A/N: Thank you everyone for your great reviews on the last chapter, some were such detailed rants, I had so much fun reading them. I tend to agree with most of you - obliviate is a pretty horrible spell to cast on someone, but alas even the lovely Marauders aren't perfect. So, I finally feel like I'm back in a groove with my writing, which is bad timing because it's also a disaster zone at work but, look at this – a new chapter and it hasn't even been a week yet! Surprise! And that's just the first one...

Chapter Twenty-Eight: How about the truth then?

I hadn't realized how much I took Remus for granted until we weren't speaking. In fact, I could hardly remember what I used to do during the time not spent with Lily and Dorcas before I was friends with him. I also didn't expect to feel like such a fool without Remus sending me the small encouraging looks when I did something embarrassing or silly during class. And I hadn't known how much I'd counted on the quiet moments between us when I was feeling mentally tired or when I was exhausted after talking things to death with my girlfriends. I suppose the worst part of it was that he didn't seem to want to make up with me. Any time I'd fought with Sirius, he'd usually sought me out to apologize and with Lily and Dorcas, I was usually the culprit saying sorry. The trouble was, it felt that Remus and I both had reasons for our anger and neither of us could properly understand why the other would be so offended.

The other boys seemed to have decided to go with the flow and made no further effort to get me to talk to Remus. Whether that was because they were acting on his instruction or because they just couldn't be arsed, I didn't know – but the division between the Gryffindor Sixth Year boys and girls became much more pronounced. That following week I rarely spent time in the Common Room during downtime and instead opted for the (shock, horror) library or somewhere on the grounds where the wind chill wasn't too prominent. It was there, between the marbles arches of the Courtyard entrance, on Wednesday that Gemma bumped into me. She was with Jack Barnes and since I'd shunned his advances a couple of weeks previously, he didn't seem eager to stick around to chat. Gemma, however, sank down to lean against the opposite side of the arch facing me and gave me a smile.

"So the date is set," she smiled. "Are you nervous?"

"Eh?" I replied, looking up from my painfully reworked speech for Essay Week.

She nodded at my parchment. "They released the schedule - you're reading first on Monday, aren't you?"

I sighed and shoved my essay in to my bag. "Don't remind me please. I swear I've never worked so hard on anything in my life. It's been good for me to keep...well, never mind."

It was better that I didn't divulge too many details about my argument with Remus. It wasn't as if I'd let something slip, but I knew that if the lads starting hearing that I was telling people I was angry with them, they'd assume I was incapable of control and I'd get yet another round of my least favourite game – 'You can't tell anyone, Kate.'

"I was actually just on my way to the Library to work on Charms with Remus and Dorcas," Gemma said, thankfully not questioning my 'never mind'.

Well, even if I wasn't talking to him, it did make me feel good to know that Gemma was making an effort to get to know him. Maybe he'd be so happy with her, he'd decide he was the bigger person and come and apologize to me.

"You didn't, er, get a chance to mention me to him, did you?" Gemma cringed.

I sighed. "To be honest, Gemma - I'd love to help, but Remus and I are kind of at odds right now. We're not even speaking."

"What? How come?"

"Just normal friends stuff," I said, running a hand over my face and fighting off a sigh.

"Oh. Right, okay."

"So, I guess you'll have to do the heavy lifting yourself," I said with a wry smile. "I believe in you."

"He's been a little sullen lately," she replied. "He gets these really harsh expressions on his face. Is that down to you?"

"No idea," I said dismissively, pulling my essay out again. "Want to read this for me?"

"Sure," she said, taking it. She was laughing throughout the whole first paragraph, but her amusement didn't make me grin like I'd hoped. I still felt too glum.

After a few more minutes, she looked up from the parchment and took in my expression.

"Don't worry, friends usually find a way to make up. Sometimes it just takes longer than other times," she said giving me an encouraging smile. Blast it all; even amongst everything, I was reminded of Remus.

And then speak of the werewolf, he crept up behind me and said, "There you are!"

