Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and its characters; that privilege belongs to J.K. Rowling alone.

A(n Extraneous) Note on Remus, Sirius, and James: Often times when I read Fanfiction I see Remus portrayed as someone socially awkward, and while I have nothing against that, I wanted myself to write him as someone who's confident in himself, in his sexuality (he is openly bisexual), and in his body. He is by no means as cocky as James or Sirius. Speaking of whom, in this story, I didn't bother much with portraying them as cocky little shits, because canonically they should have matured a bit by their seventh year.

1

Snogging on the Hogwarts Express

• • • •

The arched glass above the Hogwarts Express was heavily blurred with rainwater, beyond which dark grey clouds swirled furiously in the afternoon sky. The sounds of rain and thunder reverberated through the air as all over the platform families scurried worriedly about—some congregated near the middle, clustered in large vehement embraces, while others were stood at the side of the train, shoving their children through the doors. The din once so characteristic of platform nine and three-quarters was reduced to a wave of hushed whispers: farewells were bid, warnings were said, and the noise of sobs drifted high above the current. Once in a while there was a shout, dispersing through the vacant quietness and soon dying out.

On any other day, Remus would have had a hard time locating his friends through the dense crowd, but today the throng was thinning so rapidly that the minute he passed through the barrier, his eyes had found Lily. She was making haste into one of the train doors, her hair untied and sweeping around in a flaming mess, and twenty feet away, James darted after her with a look of genuine concern, yelling something that was drowned instantly by thunder. A long distance behind him, Remus could make out Sirius' slender frame, his black hair disheveled in the stormy winds, a wide smirk plastered on his face. Remus began to run toward his friends, looking down to avoid the puddles of water on the ground.

A couple seconds later he heard Sirius shout, "Moony!"

Remus raised his head up. Sirius was walking toward him briskly, no longer tailing behind James. Remus smiled and lifted a hand to wave, just as Sirius gained speed and slipped on a puddle a few steps forward. Remus' smile broadened and a laugh rose up his throat; it faded inexplicably before it left his mouth. Sighing, Remus moved quickly toward his fallen comrade with an ostentatious display of dexterity.

"Need a hand?" Remus mocked, pointing at the trunk lying beside Sirius' body. "That really does seem too heavy for you to lift. Maybe you should start developing those muscles more, you skinny little runt."

"Oh shut up Moony, you and I both know that I'm stronger than you are." Sirius' hand was up in the air and Remus took it, allowing Sirius to hoist himself up. "On any night other than a full moon," he added with a grin.

"You sure about that? Remember that time in the Three Broomsticks when you bet that I couldn't shag that girl—"

"And five minutes later you two were heading to the bathroom," Sirius grumbled, suddenly sounding hostile. "Yes, I remember. Your point?"

Remus raised an eyebrow at Sirius' inflection. "My point, Padfoot, is that you shouldn't underestimate my faculties, be it charismatic, mental, or physical." Remus turned toward the train, Sirius in tow. "So how's—what's her name, um—Rocara?"

Sirius looked taken aback. "Who?"

"Your girlfriend… unless I got her name wrong."

"Oh right, her." Sirius looked extremely awkward, though Remus could not place a finger on it. "Why ask?"

"Why not?"

"Well of all the things you could have asked, I didn't really expect you to ask about my love life," Sirius said, sounding sheepish. "You, of all people."

Remus shrugged. "You sent me a shitload of owls about how great your summer was at the Potters, but you didn't once make mention of your girlfriend and her 'big-ass' tits, so…."

Sirius glared at him. "I never said her tits were 'big-ass.'"

"Oh really, then what were you saying over and over and over again right before we left for summer?"

"Nothing," Sirius said matter-of-factly. "About her, anyway."

Remus smirked. "Pads, did James knock your head with a Memory Charm or something? It's not unusual for you to forget the girls you've slept with, but their tits, on the other hand—now that's something memorable."

Sirius rolled his eyes, though that did little to diffuse his obvious tenseness. "Not that I remember."

"Ah," Remus said, his brows furrowing. "It seems that James has gotten more thorough with his charms." He winked at Sirius, who grinned at the pun.

