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So, okay, maybe he shouldn’t have done it.
He definitely shouldn’t have done it. But the thing is, there’s a new boy working in the library, in the opposite end of it, and Sirius hasn’t even seen the boy yet. Lily from the front desk tells him the boy is twenty-something, totally a nerd, lives with his mother, always looks a little scared as if he thinks he might accidentally burn the place down, handles the books like they’re kittens or… (and Lily winks there, and Sirius rolls his eyes), and is gay. Sirius is pretty sure Lily doesn’t actually know the last bit of information, no, she probably just flirted with the new boy and now that is her conclusion. And even if the boy is gay, it doesn’t matter, does it? Sirius doesn’t have a crush on some guy who works in the opposite end of the library and whom he’s not even seen yet. He doesn’t even do crushes. The last time he thought he had a crush was almost two years ago and that turned out to be a heatstroke.
So, he shouldn’t have done it, but he did it anyway. He sent a copy of an old manual about how to talk to the French (terribly outdated, although he did only read the introduction) to the opposite end of the library, where the new boy was supposed to catalogue it or something. And he slipped something in between the pages. A cover page of a magazine. As a practical joke, kind of, only he can’t decide whether he still thinks it was funny or not. It’s been almost five hours, Sirius’ shift ends in thirty minutes, and the new boy still hasn’t reacted to the fact that there was a cover page of a gay porn magazine from the late 80’s slipped inside a book about how oddly enchanting the French are and how nobody really understands them.
The cover page is great. Really. That’s the reason Sirius has kept it folded in the pocket of his coat. Another reason is that he had forgotten it was there, but earlier today, he almost sneezed into it and realised it wasn’t a tissue. If the new boy is gay, maybe he’ll appreciate what’s happening in the picture. Maybe he’ll blush. Maybe he’ll get so flustered that he’ll drop the book and then get even more flustered, because he sounds like someone who would never drop a book, not for anything, not even for a 80’s porn magazine cover. And then the boy will probably come all the way through the library to see who has sent him this thoughtful gift.
But the boy doesn’t come. Sirius stays ten extra minutes, but Lily is starting to throw him odd glances, so he gives up. He tells her good night and leaves, oddly disappointed and refusing to wonder why.
**
Next day, there’s a book on Sirius’ desk (okay, on the corner of the desk Sirius uses when his boss is on a holiday). It looks like it came from the opposite end of the library, mostly because it’s old and dusty. He picks the book up carefully, then frowns, remembering what Lily said about the new boy handling books. Sirius doesn’t want to handle a book as if he’s handling someone’s dick. Not that he’s had plenty of experience with those. He hasn’t, actually, because it’s quite difficult to find a boyfriend when you are… okay, there’re a lot of things that are making it unfairly difficult for him. But the point is, he has touched someone else’s dick a couple of times, and this book isn’t a dick, and he knows it.
He opens the book and there’s a note inside.
Excuse me, the note says, written in a very messy handwriting, I found this inside a book titled ‘How to Speak to the French and Make Them Love You’ yesterday and I don’t think it belongs there. And then there is the cover page, folded neatly. Sirius unfolds it and spends a moment looking at the man licking another man’s stomach with 80’s glasses on.
“The new boy left that for you,” Lily says, walking past Sirius’ desk. Sirius ignores her. He ignores the note, too. He ignores it for almost five minutes, and then he writes a reply. He puts it inside a book titled ‘Your First Mobile Telephone – What Is It and How to Use It!’ and sends it to the new boy in a basket full of other books that were relevant in the 90’s.
He spends the next hours doing what he usually does, which is almost nothing. Sometimes he thinks that maybe he only got this job because Mum knows the library manager, and then sometimes he thinks that no, that can’t be true. He probably got this job because Dad knows the library manager’s wife. Anyway, there’s not much he needs to do, which used to be fine, but now he kind of thinks it would be better if he actually had something to do, so finally he goes to ask Lily if he can help her with anything. Lily looks surprised.
It turns out Lily is actually doing things in the library. Sirius is so busy helping her that he almost forgets about the note he sent to the new boy, but only almost. Five minutes before he’s supposed to go home, an intern comes with a basket full of books from the Dusty Section (it’s not its real name, but it’s very descriptive).
“I can take those,” Sirius says, and both the intern and Lily look a bit worried. But he doesn’t care. He flips through a dozen children’s books and then, finally, there’s a piece of paper that shouldn’t be there. He puts it in his pocket and tells Lily he’s going to take a break.
