Chapter 35 – Operation Romance

On Boxing Day morning, Sirius received a letter from James. He perched on the edge of his bed to read it alone, since Remus already appeared to have vacated the dorm. It was a very short letter, that simply said:

Dear Sirius,

Guess what me and Lily did last night.
(SEX).

Hope you had a good Christmas! I know I did!

James

A bark of laughter escaped Sirius as he read the letter. Of course it was just like James to write and tell him. Although there (thankfully) weren't any details, Sirius suspected it had gone significantly better than his first time, which had been painfully awkward. It was quite fitting, Sirius though, that Mary had ended up being interested in girls, and now here he was, worrying over whether Remus was going to talk to him for the rest of the holidays.

He considered writing back, but all he could think to put was something along the lines of 'guess what me and Remus did last night (went roller skating in the snow but fell over then kissed then Remus broke his nose and now he's avoiding me which is by the way entirely your fault for giving us the skates in the first place). However, he wasn't entirely sure how James would react to his Remus-drama, so in the end he decided against it.

To avoid the Gryffindor tower, Remus had headed to the library – his usual haven when his friends were being overwhelming or, in this case, were making him feel confused. The library was all but empty since it was only Boxing Day and the only people doing work were a handful of sixth and seventh years. At first Remus tried to do some reading, but he struggled to concentrate as his mind kept returning to Sirius. After spending half an hour reading and re-reading the same page and taking none of it in, he gave up.

Instead, just for something to do so he wouldn't have to return to the common room, he began to tidy bookshelves that were perfectly neat and organised already; Madam Pince was nothing if not thorough and her favourite activities were cataloguing the books, alphabetising, and dusting the shelves. Nevertheless, Remus pulled out handfuls of books at a time and carefully replaced them, his arms eventually growing tired and achy.

He carried on until he became too self-conscious of Madam Pince following him around the library, watching him suspiciously. He could still feel her watchful gaze on the back of his neck as he left.

They managed to avoid each other for most of the day, but the next morning Sirius ventured down to breakfast to find that Remus was already there. He didn't want to be a complete idiot and ignore him - he was pretty sure they were still friends after all - so he took the seat across from him and muttered an amicable "morning."

"Morning," Remus replied, a slice of toast half in his mouth.

Again, silence stretched between them as Sirius poured himself a bowl of cereal. He quickly ate a spoonful to avoid the pressure of having to make conversation.

"Still snowy out," he said eventually. He only realised when Remus looked up at him with a growing flush to his cheeks that the weather may not have been the best topic of conversation, since they'd barely spoken since the last time they were out in the snow together.

"Very cold," Remus agreed, before returning to his breakfast.

He disappeared soon after, leaving Sirius alone. Despite the food surrounding him, he suddenly didn't feel very hungry. Leaving the cereal largely untouched, he took to wondering about the castle.

After a while, he found himself at the kitchens, and let himself in by tickling the pair on the portrait over the entrance. The house elves were busy clearing up from breakfast, but they still rushed over to him when he entered, offering him food and drink. He accepted a glass of pumpkin juice and stole a scone from a nearby plate.

Soon enough, he found himself telling one of the house elves - Dotty - all about what had happened in the last few days. She seemed rather stunned, looking back and forth between Sirius and the plate of scones. Eventually, when Sirius had finished his tale, Dotty blurted out "Sir has eaten 17 scones!"

She looked positively distraught as she added, "scones that were made for the headmaster!"

"Oh," Sirius said, putting down the scone that was already half way to his mouth. There were only two others left on the plate. "Sorry about that."

The same morning, Remus shrugged on his winter coat and plodded down to Hagrid's hut, his boots crunching on the still-snowy ground. Hagrid was delighted to see him, ushering him in and gesturing for him to take a seat by the fire.

"I'll put the kettle on," he said, filling a massive pot with water. "D'ye fancy some Christmas cake?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," Remus said, having now had too much experience of Hagrid's cooking to be enthusiastic about it. Sure enough, it was almost rock hard and tasted of nothing but brandy. "Delicious," he said with cake still stuck to his teeth.

"Now what can I do for ye?" Hagrid asked. "It's not like you to be on yer own. Where are those friends of yers?"

"James, Peter and Lily have gone home for Christmas," Remus said. Then he looked down at the giant mug in his hands. "I'm not sure where Sirius is. Neither of us have really been in the common room much."

"Ah, have a fight, did ye?" Hagrid asked with a gentle smile.

