So sorry for the delay, everyone! I know, I know; I've been home for a week now, and I've only managed to produce ONE chapter! ... Up until now, that is. And even if Pettigrew aren't familliar with "muggle expressions", you do know what they say: Better late than never. Right?

... Anyway, enjoy, and don't forget to drop me a little something to keep my motivation up!

5. Step four

As it came down to it, it turned out that the thing he had real problems with was setting Peter up with Marlene.

The thing wasn't that he never got an opportunity to do so, because honestly, he got plenty of them. Once, for example, Peter had wanted to head for the kitchens during their lunch break while James had wanted to waste no time in looking for the mysterious Chamber of Secrets – his determination to map all of the entire castle's secrets was almost on the verge of turning into a sick obsession. And so it had happened that Remus had so kindly offered his assistance to James, so that Sirius would be able to go along with Peter.

Of course Padfoot immediately got an idea. He snuck the map with him and looked for Marlene Simmons' dot while they were in the hallways. Luckily he found she wasn't in her common room or in the Great Hall having lunch like most of the other students, but was wandering alone through a corridor one floor down, probably on her way to the library.

Sirius grabbed Peter by the wrist and pulled him downstairs in the direction of the girl.

"This isn't the way to the kitchens, Sirius", the chubby boy said stupidly, and Sirius rolled his eyes without stopping in his tracks.

"I want to take another way. You know the thing they say about variety", he explained, much to Wormtail's confusion (and not solely because of the fact that he did not know what 'they' said). However, as they'd caught up with Marlene almost outside of the library, Peter had gotten other things on his mind.

"Hey Pete", Sirius said, purposely loud enough for the witch in front of them to hear, "isn't that the girl you always speak so fondly of?"

Marlene, having thought she was alone in the corridor, glanced over her shoulder at them, met Peter's eyes, and took on the sharp red facial colour that he already had. Sirius smiled – a fake mixture of apologetic and suggestive, as if he hadn't expected her to overhear them.

"That's Marlene Simmons", Peter said in a hushed and very uncooperative voice, understandably embarrassed by what had been said and in no mood of confessing anything to neither Marlene nor Sirius right now.

"Well, why don't you go talk to her?" Sirius had said with a wink in his normal tone, pushing him persistently, not even bothering not to make it obvious.

The girl in question had already continued walking, but slowed down a bit at these fully audible words; apparently quite curious on what the two boys – or at least one of them – planned to do next.

This was one of those rare occasions when Peter actually looked as if he just wanted to shove Sirius down the toilet and flush for his total inability at being subtle, but he knew what to prioritize and therefore hurried to pull both himself and Sirius away from the scene surprisingly quickly and without another word, efficiently throwing spanners in Sirius' work.

These incidents continued to take place, pretty much with the same entry (when Sirius "accidentally" found himself and Peter in the same place as the hufflepuff girl, and tried to push them in the right direction by opening up a conversation) and the same abrupt ending (when Peter practically ran off after about 30 seconds, blushing heavily), but Sirius never got the proper result – or even any progress at all – out of it.

And the thing that bugged him mostly was that it was so very obvious that the two held an interest for each other – Marlene's interest must be of strength way beyond Sirius' comprehension, seeing as she put up with the retreating figure of the supposed gryffindor time and time again – and they really wouldn't need a matchmaker if the situation had been any different, but Peter's bloody cowardice kept coming in the way.

So when two days had come and gone and Saturday grew closer and closer, Sirius got fed up and decided to change into a more forceful technique. At breakfast Friday morning he rose determinedly from his seat – receiving various glances of curiosity and confusion from his friends as he had barely touched his scrambled eggs yet – and grabbed Peter by the wrist and yanked him up only to stride over to the hufflepuff table, not stopping until he reached Marlene's seat. Then he promptly prodded her in the side to gain her attention and made her turn around, her face shining with utter confusion. Then he spoke.

"You. Him. Hogsmeade, this Saturday", he said demandingly, and none of them dare to open their mouths to protest. Though Peter actually mustered up the courage to meet the girl's eyes, and they smiled shyly at each other – of course blushing as they did so – and just like that Sirius knew that his work here was done, and that he could probably be safe leaving Pete here without him making some stupid comment to bust him (honestly, Wormy had turned out to be much bigger a threat for Sirius than either of them had expected).

But all that remained now was to carry out the actual point of the entire plan. Sirius had had to stress through preparations and watch out on the alert to be able to prevent his friends – and Lily – from talking too much about the upcoming weekend; afraid they would come to discuss certain details that neither knew the exact right version of (and actually going as far as to discreetly push Remus into a deserted classroom just to prevent him from running into the redhead).

But it had been worth it. Now he could practically sit back and relax; be exited about what was to come in the good, hopeful way; let his eyes rest on Remus all he wanted, and no one – none that mattered, anyway – would think it weird.

"What was that all about, Pads?" James asked with an eyebrow raised curiously at him as soon as he'd taken his seat again.

… Perhaps now just wasn't the time to relax yet. Sirius mirrored his best mate's expression as he met his gaze confidently (oh well, he seemed to be confident, either way).

"Why the curiosity, Prongs?" he wondered in his fake-polite, half-mocking tone "You can't possibly be telling me that you want to know but still didn't bother to eavesdrop, can you?"

James was about to open his mouth to reply, but Remus beat him to it.

"He didn't get the time to utter the right spell for it", the werewolf explained so very calmly and truthfully. "By the time he pulled his wand out you were already done conversing, and it seemed Peter hadn't anything sensible to add to whatever in the world you were saying."