I jumped violently and both he and Gemma looked at me like I was insane. Even weirder was, while I'd automatically assumed he was talking to me – he wasn't - it was Gemma he was after. In fact, it seemed like he hadn't even realized I was there behind the arch until our eyes widened at each other. In utterly unRemus-ish fashion, he turned his chin up and his eyes slid away from me disdainfully and back to Gemma.

"All right? I was coming to find you to let you know Dorcas wants to move our brainstorming session to Flitwick's classroom instead of the Library. I ran into Jack and he said you were out here. Aren't you freezing?" He asked in his typical, soft, friendly voice. The only dead giveaway that something was wrong with the way he was acting was the fact that he was ignoring me altogether. If it had been anyone else sitting with Gemma, he would have surely smiled and said hello. It made me sick to my stomach.

Gemma eyed me for a moment before she smiled at Remus. "It is a bit cold, but I've only been here a few minutes. Kate, how have you been sitting out here for so long?"

"I have thick skin," I replied in a flat voice and clenched my fists at Remus' sarcastic scoff.

"Well, shall we go? I've heard Dorcas is a bit of a menace with the..." Remus stopped midway through his joke and cleared his throat. "Never mind."

Oh, remembered that I was the one who told you Dorcas was deadly with the levitation spell, have you Remus?

Gemma looked curious but just shook her head and got to her feet, handing the scroll of parchment back to me. "Good luck with your speech, Kate. I'm looking forward to hearing it. It's genuinely hilarious. Have you read it, Remus?"

The silence was more awkward than the time McGonagall had tried to give me love advice.

"No," he said, looking at his feet.

"Oh. Well, all right then. Let's go find Dorcas. See you Kate!" Gemma waved and started to head to the castle doors and Remus hung back for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," he replied and followed Gemma inside.

When we had Care of Magical Creatures last thing on Friday, it felt odd to be grateful that only Sirius and James were in that class with us. Sirius hadn't attempted to talk to me since the day after the incident and James too, had decided to leave me alone after Lily had distracted him with her declaration of friendship. Truthfully I was a bit pissed off that she wasn't that furious on my behalf, but perhaps she had used up all that energy being annoyed at Sirius at the beginning of term.

Another good thing about Magical Creatures was Kettleburn kept us incredibly busy.

He'd procured some fanged puffskeins for the lesson even though breeding them had been illegal for over ten years. Kettleburn said they were possibly the last litter of them around these parts, and even though that didn't make them any more precious to the majority of the class, I was quite amused by them. For the first time all week, I felt I had a genuine reason to relax and laugh. The problem was, while the fanged puffskeins looked cute like the pets many of us had as children, their fangs and long tongues made them disgustingly menacing as they kept trying to attack your face. I wasn't entirely sure what we were meant to be doing with them for the lesson, because all we actually ended up doing was trying to save each other from being violated. Everywhere I looked, students were wrenching the fluffy demons off their faces and shouting something fierce. By the time they were back in their caged pens, I was in a fit of giggles that wouldn't stop.

"Quit laughing!" Dorcas moaned as our class headed back inside the castle. I swear it almost stuck its tongue up my nose and reached my brain."

I shook my head, still laughing. "I can't stop. I mean, I wanted to save you, but I was too busy getting mangled by the one who was trying to eat Lily's earwax."

"Charming thing," Lily frowned, touching the bite on her ear. "What's absurd is your one just fell asleep in your lap. It was behaving like it didn't have fangs at all."

"Yeah, if they'd all been like Blobby I might not have minded them so much," I said still laughing and turning to walk backwards so I could face my friends. It had felt like forever since I'd laughed so hard.

"I can't believe you named that creature," Dorcas shuddered. I started laughing again but felt a little distracted by the view of James and Sirius behind her. They were both watching me like I wasn't supposed to be laughing – like it insulted them. Sirius' face in particular was so scrunched up that there were four lines through his forehead. If they were so upset by me having a good time and getting on with my life, why didn't they just come and apologize and then we could all get on with our lives? It was so frustrating.

And then:

"AH!" I screamed as I walked backwards into someone and tripped and fell on the floor. Some people in the corridor laughed as I groaned and got to my feet, ready to ream out the person behind me for scaring the living hippogriff out of me.