"Not exactly." Remus wasn't sure exactly what they'd had, or whether they were still talking, but he didn't think he wanted to find out - and if he didn't see Sirius then they didn't have to talk about it. "I was wondering if maybe you wanted me to walk your dog?"

"That'd be grand, if ye want to," Hagrid said. "You'd better keep 'im on a lead though. He won't go chasing after anythin' but he will run away if anythin' startles 'im."

"Okay." Remus put down the barely-touched cake and took the lead Hagrid handed him. "I'll see you in a bit then."

After pacing the corridors aimlessly for the better part of an hour, Sirius found himself outside Professor McGonagall's door. She answered his knock still laughing and holding a goblet of wine - Sirius could distinctly hear the sound of voices behind her.

"Oh, Mr. Black," she said, clearly surprised to see him. "What brings you by?"

"Er," Sirius said, feeling suddenly quite stupid. He wasn't entirely sure what had possessed him to knock on her door. "I was wondering if you wanted help with anything," he said lamely. "Organising papers or, you know... planning lessons for next term?"

"It's only two days after Christmas," Professor McGonagall told him, baffled. She stuck her head out of the door and looked down the corridor as if expecting something to happen. "I have no doubt that you're up to something," she said then, "but I suggest you go and enjoy the rest of the day with your friends."

With very few people in the Gryffindor common room and even fewer in the library, Remus had no one to talk to. He made his way up to the owlery, planning on sending a long letter to Lily, but once he was sitting there will his quill and parchment in hand, he thought better of it. He didn't want to involve anyone else in this - not when he didn't even know what this was.

Sir Lancelot, his owl, came and perched on his arm and hooted sadly, as though he had caught Remus' mood like an infection.

"Hello," Remus said glumly. "Is your Christmas going as badly as mine? Struggling to find mice to eat, are you? You steal enough of my bacon at breakfast that I'm sure you're fine." Sir Lancelot hooted again. Remus decided to interpret this as his owl wanting to know what was bothering him. "Well my best friend of the past six and a half years can't find anything to talk to me about except the weather, and I'm just as bad. And I don't even feel like I can talk to anyone about it. Although I guess I can tell you, since you are in fact an owl with no concept of the English language. It was Christmas Day, you see, and Sirius and I were out roller skating in the snow and it was all well and good until we ended up on the floor with him on top of me and then suddenly we were kissing and it was all very confusing and I don't know what I'm supposed to think or - or feel about this - about him. Oh, plus I broke my nose."

Sir Lancelot evidently thought he'd done enough comforting for one day, or perhaps he'd figured out that Remus hadn't brought him anything to eat; either way, he took flight out of the glassless window. Remus sighed. Clearly no one wanted to listen to him.

What he didn't know was that two people were listening. Chloe and Benjy had planned on sending a letter to Marlene, who had been on the Quidditch team with them and whom they hadn't seen in months, but when they heard Remus talking they hesitated in the doorway. They had heard everything they needed to, and they exchanged looks of confusion and then excitement as they began to form a plan.

Remus was going for what he'd told himself would be a pleasant walk in the snow, but the snow had begun to melt as the weather warmed up a few degrees, so he kept slipping in the slush and the cold water had seeped through his shoes and socks to freeze his feet. He was thinking of turning back when he saw Benjy running across the grounds towards him, waving and shouting Remus' name.

"Benjy?" Remus said. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing!" Benjy skidded - quite literally - to a halt in front of him and paused to catch his breath. "I just saw Flitwick - he wants to speak to you in his classroom about something - some homework you handed in I think?"

"Right now?" Remus asked, confused. "Why doesn't he just tell me when classes start?"

Benjy shrugged. "No idea, but he's waiting there now so you'd better go."

Sadly abandoning all thoughts of the roaring common room fire and dry feet, Remus nodded and began walking back up to the castle with Benjy in tow.

Sirius was in the common room eating his way through a box of fudge when Chloe collapsed onto the sofa beside him.

"Hey buddy," she smiled, "guess where I just came from."

"Enlighten me," Sirius replied. He wasn't exactly feeling up to a more a witty answer.

"Flitwick's classroom," she said seriously. "I think he had some sort of party in there, but now there's just an abandoned buffet with a ton of food left over."

Sirius perked up slightly at the mention of the buffet. He hadn't exactly been eating his feelings over the last few days, but he'd been eating most other things.

"Really?" he asked. "What's he doing throwing a party in a classroom?"

"Damned if I know," Chloe shrugged, getting to her feet. "But there are sausage rolls and pizza and cakes as big as your head! Are you coming or not?"

