A/N: A bit of a warning for some internalised homophobia in this chapter. Another warning for cringey teenage boy humour.

October 31st, 1975

Remus awoke to a heavy weight on his chest. It wasn't an altogether unusual feeling, and he inhaled, letting the air fill his constricted lungs. Some days were just like that. Out of nowhere, a great big pit opened in the depths of his stomach, and sapped every ounce of life from him. He had hoped, foolishly, that it wouldn't be the case today. It was Halloween, after all, and between class and his patrol and the party, he could hardly afford the sort of exhaustion that came with the heaviness. Between moons, he needed to work twice as hard to make up for the time he missed. Especially with O. looming.

"Get up! It's Halloween!" The weight on his chest shifted. Something jabbed him in the nose. Remus' eyes flung open, and Sirius was grinning down at him, dark hair framing his angular face.
"You're sitting on me," Remus said.
"It was that or setting your covers on fire, you wouldn't wake up and we're about to be late for breakfast," Sirius said. "Good morning, Moony." Sirius rolled off him and landed with a thump on the mattress. It burned where he had sat. But the heaviness was gone, and it seemed it had been a Sirius-related heaviness, not a crushing self-loathing one. Remus brightened considerably.

"Your bed feels different to mine," Sirius said as Remus stood. "It's not as soft." He patted the mattress. "Hear that? It's stone!"
"Go back to your own bed, then," Remus said, opening the top drawer of his nightstand.
"That's awful, Moony," James said. He was sitting on his trunk, tossing his wand up into the air and catching it. With each catch, a fan of gold sparks emerged. "I can't believe you'd kick him out."
"I'm heartbroken," Sirius agreed. "But more by this atrocity you call a bed. You could sleep on the floor of the dungeons and it'd be nicer." Remus rolled his eyes and shut his drawer, heading for his trunk.
"Is it that bad?" Peter asked.
"I'd rather be in Azkaban than in Moony's bed," Sirius said seriously.
"Let's hope the girls don't agree with that," James laughed. Remus stiffened slightly, and hurriedly scooped his robes into his arms. He shut his trunk with rather more force than necessary.
"'Scuse me," he said, ducking into the bathroom. When he emerged, Dale had entered the dorms, beaming from ear-to-ear. James, Peter, and Sirius crowded around him.

"I told you I would," Dale said, puffing out his chest. "I keep my word, I'm telling you!"
"Legend," James said, clapping him on the back. Remus joined the group.
"What is it?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest. He had an idea; he wasn't an idiot. Dale was good for certain favours. "Or am I being blind, deaf and dumb?"
"If you please," Sirius said. "And could you grab my pouch?" Remus sighed, and trudged over to Sirius' nightstand. An unopened letter with the Black family seal was folded beneath the velvet money pouch, and another, smaller pouch that smelt strongly. Typical. They'd be completely and thoroughly fucked if their dormitory was ever inspected.

He held out his hand and shut his eyes. "Here."
"Thank you," Sirius said, and his hand was emptied. He then turned around, back to them, and stared at the posters and pictures James had on the wall above his nightstand and bed. They were primarily of himself, James, Peter, and Sirius, though a handful included Dale and another handful were various combinations of James and the bunch. There were some of him and his family growing up, including one with the rare extended family that he nearly never spoke about, but connected him to Sirius in some vague way that all the purebloods were related. And the others were cut-outs and posters from magazines, mainly of Fallon Selwyn. She'd been voted the 'Hottest Witch in Britain' three times in a row. She pouted over various objects; chairs, cauldrons, broomsticks. Half the things she wore hardly resembled robes or muggle clothes at all, and of those, half looked awfully uncomfortable. He grimaced.

"You can come back now," James said. Remus turned, and they all looked very pleased with themselves.

"I'll get the rest today," Dale promised them. Remus squinted, and James slugged him in the shoulder.

"C'mon, Marlene's gonna shovel everything down before we get there at this point!"

All the girls were already at breakfast, and Marlene proudly announced she'd been through four rashers of bacon already.

"You're a bottomless pit," Lily said, between bites of a banana.
"The more you eat, the more you can drink without being sick," Marlene said proudly. "Alisha and I are gorging ourselves today."
"Mm-hmm," Alisha agreed, pointing at her bulging cheeks.

