"Ay me! for aught that I ever could read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth."

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, Scene I, Lines 132-34.

— February 7th —

"Remind me again what I'm doing here?" Lily asked the boys sitting across the table from her with a raised eyebrow. Peter looked nervously over at his roommate before speaking.

"You know Remus, right?" Peter started, and James rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Didn't need to go that far back, Pete. They had class together last semester."

"Forgot about that. Well anyway, he broke up with his boyfriend."

"Might be a bit generous to say that Remus broke up with Matt, but yeah, we think it happened on Tuesday night."

Lily cut the boys off with an excited whisper. "Do you mean it? He's not with Matt anymore?"

James furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at the red-headed girl. "Don't tell me you have a crush on Remus too," he complained. Lily shook her head furiously.

"No no no, it's just…" she continued, gesturing as she did so between the water bottle to her left, the napkins in front of her, and the salt and pepper shakers to the right.

"Remus started dating Matt back in September, and he was decent enough. But then the further along in the semester we got, the more troublesome the relationship seemed, so the fact that they've broken up is really just a relief."

James relaxed back into his chair with a sigh. "Yeah. That's how we felt about it too. Peter said he'd overheard some arguments between the two of them and they...weren't pretty." Peter shook his head darkly from where he sat next to James.

"There was at least one night back in November that he made Remus cry," Peter started, and James elbowed him to make him stop talking.

"Anyway," James muttered "you're here because we're trying to figure something out, and you know Remus as well as the rest of us."

Lily arched an eyebrow. "What are we trying to figure out, then?"

James gestured to Peter, who pulled out a slightly crumpled piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and scanned it before speaking.

"The following pieces of information are facts: One, Remus Lupin and Matthew Blake are no longer in a relationship; Two, Remus Lupin was not the one to terminate the relationship, and is thus in a somewhat fragile emotional state—"

Here, James jumped in to qualify the statement. "And by fragile emotional state, we mean that none of us have seen more than a few glimpses of Remus in three days, so...we've assumed the worst."

Lily rolled her eyes at James' dramatics but motioned for Peter to continue.

"Three, Sirius Black is half in love with Remus Lupin; Four, Remus returns Sirius' affections, he just hasn't realized it yet; Five, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black should have dated instead of Remus Lupin and Matthew Blake," Peter finished.

"Which one of you is training to be the lawyer here?" Lily joked mildly before smiling as Peter sheepishly raised his hand.

"Sounds about right," she chuckled. "But I take your points. What exactly do you want me to do with that information though?"

"Well ideally we would figure out a way to get Sirius and Remus together," James said flatly, as if it was obvious.

"But not in a rebound sort of way," Peter added hastily, "We really do think they'd be good for each other. I mean, you know how Sirius reacted when Remus came back from the library after that scuffle with Snape, he's not particularly subtle about it."

"And Remus?"

James fidgeted in his seat, and Lily felt her heart do a funny jump at the nervous expression on his face.

"Well he hasn't exactly said it, but I happen to know from a reliable source that the two of them spent a night together in Sirius' bed after his family kicked him out.

Lily choked on the water she was drinking. "They what?"

James looked over at his roommate and saw Peter giving him the same flummoxed expression.

"Not like that! God, did neither of you know this? I could've sworn I told you, Peter."

"No, definitely not."

Lily cleared her throat and James glanced back at her. "Are you going to give any context, or…"

"Uh, yeah. Sure. Remus got in late that night, after I'd already gone to bed for my class. Apparently the two of them had some sort of heart to heart when he got in, and when I woke up the next morning I went to check on Sirius and found the two of them cuddling, for lack of a better word, in Sirius' bed."

Lily looked at James with a rather fond expression before shifting her gaze to Peter.

"So just to be clear...you asked me here to help you figure out a way to get your roommates together?"

Peter shrugged while James adopted a sheepish expression and both boys nodded. Lily rolled her eyes at them, but James thought he saw a smile pulling at the edge of her mouth.

"I'm doing this for them, not for you, James."

James beamed, and after exchanging a look with Peter, grabbed his own journal out of his backpack.

"Here's what we've got so far."

An hour later, the three friends were puzzling over how to make sure Sirius didn't think he was a rebound when the subject of their conversation walked into the dining hall and made his way towards them.

