The Consequences of Impulsive Behaviour

Author's Notes: This one's longer than the other two parts…er, feels a little sloppy to me, but I couldn't help myself. It's also fairly melodramatic and sappy. So…yeah. Just a friendly warning, I think this one's a little bit of a disappointment compared to the rest of the series. My, I really am making you want to read this, aren't I?

"I am going to throttle Sirius Black. What an asshole. Can you believe he did that?!" Cleo hissed angrily. Her closest female friend and fellow Gryffin-whore, Lily Evans, raised an eyebrow.

"What? What did he do this time? Did he actually transfigure Sev's nose into a banana like he's been threatening to do since second year?" Lily looked mildly amused. Then she caught the look on Cleo's face.

"Lily, honey this is serious. He broke the big rule. The big no no." Cleo paused for a minute, obviously considering how she was going to say it. Then she gave up and threw a mini-tantrum. "I can't believe no one told you yet! You're closer friends with any of them than I am!"

"Cleo, what is it? Nobody's dead, right?" Lily asked, feeling some panic.

"Well not yet." Cleo snapped.

"Cleo! You're scaring me!" Lily exclaimed. A few passing Hufflepuffs stared at them. They were heading down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Cleo shushed Lily before continuing.

"Black told Sev how to get past the Whomping Willow."

"What?" Lily whispered. "…no, h-he wouldn't. Even he's not that thick. This is some kind of stupid joke." Lily said suspiciously. Being friends with the Marauders, Tony Paglia and Edward Lecinq had gotten her used to dealing with jokes she didn't necessarily see the humour in. But granted Cleo rarely participated in those kind.

"This is for real, isn't it?" Cleo nodded. Lily stopped walking, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply three times. Then she kicked the wall and started shrieking. Cleo grabbed her and shook her, while even more students gave them weird looks.

"Someone should lock up those Muggleborns. They're fucking crazy." A fifth year whispered to her friend.

"How many people know?" Lily asked.

"The faculty…James and, well obviously Sev, Sirius and…well I assume Remus knows."

"Are they okay?" "Physically you mean? Yeah. James stopped Sev before he got himself killed but he, he saw Remus transformed. They're all bugging out, the three of them. Cuz, you know every time James saw Remus he was, well Prongs so…I guess it never registered really that Remus technically is a monster."

"Don't say that Cleo." Lily said in a low voice.

"What? It's fucking true and you all need to accept it. I've accepted it, because I'm a monster too. Last night I was a monstrously deformed cat while you were sitting in the dorm room telling Jezzy, Lydia and Pam that I was feeling sick. Okay, I'm a werecat and I can accept it and move on in life. We're not fully human and it would've been better if you goody goodies had noticed that!" And with that Cleo stomped away angrily.

Lily looked into the Great Hall. A very confused Peter Pettigrew was sitting at the Gryffindor table, the only sixth year Gryffindor boy down there. She felt almost bad for him. He was so completely out of the loop about everything. She was tempted to go talk to him, but she also wanted to see where her friends were.

Lily rushed out of the Great Hall and back up to the Gryffindor common room where she saw Sirius Black sitting with his head in his hands in a corner looking miserable, 'Rightly so' she thought bitterly.

James was halfway up the stairs banging on the door to his dorm room. "Remus you have to come out! Class starts in ten minutes. Don't you want breakfast? Come on! Unlock the door!" James yelled futilely.

"James? Cleo told me what happened. Um…is there anything I can do?" Lily asked nervously.
James collapsed against the door. "Everything is so fucked up right now Lily…Remus locked himself in, and he did something weird, Alohomora's not working. And he hasn't said anything since he got back from the hospital wing. And Sirius…"

Lily squeezed his hand. "I'm sure it'll be alright with a little more time. Let Remus alone for awhile…he needs to cool down. And besides, we're going to be late for Transfiguration and McGonagall doesn't accept excuses, even valid ones."

James nodded weakly. He got up and started for the portrait hole. Lily lingered by the door for a minute.

"Remus, if you want to talk, I'm here for you." She walked down the stairs. The common room had pretty much cleared out, except for James and Sirius. Sirius had gotten up, and was standing by the portrait hole. James stood opposite him, white faced but angry.

"Look, I'm sorry. I don't know what made me do it, but I know it was dumb. I know you're all mad at me, and you deserve to be, but-"

James cut Sirius' apology off. "This isn't something you can charm your way out of you fucking idiot! I don't think I'll ever think of you the same way again! You said you loved Remus and you know how big an issue for him this is, and yet you tell one of his only friends how to see him during a transformation!? What is wrong with you?! I wouldn't be surprised if Remus never spoke to you again!" James yelled.