Sirius had never been one to forgo free food, even if it was suspiciously abandoned in an empty classroom. He rolled quickly off the sofa and followed Chloe out of the common room.

When Remus and Benjy arrived at Flitwick's classroom, there was nobody there. Remus frowned. "Are you sure he said to meet in his classroom not his office?"

"Completely sure," Benjy said. "He must have just gone to the loo or something. I'm sure he'll be here soon."

"Well, I'm going to check his office just in case."

"No!" Benjy stepped in front of him. "I mean, he'll be here any second, you wouldn't want to miss him."

"Benjy, what's going on?"

But that question was answered a moment later when Sirius and Chloe walked through the door.

Sirius and Remus just stared at each other at first, allowing Benjy and Chloe to hurry out of the classroom, shutting and locking the door behind them.

"Hey!" Sirius shouted at the two of them through the glass window in the door. "What are you doing? I was promised a buffet not a - whatever this is!"

"You just need to talk to each other," Chloe said, "and we thought we'd give you a chance to do that."

"This is ridiculous," Remus said. "We're fine. Let us out, come on."

"No can do," Benjy said. "We know exactly what's going on and we're not opening this door until you two talk about it."

"There's no need to be embarrassed," Chloe piped up. She was standing on her tiptoes in order to see through the door. "Benjy likes guys too!"

"Hey!" Benjy said. He elbowed her in the ribs and the two of them disappeared from sight.

Remus reached into his pocket for his wand, but he already knew it wasn't there; he had left it on his bedside table, not thinking he would need it for a stroll around the grounds. He wasn't exactly expecting to be ambushed and locked in a classroom.

"I don't suppose you remembered your wand?" Remus asked.

Sirius turned out his pockets and, finding himself wandless, he grabbed the door handle and rattled it, yelling at Benjy and Chloe to open up.

"You're the ones who should open up!" Chloe shouted back.

"Urgh," Sirius moaned. He turned away from the door and sat down on the edge of the nearest desk, folding his arms across his chest.

Remus was still trying to peer out of the window in the door, to little avail.

"They're not going to let us out," Sirius said. He knew from being on the quidditch team with Chloe and Benjy that they were extremely determined, and probably just as stubborn as the majority of Gryffindor's were.

"Well. I guess maybe we should talk then. Either that or tunnel out of here."

"Did you bring a shovel?" Sirius asked.

For the first time since Christmas Day, Remus laughed. The reaction brought a smile to Sirius' face and he stood up just as Remus slumped onto the desk across from him.

He paced for a few minutes before turning to Remus - who was actually looking him in the eye again - and said, "I kissed you."

"Yes," Remus agreed.

"I didn't know I was going to, but it happened, and it made sense to me. But you tried to run away and then the avoiding and everything is awkward and - well. I guess what I'm getting at is do you fancy me or what?"

Remus was immediately flustered. "That's - I mean - you can't just ask if I - "

"It's fine if you don't," Sirius said quickly. "Obviously we'll still be friends, of course we will, we have been for years so-"

"I do," Remus said, interrupting him. Sirius stopped talking abruptly. "I've been thinking about it ever since you kissed me," Remus continued, "and I do. Fancy you, I mean."

"Oh," Sirius replied. He'd half convinced himself that Remus was going to completely hate him forever, but that was apparently not the case at all. He didn't know exactly what to say next, but knew he couldn't shake the grin that had spread across his face.

"This is the part where you talk," Remus instructed.

"Right," Sirius said, "well, good. We should - I mean, do you want to. Do this?"

"This?"

"Yeah," Sirius said self-consciously. The situation seemed ridiculous - after they'd spent the last three days avoiding each other - now he just felt giddy and wanted to laugh. Instead, he took a step closer to Remus and said, "do you want to, you know, go out with me then?"

"Oh." Remus' face cleared. "I – yeah. We can do that."

They looked at each other as though expecting the other person to know how to proceed.

"How exactly should we...?" Sirius asked.

"I guess like this," Remus said, holding out his hand. Sirius knitted their fingers together and they smiled bashfully at each other.

It felt strange that they'd been comfortable with each other for years, had slapped each other on the back and sat next to each other with their shoulders brushing and even fallen asleep on top of each other - and yet this felt totally different. It was a good kind of different, though, exciting in its freshness.

"You can let us out now!" Sirius called to Benjy and Chloe. Their faces appeared in the door and Sirius and Remus held up their linked hands as proof. They heard Chloe say "yay!"

Benjy obligingly opened the door, grinning. As they stepped through it, he pointedly exclaimed, "Oh look, you're both finally out!"