A/N: Oh yeah, in my headcanon Mrs Norris is like super old, scabby cat. Even though the original fandom states that Filch got her around the 90s to me Filch just isn't the same guy without her. So... the cat's present in this story, making her max. 20 years old when Harry was at school. Perfectly plausible, right?

THANK YOU for your reviews and alerts. x x

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine.

Beta: No beta, only me. English is not my first language.

"Aha! Caught in the act! I knew there was something fishy going on!"

Black let out a horrified groan and stumbled hastily off Remus. Also Lupin sat up quickly form the floor; he snatched the Marauders Map near the candle, and tucked it safe in Sirius' robe pocket.

Argus Filch eyed them suspiciously from the door, his rusty lantern lifted high to light the small closet. The vexatious cat was circling his legs, and occasionally she shot them with an accusing look. She looked very much like her master. "Just what are you two dogs doing here?"

"Well, we, er," Sirius began smartly and tried subtly to cover the frisky front of his trousers. He closed his eyes and mumbled experimentally, "Sleepwalking?"

Filch squinted at him. "In here? I don't believe you."

"No," Sirius admitted, and glanced at Remus, who was sitting very still beside him, and who had his eyes nailed on the man at the door. "Actually we were playing... hide and seek. Yeah."

"Which one of you's seeking?"

Black sighed, and made a face. "Okay, so... basically I lied just now, again." He glanced around them, as if looking for a reason to be there. "We were looking for a bucket, because, er – well, there was this small... accident in the Gryffindor house. Yeah, one of the team members... exploded."

"Gryffindors stealing, eh?" Filch grinned and the boys had to shiver a bit because of the awful sight. "I'm sure professor McGonagall would like to hear that."

Suddenly Remus moved; he straightened his dishevelled hair first – priorities – and then said, "Sir, we were only going to... to borrow the bucket. And that's when the... er –" He glanced at Sirius.

"The door slammed shut and," Black continued wacthing him back, and turned his eyes back on the caretaker. "And then I tripped on my friend."

Filch lifted the lantern even higher, as if it would have helped him to see them better. He stared at Sirius with his crooked eyes, which suddenly widened. "You're Black."

Sirius gulped. "What? No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are!" Filch growled whilst trembling evidently. The shaking lantern made the closet look like a disco. "I know that devilish smirk!"

"I'm not even smirking!"

Very slowly, and very quietly, Remus moved closer to Sirius and as they both stared at Filch's awfully reddening face, he whispered from the corner of his mouth, "What did you do to him?"

Sirius looked strangely frightened as he kept eyeing the older man. "How should I remember such a thing!"

"You..." The lantern shook even more in the caretaker's hand. Filch's Adam's apple rocked up and down. "You stole my personal book!"

"What is he talking about?" Remus asked while grabbing a hold on Sirius' upper arm. The way he constantly moved closer was as though he was trying to go hiding under the boy's skin. "Don't tell me you stole his..." He turned his eyes on Sirius. "Diary."

Black replied nothing, only stared at the seething man in front of them. He slowly started to rise from his place and whilst doing so, he tugged Lupin skilfully up with him.

Filch's beady eyes were steady on them as he moved slowly closer to them, while growling angrily. He undoubtedly resembled a mangy bloodhound.

"Remus," Sirius murmured to the geek. "I think we should duck now."

"You... I'll murder you dead!" Filch plunged towards them, and as the boys swerved, he crashed into the shelf behind them.

But like that stopped him.

He turned swiftly around and spat indignantly, "Come back!"

The boys were already in the corridor, scampering away from him, and out of reach.

"Sirius," Remus panted as he tried to keep up with the running boy in front of him. "My... robe!"

The boy glanced at him over his shoulder and only yanked him to go faster by his hand. "Nah, we can get it later!"

Heavily panting after the running, the boys reached the Gryffindor tower door. Sure, they had been able to outrun Filch, which really hadn't took that much effort, but it didn't mean they were out of trouble.

Once they had bustled the stairs up to the Fat Lady, Sirius finally let go off Remus' hand, and Lupin used it as a chance to readjust the robe on his shoulders. "I'm telling you, he's going to tell Professor McGonagall," he muttered as they stopped in front of the painting. "And I'd like to have my robe back."

The Fat Lady squinted at them. "It's a bit late for running around, don't you think?"

Sirius grinned smarmily at her. "Not really your business, ma'am! Now, shouldn't you ask me a question of some sort?"

The painting sighed. "Very well. Name?"

"Oh, you know my name," Sirius told her, moving closer to her. "Try another."

As the woman was fluttering her lashes at him, she managed a quick, "Password?"

"Yeah, that," Black hurried and clapped his hands at her. "Now, open up, glumbumble or something."

As the painting sighed forlornly but swung open nevertheless, Black turned to Remus who was staring down to the corridor. He touched Remus' upper arm. "Look, we're fine. Minnie's asleep, and she's like a hurricane when she's woken up from her slumber, so I don't think Filch is going to disturb her. He has to have some sort of instinct of self preservation."

Shaking his head, Lupin pushed him in the common room.

But once they were there, they stopped in their tracks.

The whole room was a mess, to say the least; there were clothes and empty bottles everywhere, Remus thought he even saw a lonely shoe in the fireplace. Someone had thought it to be a brilliant idea to gather every single piece of Quidditch attire on top of an unconscious Peter, who was still lying on the floor, thank you very much. Potter was nowhere to be seen, as was Lily. A couple of second years, who still hadn't gotten into bed, were playing hopscotch on the rug – wait, was that a house-elf?

Remus glanced at Sirius behind him, but the boy was gone.

Glancing around the room, he suddenly saw Lily in the other side of it, and quickly strolled to her. The girl started flicking her wand at random things around the room, mumbling spells such as Reparo and Evanesco under her breath. Lupin tapped her shoulder.

After turning around and not pointing the wand at him anymore. "Hi!" Lily smiled at him, but frowned quickly. "Why are you so flushed?"

