FOURTH YEAR

"Excellent match!" Sirius exclaimed for approximately the twentieth time in as many minutes. "I can't believe we beat Slytherin by nearly three hundred points!" He briskly rubbed a towel over his shower-damp hair.

"Well, half that was the Snitch," James reminded him. "D'you think Lily noticed the spectacular dive I made?"

Sirius shook his head, throwing aside the towel and running his hands through his damp hair. "Doubt it," he said. "Come on; I'm starving."

"Merlin, let a bloke get dressed first!" James complained, tugging on his clothes. "Anyway, you being starving isn't exactly news."

Remus met up with them just outside the Great Hall.

"You and Peter were at the match, weren't you?" James demanded.

Remus shook his head. "Peter's gone to Hogsmeade again with Cassandra, and I was helping Lily with that make-up assignment for Transfiguration from when she had the flu last week," he said apologetically.

James looked crestfallen. He muttered something about not being hungry after all and stomped off towards the Gryffindor dormitories.

"What's the matter with James?" Remus wondered.

Sirius snickered. "He nearly broke his neck catching the Snitch and nobody noticed."

"And by 'nobody' I take it you mean Lily?" said Remus, pushing back a pang of guilt. He'd been trying very hard to avoid Lily for the last few months without it being obvious that he was doing so.

"Who else?" said Sirius. "Come on with me to the kitchens. I'm starving."

He hadn't wanted to like her, Remus reflected, not when James spent every waking moment either watching her, or extolling her virtues in some manner, or declaring his undying love for her.

But then Remus would bump into Lily Evans somewhere innocuous, like the Hogwarts Library or the hall outside the Charms classroom, and Lily would give him that slow, sweet smile that lit up her jade-green eyes and made Remus' heart skip a beat. It was the kind of smile that hinted at volumes of secrets kept.

Sometimes Remus wondered what Lily would think of his secret, of his being a werewolf, but mostly he wondered if her lips tasted as sweet as they looked.

James would kill me, he thought grimly, watching Lily brush her auburn hair back with one hand while she patiently took notes in History of Magic. Twice.

Once, memorably, he'd bumped into her – quite literally – just outside the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade Village, scattering packages across the frozen ground. As Remus, mortified, hurried to retrieve them for her, Lily breezily said she'd not seen him either and offered to buy him a butterbeer.

As luck would have it, they both been alone. Lily's circle of friends had decided against visiting Hogsmeade on such a wintry day, whereas James and Sirius had a badly-needed Quidditch practice, and Peter was off somewhere with a fourth-year Hufflepuff with the ungainly yet oddly charming name of Cassandra Feathergood.

The Three Broomsticks was packed, and they were forced to sit squeezed together a tiny back table, so close that their knees touched. Lily chattered quite happily about their recent Charms essay (she'd been graded an E on it), a book on magical creatures she'd seen in Flourish & Blotts, and the fact that there'd been very little snow for such a cold winter.

Their knees bumped again under the table.

"Sorry," said Remus, trying very hard not to turn scarlet.

Lily waved him off. "S'ok. Tight fit in here, isn't it?"

Remus nodded and drained the rest of his butterbeer. "Getting late, I think. We should probably be heading back to school," he said. She nodded in agreement and began to gather up her things.

Outside, the air had turned even chillier, and the charcoal-grey clouds gathering overhead promised snow.

Lily stepped closer. "Thanks," she said warmly, "for keeping me company." She meant to kiss him chastely on the cheek, but Remus had turned to say something to her. Lily's lips ghosted across his so softly that for a brief moment Remus thought he'd imagined it.

"Um," she said, jade eyes wide.

Remus didn't give her a chance to apologize. Emboldened by sheer (and uncharacteristic) abandon, he kissed her again, delighted to find that her soft lips really did taste as sweet as he'd thought. She kissed him back, one hand stealing up to wind into his tawny hair, her mouth falling slightly open under his.

Remus closed his eyes, reveling in the first tentative touch of their tongues. His breath quickened as the kiss deepened, and unthinkingly he murmured a word against her lips.

Lily pushed him slightly away. "I beg your pardon?" she asked.

Remus blinked. "What?" he said. Lily was staring at him with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. Self-consciously he reached up to smooth his mussed hair. "What?" he repeated.

"You. Just. CalledmeSirius," Lily said, a very flattering blush staining her cheeks pink, although she looked anything but flattered.

