The first time James Sirius Potter noticed that Theodore Remus Lupin was quite the looker was when he was fifteen. It was the Easter holidays of his fourth year at Hogwarts, and his mother had banished him from the house after an incident involving a Niffler, Albus' bedroom and a rather large container of pink glitter. Everyone knew that he'd floo Teddy - despite their age gap, they were far closer than James and Al, and after graduating Teddy had promised James he was welcome in his flat whenever. When he arrived, the flat was empty, but he knew Teddy was most likely at training, and would get home soon enough. He'd settled down on the lounge, a packet of crisps filched from the kitchen pantry in hand and turned on the telly. It was a Muggle channel, with some sort of disc they kept spinning around. People were getting rather excited, jumping up and down as it finished spinning.

"Mad. Bloody mad," James muttered, snacking on another crisp.

"Yes, Jamie, you are," Teddy said drily, stepping out of his fireplace.

"Must you call me that?" the younger boy huffed. It was a nickname for a firstie, not a fourth year.

"Must you sit on my lounge and eat my food?" Teddy countered. James swivelled to look at him for the first time; he was soaked through, his hair so muddy only flashes of blue were visible.

"Well, you know, I thought that I'd be welcome here. You don't eat those anyway, what with your special diet and all," James crossed his arms across his chest and looked younger, much younger, to the point that Teddy shook his head, stomping a bit of the mud off his boots.

"Snarky tonight, aren't you? I'd prefer you ate the chocolate though, I had enough of Pomfrey shoving it down my throat every time I broke a bone at Hogwarts," Teddy grinned, and even through the mud, it lit up the room. "I need to shower, and get these washed, then we can watch tonight's match, alright? Think about what you want for dinner, there's a pile of take out menus on the bench."

He got an enthusiastic nod in response, and traipsed out of the room. The show changed, to that of the muggle news, which James found significantly more sensible and therefore rather boring. He took the opportunity to glance over the take out menus, settling on Thai.

"Buggering fuck – James, a little help?"

James made his way to the source of the sound, which turned out to be Teddy in the laundry – the very Muggle laundry – entangled in his Quidditch robes, his hands above his head in a way that was slightly – well, very – comical. What made his laughter die in his throat, though, was the way Teddy's defined muscles twisted and strained as he tried to right himself. He licked his suddenly dry lips, long fingers sliding inside the fabric to tug Teddy's head free. His breath hitched in his throat again when Teddy grinned at him, twisting to remove his arms from the tangle of fabric.

"Thanks."

"Yeah, no problem," James muttered, determinedly looking at the washing machine which sat beside them. "Why do you even bother with muggle appliances? Wouldn't spells be easier?"

Teddy laughed and tossed the robes in the washing machine, now decidedly bare-chested, wearing just his trousers and boots. "Ever tried to scourgify quidditch robes, Jamie? The mud gets in so deep that trying it destroys the fabric," he bent down to empty detergent into the machine, and James concentrated very hard on the cracked window over Teddy's back.

Straightening, Teddy cringed. "Urgh, mud in my toes. I still need to shower," he slipped past James, which made him uncomfortably aware of how close they were. "When you decide on what you want for dinner, just knock on the bathroom door, yeah? I'll be able to tell you what I want without a menu."

Before James had a chance to respond, Teddy had clattered down the hallway, leaving a trail of mud behind him, and he slumped against the dusty wall of the laundry.

Talk to Teddy.

While he was in the shower.

While he was in the shower, naked.

While James was aware of just how tight these bloody Muggle jeans were.

Which was perfectly normal, right? He got hard in History of Magic class not long before the holidays. Completely normal. He was a fifteen year old boy, after all, and the Talk that his mother had given he and Al last year, full of stuttered comments and slack-jawed stares, had said something of the sort. It was a complete coincidence that Teddy shirtless and bending over and flexing and...

Merlin, Teddy was fit.

He'd known that somewhere in the back of his head for some time. He was a professional Quidditch player, for the gods' sake. Of course he was fit! But the abstract thought of "Hmm, Teddy is able to fly around for several hours, he'd certainly be able to take me in a fight if he wanted" and "Wow, Teddy is stretching and moving and shirtless less than a foot away from my face" were two completely different ideas.

"Fuck," James muttered, banging his head on the wall behind him. He swallowed hard, stumbling his way to the kitchen to ponder the thought of Thai some more.

- - -

That encounter failed to convince James that he was interested in men. It was just Teddy, Teddy who'd been there since the day he was born, who he followed around like a little boy lost, who he did not have a crush on. He just... it was Teddy.

But he could not un-notice how attractive his god brother was. As somewhat of a (horrible) compromise, he instead decided to simply notice how attractive other people were in more obvious ways.

He chose to go through with this plan by picking up a girl in the year above him, Rachel. She was a Gryffindor too; a bit of fun, helped him tease his shit of a Ravenclaw little brother and got on with Lily. They dated, on and off, from the start of James' fifth year, seemed as serious as a sixteen year old could manage in a relationship; yet he didn't mention her to his family, at all. Albus and Lily told their cousins and aunts and uncles at length about Jamie's girlfriend, with honey blonde hair and pretty blue eyes, but they'd been spewing such things since before Albus joined James at Hogwarts, so the gossip had been waved off without a word.

