AN: Obligatory, sorry for the wait I am an absolutely terrible person author's note. Please know, I will not abandon this story. Ever. It is my 5 year old child, it is way too long, it contains more run on sentences than a 19th century novel, it is almost entirely self-indulgent. I love it dearly and will never give it up. It's a really wonderful creative outlet for me, and it brings me like, immeasurable joy that there's anyone else who might enjoy this even a fraction as much as myself. So I will always update, it will just take like 2 months usually. I'm sorry! I love you all, thank you for sticking with me all this way! Discussing head canons with y'all gives me life, so leave it in the reviews and I'll love you for it!

Also, certain things in this chap I did not mean to happen (see end of chap for notes) but I'm a bisexual chaos agent and I won't apologize, bye.

Hope you enjoy this y'all and that it was worth the wait!

Chapter 33: On Symbolism

Hermione wasn't sure how long the three of them had now been talking about her impromptu snogging session with Sirius Black earlier that evening, but she was sure that at this point the discussion was verging on gratuitous.

"Dorcas! It is perfectly reasonable for her not to want to lose her virginity to Sirius Black in an alleyway!" Lily said indignantly, waving her hand wildly for emphasis.

Hermione shifted somewhat uncomfortably in the wake of this highly reasonable point, finding herself forcibly dragged back into the conversation by it.

"Er, well, it wouldn't exactly have been—that is to say—I'm not…a virgin," she confessed awkwardly, avoiding both her friends' eyes as she did so.

For a moment, the two girls simply stared at Hermione in stunned silence.

Predictably it was Dorcas that broke it. "WHAT?!" the blonde shouted, nearly on the verge of incoherence, so strong was her disbelief.

"You had sex with Amos?" Lily asked a beat later, her query much more calm than Dorcas' had been, though the redhead's widened green eyes betrayed her shock at Hermione's revelation.

"You had sex with Amos and didn't TELL US?!" Dorcas tacked on, still yelling.

"Yes, well, he didn't leave any marks so I didn't have to!" Hermione said hotly, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Black…certainly left marks," she said faintly, eyeing Hermione's neck.

"So how was it?" Dorcas demanded, brimming with eager curiosity. "With Diggory I mean, not with Black. I can already guess how it would be with Black and it hasn't even happened yet."

"Oh can you?" Hermione challenged huffily, put out by Dorcas' seeming implication that her and Black eventually sleeping together was some kind of foregone conclusion, which it absolutely was not.

"Absolutely," Dorcas said confidently. "Intense. Emotional," her eyes drifted to Hermione's neck, "messy."

"Possessive," Lily added thoughtfully, and Hermione shot her a glare, even as Dorcas nodded along in agreement. Traitors, the both of them.

"The two of you have no basis for that," Hermione protested. "Black was the opposite of possessive with Rebecca Forrester, and the fact that we have no idea who else, if anyone, he may have hooked up with besides her speaks to the fact he's never been possessive with anyone else either!"

Lily cocked her head to side. "Last week in Charms I saw Black hiss at a Hufflepuff who tried to sit next to Potter before he could get there. He sounded like an angry goose, it was honestly alarming."

Dorcas snorted.

Hermione was less amused. "Did you just compare me to James Potter?!"

Lily shrugged. "I'm just saying, Black may not have been possessive of Rebecca Forrester, but he is possessive of people he feels emotionally close to. Just look at the way he is with Potter and Remus! Look at what he did to your neck!"

Not for the first time in the course of their conversation Hermione raised her hand self-consciously to her throat.

"And don't even bother trying to deny that you and Black are close emotionally, Hermione, because I think you know more about him than anyone in this school besides the Marauders, and maybe even some stuff that they don't on top of that. And it's not one sided. Black knows things about you too, Hermione, maybe even some stuff that we don't."

"Lily-"

"We're not jealous," the redhead said gently, nudging Dorcas' companionably. "You're allowed to be close to Black in a different way than you are to me and Dorcas, Hermione."

"Specifically a physical one," Dorcas interjected wryly.

"Dorcas writes smut about you and Black when she should be revising," Lily quipped to Hermione. "It's why she's so behind. Now you know."

"Well, I could," Dorcas said laughingly. "I think I've seen enough flirting and sexually charged fights between the two of them to get the picture."

"We do not have sexually charged fights," Hermione protested weakly.

"Hermione," Dorcas said flatly. "Did you or did you not explain to me and Lily not a half hour ago that you and Black were arguing both before and after the two of you snogged?"

Hermione's mouth snapped shut in defeat. Lily patted her consolingly on the shoulder. "Just concede the point, love," she advised.

"I thought," Hermione said, "that the two of you wanted to hear about how things went with Amos."

"Oh we do," Dorcas said cheerfully. "We just got a wee bit distracted by the prospect of how maddeningly hot sex between you and Black would be, but I suppose we've harped on it enough for the moment, so go on then, do tell. How were things with Diggory?"