"We were..." Remus combed his hair with his fingers. "Er, I was running. Lily, what is going on?"

Lily flicked her wand at Peter. "Rennervate. I'm cleaning, can't you see? And you're not wearing your own robe."

With narrowed eyes, Lupin stared at her. "Could you maybe return my wand now, please?"

"What are you talking about? Accio pineapple."

"You're scheming with James, aren't you?" Remus crossed his arms. He glanced at the room, which started to look like it was meant to. He dodged the flying pineapple, which Lily then placed on the table next to a pile of other odd stuff. "You stole my wand, and he took Sirius', so we wouldn't get out of the closet, right?"

Evans tittered, "I really don't know what you mean."

"Why were we locked in a broom closet, really?"

The girl shoved her wand into her pocket. She poked Remus gently in the chest while smiling, "Don't tell me you didn't like it."

Remus gestured towards his clothes. "I'm not a big fan of getting soaked. I get ill easily."

"I'm not talking about the getting wet-part. I'm talking about something else." She was measuring him with her eyes. Oddly enough Lupin lost his ability to talk at that very moment, but Lily knew what he was thinking when she saw him stole a quick look of Sirius, who was talking with James by the dormitory stairs. She brushed some dust of his shoulder. "So, honey, did you like it?"

Honey turned back to her and asked, "Could you please elaborate?"

"You're not a simpleton, Remus," Evans groaned in a womanly fashion. "You know what I'm talking about." As a response, Lupin only tugged Sirius' robe closer to his chest. The girl nodded at that. "So you did like it, being there with him. Should have known."

"Well..."

"How did he seem?" Lily tried to keep a straight face. "Was he... fidgety? Did he try to get away like he didn't want to be there with you? If he did, that's the prank talking."

Remus took another glimpse at Sirius, and then said simply, "It's not a prank."

"I'll ask the same thing I've asked many times before," Lily began, sweeping a strand of hair behind her ear. "How can you be sure? Did you tell him about your feelings? Did he panic after you kissed him?"

His eyes were soon on her again. "How do you even know we –"

"Oh for Merlin's sake," Lily groaned. "You're clutching on that robe like your life depends on it. You are completely smitten by him. Of course you two kissed."

Remus kept rather quiet, and seemed to be looking anything but her.

"See?" She grinned again. "You're not even trying to deny anything, as you did a few days ago."

"Well, that's because..." Remus' eyes wandered back to Sirius again. "I..."

"You what? Speak up. Can't hear you."

Lupin shook his head and turned back to her. "Nothing. It's absurd, it's... too sudden, it's too strange. Never mind. I cannot, I must be –"

Stretching her hand up, Lily took a grip at his chin. "Stop mumbling, Remus, and tell me what do you want."

"Sirius," the boy uttered without delay. He surprised himself more than he surprised Lily.

The girl smiled widely as she let go off him. "That wasn't so hard, now was it? Sit down, you look like you're about to faint."

Remus slumped in an empty seat next to him, bringing his elbows on the table. Soon enough he was resting his head on his hands, muttering something under his breath. Lily was almost certain he had said something about tyrotoxism.

After taking another look around the relatively clean room, as if to verify once more that the place didn't look like an animal house anymore, Lily sat down next to the boy, smiling and patting his shoulder soothingly. "Look, sweetie, you probably have had feelings for him for a long time now. So it's not sudden." As Lupin said nothing, she continued, "Only when he told you about the feelings he... er, supposedly has for you, yours started to surface."

"He's not pretending, Lily."

Over Remus, Evans glanced at the boys dormitory stairs. "The only way to really know if he means business, is to tell him about your feelings."

"You don't make any sense," Remus breathed into his hands as he was rubbing his face. "How will it help if I –"

Lily interrupted him while keeping her eyes, oddly enough, on James. "I make the perfect sense, you're just too slow."

"I don't know what to tell him. Or how."

"Use your mouth."

The boy sat up properly and unconsciously licked his lips. Lily smacked him in the shoulder. "Oh god, not like that, you doofus! I meant talking."

"I..." Remus nodded meekly. "I knew that."

She poked his shoulder with a finger. "Just get it out of your system, and... study his reaction, or something. If possible, do it in a place where he won't get distracted by other people. And if he is fooling around, then uh... well, let's worry about that later, okay?"

Lupin bit his glistening lower lip and nodded again.

Sirius strode on the other side of the common room, where he had suddenly spotted Potter. He walked past all kinds of weird stuff, like something he thought was a naked house-elf (it wasn't though, it was a block of cheese shaped of a leg of a morse), but he couldn't concentrate on those. He had to find James, so he could kill him.

And he did.

To clarify, he found James, but spared his life for the time being.

Tugging the boy from his tie towards the dormitory stairs, Black growled, "Can I talk to you, NOW."

"I fear I haven't any options," Potter said, feigning a shiver. Once Sirius let go off him, he straightened his clothes and askew glasses. "Oh, you sound royally pissed off. What happened?"

"I'd like to ask you the same sodding question, you ape-tit," Sirius muttered angrily at him once they were alone in the stairs. He craned his neck a bit to take a quick glimpse of Remus, who was standing at the study table with Evans, and turned back to his friend. Lowering his voice so none except James heard him, he hissed, "Is your head still broken? Why did you lock me up in a blooming broom closet with him? You know how hard it is for me to keep my hands off him."

"So you didn't like it then?"

"You idiot, of course I liked it," Sirius puffed and crossed his arms. He changed the weight on his legs, muttering, "But that's not the point."

James glanced down. "Er, what's that?" He addressed Sirius' tent.

Whilst making a painful face, Black shifted his legs awkwardly again. "What do you think? A banana?"

"No, you hate bananas," Potter said knowingly. "I know what that is, but I hope I wouldn't have seen it."

"Oh shut up," Sirius muttered and pushed him down, making him sit on the stairs. "You've got one all the time around Evans, it's disturbing."

"No," James noted. He took a quick look behind him to make sure no one was there. As no one was – hurray – he continued, "I've never had one in public, and to my knowledge, you haven't either."