“Your shift ends in two minutes,” Lily says, frowning at her.
“Oh,” he says, the note heavy in his pocket,” oh, right, then I suppose I’ll just go.”
He goes home. In the bus, he takes the note, carefully unfolds it and reads it.
**
Dear Mr. Black, I’m afraid I don’t understand why you would have purposely sent me a cover of an adult magazine.
**
Dear new boy,
maybe it was a joke.
xxx Mr. Black
**
Dear Mr. Black, I don’t understand why it would be funny. Also, I don’t know if you realised this, but with your last note, you also sent me a picture of a bunny sleeping on a dog.
**
I thought you would like it. Also, maybe you should stop calling me Mr. Black. It makes me sound old.
**
Mr. Black, you introduced yourself as ‘Mr. Black’ in your first note. In which you explained that you had purposely sent me a cover of an adult magazine. And I don’t know how old you are.
**
Well I don’t know how old YOU are????
**
Mr. Black, you sent me a picture of a very old man smoking a pipe with a raven sitting on his shoulder.
**
Lily said you’re twenty-something. So, if you must know, I’m twenty-something too. And don’t call me Mr. Black. My father’s Mr. Black. I’m nothing like my father. You would know if you had ever met him. Or me. And the picture was FUNNY. The point was that I let you think I think you’re an old man, even though you aren’t, and I know it.
**
You know Lily?
**
YOU know Lily? And did you like the picture of a cat in front of a house? It took five minutes to print it, the printer is worse again.
**
I’m aware about the printer. Yes, I know Lily, she talks to me sometimes. She seems nice.
**
Sirius reads the note again, and then again, then sips his tea and reads the note one more time. It still sounds almost as if the boy is interested in Lily, but that’s not possible, because Lily said he’d be gay. Not that Sirius cares, because he doesn’t. He doesn’t know the boy, hasn’t even seen him yet, not even once, even though they have been sending notes back and forth for a week now, and one night, he had a very interesting dream. He has never had sex, not really, unless you count touching someone else’s dick, which you probably should count, actually. But he knows about sex. He’s seen it in porn magazines, and once, he found a VHS tape in the attic and it turned out to be an educational film for teenagers who are interested in ‘exploring each other’. He knows how sex works, or at least he knows the basics, and what he and the new boy were doing in the dream was definitely sex. But they also played Scrabble and Sirius lost, so it couldn’t have been a prophetic dream.
Anyway, he doesn’t care that apparently the new boy likes Lily and not him even though he’s spent a whole week sending nice notes to the boy. He decides never to send the boy a note again and then five minutes later writes one on a post-it note, just to let the new boy know that yes, Lily is nice, and no, he doesn’t care if the new boy likes Lily, because he doesn’t like the new boy. Then he writes another note and sticks it to the front desk, saying that he got suddenly sick and needs to go home. Maybe they’ll sack him. Then he’s never going to have to come here again. Mum and Dad can find him another job.
The next day, he texts Lily and asks her if he’s been sacked yet. She tells him to stop being stupid and come to work. Sirius doesn’t know what the point is, only then he remembers he gets paid and that he’s supposed to be saving money. He goes to the library, and when he gets there, Lily is at the front desk, talking to some guy who looks like a nerd.
“Hey,” Lily says when she sees Sirius, “come here. This is Remus.”
“What kind of a name is that?” Sirius asks but goes anyway. He stretches his hand out to the nerd guy and the nerd guy shakes it. The handshake is surprisingly decisive considering that the nerd guy looks nervous. “I’m Sirius.”
“Yeah,” the nerd guy says. His voice is lower than Sirius expected, and a bit horse, as if he’s got a flu. “I know. Mr. Black.”
“Hmm,” Sirius says and realises that he’s still holding onto the nerd guy’s hand. He doesn’t let go, though.
“Yeah,” Lily says, sounding amused for some reason. “Sirius, this is Remus. Remus works in the opposite end of the library.”
Sirius lets go of the nerd guy’s…. okay, he lets go of Remus’ hand. “Oh,” he says and clears his throat. “In the Dusty Section.”
“The what?” Remus asks.
“I’m Sirius,” Sirius says and takes Remus’ hand again. “Mr. Black. Mr. Sirius Black. I mean, I’m Sirius Black. I’m the guy who… I’m Sirius.”