"Perfectly nice," Hermione said with a small smile of remembrance.

"Perfectly nice?" Dorcas parroted. "Care to elaborate at all there, babe?"

"It hurt a little the first time, but he was very sweet about it, and it got easier after that."

"How many times did you have sex?" Lily asked interestedly.

"Three," Hermione said simply. "It was a relatively…recent development."

"Did he make you come?" Dorcas wanted to know. "Because that's very important."

Hermione flushed. "Not the first time, but the next two, yes."

Dorcas nodded with apparent satisfaction. "That's alright, then. The first time is never the greatest. It's nice to get out of the way, in all honesty."

"It was nice," Hermione repeated firmly.

"You know, it's fine if it didn't blow you away, Hermione," Dorcas told her. "Sex doesn't always blow you away. But with the right person…," she trailed off into a knowing shrug. "Eventually you'll have mind blowing sex, sex that's more than just 'perfectly nice', and it will change your life. That's all I'm saying."

"And I suppose you think I should be having that type of sex with Black, do you?"

"I think you could," Dorcas said honestly. "And I don't see any reason why you shouldn't. The feelings between the two of you are obviously reciprocal, Hermione. Why not explore it?"

"Because the only reason Black even wants to have sex with me is to distract himself from the disastrous state of his own current existence!"

Dorcas tipped her head back and laughed. "I'm not denying Black's a mess, but that's not the only reason he'd like to have sex with you, babe. For Godric's sake, he's been panting after you since you got here third year! Why can't you just accept that he's physically attracted to you?"

"Black is physically attracted to anything that moves."

"Yeah, but you don't see him mauling anybody else in dark alleys," Lily muttered. "And I hate to be forced into the position of defending Black's reputation here, again, but I don't think you're being entirely fair to him, Hermione. Black's a flirt, yes. But I don't think he's nearly as much of a cad as everyone, including Black himself, acts like he is."

"Most of his flirting isn't even serious," Dorcas put in. "No pun intended. He's never flirted with me in a way that was anything more than playful, and I'm obviously a bombshell," she said, flipping her hair to hammer home the point.

"Yes, well, I think he's a little afraid of you," Hermione said wryly. "And also you're not a muggleborn."

Lily frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Hermione sighed. "The only two people we know definitively that Black has…hooked up with," she said awkwardly, "are me and Rebecca Forrester. That's practically half the available muggleborns in his age range."

"You think he has some kind of fetish?" Lily asked, seeming troubled by the idea.

"I don't know that I'd call it a fetish," Hermione said uncomfortably, "But given his upbringing, I think there might be an element of something like that there on his part, yes. Maybe even just subconsciously."

"You think Black wants to fuck you to fuck with his family," Dorcas said crudely, incredulous.

"Maybe," Hemione acknowledged.

"I don't think that's fair to either of you," Lily said softly.

"Hermione," Dorcas broke in, the blonde unusually somber. "If I thought you didn't actually like Black or want to sleep with him, I'd leave this alone. I'm not trying to be like, a pot stirring bitch just for the sake of it. But I think that you do like him," she said sincerely, reaching out to lay a hand on Hermione's thigh. "For real. And I don't understand why you keep coming up with excuse after excuse to try and convince yourself that you don't when it's obvious to all three of us that you're barely even capable of lying about it to yourself anymore. What are you so afraid of with him, Hermione? What is it about getting closer to Black that scares you so much?"

Hermione swallowed, throat suddenly raw with the threat of tears. "I can't save him," she whispered, the unexpected anguish in her voice taking both Lily and Dorcas aback, despite the fact that both girls were well used by now to Hermione's sudden unusual moods and bouts of fatalism.

I can't save any of you.

The three of them descended into melancholy silence, Hermione staring straight ahead with a frighteningly hollow look in her eyes, biting her lip against tears. Dorcas and Lily shared a perplexed look over her head, mystified but troubled by her response.

Once again, it was Dorcas who eventually broke the silence, and the tension.

"You know, if I were to have pegged Black as having any kind of fetish, it would have been a foot one."

Hermione fully choked. "Excuse me?" she sputtered.

Dorcas smiled knowingly. "One time, we were in the common room, and you had your feet in my lap—"

James was in a right state when Sirius got back to the dorm, demanding to know where he'd been and why he'd been gone so long, all flailing hand gestures and pouty indignation when Sirius refused to divulge anything beyond, "Hogsmeade, obviously,". Remus though, looked at him with knowing eyes.

Later, after James and Peter had both fallen asleep, as clearly evidenced by their dueling set of equally obnoxious snores, Sirius found himself hovering awkwardly in front of Remus' closed bed curtains, shifting from foot to foot.

"What, Padfoot?" Remus asked after a moment, already sounding exasperated with him.

Sirius bit his lip. "Can I come in?"

