Author's Note: So a few things to say about this update - I've chosen to make this chapter a series of two flashbacks. When we last left Moony and Padfoot, Moony was isolated in Iceland and Sirius had taken Harry in and was attempting to contact Remus. With so much tension and angst I wanted to show how they fell in love in the first place. I'll be periodically uploading flashback chapters as the story calls for them. Secondly, my headcanon Remus is Irish because it's adorable, which is why he spent his summer in Dublin. Once again, I own nothing! Please enjoy!

Spring 1977

Remus blinked, staring up through the fluttering green canopy above him, shafts of sunlight and glimpses of clear blue sky dancing down between the leaves. He was lounging in the grass on a hill above the Black Lake, an oak tree shading him from the sunny spring afternoon. A breeze was blowing off the lake, the sweet bright air of early spring scented with the very earthy, woody scent of new growth. He breathed deeply, letting the warmth of the sun dapple down on his scarred face. Remus was sixteen, carefree, starting to truly grow into his limbs and fill out in the shoulders, his sandy hair lying in casual disarray in the long grass underneath him. It was the golden week of the month, two weeks before the full moon, when he had recovered from the last transition but was not yet antsy and irritable before the next.

He had never thought he would be this lucky. Three friends who risked imprisonment in Azkaban to keep him company on his worst nights, who supported him, laughed with him...loved him despite his furry little problem. And hey he hadn't done so terribly when it came to OWLs either. Perhaps his future was brighter than he'd imagined it would be. He closed his eyes again, reveling in the silence, the sound of the breeze and the slow lap of the lake against the shore below Remus' hill the only disruption.

Suddenly the calm was broken by a flurry of thuds on the soft ground and before Remus could even open his eyes a huge fluffy weight had fallen, hard, on his chest, knocking the wind from his lungs and leaving him gasping. His eyes snapped open and he was confronted with a mass of black fur and a drooling, wild-eyed animagus-form Sirius Black.

"MERLIN are you absolutely fucking mad?" Remus choked out, still trying to catch his breath while the giant dog looked perfectly happy to sit on his chest, "Get off Pads! You're heavy!"

Sirius took his time, rolling off Remus and looking delighted with himself. His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he panted into the grass."It's the middle of the damn day, you're going to get caught!" Remus spit at him, but he followed the pronouncement with a small huff and rubbed the huge dog's neck. "I'm assuming you're done with McGonagall's exam? And James is still in there?"

The dog said nothing, merely continued looking pleased and rolled onto his back so that Remus could scratch his belly. "I saw you cheating off me you know." The dog whined a bit and Remus turned on his side to face him, "You had plenty of time to study, don't give me those sad puppy eyes. Any honestly you really shouldn't be running around grounds as Padfoot. Someone is going to come ask me what I'm doing bringing a dog on grounds. And I was having quite a good day without having to lie for you for once."

He was mostly resigned to having to cover up for Sirius, though that work wasn't always as appreciated as it should be. Sirius had taken him for granted before, the same boyish charm and overconfidence could turn, with startling ease, to selfishness if left unchecked. He supposed this was the legacy of growing up a Black, though Sirius liked to pretend that he'd completely shed any effect of his upbringing. He thought for a moment about last year, what Sirius had done to him, to Snape, and he found that after half a year of anger and fighting and reconciliation and fighting again that he had finally really put those feelings behind them. Remus was not forgiving when he was angry, but Sirius was nothing if not persistent and somehow he'd wiggled his way back into Remus' good graces. Hopefully as a reformed version of his idiotic self. He ran his hand through the soft thick dog hair behind Padfoot's ears grinning back at the slightly vacant but otherwise blissful expression on the dog's face.

And then Sirius transformed back without warning and Remus found himself in the awkward position of having a hand threaded through Sirius' long black hair, the boy, like the dog before him, less than half a meter from him and wearing a huge grin. Remus was momentarily stunned as he stared into Sirius' deep dark eyes, overwhelmed with the spicy clove scent of him and the tangible presence of being so close to him that he could feel the warmth of his body. His every sense seemed to shudder, to absorb what felt like a painful electric shock that traveled from his hand on Sirius' neck up his arm and into his suddenly heavy chest. It was impossible to breathe, and yet he couldn't breathe in enough of the other boy. Something had shifted, the world had spun and returned to him upside down and yet not more than a few seconds had passed. But perhaps he lingered there just a moment too long, his hand intimately wrapped in Sirius' soft hair, because Sirius' grin faltered, his eyes darting back and forth across Remus' face. He looked confused, but not upset, just merely taken aback, as if he'd never seen Remus before and didn't know quite how he got there.

