Remus usually had too much on his mind to worry about dating.

He was forced to spend a week out of every month pulling all-nighters in the Shrieking Shack, so he always felt like he was behind on both school and sleep. He'd pretty much adjusted to only sleeping about six hours every night, and to compensate, he drank about three cups of coffee in the morning. He would also drink tea throughout the day, out of a Quidditch mug that James had got him. By this point, Remus needed it just to function, but he figured it wasn't the worst habit. His friendship with Sirius taught him that there were worse things to be addicted to than caffeine.

His friendship with Sirius also taught him a lot about love.

Remus hadn't grown up in a household that was physically affectionate. His father almost never hugged him. His mom hugged him for big moments, but she was really more of a verbal person. But with Sirius, it was almost casual how touchy he was. He nudged his friends playfully all the time, and liked to sling an arm around them in greeting. He loved giving bear hugs, and he always seemed a bit more touchy with Remus than with James or Peter. Sirius liked to put a pillow on Remus's shins while he was reading, and lay there as he smoked or napped, like he thought he was some kind of lapdog. And despite the fact that Remus's legs fell asleep sometimes, he never moved while Sirius was there.

Sirius was also aggressively reaffirming. After his friends confronted Remus about being a werewolf, Sirius was the one who caught on to the fact that Remus regularly needed to be reminded that they didn't care. He would say that the scars made him look badass, or that he had a pretty surefire way out of homework assignments if he ever needed it. Humor was Sirius's defense mechanism, and he almost always managed to bring a smile to Remus's face when he could tell that he needed it. Although Peter was the mom of the group, Sirius did a pretty good job of keeping morale high. James never seemed to be bothered by much, except losing in Quidditch matches, and Peter just seemed happy to be there, so it was often Remus that Sirius focused his attention on. He had an uncanny ability to cheer Remus up.

Remus knew he wasn't as close as James and Sirius were, but he also knew that the nature of his relationship with Sirius was different. James's parents had taken Sirius in when he had nowhere else to go, and the two of them had much more free time than Remus could ever imagine. They spent it playing Quidditch, running around school playing pranks, and narrowly avoiding trouble. They were about as in sync as two troublemakers could be. But for some of the heavier stuff, Sirius turned to Remus. It wasn't because Sirius couldn't talk to James about it, because he certainly did, but he preferred Remus when he had the option. Remus was better at giving advice, and comforting him. Plus, he always had chocolate, and that certainly helped.

Sirius had confessed that he told Remus more about his family than he'd ever told anybody. And unlike anybody had ever done with Remus, Sirius had pressed him to tell him about his own family. Remus openly talked about his mom, but he almost never talked about his father, even when prompted. Quite familiar with unhappy families, Sirius knew not to push it too far, but he did manage to get Remus to open up about his father. It meant a lot to Remus that he cared enough to ask, encouraged him to open up and talk about something he was clearly uncomfortable with, while still respecting his boundaries.

Remus wasn't really sure when he realized he was in love with him.

It wasn't like one thing had happened that made Remus realize it. It had been slow and gradual, and Remus had almost always known, in the back of his mind, that it was happening. He knew himself well enough that it hadn't snuck up on him at all, but instead seemed predictable and mundane. In fact, it was so incredibly cliché of Remus to fall for the first person who truly made him believe that being a werewolf made absolutely no difference at all.

However, Remus had always been careful.

He almost never initiated physical contact with Sirius. He wouldn't go into Sirius's room right after he showered, or when he thought Sirius might be getting dressed in the morning. Simply put, Remus made sure they were never put in a compromising situation. Like if they were all crashing at James's place over winter break, Remus would make sure to claim the couch, where only one person could sleep. He knew he trusted himself not to do anything, but Remus also knew that this only worked because he hadn't let his feelings spiral out of control. He knew his imagination would have a field day if anything like that happened, and he preferred to keep things tame. As much as Sirius was risk seeking, Remus was avidly risk averse. He was terrified of doing something to ruin their friendship or anything that would let Sirius catch on.

Remus was good at maintaining an exterior of indifference when it came to Sirius, so much that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. He had simply adjusted to a reality where Sirius hooked up with a lot of girls, and was likely as straight as an arrow. The alternative was to become jealous and obsess over each one. That was exhausting, and Remus had more sense than that. Plus, Sirius never seemed to care much about any of them. He would always complain about being bored with one or the other, and Remus knew that Sirius cared about him more than he cared about any of the girls he slept with. Knowing that kept him going.

This was just the way that things were, and Remus was okay with it.