Remus sighed, pulling back his bed curtains and gesturing for Sirius to join him despite his obvious irritation with the other boy. "If you insist."

Sirius scrambled onto the bed, settling himself on top of the covers next to Remus and leaning back against the headboard, gently nudging the other boy over a bit in order to steal some of his pillow.

"Oh go ahead, I wasn't using that or anything," Remus muttered under his breath, grumpy.

"Moony," Sirius whined, but the werewolf's features didn't soften like they usually might've in the face of his antics.

"What do you want, Sirius?"

"I thought you said you weren't mad at me," the animagus said, voice coming out small in spite of himself.

Remus tipped his head back and groaned. "Merlin, Pads, you are so fucking needy."

Sirius didn't say anything, just stared at his lap.

"I already told you a million times today I'm not mad at you, Padfoot," Remus said tiredly.

"You didn't talk to me at all after I got back from Hogsmeade," Sirius mumbled. "Would hardly look at me."

Remus paused, momentarily letting his eyes fall closed with exhaustion and reaching up to massage his temples before answering. "Hermione just got dumped, Sirius. Today. And it's Valentine's Day. She has to be feeling really vulnerable right now."

Well maybe I fucking am too, Sirius thought, but didn't say, glaring at his lap now.

"How did you know?" he asked instead.

"Because I know you, Padfoot," Remus said. "And because you came back smelling like sex, and adrenaline and Hermione, which is not a combination my enhanced olfactory senses ever needed to experience, by the way, so thanks for that."

"You're the one who kept pushing me to admit that I'm attracted to her," Sirius said mulishly.

Remus pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, Sirius, so you could stop being in denial. Not so you could fuck her in Hogsmeade the moment Amos Diggory broke up with her!" he hissed.

"Fucking hell, Moony, we didn't—it was just a bit of snogging!" Sirius insisted, shocked that Remus would think anything more had already happened between him and Granger. "Did you really think we shagged?"

Did it smell like they had? Sirius shook his head, abandoning the thought before it could fully form and have a rather too obvious effect on him. He didn't need to get hard while he argued (or whatever the fuck it was they were doing right now) with Remus; didn't need any blood directed away from his brain when he was already way too prone to losing fights with Moony as it was. Moony, who thought he and Granger had fucking shagged. "I thought you knew her better than that," Sirius said to him.

Remus smiled, but it had a bitter twist. "You underestimate the effect you have on people, Padfoot."

Sirius snorted. "I really don't think I do, mate."

"Yeah, you do," Remus said simply.

"I didn't think you liked Granger like that, honestly, Rem—"

"Like what Sirius?"

"Like whatever the fuck is making you react this way! And I don't even get it Moony, because you were so fucking," Sirius struggled to find the right words, "quietly pleased when Granger got together with Diggory. But I snog her in an alleyway once and you're mad, and I don't know why and me and Granger aren't even—aren't even anything yet, so I don't understand why you're upset about it!"

Remus growled, dragging a hand roughly through his sandy hair. "Because it's YOU, Sirius! Because it's the moon tomorrow and I can smell her on you, and it's overwhelming and I'm—fuck, I dunno, I just am, alright!"

Remus broke off, breathing hard. "It's mostly the moon," he mumbled, half agitated, half embarrassed, avoiding Sirius' eyes. "I'm not…exactly rational right now, alright Pads? So just leave it."

"You can take it out on me," Sirius said softly, staring straight ahead, eyes fixed on the dim outline of Remus' trunk. "Tomorrow night, during the moon. If you're mad at me, or whatever. You can take it out on me, Moony."

Remus gaped at him for a moment, flabbergasted. "Godric, you're fucked in the head, Pads, you know that?"

Sirius nodded. "Yeah," he whispered, looking down. "I know."

"So what?" Remus asked, his anger building, leaking out through his voice, making Sirius flinch. "You want me to hurt you tomorrow night, is that it, Padfoot? You want me to hurt you?"

Sirius shrugged. "If you want to."

Remus could only shake his head.

"Fuck, Sirius I—I don't want that," he said shakily. "Don't you know much it kills me when I hurt you out there—any of you, as that thing? It's always an accident, I would never—I don't have that level of control over the wolf anyway, you fucking know that, but if I did I would never—never want that. No matter what you did, or how mad I was at you, I would never want that, Sirius, fuck."

"What if I deserve it, though?" Sirius whispered.

Remus shook his head, stunned despite himself.

"Fuck, Sirius, stop. I can't—just stop," he said raggedly, pleading. "It's too close to the full moon, I can't—I can't handle this right now. I can't handle you right now, Sirius. I need to sleep. You need to sleep. Just get out."

"Moony—"

"I can't believe you with this shit right now, you're not even drunk, I can't—I can't deal with this, Sirius. Just—go to sleep."

Wordlessly, Sirius slid off Remus' bed, making his way clumsily over to his own in the dark. He laid down, on top of the covers, feeling too hot to get under them despite the fact that it was February. It was awhile before he managed to fall asleep.