"Had stiffy around Evans?" The dog grimaced and sat down as well. He didn't cross his legs, for obvious reasons, but tried to cover up his eagerness all the same. To be honest, he wasn't at all successful. "The horror. If something happens in my pants when she's around, that would be Little Sirius withering away."

Potter carefully pulled Sirius' wand from his pocket. "You're such a wanker..."

"Maybe I should go and talk to her now, might get rid of this problem of mine." Sirius smirked evilly and held out his hand. "Gimme."

"If you won't shut your mouth then I'm going to keep this."

"All right," Sirius grumbled and snatched his wand from Potter's greedy hands. Rolling it in his own, he eyed it manically. "Baby, what did he do to you?"

"It's fine," James told him, while subtly staring at Evans on the other side of the room. "And you shouldn't call it that, by the way. No one does that. It's bloody creepy."

Black muttered, "You're creepy."

"No, I'm not," James said quietly, finally taking his eyes off the girl. They found Sirius, who was still ogling at his wand. "You know, you should go to Moony, or somewhere. I don't care. Just leave me alone, okay."

"Are you an idiot? I can't go to him, not with this," Sirius groaned with a gesture towards his groin. "I mean I'd like to, of course, and I basically just was with him, obviously, but abuse's not really my thing, and with my current situation, I might attack him... Again. With this." He shook his head. "Nope."

"No one's telling you to abuse him, you dork."

Black kept shaking his head. "And you really don't have any idea what I'm going through here, do you."

"No," Potter said cordially. He flashed his mate a smile. "But it's obviously painful because you keep whining. Go, and... I don't know, perform a flute solo."

Sirius leaned his head against the wall, and muttered, "No... Can't concentrate on that." He side-glanced at James. "Besides, why do you care about my boner suddenly?"

James grimaced. "I really don't. I'm just surprised to see you've got one now."

"You put me in a broom closet with Remus after tossing a bucketful of water on him?" He turned his unbelieving eyes on the guy. "Of course I'm growing wood. Are you thick?"

"So what happened?"

Black tried to sound nonchalant. "We snogged."

"Snogged?" James repeated as if he hadn't heard him correctly. He smiled. "Good for you."

"Cheers."

"And your current situation is because of... kissing?" Potter asked, and furrowed his brows. "Really? Kis... You?"

"Once again, it's Remus," Sirius tried to articulate very clearly to the blockhead next of him without raising his voice. "Re-mus. How hard it is for you to understand that I lose every bit of my self-control when I'm with him? It's like giving an endless sack of tubers to Pete."

"I understand perfectly." James nodded. "By the way, congratulations for hyphenating his name correctly just now."

Black made a face at him in a way, which reminded James exactly why the guy's Animagus form was a big, idiotic slobbery dog.

James took a glimpse at the stairs behind him, and slowly he stood up whilst patting Sirius' shoulder. "So... I take it from the snogging that he finally told you how he fancies you back, yeah?"

The guy stared up at him, flabbergasted. "What?"

Potter looked horrified. "Er, no!" He started to look for a place to hide. "Oh, I mean... did you guys... have fun?" He gave Sirius a thumb up.

At the speed of light, Black turned around to seek Remus with his eyes, but before he could nail them on the lycanthrope, he saw professor McGonagall standing at the common room door, Filch hiding behind her looming stature.

"Bugger."

The very next day was a rather hard one for both of them. Remus had tried to find an ideal moment to tell his feelings to Black, as Lily kindly had instructed him ("Do it, or I will!) but hadn't been able to. When he had the courage to say something, there had always been a roadblock of some sort, like a plateful of bacon, or Peter; but when he was alone with Sirius, he found his voice to be lost. What was that all about, Remus had no idea.

Also he had somehow managed to get his robe back from Filch, who had insisted on keeping it as an evidence of a serious crime.

From the minute Sirius woke up that morning, he was dead certain that Remus regretted everything that happened the day before. The entire day he had battled over whether or not to talk to the boy about what they did, but every time he had come to a conclusion of some sort, he had backed down. (Later on he deduced that his brain had rotten inside of his melon.) Also, he didn't really want to pressure Remus into anything, no matter what Potter had mumbled at him... obviously with Evans in his mind.

And so by the time they were in McGonagall's detention in the Transfiguration classroom, they were both ready to speak their minds.

More or less.

Sirius gawked at his professor. "No way!"

Professor McGonagall stood in front of her desk, and seemed quite fed up at the boy already. She spoke gravely, "Yes, a 1000-word essay considering your own relationship with the school property – yes Mr Black, the broom closet is a school property – and no wands."

"Are you serious?" Sirius stared at her, seriously. "Serious-serious? It's 6pm! I'll still be here next week!"

"Please," Remus mumbled at him from the next desk. Trying not to stare at the teacher nor Sirius, he pleaded, "Try not to make things worse."

"They couldn't be any worse," the boy grumbled at him while glaring at her teacher. Suddenly he was glaring at Remus. "You said that it's better for us to suffer the punishment ourselves than to reduce points from our house – you said that, and I didn't agree!" As Remus merely sighed at his desk, Sirius turned to the professor again. He whined, "Seriously?"

"That is not the correct way to address your teacher, Mr Black."

"Right, sorry," Sirius muttered and tried again. "Professor, seriously?"

"You have two hours," the serious professor said.

She flicked her wand at het desk, and two rolls of parchment flew towards the boys' tables. Remus immediately opened his, dipped his already ready quill in the ink bottle and wrote his name on the top corner of his roll.

"This is just great," Sirius snarled at his idiotic parchment and grabbed a quill from the table. "Writing is so bloody fun."

Remus glanced at him as he scribbled something down on the paper. "You can do it, just concentrate."

"I have problems concentrating," Black said to him, without even trying to lower his voice.

"Seems that way," Remus replied quietly, while his quill moved constantly on the paper. He had already written at least five lines. "You haven't even written your name yet."

