The next morning was cold and the fire had dwindled during the early hours of dawn. I woke up on stomach, arms wrapped around my pillow. I took a deep breath, the woodsy, musky scent immediately informing me that sometime during the night I had rolled over onto Sirius's pillow. I must have been searching out his warmth as the chilly air had invaded the common room.

I cracked an eye; during the night, Sirius had shifted closer to James, wrapping an arm around his stomach and resting his head on James's shoulder. Florence had rolled herself into the couch, wedging herself into the crack with her face pressed into the cushions. I sat up, grabbing the sleeping bag and wrapping it around my shoulders. It must have been extremely early, as the common room was still empty, but true to form, the house elves had finished cleaning the rest of James's mess sometime during the night.

I poked Florence on the shoulder. She mumbled, pressing her face further into the couch and rolling slightly away from me. I poked her again, whispering, "Flor. Flor, wake up."

"Too early," she grumbled, turning her head slightly and squinting in the still dim light coming from the windows behind us. "Need more sleep."

"Flor, we need to get back to our common room so we can change before breakfast."

"No," Florence said simply, flipping onto her stomach, wrapping her arms around her pillow and shoving her face into it.

"Flor," I whispered again. She made a vague noise of acknowledgement, but didn't pick her head up from the pillow. I wanted to tell her about last night. Merlin, I wanted to tell her about last night more than anything. As I made to whisper her name again, I realized that I couldn't. Florence believed that Remus and I were dating; I couldn't tell her that Sirius wanted to kiss me without him seeming like the biggest prat of all time.

I crossed my legs, thinking through my next move. When I didn't bother her again, Florence got suspicious and finally began to sit up. "What is it?"

"Hmm? Nothing."

"You gave up too quickly. What's wrong?"

I rolled my eyes. "Nothing is wrong. I'm starving, and I want to go change before breakfast so nobody makes a dumb 'walk of shame' joke to me before I've had any eggs."

Florence peaked behind my shoulder at the boys, snorting at the position she found them in. They were still knocked out, though James was making vague motions as though he was waking up. "We should split before they wake up. Wouldn't want them to realize we saw them cuddling; I like not being on the receiving end of one of their pranks."

I raised my eyebrows in agreement, hastily getting out of my sleeping bag and gathering my things. Florence did the same. As we were making our way out of the portrait hole, we heard James screech angrily, "Sirius! Get off!"

Florence and I giggled all the way back to our common room, ceasing only when we entered our dormitory, so not to wake our still sleeping roommates. We changed quickly into casual clothes, intent to spend the rest of our weekend holed up in the library catching up on homework. By the time we started to head down to breakfast, there was movement throughout the castle; the Dining Hall filled up quickly behind us.

We sat at the Hufflepuff table, loading our plates with eggs, biscuits and bacon. As I ladled a large scoop of jam onto my biscuit, I asked Florence, "How's Dom? I haven't seen him around much lately."

Florence's face paled. She took a large bite of toast, avoiding making eye contact. I reached across the table, pulling her plate away from her. "What the heck, Flor? What's going on?"

Florence swallowed, rolling her eyes. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask about Dom. He and I…we aren't talking right now."

"Why?" I asked, putting down my knife to give Florence my full attention. "What happened?"

"We just had a fight. We're taking some time apart to think about things. You know, I want to go into the Ministry, he wants to travel after school, go on the hunt for exotic animals. He's got this idea in his head that he's going to be the next Newt Scamander. I'm not sure things would have worked out, even if we hadn't fought," she said with a sigh, still not making eye contact.

"How long ago was this fight?" I asked, my stomach dropping. I wracked my brain, trying to think when I last saw Dom, or heard Florence talking about him. It must have been…

"A couple of weeks ago," Florence admitted.

"How many weeks?" I asked shortly, heat rising in my cheeks.

Florence sighed. "Since Halloween."

"A month?" I shrieked. "You and your boyfriend have been fighting for an entire month, and I didn't even realize? Oh Merlin, Flor, I'm so sorry. I'm such a terrible friend. How could I not notice? How are you?"

Florence chuckled, grabbing my hand and pulling it away from my face. "Take a breath, Frankie. It's fine. I didn't want you to know; things are going so well with Remus, I didn't want to bother you with my issues. Besides, I'm not even sure I'm upset about Dom. I mean, it's been an entire month and I've honestly barely noticed he hasn't been around. Me and him, it was never really anything more than physical anyway. I mean…me and an exotic animal tamer? There's no way I would ever have been happy."

I smiled sadly, gripping the hand that was still holding mine tighter. "I wish you would have told me. What did you fight about, anyway?"