"Excellent," James said, and leaned forward. "Don't get too excited, but we've got a totally radical surprise for you."
"One we aren't permitted to know about," Remus told Lily. She pulled a face, and jabbed a fork towards Peter, who scooted back quicker than you could blink.

"Anyone gets too ill, and I will turn you in," she said. "And Remus will back me up."
"Will I?" he asked. Her look was full of fire. "Yes, yes, I will," he amended, and she laughed. There was no way he'd ever turn any of them in. You didn't dob on your friends, and he didn't exactly have an excess of them to fall back on. Besides, if nobody got hurt, it didn't really matter that they were breaking school rules...it was just a bit of fun.

They trudged off to Transfiguration, all ten of them together, and arrived about a minute late. Professor McGonagall's eyes were crackling furiously, and Remus stared at the floor, shame thick in his throat.

"And from my own house, not one of you could arrive on time," she said. "A point from Gryffindor for each of you, I think."

"I can't believe you take points from Gryffindor!" James said. "Do you want those slimy Slytherin gits to win?" Out of the corner of his eye, Remus say Professor McGonagall's mouth turn thin.

"I was hoping that you might play well tomorrow and earn them back, Mr. Potter, but if I was mistaken, I'm sure Miss McLaggen would be happy to take your place on the team."

James had never disavowed his own words quicker.

Remus and his dormmates took the back row as per their custom. Lily and Mary Macdonald sat in the front row, Mary on the end and Lily next to Glen Vane, who immediately launched into conversation with her. Marlene, Amy, and Alisha filled out the row in front of where he was sitting, joining Cynthia Lewis and Florence Diggory. Once they'd settled, Professor McGonagall began.

The lesson seemed to take forever. Remus rifled through his bound notes on Switching Spells, and next to him, James fidgeted terribly; his notetaking attempt had turned into games of hangman with Sirius, who had made up the word for this round. So far, James had got _E_ERU_ _A_E. Remus knew the word at once, and watched as James flailed until he finally got 'Severus Snape' with just one of the hangman's feet to go. Professor McGonagall continued to march on with her explanations even after the back three rows disengaged. Remus alone of his friends was still trying to copy from the board, although he was hardly reading the words as he shaped them. Dale spun a bronze knut across their adjoining desks and dived under the table, swearing loudly, when it fell through a gap. Remus' toes curled as they were chewed out, and Dale and his desk were soon moved to the free side of Mary's, who wiggled as close to Lily and as far from Dale as possible.

Remus dug his heels into the ground, and kept repeating, you can't fail Transfiguration, you can't fail Transfiguration, you can't fail Transfiguration. He snapped his quill, sending ink splattering everywhere, and Sirius couldn't breathe for laughing. His sleek dark locks bounced, mouth half-open, eyes half-closed. One hand came to his face, and his thumb grazed his lip as his laugh died to a chuckle. There was something about seeing Sirius laugh – maybe it was because his resting expression looked as if he'd like to kill you, or maybe it was because Remus had seen him curled beneath his blankets, hangings drawn, face pale and gaunt, shouting for them to all 'just fuck off, why can't you just fucking fuck off?'. After that, getting a laugh out of him seemed better than winning the House Cup. Peter cleaned the ink off them with a few waves of his wand. James and Sirius began calling him 'Mother' for his mastery of the cleaning spell. Remus actually thought it was a handy thing to know, but he didn't say that. The last thing he needed was to be named the 'Father' to accompany Peter's 'Mother'.

There was no doubt that Professor McGonagall was glad to see the back of them when she sent them off to Potions, and Remus couldn't help but feel guilt burn his gullet. You're a bit of a shitty prefect, aren't you? You're meant to at least stay on task yourself, never mind pulling your idiot friends into line. But it was Halloween – holidays and birthdays were always lost causes for focusing in class.

The dungeons were freezing, and they all bemoaned forgetting to bring a cloak, until they had the smart idea of just summoning them from their trunks. And then it turned out to be not-so-smart, because those of them who were confident in their ability to perform a summoning charm at such a distance were also generally the ones who locked their trunks (or in Sirius' case, had a self-locking trunk that opened only to his touch). So James could try it, but instead of his school cloak, he ended up with his Invisibility Cloak instead, and stuffed it in his bag and took a vow of silence to avoid the others' questions. They were a few minutes late to Potions, but Professor Slughorn wasn't nearly as cross with them as Professor McGonagall had been.