With that, Sirius wrote something on the top corner of the parchment, and happily stared at his accomplishment. Suddenly he realised that he hadn't even written his own name.

"Bugger," he muttered and smudged the text. Obviously he had been thinking of someone else rather than himself.

Naturally.

Lupin smiled at the paper, and his eyes never leaving it, he whispered, "What is it now?"

"Nothing, I was just..." Black put down his quill and turned his eyes to the werewolf beside him. "Look, James said something yesterday. Er, I mean, you never said if I..." He glanced at the professor by her desk, and saw her being occupied with her own writing. "Did I bother you in the broom closet?"

There was still a small smile on Remus' lips as he turned his face to Sirius, who tried his hardest not to stare, of course failing badly. Lupin whispered, "You didn't bother me."

The Animagus wanted ask the boy whether he could elaborate a bit, but he was abruptly interrupted by a loud knock that came from the classroom door. Moaning, he hit his head on the table as soon as he saw who was at the door.

"Ah, excuse me, professor?"

McGonagall answered behind her desk, "Yes, Ms Evans?"

The girl stepped inside the classroom. Her eyes were fixed on the teacher, as if she didn't want the boys to see their green glint. "Professor, I am sorry to interrupt, but I couldn't find any other teacher. I saw two seventh years causing a terrible hassle in the corridor next to Charms class," she said while shaking her head. "I tried to calm them down, but as usual they didn't listen to me."

"It's perfectly all right, Ms Evans," McGonagall said as she removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "Were they Gryffindors?"

"Potter and Pettigrew, professor."

Remus glanced at Sirius who had lifted his head from the table, and was now staring at Lily with his mouth open. Trying not to seem like a total loony, Remus willfully had to tear his eyes off Sirius. Biting his tongue he returned to his paper.

The professor put her glasses back on from the table, sat up and straightened her robes. She wasn't that tall of a woman, but the entire room seemed to shrink immensely once she was standing up. Before moving a single muscle more, her eyes were on the boys, glowering. "Your detention will continue normally even if I'm not present. With anyone else I could use the expression 'I can trust you two for you are already in the seventh year', but with you two..." She shook her head and the neat bun of hair danced with it. "I certainly cannot say that. Do not leave this classroom."

While Sirius and Remus were nodding at her like the two well-behaving boys they were, Lily hurried, "Professor, Potter and Pettigrew were already wearing armours. Potter was even trying to persuade first years to join his medieval tournament by saying he's the heir of the King."

With that, McGonagall was moving briskly towards the door, muttering under her breath, "These four boys will surely be the death of me."

And the door was slammed shut.

Sirius, for his part, slammed his forehead again on the table. He groaned, "I've always wanted to be a knight! Ah... what a waste. Being here sucks."

For a second or ten Remus just licked his lips as he stared at Black's randomly exposed neck. He was gathering some courage, if someone was to ask, and finally whispered, "Sirius."

"Uh-uh."

"I need to tell you something, and..." Lupin lowered his gaze as soon as Sirius returned it. "I hope you'll stay calm."

Black had his full attention on the boy now. He intently watched Remus ogle at the paper in front of him, and already dreading the answer he asked, "What is it?"

Lupin closed his eyes as if he was scared to speak. Actually, he kind of was. He muttered, "I find myself being... stupidly enough, infatuated. I think."

"With whom?"

Remus wanted to swallow his tongue, but he answered nevertheless, his voice being not louder than a whisper, "...You?"

He opened his eyes and turned them to search some sort of answer from Sirius' face, but as his expression only reflected an utter surprise, Remus feared that Lily had been right all along – Sirius had only been playing a prank on him and was not actually in love with him. That in mind; even though the girl had been rather persistent on the matter and had tried to prepare Remus for this exact moment, the same little ball in his gut that had been identified a few days before as 'something more' rather than just simple 'something' – it wanted the girl to be totally wrong.

He wanted Sirius to love him. How stupid was that.

As Remus watched him breathe heavily, Sirius managed to ask, "What? You like me? Like, like-like?"

Lupin nodded.

Sirius glanced around the classroom. He whispered, "Is this a dream? Am I dreaming? Am I dead?"

"Not yet," Remus said quietly. "And I am serious." As Black only stared at him with wide eyes in response, he sighed. He had to know. "What do you think?"

Black had his eyes fixed on his lips now. "Yeah... Can't do that now, sorry."

Remus blinked and turned quickly back to his paper while mumbling something like, "Stupid."

"What, no!" Black yelped and within nanoseconds he was on the floor, crouching next to Remus' chair, pressing his forehead on the boy's thigh, and trying to wrap his arms around him. "You idiot, no no no, don't you dare."

Not being entirely able to comprehend what was going on, Remus felt one of Sirius' hands sliding up and down on his shin, while the other was resting against his back. Rather unconsciously his own fingers made their way towards Sirius' neck, but not like that bothered anyone, really. A hot breath against his leg muttered, "Oh my god, are you kidding me..."

Some sort of weight lifting from his heart, Lupin chuckled. "I'm not."

Sirius smiled blissfully at him, tilting his head to see better. "You're absolutely certain?"

And as Lupin only feebly smiled back him, Sirius of course had no other choice than to plunge upwards and kiss him.

Sure, he had told Potter the day before that he wasn't going to abuse Remus, but his tongue apparently had a mind of its own. His hands travelling everywhere around the boy, and his mouth glued on his face, Sirius slowly stood up and somehow managed to climb on Remus' desk, arse-first. Lupin probably would have asked him what the hell he was doing, but he his mouth was rather full at that moment.

Remus' scrawny fingers were entangled with the longish, black hair in a way that if Sirius would have suddenly backed away from him, the guy would have likely ended up being bald. Neither of them knew this, however, because they were not going to try, and pauses for breathing were highly overrated. Let's face it, they had absolutely no intentions of stopping what they were doing.

His arse finally resting on the desk, and his legs on Remus' chair so the boy was between them, Sirius gave a final lick to Remus' lower lip and pulled away. "Ack!"