“Yeah,” Remus says slowly, shaking hands with him, “I got that.”
“Sirius,” Lily says, “stop squeezing his hand.”
Sirius wasn’t squeezing Remus’ hand, but he stops it anyway.
“I just came here to talk to Lily about… books,” Remus says, looking at Sirius. “I had to… ask something.”
“Yeah, but we’ve sorted it out already,” Lily says. “So, Sirius, Remus needs a hand with cataloguing five hundred children’s books today, and I don’t need you here. Go with him and help him.”
Sirius opens his mouth, but there’s something intense about the way Lily is looking at him, almost as if Lily’s trying to tell him something.
“Okay,” he says and follows Remus to the Dusty Section.
**
“So, you’re the new boy,” he says, when they have spent almost two minutes working without any breaks. “You. You are him.”
“Yeah,” Remus says, glancing at Sirius from behind a pile of old children’s books that honestly look dull as hell. “I’m him. And you…”
“I’m Sirius Black.”
Remus nods. “You sent a note for me.”
“Notes. I sent you multiple notes. And pictures –“
“Yeah,” Remus says and clears his throat, “yes, I remember. Thanks for that. I think.”
Sirius takes a deep breath. He might as well let Remus know that he knows what’s happening here. “So, what do you think about her?”
Remus blinks at him. His glasses look dusty, but then again, everything gets dusty in this place. Even Sirius’ love life.
Oh, god, he’s funny. He should be a comedian.
“What?” Remus asks, and it takes Sirius a second to stop thinking about his forthcoming career in comedy and remember what he asked Remus.
“Lily,” he says. “You said you liked her and now you have met her. So, what do you think? I think she’s nice, and pretty, well, not that I… I don’t really… I wouldn’t date her, that’s what I’m saying, but she’s nice, and pretty, and… did I mention that she’s nice? And pretty?”
“Yeah,” Remus says slowly, “yeah, you mentioned. Sirius –“
“She might like you,” Sirius says. His chest feels a bit funny and not in a good way. Maybe it’s a heatstroke again, which is odd, because it’s January. “I think she would, actually. I think she likes you. You’re nice, too, and you look nice, with your glasses and your hair and your… your face. And you have nice hands. And freckles, you have freckles, that’s nice, and I think that pullover’s cool, well, not cool, but cool in a very odd way. I like odd. And you have a nice mouth. It’s of the right size, I suppose, and your lips are… the colour suits you, I mean, you have lips, and they are… What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Remus says, staring at him with wide eyes. “I said nothing. I don’t like Lily.”
Sirius blinks. “…what? Why? She’s really nice, I told you. She’s actually one of my best friends. I don’t have too many friends, but when I started working here, she was nice to me even though I didn’t know how to do anything. And she’s clever, and funny, and she makes brilliant coffee, and… Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I don’t know,” Remus says, sounding like he’s panicking a little, “I don’t really know how I’m looking at you. But I mean, I don’t like her. Like, I like her but I don’t like her, do you understand?”
“No,” Sirius says. “She’s very friendly and clever and –“
“I don’t fancy her,” Remus cuts in. “That’s what I meant. She’s great but I just… I just don’t.”
“You… oh.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t fancy her.”
“Not at all,” Remus says, “but I’m sure she’s pretty and clever and –“
“I’m clever, too,” Sirius says. His heart is beating in his throat like he’s been exercising or something. “And I’m… My hair looks better in some days.”
“Yeah,” Remus says, “I can imagine. So, you don’t…”
“What?”
“You don’t fancy her, either.”
“No,” Sirius says and almost knocks down a pile of books, “no, I don’t, I definitely don’t, I…” And then he actually knocks down a pile of books, and it happens to be the pile behind which Remus is sitting, so all the books fall onto Remus. They are children’s books, of course, so they are light and not violent, but there’s a lot of them. Like, a lot. And they are dusty.
Ten minutes later, Sirius has bravely rescued Remus from under the pile of books and they are sitting in the corner of the Dusty Section, drinking tea that tastes of dust and old books. Not that Sirius has tasted a book recently. But anyway, Remus only got a few scratches and doesn’t look too angry, and now they’re sitting so close to each other that if Sirius leaned closer and then a bit closer and then a bit closer still, he just might manage to brush his shoulder against Remus’ without falling off the chair.
The light is going on and off on its own, which Remus tells him is something it does sometimes. This section of the library is very old and cranky. Sirius thinks about kissing Remus, and what it would be like, and would he be good at it or just adequate, and would Remus take his glasses off.