"OI MY CANINE COMPANIONS!" James called from behind Remus, and Sirius snapped back to consciousness, pulling away from Remus to what seemed a respectable distance. Remus' hand, untangled from Sirius' hair seemed suddenly cold, foreign, as if he no longer had sensation in it. Remus turned to look at James, hair wild, robes billowing, stomping through the grass towards them. Peter followed behind, distractedly flipping through their Transfiguration textbook. Sirius sat up quickly, brushing his hair back and replacing his grin.

Remus looked at Sirius, flush with excitement and maybe embarrassment, his bark-like laugh ever ready to answer one of James' dumb jokes and realized in that moment in a rush of emotion that was like the wave of a tsunami crashing down upon that he was totally, completely, and irreparably in love with Sirius Black.

Fall 1977

Sirius allowed himself to be hugged one more time by Mrs. Potter - though he loved and appreciated the woman, he'd never been very comfortable with the sort of overly touchy expressions of affection that passed for normal at the Potter house. Literally it was like the whole family was always hugging one another. Sirius supposed this was what a normal family was like. After all, James never stopped throwing arms around his friend's' shoulders or punching them playfully, always wanted to throw his legs over yours on the common room couch or some other touchy-feely nonsense. He realized that this was normal, people expressed themselves this way. It was one thing with James, they were best mates. But with his parents, even though they'd taken him in, it still felt strange. Mrs. Potter kissed his cheek then wiped away the lipstick as James rolled his eyes aggressively, his frankly un-fucking-believable Head Boy badge pinned to his chest.

"Mum you're smothering let him go! We've got a train to catch," he turned to Sirius, "And girls to impress!"

Mrs. Potter looked softly disapproving at this, "You keep out of trouble James, I don't want any more Howlers this year." But she said it without much conviction, as if even Mrs. Potter didn't believe there was any possibility her son could keep his twitchy energy from causing mayhem. After all, she had raised him.

"Thanks for letting me stay Mrs. Potter. Give my regards to Mr. Potter." Sirius flashed his most charming smile at her then let himself be dragged by James towards the train.

"I don't know why you're in such a bloody hurry. She's not going to expire if you're not there immediately." Sirius complained loudly, but James was already talking over him.

"And this year, Sirius bruv, this year is going to be different I can just feel it. The spark of romance is in the air." His eyes were manic as he said this, he looked completely mental but Sirius didn't bother pointing this out.

"Oh? Yeah? She's finally going to stop calling you a flobberworm? Or is she suddenly just going to be attracted to large mucusy invertebrates?"

"Piss off. We're going to be spending all this time together, doing...duties together."

Sirius snickered.

"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN"

"Prongs, mate, maybe the reason she doesn't like you is because your idea of romance is to visit the toilet together. That would definitely be a turnoff for me."

"Good thing I'm not trying to date your furry arse then isn't it you absolute shit?"

"There you go again with the potty mouth."

"Oh has he started already?" Remus had just come around the corner of one of the columns, pushing his shabby trunk and looking significantly taller than Sirius remembered. His hair was cut differently too, he'd done away with the shaggy bangs that covered a good deal of his face. This had the effect of calling more attention to the few scars that were slashed across his neck and left cheek but it also meant that Sirius could see his storm cloud grey eyes better. He looked, well, he looked really good.

"You know I never stop Moony." James looked at Sirius, then when the silence stretched for a moment too long, "So? Good summer? Have any adventures without us?"

"Oh you know, got into a bit of trouble running the dirty streets of Dublin. Nothing I couldn't handle."

Sirius laughed, "You spent the whole summer reading, didn't you?"

Remus opened his mouth to respond but James twitchily interjected "OKAY BUT GET ON THE TRAIN NOW CAUSE LILY."

Remus laughed, "Okay Prongs we know you need your daily verbal abuse."

"No he just needs to take a shit so he has to find her."

But once they got on the train it did seem that James had to go find Lily for a legitimate reason, as Head Boy he was supposed to help her welcome and organize the activities of the prefects. Peter had scurried off to speak with the lunch trolley lady, who he swore hadn't given him proper change for his licorice wands and Sirius and Remus were left alone in the compartment together as the London sprawl gave way to more and more green on the journey north.