"Oh, sorry," the werewolf muttered and untangled his fingers from the boy's hair, lowering them to gently grope Sirius' knees.

Black still had his hands on the geek, but since he hadn't the slightest of ideas where to put them now that he was finally granted the permission to touch freely, he fiddled different nooks of Lupin one right after the other. Fingers danced in Remus' neck and throat, slowly heading towards his chin to lift his face up. Sirius smiled, lips almost touching Remus'.

Remus' right hand flew to touch the Animagus' cheek as he craned his neck to kiss him, but strangely enough, Black didn't let him. "How much, Remus?"

"I'm not sure yet..."

Without a warning Black gave him a sloppy smooch, but before Remus had the time to kiss him back (it should be noted that he really wanted to), he pulled away. "Now?"

Remus gave him an oddlu care-free, lopsided smile. His hands were both again on Black's legs, gripping them tightly. "A bit more?"

Sirius growled as his hands cupped the boy's face as if he was about to kiss him, but he only murmured, "I'm going to do this as long as it takes to get you to fancy me as much as I fancy you."

"But you told me you love me," Lupin mumbled as Sirius kissed his forehead.

"Exactly, so start loving."

There was something inside Remus that couldn't let him feel anything but absolutely delighted, being there with Sirius. Was it his heart or what, he wasn't sure.

The pancreas he did not suspect.

Remus had figured rather young that he wouldn't really have to say anything to express his feelings. His family had learnt to recognise the characteristics of his facial expressions, so when he came to Hogwarts and had real friends for the first time, friends to whom he had to express his feelings for, he was kind of lost. Naturally, the said friends also learnt (over time) that even though he sometimes just wanted to keep his mouth shut, it did not mean that he hadn't any opinions or feelings.

Sirius, however, had stayed thick. "So?"

Remus sighed as he removed Sirius' hands from his face. He briefly glanced at the classroom door, but quickly his eyes were wandering back to Sirius' face. "Did you know that actions speak more than words?"

The boy on the desk straightened his back, and it was a miracle he didn't fall off. He stared at Remus. "Come again?"

"Don't you think if I wasn't sure about this, I would have punched you or at least pushed you away?"

"But you never punch anyone."

Remus leaned into his chair with serious face. "I've punched loads of people."

"Yeah?" Sirius pressed his hands against the table behind him, and cocked a brow. "Like who?"

"Last May, I punched a boy."

"Oh, you mean that second year?" Black sniggered affectionately and watched as Remus unconsciously played with his trouser hem. "Yeah, no, that wasn't punching, love. You just moved him aside from the doorway."

Stroking Sirius' leg, Remus said, "Had I been suffering from a bad day, I would have definitely punched him."

Sirius smiled. He couldn't help but stare at the absolutely adorable way Remus' mouth was curving upwards. He nudged the werewolf with his shoe. "I don't think so, you don't have the muscle. I'm sure people have told you this."

"The point is," the werewolf muttered ignoring his remark and trying to stay calm under his admiring gaze. "That a boy does not let another boy kiss him, unless the said first boy responds to the second boy's emotions on some level."

"I..." Black began as he leaned forward, but then he shook his head. "I think you lost me just now. Too many boys."

"I thought so," Lupin plainly said and yanked Sirius' tie in a way that if his feet hadn't been safely anchored against the chair, he definitely would have fallen on the floor. As soon as his face had lowered enough to be exactly where Remus wanted it, the lycanthrope planted a light peck on his jaw.

Black had never looked more surprised in his life. Once he let go off the tie, Remus whispered, "Clear enough?"

Again, Sirius was moving forward to kiss the guy, but a voice behind him made him think of something else.

"Mr Black, what are you doing on Mr Lupin's desk?"

Being somewhat surprised by his professor's severe voice, Sirius jolted backwards, stumbled awkwardly off the desk (almost kicking Remus in the face) and naturally by doing so he caused Remus' ink to splash all over the boy's parchment.

"Sirius!" Remus shouted, standing up and trying to save his parchment. "What are you doing!"

Lying on the floor in front of the teacher, Black peered up at her and grinned innocently, nodding at her. "Professor."

"Go back to your seat," McGonagall ordered tiredly and flicked her wand at Remus' paper. "Tergeo."

"Yeah, sure thing." Sirius scrambled up and watched as the spilled ink disappeared from Remus' parchment. He let out a relieved sigh.

So did Lupin.

"I have to ask you to resume with your essay, Mr Black," the teacher urged and turned around to walk back to her desk. Over her shoulder she said, "And I must ask you two to continue these lovelorn activities, which obviously caused you to get this detention in the first place, outside school hours."

Displaying the absolute opposites of their personalities, Remus quieted immediately with slightly red cheeks, but Black grinned at the teacher's back as he sat back on his chair. He grinned, "We will do exactly that, professor!"

The geek turned to him and stared at him with his mouth open.

Sirius wiggled his brows at him.

To Sirius' utter dismay, they didn't.

Lily had snatched Remus away from him the very second they came back from the detention, calling Sirius a flagrant horndog and saying something about Remus needing an intelligent company from that moment on. With an overly idiotic expression on his face, Lupin had told the girl almost everything that had taken place in the detention (she pried it out, to be clear) telling her that a) Black was not playing a prank on him, period, and b) Remus should stop with the plan for it had already offered him the answer to his initial question. The point c) had been about Sirius' lips, but everything Lupin had uttered had basically been the most unpublishable material Lily had ever heard in her life and thus the point c had been deleted from existance. Evans had merely stared at him without even blinking her eyes, after which she had inquired if Black had kissed his brain cells away, to which Remus had only replied with another smile.

The conversation had taken about 30 minutes after which Remus, instead of smiling, had looked like he was about to bawl his eyes out – the girl had made him promise to keep following the plan, meaning he should stay away from Black the very next day and hang around with other people if anyway possible ("The Hufflepuff girl you talked to earlier is a perfect choice," she had said, not caring if it made Remus' obvious discomfort greaten). Remus had called that an unnecessary move, but somehow Evans had been able to change his mind – it's not necessary to know how, but it included words like 'snool' and 'troglodyte'. It was obvious she used the beautiful act of threatening as well as James did (if not even better).