The morning after Valentine's day Hermione spent a good ten minutes thoroughly glamouring her neck in order to hide to hide the evidence of Black's…enthusiasm, from the previous evening. And then, for good measure (and also because she was an utter cliche, apparently) she wound a scarf around it too before venturing out to breakfast.

"Subtle," Lily observed as Hermione arrived at the Gryffindor table, the red head looking far too amused for her fellow muggleborn's liking.

"Oh, be quiet," Hermione huffed. "It's a cold day and it's a nice scarf."

"Black doesn't seem to think so," Lily said archly. "He looks rather affronted by its very existence, actually, the way he's glaring at it."

Hermione refused to turn and look. "Well, he's an idiot," she said simply, dragging a platter of toast in her direction. "He can't honestly have expected me to walk around all day with a bunch of obvious hickeys on display."

Lily hummed. "Well, I suppose he's just eager to admire his own handiwork. I don't know if we can blame him for that, Hermione, it was quite impressive."

"When did you get so snarky?" Hermione asked irritably.

"My influence, surely," Dorcas said, dropping down beside Hermione and flicking playfully at the ends of her scarf, eyeing it knowingly. "What are we talking about?"

"Nothing," the curly haired witch said quickly, shoving a cup of coffee in Dorcas' direction in an effort to distract her and glaring at Lily, who smirked back but obliging refrained from saying anything more on the subject. For the moment, anyway.

The redhead let her eyes drift down the table, stopping on where the Marauders were clustered together having their own breakfast. Something about them seemed off this morning, Lily thought. They were being much quieter than usual, and now that she was paying attention to them, she noticed the way that, in between bites of toast, Potter kept glancing fretfully between Black and Lupin. Despite Potter's inability to be subtle to save his life, neither of his friends appeared to notice the worried looks he was shooting them. Black was too busy glaring at Hermione's scarf as though he had the power to eventually set it on fire with his gaze alone (there was no way he'd managed to master nonverbal spells yet, Lily assured herself, much less wandless ones), and Remus was staring moodily into his porridge.

Were they fighting or something, Lily wondered? The two of them weren't even sitting next to each other, which was odd on the morning of a full moon, considering how….attentive, Black usually was with Remus in the lead up to the other boy's transformations; physically, especially. It was certainly a marked change from how Black and Lupin had been behaving yesterday. Something was definitely wrong between them, Lily decided, nodding to herself. And if her suspicions (suspicions which had been developing for a while now, if she were honest) were correct, it had something to do with what had happened the night before with Black and Hermione.

If Hermione was honest with herself, she didn't try all that hard to avoid Black cornering her after breakfast. She figured his doing so at some point that day was probably inevitable, and therefore it made sense to get the whole thing over with as early as possible. Perhaps she'd even be able to go on and have a productive rest of her day. It was OWL year after all, and she had revision to be getting on with.

So it was pure logic, really, that was influencing Hermione as she allowed Black to grasp her wrist and tug her away from her friends as they ducked out of the Great Hall. Lily and Dorcas watched the scene play out with raised eyebrows and shared glances of knowing amusement, but there was no one else even around, and so Hermione didn't feel the need to extract herself from the situation.

Mildly exasperated but willing, she let Black lead her further down the corridor, away from the high traffic area immediately in front of the massive set of double doors leading into the Great Hall. In all likelihood, this little excursion Black was dragging her on would turn out to be merely a ploy on his part to flirt with her some more and maybe try to get a look at the hickey's he'd given her. But he had brought up Harry and Ron last night, again, as well as her…research into Voldemort, and separate from the snogging itself, those both felt like situations which might need to be contained. As it were.

"Alright, Black," Hermione huffed once he'd brought them to a stop around the corner, pulling free from his grip and determinedly ignoring the involuntary pang she felt at the loss of warmth that action brought with it. "What is it, then? What do you want?"

Black chuckled, raking his eyes obviously over her form and Hermione felt herself flush involuntarily at the blatant lewdness of his gaze; at the heat in it. She wasn't even wearing anything particularly form fitting, for Godric's sake!

"Oh, Kitten," Black drawled, voice low and far far too sinful for 9 o'clock in the morning. "That is a very dangerous question. Are you sure you want me to answer it out here in the open? Might be firsties running around somewhere, I wouldn't want to traumatize the younger generation."

"You look terrible," Hermione observed coolly, refusing to let Black see the effect of his words on her. Besides, it was sort of true. He had Steve Buscemi level bags under his eyes. "Couldn't sleep?"

Black shifted, his veneer of confident bravado slipping slightly for the first time in their conversation, and once again Hermione was left wondering if he was flirting with her mostly as a means of distracting himself from whatever it was that had made him lose sleep the night before.

"Not much," he admitted lowly, drawing closer to her. "But I did decide something, so it wasn't a completely useless night."

