It is 1976, and they are studying for Charms.
Sirius makes a noise of frustration and Remus looks up.
He looks up into his fellow boy's marmoreal pebble eyes and almost hates that wonder is the accustomed state of being. Almost. They are very pretty eyes.
"Scared about the test?"
Sirius looks back into warm, deep tortoiseshell eyes that seem to hold the key everything good, and bad, in him.
"Terrified."
It is 1994, and they are lying low.
Earlier, when Remus had gone to collect Sirius, he had complained and argued against the pick-up point. All attempts had failed. He had met Sirius, in his dog form, outside the Leaky Cauldron to Floo back to his place.
He had groaned: "It's all like some ironic joke – an escaped convict and a werewolf walk into a bar…"
Now, they are sat opposite each other, knees touching, on Remus' ramshackle settee. Cinereal stares into sepia, which gazes unwaveringly back.
"You know, even if I had known it would all end up here, I'd still have fallen in love with you."
"And now? Could you fall in love again? With me?"
"You seem to have messed up your tenses. 'Again' implies an interval of stopping."
The candles flicker, transforming platinum into blue, sorrel into amber. Eyes that flashed blue blink rapidly for a moment, before the head that thrones them leans forward to rest against the head opposite.
"Perhaps in another life we would have gotten the princesses' happily ever after, Moony."
"I can guarantee, Sirius, that you will always be my princess." Four full moon eyes crescent, and shimmer.
"Always?"
"As long as forever has a meaning."
"Oh."
"Quite."
A silence waters jewelled vessels of emotion.
"…Ditto."
"Really?"
"Always."
Suddenly, 'smiling' is an understatement.