He didn't actively look for distractions, and regardless, it was hard to find somebody that compared to Sirius. Remus was open to everything, but the truth was, he didn't really like the idea of sleeping with somebody simply for the satisfaction of it. Plus, he was just worried that they would ask about his scars. He was fairly certain that he could've fallen for anybody, regardless of gender, but it had just happened to be Sirius. He briefly dated a girl in fourth year, but it hadn't lasted very long, because Remus found that he always preferred to spend time with his friends instead of her. That was the standard by which he measured all potential relationships, and for that reason, he hadn't dated anybody else. His friends teased him about never seeming to like a girl as much as he liked his books and his caffeine, but Remus always handled it good-naturedly. He figured that Sirius was a childhood crush that he would grow out of eventually.

He also figured that by seventh year, he was nearly there, nearly over him. But once his friends began plotting with Lily, Marlene, and Mary, it became apparent to Remus that he was not Mary's biggest fan. Remus wasn't the jealous type, but he didn't need to be, not when Sirius was flirting with somebody else right in front of him. He knew it was unfair to Mary, who turned Sirius down rather than enabled him, and was always kind to Remus. He'd just never been in a situation where he felt like he was expected to spend so much time with somebody that Sirius wanted to sleep with, and he resented it. Sirius had always prioritized his friends and kept his love life rather separate, and this was the first time it was all colliding under Remus's nose.

And of course, it only made Remus more acutely aware of his feelings. It became something that he dwelled on with a sense of resentment, and it completely stalled the process of his seventh year mission to get over Sirius.

Remus watched as Sirius came in the door, and wondered vaguely where he'd been.

"Where'd you come from?" James asked, so Remus didn't have to.

"Daisy," Sirius answered. This time, he was holding a little plastic bag of white powder. "Actually, this was a special request from Mary. She's stopping by tomorrow."

"So you slept with Daisy to get that," Peter said, nodding at the bag Sirius was holding. "And now Mary is coming here tomorrow?"

"Were you planning on showering in between?" James asked, and Peter laughed. Remus kept his eyes trained on his book, not particularly wanting to take part in this conversation.

"Very funny," Sirius said, although there was a hint of a smile on his face. "But Mary was actually very clear that she's not putting out. It's a bit of a work in progress."

"You don't think she's just saying that?" Peter asked.

"Maybe she is. Either way, I figure I shouldn't make a move if she's said nothing will happen," Sirius said. "Told me she's interested in somebody else. You got any theories?"

"Diggory?" James suggested. "He's shaping a decent team for Ravenclaw this year," he added as an afterthought, his mind drifting to Quidditch.

"Hm, I could see that," Sirius said.

"You have a crush on him, too?" Peter teased. Almost instinctively, Remus looked up, wondering how Sirius would respond to the joke.

Sirius winked at Peter. "Wouldn't you like to know, Wormy?" He disappeared into his room, presumably to stow away the illicit drugs.

"We're leaving for Slughorn's dinner in five! Get dressed!" Peter called after him. It was rather typical for Peter to be reminding them about things like this.

"I'll be ready in ten!" Sirius called back.

"Good, because that's when we actually need to leave by," Peter said, under his breath. Lying to James and Sirius in order to get them to places on time was standard practice by now. As well as they knew the castle, they still seemed to underestimate the time it took to walk from their room to Slughorn's classroom.

"I'm going to put on some more cologne," James said, lifting his arm to smell himself.

"Don't," Remus said, not even looking up from his book. "I can smell it from here."

"Shut up, Moony," James said, without missing a beat. He disappeared into his room, and Remus chuckled to himself, placing a bookmark inside of Toni Morrison's new book. He stood up to go change into his dress robes, and somehow beat both James and Sirius to the living room.

"Are they still primping?" he asked Peter, amused.

"Do you even need to ask?" Peter responded, sounding like a tired mother of two.

"Sirius, come on!" James said, poking his head in Sirius's room.

"Okay, okay, I'm ready," Sirius said, emerging from his room. He looked at James and wrinkled his nose at the heavy smell of cologne. "Please get away from me. I have the sense of smell of a dog."

"Are you trying to say… you smell like a dog?" James asked.

"A wet dog," Remus specified.

Peter ushered his late friends to Slughorn's dinner, wanting to at least try to be on time. Slughorn seemed to have noticed that Peter hung around some of his favorite students, and had eventually come around to invite Peter along with them. So, Peter tried to do his due diligence by keeping them punctual. Slughorn jovially greeted them as they came in, not seeming to mind that they were a couple minutes late.

"Late," Marlene muttered, as James sat down next to her. The food had already been served, but only moments ago. "Are you serious?"

"I can only dream," James said, throwing a grin at Sirius, who had pointedly taken the seat as far as possible away from him. Sirius just gave him an exasperated look, his reaction to hearing this joke for the millionth time.

Sirius leaned towards Remus, putting a hand on the back of his chair. Almost instinctively, Remus leaned towards him as well. "I don't smell like a wet dog, do I?" Sirius asked in a low voice, so that only Remus could hear him.