"You scared m––!" I started yelling as I whirled around, before I stopped short. It was Remus and his expression was hard and mutinous. He hadn't even attempted to help me up.

"Yeah, don't remind me," he said in a low voice.

"What?" I heard Dorcas mutter.

"Shut up Remus. You are being utterly ludicrous," I said, putting my hands on my hips. I'd had enough of this nonsense. We could be mad at each other, but I wouldn't allow him to continue to believe I was scared of him. It made me furious.

He raised his eyebrows questioningly, but said nothing.

"Yes you! You're just seeing this the way you want to! If you had any sense at all you would understand the reason why I'm not talking to you," I said, lowering my own voice to a hiss so that we would be harder to overhear. Meanwhile the people in the corridor stepped closer to listen.

"What are you looking at?" I yelled, glaring at the eavesdroppers. Several of them looked taken aback and stared at me like I was the rude one.

"Move along! There's nothing to see," I added and though they muttered to one another, the corridor cleared out and moved out of sight and earshot. Sirius and James had caught up now and thankfully they were the last ones in. We were alone, but still Remus said nothing and continued to look tense as his eyes darted around the now empty area save for our friends and us.

"Oh Godric!" I said with a huff. "Say something! I feel like an idiot."

He shook his head and flexed his jaw and right when he looked like he wasn't going to say anything, and as I opened my mouth to shout, he spoke.

"You know, I didn't understand it when Sirius used to say that you made everything about you – but apparently I was wrong."

My mouth dropped open and I stepped back feeling as if I'd been burned. Nearby I saw that the frown on Sirius' face had deepened to add another crease. James was looking at Lily stressfully, and Dorcas was frowning. Meanwhile Remus looked shocked with himself.

"Kate," he muttered, shaking his head. "I didn't – I didn't mean that."

"Of course you did," I murmured back.

"No," he said firmly. "I didn't. Look, I hate this. I don't want to fight with you. I'm sorry – I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said it."

I wet my lips and adjusted my bag on my shoulder, fiddling with my collar and trying to get ahold of my vocal chords. There was no way I would let myself say the next words with some kind of embarrassing, tearful break.

"Why don't you just obliviate it out of me then?"

His face fell further and if I hadn't been the one who'd made him look that way, I would have hugged him. But I was so angry and hurt and disappointed with how he really felt about me that I didn't even want to look at him.

"I'm sorry about that too," he said in barely a whisper. "You know I am."

"No, I don't," I replied, folding my arms over my chest and looking off to my right so I wouldn't have to face him. I was concentrating very hard on not crying. I was sick of crying over these boys.

"Leave her alone Remus," Lily said, walking forward and linking her arm through mine and pulling me with her. Dorcas joined us on my other side and we walked through the corridor in silence.

A few moments later, James caught up with us, falling into easy step and though I wanted to hit him, I was still holding back tears so I accepted his presence without protest.

"What is going on?" Dorcas mumbled.

Lily and I exchanged a look and glanced at James who was running both hands through his hair with a serious look on his face. He seemed to make up his mind after a minute and nodded to Dorcas.

"Remus kept something a secret from Kate and when she found out last year, we wiped her memory," James said vaguely. "Please don't ask though, it's not my secret to tell."

Dorcas watched my face for a while as I rubbed away the irritating moisture in the corners. James and Lily seemed to be having a silent conversation with their eyes.

"It's about what he is, isn't it?"

Lily, James and I stopped and looked at Dorcas in shock.

"Oh Godric!" I yelled in frustration. "He told you too?"

"No, he didn't," James said in alarm. "Who have you been talking to, Dorcas?"

"No one," Dorcas said. "But he's gone every month at the full moon and he's always injured in some way. It's not hard to figure out."

"Figure out what?" Lily said quietly.

Dorcas rolled her eyes. "That he's a werewolf of course," she said quietly. "I assumed we all knew, but just didn't mention it because he didn't like to talk about it."

Only Dorcas.

"I can't believe you obliviated her over it though…that is truly irrational," Dorcas said, smacking James' arm. He cringed, but didn't argue and instead turned to me.

