A/N: Remus's POV

It had been a long, long train ride, and while a part of me was glad that I didn't have the torturous feel of Susanna's body on my lap, another part of me rather didn't want her to move at all. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought she was flirting with me, but that was silly. Why would Susanna Papp be flirting with me?

I mean, she was no Lily Evans, as James pointed out every time I mentioned how nice she looked out loud when I meant to be remarking it in my head. Still, I thought she was beautiful, and I hadn't been the first boy to think so. She'd dated a bit when we were younger, even had quite a flirtatious spree with Sirius for a while, but nothing came of it, thankfully. But even more than how much I thought she was physically beautiful, there was something angelic about the work she was doing for Professor Kettleburn on werewolves and vampires that made my heart swell whenever I looked at her, whenever I saw her nose in a book about magical creatures.

At the same time, it was only a matter of time before she figured out my secret. Susanna wasn't like Leah, who had figured it out the same time as most of the other girls my year. She was a nice girl, but I didn't think she would be as forgiving. I mean, part of the reason she and Sirius didn't ever get together was because she didn't think he could handle her. Whatever that meant.

If Sirius Black couldn't handle her, there was no way I could give her what she wanted, what she needed. I couldn't keep up with the girl. I would be lucky to get temporary jobs. She would be traveling the world, being the most promising runic translator in several hundred years (as Professor Babbling told his classes regularly)and there would be no place in her life for a stuffy, scrawny, bookish werewolf who was nothing but madly in love with her.

All right, that was a bit dramatic, but the point of the matter was, there was just no place for me in her life, in the life she was sure to have once she published her much-anticipated papers and became famous. She wouldn't be allowed to marry me and keep all of that, not with laws and stigma the way they were. And yet, I wanted to be selfish for once and have her anyway, just to know that there was even a possibility that she could half think of me how I thought of her.

But she couldn't. I wasn't the sort of boy she went for, not the type she wanted. She, like Leah, liked her boys a bit wild and dangerous, and I had enough wild and dangerous once a month to last a lifetime without adding it into my other days. I was never going to be impulsive and bold like Sirius and James. The idea of flirting shamelessly with her in the middle of the Great Hall was absurd, and yet…

I didn't really have time to think much on the way thinking of such things made me feel because I realized Sirius was ushering me up toward a carriage, and I climbed in without thinking. It took me a moment when I was settled to realize that I was sitting right next to Susanna, who appeared to have been similarly ushered into the carriage by Betsy. I was about to turn and scowl at Sirius, but he had slammed shut the carriage door before I could properly rearrange my stunned expression and the carriage took off.

"Well, well," she said slowly, cocking her head slightly in a way I had seen Sirius do with many a girl and smirking a little bit. "Long time no see, Remus."

I laughed a bit, trying to diffuse how awkward I felt, but it didn't work.

"Sorry about them," I said softly. "I guess they think it's funny or something. I have a hard time keeping up with what Sirius finds amusing. It's tiresome."

"Yes, I can see that," she said, scooting a little bit closer. She looked up at me, biting her bottom lip in a way that made me want to jump across the ever-shrinking space between us and put my teeth where hers were. "Do you find me tiresome?"

"N-no," I said honestly. "No, of course not, Susanna. Why would you think that?"

"Suzy," she corrected for probably the hundredth time since I'd known her. "It's Suzy. It's what my friends call me. You're my friend, aren't you, Remus?"

"Yes," I said, although if I was being honest with myself, I didn't want to be her friend at all. I wanted to be so much more than that.

"Well, then," she said, "call me Suzy."

But I didn't want to call her Suzy. Susanna was a beautiful name, and anyway, I actually daydreamed about being so close to her and having so many pet names for her that I would never have to call her by her real name ever again. It was a stupid dream, but a rather nice one.

She went back to nibbling her lip again and I nearly snapped.

"Excited for Hogwarts?" I managed to choke out, looking over to the seat across from me.

"I guess," she said with a shrug. "More so than usual."

She was incredibly close to me and I fought the urge to back away out of the zone of temptation as I said, "Why's that?"

"Oh, well," she said with a little laugh, "because it's the last year of Marauders. I can only imagine the sorts of things you lot will get up to this year."

I could imagine it too, Susanna lying beneath me, moaning my name as I–

"We're here!" I cried loudly, opening the door and stepping out into the cool night air that seemed especially cool against my burning cheeks.

Was that a sigh of disappointment, or was I just hearing things induced by wishful thinking? It was probably wishful thinking.

