A/N: Firstly, thankyou to all of you who have reviewed and/or added this story to your alerts or favourites, I'm so glad you seem to be enjoying this :)
Quite a long chapter here to make up for the longish break in updates - heavy on the romantic side and with quite a big James cameo cos I decided there hadn't been enough of James in this story yet :)
Then it was just me and Remus alone on the sofa. I leant my head back and turned to face him.
"Thank you for a lovely night; it was perfect. You're wonderful…"
"I had a pretty amazing night myself". He picked up my hand from my lap and twined his fingers in mine.
I looked at him intently; "I mean it; I mean when my feet started to kill and you picked me up and carried me to the buffet table just because I wanted cake…" He laughed. "…that was so, so sweet."
I moved out of his embrace and turned to face him.
"As a matter of fact, I heard something interesting tonight…"
"Oh really?" He raised an eyebrow. "And what might that have been? If Sirius said something abou- "
I put a finger to his lips, making a mental note to tap Sirius for interesting stories in future.
"No, it wasn't anything along the line of embarrassing memories …" Remus looked relieved. "Becky told me that Sirius had said to her that he'd never seen you this happy before you met me…" I hesitated and looked down at my hands, adding in a small voice; "Is…is that true?"
He lifted up my chin and looked me in the eye.
"Yes… it is; these past few weeks have been so much fun, I feel really close to you now; and not just because you're leaning right against me…" I laughed a little "… you know what I'm trying to get at… You mean so much to me; I can't imagine what I ever did without you Zara."
I didn't know what to say to this, so I leant in and kissed him; soft at first, growing more intense; hoping I was showing him exactly how I felt. My whole body was on fire and I was overwhelmed by the feelings that had been growing inside me steadily for the past weeks, and that had suddenly exploded tonight.
Was I falling in love with him? The thought both elated and scared me. For a moment when we stopped kissing I was on the verge of blurting out that I loved him, but I decided against it; having had so little experience of love I could not be sure what I was feeling…Remus was eyeing me quizzically. "Are you alright? You look a little….-"
"I'm fine, fine, just…enjoying a good gaze" I said, giving him a small smile.
Maybe it was the smuggled firewhiskey that was giving me sudden boldness, but before I knew what I was doing, I had climbed onto Remus and was now sitting in his lap. He looked momentarily stunned, then his lips were on mine once more…
He wrapped his arms tightly around me, pulling me close. I dragged my hands down his back and then up through his hair; making the most of every second. It was, after all, quite rare that we were alone enough to do anything like this.
Remus took his lips from mine and moved them to my neck where he kissed softly the sensitive spot beneath my left ear, eliciting a gasp. I felt him smiling against my neck as he proceeded to lick and nibble right down to my shoulder.
He looked back up at me and smiled devilishly; an expression I returned as I started to unbutton his shirt, my hands unsteady. I pushed it back from his shoulders and then, after glancing at him for permission, took it off entirely.
I paused to look at him; he was thin, as I expected, but where I thought he might have been a little on the scrawny side, his chest and arms were toned and just bloody gorgeous. I smiled and the slight nervousness that had briefly crossed Remus' face instantly disappeared. I ran my hands gently down his arms and back, my fingers dancing over the raised scar lines which criss-crossed his smooth, warm skin. I dotted his chest with kisses and licks.
Growing bolder also, Remus gently pushed down the straps of my dress and edged my dress down slightly; all the time keeping eye contact, checking that I was not uncomfortable with what he was doing, until the top half of my dress was round my stomach and my pink and black striped bra was fully on show.
This was the most exposed I had ever been in front of a boy, but oddly enough it felt exactly right, and not at all awkward.
Remus kissed me softly and then pulled back to look at me. His beautiful large eyes seemed to sink right into my soul; in the firelight the amber glowed and the green sparkled... I felt heat rising in me as his fingers drew circles on the exposed skin above the lace edge of my bra.
I kissed him and shuffled further towards him, my hands tangled in his hair, that was falling over his face and hanging loose to his shoulders.
Remus' left hand had found the hem of my dress and was now stroking my right leg, and I was wrapping my arms round his neck, until -
… the portrait hole banged open at that very moment.
Before I could even think or register fully what was happening, we jumped to our feet to see James stood across the room, bottle in hand, surveying us with a mixture of shock and amusement.