"Ah, don't worry, don't worry!" he said, beaming at Lily specifically. "It's Halloween, after all, and you can't help but admire the decorations they've put up, can you? Say, Black, your cousin Narcissa used to help us with some of these decorations! Yes, she did, brilliant at Charms, she was – I expect if she'd had the inclination, she could've gotten into any Charms course she liked-"

"But she likes shopping better," Sirius said flatly. "Really smart choice, she made."

"Yes, well," Professor Slughorn bumbled, "there's always a place for High Society in society, isn't there?"

"No," Sirius said.

They ended up just making Pepperup Potions, which they'd done last year, as Professor Slughorn said he expected they'd all need one tomorrow morning. James and Sirius grinned broadly at that, and Peter wriggled and Remus swallowed down the tumble in his throat.

"It's going to be wicked," James said, leaning against the cauldron. "I mean, first the feast, and then getting everyone in that big empty room up on the seventh floor, and just – blasting the Hobgoblins, balls-deep in a bottle of Firewhisky. It's so swell."

"Balls-deep?" Sirius asked. "Can you not sodomise the bloody Firewhisky? I intend on drinking it too."

"That's not what I meant," James said, swatting at Sirius.

"That's what you said," Peter grinned. Remus scooped up Peter's unchopped mandrake roots and began to cut. It wasn't too often the joke was on James, and he wasn't about to interrupt.

"Oh, Firewhisky," Sirius moaned, gripping one of the vials and wrapping two fingers around the neck. "Oh, wow, you feel so good!" Remus nearly chopped his finger instead of the roots. He shook his head, willing himself to focus. The lengths needed to be even, at least roughly. He measured the next one from his fingertip to his knuckle and brought the knife down.

"Shut up!" James hissed.

"Oh, I can't," Peter said, joining in. He grabbed one of the already-cut mandrake roots and writhed his fingers up and down. "Oh, Firewhisky, you're even better than Evans-"

"Shut it!" Sirius and Peter were the pictures of perfect ecstasy. It was weird, seeing his friends like that, Remus decided. That was why his stomach was all knotted. It wasn't right to see Sirius groaning and carrying on like he was –

"Fuck!" Remus swore loudly. Blood spurted from a wound on the side of his finger. Later, he'd realise he was lucky he hadn't lopped half of it off.

"Now, now, language," Professor Slughorn called mildly from the front of the room. He was sitting at his desk, which had a leather armchair in place of a normal desk chair, and a copy of the Prophet dangled from one hand.

"I don't suppose any of us are dab hands at first aid," Remus grumbled, nursing his finger. Sirius gestured to the mandrake roots.

"Excuse me," he said. "I can make you a great Pepperup Potion."

"Only when you're not pretending to fuck a Firewhisky bottle," James said.

"Pretending to be you doing what you said you would, James, there's a distinction," Sirius said, jutting his chin upwards. Remus rubbed his finger tenderly, thinking that he rather didn't care for distinctions.

"Did the orgy get a bit much for you?" Lily appeared at the table, Mary at her elbow.

"You think I was involved?" Remus raised an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes and gave him a half-smile.

"It's the bad influences, Remus, I can't be sure what you might or might not be doing." She looked over her shoulder, and then back at them. "Amy's great at healing spells, I can ask her if you want." Remus shifted, and thought of the way Amy stabbed her fish at dinners and the hexes she could sling in Defence without a second thought. Lily scoffed. "She's not going to bite you, Jesus, not unless you ask. Here, I'll do it." Well, I've already been bitten once, Remus thought darkly. I'm more worried about that wand.

"Unless you ask?" Sirius perked up. "D'you reckon if James asked her to bite his -"

"Can we not talk about the parts Potter wants bitten?" Lily screwed up her nose. "Honestly, Pepperup Potions will be on our O. , I'd lay every cent. Episkey." The skin around the cut seemed to glow for a moment - maybe that was just the fumes getting to him - and then the skin closed. If you hadn't seen him do it, nobody would've ever known. There wasn't even a mark.