Florence dropped my hand. "Look, it's not important." I just stared at her; she relented quickly. "Fine. We fought about you, actually. He thinks that you're being really unfair to Bert. I told him he didn't understand, that you and Remus were really sweet together and Bert was overreacting. He then told me that he didn't think that you and Remus were even really dating. Apparently he saw you and him patrolling and said that you two barely even touched. Said that if he was patrolling with his girlfriend, he'd spend more time in a broom cupboard than anything; I said that you're not one for PDA. It got a little heated, he said some nasty things, I said some nasty things. Anyway, I told him he was ridiculous, and that the fight between you and Bertram was between the two of you. You two will figure it out and it wasn't any of his business, but he still thought it was best for us to spend some times apart."

My heart sank. My stupid lie – my hair-brained, rash, spur of the moment decision to lie to my two best friends – had begun to cost me too much. Bertram and I were no longer speaking – though that was not entirely my fault, it had been prompted by my fake relationship. Now, it had cost Florence her boyfriend of nearly two years.

Florence and I finished breakfast in strained companionship; both of us making attempts at conversation while ignoring how awkward the air was between us. I finished eating quickly, leaving Florence at the table to wait for Bertram, with promises to meet her at the library later in the day. I noticed that the Marauders had not come down to breakfast yet, and before I realized what I was doing, I was making my way up towards the Gryffindor common room, looking for someone, a decision made.

There was only one logical solution – if fake-dating Remus was causing so many problems, and breaking up with Remus was not an option, then I needed to turn fake-dating into real dating. Besides, Remus was kind, and gentle, and caring – he was everything I wanted out of a boyfriend. He protected me, looked out for me. He had feelings for me, according to Sirius…nope, wasn't going to think about Sirius right now. I did have feelings for Remus; he'd made me feel things that I hadn't felt since Mason. He made my feel safe. I liked being around him. It was going to make everyone's lives easier; it was going to let everyone stop lying. It was an easy decision. It was the only decision.

As long as I didn't think about his best friend.

I ran into the group as the were walking down the stairs from the portrait of the Fat Lady. "Hi!" I said, as brightly as I could muster. I figured if I was going to have this conversation, I may need to drop the doom and gloom a bit.

"Frankie! Where'd you go this morning?" James asked, blushing and coming to a halt. Peter walked into his back, stopping with a squeak. "Sorry, Pete."

"I was starving," I said slyly.

"What time did you two leave?" He asked. "Super early?"

"It was pretty early," I said, smirking.

"And you didn't…"

"Merlin, James, they saw us cuddling! And there's nothing wrong with it,"
Sirius interjected with a huff, crossing his arms. "It was cold, and you were warm. Best night of your life, too, so I'm not sure why you'd be embarrassed."

I snorted, rolling my eyes at Remus, who looked equally amused by his friends antics. "Sounds like you had a better morning than I did," he said, with a soft smile. "I woke up to the smell of Peter's vomit all over our dormitory floor."

"Yikes, sorry, Remus. Pete, you feeling any better?" I asked kindly.

Peter shook his head, face turning a sickly shade of green.

"He just needs some food," Sirius insisted. "Come on, let's get going."

I grabbed onto Remus's arm, pulling him to a stop. "I actually wanted to talk to you, Remus. If you have a minute? I promise I'll have you downstairs in time to grab some breakfast."

Remus nodded, grabbing onto my hand and pulling me in the opposite direction of the boys, who continued downstairs. I looked over my shoulder, making eye contact with Sirius, who had turned to look over his shoulder. For a moment, he looked crestfallen, but then he smiled tightly, nodding his approval. The smile didn't reach his eyes.

I turned away from him; I'd made up my mind. I smiled up at Remus, latching on to his arm. I pulled him into the first empty classroom that I saw. He sat on a desk, looking at me expectantly. "What's up, Frankie?"

I stepped closer to him, nerves settling in. "I wanted to ask you something."

"Okay. Does this have something to do with the patrol schedule that Lily was talking about last night? Because I told her that you usually study early on Sunday mornings, and so patrolling late on Saturday would eat into your morning study-time, and she promises that she would assign it to a sixth year next week, but that because Lina Minella is sick and Joe Martin had to go home for his grandmother's funeral she doesn't have the coverage to fix it this week. But if you want me to handle the patrol by myself, I definitely can. I don't want you to fall behind on your studies, I know that you're hoping to get into the law program at the Ministry next year, so really, I'm happy to do it…"

My heart soared with affection for this man; this man who had gone out of his way to not only learn my schedule, but go to bat with Lily Evans regarding her carefully considered and highly valued patrol schedule, all because he didn't want my sleep to be disturbed. The man who for the last two months had been pretending to be my boyfriend because I was too afraid to tell my best friends that I was helping his best friend with his crush. The man who had been so nervous to display affection just a few short weeks ago, but now didn't hesitate to wrap an arm around me when I looked cold or to grab my hand to keep me close. I took a a step forward, then another. I had stepped between his legs, closer to Remus than I had ever been before. He looked up at me with trepidation; not the sheer panic from when we'd started this charade, but with the nerves of someone who was hoping for something to happen that they didn't think would ever happen.