The boy, to be clear, did not like the idea of not talking to Sirius.

Black didn't like that either.

"Oh come on, what is this?" he snarled when James stole his seat next to Remus in History of Magic. He slammed his fist on the table and glared at his best friend, dangerously close to his face. "You already took my place in Transfiguration, you bastard! Move your arse!"

James shrugged and stared some distant spot in front of him. "I just thought I'd study with Moony today. Sit back there."

Beside him, Remus sighed and glanced quickly at Sirius, who defeatedly slumped in the chair behind James, banging his forehead on the table. The geek turned his eyes back to James and whispered, "Is he all right?"

"Yes," Potter said plainly as he doodled on the pages of his already opened textbook. Some random L. E.'s appeared on the paper while he muttered, "This er... seat-envy is nothing new. Don't worry about it."

Black moaned his mouth against the wood, "Don't talk about me." He then lifted his head a bit and locked eyes with Remus', for the guy was staring at him. Again. "Talk to me."

The werewolf wanted to, he really did, but Lily had said that if he messed this up and talked to Sirius even once during that day, he would have to spend another two days without the guy. And without tea – she didn't want to know which one convinced him more. Remus, knowing how obstinate the girl was when it came to such things, truly had no other choices except to bit his lip and avert his eyes from Sirius'.

Sirius siged again and slammed his head back against the table. "I'm going to die."

"No, you're not," James said to his doodles. "Quit whinging."

Remus tried to concentrate on professor Binns' monotonic babble as it started, but something made it rather difficult.

That something was Sirius' pathetic voice muttering continuously behind them, "Remus... Remmie, why aren't you talking to me? I'm going to faint." Lupin closed his eyes and counted to ten, trying to steady his idiotic heartbeat as the boy behind him spoke so quietly that no one else didn't even hear him. "Look, I'm sorry if I did something to anger you. I don't know what it was, but I didn't mean it. I'm stupid and I do things, and I'm sorry. Please don't hate me. Please, Remus..."

Unable to take it anymore, Remus glimpsed at Lily, who sat in the desk next to James' and his. The girl was listening to the lecture.

He then turned around to look at the boy, who had his face mushed against the table, but his eyes were steady on the werewolf. Without a second thought, Remus swiftly stretched his arm to touch Sirius' cheek.

Naturally James grabbed his hand before he got the chance. Shaking his head, James said, "Nope."

"But I –"

Potter let go off his hand and tried to direct his attention to the lecture. "Moony, quickly, grab your quill. Binns is yammering about something that matters!"

Professor Binns was not.

As Remus sighed and sat properly in his seat, he heard Sirius mutter feebly against the table, "Potter, I'm so going to bite your arse off."

"Leave my golden arse out of this, please," James sang, and leaned his chair backwards until it was rocking on two legs. He craned his neck so he could see his friend's face better. "Look, Padfoot. Why don't we go and prank the Slytherins, huh? After this class?" He raised his brows as Sirius took a look at him. "Wouldn't that cheer you up a bit?"

A mumble replied, "Don't want to."

James the Patient grinned at him. "I mean a real honest bees-in-the-pants prank, what do you say?" As the dog said nothing, James poked his head with a finger. "Well, how about we take Pete and turn him into a pot roast, or something? That'd be a laugh, right?"

"I have other things to do," Sirius told him whilst keeping his eyes stedily on Remus' neck.

"That is not the answer I want to hear, my good sir."

Sirius moved his eyes on James' exceptionally long nose. "That's the only answer you're going to get, egghead."

"For the love of all that is good in this world, stop acting like a pansy," James said to him and made an idiotic hand gesture. "Black, act like a man!"

"No, I'm not a man anymore, and I'm changing my name also," Sirius announced, and leaned his head on his hands. "I'm Blue for now on. Sirius Blue."

"Oh for Merlin's sake, this is ridiculous," Potter groaned and left Sirius Blue alone.

"This is what happens when Remmie publicly hates me. I just don't understand it," Blue mumbled against his hands, againt watching Remus' back. "Tell me what I did so I can make everything better. Although... I'm not very good at that, so I might end up making everything worse. Maybe I should just go to sleep."

"That is a brilliant idea," Potter cheered at him over his shoulder. "Best you've had today! Do that! After that we could find out just how many Hufflepuffs it takes to make one big huffing pile of puffs. Right?"

"I don't care about Hufflepuffs. I care about something else." His voice lowered. "Someone else..."

Lupin inhaled sharply, for of course he had heard that, then turned around in his seat and was about to say something to Sirius, something that would have brought him out from this ridiculousness, but his eyes caught a glimpse of Lily, who was mouthing, "No."

So what did Remus do? He spun another 180 degrees in his seat, closed his enormous history book, and gathered all his things in his lap. Of course Sirius frowned at this.

"Where are you going?"

But Lupin didn't even glance at him, because if he had done that he would have said something to him and wasn't that just what Lily didn't want him to do; and then he was already hurrying towards the door whilst trying to keep his stuff from falling on the floor. He spluttered, "Professor Binns, ah, I have to go to... libr... loo... no, infirmary, yes! The thing in my foot is er, my... shoe. I mean... hurts, so. Have to go."

As the door of the classroom slammed shut behind the blabbering geek, James slammed his own book shut and muttered to no one, "Ah, I hope this won't take whole week."

Sirius, for his part, slammed his face again against the table. His forehead was becoming rather sore. "I want to punch someone in the throat."

The always so helpful antler-brain was already leaning towards Peter, who sat in the desk on his other side. "Hey, Pete, are you busy?"

"Why would he do that if he didn't hate me, James?"

True to his curious yet undoubtedly jealous nature, Sirius Blue was loitering again in front of the library doors and was trying to get a proper view of his werewolf and the disturbingly pretty Hufflepuff nerd who had, without a question, kidnapped the aforementioned lycanthrope in hopes of bathing in his pheromones and becoming even more geeky and gorgeous. That bastard!