"We're sorry," James said. "Really Kate, we are. All of us. Remus especially. Please, you've got to understand. He's lashing out because he's embarrassed and scared that you hate him, but he's sorry."

"Even if that's true, he's still hiding something," I muttered, wiping my eyes again roughly. "Tell him that if he wants me to forgive him, he's got to come clean. I can't handle any more secrets."

James nodded, but scratched his head. "I'll tell him, but I don't think it'll do you any good."

James was right. Somehow I'd expected Remus to find me and very formally tell me the true reason why he'd been so desperate for me not to know and then maybe even give me another tearful apology for all the hurtful things he'd said or done in the last few days. So, when he didn't – I was surprised when it was Sirius who did.

I was slated to read out my essay to The Great Hall on Monday at three o'clock after lunch. All lessons during that time were canceled and I was nervous and jittery to hear from Lily that the Hall was jam-packed with students from all years, not just Fifth Year and above as I'd expected. She wasn't scheduled to speak for another two days, so she wasn't nearly as panicked as I was. I didn't know what Prewett thought he was playing at making me go on the first day of Essay Week, especially when I hadn't wanted to give the bloody speech in the first place. Annoyingly, my sister was the other person on the program for the day and I'd already seen her reciting her essay off by heart without even a notecard to help her remember. Before she went in to the Hall to kick off the wretched event, she gave me a hug and told me do my best and not to compare myself to her, which was nice, but honestly didn't make me feel much less nervous. Thank Merlin my parents weren't invited, I might have run away from school if that had happened.

I was sitting alone in a small waiting room outside the Hall as Prewett introduced the event and the premise and then called Mafalda up to the stage. We each had an allotted twenty minutes; so I could take comfort in the fact that my sister was likely to take up the entire time and give me a chance to properly soothe my nerves. Her voice was magically enhanced so though it was slightly muffled, I could still hear her opening remarks quite clearly. Already, in the first few sentences, she'd taught me something I'd never known about Astronomy – and based on the parts of the speech I'd heard her practicing, I knew the rest would be equally informative and detailed. She had quite an engaging voice too – so even though I doubted she would make any jokes, I was sure she'd have everyone hanging on to her every word. I supposed the only way my intelligence wouldn't be directly compared to hers was if I happened to have the Hall in stitches – which had been the plan from the start anyway. The problem was, I was in such a horrible mood that as I practiced my lines, every joke, reference and pun fell horribly flat.

"Ugh, I am the least funny person in the world," I groaned to myself, smacking my head against the wall and closing my eyes.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you for months."

I felt my stomach clench with irritation as I opened my eyes and saw Sirius leaning in the doorway of the room with a hopeful smile.

"Go away."

"How's the speech going?" He said, ignoring me and settling on the bench beside me as I raked my fingers through my hair and massaged my temples, trying to concentrate on the words on the page.

"Go away," I repeated. "I'm nervous enough without being worried someone's going to wipe my memory."

I heard his sigh, but didn't react or look at him. If I was being frank, somehow I just didn't give a shit about hurting him anymore. Everything he'd done in the last few months had hurt me and I was sick of feeling bad for him.

"Look, I know you haven't wanted to talk to me. But will you just give me five minutes?"

I puffed up my cheeks and blew the air out from my nose as I clenched my teeth together. I will not set my ex-boyfriend's pants on fire. I will not self-combust.

"Look," I said, looking at him with the hardest expression I could muster. "I've only got fifteen minutes to make sure I memorize this and don't make a complete fool of myself in front of the school. So just go away! Actually, you're really going to want to go away because the opening three minutes are all about you and what an arse you are."

"I thought your speech was about Boggarts," Sirius said, making a face.

"It's a metaphor!" I retorted, glaring back at my parchment.

"Look, if you don't know it by now then you won't," he said. "You'll wing it – you're good at that."

"Ha!" I said, rolling my eyes. "Was that a compliment? Do you think I'm that easy to break down? The thing is, Sirius, I have no interest in snogging you anymore – so if you really want me to forgive you, you'll need to try a bit harder than that!"

"How about the truth then?" he said, meeting my eyes and swallowing subtly.

I put down my parchment.

