with the Giant Squid. "She said that I'm a better boyfriend to Moony than to her."

James sits up straight, a satisfied look on his face. "Have you ever considered that she's right?"

"What?" Sirius sits up properly. "What d'you mean?"

James waves his hand. "Think back to all the answers you gave me. Really think about it."

Sirius does. He pales. "Oh," he says.

"Oh," James repeats.

"Oh, Merlin," Sirius says, swinging his legs over his bed. He summons his shoes over from the other side of the room and tugs them on hurriedly.

James blinks, rocking back slightly in surprise. "What are you doing?" he says.

Sirius gives him a look. "To tell him of course," he says, standing up to tug the robes that he'd left crumpled at the foot of his bed on again. "He's going to know something's up as soon as he sees me, and I might as well tell him now on my own terms instead of letting this drag on while he overthinks everything until we fight again and I say something stupid."

James narrows his eyes. "This sounds oddly specific." James points to Sirius. "Sit down right now. You need to explain this to me properly."

Sirius winces preemptively, and sits down again. "You're not going to like this," he says. "But after I told Snivellus how to get past the Whomping Willow, Remus found out what I -"

"Oh no," James grimaces, "I thought that he didn't know about that night after we talked to Snape and Dumbledore and explained everything."

"He told me that Dumbledore talked to him about what happened after he transformed back." Sirius replies, "and I don't like it either but it was the right thing to do since it involves Moony."

"Even if it means he knew it was you who told Snape?" James asks.

Sirius grimaces. "Yes," he says reluctantly. "He gets enough choices taken away from him as it is. I sent Snape, James, he should at least know that and decide what to do from there."

James raises an eyebrow. "What'd he do then?"

"Nothing," Sirius says, "But he was withdrawn for days, so I kept needling him, asking what was wrong and then we fought about it and - Merlin, James, you know what he told me? He said that I nearly made him a killer like those werewolves the Prophet likes to talk about. I kind of wanted to get a time turner to punch my past self in the face after that."

James winces, shoulders rising up to his ears as if in shame, which is ridiculous because the person who should be ashamed is Sirius. And he is.

"I wish I never did it," Sirius says quietly, all for the wrong reasons. He cares more about hurting Remus than having nearly gotten Snape killed. Rationally, it's terrible, he's terrible, but he's spent years dedicating himself to making Remus smile, and only the last five minutes knowing why.

"I know, Padfoot," James says sympathetically. "He knows too."

James leaves for his date eventually, leaving Sirius with the words 'you better not mess this up,' which is both insulting and a legitimate concern.

Sirius is, frankly, terrified of messing up. He's terrified of hurting Remus more, or worse, destroying their friendship. Merlin knows that he's messed up before. He's still going to try though. Remus deserves the effort, after all he's put up with.

Sirius finds Remus in the library, reading quietly under a patch of orange sunlight, and can't help the fond quirk of his lips. Sirius can tell that Remus had started off on the other side of the table and had migrated to the other side as he followed the sunlight because his bag is still on the far side.

"Hey," he says quietly. Remus looks up from his book, then smiles.

"Hello," Remus greets him, closing his book. "Is James done preparing for his date?"

"Just about," Sirius says. "Thank Merlin for that. If he stayed any longer I might actually have smothered him with his pillow."

Remus huffs out a quiet laugh, getting up and putting the book away into his bag. He hefts the bag onto his shoulder and quirks an eyebrow at Sirius. "Shall we head down to the Hall? They've probably got something nice for Valentine's."

Sirius smiles, "Actually -"

"Oh no," Remus says, "What did you do?"

Sirius barks out a laugh, then quickly coughs into a fist when Pince gives him a sour look. She doesn't try to go after them, thankfully, but that's probably because they're already heading out of the library.

"I haven't done anything!" Sirius says. "Really," he says when Remus' continues to look at him in narrow-eyed suspicion. "I was going to ask you if we could do something else for dinner instead."

"Yeah?" Remus says in interest. "It might be nice to get away from all the couples. I had to take so many points for indecent behaviour today."

Sirius grins. "You're absolutely going to have to tell me more during dinner," he says, then takes Remus' hand to tug him forwards, weaving through the castle, towards the seventh floor.

Remus notices the path they take. "I hope your plans for dinner actually involve food," he says, but he doesn't pull away from Sirius, which he counts as a victory. He also counts the chance to hold Remus' hands through the halls of Hogwarts as a victory, and tries not to examine the feeling in his chest too much lest he gets distracted.

"I've got it all planned," Sirius reassures him.

And he does. Somehow, he knew exactly what kind of date Remus would like as soon he started thinking about it. He supposes that knowing someone for so long and watching them for just as long had its advantages.

Remus hums as they reach the Room of Requirements. "You're hiding something," Remus says lightly, "but I'll let you get away with it for now."

Sirius squeezes Remus' hand. "You always could read me like a book," he says. "I'll tell you soon. First, let's have dinner." He pulls them into the room.

They have to pause for a second to get their bearings once they enter fully and the door closes behind them. They're in a lush greenhouse, with bright sunlight filtering through the glass high overhead. The greenhouse is huge, but the tall trees and bushes makes it feel enclosed and private instead of cavernous.