"James…come on-"

"Don't talk to me Sirius. I'm sick of dealing with you." James shoved him aside and left the room angrily. Sirius turned a depressed gaze to Lily.

"You'll get no sympathy from me on this. I'm friends with Remus and Sev, remember? I never liked you." Lily walked past him and hurried to get to class.

By the next day things hadn't cooled down any. Neither Sev nor Remus were leaving their dorms, and apparently James, Sirius and Peter had had to camp out in the common room the night before. No one had told Peter what happened yet, so he just stayed quiet and out of the way. Sirius was behaving in a very odd manor: he was being quiet. He hadn't spoken to anyone since the common room the other day, and no one was speaking to him. Regret and depression rolled off him in waves, but James and Lily had both decided what he had done required some form of punishment, and they couldn't just forgive him in one day.

For his part James' reaction to the whole thing had been very subtle. He wasn't really talking about himself, just how mad he was at Sirius and how worried he was about Remus. But Lily and Cleo both noticed a shift in his usually pleasant and content mood.

"I'm worried about Sev." Cleo said bluntly while the girls headed outside for their lunch.

"I'm worried about a lot of things." Lily answered quietly.

"No, I mean I'm really worried. I wish we could get into the Slytherin dorms and see him. I mean, we've all got each other to yell at and support. You know how much he hates his roommates. I'll bet you anything he's just wallowing in all this shit, I don't even know what he's doing! And, I mean, his social problems are way worse than any of ours. We have strong friendships. He has us and he had Remus."

"He's friends with Tony and Edward and Misery and the others…" Lily pointed out.

"Please, that's not friendship. Tony and Edward use him because he makes potions they can use against the Marauders. And Misery and the others, if they knew anything about him they'd run screaming. He's only ever really opened up to you, me and Remus. He's one of the kids everyone worries about. And now he's found out one of his best friends is a monster. How well do you think he'll be able to accept that with a conservative pure blood background? He had enough trouble accepting Remus being gay." Cleo said. Lily considered.

"He was really close with Remus though. Like when we were hanging out and you and me went on our girl talk rants. The two of them would hang out, and…I guess I never really noticed the bond." Lily said quietly. "That's too bad. Their friendship was probably really good for them. And you're right about Sev's upbringing. I don't think he'll be able to overlook this one."

Three days.

Now Lily was getting really worried. But since James had been trying non-stop to get Remus to come out, she figured she should check out how Severus was doing.

Lily waited until all of the students had filed out of the dungeons and then approached professor Arey, the feminist teacher and head of Slytherin nicknamed Misery (Ms. Arey)

"Um…Misery, can I ask you a favour?" Lily asked.

"You can try. What is it?" Misery asked, trying to scrape the crusts of a failed first year's attempt at a basic healing potion off of a lab bench.

"Well…I'm not sure if you know about what happened a few nights ago, during the last full moon-"

"Every teacher in this castle knows about it sweetheart." Misery responded.

"Yeah, well I've been worrying about Severus. I mean, he hasn't come out of his room. At any rate, Cleo and I haven't seen him and I know he would, like talk to us."

Misery considered. "I've been worrying about him too. He really didn't need that to happen. And you know, Dumbledore hasn't done anything official about it yet? He keeps saying the boys all need some time to cool down, then he's gonna call them all to his office and mediate things."

"…but by that logic, Severus could leak to all of Slytherin about Remus' secret. That's not very safe." Lily responded.

"But you know he wouldn't do that." Misery said with a half hearted smile. "So what is it you want? Access to the Slytherin sixth year male dorm?"

"Uh…yeah. Is that possible?" Lily asked hopefully.

"Technically I shouldn't…but these are very extreme circumstances and you're a good kid. Just don't leak any information to the Marauders once this settles down. Minerva would have my head if she found out I let you know how to get into the Slytherin common room."

"Shouldn't you be the one in a position to complain about the Marauders finding out? Being head of Slytherin?" Lily asked.

"Yes, but the points would be taken from Gryffindor, not Slytherin." Misery answered.

The two made their way to the Slytherin common room, chatting about idle things on the way. Misery let Lily in, and the Slytherins gathered within let out an audible gasp.