"Shit, put the journal away, put it away, James!"

The three scrambled around with the items on the table as Sirius approached, and the boy looked at them suspiciously before greeting his friends.

"Fancy seeing you here," Sirius said with a half-hearted smile, and Lily frowned at the expression. "Got anything good from the food court?"

Peter chuckled nervously and James kneed him under the table. Lily rolled her eyes at the two and looked up at Sirius.

"I was thinking about getting a milkshake, do you want to join me?"

Sirius nodded silently and Lily rose to join him, sending a pointed look at the other two boys at the table to clean up their mess before walking towards the food counter with Sirius.

"How are you doing?" she asked quietly, once they'd put some distance between them and the table where Sirius' suitemates sat. Sirius grimaced and looked up at the menu.

"About as well as I could be, given the circumstances, I suppose." Lily looked over at him and grabbed his hand to give it a squeeze.

"Do you need anything?"

Sirius shook his head. "I'm not sure I would know, to be honest. But between James and Remus, they've both offered up places to stay over the summer, and I'm on a scholarship here, so that's all taken care of."

"But you'd tell one of us? If you did?" Lily asked gently.

Sirius nodded, "Remus made me promise to talk to him if things were going badly."

Lily murmured her approval before looking over at him and changing the subject. "Have you seen him lately? He wasn't in class on Wednesday and the professor cancelled class yesterday, so I haven't seen him all week. I sent him a couple of texts and he didn't answer, and maybe he's just busy, but…"

Sirius shook his head. "No, he's been avoiding our entire suite since he and Matt broke up. I've barely seen him myself since Monday night, and we share a room."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he leaves before me and comes back after...I think he's trying to hide in the library. Was planning on staying up late tomorrow to catch him when he came back, if I could."

Lily nodded. "If it works, tell him we're worried about him, will you?"

Sirius looked over at his friend and sent her a reassuring smile. "I'm sure he's fine, Lils. But if I see him, I'll tell him, okay?" He squeezed her hand back as they stepped up to the counter. The two ordered their milkshakes and then returned to the table, where the topic of conversation was still his roommate.

"Somebody's got to talk to him, don't you think?" James was saying as Peter nodded.

Lily and Sirius sat down. "Talk to whom?" the red-haired girl asked as she took a sip from her drink.

"Remus," Peter responded. "None of us have seen him all week, we're a bit worried."

"Sirius said he's going to try and get a hold of him tonight, so maybe that'll help?" Lily offered up helpfully. Sirius put down his drink and chimed in.

"I was going to stay up late and see if I couldn't catch him when he came home."

Peter and James nodded in agreement and then changed the subject to talk about the football game that night, which both of them had planned on attending. The four stuck around for another twenty minutes while Sirius and Lily finished their shakes, before the boys left to meet up with their neighbors for the game. As Sirius and Lily stood, Lily gave him a searching look before throwing her arms around him in a hug.

"Just wanted to remind you that we still love you," She said, and Sirius' face flushed as he relaxed into the embrace. "I know we're all talking about Remus, but make sure you're taking care of yourself too, alright?" Lily said as she released him and stepped back, ready to leave.

Sirius nodded and gave his friend a small smile. "Can do, Lils."

Lily smiled back warmly and began walking away before pausing and turning over her shoulder. "Good. Send my love to Rem if you see him, alright?"

Sirius gave a salute and watched his friend leave. He gathered his things and took a deep breath before checking his phone and walking out of the dining hall.

Remus supposed he should've seen this coming. Every other guy he'd ever been with had done something similar, after all. But Matt had been different. He hadn't led with anything that would've tipped Remus off to the way things would end—not the way that some of the others had. No, with Matt there were only ever little things. Subtle jabs about the things that Remus liked. A temper that was a bit too easy to trigger, and resultant words that hurt far more than Remus assumed they were meant to. Little comments here and there about not appreciating when Remus shared his own opinion. Frustration at the pace of their relationship.

