It was a warm, bright, sunny, grassy, free afternoon and Padfoot growled low and angry at the sun which was beaming through the common room window high on the wall. Growled at the careless dust dancing through said shaft of sun. Growled but low, low, more to prove a point to himself than anything else really. He looked up and- damn- it was Remus looking back at him all frowny and quiet and folded inside. Not at all wanting for the outside and the dirt and the wind, though he'll get it soon enough, won't he, and Sirius spared a small smile for irony's sake.

"What?" Remus was more testy than he meant to sound and grimaced at the sound of his own voice. Sirius suddenly wanted to swat something away, but there was nothing to swat at. Remus took a moment to stare, imperious, then less so as he wiped at his face with a too-short sleeve. "Have I got something on my face?"

Peter raised his head just for a moment, and sniffed.

"Just your face, mate." He sounded apologetic and Sirius wondered when their daily teasings became fact. He saw James' head twitch and knew he was wondering it too, or maybe he had just started to sleep and had jolted awake again.

"But-" Sirius took a pause to dramatically sweep wide eyes over his comrades, good men wrapped in the treacherous holds of such evils as homework and revisions, before he continued- "Why?"

"Because we have to know the history of inter-species magical relations in order to-"

"Because they hate us and want us to fail." James interrupted, glaring at Remus. Remus sighed his usual long suffering sigh, made a bit more dangerous by the date, which was slipping into his time of the month, (ha, ha) and the time, which was three in the afternoon on a saturday afternoon, when even he should be stretched out long on the cool grass under some tree, reading. Not squeezed into an unseasonably sweltering may common room armchair, reading over and over an essay which he would forget in the morning, hell, he would forget it in the night time when he twisted in his sheets in anticipation of tomorrows freedom and pains.

"I'm sorry." Remus said, not angry, just sad. Strictly it wasn't his fault, but they all knew that if he had been a bit more focused then maybe they would've been done hours ago. He could've finished and then the rest could've given up, and copied tomorrow and gone out to run the grounds with clearer consciouses. But Remus had kept on even though he was far too irritable to make any headway on- what was it?- Interspecies mer- and other peoples relations through the early founding of the modern ministry- and he felt the dying light pulling his skin, even though it wasn't until tomorrow. He knew that, somehow, the heat was making this worse. And some combination of the heat and the essay and the (oh god) exams coming up and the tantalizingly close summer holiday was making everything seem worse, but for some reason the thought didn't hold any comfort. It made him angry because he was angry for nothing, and he wasn't getting anything done and there was nothing he could do about it and Sirius was looking at him strangely again and-

"What for?"

"What?"

"What are you sorry for?" Suddenly Sirius was angry like he used to be, and Remus was really, really, really not in the mood for it.

"I- nothing. I just- I don't know why I said that. Sorry." He knew it was a mistake. He could smell- he could taste the reprimand and then he was getting angry, actually angry, and it bothered him because there was absolutely no reason for it.

"I said, what are you sorry for?"

"Nothing. I'm not sorry for anything."

"Then what d'you say that for?" Sirius was still looking at him, eyes glinting. Remus decided to give up before it escalated, before they became children and children became animals and animals can rip and tear and be things that Remus was not, very much not, thank god and any other deity responsible.

"Nothing." And he gave up, but in a way he was also winning, and Remus kept a smile from bending curt on his mouth, because it felt good to see Sirius angry, to push him to the chance of a fight, almost, to taste the electric anger, an animal pride. Remus did not indulge either of them, did not fight, but it was still a cold lupine thrill to see Sirius back down in anger. Remus bit into his smile and tried not to think about things like dominance and pack mentality and animal versus human impulse and how that could affect-

"Bugger this." Sirius gave up, a levee breaking, a breath of stale air.

As he walked out of the stuffy dormitory, Moony could see the dust rise up under his heavy heels as Prongs and Peter scrambled to follow. He sighed, and then closed his book with a shoop of old air