Narcissa Black narrowed her eyes as one of her least favourite people entered the room. "What is that Gryffinwhore skank doing in here?" She snapped.

"Narcissa, I'm not in the mood to deal with you right now. Boys, can you tell me where Severus is?" Misery asked.

"He's in the dorm." Thanatos Irae answered quietly.

"Yeah, he won't come out. The freak's been in there for three days now." Avery said stupidly. A few of the larger monkey Slytherins chuckled at his use of the word freak. Lily rolled her eyes and followed Misery to the dorm door.

"Severus honey? You wanna unlock this door?" Misery asked.

"Not really." Came the blunt answer.

Misery sighed. She tapped the knob with her wand, gave Lily a good luck shoulder squeeze and walked off.

Lily walked in, feeling meek and out of place. She noted quickly how much smaller the Slytherin dorm room looked than the Gryffindor dorm room. In actuality, they were the same size, but there were a lot more Slytherins than Gryffindors, so all the added beds took away from the look of the room.

Severus was laying on his back on what was presumably his bed, looking as though he was having a staring contest with the ceiling. Lily knelt down beside the bed. "Hey." "Hey." He answered quietly.

"I suppose it would be really stupid and unnecessary to ask how you're doing?" Lily said with a small smile.

"Yes it would be. Why are you here?"

"Blunt as ever. I'm worried about you. So is Cleo. We know about what happened, and…well you've been reclusive long enough. Come out and face the world. You need to talk about this. Nothing's going to get better from sitting in a dingy room staring at a ceiling." Lily said, trying to sound stern but still sounding like some demented version of a concerned parent.

Severus rolled onto his side, facing away from her. "I know that. But it's so much easier to hide from it all. Have you ever seen him?"

"Seen…seen Remus? While he was transformed?" Lily clarified. Severus nodded. "No…I mean, it's not safe to as a human."

"Exactly. And I saw, as a human. I came very close to having my head bitten off. All because of this stupid vendetta Black has against me. I can't understand how he can hate me as much as he does, to want me to die all over a stupid prank war. And how self centred can he be? Isn't he supposed to be dating Remus? Shouldn't he have thought about his boyfriend's well being? They execute werewolves who've harmed another human being."

"I'm not here to proclaim the virtues of Sirius Black, okay? You know how I feel about him. I was as opposed to Remus dating him as you and Cleo. But I know that he doesn't hate you to that extent. He didn't want you to die. He's dense, right? He does things on a whim, without thinking. He probably thought it would be funny for a few minutes, and then realized what it was he did. Or something stupid like that. But I don't think you need to lose any sleep over him trying to kill you." Lily answered. Severus still didn't face her.

"What about Remus?" She asked.

"What about him?" Sev responded.

"Well…how do you feel about him? Do you think you two can still be friends?"

"Not the way we were." He answered honestly. "I really doubt we can at all. I just can't handle this. You three have already pushed my limits so far. I mean, it's easier for you to just accept it because you were raised in the Muggle world, so you've got a completely different perspective. I know he's a nice person and that he wouldn't intentionally hurt anyone…but I have this natural, I don't know, compelling instinct not to trust him or not to be near him."

"I guess I can understand that…even if I don't agree with it or like it. But do you think with more time? He doesn't have a lot of friends you know. And I think he just lost his boyfriend. And you saw how in love he was." Lily murmured.

"I know. And anything's possible, I guess."

"Do you feel better now?" Lily asked.

"A bit. Talking helps."

"Is there anything else you want to talk to me about?" Lily asked.

"You're impartial in all this, right?" Severus asked. "I mean, you're not going to take sides."

"Of course not. I'm friends with you, Remus and James and I'm not going to side with anyone. You get my personal counsel, without having to worry about annoying biases. And I expect similar treatment from you if I ever have a crisis." Lily said with a smile.

"You? With your charmed life." He asked, sitting up and facing her.

"It could happen." She answered. "I hope you don't mind me running off so soon, but I get the feeling I'll be lynched if I stay here much longer."

"Too true, I'll escort you out." As soon as Lily was away from the Slytherin common room, a white faced Misery ran up to her. 'Not again…' she thought miserably.

"Lily! Everything's all set with Severus now, right?" Misery asked quickly. She was already tugging Lily in the direction of a stairwell.

"Yeah, why?" Lily asked nervously.

"You need to get to the hospital wing. James is freaking out, he says he needs to talk to you."

"What happened? Is he okay, is Remus okay?" Lily said, feeling panic rise in her.