The two stepped into the train and Remus hurried unceremoniously off to the head of the train where the prefects' meeting was taking place; he had only run a few paces before he bumped into a fellow prefect, who told him that the meeting was over and there was no assigned patrolling, much to his confusion and surprise. Thereafter, he and Sirius proceeded to find an empty compartment, their task severely hampered by the masses of people congesting the corridor. At one point Remus almost lost Sirius, and had to wait outside a compartment for his friend to catch up. As Sirius came into view, he looked uncomfortable again, his gaze transfixed on the floor; it was so unlike him, not bothering to check out the girls on the train. Remus rose off the wall against which he was leaning, but Sirius' hand caught at his shoulder and pushed him back against it. Remus stared at him in bewilderment.

"I broke with her."

"Oh," Remus said, a little more impatiently than he intended. "Well, I'll have you know that I'd arrived to that conclusion before we entered the train."

Sirius looked at him in surprise, then chuckled. "I've forgotten how smart you are." Sirius gave a small smile, which vanished almost immediately as his entire face went pink. Remus glared at him, his confusion very much so unabated.

"Sirius?" Remus asked, suddenly aware that they were still standing against a wall. "What's the matter with you?"

"Matter?" Sirius repeated, as if it was a word he did not know. "Wha—nothing."

"Okay," Remus said. "Let's try this: Why have we stopped so you can tell me this now, when we should be finding our friends? Especially since you break up with a girl every week?"

"I don't break up with a girl every week!"

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really. For example, I haven't had a girlfriend since Rocara—"

"Wait what?"

Sirius looked so abashed that Remus would have laughed, were it not for his befuddlement. "I—yeah, I haven't been very active lately. Happy?"

"Why would I be happy? Oi, and stop changing the topic. If you don't tell me why you're acting like this in the next five seconds, I will hex you. And don't say nothing because, one, I'm tired of the word 'nothing,' and two, you're obviously hiding something." Remus pulled out his wand and pointed it menacingly at Sirius' face to reinforce his point. "Don't you dare," Remus added as Sirius looked around like he was ready to bolt.

"Remus, what the hell are you doing?"

A look of relief passed over Sirius' face as Lily bounded beside them, her eyes fixed warily Remus' outstretched wand.

"Nothing," Remus said, reluctantly stowing his wand back into his bag. He gave Sirius a stern look that said, This isn't over. To add on to his confusion, Sirius didn't even smile in triumph. This definitely is not over.

"Don't 'nothing' me, Remus. What was happening?" Lily glared at Remus, and Remus glared back. Sometimes Remus hated how similar Lily was to him; her weaknesses were so often his weaknesses too, where his strengths could not penetrate.

"Why don't you ask him? He's the one acting abnormal," Remus jabbed a finger toward Sirius, who looked so uncharacteristically expressionless that even Lily raised an eyebrow.

Sirius looked at the two, avoiding their eyes. Then he turned exclusively toward Lily. "Where's James?"

"How would I know? I lost him through the crowd—well, more like he lost me, but yeah. Had to do a lot of back-and-forths to get him off my tail. By the way"—she glared at Remus—"why didn't you attend the prefects' meeting?"

"I was just going there," Remus said innocently. "Then a prefect told me it was over, so I decided to look for compartments instead."

"Yeah well, Potter concluded it within five seconds. Didn't even bother to with the patrol schedule, so now every prefect's gone to have fun with their mates. Can't believe he became Head Boy. I mean, if Dumbledore wanted a prankster as Head Boy, he could have at least chosen you. God, I don't even want to think about patrolling with Potter in school."

"We should go find him," Sirius said, seeming to find his voice again. Remus narrowed his eyes. Sirius sounded almost normal now. It was the relationship front that made him uneasy, but why? What had happened over the course of this summer, other than the rise of You-Know-Who?

Sirius began to walk away, but Lily stood unmoving, and Remus found himself siding with her.

Sirius paused and scowled at them. "Well?"

"Well, I'm not coming with you," Lily said. "Didn't I just mention having to escape from Potter?"