Hermione tipped her head up. "Oh?" she said, voice having dropped to match Black's. "And what did you decide?"

"Whatever it is you're messing about with, Granger, I want in," he said seriously, eyes intent on her own. "And don't try to tell me I don't have the right to get involved, because those are my books you're using to kickstart your little You Know Who research project. Books I stole for you, at your request." Black reached out to grasp her wrist once more, slightly rough in his intensity. "You've already dragged me into this, Kitten, I won't let you shut me out of it now you've got what you wanted out of my family library."

"Well not everything I wanted, but as much as you could safely carry, presumably," Hermione snarked. "And whoever said I wanted to shut you out, Black?" she asked curiously. "You've been the one so intent on convincing me of how stupid and dangerous this whole thing is since you found out about it."

"That's because it is fucking stupid and dangerous, Granger."

"So naturally you'd like to involved."

"I figure there's marginally less chance of you getting yourself killed if I am, yeah."

"And how do you figure that one?"

Black sighed. "I know you're smart, Kitten. I know you read, more than Moony does even. But you're a muggleborn, and in certain arenas that's limiting."

"Limiting?" Hermione hissed.

Black squeezed her wrist once, rubbing his thumb over her pulse point in a way that was perhaps meant to be apologetic, or soothing. The gesture was at odds with his harsh words and the exasperation coloring his tone. "Yeah, it fucking is," Black told her. "I hate to be the one to break this to you, Kitten, but there's only so much you can learn from books."

Hermione glared, even though she knew that he was right. There was a hell of a lot that you could learn from books, thank you very much.

"I grew up in a family of pureblood fanatics," Black said bluntly. "I lived in that house with those people for 16 fucking years, Granger. Don't you think it's possible that I might have insight into how their minds work that you don't?"

"Possibly," Hermione allowed.

"So let me help," Black said urgently.

"Fine," Hermione said, extracting herself from Black's grip once more and backing away from him slightly, her manner suddenly determinedly businesslike. "Find me on Wednesday after classes. And don't make me regret this."

Black reached out, grasping the end of her scarf and slowly untwisting it from around her neck, exposing her throat, eyeing it hungrily. Hermione wasn't quite sure why she let him. If he was surprised or disappointed not to see any marks adorning her neck, Black didn't show it.

"What's wrong, Kitten, don't think you'll be able to concentrate with all the obvious sexual tension between us?"

"Godric, you're full of yourself," Hermione told him, half disgusted and half amazed at the depths of Black's arrogance. What she absolutely was not was reluctantly amused or charmed in the least.

"I'll concentrate just fine. See if you can't manage to do the same," she advised him. "I imagine it might be difficult with the sure distraction that is your vastly overinflated ego, but you really ought to try."

Black smirked, looking (as usual) far too sure of himself. "It wouldn't be my ego distracting me," he said, and the way he was looking at her it was impossible for Hermione to mistake his implication. She rolled her eyes, an action which Black appeared to have the audacity to be amused by.

"I'll see you Wednesday, Kitten."

"What are you doing in the library, Remus?" Lily asked, frowning at him curiously. Remus groaned internally, cognizant enough of his own pre-moon edginess to be thankful that he at least refrained from doing so out loud.

It was the morning after Valentines Day, the morning of the full moon, and Remus was not in the mood to interact socially with anyone, even Lily Evans, whom he usually found to be perfectly pleasant, especially if James wasn't in the vicinity, which he was not.

Remus set aside his book. "And here I thought I'd developed a reputation as the sort of person who regularly frequented the library," he said, a touch wry.

Lily smiled. "I just meant, isn't it the Gryffindor quidditch practice time right now? I thought you usually went and watched along with Pettigrew."

Remus grunted noncommittally. "Wasn't in the mood," he muttered.

Lily's eyes narrowed slightly, focusing on him in a way that Remus found faintly worrying.

"Are you alright, Remus?" she asked softly, taking the seat across from him.

"Peachy," he said bitingly, the wolf, always lurking near the surface this close to the full moon, making him more snappish than he'd usually be with the redhead. "Really looking forward to bodily tearing myself apart later tonight and reforming as a monster with no mind of my own. How are you?"

"Oh, Remus," Lily said, so softly sympathetic that Remus almost couldn't stand it.

"Don't, Lily," he said, even though she was obviously just trying to be nice. But Remus had had a shit couple of days and he was about to have an even more shit evening and he just wasn't in the mood for anyone to sigh over him at the moment.

"It must make it worse," Lily murmured, her observation irritatingly vague enough that it automatically set Remus on edge.

"What must?" he snapped.

"That you and Black are fighting."

Remus didn't glare at Lily, but it was a near thing. Actually, he may well have glared at her.

The last thing he wanted right now was to think about Sirius and his avalanche of issues at all, much less talk about him, and with Lily Evans of all people.