"Remus," I said quietly, taking another step closer. My face was so close to his, I could feel his breath on my cheeks. He made a vague noise that I took for acknowledgement. "I'm going to kiss you, if that's okay?"

Remus didn't answer for a long moment, frozen in shock, before lurching out of it. He gripped me by the back of my neck, pulling my lips towards his forcefully. I stepped closer, pressing myself into his body; his hand moved from the back of my neck, tangling in my hair before trailing a line down my back. Kissing Remus felt fantastic; it was comforting and safe, but still I still felt heat spreading from my cheeks down to my toes. In fact, when I stepped away from him, my entire body felt like it was blushing.

Remus was sitting on his desk still, touching his lips absentmindedly. He snapped his eyes to me, before smiling hesitantly. "Does this mean…"

"I don't want it to be fake anymore. I like you, Remus. I want us to try this for real, if you want to?"

"Frankie, I've liked you since the fourth year. It doesn't even feel real that you'd want to date me; it didn't even feel real when you wanted to pretend to date me. I never thought; well, I never thought that anyone would want to date me, let alone someone as wonderful as you."

I leaned forward, pressing a sweet kiss to Remus's lips. "Well, I can't believe that someone as wonderful as you would want to date me. Now come on, I promised you food, and I would hate to lie to you within the first couple of minutes of becoming your girlfriend."

I grabbed his hand. "I like that way that sounds," he said, smiling down at me as he hopped off his desk. "Girlfriend. I'm a boyfriend! Wow, I never thought I'd be a boyfriend. I feel very important."

We walked into the Dining Hall, holding hands. Although nobody paid us any special attention, as we'd supposedly been dating for months at this point, the moment felt momentous to me. I tried to push down the slight unease that I felt; that maybe, I wasn't doing the right thing.

As we approached the Gryffindor table, I saw Sirius's face and immediately decided that I couldn't face him right now. Turning to Remus, I said, "I'm actually going to run. I promised Florence I would meet her in the library after coming to see you, and I already ate."

Remus nodded. "I'll see you later? I was going to grab my books and hit the library after eating."

I nodded. He leaned down, pressing a quick but steady kiss to my lips. I smiled tightly, and turned towards the door, but not before seeing the subtle flinch from Sirius that he attempted to hide by reaching for the plate of toast in front of him.

I left quickly, meeting Florence in the library a couple of minutes later. I slid into the seat next to her; she barely picked her head up to acknowledge me. We spent the next couple of hours in companionable silence. It wasn't until Remus joined us, well after lunch time, that I realized he'd taken his time coming down.

"What happened?" I whispered. "I expected you ages ago."

Remus rolled his eyes, pulling his Transfiguration book from his rucksack. "Sirius decided after breakfast to get into the leftover liquor from yesterday. I just got away from him; he's obliterated. Rolling around on the floor, wagging his…" He cut himself off abruptly.

"Wagging?" I asked, incredulously. "What could he possibly be wagging?"

"Shh," Florence hissed. "I'm trying to concentrate."

I rolled my eyes at her, shooting Remus a suspicious look, but letting the topic drop. I was more concerned that Sirius had decided to get drunk before noon on a Sunday morning. I wasn't self-centered, usually, but I couldn't disregard that I seemed to have played a part in that decision. And I hated that it made me…almost happy that he was so upset about me and Remus that he'd decided to drink away his feelings. For some reason, the thought that Sirius may have feelings for me made me incredibly giddy.

I went back to my studying with a smile, letting the rest of the day pass by quickly. I decided to skip dinner, having had a large lunch, but agreed to meet Remus back upstairs in the Gryffindor common room after he ate. I went up from the library, Remus having given me the password; I claimed a seat in the Marauder's usual spot, pulling my feet up under me and letting my eyes droop shut.

I was rudely interrupted much too early; Sirius plopped down next to me, rolling his head onto my lap. I patted him on the head before leaning my head back against the couch. "You okay?" I asked.

He took a deep breath, letting his eyes close shut. "Good. I'm good. You're good. Remus is good. We're all good."

I didn't respond, and soon his breathing evened out as he fell asleep, head in my lap. He stayed that way until the Marauders returned, boisterous from a good meal; he got up to allow Remus to sit next to me, and then excused himself to go to bed, though it was only 8PM.

I watched him leave, pulled a book out of my bag, and continued studying. I couldn't stifle the feeling that maybe – maybe I hadn't made the right decision.