"You? You're going to tell me the truth?"

He nodded. "I know you'd rather hear it from Moony, but that's not going to happen so you'll have to deal with me."

I crinkled my brow. Did I want to hear this? I did, after all, have a semi-important speech to give in just over ten minutes.

"I wasn't going to tell you because I always thought it had nothing to do with me…but I just sort of realized yesterday, when you and Remus were arguing, that it was just as much me hiding things from you as it was Remus."

"Sirius, you're being very confusing," I said impatiently.

"Oh give us a minute," he snapped, before sighing again. "Sorry."

"Well, are you going to tell me or what?" I prompted.

"All right. But he'd kill me if he knew I was telling you," Sirius groaned, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward.

"Well you could always obl–"

"Right," Sirius interrupted. "I guess we have to go back to before that day. You and Remus had been proper friends for a month or so. Any time he didn't spend with us, he spent with you – the two of you would be up all night on weekends talking in the Common Room about The Ghouls and whatever other existential crap you were into. And–"

"Sirius, you are telling me things I have memories of," I said, cutting him off. "Why don't you get to the point?"

"Don't be so bloody impatient."

"I'm on a bit of a schedule here, in case you didn't notice!" I said, gesturing to my parchment, the clock and the sound of Mafalda still giving her speech.

He sighed loudly and cracked his jaw. "Fine. Maybe I'll tell you later."

"Oh no you won't! Skip the recap and tell me what happened that day! Why are you and Remus and everyone else acting like it was perfectly normal to wipe someone's memory? My memory?"

"We're not acting like it's normal!" Sirius said, gritting his teeth together.

"Okay fine. I don't want to know. Go away."

"Okay fine, fine! Sorry. Okay we're acting like it's normal and that's wrong. But you've got to know that all I thought I was doing was protecting Remus and I didn't mean for you to lose the whole day…"

"It's not the point," I almost whined. "Why is it so difficult to get through to you lot? Fine – I accept your apology. I understand that you acted on impulse, that you're bad at memory charms, that you feel remorse – fine! But why can't any of you tell me why?"

"Because!" Sirius snapped. "It's weird. It's complicated!"

I sighed and leaned back to look at the ceiling. This was going nowhere. I might as well tune him out and try and remember some of the boring theory parts of my speech. Meanwhile, Sirius seemed to take my silence as an invitation to go on.

"So, you and Remus were friends. And none of us knew you that well – and we were just amazed that Remus would be spending so much time with someone else. He'd never done that before – and if we teased him about it he got really defensive and protective of you. So we knew you weren't just any other girl."

I frowned and looked back at him.

"You were that girl for him."

"What?"

Sirius looked exasperated, but his voice was even when he replied. "Remus was mad for you. Like head over heels, cue the cheesy music and the elaborate declarations, mad for you."

The space between my eyebrows hurt with how wrinkled they were. What the hell was Sirius talking about?

"And he was worried that you'd only see him as a friend if things stayed the way they had been," Sirius persisted like he hadn't just exploded my universe. "So that day, the day, we told him to make a move. And he did."

I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn't think of what the hell to say. In fact, I couldn't think full stop.

"He asked you to Hogsmeade for the weekend after and you said yes," Sirius said in an unanimated voice – like he was reciting a history textbook.

"As friends," I finally said, shocked at how soft my voice came out.

He gave me a grim look and shook his head. "You were the one who said it was a date. And I don't know – there was a moment, I guess."

"But, what? I…a moment? Like how?"

"I don't know the bloody details Kate! We don't gossip like old ladies – we just tell it like it is," he said gruffly. "Some moment that had Remus in the best mood we'd seen him in during the pre-full moon day. But then he got self-deprecating, because it's Remus, and we all know how he is, and now maybe you'll understand more about why he acts that way. He started going on about how he wasn't good enough for you and you deserved someone who wasn't a werewolf and then…you walked in."

I covered my face. I was blushing and I felt like I was vibrating. After a moment, Sirius put his hand on my knee and when I looked up to slap it away, I realized he'd only done it because I was shaking it so much. He moved away and sighed, leaning against the wall looking thoughtful.