They shared a few pumpkin pasties, enjoyed speculating how long it would take Lily to actually murder James, and whether the trolley lady had taken Peter on as his new apprentice and he would live out the rest of his life learning the proper way to yell "Anything off the trolley?" When the window started to gather condensation from the cold and they had most definitely entered Scotland, Remus suggested that they change into their Hogwarts robes and the boys stripped down to put on their uniforms.

Sirius tried not to watch Remus, he'd seen the other boy mostly naked a hundred thousand times before, he'd also seen more of James and Peter than he ever needed to, these were the hazards of sharing a dorm with the same jokers for six years. But for some reason he couldn't quite put his finger on, Sirius suddenly felt like he shouldn't be looking at Remus while he was changing. And Sirius had never been one to look away from a naked body, there were plenty of girls in his year could attest to this. And actually, if you took into account that one time that they'd broken into the girls changing room in the Quidditch stadium, Sirius had seen a lot of naked bodies over the course of his tenure at Hogwarts. Nothing interesting or embarrassing about it.

But this was different. Sirius was keenly aware, even as he tried not to look, of the smallest of Remus' movements. The way he laid out his uniform before undressing, to make sure that he had everything he needed. How he pulled the t-shirt, which was just a bit too tight in the shoulders now that Remus had filled out over the summer, over his head in one languid movement, more as if he were stretching than taking off an article of clothing. Sirius fumbled with the zip on his hoodie and scrambled out of his own t-shirt. Then he realized that he was staring, whether intentionally or not, at Remus' chest.

The muscles around his collar were way more defined than Sirius remembered, wiry but strong. Sirius swallowed hard. What the hell was going on? This was Remus. His friend, his ally, a partner in crime. But the feeling gathering in the pit of his stomach (and if he was honest, somewhere a bit lower as well), was protesting loudly that things had changed. Remus was...well he was kind of hot.

"What are you looking at fleabag?" Remus joked but Sirius noticed he sounded a bit nervous. The question broke him from his staring at Remus' collarbone and snapped his head up. Remus had his Hogwarts shirt on but hadn't buttoned it yet and his hand went instinctively up to cover a fresh, bright red and purple scar that was slashed across his left pec. "You know it isn't polite to stare."

Sirius looked at the scar and felt irrationally angry. He imagined that the wound would have been deep, probably painful for days as the skin stitched itself back together. He remembered the other times that Remus had clawed at himself, and Madame Pomphrey could only do so much on the wounds inflicted by a magical creature like the wolf. Sirius reached out a hand and delicately touched Remus chest where the scar was - he didn't think about the gesture he just reacted. Remus flinched away violently.

"What the fuck Sirius?!" His face was twisted, betrayed.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Sirius was red, embarrassed. Remus didn't say anything he just stared with hard eyes at Sirius, the same eyes he had given Sirius for half a year after the Snivellus incident. He had to explain and quickly before Remus' slumbering temper woke up any more. He was slow to anger but when he got mad it took a long time to placate him.

"I'm sorry Moony I...I don't know what I was thinking. I just can't fucking deal with the idea of you hurting yourself like that." He looked down at the floor, Remus' look softened a bit, unseen by Sirius, "I sometimes forget ...you're all alone in the summer without anyone to protect you."

"I have my parents Sirius. And I can take care of myself you know. Don't treat me like a child."

"I know! But you shouldn't have to!" He was defiant now, "We promised we'd always be there for you. I promised. I'm gonna always look after you…" he trailed off thinking hard, "You never think you're worth it but you are." He turned away, going back to pulling on his own robes even though he could feel the other boy's eyes on him. And as he dressed he thought about how he'd like to kiss Remus' collar, how fiercely he wanted to protect him, how weird it was that a summer had changed everything. Sirius wanted to turn and tell him that his chest felt tight and his head was swimming. Tell him that he was beautiful and that Sirius had never seen him properly before now. But they dressed in silence and then Remus excused himself to the toilet to escape the heavy tension in the air.

And somewhere near Edinburgh Sirius realized that things were always going to be different between them now, even if his affection weren't returned. He realized that he would give anything for Remus, not as he would for any of his friends, but as something more. He realized he was totally, completely, and irreparably in love with Remus Lupin.