I'm just going to assume I'm correct in assuming you won't go blabbing any old thing I tell you. I trust you. You're not the type who'd go on taking the piss out of me, or, worse, telling Padfoot about all of it…

Right, well, I should start from the beginning.

When I'm alone in a place with a lot of floor space—promise you won't laugh—but I like to, erm, well, dance.

And not just any kind of dance. I mean full and proper ancient person's ballroom dancing. I go around the room, with my arms up like there's a girl in my arms. Only, if there were a girl in my arms, I don't suspect they'd be very happy, seeing as my warped version of ballroom dancing involves random twists and spins out of nowhere. Sometimes I just turn and turn and turn on the spot.

See, I knew I could trust you. You're not laughing yet.

So I've been doing this more and more lately, dancing around to some erratic tune that changes according to my train of thought.

When there's enough space that I don't have to mind furniture or walls, I close my eyes. Just follow the tune. One day I'm doing this, dancing around, holding my arms up, ready for a girl like she's going to slip right into step with me.

Except I start to feel like maybe I am holding a girl in my arms. And if I am, it's the girl who's just finally succumbed to my charms, my new girlfriend, and the one who will matter the most. Through my closed eyelids I see her green, green eyes, and her shiny red hair. She's laughing, looking up at me like she is really, honestly happy to be here. I feel myself smile.

Except suddenly she's getting taller by the second. Her eyes fade, turn grey. Her hair shortens, darkens, turning auburn, then deep chocolate, and suddenly black as mine. Her smile becomes more crooked, the lips wider. Her forehead grows, her jaw becomes stronger…. Until she is no longer even a she. She is now he. He is Padfoot. And he's in my arms, having a jolly good time, twirling me about just as much as I am.

My eyes fling open and the music, my tune, stops. Like there's a band in the back of my head, and the moment they saw me imagine Sirius in my arms, they dropped all their instruments in shock. I shook my head roughly, telling myself I shook my thoughts clear.

It's mental. I don't fancy blokes. I particularly don't fancy my best mate. I fancy Lily Evans, the love of my life, who I will one day marry and have little kids with red hair and hazel eyes, maybe with freckles on their noses like hers.

I do not fancy Sirius. I do not.

All right. All right, so maybe I do fancy him. I fancy him a lot. But—I mean—that's just—it's completely normal! I'm a teenage boy, right? No big deal. I have hormones. Big deal.

Besides, I don't go for the loud kind, the kind that shout at you and call you a wanker and a prick and a pillock and a toerag—

I mean.

I only meant, I don't go for Sirius' type. Because I don't. Lily is a great girl. She's beautiful, and brilliant, and sarcastic and cheeky and fun to be around. She deserves a bloke who'll tell her that every day and—and—and she doesn't deserve this.

Oh Merlin. I've been so worried about all that…. I forgot. Sirius. He's straight. Completely and utterly straight…. As in, he likes females and only females. As in, I don't stand a chance with him. Never have. Never will.

So you see my problem? I'm in—I fancy my best mate. Who is a bloke. Who is straight.

Who will never see me as anything more than his brother.

He knows I'll always be behind him, that I'll always care… but he doesn't know exactly how much I care, does he?

And he can't.

Please, please promise me you won't go off telling him everything I've just told you. C'mon. That wouldn't be on.

I knew I could trust you! You're fantastic, you know that?

I just… this isn't the first time He's come to my imaginations, y'know? It's like… he's inside my head when I least expect it.

The very other night, I had a dream that we Marauders were strolling about Hogwarts, and Sirius' ex-girlfriend, Bertha Jorkins (that gossiping cow) comes running up to us, and somehow she knows that I'm—well. You know. That I swing both ways. And she's raving on about how I've brainwashed them all. She points at Padfoot's chest, her eyes bulging like mad, and shouts, "You've been brainwashed, Sirsie! You left me for a life of sin with the Potter kid!"

And so I get angry, draw myself to my full height (a good four inches on old Bertha) and shout back, "He's straight, you daft bint! One-hundred percent bloody straight! You stupid old cow! Does he look like a bloody poofter to you?"

And I don't get why, but then Padfoot looks at me all heart-brokenly. And so I send my mate a look like, 'what're you doing?' but Moony, the Marauder of Knowledge, answers my silent question quietly.

"He really likes you, Prongs," he says. "He likes you more than you know."

And then Peter starts singing opera and I wake up.

But honestly! How can a… a simple infatuation take over my head like this?

….

I just don't bloody get it, that's all…. I just want to know why I can't ever get Padfoot out of the back of my mind, the corners, the front, the center…. He's all I ever think about.…

That can't be ruddy healthy!

And it's not like he makes it any easier. He's taken a liking to leather. Leather! Merlin, I can't bloody take my eyes off him when he wears the stuff!

Sometimes, when I'm watching his expression change, his hands gesticulating, just watching him, I see something change in his eyes, and I freeze and think, Fuck. He knows. and things get awkward.

But it's gone within minutes, and everything's back to normal. Him being his daft self, and me pining pathetically after him.

So you see my problem, yeah? Thanks loads for listening, mate…. I kind of started rambling here. Sorry about that.

But you won't tell right? Promise?

Not Lily, not Padfoot, not Moony, not Wormtail, no one.

I trust you. You won't tell anyone about my… problem.

Sirius is always in my head, in my thoughts, in my dreams. He's gorgeous, brilliant, hilarious.... The only thing he's still not is in my arms.