“Hey,” he says, when they’ve finished drinking tea and the books on the floor are starting to stare at them judgingly, “what do you do after work?”
“I don’t know,” Remus says, sounding hopeful.
“I don’t know, either,” Sirius says, holding his breath. He holds his breath until he starts to feel a bit strange, and then he breathes in and out and tells himself that Remus clearly isn’t going to ask him on a date. Well, that’s a disappointment.
But the rest of the day goes nicely enough. He helps Remus with the books. Lily comes to check on them at one point but leaves soon enough. When Sirius’ shift ends, he tells Remus good night, takes a bus home, says hi to his mother and locks himself in his room. A bit later, Mum knocks on his door and asks him how his day was. He tells her that he’s an adult and also that could she maybe bring him a cup of hot chocolate and some biscuits.
**
There’s a book on Sirius’ desk. It says ‘How to Ask Your Dream Boy on a Date: Just Do It!’ on the cover. He asks Lily if she put it in there, and she says no and that maybe it was the library. It does odd things sometimes, such us once, Lily came to work in the morning and there was a labyrinth in the hallway. The labyrinth was made of books about labyrinths. He asks her if she thinks Remus put it there, and she rolls her eyes and goes away.
Sirius reads the introduction and the first two chapters before lunch. The message of the book seems to be that if you want to ask someone on a date, you should ask the said person on a date. But he can’t do that. He doesn’t even know if Remus likes him. There has to be a way to find that out without asking Remus.
He sends Remus a post-it note with a poem written on it and then goes to talk to Lily.
“I’m working,” Lily says and then sighs loudly. “What is it?”
“Would you do something for me?”
“Probably,” Lily says slowly, “even though I don’t know why. You should be really irritating but for some reason, you aren’t. Anyway, what do you need me to do?”
Sirius bites his lip. “Can you find out if Remus likes me?”
Lily opens her mouth, then closes it, then opens it again, then takes a deep breath. “Sirius –“
“Not that I like him,” Sirius says quickly, “but I like him, and I can’t ask him out if I don’t know for sure that he’s going to say yes. It’s just too scary.”
“I don’t think you can really avoid it being scary,” Lily says. “But –“
“I thought he liked you,” Sirius says, “but he said he doesn’t, well, he said he doesn’t fancy you, so maybe he doesn’t like girls at all then, and maybe he likes boys instead, but I don’t know that, and also he might like boys but not like me, and I don’t know how to find out.”
“Ask him?” Lily says.
“No,” Sirius says, “I can’t do that. So, can you just try to find out what he thinks about me?”
“This isn’t a good idea,” Lily says.
She’s wrong, it’s a terrific idea. “Please.”
“Alright. I’ll try. But –“
“But be subtle about it.”
“Okay. But –“
“He can’t know that I asked you to ask him.”
“I’m not sure how that’ll work out,” Lily says. “But –“
“Thank you,” Sirius says. “Really. I mean it. Thank you. I’m just going to… I’m going to do something while you find that out.”
“Maybe do your job,” Lily says, but she’s smiling.
“Fine,” Sirius says, but he doesn’t really remember what he was supposed to doing, so he just plays with one of the bookshelves. It throws books at him and he catches them, which is good, because this way, he can stop thinking about Remus. Oh, god, he wants to kiss Remus. He wants to go on a date with Remus and then kiss him and take his glasses off and bump his nose with Remus’ and then maybe lie on the bed with Remus and push his hands under Remus’ shirt and -
And the bookshelf throws a book at him and it knocks him in the chest.
**
“Hi,” Remus says. He’s standing in the doorway of the coffee room, where Sirius is trying to see under the neckline of his own shirt to check if he’s bleeding to death. He thinks if he was, it would hurt more, but also he has never bled to death before. Fortunately, he can’t see any blood. He’s still upset, but the bookshelf was also upset when he got hurt, so he supposes they’re even.
“Hi,” he says to Remus. “I’m injured.”
“Yeah, I heard,” Remus says. “By the way, I saw Lily.”
Sirius looks up from his chest. Remus walks into the room and closes the door behind him, then keeps his hands behind his back. The light from the ceiling reflects on his glasses. There’re fingerprints there in the dust. It’s a miracle that he can see anything.
“Yeah?” Sirius says. “What did she say?”