Maybe they had been red flags. But Remus hadn't wanted to see them, he never wanted to see them. He figured that he'd seen enough hardship growing up that he didn't want to actively assume it in the people around him. But perhaps he should've, if it was always going to end this way when he didn't. He got back to the dorm and darted into his room and closed the door quietly, hoping to avoid drawing any attention to himself. After taking a brief glance at his phone, Remus relaxed as he discovered that James and Peter had gone out to dinner before the football game that night. Sirius clearly wasn't in the room and was likely with James and Peter, meaning Remus would have the room to himself for a long while yet.

He threw his backpack onto his desk and set his phone to play Frank Sinatra before climbing into his bed and curling up against his pillows. Juliana had texted him again today, wanting to know why he wasn't responding to her messages and had ignored her calls, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her what happened. Instead, he'd spent all day in the library, poring over his textbooks but not retaining anything that he read. It seemed it didn't matter what he tried to focus on, because Matt's words would swim to the forefront of his mind and distract him. The time in the library had mainly been spent fixating on Matt's complaints regarding intimacy—or lack thereof, Remus supposed.

Remus hadn't ever been a particularly big fan of public displays of affection, namely because he'd spent most of his life trying to divert attention away from himself. He'd obviously hugged people like Juliana and his mother, but when it came to dating, Remus was far more conservative on that front. Which is likely why Sirius' late night forehead kiss had fascinated him so much. Despite Juliana's encouragement to experiment in their youth, Remus had never kissed someone before—not properly, at least. That hadn't been an issue with the other people he'd dated—they were all young, it wasn't terribly uncommon.

Apparently that sort of thing mattered in college, or if nothing else, it did to Matt. They'd spent multiple evenings curled up on a sofa or a bed watching a movie, only for Remus to draw away apologetically when Matt leaned down. Remus couldn't understand why it was such a problem, but as the relationship progressed, Matt had gotten more and more irritated by it. When they'd fought on Tuesday, Matthew had come up with all sorts of terrible ideas about why Remus refused to kiss him—none of them particularly accurate or kind—and had spat them out as just one aspect of a set of grievances that Remus had apparently inflicted upon their relationship.

Remus knew better than to take Matt's words personally, he did. But he was also a writer, and he knew the sort of impact that words could have—regardless of their intent. So he'd sat there in the library for hours, trying to figure out if all of this was really his own fault, or if Matt's words were just a byproduct of his anger. At the end of the day, he supposed, it wouldn't really matter. He'd wasted enough time thinking about it by that point, the seeds of self-doubt had been planted.

By the time he'd gotten back to the dorm, the realization that he very well could have been all of the things that Matt had accused him of had sunk in. Maybe he had been selfish for asking Matt to wait on things. Maybe he did need to stop talking so much about the creative merit of good screenplays. He curled tighter into himself and felt tears begin to roll down his cheeks as he considered the other complaints Matt had lodged. Maybe he was too sensitive about things, after all. But when he reached the last insult that Matt had thrown, that no one would ever want to be with him, Remus started sobbing—and once he started he couldn't stop. So he stayed that way, crying into his pillows, wrapped up tightly in his oversized sweater, and thinking miserable thoughts until he heard the door to the room open.

As Sirius headed back to the dorm with a faint frown on his face, his mind wandered back to his roommate. He really hadn't seen Remus since Monday night, and it was now...Saturday? It wasn't like Remus to be this mysterious. His only consolation was that Remus had responded to his late night check-in messages, although never with more than two or three words. While there was little information to be garnered from "at the library" or "studying," Sirius at least knew that his roommate was alive, if nothing else.

That hadn't done much to assuage Sirius' concern, however. He knew better than anyone that survival instincts weren't the same as living. Remus had never run away like this, not from Sirius. He'd edged out of difficult conversations with James or Peter, but not with his roommate. They'd spent hours talking through all aspects of their childhoods, their future plans, their families—or lack thereof, in some cases—and Remus had never once shied away from a topic, except…

Sirius sighed. Matthew had always been off limits, he supposed it was too much to ask for that to have changed now that they'd broken up. But he didn't think that avoiding everyone in the suite was strictly necessary either. As he trudged up the stairs to their dorm, Sirius puzzled over how best to approach Remus when he found him later that evening. Maybe a hot chocolate and a promise to watch a 90s romcom back at the dorm? He chuckled as he opened the door to the suite and froze.