"He's named for a star, you know," Remus said moodily, scraping his nail against the library table top and bringing up what was probably centuries worth of grit. "Not the sun. I only mention it because, contrary to popular belief, not everything actually revolves around Sirius."

Lily let out a thoughtful hum. "Brightest star in the sky, though," she mused, staring at Remus with an unbearably contemplative look on her face; like she could see right through him and parse all of his messy, conflicted emotions better than he'd ever be capable of doing himself.

"You don't even like him," Remus muttered, avoiding her all too knowing eyes.

Lily shrugged. "No. But it's fine if you do."

Remus snorted, exasperated and slightly confused as to what Lily was even getting at. He thought it was fairly evident at this point that he liked Sirius, given that they'd been friends for half a bloody decade now.

"He's my best friend, Lily," Remus said tiredly; truthfully. "I fucking love him even when he drives me bloody mad. Which is most of the time, by the way."

"So you are upset with him," Lily said, voice matter of fact, as though her foregone conclusion had just been handily confirmed, which Remus supposed it had.

Remus grunted a reluctant acknowledgement, too exhausted to make any further effort in avoiding Lily's transparent attempt at bullying him into being honest.

"Is it because of what happened between him and Hermione yesterday?" she asked knowingly.

Remus frowned. "Why would I be upset about anything that happened between Sirius and Hermione?" he asked dully. "And why would you think I even knew about anything that happened between them in the first place?"

Lily raised an eyebrow. "I just assumed Black would have bragged about it to you lot the moment he got back."

Remus shook his head. "Well, he didn't. I could smell it on him though, so he didn't need to. But I don't think he's even told James and Peter."

"Hmm," Lily said faintly, obviously surprised. And then, she blanched, processing the rest of his words. "You could smell it?" she asked, seeming horrified by this revelation and yet slightly fascinated by it as well.

Remus hunched his shoulders, mortified at what he'd just revealed and keen to move on.

"Why wouldn't he tell you," Lily whispered, almost to herself.

Remus shrugged. "He did, eventually. But only because he could tell I knew and he thought I was mad about it."

"Were you?" Lily asked, and then, more pointedly, "Are you?"

"Why would I be mad about the two of them snogging?" Remus asked again, not because he actually expected or wanted Lily to answer him, but because he'd wanted to avoid her question. "They can do whatever they like."

The truth was, he had been upset by it (was still upset by it, Remus could admit) but even he himself wasn't exactly sure why he'd had such an outsize negative reaction to the whole thing, and he certainly wasn't in the mood to try and muddle through the mires of his psychology with Lily eight hours before a full moon in order to figure it out.

Unfortunately for him, it seemed that the redhead had other ideas.

"Maybe because you like Hermione," she said simply, answering his question with an honesty that Remus hadn't been prepared for. "Or maybe because of the opposite."

The werewolf frowned, confused. The opposite? What did Lily mean by that? It wasn't as though she could have possibly thought that he disliked Hermione, even if he didn't like her in a romantic sense. Sirius was his friend, his best friend even, but he was also a complete emotional basket case and Hermione was obviously too good for him. That went without saying.

"What are you getting at, Lily?" Remus asked, feeling increasingly annoyed and increasingly edgy the longer she looked at him with such an inexplicably tender expression on her face.

"Black isn't exactly my cup of tea," Lily said, staring at him intently now. "But he is…magnetic. And I don't think anyone can deny that."

"Why would I deny that?" Remus asked, perplexed. "Sirius is charismatic. So what?"

Lily looked vaguely pained, as though he were deliberately missing her point or something; which he wasn't he just genuinely had no idea what the fuck she was talking about.

"So it's okay if you…feel the effects of that magnetism," she offered, which was not helpful

"Lily, what-"

"Remus," she said, reaching out and laying her small hand gently over one of his own. "It's okay if you like him," she said slowly and deliberately, stretching the words out, weighting them with significance.

Remus stared at her for another moment, still feeling utterly lost, before it finally hit him with painful, unflinching clarity just what it was that Lily meant by all of this. He wrenched his hand violently way from hers. "No," he said with feeling.

"Remus-"

"No," he repeated firmly, voice very nearly a growl. "Me and Sirius—no," he shook his head disbelieving. "Lily, I like girls."

And he did. Remus had sex dreams about girls. He wanked thinking about girls; their breasts, and their curves, and their overall softness; the intoxicating way they smelled sometimes when they weren't wearing too much perfume.

Sirius smells good too, though whispered an insidious voice in the back of his head, one that Remus suspected had far too much to do with the part of him that was animal, the part that was so close to the surface right now, just before the full moon, and that had been so undeniably agitated by the smell of Sirius and Hermione together last night. Which didn't make sense, because separately they both smelled really appealing to him; to his wolf. He could admit that to himself. It didn't mean anything weird. Of course Sirius smelled good to him; he'd been Remus' friend for years, they were around each other constantly, and now that Sirius was an animagus, he was familiar to the wolf too. And if he smelled more appealing than James, or Peter it was probably just because, as a fellow canine, Padfoot had more direct interaction with Remus' wolf than the other two did.