Sirius Blue didn't exaggerate the situation at all.

"Study without you?" Potter sniggered as he once again crouched close to Sirius' legs and peered inside the room. Later he would state that they actually had other things to do besides hanging in front of the library, but no one would believe him. "Yeah, why on Earth would he do that. Sirius Blue, are you mad?"

Sirius frowned at him. "What? I can study just fine." He almost smacked James' big-arse head, but then thought otherwise (no, actually he remembered how James' right hook felt against his jaw). "And stop calling me that already, it's not my name."

"It was two hours ago," James noted him from below. "Actually, if you truly wish to change your name, Shirley would suit you perfectly."

Black shook his head. "Yeah, I'm not going to change my name to Shirley."

"And no, you cannot even study to save your life," James noted and peered up at him. "When was the last time you opened a book?"

"James, I don't like the look on that bird," Sirius huffed and gripped the door frame. If it had feelings, it would have screamed in pain for the boy was gripping it with white knuckles. "She looks hyena-ish."

After taking in the sight of what was happening inside the library, James said, "That basically means Moony's a carcass that gives off a horrible smell similar to Pete's slimy socks. Hyenae find his pong attractive."

"Your socks smell worse actually than Pete's," Sirius kindly told him. "And besides, Remmie smells like chocolate and ink. So shut up."

Trying his best not to bang his head on the floor to forget everything, Potter moaned, "Oh my god, Shirley, are you growing ovaries already?"

"I said shut up," Shirley snarled.

The sight they were forced to watch, yeah right, wasn't actually even that bad; Remus was merely sitting at the same table with the Hufflepuff girl, but naturally Sirius' brain made everything much worse.

"So what, do you think he'll talk to you once he realises you're stalking him?" James asked with a smirk. "You do that a lot, you know that right? It's not very healthy."

"You're not very healthy," Sirius said and watched as Potter rumbled to stand up. "And I'm just making sure no highbrow bird touches my man."

Potter dusted his robes and remarked, "He's not your man."

"Practically he is," Black mumbled at him while keeping his eyes on the werewolf. "We're dating."

James stared at his back, deadpanned. "You're dating."

"Yes."

"Does he know this?" Potter inquired. He leaned closer to take a better look of the moron's face. "You have to remember that you must be clear about your intentions, otherwise it'll be a felony."

Taking a moment to think the perfect retort, Sirius hummed, "You're a felony."

"That doesn't make any sense," Potter noted and readjusted his goggles. He turned around and gestured towards the corridor. "Can we go now, please?"

Sirius waved his hand. "You can go, I'm going to stay. I'll attack if she tries anything. If Remus's going to get some action it'll be with me, not with some stupid self-conceited bimbo."

"Yeah, because what would that be like?" James sniggered at the stupid, self-conceited bimbo next to him. However, as the bloke said nothing to him, he ran a restless hand through his hair. "Look, I really think you should come with me. It's not good for your mental health to be hanging out in front of a library, huffing out jealous fumes all the time because of some bloke."

"Some bloke?" Black hissed at him once turned around. Resembling a hungry dragon, he asked again, with a tad more volume. "SOME BLOKE?"

Potter raised his hands and took a step back. He had always known that Sirius was a biter. "Sorry, Shirley. My bad, I meant your slobber-partner."

Sirius raised his fist as a cue to James to either correct his words or keep his mouth shut, and oddly enough it worked, for Potter grimaced, "I meant the love of your life, obviously. Ugh. I don't understand why I keep getting it wrong."

"Arse-wipe," Black muttered and turned again to watch Remus, but his stalker-eyes were quick to notice something was terribly wrong. "What? She's touching him! By Evans' knickers, touching my man! Why didn't you say anything, you dunce!"

"Well, I didn't see anything, because your fat head was on the way," James explained while trying to keep his nerves intact. Then he blinked. "Wait... what? Evans' knickers?"

"Blind friends, what good are they?" Black asked the door frame. It didn't respond, so Sirius continued, "Right, I'm going in."

Potter immediately grabbed his robe. "The hell you aren't. Calm down."

After turning swiftly around again, Black glared at the fingers holding his sleeve. "Your long nose is going to get married with your mouldy ear, if you don't let go off me."

Of course the mouldy-eared Potter did let go, for he was rather fond of his nose being where it had been from the beginning. Sirius yanked his arm away from James and with his ridiculously long legs he strolled towards the table. James had his wand raised in no time, but Lily stepped to stop him. Where she had come from... who cares. She was there.

Saving the friendship. She hissed, "What are you going to do, Body-Bind him?"

"That, or turn him into a slug," Potter mumbled as he watched Lily keep her calming hand on his. Her persistent expression made him falter. "He already has the personality of one, so I thought..."

"You should let him go," the girl said and smiled a bit as Potter finally lowered the wand. She glanced at Sirius. "I know it's barely been a day, but I talked to Remus and he's going insane. Undoubtedly Black's too."

James nodded towards the study table. "Oh, so that's Remus going insane? He's sitting in a bloody library. Doesn't that mean he's been insane for a good seven years?"

Lily stared at them. "No, I'm certain his insanity began once he started hanging out with you lot."

They watched from the doors as Sirius stopped at the table and loomed behind the oblivious girl who was, er accidentally, touching Remus' hand.

Sirius growled at the perky Hufflepuff, "Don't suppose you'd like to stop touching him so intimately?"

Hearing his voice, Remus turned to look at him. Rage and obvious jealousy was visible on Black's face, but the werewolf knew he wasn't supposed to say anything to make the guy feel better, even though he really wanted to – also he thought that making Sirius calm down would be best for the library. However, as Remus kept his mouth shut, Sirius slumped in the chair next to him and glowered at the girl without blinking an eye until she realised that yes, it definitely was time to leave.

Which was within a second. Sirius looked that mental.

The girl's face supported an odd mixture of blush and paleness when she peeped, "Uh, Remus, I think I have something else to do..."