"And I'm not coming with you, because something was up just now and now you're normal, which in itself shows that something's up," said Remus, staring expectantly at Sirius.

Sirius threw his hands up. "Fine. Go find some compartment to snog in." And with that, he left.

Remus' eyes trailed after his departing figure. "What the fuck?" he mumbled.

• • • •

Five minutes later, Sirius found James and Peter in a compartment. He flopped down listlessly on the seat next to James, not caring enough to greet Peter, whom he hadn't seen on the platform. "Fuck," he said under his breath. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"What's that?" James asked.

"Fuck, fuck—what?" Sirius' heart skipped a beat, and he continued his string of 'fuck's in his mind. Fuck Remus. Fuck James. Fuck me. Fuck me for being such an over-reactor. Fuck me for over-reacting even now. Fuck my heart for skipping a beat. Fuck me for having to go through a hundred more 'fuck's. "Nothing."

Across from him, Peter was eating heartily at some candy he bought, which were strewn all over his lap and spilling onto the seats. Sirius suddenly became conscious of how hungry he was, and he reached forward to nick some of Peter's lunch, partly for the purposes of satiation and partly for a distraction. Sirius' hand was an inch away from the confections when Peter noticed what he was doing and (with a "HEY!") immediately scooped them all up against his chest, or attempted to do so anyway. Regardless, Sirius managed to grab a Chocolate Frog, giving Peter a gleeful smile. The boy had enough candy lying around him to feed a nation anyway.

Sirius began to unwrap his Chocolate Frog, pulling out the card and tossing it aside. The card hit James, who yelped and launched into a tirade about how unhandy Sirius was, in which the only words Sirius picked up were "Evans," "paper cut," "arms," "ruined," and "chance."

"Prongs," Sirius interposed. "Evans doesn't care enough to look at your arms." That effectively shut him up, and left Sirius to relish his Chocolate Frog in peace. The frog attempted to jump, but Sirius caught it, bringing it to his mouth….

The smell of the chocolate wafted through his nose before it was in his mouth. Suddenly Sirius smelt books as well, and parchment, and a headier, more intimate sense of Remus. It was as if the frog was made of Amortentia…

A shock shot through Sirius' fingers as the thought passed in his head, and the frog fell out of his hands and hopped beyond retrieve. No, Sirius told himself frantically, his head a discordant whirlpool of thoughts. He had caught a whiff of Amortentia last year in Potions, and it smelt nothing like Remus. The fact that he began to identify the smell of love with his best friend…. No, Sirius said again, chiding himself sternly. You don't swing that way, and you certainly aren't attracted to your best friend.

"Padfoot?" James asked, his anger almost faded completely. A disconcerted Sirius really was an unusual sight, it seemed.

"NOTHING!" Sirius yelled, his frustration—at Remus, at James, at himself—bursting out in all directions. Peter looked up in alarm and Sirius glared viciously at him, making him drop his head back to the candy he was savoring. James' quizzical gaze lingered on Sirius for a while before he turned away to the window. The sky was still gloomy outside.

With the chocolate gone and his friends dealt with, Sirius resumed his internal litany of 'fuck's, which of course stemmed from the only other thought pulsing through his mind: he was not, in any way, shape, or form, entertaining a crush on Remus Lupin.

• • • •

Remus and Lily walked down the entirety of the train, trying to find a compartment that wasn't full. Lily was just about to open the door to a compartment when they heard Sirius' voice booming inside; Lily quickly pulled Remus by the hand down the aisle. Remus couldn't blame her; if James and Sirius were fighting inside, the door was bound to be opened at some point and Lily couldn't risk having James see her.

Four minutes later, they were at the end of the train, having opened every door save for that of the Marauders' compartment. The only vacancy was Snape's compartment, which he shared with Avery and Mulciber. Lily had only opened the door a slight crack before she slammed it shut, clinically informing Remus that she would not share a room with Death Eaters.

"Well, we're fucked," Remus said, more so for Lily's sake. He was, after all, a Marauder himself, and had no disinclination of joining his friends. "Though between Snape and James…."