"It's Sirius. James found him in the bathroom with his wrists slashed. He'd almost finished bleeding out. Last I checked, Poppy's not sure if he's going to live."

"WHAT?!" Lily shrieked. She took off at a full run for the hospital wing, her thoughts something along the lines of 'That stupid idiot! Oh God, he'd better be okay…oh God please let him be okay!' She rushed in and stopped at the waiting room area. James was sitting on the floor in a fetal position. His glasses were on a chair next to him. He was white as chalk, tears were streaming down his cheeks and he was trembling. Lily wrapped her arms around him and he hugged her back fiercely.

Misery rushed in and sat down heavily in a chair. She wrang her hands together nervously watching the two students support each other.

"It's my fault…" James finally choked out.

"Don't say that, it's not your fault at all." Lily answered quickly.

"B-but it is! I said those things to him…oh christ Lily, he could die!" He broke out in more sobs. Lily ran a hand through his hair and stroked his back with her other hand.

"Calm down James…breathe. It's okay. He's in good hands. Pomfrey will take care of him. Don't blame yourself. You couldn't have known he would take what you said like this. It's not your fault." Lily repeated soothing words until James seemed to have a little more control over himself. He rested his head on her shoulder silently for a few minutes.

After a tense wait where time seemed like it didn't quite exist (Lily wasn't sure if they'd been there for a half hour or three days) Poppy Pomfrey came out to see them, and the sight of her blood soaked robes brought James back into hysterics. Once Lily calmed him down Poppy spoke to them.

"Well you got him here just in time. Any longer and he would've done it. He's going to have to stay here a few days, and I want him watched for the rest of the year, but he should be fine."

James let out a relieved breath, almost laughing, and let himself fall against the wall. "He's okay." He whispered.

Lily smiled shakily. "Can we talk to him?" she asked.

"He's asleep right now." Pomfrey answered.

"When will they be able to speak to him?" Misery asked.

"Come back down tomorrow, he should be a bit stronger by then." She answered quickly. She was about to turn away, but Misery stopped her.

"I don't think you have the right appreciation for what these kids have been going through you desensitised hag. Can't they come down sooner than tomorrow?"

"Listen Diane, he needs to rest." Pomfrey said, sounding irritated and insulted.

"Could I spend the night down here with him?" James asked. "I really need to tell him I don't hate him."

"It's out of the question! You have classes tomorrow. Go upstairs, I need to return to my patients." Madam Pomfrey snapped, before heading back to her patients.

James looked crestfallen, and Misery looked ripshit. "I think it's time we went and saw Albus." She said, a plotting sort of glint in her eye.

Misery led them to the gargoyle, said the password (banana cream pie) and up the stairs they went. Dumbledore was sitting in his office, trying to feed Fawkes a cracker. Fawkes nibbled at the cracker in a 'I'm doing this to make you happy' type manner, and Dumbledore stroked his head.

"Professor." Misery greeted.

"Oh hello Professor Arey. I just got a rather angry Poppy Pomfrey in my fireplace complaining about you. Seems you called her a desensitised hag."

"Yeah, well…she asked for it. But you can yell at me later if you so wish. Right now we need to talk about what we're going to do about what happened on the full moon. Your non-involvement policy didn't work out very well." She said bluntly.

"Seems to be one of the more important things I've been wrong about." Professor Dumbledore answered in a sobering tone. "Now I understand that you, Mr. Potter, wish to see Mr. Black as soon as he regains consciousness."

"Yeah. Yeah I need to tell him I don't hate him and what he did was really stupid and if he ever tries it again I'm going to bash his head against the nearest wall." James said quickly, staring at the floor.

"That's fine. I'll have Poppy send for you as soon as he's up. Now, does Mr. Lupin know yet?" Dumbledore asked. Lily, James and Misery exchanged glances.

"Um…I've been at the hospital wing." James said.

"No, I don't think anyone's told him. Oh…this won't end well at all." Misery muttered.

"I'll go talk to him…but first I'll need to know how to open the door. He did something weird to it, and none of us have been able to get it open. We tried Alohomora." Lily explained.

Dumbledore smiled. "He placed a chair under the handle. I don't think magic could help you there." Lily's jaw dropped.

"That's all he did?!" She exclaimed.

"Consider yourselves excused from classes until this is all worked out. And Diane, I'll need to speak with Mr. Snape." Lily inhaled through gritted teeth. That wouldn't be pleasant. While Dumbledore and Misery talked, she slipped out of the office with James to go and have a chat with Remus.