So it didn't mean anything that Sirius smelled just as good as Hermione to him, because of the two of them, Remus had only ever thought about Hermione like that. In an intimate way. In a sexual way. Never Sirius. Not…seriously, anyway.

"I like girls," Remus said again. Because it was fucking true.

Lily sighed. "You can like more than one thing at once, Remus," she told him quietly. "More than one person."

"That's not what this is, Lily," he said through grit teeth, struggling keep his tone even. The last thing Remus needed was someone overhearing them and spreading it around school that he was pathetically in love with his best mate. It was bad enough Lily apparently thought so, and he had enough problems to contend with as it was. "I don't know where you're getting this," he said frustratedly.

Lily had the nerve to look mildly exasperated. "Remus, the way the two of you behave with each other," she shook her head. "I don't think either of you even realize it, but it's like—"

"It's like what?" Remus demanded angrily, cutting her off. "Tell me what it is we behave like, Lily. Tell me exactly what we've done that makes you think that Sirius and I are—"

He couldn't even finish his sentence.

"Well for one thing, Black was clinging to you like a baby spider-monkey all day yesterday," the redhead pointed out.

Remus bristled, feeling flushed and defensive. Sirius had been clingy with him the day before, but that was just how he got sometimes, especially when he was upset about something. And Sirius was obviously upset about something, as had been made all too evident by the deranged late night argument they'd ended up getting into.

"Boys are allowed to be physically affectionate with each other, Lily," Remus said stiffly. "It's not weird. Just like it's not weird that you, Hermione and Meadows are always hugging each other and—and sitting on each other's laps. It doesn't mean—there's nothing wrong with the way Sirius and I act," Remus finished stubbornly.

"I never said there was," Lily said gently. Her green eyes were achingly soft, and she looked like she wanted to reach out and touch him again. She didn't though.

"Sirius is just really tactile," Remus muttered, feeling embarrassed even though he shouldn't have been, because what Lily was implying, what she'd been hinting at less than obliquely for the most of this excruciating conversation, was completely ridiculous. He and Sirius were friends. They were just friends, and it didn't matter how many jokes Sirius made about sucking him off, or whatever it was he'd said yesterday, because he was joking, obviously, and so it didn't matter. It wasn't like that between them.

"It's not—it's not like that," Remus insisted, needing Lily to understand. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"You don't have to say anything, Remus. I just mean—"

The werewolf pushed his chair back from the table, standing abruptly. He was done with this conversation.

"I know what you mean, Lily, and I'm telling you, you're wrong," Remus said to her fiercely. And then he turned and left.

Remus couldn't think. He had no idea where he was going or where he expected to end up, but he certainly didn't expect to run bodily into Dorcas Meadows and almost knock her to the ground.

"Shit, sorry, I—fuck, are you okay?" Remus gasped, his hands settling instinctually on either side of Meadows' waist in order to steady her as he apologized.

Apparently, he needn't have been all that worried, because the blonde looked almost entertained, if anything. "I'm fine, Lupin," Meadows assured him, tilting her head to the side; assessing. "I didn't realize you had such a mouth on you, though." She smiled, a little devilishly. "I like it."

"Er," Remus said, because he'd apparently lost all ability to be articulate. And now he was staring at Meadows' mouth.

"You can let me go of me now Lupin," the blonde said after moment, something like amusement sparking in her bright blue eyes as she smiled at him . "If you want."

Abruptly, Remus realized that his hands were still holding on to Meadows' waist. Quickly, he dropped them, balling his fists at his sides and tearing his eyes away from her lips. "I—sorry," he stammered.

Meadows was looking at him knowingly. "It's okay. I didn't mind, "she told him. "Maybe next time I'll run into you."

And then, she winked.

It was official, Remus thought as he watched Meadows flounce away, long blonde hair flowing almost veela like behind her, skirt swishing on her hips: he was incapable of engaging in any further human interaction today. He was just going hide in the Prefect's bathroom and avoid everyone he knew until it was time for him to head down to the whomping willow tonight, and if he happened to drown himself in the gigantic bathtub out of pure embarrassment in the meantime, Remus felt that that would be a perfectly valid life choice.

It had been about a day and a half since Hermione had found out about the Marauders various animagus forms, and for some reason the one she couldn't stop thinking about was Peter Pettigrew's.

Hermione had never particularly liked rats and she had never particularly liked Peter Pettigrew either, come to that. She really had no interest in seeing the boy in his animagus form, Hermione didn't think, and so she couldn't understand why it was his form sticking in her mind. If anything, she ought to have been more interested in Potter's, having never seen a stag up close before. She was plenty acquainted with rats, having been friends with Ron for two years, a lifetime ago now.