Lily made an exasperated sigh, as if failing to contemplate the fact that there was no other option. After a long pause, she said, "Potter. But I'm not sitting with him, so you'd better use your prerogative as a Marauder to make sure that happens." She gave Remus a lethal look. "Or Black won't be the one hexed today. The only one, anyway."

At this, an idea sprung in Remus' mind, but he tamped it down for the time being.

They started walking back, and Remus decided to change the topic. "Do you reckon we'll be able to have a normal year?"

"Why not?"

"Well, with You-Know-Who rising and people dying…."

"I suppose so," Lily said absently. "As long as he doesn't attack Hogwarts. We're still here in a train, dealing with Potter and Sev—Snape, aren't we?"

Remus smiled, his idea gaining definition. "Well, if that's so, I was thinking we could have a little fun, just like old times, you know? Unless you're still uptight about pranks…."

Lily arched an eyebrow. "No, a little fun is nice."

"Remember what Sirius said about us snogging?"

"Yeah." Lily frowned. "What was that about anyway?"

"Dunno. But if we come into the cabin looking like we've snogged, it'd probably irritate James—"

"And then he'll get all clingy, which is exactly what I don't want," Lily countered.

"But wouldn't it be fun to see his reaction?" Remus said, unable to stop the smile spreading on his face. "He's going to be clingy no matter what, Lily, but you could at least make some amusement out of his presence, which you claim to despise so much."

Now Lily was smiling too, having ignored the word 'claim.' "So… how do we look the part? Quite honestly, do you just want to go in and snog in front of them? That would elicit a much bigger reaction."

For a moment, Remus was stupefied. "Snog in front of them?"

Lily nodded. "Unless you mind—"

"Oh no, of course I don't mind," Remus said with a laugh. "I just thought that you'd mind, you know, since you've never had a boyfriend."

"Just 'cause I've never had a boyfriend doesn't mean I've never snogged. I've snogged plenty, really, sometimes just to irk Potter."

"Well, you're going to have to bring a date to snog when you patrol at school, then."

Lily glared at him. "Shut up." She sighed. "Speaking of dates, how long has it been since you've dated?"

"Dated," Remus said emphatically. "Or shagged?"

Lily shrugged. "Both?"

Remus thought for a while. "Well, I didn't date anyone after Astrid… and I didn't get any since then, so I'd say at the end of last semester." He grinned.

They were now standing at the door to the Marauders' compartment, which was a lot more silent now. Remus was about to push the door open when Lily grabbed his hand; he looked at her, frowning.

She stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, "Maybe we should start now." There was something so provocative in the way she said it that for a moment Remus couldn't fault James for being so smitten with her, though he doubted James ever heard her murmuring like that.

How ironic it was that Remus would get to kiss her before James did.

• • • •

Since Sirius' tantrum, the room was quiet except for the pitter-patter of rain, the shuffling of foil and paper, and the sound of candy being crushed under Peter's teeth. Sirius' mind was slack from all the 'fucks' he had repeated, and his body felt like it was losing strength; gradually he found himself sliding off the seat, and then he hit the floor with a thud. Nobody paid him any attention (not that he wanted any)—Peter was still making love to the Goddess of Sugar, and James was pretending to be absorbed in the somber expanses beyond the window. Sirius was so bereft of motivation that he lay on the floor for a while.

Which was a near-fatal mistake.

The door suddenly flung open and Remus and Lily toppled in, tripping over Sirius' poor body and falling down on top of him.

"WHAT THE HELL?" he heard James yell, so loudly that several people came out of their compartments to check what was going on. James immediately shut the door with a resounding slam. Sirius pushed Remus' and Lily's legs off of him and fell against the door as he clumsily pulled himself up. Peter was staring at everyone in alarm, his tryst with the Goddess of Sugar untowardly interrupted.

Remus and Lily hastily got up too, the latter blatantly ignoring James. Without preamble Lily shoved Peter against the window and sat herself near the door, while Remus situated himself in between the two. James' face was red and his fists were balled, his body visibly shaking in his attempt to curb his ire. His mouth was open as if ready to give another rant, but the words never came; it seemed he was at a loss for words.