When they got to the common room, James was about to walk over to the door, but Lily stopped him. "Do you think you'll be able to talk about this without giving both of you a mental breakdown?" She asked.

"I…doubt it." "I figured. Go play a round of chess with Peter or something and try to calm down. I'll handle this." Lily offered.

"You really are amazing." He said reverently. Lily felt a bit of a blush coming on. 'No, bad Lily. No crushing on the popular jock, very bad for your weird smart kid reputation'.

James headed back to the common room and Lily faced the problem of the door and the chair. She knocked on the door, thinking at this point she might be able to talk to Remus out of his own free will. But he didn't respond, so she tried a few spells, but it was very hard to move an object she couldn't see. Finally, her frustration erupted in a kick to the door, that left her foot rather sore, but also seemed to loose the chair.

She opened the door and rushed in before Remus could do anything to fix it. She saw him lying on his bed, in a similar manner to the way she'd seen Severus. Except instead of fixing his gaze on the ceiling, he didn't seem to be looking at anything. He gaze was vacant and his face expressionless. He looked very tired and weak, and a mess besides. He was wearing a ratty old tee shirt and ripped jeans, and his hair was tangled, and it looked like a few strands had been pulled out. The signs of a breakdown of some sort were around the room. Some things had been thrown around and a lamp was broken. There were also thin scratches on his arms and face, they looked like they had been made by fingernails.

Lily took a deep breath, then approached him. "Remus?" She whispered softly.

He jumped, startled and wild looking. Lily swallowed some air, trying not to panic. She'd seen him do this once before. He'd ceded some control to the wolf.

"Remus…" She said again slowly. "There's something serious I need to talk to you about."

"Serious…" He repeated, his voice sounding low and menacing, not like his usual sweet self. "Sirius."

"Yes…I need to talk to you about Sirius. Um…" She was at a loss. She fervently wished Cleo was in here with her, at least she somewhat understood what this was like. Lily didn't want to admit it, but Cleo was right about this. They weren't human. They weren't a wolf and a cat either, but more something in between. And Lily didn't know how to deal with them.

Lily swallowed. "Um…h-how are you feeling about Sirius right now?" She said slowly.

Remus' face was scrunched up in consideration. His eyes flashed angrily. He jumped into a crouch position on the bed, and he did look like an animal. "Hurt." He finally croaked.

"S-Sirius hurt you…" She repeated. He nodded. "Um…are you angry at him?" He growled and she shuddered. "Moony…can I please talk to Remus? I need to talk to you Remus, I can't talk to you like this. It's really important." There was another low growl.

"Listen Remus, grow up. Sirius is hurt really badly and it's my duty to give you the details. So suck it up and control yourself." She snapped, wondering if that approach would work, or if she would be screaming for help and hoping the kids in the common room would be able to pry the angry werewolf from her jugular.

A few tense moments passed before Remus said quietly, "What happened to Sirius?" Lily breathed a sigh of relief. She sat down on the bed next to Remus and held his hand. "He's going to be fine, but…he's in the hospital wing. He tried to kill himself and he almost did it. If James hadn't found him…anyway, we're going to be contacted when we can go see him. If you want to see him, anyway." Lily watched him closely, but she couldn't read him. She couldn't read his reaction. She chewed her lip nervously.

"H-He tried to kill himself?" Remus repeated.

"Yes…" He let out a low whine, sounding more canine than human once more. Lily jumped, startled. Then she hugged him.

"W-why would he do that?" Remus whimpered. "He should've known I still care about him, I was just hurting…I would n-never want him to die!"

"It's okay…you need to go tell him these things. Everything will work out. Trust me. You'll go make up with him, so will James and we'll all forget this ever happened and never speak of it again." Remus pulled away.

"What about Sev?"

"We'll work on that later. Do I have to have a solution for everything right now?" Lily asked in a teasing manner. A thin smile formed on Remus' lips.

"I guess we are asking a bit much of you Lily."

"You have no idea."

Pomfrey (or perhaps Dumbledore) was true to her word, and as soon as Sirius had woken up, James, Remus and Lily were on their way to the hospital wing. There was an awkward moment of indecision, when the three wondered if they should see him individually or as a group, but they decided as a group.

Lily breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Sirius. He looked much better than James had described him looking. He was propped up in bed, still pale and weak, but there was a ghost of a smile on his face and his eyes were bright. He looked from Remus to Lily happily, but when his gaze travelled to James, some guilt crept into his expression. He was about to say something, when James dove forward and hugged him, surprising them all.