"Thank you," Remus said, nodding his head at Lily. She beamed, focused on his finger.
"I didn't leave a scar!" she exclaimed. "That can be the hard bit."
"Good job," Mary said, twirling her hair around her fingers.
"Well, we'd best get back to our potion. Bye, Remus, Peter." Lily hesitated for a moment, a smile playing on her lips, and she looked right at James. In turn, he looked like a puppy that thought he'd heard the mailman. Remus briefly reflected that James and Sirius probably didn't know what a mailman was. "Black," Lily finally concluded, and went back to her bench, Mary in tow.

James drooped, and glared very hard at their cauldron. Remus eyed the cauldron nervously. He didn't need an explosion on top of everything else. He put a steadying hand on the rim.

"I'm just too handsome," Sirius said, patting his hair. "She could never resist me."

"Is that why you have a third-year bringing you lunch?" James snapped, flipping open his textbook. "Oh, shit, nevermind, Sirius, I forgot: you don't." He rifled ferociously through the pages. Remus winced. He and James actually managed to make a halfway-decent potion between them, even with Sirius and Peter mucking around. Maybe Lily should be mean to James more often, he thought. Certainly puts a fire under him.

They headed to Care of Magical Creatures next, down Mary and Amy, who returned to the common room together. Mary's eyes were wide and she frantically mouthed something to Marlene, who shook her head and waved her off. James and Sirius determinedly walked with their heads down, Peter and Remus shoved in the middle. Peter shrugged at Remus, who shrugged back. Upon reaching the class, Professor Kettleburn introduced them to a flock of porlocks and they spent most of the lesson trying to draw them. For the most part, Remus and Peter tried to draw, balancing parchment on their knees or the fence, Sirius watched the porlocks keenly, and James sat under the tree 'revising plans' for the party.

Remus yielded to a group of Hufflepuffs who were all complaining that they couldn't see (Remus and the others had taken up the prime viewing position) and went over to the gnarled tree. James abruptly stopped tossing his wand in the air.

"Are you done?" he asked, tapping his wand on his leg. "Moony, can I copy off you?"

"You can copy off me," Peter said, and thrust his parchment under James' nose. James frowned at it, and then burst into laughter.

"That looks like a dick!" he said gleefully, jabbing a finger at Peter's drawing. "Look at the nads!"

"They're its legs!" Peter said. "They're just all bunched up because - well, look, that's how it's sitting. I'm trying to be accurate."

"You're trying to be gay," James said. "Drawing penises on your schoolwork. How could you, Wormy? Come on, that's not allowed, is it, Moony?" Remus laughed lightly, and looked up at the large branches.

"I don't think there's any specific clauses about penises, as such," he said. "But I don't think it's exactly encouraged."

"But Moony, you have to help him - it's a hairy penis! He's obviously been scarred!" Sirius grinned, bounding up next to him. One of the Hufflepuff girls squeaked in alarm, looking right at them. Remus put one hand to his temple and shut his eyes. He tried to think calming thoughts. Prefect patrols could actually be quite nice if nobody was up to mischief, just walking through the school, taking some air. "He needs serious help, doesn't he, James?"

Remus opened his eyes. Peter froze, looking wildly between James and Sirius, one hand still holding his porlock/penis drawing. James hesitated. Why couldn't Lily have just said 'Potter' too? Remus thought. I would've put up with doing all the work myself.

"Yeah," James said stiffly, glancing down at the portrait. Then he nodded. "Yeah, you have to help him, Moony. He can't go on drawing these pictures, it's an atrocity."

"A war crime," Sirius added.

"Unthinkable."

"Horrific! Blasphemy!"

"Wormy has clearly seen something he shouldn't've ever seen -"

"We ought to look after him, he needs serious help -"

"-A stint in St. Mungo's -"

"A good blasting spell up the-"

"Fine!" Remus said, laughing. "Peter, and you have to be honest with me because I'm a prefect - is this drawing based on something you've seen in real life? Are you trying to communicate with us?" Peter stared at him, and dropped the parchment.

"It is based on real life," he said. "It's a porlock." Sirius cupped a hand around his mouth, and leaned down to James.

"Do you think that's what he calls -"

"Fuck you guys!" Peter shouted, lifting his chin high in the air.

"Language," Remus admonished, smirking.

"We're just trying to help!" James said.