In fact, the first anyone outside of Hogwarts saw of Rachel Holland was Teddy, in Hogsmeade one weekend. The pair of them had walked into the Three Broomsticks, and James had immediately spotted the flash of bright blue hair in the corner of his eye.

"Teddy?" James gasped, his eyebrows almost disappearing into his fringe.

"James!" Teddy turned, Butterbeer in hand, grinning widely. His eyes fell on Rachel beside his god brother, and he blinked a few times, confused. "Oh, hullo. Am I... Oh, bugger. I'm sorry, I should have owled you, Jamie."

Rachel smiled, hooking a lock of hair behind her ear. "No, no. I'm Rachel Holland, a... uh..." she glanced sideways at James, subtly moving away. "A friend of James'. You're a Falcon, right?"

"Um, yes. I am," Teddy shook his head. "But it's quite obvious from the way you look at him you aren't just his friend," his easy smile returned, and he drained his pitcher, standing up. "I don't want to interrupt your date. I'll owl you next time I'm nearby, James."

"Wait! Teddy, no. How long have you spent waiting?" James said, suddenly finding his voice once more. Something flashed across Rachel's face, but he was too intent on Teddy to notice.

"Don't be a daft git, James. You're on a date. Come visit me during Christmas hols, yeah?" Teddy waved a hand and grabbed a handful of floo powder from the mantle, shaking his head. "Have a good one. Nice to meet you, Rachel."

"So that's your god brother, eh? You never told me he was that cute, James," Rachel joked, the edge on her voice barely obvious as James watched the blue hair disappear into the fireplace. He coughed, uncomfortable, and turned back to her with a pale imitation of his normal smile.

"Let's go to Zonko's instead. I need more itching powder. Oh, and Honeyduke's. Feel like some Sugar Quills?"

She was looking at him with brows furrowed, but agreed.

- - -

Teddy,

If you had told me you were coming -

James sighed, and screwed up his fifth piece of parchment. His method of distracting himself became obvious when his eyes fell on Rose, across the common room, idly charming a paper crane to swoop around her head. Lobbing the parchment towards her, he gaped when she grabbed it, not taking her eyes off the crane, and unscrewed it.

"Why're you writing to Teddy?" she asked, setting the crane down in James' hair. Grumpily, he batted it away, fixing his cousin with a scary approximation of his mother's glare.

"He was in Hogsmeade today," was all he offered, dunking his quill violently into the inkwell.

Her face lit up. "Ooooh, was he? We could have had lunch!"

He snorted. "You were too busy letting Malfoy paw you in the Room of Requirement," he pointed out, and was rewarded with a flush as red as her hair. Flicking her wand, he squawked unhappily as the crane pecked at James' hair more painfully than paper should be able to.

"What's got into you lately, James? You're acting like you were the one who had a prefect badge shoved down their throat."

He made a non-committal grunt and started to write once more.

Teddy,

I miss you.

James groaned and pointed his wand at the parchment. "Incendio," he muttered, brushing away the ash that remained in front of him. Saying that would do no good, it would just make him sound like a bloody girl, a ponce. The fact it was true had no bearing or relevance to his current frame of mind whatsoever.

"Speaking of prefect," he said, glad to divert the subject. "Aren't you meant to be on rounds right now?"

Rose gave a careless shrug. "Scorpius is doing them for me."

His mouth curved into a lewd grin. "So you let him do more than just paw you..."

"He likes rounds!" she said defensively. "Besides, if you weren't so uptight about pawing people, perhaps things would be better with you and Rachel."

"Excuse me?"

He didn't realise he was standing over his cousin, wand in hand, until it was too late. Sighing, he stepped back, wondering precisely when his temper had got so short.

"What do you mean, Rose?" he asked, wearily.

"Nothing," she responded, far too quickly.

"Rose, if you don't tell me, I'll send your father a Howler with the details of your love life," a low blow, perhaps, but it got her on her feet, brown eyes blazing.

"You're an insufferable prat, James Potter," she spat, hands on hips. "You're uptight and narrow minded and your head is so far up your own arse that you can't see the truth. You go see your brother, hmm? Maybe the Map can help you with the fact you can't string a sentence together when it comes to Theodore Lupin."

She stomped off to the girl's dormitory, leaving James groping for the shrunken mirror in his pocket. Tapping it once, he snarled "Albus!" at his reflection. A few sickening moments of grunting later, Albus' face popped up in the mirror, hair far too unruly for James to have caught him at a good time.

"For Merlin's sake, you have the worst timing in history," Albus snapped.

"Oh, shut up, you shit, you have a different girl there every week, it's impossibly to have good timing. I need the Map,"

"...The Map? Are you planning something I should know about?"

James ground his teeth. "If you don't meet me in the Great Hall in ten minutes, I will be," he threatened.

"Right then. The Map. Ten minutes. Got it."