The best thing about it, though, is that it's positively saturated in colour. Sirius recognises a couple of the flowers growing here: red and white carnations, the blush of amaryllis, a splattering of gladiolus, tulips, and, of course, roses everywhere. Further into the room, almost hidden behind the tall cluster of sunflowers, is a picnic blanket.

He had asked the Room of Requirements for a garden and thought of Remus.

He could have gotten a park, or something. Instead he was given a greenhouse filled to the brim with proclamations of love and affection, his every thought of Remus in each petal. It's like a landscaper decided to create a physical representation of the contents of his heart. It's both embarrassing and gratifying, to see the extent of his feelings so plainly for once.

"Oh," Remus says, his head swivelling to take everything in as Sirius leads them to the picnic blanket. "It's beautiful."

"I'm glad you like it," Sirius says, sitting down. He digs into his robe's pocket and pulls out a miniature picnic basket he'd gotten from the house elves, which he sets down and casts Engorgio on to get it to a normal size again. "But I think you'll like this just as much. Dinner is served," he says, pulling out some various dishes from the picnic blanket with a flourish.

Remus looks down at the spread and laughs. "Meat pies, salad, and sandwiches? With pastries for dessert, I see."

Sirius grins. "This is the best part," he says, and pours Remus a cup of hot chocolate from a thermos. Remus grins back as he takes the cup, because they both know Remus' greatest weakness in chocolate in any form.

He takes a careful sip, closing his eyes as he lets out a pleased groan. "Is that cinnamon?"

"Sure is," Sirius replies, then hands him a meat pie. "Now eat. Knowing you, you probably forgot to grab something to eat for lunch."

"I might've," Remus says, taking the meat pie. "But that was only because I ate a late breakfast."

"Pretend to be as grown-up and responsible as you want, we both know who turned Slughorn's robes bright yellow."

"We don't, actually, since they never caught the dastardly culprit," Remus replies, and takes a bite of the meat pie. He makes a surprised noise. "Is this -?"

"Rabbit? Yes," Sirius says. "Don't freak out about it, Moony, plenty of people eat stuff like deer meat and call it a delicacy. You like rabbit and you happen to be a werewolf. They're not actually related."

Remus gives him a dubious look. He swallows his mouthful. "Padfoot, you know I don't like indulging… that side of me." He looks down at the bitten meat pie in his hand. Sirius isn't sure if Remus knows he has a mournful look on his face.

"I know," Sirius says, lowering his voice to something approaching gentle, but still firm. "And I also know that you don't let yourself enjoy good things nearly enough. And I know that you like rabbit. And I also know that you haven't let yourself relax in a while. Let yourself enjoy this, okay?"

Sirius shoves a meat pie into his mouth before he could keep going.

Remus is quiet for a moment. "Sirius, what's going on?"

Sirius would have enjoyed a few more minutes of eating meat pies with Remus and watching the way the sunlight caught on his hair, of cataloguing the faint whiskers of facial hair finally growing in on his face. He answers honestly, though, because he's always been as truthful as he dared with Remus even without pacts like he has with James.

"Prongs and I were talking today and I realised - I realised that I'm kind of a terrible boyfriend?" he begins with. He rubs the back of his head sheepishly when Remus snorts.

"You're a good friend, though," Remus replies, smiling. He finishes the meat pie in his hand, waiting for Sirius to continue.

"About that," Sirius says. He scoots closer to Remus, taking his hand again. This time, instead of tugging Remus around, he just intertwines their fingers, watching the way they fit together. Remus' hands are rougher than his, his fingers a little thicker, but it's exactly what Sirius wants. "Remus, I don't - I don't do half of the things I do for you for anyone else, not even James."

Remus looks over slowly, his face pinching in confusion and caution. "You don't?"

Sirius nods, swallowing heavily before he gathers his Gryffindor courage. He squares his shoulders, looking Remus in the eyes. "No. Just for you. I never knew that I did, or why I did it, until today."

He squeezes Remus' hand. "Remus, I - I mess up a lot, and sometimes I hurt you, but I never do that intentionally. I want you to be happy, always, because I like it when you smile and I like hearing you laugh. I learned how to be an Animagus because I didn't want you to be alone when you transformed but also because I didn't want you to be alone when you woke up."

Remus blinks furiously, his eyes wet. Sirius smiles a bit, giving him a moment to collect himself before going on. "A lot of the things I do is for you. And if you don't feel the same way, that's okay too. I'll still keep doing things for you, I'll still be here."

"Oh, Sirius," Remus says. "Come over you here, you dumb mutt," he tugs Sirius over, closer, until they're close enough for Remus to wrap his arms around Sirius. Sirius hugs him back tightly, blinking rapidly himself to dispel the gathering tears in his eyes, relieved.

"I thought - I thought I was just reading into things," Remus says wetly. "I thought I was just projecting onto you."

"You weren't," Sirius says, voice rough. "I love you."

AN: lmao did you expect something cute involving rabbits? u thought

Anyway, here are the flowers and their meanings in this story. Some of them were mentioned by name, but some weren't.

Carnation (white) - pure love

Carnation (red) - love, pride, admiration

Amaryllis - worth beyond beauty

Gladiolus - strength of character, honour, remembrance

Iris (blue) - faith and hope

Tulip - deceleration of love

Roses - love

Sunflower - adoration, dedicated love