The two of them had been fighting quite frequently before she'd come here to the 1970's, Hermione remembered sadly. And all because of another rat. Because of Ron's rat. Because of Scabbers. It wasn't as though Hermione had actively disliked Ron's familiar before the beginning of her original third year. She hadn't felt much about him at all, really, until the messy business with Crookshanks. Crookshanks certainly hadn't liked Scabbers, but that was normal, wasn't it? For a cat to want to chase a rat? She'd certainly told Ron that enough times, but for whatever reason he'd been absolutely convinced that Crookshanks had been out to get Scabbers in particular. What was it that Hermione had said to him once in response, fed up with his nonsense? Something about Ron being right, and how maybe there was just something particularly nasty about Scabbers. That maybe there was a reason for Crookshank's antics beyond basic, biological instincts; but that the fault lay with Ron's familiar, and not with hers.

Crookshanks had been half kneazle, after all, and they were known to be preternaturally excellent judges of character, so it wasn't an entirely unwarranted thought. But how could a house pet, a common garden rat, be untrustworthy, Hermione mused? It wasn't as though a rat, especially a common breed like Scabbers had been, was a complex enough animal to be capable of such a thing. But then again, common garden rats weren't supposed to live for over a decade either. That wasn't normal. Scabbers had been with the Weasley's what, 12 years? How was that even possible, Hermione wondered, and not for the first time, though it had been quite a while since she'd spent time working over the conundrum. Scabbers must have been under some kind of spell, to have gone on living that long. But that hardly made sense either. And the rat had begun looking rather worse for wear, that last year, fur getting patchy and such. Ron had been very upset about it, blaming Crookshanks and thereby Hermione herself.

But it had been such a stressful time, all around, Hermione reasoned. What with the news of the escape of Sirius Black terrifying everyone, and especially her and Ron, considering the situation with Harry. Harry, who probably hadn't been as worried as he should have been over the whole thing. But they'd been worried enough for him, she and Ron, and animals had a way of picking up on that, didn't they? Of course Hermione knew better now; was certain that whatever Sirius Black had broken out of Azkaban for in 1993, it hadn't been to hurt Harry, who looked so much like James that it hurt; James, who she knew Sirius loved like a brother, who he would never betray, never hurt. Hermione let her eyes settle on the Marauders, wondering why she was thinking so much about Scabbers, of all things. All these thoughts of rats racing around her mind. Hermione shook her head, shuddering slightly. It was an unpleasant topic. Pettigrew himself was unpleasant, she'd always found.

It made a bone deep sense to her that his animagus form was that of a rat. Hermione still couldn't explain why she had felt the oddest combination of viciously pleased and yet also disgusted when she had found out about it, only that it seemed so fitting to her. She'd often thought over the past two years (cruelly, unfoundedly) that everything would have made so much more sense if it was Peter Pettigrew, and not Sirius Black, who had been the spy amongst the rag tag light side of the war against Voldemort. Pettigrew, who was ingratiating and let his insecurities turn him mean sometimes; who let slip the occasional snide comment about muggles or muggleborns, subtle remarks, usually, that were nonetheless revealing, and certainly more prejudiced than anything she'd ever heard come out of Sirius Black's mouth. Pettigrew the rat.

But life was never that neatly symbolic, was it? The loyal dog and the traitorous rat. That was too simplistic; that was too easy. And besides that, it was impossible because Peter Pettigrew had died. And maybe Sirius Black hadn't killed him (Hermione was certain now that Sirius hadn't killed him) but someone had. Because all they'd found of him was his finger and—

And suddenly Hermione remembered something that she hadn't thought of in years, something so small and so seemingly inconsequential, that she'd barely ever given it more than a passing thought; she remembered that Scabbers had been missing a toe.

AN:

I really hope the ending reveal felt somewhat realistic and organic. I didn't exactly mean for Hermione to have the revelation so soon, but I wanted to get on with it a bit, to be honest, so I hope it felt satisfying enough. Our witch has a very powerful mind, what can I say, but I also leaned on it coming from intuition as well as reasoning, and built it off her instinctual and growing dislike of Peter ever since she arrived in the 1970's

Poor Remus. (insert Cristina Yang 'he's very dreamy, but he's not the sun, you are' gif). I didn't mean to do this to him. But then I did, because I'm mean. My headcannon on his and Sirius' sexuality in this story is basically that Sirius is generally sexually fluid and not having anxiety about it, while Remus is basically straight but kind of bi for Sirius, and having a crisis about it now that Lily has pointed it out to him. Poor boy.

CW: I love Sirius and Remus' friendship, but I also don't portray it particularly healthily in this chapter; their codependence is on display as are Sirius' total lack of boundaries, and what he asks of Remus is really shitty and out of line.

Next time we get Dumbledore!

I hope you guys liked this, sorry for such a huge note, please review it brings me all the life!