“She told me you want to know if I like you,” Remus says. His voice is hoarse again. Maybe the flu is coming back.
“What?” Sirius asks. Oh, shit. He shouldn’t have trusted Lily. He thought Lily would be subtle. He thought -
“What?” Remus asks. “You… you don’t?”
“What?” Sirius asks. “No, I… no. Yes. No. Yes. I… What?”
Remus swallows. He has a nice throat. Like… a throat. “You don’t want to know if I like you?”
“No,” Sirius says quickly and then takes a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” Remus says.
“No,” Sirius says. Oh, god, this is going badly. “Yes, I want to know that. But she wasn’t supposed to tell you. She was supposed to… I don’t know.”
“Well, she kind of tried to be subtle,” Remus says, staring at Sirius as if Sirius is an old dusty book in Remus’ section, so, very nicely. Sirius’ trousers are getting a bit tight. “You really want to know?”
“Yes,” Sirius says. This is scary, even scarier than the heatstroke.
“Yeah,” Remus says, shifting his weight from one foot to another.
“Yeah,” Sirius says. “So?”
Remus blinks. “…what?”
“Do you?” Sirius asks and clears his throat. “Do you… like me?”
“Yeah,” Remus says, “yes, I… I just told you.”
“…what? When?”
“Just now,” Remus says and then laughs. He sounds about as relaxed as Sirius’ mother after a yoga class. “I like you. You are… I don’t even know.”
“…is that good?”
“Yes,” Remus says, “yes, absolutely. I like…” And he makes a vague hand gesture at Sirius. “I like that. All of that.”
“Me?” Sirius asks, looking down on himself. Okay, so, he should adjust the front of his trousers a bit, but he can’t, because that’s going to draw attention to the situation down there. He looks at Remus again and gives Remus his coolest smile. “You like me?”
“Yeah,” Remus says. He sounds absolutely scared. “I… Is that good? Is that what you were hoping for?”
“Yeah,” Sirius says, “yes, absolutely.”
Remus stares at him.
“I’m glad,” he says.
“Okay,” Remus says. “Then what…”
“I thought you were gay,” Sirius says, “because Lily told me so, but I thought she might’ve been wrong, but then you sent me notes, and I thought maybe you were flirting, but I wasn’t sure, and then we met, and then I thought maybe you liked me, but then again, I’m not very good at knowing when people like me, because of my upbringing, you know, so I might’ve been wrong, so I asked Lily to ask you. Subtly.”
“…okay,” Remus says.
“Yeah,” Sirius says. “This is great. Do you want tea?”
“…yes?”
Sirius makes them tea. He can feel Remus watching him, which is nice and makes him forget about the attack of the bookshelf. They drink the tea in the coffee room and Remus is oddly quiet but keeps glancing at him, and he feels warm inside, which might be because of the tea. But it also might be love.
Then, far too soon, Remus says that he’s got work to do and that maybe he should go. He sounds a little sad for some reason. He gets up from the chair and walks to the door, and Sirius follows him and remembers he forgot something.
“Hey,” he says, and Remus turns to look at him. “Do you want to go on a date with me?”
“What?” Remus asks. Suddenly he doesn’t look so sad anymore. He’s almost smiling. Sirius wants to kiss his mouth. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Sirius says. He’s definitely smiling. He tries to calm down, because he doesn’t look very cool when he’s smiling. He knows because he’s practiced expressions in front of a mirror. “Of course. You like me and I like you, so we should go on a date.”
“You like me?” Remus asks in a quiet voice.
“Yeah,” Sirius says, frowning. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“No,” Remus says. “No, you didn’t.”
“I think I did.”
“You didn’t.”
“But you told me that you like me.”
“Yeah,” Remus says, “and you told me it’s nice that I like you and then started talking about something else.”
“That’s not what happened,” Sirius says. Oh, god, that’s what happened. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Remus says. “So, you…”
“I like you,” Sirius says and breathes out, “I like you very much, like, in a gay way. I fancy you. I want to kiss you. I want to have sex with you, too, probably, but I have to say, I haven’t done it a lot, so I don’t know what exactly I’d like to do with you, but I guess we can figure that out. And I definitely want to go on a date with you. Maybe even hold your hand. And I’m not against having a relationship, even though I’ve never had a boyfriend before, so I don’t know how to do it, but it can’t be that hard, can it? I suppose not. It’s just, people sometimes think I’m a bit weird, and maybe that’s because I live in a haunted family manor and the last time I tried to take a boy home, a ghost of my great-great-great-uncle slipped into my room and started talking to him about politics, so that didn’t go well. But I’ve touched someone’s dick. A few times. Like, sexually. And I –“
“Sirius,” someone says. It’s Lily.
