"Psst."

"I'm asleep Prongs."

"No you aren't. Come on. I'm bored."

"No. If you keep bothering me I'll set Moony on you."

"See that brings up an interesting topic of conversation."

"Goodnight Prongs."

"See I noticed after our little talk – you do remember our little talk, don't you? – that quite a lot of what I said about Lily, goddess that she is, is true for you about Moony. Don't even try to deny it Padfoot."

"I told you. Your moronic test to tell if you love someone is pure rubbish. It is all the same for friends."

"Yes, but no. You see I don't feel that way about you. Do you feel that way about Peter for example?"

"No, but.." Sirius spluttered and floundered for a little bit, "I am better friends with Moony than I am with Peter."

"That would be true, but when I got stuck in the hospital after that … incident last year, you weren't torturing every poor soul you came across like you do when Moony is in the hospital wing. Aren't I meant to be your best friend?"

"Goodnight Prongs."

"Nice to know I was right then. Well, it's just food for thought. You're welcome by the way."

Sirius was fuming. James and his moronic assumptions were getting on his nerves. He definitely wasn't his best friend anymore, that was for sure. Glowering, Sirius didn't succumb to sleep for a while that evening. A recurring thought bounced around inside his head: What if James is right? Only to be soon followed by: Did anyone else hear that? Eventually he came to the conclusion that James was a terrible matchmaker and he slept.

"Padsie, oh Padsie!" sang a sweet voice from above his head.

"Go 'way. I'm not awake," mumbled Sirius from his nest under the covers.

"Oh Sirius!" James whipped the covers off the bed, displacing Sirius in the process. Sirius simply lifted his middle finger up, rolled over onto the floor and nestled into the blankets there. James kicked him.

"Time to get up you lazy brat, we have matters to discuss."

Sirius swore extremely loudly in the general direction of his ex-best friend.

"I'm not talking to you, you pompous buffoon."

"But don't you want to hear what I have to say?" That was a definite pout appearing on James' lips. Sirius shook off the last vestiges of sleep like a dog clearing their ears of water.

"Waddayou want?" James dragged Sirius into a sitting position beside him on the bed.

"I want you to wake up so that we can have a discussion."

"Fine."

Sirius blinked his bleary eyes, before turning to get dressed and ready for breakfast. Much to his dismay, none of the other marauders were up yet; James would pay dearly for disturbing Sirius' sleep like this. When Sirius had finally managed to make himself look somewhat presentable (enough that McGonogall wouldn't give him detention on the spot for how rumpled he looked), he stumbled down the stairs and into the blinding light of the common room. James, the prick, was sat in the comfiest chair there and was chilling with a wide grin on his face.

"So, sleeping beauty finally awakes. Shall we go for a walk?"

Sirius barely resisted giving James the finger again, but after all it wasn't his fault that he was so insufferable in the mornings. He was the only morning person in their group – Remus had even been known to growl occasionally when being separated from his bed. Instead, Sirius nodded and continued to plot James' death internally. As they ambled through the portrait, Sirius tripping as they went, James decided his friend was awake enough to broach the previous evening's subject again.

"We were having the most scintillating discussion last night, weren't we?"

"Call your lies that if you want, but stop using fancy words so early in the morning," Sirius mumbled.

"I, for one, found it to be an interesting topic. Have you realised that you do like Remus yet, because I've witnessed your pathetic moping about your secret admirer and I think it's fairly obvious that if they were going to come out of the woodwork they would have done so by now. Quit pinning your hopes on a no-show."

"A) my love life is none of your business, B) never would I love Remus…"

"Brother, how nice to see you at this hour. How come you aren't still clinging to your bedsheets like the rest of the filth in there?"

"Regulus?"

"Yes brother. Now shoo Potter, my brother and I have family matters to discuss and last I checked you weren't family."

"Just leave Mate, Regulus will be done soon I'm sure."

James shot Sirius a hesitant look, but eventually turned on his heel and walked away.

"Mother wants to know why you aren't responding to any of her letters. Is the owl not delivering them?"

"No, they just keep incinerating themselves somehow Regulus."

"Now see I told mother to just give you a second chance to be a part of the family and what do you do, but go and throw it away without a second of consideration," Regulus hissed, "Mother knew you were avoiding her letters, but I spoke in your defence, you know, told her that they were probably being intercepted by your good-for-nothing dorm-mates or something. I don't have any choice now but to tell her of your misdeeds. Be careful Sirius. The holidays might not be very pleasant otherwise and we wouldn't want Dad to have to buy a new belt again would we?" And with that, Regulus departed, but hesitantly, as if unable to stop himself, he looked over his shoulder back at his big brother, "we could have been family again."