I realised what he was seeing; Remus, shirtless with heavily tousled hair, still holding my hand tightly from pulling me up off the sofa; and me, wide-eyed, make-up smudged, frantically pulling my dress up.
"Ah I see I crashed a private after-party!" James exclaimed once he was done gawping. "Well, well, well Moony my old pal…"
He headed in our direction, banging into the back of the sofa on the way. He was clearly quite drunk.
Remus and I exchanged grimaces and he began to put on his shirt. As he buttoned it up, I felt a tinge of disappointment at the loss of such a lovely sight…
James smacked Remus on the back a little too forcefully, nearly knocking him over, and then sank down into an armchair; clearly not caring that he had interrupted a very significant moment.
"You know, it's always the quiet ones", observed James putting on a rather pompous tone of voice, "and you, Zara, I thought you were a sensible young lady… gone got yourself ruth-ruthlessly seduced by Remus here, I mean good on you, good on you Moony but Zara," he pointed at me, "… on a SOFA?!" He added this last bit with such drama that I burst out laughing and so did Remus.
"What's so funny? This is not a laughing matter kiddies!"
This just made us laugh even more and James looked confused, his head turning between the two of us so quickly it was a wonder he didn't collapse in dizziness.
When the giddiness subsided Remus said; "As clichéd as this sounds; that wasn't actually what you think it was…"
"Of course not, of course not," said James, attempting a jaunty wink but only managing a blink instead. "I never said a word about…"
"No, but I know what you're thinking and you're gonna tell every-"
"Look mate if you don't want me to tell everyone that you sha-"
"James!" I interrupted. "We weren't doing that, we were just, just…" What had we been doing? How far would things have gone if James hadn't interrupted?
Remus and I looked at each other for a moment, the unspoken question hanging in the air between us; not noticing that James had begun whining…
"Remus… Reeeemus…MOONY!!"
"YES, James… what's up now?" asked Remus, turning away from me and looking down at his friend who had now sank further into the armchair.
"I feel…I feel sick Moony…take me to bed pleeeeease"
I smirked at Remus; "Now there's an offer you can't refuse!"
Remus shook his head and rubbed his hands over his face…
"Ok, I'll be back down shortly; I'll stick him in his bed and get a bucket just in case…well, look at him…" James was indeed turning a bit green, "…and then I'll be right back down; don't move an inch."
I smiled and nodded as Remus pulled James out of the chair and slung his friend's limp arm around his neck. James slumped heavily against him.
"Um, on second thoughts, fancy giving me a hand?" Remus asked me; looking apologetic. "I don't think he's planning on making any effort at all to hold himself up."
I moved to James' left and put his arm over my shoulder. At this point James woke up from a brief doze. He looked back and forth between us.
"You guys… lovely guys… What a couple. I tell you if either of you ever need anything I'll do whatever you want…"
"Can we get that in writing?" asked Remus, and I laughed, but James continued unawares:
"…Great stuff, great stuff… you're a lucky girl Zara, you know. A lucky lucky girl… and you, Remus, you are a lucky guy and don't forget that…damn you, don't!..."
"I have no intention of forgetting", said Remus quietly, smiling at me as we ascended the staircase.
"I miss Lily!!" James wailed suddenly. "She's my Lily, why can't she like me as much as I like her I…I mean what's wrong with me? I don't understand!"
"There, there Prongs, she'll come to her senses I'm sure…" said Remus comfortingly (although not exactly sincerely) as he pushed open the door to their dorm with his shoulder.
I had never set foot in the boys' dorms before. It was messy; clothes lying everywhere, cases open, sweet wrappers littered about and a chessboard stuck in the middle of the floor just waiting to be tripped over. The little bewitched chess pieces looked up at us indignantly as we entered, apparently angry at having had their game abandoned. There were four beds facing out from the walls of the circular room. Peter was on a bed to the left of the door, sprawled on his front, still fully clothed and snoring loudly.
Remus directed us to the next bed along from Peter's and we dropped James onto it.
"Thanks… thanks guys… sleep now". Which he promptly did.
Having done our good deed for the night, Remus and I turned away towards the door.
As we pulled the door shut, we heard James mumble "Don't you two do anything I wouldn't do", apparently in his sleep.
"That doesn't rule a lot out…" said Remus.
There we go... took me ages to write that one! Hope you enjoyed it, please R&R!