There really was nothing he could say to that, Remus realized, blushing furiously himself, and "sorry" didn't even begin to cover it.

"It's alright," Lily said quickly. "I thought as much anyway."

And there was nothing Remus could say to that, either.

As they headed back to the castle, it began, finally, to snow. Soft, fat flakes fell on their bare heads, the flurries getting gradually heavier and heavier. By the time they reached Hogwarts, the snow on the ground was nearly an inch deep.

"See you," Lily said, smiling warmly at him as she headed indoors. Remus glanced toward the Quidditch pitch where two very familiar figures were throwing handfuls of snow at each other.

"Yeah," said Remus belatedly. "See you later." But Lily had already gone. He turned up the collar of his thin coat and headed toward his friends.

Later that evening in the dorm, Remus sat on his bed, listening patiently as Peter enthused about Cassandra Feathergood. From the sound of it, Peter was completely smitten.

Remus leaned back against his headboard, casting a quick glance over at Sirius. Sirius' dark hair was still damp with snow (James had charmed his and Sirius' snowballs to attack only Sirius) and he was yawning. He noticed Remus' glance and winked at him.

"Have a good time in Hogsmeade?" Sirius asked.

Not without you, Remus nearly said. He caught himself in time to say, "It was alright." Sirius seemed satisfied with this and gave him a rare smile instead of his cheeky trademark grin.

Remus suddenly realized why he'd said Sirius' name into Lily's mouth. Apparently Peter wasn't the only one who was smitten.

It wasn't late, but Lily had already gone up to bed, muttering huffily under her breath about bloody mannerless gits who were never going to get dates if they didn't smarten up.

"Think she was talking about us?" James asked, peering wistfully after her.

"You, at least," said Sirius, stretching out on his stomach, cat-like, before the common-room fire. "I've had plenty of dates."

"So have I," James argued, "but none of them are Lily."

Sirius shrugged. "Have you asked her?"

"Of course I've asked her! I ask her every bloody day!" James said, exasperated.

"Oh," said Sirius. He thought for a moment. "Have you tried asking her nicely?"

James turned the idea over in his mind. "That's almost crazy enough to work, Sirius..." he said thoughtfully.

Sirius snorted, rolling onto his back. "And people say I'm the insensitive one!"

James slid down to the floor, sitting with his back against the couch. He stretched his legs over top of Sirius'.

"You make a pretty good cushion," James said.

Sirius poked him with a finger. "Sod off," he said, but didn't ask James to move. Instead he began lightly tracing circles with his fingers over James' hipbone, occasionally flicking them up James' side until the other boy began giggling helplessly.

"Quit it, Sirius!" James laughed.

"Ticklish, are we?" murmured Sirius. He twisted suddenly, lithely flipping James onto his back and attacking with both hands while James shouted in laughter. "I should tell Lily you're this ticklish. Birds go for that, y'know."

"They do?" James gasped, trying to squirm out of Sirius' grasp.

Sirius suddenly relinquished his grip, staring quizzically at James. "How d'you not know that?" he demanded. "Thought you said you'd had plenty of dates."

"I have," James hissed, dropping his voice to a whisper although they were alone in the common room. "I... We... It's just..."

"James, have you ever even kissed a girl?"

James blushed fiercely. "Of course I have!"

Sirius cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Bloody hell... Alright, no," James admitted, "and don't you dare tell a soul. What's 'properly' s'posed to mean, anyway?"

"Um," said Sirius, quickly scanning the empty common room for any hidden occupants. "A bit like this, actually." He ducked forward, planting his mouth squarely on James'.

James' lips parted slightly, and Sirius dipped his tongue delicately between them. James moaned softly, snaking his hands up into Sirius' hair, tangling his fingers in to draw Sirius closer.

After several minutes, they broke apart, both rather flushed and breathless.

"So," said Sirius. "Yeah. You just... And Lily... She'll like that. Yeah. Trust me; you'll do fine."

"Not so different from when I kissed Remus, then," said James, extricating himself from Sirius' arms and backing towards the stairs. "Look at the time... No wonder I'm so tired." He faked a yawn and headed quickly up to the fourth-year dorm.

"Be up soon," Sirius called after him, stretching out in front of the fire again. He was almost too comfortable to move. Then he realized what James had said.

"Wait a second!" Sirius roared, scrambling to his feet and tearing after James. "When did you kiss Remus?"