The fact of the matter was, if she really was flirting with me, it didn't have to mean anything. She and Sirius had flirted constantly, neither of them meaning a word of it. I didn't want to get caught up in something like that, only to find that she hadn't meant a word. Telling myself I was imagining it was painful, but allowing myself to believe only to find I was mistaken… I didn't want to deal with that sort of hurt.

When I spotted Sirius walking with James, Peter, Iris, Betsy, and Brigitta, I made certain to glare at his expectantly raised eyebrow with all the frustration I could muster. Yes, I liked spending time in the vicinity of Susanna, but being put on the spot like that was completely not on.

"Look," Sirius said defensively as we made our way into the entrance hall, "if you're upset about that, it was all Betsy."

"Wow," Betsy said, rolling her eyes, "way to take responsibility for your actions, Sirius. I didn't shove both of them into the carriage."

"I'm maintaining my innocence in the whole matter," Sirius teased, but I just rolled my eyes and swatted him on the back of the head. I didn't have the energy or willpower to put up with his ridiculousness.

I made my way into the Great Hall, taking my seat at the Gryffindor table and watching Susanna walk to the Hufflepuff table, sitting down beside her dorm mate, Catrina Landau. Sirius, James, and Peter sat down around me, the girls going to sit in a different part of the table with Leah, Lily, Alyson, and Mary.

"How was the carriage, Moony?" James asked with a wink. "Any snogging?"

"Of course not," I insisted, feeling the blush creep into my cheeks once more as I looked quickly away from where Susanna was sitting, realizing she was turning to look in my direction once she was seated.

"The girl's crazy about you, Remus," Sirius said with the straightest face I had seen him use not in conjunction with my condition. "Honestly, if you can't seal this deal I'm going to start wondering about your sanity. She was practically begging for you to kiss her all day."

"No she wasn't," Peter said quietly. "She never said a word about it."

James rolled his eyes.

"Peter, girls don't always have to come out and say what they want. In fact, most of them don't," Sirius explained. "Sometimes you've got to read their actions and expressions."

"Like Evans," James said with a grin.

"No, James, not like that at all," I sighed. "Lily's made it quite clear she wants nothing to do with you."

"Ah, that may be what she says, mate, but you're not reading between the lines!" James said with a wink.

"That seems like a lot of work," Peter muttered, eyeing the empty gold plates hungrily.

"It's no wonder," Sirius chuckled, "that you've never had a girl, Pete. They take effort, energy, and attention. And a lot of reading between the lines." He turned back to me and said, "You need to go for it, Moony. You two would be great together."

I shook my head.

"No," I said. "You know I can't."

"Moony," Sirius sighed, "you know about her essay. She's incredibly tolerant. Who knows, she could even succeed in getting the laws changed!"

"Just because she's tolerant of vampires," I replied casually, "doesn't mean she'd be willing to date one."

"Probably true," Sirius conceded, "but it's completely different. Vampires are vampires all times of day, all days of the year. Werewolves only have their problems once a month when the moon's out."

"Look, what I'm saying is just because someone fights for centaur's rights, doesn't mean they're eager to be with one."

"You're missing the point, Moony," James argued. "The big difference is other creatures are always that other creature, but werewolves are human most of the time."

"And when they're not human, they're incredibly dangerous," I snapped. "She won't want me when she figures it out, guys, so stop pushing this. It wouldn't last and I'd rather not deal with the loss."

Sirius shook his head.

"She's not like that, Moony. She's a good girl, and she wouldn't care."

"You don't know that," I insisted, although if I was being honest with myself, there was a part of me that so badly wanted to believe he was right, that she really wouldn't care, and that when she found out about my affliction she would flirt with me even more, insisting that she would make the world better for me… But it was stupid to get my hopes up.

"Yes, I do!" Sirius insisted. "You'll see, Moony."

"If she's so perfect," I said bitingly, wanting the conversation to be over, "why didn't you date her?"

Sirius looked at me for a moment, confused, and then he seemed to remember their period of intense flirtation and he flushed with embarrassment, looking down at the gold plates.

"There was never really anything there, Moony," he whispered. "We teased, but it would have been like dating Leah. Nothing could have come of it. She felt nothing for me and I felt nothing for her, but the way she talks about you… there's something there, Remus. I know it. And we all know how you feel about her."

Before I could argue that there was nothing and that he obviously didn't know what he was talking about, the first years began to file in behind Professor McGonagall, heading up toward the front of the Great Hall with the watching eyes of the entire school on them. I should have paid attention to the Sorting, but my eyes wandered continually over to the Hufflepuff table, and every new Hufflepuff student only gave me more excuses to allow them to do so.