"Tracy –" Lupin tried weakly, watching her with apologetic eyes.

"No, don't worry about it." She visibly trembled as she gathered all her things into her lap whilst trying not to even glimpse at Black, for she was afraid that the look might be enough to melt her on the spot – and not in a good way. "I promised to... someone to... do something, somewhere."

"I'm sorry," Remus muttered feebly when she finally turned to leave. Turning his eyes back to the table, he then noticed her reading glasses on it. "Tracy, your glasses?"

Somewhere behind the bookshelves they heard a loud squeak, "Keep them!"

Once alone, Lupin fixed his eyes on the boy next to him, and tried to glare at him.

"I thought we had clarified this already, you can't glare," Sirius told him. "You know that."

To that the werewolf said nothing, and only grabbed his quill from the table, and began to write something on his parchment. Sirius inched his chair closer. It was a miracle how the face, which had just a few seconds ago looked so bilious and envious, was also able to be filled with remorse and affection.

And although Black looked like he was regretting being so childish, he surely didn't sound like that.

"Remus. I had to do that, she was too..." His jaw clenched. "Happy."

Lupin kept writing his parchment, but didn't even look up.

Quickly glancing around them, Sirius touched his hand. "Please talk to me." The werewolf took a peek at him but didn't say anything, and only resumed with his writing. Soon enough, however, he had to stop scribbling for Black squeezed his hand on the one Remus was trying to write with. "This has been a shitty day, and that's saying a lot since you know how much shit I've been through." Sirius stared at the bloke next to him, and Remus watched him back. "I have no idea what I did wrong, but you can't expect me to make it better unless you tell me what it was. I'm rotten at Divination."

Lupin glimpsed at the other study table at which Lily had been a minutes earlier, but when he didn't see her, he turned back to Sirius. A deep frown on his face, he only stared at the grey eyes.

"Right," Sirius said. "Well, you're asking for it now. I have no other choices than to kiss you right here in the middle of the library, if you don't talk to me."

And with that the boy was already leaning closer, but Remus stopped him by whispering, "You can't do that in here."

"I don't care," Sirius whispered. "I just want you to talk to me. See, I've been successful."

Lupin turned his eyes away from him, and after searching through the library with hsi eyes while moving as little muscle as physically possible, he breathed to Sirius' face, "Can you see Lily?"

Sirius huffed as he kept touching Lupin's hand. He was still rather close to the boy. "Yeah, she's at the door with Potter. What about her?"

"Oh," Remus muttered. In turn, his thumb brushed over Sirius' fingers. "Do you... Do you think she saw me talking to you?"

"What does it matter?"

The lycanthrope lowered his head and spoke carefully to their hands. "You should go. I'm not supposed to be with you today, or even talk to you."

"Why?" Black asked angrily as though being irate would make Remus tell him faster. His left hand was resting on his thigh, and was now tightly grasping the clothing under it. The other one was clasping Remus' fingers. "And I'm not leaving until you explain."

As Lupin only mumbled hesitantly something Sirius couldn't by any means comprehend, he siked, and took the inky hand from the table to between his own in his lap. With the movement, Remus almost fell on his nose in the lap, but managed to stay sitting in his chair, staring at Sirius. "I swear to god, Remus, I'll snog you senseless right this second if you don't tell me exactly what's going on."

Remus again glanced around them as if waiting someone to attack them behind the bookshelf, then swallowed and spoke quietly. "I shouldn't tell, but..." His eyes were glued on Sirius'. "I'm so tired of it."

"Tired of what?" Sirius asked softly, soothing the boy's hand in his own.

"It's stupid," Lupin said. For a moment he just watched their intertwined hands. "I'm supposed to follow this system of some kind. I don't know what it is, but... It's idiotic, and I'm not going to anymore."

Sirius stared at him. His eye was twitching a bit. "Follow a system? What sort of... system?"

"It's this strange six-step-system to get what I want. "

Black furrowed his brows and squeezed Remus' hand. "An idiotic six-step-system to get what you want? That sounds awfully familiar..."

"It does? I'd never heard of it before until Lily told me about it."

"Evans..." Sirius grumbled and tried to keep calm. He flashed a quick smile, but somehow didn't seem overly happy. "Okay, I've got only one more question, after which I'll leave you alone to study."

"But you said you're not going to leave me –"

Sirius ignored him. He shook Remus' hand in his lap. "What was the thing you wanted that made you follow the system?"

Watching him in the eye, Lupin smiled nervously. "First you have to promise me you won't break anything."

"Fine," Black huffed and pressed their hands on his heart, pulling Remus a tad closer. "See, cross my heart, won't break anything, yada yada. Please, tell me."

"Or you won't hit me."

Sirius stared at him, expressionless. "You think I would hit you."

The werewolf mumbled something and yanked his hands away from the boy. He ran them over his face. "All right. How should I say this..." He grimaced slightly as tough he was in agony. "I was informed that your feelings... probably weren't as intense as you expressed them to be." Even though Sirius' face fell even more, Remus pressed on. "So, I started to follow the system, even though I didn't really want to, so I would be certain you weren't... having me on."

Somehow Black's expression turned so blank, he resembled a white pillowcase. His feelings were rolling on the floor. "What?"

"But Sirius, I didn't really doubt you." Remus' eyes glinted with heavy-heartedness. "I was certain of them, I was, after we talked that you –"

Seemingly not being affected of the look on Remus' face, Black studied his eyes to learn. "Who doubted me?"

Remus said nothing, only averted his eyes from him. He eyed the paper on the table and muttered, "You don't want to know."

"Brilliant," Black said suddenly, stood quickly up and ran a lone finger on the boy's cheek. "Sorry, Remmie. I have to go."

Lupin tried to grab his robes, but his fingers touched air. "Sirius, don't –"

But the guy was already rushing out of the library doors while shouting, "Evans!"

Remus watched him go until he didn't see him anymore, and then pressed his cheek against the table. "Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me?"

A/N: Two chapters to go.