Sirius closes his mouth and smiles at her.
“I want that too,” Remus says, looking like he just saw a ghost. Sirius looks over his shoulder but there’s no one there. “Well, maybe not the bit about your great-great-great-something, but the rest of it, I think, I just… I live with my Mum, and I kind of haven’t told her that I’m gay, and I think it’s too late now when I’m already twenty-one, and also I have never kissed anyone and maybe it’s too late for that, too, and I should move out but I don’t have money and I’m afraid I’d be lonely, and I don’t really like being an adult, it’s terrible, and well, I wasn’t a happy child either, but at least back then I could think that I’d become a happy adult one day, and I really want to fall in love, I do, it just scares the shit out of me, and I –“
“Remus,” Lily says, “Sirius, I really appreciate that you’re finally communicating, but some of the pirate books from the 18th century are having a mutiny again and I kind of need your help.”
It takes almost an hour until all the pirate books have calmed down, and by then the books about English imperialism have got anxious. They ignore those. Lily goes back to the front desk because there’s a lost client wandering around, and Remus goes to catalogue more books nobody wants to read ever again, and Sirius follows him, wondering when they’re going to kiss.
**
They kiss five minutes later. It happens approximately like this:
Sirius asks Remus when they’re going to kiss.
Remus drops the book he has been holding.
The book groans in pain.
“I don’t know,” Remus says and picks up the book. He sounds like he’s not breathing properly. Maybe it’s the dust. “I don’t know when we’re going to kiss. I don’t know how to do it. And maybe we shouldn’t do it here. This is children’s fiction. Maybe we –“ And at that point, Sirius takes the book from Remus’ hand, throws it aside, takes Remus’ face in between his hands, leans closer, bumps his nose against Remus’ glasses, (and leaves a greasy mark), and kisses Remus.
**
“Sirius? Remus? What are you… oh my god.”
“No,” Sirius says and tries to sit up, but his leg is stuck under Remus’ thigh, “no, nothing happened, we weren’t… it wasn’t sex.”
“We didn’t have sex,” Remus says, glancing wildly around, but then again, he took his glasses off when Sirius kissed him for about the fifteenth time.
“Yet,” Sirius says. “But I think we’re going to, only apparently we both live with our mothers, so we don’t really know where… Did you have a flat, Lily?”
“Absolutely not,” Lily says and takes a deep breath, “listen –“
“It wasn’t sex,” Remus says. He sounds breathless and quite happy. He’s also prettier than any boy Sirius has ever seen, including Timothée Chala-something, who is very pretty. Remus’ lips are red from where Sirius kissed him, and his neck is red too, and there’s a red patch on his left shoulder, next to one of the scars. “It really wasn’t sex,” Remus says. “I think. I’ve never had sex, so I don’t really… Was it sex?”
“No,” Sirius says, staring at Remus and wondering when they’re going to have sex.
“No,” Remus says to Lily, “no, it wasn’t sex. Oh my god, I’m going to have sex.”
“Yes, you are,” Sirius says. “If you want to.”
“Boys,” Lily says. She’s smiling but she’s also crossed her arms over her chest, which is a clear sign that she’s thinking about work. “The boss is here. And also, the east wing has amnesia again and thinks the year is 1790. It’s very worried about what’s going on in France. Remus, the boss wants to say hi to you, and Sirius, I need you to go to speak with the east wing and tell it that France is fine.”
“Is it, though?” Sirius asks.
“Now?” Remus asks, blinking. “I almost had sex.”
“In five minutes,” Lily says and turns around. “And don’t spend it kissing.”
They spend the next five minutes kissing.
“I need to tell you something,” Sirius says, when they have almost stopped kissing and Remus is trying to find his glasses. “In case we fall in love, you should know that my family is terribly rich and a bit evil, and I was home-schooled, and my mum tells me I have great social skills anyway but sometimes I’m not sure if I trust her.”
“Okay,” Remus says slowly.
“So, if you think I’m weird, it’s probably because of that,” Sirius says. “Okay, maybe we should go now. Do you know what happened in France in 1790?”
“I’m a werewolf,” Remus says.