She was going to figure it out sooner or later, with her essay. She was a bright girl. So either she would be as fantastic as Sirius claimed and continue to flirt, or she would distance herself from me. No matter what I did, she would either want me or not based on that moment. Would it really be so bad to pursue her? After all, maybe showing interest, showing her the best sides of me would work in my favor when she began thinking over her decision of the matter. Would it really make it any worse?

When the Sorting had ended, the food appeared and my friends eagerly attacked the food, as they always did, but I was too busy watching Susanna attack the food on the Hufflepuff table to pay much attention to what had appeared in front of me.

No chicken, she hated chicken, but she went straight for the Shepard's Pie. Mashed potatoes, some sort of vegetable that Catrina tipped onto her plate… I smiled a bit in spite of myself. It wasn't that Susanna didn't like vegetable, on the contrary, she liked them very much, but when there was a feast they were the last thing on her mind. She loved meat. In fact, he had often bonded at James's summer parties over our love of rare steak.

I suddenly frowned, thinking. She… she loved rare steak. She got sick with alarming regularity, although I'd never really thought out when before… She worked very hard on werewolf rights. Could it be…?

"Has Leah ever mentioned Susanna's health to you before?" I said softly, trying to feel out my suspicions.

"No, I don't think so," Sirius said slowly. "I mean, she gets sick a lot, but I don't think it's ever anything too serious."

I frowned.

"She gets sick a lot," I commented.

"Weak immune system," James said automatically as he shoveled chicken in to his mouth.

"She loves raw steak," I said casually.

Sirius raised his eyebrows at me.

"And her essay," I whispered. "I mean, it's crazy, I know, but isn't there a shot that she could be… that she might be…"

"Remus I don't think," Sirius said slowly, but James cut him off.

"Wait, you're not saying what I think you're saying, are you?" James said, baffled. "You don't actually think Suzy's a… well… that she has your same condition?"

"Isn't it possible?" I insisted, knowing in the back of my mind that I was allowing myself to get my hopes up, dangerously. "Isn't it possible that she could be?"

"Wouldn't you know?" Sirius reasoned. "Wouldn't you be in the same place at that time?"

"What if Dumbledore wanted to protect our privacy?" I said eagerly. "What if he put us in different places to keep us from knowing? It's not a secret most people would want anyone to know about, you know."

"Why wouldn't Leah have told you when she found out about you?" Peter said softly. "She didn't say a word."

I thought back to when the girls had confronted me about my lycanthropy. I had been terrified, especially at Leah discovering. She was one of our closest friends, but she was also Susanna's sister. They insisted they still wanted to be my friends, and that they wouldn't tell a soul, after I made them absolutely promise not to tell anyone.

"Even Suzy?" Leah had asked.

"Especially your sister," I had said urgently.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I had known that she would eventually figure out the truth for herself but the idea that she would ever treat me differently was so painful that I wanted to put it off as long as possible.

"Maybe she tried to tell me," I said slowly, "but I was too distressed to understand."

"Oh, this ought to be good," Sirius muttered, shaking his head. I scowled at him.

"She seemed really eager to tell Susanna about it," I explained. "She seemed very put out when I told her that her sister was the last person on earth I wanted to know."

"Because for one thing," Sirius said sharply, "she and Suzy share everything. There are no secrets between those two. For another, she knew Suzy would have loved to have known, for the sake of her research and her essay. Think of all the library dates you missed out on by denying her the right to tell her sister!"

For a split second, I could almost picture us in the library, leaning together to look at the faded words of an old book, her hand on my thigh for balance as she leaned, and my lips linger over her silky hair, inhaling the scent of her as I completely disregarded the words I was supposed to be reading…

I shivered, shaking my head firmly. I couldn't think of such things if I didn't know.

"Please, Sirius," I moaned. "Please, you need to find out."

"Why wouldn't she have told you?" James said. "When she found out about you, why wouldn't she have said?"

"Because Susanna would have sworn her to secrecy as I did," I said. "What if we're concealing the truth from each other accidentally? Sirius, please, you're the only one who could get something like this out of Leah. I need to know, Sirius. This could change everything. This could change my entire life."

Sirius considered me for a moment, and I was almost sure he was going to say no. Finally, he put down the bones of the chicken he had been eating and he looked me square in the eye.

"All right," he said, "but if I tell you I have an answer, it's the true answer as well as I could ever discover such a thing, all right? If I say it's not true, you drop this whole silly idea, all right?"

"You'll do everything you can?" I said eagerly. "You'll really try to find out?"

"Of course," Sirius said darkly, "and I'll keep an open mind, but you need to promise."

"Yes," I said quickly. "Of course. Yes."