"You…" James sputtered. "Kissed…"

Kissed? Sirius felt his heart sink, though he had no explanation for it. Remus… kissing Evans…

He was suddenly incredibly tentative in his body, and he didn't know whether to look at the pair in the eyes, to watch James and find some entertainment at his expense, or do something else entirely. Words began to tug at his throat but he didn't know them well enough to say them aloud. Then he started to wonder, with more aggression than necessary, why he was feeling this way—why was he responding so viscerally to Lily kissing Remus? Maybe he was hurt on James' behalf, but it wasn't as if Lily never kissed someone else in public, and whenever that happened, Sirius had always been the one laughing as James bawled his eyes out, or when he got older, started picking fights and getting in trouble.

Lily scowled disdainfully at James. "So? It's not like you've never seen me kiss before, Potter."

Sirius looked at James, whose emotions were definitely a lot less convoluted than Sirius'. It was pure anger and chagrin, unbridled jealousy. Sirius felt all three with just as much intensity, but he equaled them with his denial. He could not stop the thought—that it was Remus, not Lily, not James—from creeping into his mind, for the more he looked at Remus, the more real his emotions became, and the harder it was for him to lie to himself; yet he refused to dwell upon it, because it wasn't real. It wasn't happening. It was probably just some phase that would pass in time. He was not in love with his best friend. He could not be.

"But you kissed Moony." James choked on the last word, like he didn't believe it himself. Then he whirled on Remus, his eyes aflame with betrayal. "HOW DARE YOU KISS MY GIRLFRIEND—"

"I'M NOT YOUR GIRLFRIEND!" Lily yelled, leaning forward. "AND I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KISS WHOMEVER I WANT, INCLUDING YOUR BEST FRIEND."

"—IS THAT WHAT WE ARE? IS THAT WHAT 'BEST MATES' MEAN TO YOU? DON'T FORGET WHAT WE DID FOR YOU, REMUS LUPIN. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT FUCKING HURT TO BECOME ANIMA—"

"JAMES!" Now Sirius was yelling too, his inner turmoil temporarily forgotten. "HOW DARE YOU EXPOSE US, EXPOSE REMUS, JUST FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR PETTY CRUSH AND YOUR JEALOUSY?"—he spat out the last word—"IS THAT WHAT 'BEST MATES' MEAN TO YOU?"

"I—" James had the grace to look down. "DON'T YOU CALL MY CRUSH 'PETTY!'"

"DON'T CHANGE—FUCK—TOPI—" Sirius was becoming incoherent in his anger. "I'M FUCKING TALKING ABOUT REMUS!"

"AS IF I DON'T ALREADY KNOW WHAT HE IS!" Lily screamed.

A silence descended upon everyone in the room. James and Sirius stared at Lily with their mouths open, while Remus seemed to be suppressing a smile. Peter looked clueless as to what was happening.

Sirius found his voice before James. "You…"

"Merlin, yes, she knows," said Remus irritably. It was the first time he had spoken during the whole event, and suddenly Sirius was reminded of his dilemma before the fight. "What I am, what you all have become."

Sirius stared at him blankly, unsure as to what to feel. "You told her?"

"I confirmed it for her."

"Oh." Sirius looked down, somewhat awkwardly and ashamedly.

There was another bout of silence.

"Well," James finally said. "Now that that's clear, let's go back to our previous topic of discussion." He shot Remus another venomous glare. "How dare you kiss my girlfriend."

Remus looked at Lily, who glanced back at him; some understanding passed between the two, and Lily shrugged. Then she kissed him.

Sirius' blood turned cold and the sinking feeling was back in his heart, now stronger than ever. Lily kissed Remus, and Remus kissed her back; her arms snaked around his back, his right hand rose up to her shoulder, and his left hand remained planted at her waist; their lips moved along each other's so keenly and fervently and expertly, and Sirius' mind kept spinning and spinning as the coldness around his heart solidified into an icy hand, locking it in place, depriving it of its beating….