There was music coming from his and Remus' dorm, but he'd just left James and Peter behind at the dining hall, which meant it had to be Remus himself. Sirius approached slowly, throwing his backpack onto the couch of the common area before pressing an ear to the door of their room carefully. Sweeping violins trickled through the wood and Sirius exhaled slowly as he recognized the last lines of Strangers in the Night echo in their dorm. But as the song faded out, a different sound caught Sirius' attention and his expression darkened. Remus was certainly in the room, or at least, someone was—and they were sobbing rather distressingly.

Sirius pushed open the door gently and looked over into the room. Remus was curled into himself on his bed, his upper body drowning in an oversized sweater and his head buried under a thin blanket. Sirius stood in the doorway with a frown on his face before calling to his roommate.

"Remus?"

The boy in question responded by moving towards the wall and pulling his knees up closer to his chest. Sighing, Sirius approached him and peered over the top of the bed to try and catch a glimpse of Remus' face, but his roommate merely pulled the blanket tighter around himself to hide from view.

Sirius placed a hand on Remus' shoulder lightly before trying again softly.

"Moon Boy?"

Remus drew the blanket off of his face and slowly turned to face his roommate. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was tearstained and blotchy. Sirius tried to remember a time when he'd seen Remus look as utterly despondent as he did now, but he couldn't—the closest approximation had been the night that Sirius and James had returned from their excursion at the chapel and Matthew had yelled at Remus about his priorities. As he looked down at his roommate, Sirius realized that he hadn't said anything since Remus had turned to face him.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Remus looked away and swiped at his eyes.

"There's nothing to talk about," he sniffed. "I just get emotional when I watch Dead Poet's Society, okay?"

Sirius smiled amusedly at his roommate. "Remus, the television isn't even on, how many times do I need to tell you that you're a shit liar?"

A huff of irritation escaped Remus' mouth, and Sirius took it upon himself to hop onto the bed, nestling himself behind Remus' knees and grabbing his roommate's hand.

"Did I ever tell you about Charlie?" he offered up quietly. Remus shook his head against the pillow, and Sirius began playing with the fingers on his roommate's hand, rubbing them gently as he spoke.

"We started dating when I was 16. He was a little older, 18 at the time. We'd gone to school together," Sirius took a deep breath. He'd never talked to anyone about why Charlie and he had broken up, it had just... happened and he'd let it go.

"I was young and so was he, but he had... experience, you know," Sirius gestured aimlessly with his free hand. "So I trusted him to steer our relationship in the right direction."

Remus looked up curiously at Sirius, who was still playing with Remus' fingers absentmindedly.

"I didn't realize it at the time, but Charlie was using me—I'm not even sure that Charlie knew he was doing it, if I'm being honest—in some sort of misguided attempt to get at my family," Sirius laughed bitterly. "As if my being gay wasn't enough of a disappointment for them."

"He didn't hit me, not the way…" he trailed off, and Remus twisted the fingers in Sirius' hand around to intertwine them properly with a squeeze.

"He didn't do that. But he had other ways of reminding me I was a burden that he merely put up with."

"Anyway, it took about two years for someone to knock some sense into me. It was Regulus, actually," a faint smile appeared on Sirius' face, "He'd told me when I first started seeing Charlie that I deserved better, but I didn't want to listen. Young love and all that. But my senior year, Regulus made me swear I'd break up with him before graduation or he'd do it for me. It was only after I'd spent about a week in October crying in the school's fourth floor bathrooms every night that I realized Regulus might have been on to something."

Remus shifted in bed and sat up to lean against the wall, staring at his roommate indignantly..

"You didn't deserve that," he said with a sour expression as Sirius looked over in amusement.

"If I didn't deserve it, then you certainly don't, Moon Boy."

Remus sniffled and turned to look at the wall.

"It's just, I thought Matt was different, you know?" Sirius nodded silently, and Remus continued.

"I've only ever been in relationships with people that were awful to me, one way or another. No matter how long I've weighed the options or hoped that things would work out, I always ended up being hurt, but Matt wasn't like that—not at the beginning." Remus stated tremulously, and Sirius could see the tears begin to well up in his roommate's eyes. Sirius glanced over carefully, before shifting his position to sit side by side with Remus, hands still intertwined and tightly squeezed together.