They ran into Dale on their way up to the Great Hall for lunch, to Remus' surprise. He hadn't even realised that Dale had ditched Care of Magical Creatures. It wasn't as if Dale was ever really an active participant in class anyways. His cloak bulged in all the wrong places, and he wore a very ragged green hat and a wide variety of pendants hanging from brittle chains. Remus glanced around. Luckilyy for them, it seemed all the professors were already inside the Hall, eating, and the students passing by were too absorbed in their own conversations. Well, mostly. One young Ravenclaw spotted them and sprinted away. Please don't dob on us, he thought, really, really wishing that Dale had been a bit more inconspicuous, and not chosen to hover outside the busiest place in Hogwarts at the busiest time of the day to wait to show them their...party supplies.
"You look like one of those shady guys in Knockturn Alley," James said. "With the weird amulets that can ward off evil and stuff."

Dale blinked. "What?"

"Of course he does," Sirius said. "They're so shady nobody would ever buy from them, unless you already had a deal." Remus paused for a moment, and then it hit him.

"That's clever," he said, and grinned at James, who frowned. "Transfiguration. Your area of expertise."

"What?" James said, and then his mouth fell open, eyes widening. "Oh! Yeah, that's smart."

"I don't get it," Peter said. Remus stepped back with him, while James and Sirius launched into conversation with Dale.

"Complex transfiguration," Remus whispered to Peter. "It changes the properties of the shell but keeps the properties of the original object encased. I think some of it's covered in the N.E.W.T course, but most of it is university-level." So it definitely wasn't Dale's doing. The only one of them that could have any decent attempt at that was probably James. Remus privately thought, sometimes, that he himself really ought to be better at the subject given that he transformed once a month. Maybe he and James had banged heads a bit too hard when they fell off that broom in first year.

"This is the best," James said enthusiastically, patting the pendants that were now hanging from his neck as they entered the Hall. "I love Dale."

"What, are you going to propose to him?" Sirius said dryly. "Mr. Dale Potter has a ring to it."

"Don't marry Dale," Remus warned. "Sirius will never recover from the heartache." The words sounded strange even as he said them. But it was true. Anyone with eyes knew that Sirius would probably cry on James' wedding day, whenever that day finally came when he tricked some poor witch into marrying him. Remus wondered if Sirius would cry on his wedding day, or if he'd just slip a bunch of jokes into his speech about that time of month.

He smiled glumly, knowing the answer.

"Should I even ask?" Marlene said, pointing at James' new chains.

"We're opening a jewellery store," Peter said.

"Only for people who have been, at some point, the biggest prat on their Quidditch team," Sirius added. "So it's just for James and my brother, really."

"Wow," Marlene said. "You'll definitely make loads of money, then, with two customers."

"One's a Potter and one's a Black," Remus said. "You know how they are. More money than sense."

"Oi!" said Sirius.

"They're actually all secret heirlooms," James said, rattling them proudly. "I found out today that I'm secretly the heir to House Dumbledore."

"House Dumbledore?" Marlene repeated, resting her chin in her hand. "What about old Dumbledore up there?"

"Well, he's only the heir," Sirius said. "Old Dumbledore is Lord Dumbledore. See, he and James' mother -"

"I'll kill you," James said. Remus coughed. He wasn't in the mood to have the two of them stop talking for another hour, and he doubted Peter would happen to draw another unfortunately-penis-shaped-animal that could ease the tension if it happened again. Distraction time. He cast his eye around the Hall - ah.

He raised an arm. "Cathy, Lisbete!" They were walking back from the Ravenclaw table, and stopped when they heard their names. Lisbete spotted him first, and waved, and then Cathy raised a hand.

"Jamie!" Lisbete gushed, rushing over. She slid onto the bench next to Marlene, who rolled her eyes and returned to the conversation with her own friends. "How was class?"

"Hi," Cathy added, sitting next to Lisbete. "Pass the pumpkin juice." Peter obliged her, and she poured a cup.

"You'll be drinking better than that tonight," Sirius said. "Won't they, Remus?" Sirius clapped him on the back. Remus stiffened slightly at the touch - dumb, it wasn't even that hard.

"I wouldn't know," he said, smiling at the girls. "I'm blind, dumb, and deaf tonight."