"You stupid, moronic-" But James didn't finish, he just hugged Sirius tighter. Sirius finally made some noises of protest and Remus and Lily pried James off of him.

"Easy there James, he's still recovering." Lily lectured gently. "Have to say I agree with James though. Stupid and moronic seem to cover it nicely."

"Consider yourself forgiven. I don't want to ever have to think about this again." James said solemnly. Sirius nodded, but his gaze shifted to Remus, who looked as though he would rather be anywhere else in the world. Much as James needed to talk to Sirius, Lily got the impression Remus needed to about a hundred times more. She squeezed James' hand and the two left the room silently.

Remus sat next to Sirius, not saying anything, just looking at him. Sirius chewed his lip nervously. He opened his mouth to speak several times, but he couldn't get the right words to come, a first for him. He'd always been so good with words.

Finally, Remus spoke. "I'm sorry Sirius." This…had not been what Sirius expected at all.

"What? Why are you sorry? I'm the one who's been a prat-"

"No. I mean, you're the one who almost died, right? I should've talked to you instead of hiding. I should've, I should've faced it." Remus said, cringing. He stared at the wall just past Sirius' shoulder, unblinking.

"I'm the one who almost died? I could've just as easily gotten James and Snape killed too! Not to mention you! If you had harmed either of them, what would the Ministry have done?" Sirius asked, what little colour that had returned to his face draining. "Remus, what I did was vile…"

"I know. But I assume you have some sort of reason for it." Remus said quietly, but there was a pleading note in it.

"Just the usual. Impulsiveness, loss of temper. And Snape provoked me. He was, he was saying all this shit everybody's been saying, about how bad a boyfriend I'm gonna be and how I'm only going to hurt you. Guess I proved him right, huh?" Sirius said bitterly, looking now at his hands. He couldn't bring his gaze to Remus. He just couldn't.

Then a slender, white hand was placed over his own. He dared a glance at Remus and saw golden eyes welled with tears.

"It's okay Sirius. I forgive you." Sirius' voice trembled as he spoke next.

"I swear I'll never do anything like it again. I love you Remus."

"I love you too."

"Under no circumstances is anyone to know about why I was in the hospital wing." Sirius said gravely, once he'd returned to Gryffindor tower. He, Lily, James and Remus had spent a ridiculous amount of time waiting for the common room to clear out. Lily's distaste for this course of action was shown on her face.

"And what about Severus? Does he get to know?" She asked.

"Of course not. That's the last thing I want. It'd make his day, his bloody century. He'd love to think of me in that much pain-"

"Sirius, don't be an idiot. I know that's hard for you." Lily snapped. "Listen, we could smooth this whole situation over with Sev really easily. He's not a bad person you know. And if he hears about this he'll know you're, well, human and-"

"No. Lily, don't tell him." There was a look of panic in Sirius' eyes. He looked round at the others. "Swear to me you won't tell anybody."

"But Sirius, what are we going to say?" Remus asked. "Severus is going to want to know something."

"Tell him, tell him it was a prank." Sirius suggested.

"That's the stupidest thing he's said yet." Lily muttered.

"No, that'll work. I don't care if he hates me. I just don't want him to know how much he gets to me. It'll only make it worse. Promise me." Sirius begged.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Alright, I won't say anything."

Sirius and Remus detached from the other two marauders. Ever sine their reunion, they'd gotten quite a bit more touchy feely, in a manner that induced James to make retching noises at them and mutter things like 'You're worse than some sappy romance heroine'. Peter understood little of what was going on, considering no one had told him anything yet, so he laughed without realizing why he was laughing.

Sirius yanked Remus by the arm into an empty classroom, intent on a pre-Charms snog. Remus wanted to say something cute and flirtatious, but then his back was pressed against a desktop and he figured he didn't really need to. He ran his hands through Sirius' hair, moaning appreciatively as Sirius kissed his neck. To think, he'd almost missed out on this…

But then the door to the classroom opened, causing them both to jump. Standing in the doorway, looking shocked and betrayed, was Severus, wide eyes fixed on them. Remus' eyes met his and for a brief moment, they communicated volumes with their eyes. Remus understood that Severus thought he had assisted Sirius in the 'prank'. Severus understood that Remus would side with Sirius in anything that came up.

And both understood that their friendship was over.

END