"But there was always something wrong, with the others. We'd be fine for a few months, and then it would be as if someone flipped a switch and suddenly I was everything that they couldn't stand," Remus inhaled shakily, and Sirius leaned against him gently.

"So I started wondering if maybe it was me—maybe I was the problem. But Matt wasn't like that. He liked who I was—I mean, for fuck's sake, our first date was the two of us going to see 10 Things I Hate About You so we could talk about Heath Ledger, it's not like he was transparent about being an asshole." Remus shuddered and Sirius felt the tremor against his side with a frown.

"But then," Remus began haltingly, "He would say such horrible things to me. That I was too soft, too emotional about things. Or that I was a prude for knowing how far I was willing to go with him. Or that—" Remus' voice lost its pitch as the words tumbled out unbidden, "that I was a terrible excuse for a boyfriend and that no one would ever want to date me after him."

At this, Sirius snapped his head around to look at Remus, who was pointedly staring forward to avoid his roommate's questioning gaze.

"That absolute bast—"

"What if he's right, though? What if there's never someone?" Sirius stared at his friend, in shock at the deprecating words coming from his mouth.

"No."

Remus tilted his head towards Sirius tiredly. "No?"

"He's not right. There are plenty of people who would love you properly and treat you the way you deserve, I swear."

Remus sniffled a bit more before letting out a shaky exhale and pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stave off the headache he knew was coming later.

"I just wanted to find someone who wouldn't be angry with me when I set boundaries, or when I talked about the things I love or…" he trailed off. "I just wanted to be enough for someone. Just how I am—no changes, nothing forced or pressured. Was that too much?" He finished quietly, and Sirius looked over in awe before wrapping his free arm around Remus' waist and pulling him down onto his lap lightly. He moved his hand from Remus' waist and placed it onto his roommate's head instead as he began carding his fingers through Remus' curls lazily.

"Of course not. That's not much to ask for at all." Sirius sighed in frustration. "Remus, you deserve the whole world. Anyone who tells you differently is an absolute idiot because you do, and you always have. Matt didn't deserve you, it wasn't the other way around and I swear, if I see that absolute ass on campus I'll—" Sirius broke off as Remus chuckled from his lap.

"I'm being serious, you know," Sirius tried again, but Remus had only begun laughing harder at that comment.

"You're being Sirius?" he finally got out, and Sirius rolled his eyes fondly at the boy.

"And I'm the ridiculous one," Sirius mumbled, but he looked down and saw a sleepy smile on Remus' face for the first time since he'd arrived, and he couldn't help but smile back.

"Come on, you. That's enough crying for today, let's get some sleep, hm?"

Remus opened one eye and looked up at Sirius from where he was positioned in his roommate's lap.

"D'you wanna stay?" Remus breathed out the question and Sirius felt his heart race at the idea.

"I think I might. After all, my bed is all the way across the room," he smirked, and squeezed Remus' hand when he saw the boy happily sigh and curl into his chest.

Sirius slid down and situated the two of them beneath Remus' blanket carefully, feeling oddly protective of his roommate. They settled more comfortably onto the bed and Sirius felt a strange sense of deja vu come over him when Remus turned onto his side and drowsily placed an arm over Sirius' chest to hold him closer. The position was surprisingly comfortable, he noticed as he snuggled up closer to Remus. Sirius figured his roommate was almost asleep, and relaxed under Remus' arm. The last time they'd done this, Sirius had woken up feeling more well-rested than he had in years. He could get used to this routine, he considered, although perhaps without one or the other of them needing to be in tears.

Sirius looked over at Remus, whose head was resting on his shoulder. Remus' face was still a bit puffy from crying, and his hair had flopped messily over his forehead. Sirius ran a hand through Remus' hair to move it out of his eyes and the younger boy nuzzled his head into the touch. Before he could overthink it, Sirius shifted and dropped a kiss onto Remus' forehead and Sirius paused before bending his head down until his lips were inches from Remus' ear.

"I meant it, Moon Boy. You deserve the whole damn world."

Moments later, Sirius joined his roommate in sleeping, his head leaning atop Remus' and their hands still intertwined under the blankets.

When James and Peter came back after the game ended to find the two boys tangled up in Remus' bed this time, they smiled and took a picture to send to Lily.

10:14 PM — "Step one done."