"Why?" Lisbete asked, and then her eyes dropped to his badge. "Ohh."

"Take it from me, then," Sirius said.

"We've got plenty of cool stuff," James said, and shook his chains again. Lisbete lit up.

"Oooh," she said. "Is that real gold?" Remus snorted into his tea.

They shook the girls off by the end of break and sent Peter up to the Party Room (it was the strange room on the seventh floor that always turned up when they wanted it to) while the rest of them headed off to Muggle Studies. At the end of their second year, Peter had mistakenly ticked off 'Study of Ancient Runes' in place of 'Muggle Studies', and Professor McGonagall made him take the course all the way through instead of swapping classes. Remus suspected it was to give him a chance in a class where James and Sirius weren't around to distract him or blatantly overshadow him, but Peter never stopped grumbling about it.

Professor Clearwater beamed widely at them all as they entered, leaning against his desk. "Oh, welcome, welcome," he said, ushering them in. The majority of the class was made up of Gryffindors, which was saying something, as they were the smallest house out of their year, numbering only ten. In this class alone, they didn't flee to the back row (well, Dale did, but that was because Professor Clearwater was the sort to keep all the windows open for fresh air and to be too wrapped up in what he was discussing to notice any fumes). Lauren Clarke and Matilda Mortensen took up the back corner, both muggle-borns taking it for the easy 'O', and Glen Vane sat right in front of Professor Clearwater's desk, straight-backed with a quill in his hand.

"So, today, we are going to continue our study of current muggle events! As I was just telling Glen here, the Minister for Magic him or herself must consort with the muggle Prime Minister, believe it or not. Many wizards underestimate the power these muggles might want, and the amount of involvement they will need to have with their counterparts. Tell me, has anyone here heard of Winston Churchill?" Remus raised his hand, along with Lauren and Matilda. "Yes, Miss Clarke?"

"He was a muggle prime minister during the Second Muggle World War," she said. "And he, erm, gave a speech on the radio."

"The radio!" Professor Clearwater looked delighted. "Take a point to Slytherin!" Lauren smiled. "Very famous, among muggles, that speech. Fun fact, he actually gave that speech to his House of Commons - it is sort of similar to the Ministerial Advisory Council or the Wizenmagot - but it was quoted on the radio that evening. Can anyone tell me how the radio might've helped the speech to become famous? Mr. Black?"

Muggle Studies was possibly the only subject that Sirius ever seemed to actually want to learn in. Remus smiled at him with a tinge of pride. "It would've helped because everyone listened to the radio, sort of how we all read the Prophet. So everyone would've discussed it the next day with one another, and so on."

"Yes! Good, good, a point to Gryffindor." Over the course of the lesson, they earned twenty-five points for their house, and only lost three (and only one was on account of any of his friends).

Next was Defence, and the class was starting to get itchy - on their way from the Muggle Studies classroom, they'd seen Professor Oddpick consulting The Grey Lady on Halloween decorations.

"I think we should invite more people," James said. "Not just Gryffindors." Remus raised his eyebrows.

"Will we have enough for everyone?" Remus asked.

"The elves could get us more food," Sirius said. "And trust me, I think Dale and that weird guy who got us alcohol have definitely delivered enough."

"It was Bagman," James said. "Ludo Bagman. Quidditch team, beater."

"Bagman," Sirius repeated. "I don't think we've met."

"I want to invite more people," James said firmly. "Not those twats like Avery and Snivellus, but everyone else."

"So no Slytherins?" Remus asked as they rounded a corner.

"Some of the girls aren't too bad, the ones that aren't purebloods," James shrugged. "I don't mind inviting them."

"I definitely don't mind," Sirius said. Remus' stomach twinged.

Their Defence class was supposed to be spent writing a reflection on how they'd found dealing with their boggarts, but it was more loud conversing accompanied by occasional rebukes from Professor Forcier. It was a Friday afternoon, and Halloween, however, so it was nothing too serious. James leaned forwards and whispered in the ear of Paige Nicholson, who giggled furiously and quickly dived into a conference with several of her friends. Remus didn't try too hard on his reflection - contemplating what awaited him after he finished prefect patrol was much nicer than thinking about how best to face his worst fear. He was certain he wasn't the only one who would think that way.