"So, there we were stuck in this ridiculous situation. The one person Remus was most afraid of knowing about his secret had just found out and it was directly after he'd just said the last thing he wanted to do was hurt you and it just seemed to make sense in the moment. Wipe the girl's memory – give Remus time to build up to telling you himself. It wasn't going to be the best start to a relationship – better you be sure you wanted to be with him first, before you found out… so I just did it."

My heart was pounding. I felt queasy.

"He was furious at first, but eventually we agreed that it wasn't the right time for you to find out and he was scared to tell you right away because he was worried you'd flip out the way you have this week. We thought that he should just go about things as normal and wait until the two of you were sure you liked each other before he told you the truth."

"How do you even know I liked him anyway? What if this moment was just for him?" I mumbled.

"Yeah, I thought about that later on…once we started going out."

Was it bizarre that in the past five minutes I'd forgotten that Sirius was my ex-boyfriend?

"But the thing is – you've always said that it's one moment that changes things. You used to say that one moment you thought I was a surly git, and then I said something and suddenly, in the next moment, you liked me. It's not hard to believe you had that with him too," Sirius said, grimacing and scratching the back of his neck. "After all, you have moments with him all the time – I just got in the way."

"Sirius no," I said shaking my head, not sure why I felt the need to argue. I was still confused. So, bloody, confused.

"And you know, Remus talks about how much he regrets that day – not just because it was wrong to wipe your memory, but because you forgot all about the moment you two had and things never changed for the two of you the way he wanted them to."

"Because you and I had a moment instead?"

He nodded and swallowed. "It didn't happen on purpose. All I wanted to do was get to know you better, the way a friend wants to get to know their mate's girl…and then, I bloody fell for you too."

I rubbed my face. What was happening?

"And I was selfish," Sirius muttered. "It didn't help that you stopped having the deep conversations with him and started flirting with me instead. And even though I knew how he felt about you – I didn't want to let go of my own feelings either, especially when it seemed like you'd already chosen me."

"This is…" I shook my head and exhaled a long, slow breath. "I don't believe this. It's too…"

"Why d'you think it took me so long to ask you out?" he said with a wry smile. "I was wrestling with it. And of course, selfless old Moony, eventually said that it wasn't fair for him to stand in the way when you obviously preferred me."

I swallowed and my eyes felt itchy and horrible. But no tears came, I felt as though the wind had been knocked from me.

"So, what you're saying is…what the truth is…" I wet my lips and gulped down more air. "Is that Remus likes me?"

Sirius shrugged. "I don't know if he still does. When you and I were together, sometimes I'd wonder. But, it's not like I can talk to him about it."

"Wow."

"It's not why we broke up," Sirius said hurriedly. "We broke up because we weren't right for each other. But, Kate – look I know I should regret that day the way the rest of the lads do…but I just don't. I know I should – you and Remus might be together, I would have never hurt you or him…it would be good."

"But then we would have never been together," I said quietly and he smiled faintly.

"Yeah."

And then I smacked his arm as hard as I could.

"Ow! What the hell!"

"You are the worst!"

"What? I just told you everything!" he retorted, rubbing his arm irritably.

"I have to give a speech in five minutes! You can't just tell me all of this now!" I yelled, jumping to my feet and pacing in front of him.

This was too much. Too many secrets. Too many revelations. My world had spun – everything I thought was true – everything was a lie. Was I so dense? How could I not remember Remus liking me? How could I not remember liking him? It was too confusing – all I had to go on was what Sirius had just unceremoniously dumped on me. I had no idea what my feelings were back then – whether this was just what they'd seen from the outside, or whether it was true. Lily or Dorcas had never suspected that Remus liked me and no one had ever told me that I'd agreed to go to Hogsmeade on a date with him! Had I not had a chance to tell them before my memory was wiped? Did they wipe everyone's memory? I…I…Remus liked me?

"Okay, okay I'll leave you to it. Just, don't tell him I told you all right?" Sirius said, getting up and heading to the door. "And…just forgive him. Please."

A/N: Ack! All these revelations and Kate is just about to give a big speech...how d'you think that's going to go? ;) Thanks for reading!