Remus laughed.

"Answer the question," Sirius said, sounding worried.

Remus chuckled. "No, of course not," he said. He was trying as hard as possible to convey that he was lying in order to protect Sirius's feelings, just to mess with him.

"Wait, I do?" Sirius asked, sounding wounded.

Remus patted his arm sympathetically. "I got used to it," he said encouragingly.

He looked up to see many of the Slytherins glaring furiously at them. Remus realized that the four of them had sat down next to Mary, Marlene, and Lily. It was just a coincidence, but he suddenly felt grateful that they'd decided to band together. The three of them were brilliant, and besides that, he knew he would've felt guilty if the Slytherins targeted them for something that Remus and his friends had done.

They'd already begun retaliating, too.

James had gone to run Gryffindor tryouts the next day, only to find that his broom was jinxed. It kept jerking back and forth, and when he let it go, it simply danced by itself. Furious, James had borrowed Sirius's broom while his danced in the corner of the pitch. The day after that, the girls had found hundreds of tiny spiders in their room, and the seven of them spent the better part of the night trying to find spells to get rid of all the spiders. They were still picking spiders out of their things, and it was driving Lily completely mad.

"Did you hear?" Mary asked, sounding anxious. She looked from James down the line to Sirius.

"Hear about what, love?" Sirius asked, his tone becoming more flirtatious as he turned towards her.

"The Muggle attack," Mary said, ignoring his tone. "Three dead. It's what we were talking about when you came in."

Now it made sense, why the golden trio had apparently been so annoyed that they had come in late. The four of them had come in cracking jokes, and none of them had noticed that the discussion over dinner was much heavier than usual. Remus usually would have noticed something like this, but he'd been distracted.

"When did it happen?" Remus asked quietly.

"A couple hours ago," Marlene answered. "Spain, this time. Voldemort is really branching out."

Slughorn chuckled nervously. "We don't know that the Dark Lord – "

"The Dark Lord?" Marlene interrupted him sharply, her eyes narrowed. "Is that what you call him?"

The table was silent for a minute. The Dark Lord was almost exclusively used by supporters of Voldemort, so Marlene felt justified in calling Slughorn out for using that kind of language. At the same time, Remus had never really seen a student talk back to a professor in such a way.

"Marlene, you know that I don't condone the use of any Dark magic," Slughorn said, suddenly sounding very tired. "My apologies for the language. I should've said You-Know-Who."

Marlene did not respond, so Mary spoke up. "It was Voldemort. A lot of people are theorizing that one of his objectives is to create chaos in Muggle governments to weaken them. It was three Spanish officials this time. The Muggles are just saying it's part of the Basque conflict."

"What's the Basque conflict?" James asked.

"To keep it simple for you, they just want independence from the Spanish government," Marlene explained, making no effort not to be patronizing.

"I heard they left the Dark Mark over the attacks, but the Daily Prophet hasn't confirmed it," Benjy said.

"Wow, any of you know anything about that?" Marlene asked in a deeply sarcastic tone, looking pointedly at the group of Slytherins. Even as she said it, Remus could see people getting tense. His hand moved almost automatically to his wand.

"What are you implying?" Avery asked smoothly, although Remus had seen him move his wand arm as well.

Lily froze, as she realized what Marlene was going to do a second before it happened. Marlene rolled her eyes heavily before she spoke. "Sorry, I should've been more clear. Have any of your Death Eater friends or relatives said anything to you about taking responsibility for the brutal murder of these Muggles?"

"That's enough," Slughorn said loudly, but it was too late. Avery stood up before Marlene was done talking, his wand pointed directly at her. Just as quickly, Marlene pointed her wand back at him, but she remained in her chair, looking adamant. Lily and Mary shot out of their seats to her defense, and Avery's friends stood up as well. Seeing them outnumbered, Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter stood up.

Slughorn stood up, and said calmly, "Accio wands."

Dozens of wands flew into Slughorn's hand. "We're not talking about this anymore," he said firmly. "And you will get your wands back at the end of dinner."

The rest of dinner was stilted. Both parties were clearly still angry, and neither seemed to participate much in the conversations happening at dinner. It was very much small talk, and once dessert was finished, the Slytherins went to ask for their wands back and disappeared. From what Remus could tell, Slughorn pulled Marlene to the side to talk to her about initiating arguments.

The next day, the Slytherins finally answered.

It was almost the exact same stunt that the Marauders had pulled. The Muggle attack was on the front page of the Daily Prophet, and the newspaper was everywhere. Officially, the school was saying that it was a delivery mistake, but everybody knew better.

This was a warning to Muggles and Muggle-borns at Hogwarts.