Herbology was their final class, and it was even more of a write-off than the rest. Even Lily gave up on attending to her station's plants and gathered around Alisha Chaise's magazine. Only Paul Smith and Ayden Forsythe were still toiling. So much for hard-workers, he thought wryly, as the Hufflepuff girls started jumping up and down.

"We're free!" James bellowed as they rushed out of the greenhouse. "Free, free, free, to party!" He pumped his fists into the air, running down the path. Peter sprinted after him.

"Well, it's certainly going to be different to last year," Remus observed. "In a way, I'm sort of glad."

"Me too," Sirius said, and they both winced. James and Peter now ran around like a pair of Azkaban escapees, jumping like those girls had been. "Here's to tonight being better than that."

"I don't see how it could be any worse," Remus said darkly. They walked up to the Entrance Hall and paused by the Grand Staircase as James beelined to some of the Ravenclaws from their year.

"You know," Sirius said, and hesitated, staring at his shoes. Remus looked at him. Properly looked. His face had fallen into shadow, and each breath was slow. Remus' mouth dried.

"Yes?" he said gently. Sirius tore his glance away from his shoes, and blinked.

"I was thinking - I'm unsure, maybe it's stupid - I want to lose my virginity, Moony." Remus blinked. Coughed. Was this - was this real? Was Sirius propo - surely not. Could he be?

"Oh," Remus said quietly. Then he felt stupid. That was hardly encouraging. Well, look, he didn't want to encourage it, but - if Sirius was opening up to him - well, he couldn't just -

"Tonight," Sirius said. He shook his head. "I don't know. Or soon. Just - fifteen's not too young, and with James -"

"Your feelings are perfectly -" well, not normal. "-erm, I mean, I'm glad you're telling me this."

"-I mean, I don't want to be the last one. I know with Squirmy Wormy around that's unlikely, but I want to feel like a man, and I want to feel loved." Sirius scoffed. "Father would have a fit. I don't think he's ever wanted to be told that he's loved. Except maybe by Kreacher." Remus took a very, very deep breath. His mind was racing. Not just sex, but - love? That was - Remus had never thought of him that way. Had he? Words caught in his throat. He coughed again.

"Oh," he managed to choke out, thumping his chest. Sirius stared at the floor again.

"Is it odd?" Sirius asked. He touched a hand to his hair. "No, it isn't. People do it earlier. And - it's not like we all don't want to."

"Erm." Remus swallowed hard. Did he want to?

"I think I'll just get really drunk and do it," Sirius said.

"Right."

"Do you think Marlene would take me up?"

Oh. Remus felt like an idiot. He nearly smacked himself in the head. No, right, that made sense. Marlene. Sirius hadn't been coming onto him. Relief flooded him, and he ignored the little knot in his stomach. Okay, no, this was normal. Fine. Great. Why had he even jumped to that conclusion? Idiot! What the hell had made him think that Sirius was - was -

Gay.

He cringed a little even at the word.

"Yeah," he said, lightly as possible. "That - that sounds like a, erm, really good plan. Marlene. Right. And you talk, so it wouldn't be strange. And you're right. Plenty of people do it at our age. I mean - don't you think James would, if Lily gave him a chance?" He spoke too quickly, the words flooding out of him, face scorching. "Go for it, mate. Sirius. Mate. Friend. Mate. I'll support you. Every step of the way. Well, erm, not every step, exactly, but-"

"Did Dale slip you something?" Sirius laughed, brightening. "But thank you for the encouragement. I'll do it, then. Ask her tonight. James thinks it's a good idea too." Something in Remus felt cold. Of course he'd already spoken to James about it. What did he expect? "He's got the goods for me." It took Remus a moment to realise what he meant.

"I think we could all do without little Sirius Blacks running around," he said. "You would send Professor McGonagall to an early grave."

"It'd terrify Snivellus, though," Sirius grinned.

A/N: Sorry it's been so long! I've been having a bit of a block. I had all intentions for this chapter to be the party chapter, but it got to about ten-thousand words long and counting, and I wanted to a different thing with the POVs next chapter, so I've split this off. I promise next chapter will have the promised party shennanigans! After that, the story should start getting a bit meatier and less light-hearted as the plots begin to kick off. Thank you for sticking with me so far!