Sirius yelled back, "as if you care when all you can think about is bringing honour to the family name – and when I say that I mean all you care about is murdering innocents. If anything, this conversation has shown me that I'm making the right choice, because I wouldn't want to be family with you."

"Let your friend Remus know then, that he can expect a visit from a Black family friend then." Regulus said softly.

"What? Why?"

"We wouldn't want someone to enter into a relationship with a Black without knowing exactly what they're getting themselves into and what was it you said to that blood-traitor, Potter? 'I love Remus." If I recall correctly." Regulus turned away and left, unaware of the inner turmoil his threat had produced in Sirius.

Remus was starting to worry that perhaps it wasn't quite normal to spend an hour or two each day debating what notes and gifts to give your friend who thought they were in love with you without knowing who you were. He was almost tempted to talk to someone about it, but his only options were James and Peter. Peter who's longest crush had been on camembert and James who had only ever had eyes for one person, who continuously rejected him. Neither were very qualified to give romantic advice, never mind keep their mouth shut about it, but Remus was struggling. James could be trusted to keep his mouth shut, surely, as he had always kept the fact that Remus was a werewolf secret. Remus wasn't so sure about Peter – who's inability to keep from gossiping was a running joke in the common room. However, there was the fact that James and Sirius were practically joined at the hip and supposedly didn't have any secrets from each other. Would Sirius have already told James about the whipping, just, not Remus? Remus dismissed the idea immediately, because James would have screamed bloody murder and attacked Sirius's parents, completely disregarding the fact that they were Orion and Walburga Black, so that couldn't be true. Maybe they did have some secrets after all. The rest of them sure had them.

Remus made a split-second decision: he was going to talk to James. He needed the other boy's determination, optimism and spirit. He flagged him down as they left their last lesson of the day, mentioning to the other two that he wanted to go to the kitchens to add to his chocolate stash – he'd heard they had ordered in some sea salt and caramel chocolate and he wanted to try it. Sirius almost pouted when Remus tugged James off, although Remus wasn't quite sure why, but he assumed that Sirius had wanted to talk to James about something. Why else would Sirius be pouting like that? (In a way that made Remus' heart start pounding in his chest a little faster than was entirely comfortable).

"James, I need to talk to you."

"Is this about your undying love for Padfoot, Moony?" Remus took a step back and his ears went scarlet.

"NO! Of course not. I'm not pining for Sirius. Shut up." James just smirked.

"Yeah yeah." Remus was seriously regretting his decision to confide in James.

"I just…"

"What Moony?"

Remus rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "I may or may not be the person that was sending Sirius the notes."

James' look of utter incomprehension made Remus immediately regret his words.

"It's not like you think! It was never meant to be romantic! And there was a situation that I can't really explain and I wanted Sirius to know something, but I couldn't tell him and I've ruined our friendship now and oh this is such a massive mess," Remus babbled.

James looked bemused now, "Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"I also may kinda like him, but that's a totally separate thing!"

"So do you need advice?"

Remus failed to bite down a sarcastic retort: "Nah, I just felt like pouring my heart out to you for kicks."

"No need to get testy, Remus. Why don't you just write him another romantic note telling him it's you that sent those notes."

"Absolutely not."

"You aren't honestly afraid of rejection are you?"

"Yes! Yes! Of course I am!" Remus screamed rather desperately.

"I don't know mate. I would suggest using some of my better pick-up lines…"

"No. Your pick-up lines are terrible - you're the least smooth person I know. Although, by the way, I don't think that's the reason Lily keeps rejecting you. Now that I mention it though, I'm not sure I should be asking you of all people for love advice considering her ."

"Look, I'm sure it will all work out fine. The notes weren't meant to be romantic, but he thought they were and you have romantic feelings towards him now anyway, which he has told basically everyone that will listen that he returns, so chill. Tell him."

"But, he doesn't know it's me. He'll probably be really disappointed. I can't do it. I'm not doing it."

"Fine, Moony, just know that you're being thick-headed about this, maybe even more so than Sirius is being about it."

"I'm not doing it James."

"You're so dumb. You won't get your heart broken, I promise."

Remus was still terrified hours later of the scheming smirk that had appeared on James' face during their conversation.