James had a feeling that there was something going on between Remus and Sirius.
It started one day when they were all doing homework together in the common room. They had taken over the large wooden table next to the window, spread out their scrolls and quills and school books, as well as some sweets from Honeydukes and a few unexploded whizzbangs. James and Sirius had been taking turns throwing pieces of rolled up paper at each other from across the table, while Remus and Peter were steadily chipping away at their twelve inch scrolls on healing potions.
"Don't ask me for help at midnight when you could have been working on your scrolls right now," Remus said from across the table.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Oh Moony, don't get your knickers in a wad."
Remus gave him a pointed look which was met with a roguish smile.
"You're impossible." Remus said.
Sirius flicked the paper wad at him and he swatted it away before it could hit him. James bent over to retrieve it, having to duck under the table.
It wasn't inherently strange, the way that Remus' and Sirius' knees were touching, how their calves were pressed against each other, from ankle to shin. But Sirius and James had been best friends since their first days of Hogwarts, and they had never sat like that.
James didn't think much of it. He just grabbed the wad of paper, and launched a sneak attack at Peter once he resurfaced.
A few weeks later, James had gone up to their dormitory after quidditch practice, and when he opened the door, he heard Sirius say, "Hey babe, can you get me the map?"
"Sure, sweetheart." James said, with a laugh.
Sirius, who had been kneeling in front of his trunk, digging through it, whipped around with a look of surprise and said, "Oh, hi Prongs."
"Who did you think it was? Moony? Wormtail?"
"Ha!" Sirius barked out, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. "I've only got eyes for you, babe." He said, exaggerating the last word.
Just then, Remus walked in the door, already saying, "Love, I'm back so—"
When he saw James, he, too, looked startled. James wondered why his roommates were so surprised to see him in the room that they all shared together.
"Oh, hello Prongs." Remus said in a high pitched voice. James looked at him quizzically.
"Are you two okay?" James asked.
"Come off it, we're fine." Sirius said, "Now pass me the bloody map. I want to see what Snivellus is up to."
Well, that was weird, James thought, before pulling the map out from under a loose floor board, and passing it over to Sirius, who was carefully avoiding meeting his eye.
He wasn't sure about anything, though, until he woke up one night, and found both of their beds empty. The first thing he did was look out the window; could it have been a full moon and he had forgotten? But no, the moon was a harmless crescent shape.
He then looked over at Peter who was deeply asleep, snoring softly.
He pushed on his slippers, and ambled downstairs to the common room. He didn't see them at first, until he walked around to the front of the couch.
Sirius and Remus had fallen asleep together. Sirius was sprawled out along the couch on his back, and Remus was sprawled out on top of Sirius, his head resting peacefully on Sirius' chest. One of Sirius' hands was resting gently on Remus' lower back. Their feet were tangled together.
James saw this, and his mouth fell open in surprise.
Over their years together, Sirius has seen James at his highest and lowest. They had laughed, joked, and cried together. They wrestled often; they hugged occasionally. They called each other nicknames: mean ones, sweet ones, sarcastic ones. They have told each other that they loved each other, and that they would do anything for each other, but James had never meant it romantically. And he definitely wasn't picking up anything romantic from Sirius either.
So when James had seen the knee touching and heard the pet names, he hadn't thought much of it, because that's what friendship looks like sometimes. But now, looking back, it all made sense.
The way that Sirius was always hanging on to Remus' every word, even when it was boring stories about prefect duty. Or the way that they always ended up walking next to each other down the hallway, leaving James next to Peter. And even the times that James had seen them having a conversation at a distance: how they had seemed so entranced in each other's presence, how they seemed to be standing just a bit too close.
Sirius made a small grunt, and, still asleep, moved his hand a little further up Remus' back, pulling up his shirt and revealing a tiny sliver of pink skin.
James turned away then, feeling suddenly like he had seen too much: something too private, too intimate.
He raced back up to the dormitory then, his mind racing. And by the time he heard the door open a few hours later, and two sets of footsteps patter towards two different beds, he hadn't slept a wink.
*** TO BE CONTINUED ***