At long last, they broke apart. From where Sirius stood against the door, he could see Remus smirking at Lily before turning to James. Sirius wasn't breathing. He didn't understand why he felt so betrayed. He didn't understand why he was looking at Remus' hand, still clasped on Lily's shoulder, and wishing it was touching his shoulder. He didn't understand why he couldn't stop staring at Remus' lips, swollen from kissing, and he couldn't justify the fire stirring inside of him, screaming that he should have been the one to make them so red and voluptuous.

He told himself again that he wasn't jealous. He couldn't be jealous. He was not bent… certainly not for Remus….

"Remus didn't kiss me," Lily told James sweetly. "I kissed him."

Sirius looked at James, who was staring at Lily in a mixture of shock, helplessness, and incertitude. Were it any other person, James would have beaten up the person Lily kissed, but this was Remus, and Sirius knew he wouldn't take it out on him. Or at least he hoped… James was, after all, about to divulge Remus' secret just a few minutes ago.

"I—you—" James shook his head, then shrouded it in his arms on his knees.

Remus and Lily both gazed at him expectantly, and then bursted out laughing like idiots. James jerked his head up and Sirius gaped at them in horror.

The realization began to register on James' face, and he bellowed, "HOW DARE YOU TWO—" but he started laughing too. James could never refuse a good prank, be it on him or on someone else. Then Peter's voice joined the chorus, for Peter was a copycat. Only Sirius wasn't laughing. He watched as Remus' whipped his head around wildly as he laughed, his body haywire with the gales of laughter tearing through him. Then Remus' eyes landed directly on Sirius, and his smile wore slowly off his face. Sirius' eyes flitted away, and a sense of guilt washed over him; it was the last thing he wanted—for Remus to stop smiling for his sake.

"Padfoot?" Remus asked, his voice somewhat strained.

Sirius looked back at him, and it pained him to hold his gaze. Then Sirius put on his best act of laughter, and soon Remus began to laugh again. The atmosphere had lightened substantially, and outside, the sky was brightening up as well; the clouds were dispersing and the sun was shining through, and the incessant battering of rain was gone. Sirius assumed his original seat beside James, still maintaining the charade, but he couldn't help but see the genuineness with which James laughed; his crush had been kissing his best friend, yet he was able to see past it and even make sport of it.

That wasn't the way with Sirius. He couldn't find anything funny in the way Remus snogged Lily, roaming his lips around like he actually meant it, or the way Sirius had reacted so deeply to it. He was uncomfortable. He was envious. He was furious. He was hurt. But most of all, he was scared. Scared of losing control over himself and over the situation; in all his relationships, he had been the one to dominate—he had been the magnet, and girls came to him. He knew the ways of seduction, how to pleasure someone, how to manipulate their affections and smite them down if it came to it. But now it was Remus drawing him in, and Sirius was completely in his thrall; it was a feeling he never experienced before, and he was so immensely afraid.

There was nothing he could do to stop it, as much as he desired to: His heart was wandering, just as his identity was changing, and resultantly he was putting his most treasured friendship in jeopardy. He wanted to scream and cry and pour his heart out to someone—no, not just to someone, but to Remus—but he couldn't; all he could do now was smile, and deny it to the best of his ability. But there was no pushing away the tide, and with every passing second, it gained on him and swelled in strength.

Throughout the rest of the train ride, Sirius kept his silence as Remus and James exchanged small banter, with Lily interjecting from time to time (usually in Remus' favor). Without wanting to, he looked at Remus and paid careful attention to his every aspect: his mannerisms, the structure of his body, the shape of his face, the color of his hair, all of which he knew better than the back of his hand.

And so by the time the Marauders and Lily alighted the Hogwarts Express, Sirius couldn't help but let the tide in. He had repressed it for the whole summer, but the floodgates wouldn't hold now, not when Remus was right there in front of him, as opposed to being an owls-reach away.

Sirius Black was very much so bent, and he entertained a voluminous crush on Remus Lupin.

• • • •

A/N: Thank you for reading! P.S. reviews make me happy… like, really, extremely happy, and give me a lot of motivation to keep working on a fic. So please review!

Also, the fic is rated T for now, but it may change to M later on (depends if I plan on writing smut).