"Is that so?" Sirius said with a bare nod. He honestly didn't care much for the explanation in itself; he was only glad Remus apparently wasn't particularly curious himself and paid much more attention to the various, ever-changing shapes of Moony's lips as the boy spoke in his usual serene matter.

He was in fact so engulfed in his studies that he didn't even notice how Remus arched his own eyebrow once he'd stopped talking, waiting in anticipation for the black-haired dog to explain his unusual silence (not to mention how the small, tricky smile that started to find its way over the boy's lips would also be slightly confounding for the brunette as it seemed Sirius was deep in thought).

He did react however, when Remus – face now taking on an increasingly puzzled look – opened his precious mouth again to say his name.

"Sirius?" Sweet Merlin, that could have him entertained for hours… though, wait a second… when Moony would say his name like that there was usually something he wanted. "What are you staring at?"

Poof! Just like that he was brought back to reality. That didn't keep his smile from widening into a teasing smirk though.

"Why, you of course", he answered honestly and – for once – utterly unashamed. "Or am I not permitted that privilege yet?"

Just as he'd hoped, Remus blushed at the comment – a faint blush of course, and that would be merely because he was good enough a friend to play along, but in Sirius' opinion it still counted! – and lowered his gaze quickly, muttering some incoherent response at the table then biting his lower lip.

… And swoosh! Just like that Sirius was plunged back deep into his own world, his thoughts now centring not only around Moony's lips, but his teeth as well. Gosh, he could stare at that for an entire day!

His pupils dilated, but he wouldn't notice if someone around him took any notice of this right now – and honestly, what harm could it make if it turned out James or Evans were watching him?

x-x-x

"What's up, Rem?" Sirius asked as they were all seated in their dormitory later that day (and by all he meant the entire quartet except for Peter, luckily). "You seem… concerned", he added attentively.

Remus met his eyes and shoved it off within seconds, shrugging and plastering a smile on his face – which would've been dazzlingly convincing if Sirius hadn't been paying extra attention to the werewolf for the past couple of… months.

"It's nothing, just lost in thought really", Remus did his very best to assure him (and Remus' very best was sure as hell not bad at all; it was dangerously distracting to Sirius to see that perfectly considered, mild smile of his along with the eyes showing the tiniest traces of skilful hesitation… Man, Moony was without a doubt one of the best actors he'd met – perhaps even better than Sirius himself, he just didn't show off about it, which made him even better).

"I guess I'm just nervous about tomorrow", Rem continued before averting his eyes and – dear God, not again! – biting his lip. Sirius had to put up a real fight to avoid both shivers and moans while contemplating his friend's words.

He shot James a brief glance and found that the boy in question gave him a very knowing glance with the raised eyebrow and everything. Sirius shrugged it off.

"Is that so?" he asked the lycan. "Well, you shouldn't worry about it. I'm nervous too", he added and put a hand over Remus' own in a supportive manner (and as he had his back against James he missed the stag's roll of his eyes).

Sirius got the sharpest ping of bad conscience yet as he looked the wolf straight in the eyes and saw real emotions slowly but steadily seeping through. It turned out the hesitation was for real, and he felt awful about it. But surely, if the brunette really didn't want to do this, he would've said something… wouldn't he?

"Look, Rem", he said in a much lower voice than half a minute ago, hoping James would be tactful enough to at least pretend he wasn't listening. "If you don't feel like doing this…"

Remus knew this would be his last way out of it without having to risk his friend to discover what he really felt for him. He knew this was the time to say thank you and back out of it, but beside the fact that he didn't want to cancel everything between James and Lily too, he would be downright lying if he told Sirius he didn't want to go out with him. Just because he wanted something more real for a first date, he couldn't bare to lie to the grey-eyed animagus like that and probably make sure he'd never get another chance with him ever again. He couldn't just take his word back as if he was leaving him – which he was fully aware of that he couldn't technically do even if he'd like to; because in order to leave someone you have got to have been together with that person to begin with, and it wasn't like he would ever get anything closer to that than this.

All of these feelings combined were what made him interrupt the other Marauder before he'd even finished his sentence.

"No", he hurriedly said with a shake of his head in confirmation. "No, I want to." He licked his lips. "I wouldn't have told you yes to begin with if I didn't want to." He swallowed. That was the closest to a confession he'd ever got to Sirius, and he wondered with fear and hope combined if said boy would notice the honesty in his words.

"Are you sure?" the black-haired asked, stressing the last word with a glance over his shoulder at James. "Because we could do it another time if…"

Remus laughed lightly at the empty words in his friend's last, unfinished sentence. And he shook his head once more.

"It's fine, Sirius", he assured, sounding more confident of that himself now. "We're going this Saturday as planned." After all, he'd have to screw up majorly not to be able to wave it off on the 'I-am-merely-acting-to-fool-James-and-Lily'-excuse.

Come to think of it, he was surprised at how very quiet James had been throughout this conversation, when he doubtlessly heard they were discussing whether or not to go through with the dating plans that involved him and his precious, beloved treasure as well. Perhaps he'd just matured…

Sooo... Did you like it? Even though I possibly torture you as I keep postsponing the date? Well, bare with me guys, 'cause I do think you'll find next chapter quite good;)

Anyway, suggestion on what I'll write furthermore are still welcome and precious to me! But even if you don't have any, feel free to just tell me what you liked/didn't like about this chapter or the story so far. Reviews make me smile! :D