Work Text:
Knock, knock, knock.
Sirius startles from his relaxed position on his bed when the sound of a heavy knock on the door fills his small one room apartment. He lifts the laptop he has been resting on his belly to the side, pausing the show he has been binging without really following the plot for the last few hours. Something about zombies and a sheriff trying to protect his family. Sirius is more invested in the gore and the cute curls of the lead than the actual story.
He pushes himself up from the soft mattress of the bed—wipes some crumbs off his chest from the bag of vanilla-flavored cookies he has been munching on—and walks over to the door to open it.
“Moony!” He exclaims when he sees his best friend standing in the hallway outside the door with a big duffel bag in his hand and a furious expression on his face.
Then Sirius tilts his head in confusion and looks Remus up and down, bewildered.
“Why are you dripping?”
Remus’ expression turns sullen. He sighs harshly—pushes himself inside the tiny apartment—and slams the door behind him. He is indeed dripping. His hair is wet, and his clothes are darkened by water. A small puddle is forming where he stands, and Sirius does his very best to not burst out laughing from the miserable sight.
“Eh, Remus?” He says, hoping that Remus can detect more concern in his tone than amusement.
Remus tosses the bag on the floor and bends down. He opens it while giving out annoyed grumbling sounds that makes Sirius lips twitch even more from contained laughter.
“Why do you never answer your fucking phone, Sirius?” He says. “I don’t get it. I never see you without the damn thing, but it’s like you don’t understand its very basic function: to take bloody calls.”
He growls the words while rummaging through his bag, taking out a few garments and tossing them on the bed beside them.
“Wha—” Sirius begins, but Remus interrupts him by continuing his rant.
“Do you think a phone is for pure decoration or what? Or just to scroll through an endless stream of videos of baby bears or pandas or whatever the fuck you’re so obsessed with?”
“Hey!” Sirius calls, putting his hands on his hips and giving Remus a scolding look. “No, I do not think that, and it’s actually koalas that I’m obsessed with, thank you very much.”
Remus looks up from his position on the floor and narrows his eyes in confusion.
“Koalas?”
“Yes, koalas.”
Remus shakes his head with a frown and stands up. “But koalas are not bears.”
Sirius stares at him for a moment in disbelief.
“Yes, they are.”
“No, they aren’t.”
“YES, THEY ARE!”
“NO, THEY AREN’T!”
“WHY ARE WE SCREAMING?” Sirius screams, and Remus blinks and leans back from the aggressive stance he had taken.
“I don’t know. But you’re wrong. Koalas are not bears. They’re marsupials. And you’ve been talking non-stop about your love for bears for weeks now.”
Sirius blinks at him for a few quiet moments.
“Marsupials?”
“Marsupials,” Remus confirms.
Sirius purses his lips and then shrugs.
“Whatever. They look like bears.”
Remus gives out an exaggerated sigh and rubs his temples in annoyance.
“That’s not… They’re not...”
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again.
“Whatever. Okay. Whatever.”
They stand in silence for a few more moments, accompanied only by the quiet drip of Remus’s clothes onto the floor.
“So…” Sirius finally breaks the silence, eyeing his best friend warily. “You’re wet?”
Remus nods gravely and looks down at himself and his long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans that are plastered to his body.
“There was a flood in my flat.”
“A flood in your flat?” Sirius repeats.
“The neighbor above me left the taps on.”
“Your neighbor left the taps on.”
“And part of the ceiling caved in on me.”
“The ceiling caved in on you.”
“Sirius, for fuck’s sake!” Remus breathes. “Stop repeating everything I say!”
“Oh, sorry, go on,” Sirius says and sits himself on the edge of the bed. He puts his hands in his lap and nods to Remus to proceed.
Remus gives him a sour look before he continues.
“Yeah, so I obviously can’t be there. The repair people said it will take at least a week to fix it. I can’t stay there because there’s a fucking hole in my bathroom ceiling and half the flat is fucking flooded.”
Sirius looks at him for a bit and then narrows his eyes when he spots little pieces of something gray in Remus’s hair.
“Do you have gravel in your hair?”
Remus sighs angrily and flaps his arms out in an exasperated motion.
“Yes, a fucking roof fell on my head, Sirius. What is it that you’re not understanding?”
“Hey, calm down. I’m just trying to get the picture, alright?” Sirius says, offended, and Remus gives him a quick apologetic look.
“Sorry, Padfoot. It has been a long night, that’s all.”
Sirius waves his apology away, and then his eyes are drawn to the pile of clothes that Remus put on the bed. They unmistakably look like his pyjamas. Sirius recognizes them from school, where they shared a dorm, and the vision of Remus lounging around in his flannel bottoms and out-washed Bonnie Tyler t-shirt was a common occurrence in his life.
“What’s this?” Sirius asks with a cold feeling of dread filling his gut.
Remus gives him a look as if he is concerned about Sirius’s mental well-being.
“My pyjamas.”
Sirius nods slowly, his heart racing quickly and his palms starting to sweat.
“Um, so you’re sleeping here?”
He dares to look up at Remus, who is looking at him blankly.
“Is that a problem?”
Sirius scratches the back of his head, and his fingers get caught on a knot in his hair that he quickly starts to untangle. He realizes that he hasn’t looked at himself in a mirror for hours and he probably looks like a mess after spending most of the day in bed.
“Um, you can’t sleep at James and Lily’s place?”
“It’s their anniversary.”
“Right, right…” Sirius mumbles and remembers the grand dinner that James had planned for his very pregnant wife and him in their townhouse.
“And, uh, Peter?” He says carefully, not daring to look at Remus and instead focusing on the now large puddle under his drenched boots.
“Peter lives like a pig, Sirius. His place smells like if something died in there and that thing then was eaten by something even more dead. I’m not sleeping at Peters.”
Sirius nods absently. Panic starting to build in his chest.
“Mary?”
“Sirius.”
“Marlene and Dorcas?”
“Sirius.”
“Um, Gustav?”
Remus stares at him in disbelief, and Sirius feels his betraying cheeks starting to heat.
“Gustav, who I broke up with last week and then spent half a pub night telling you and the guys about how bad the breakup was?”
His tone is dangerous, and Sirius feels a shiver running down his spine that he really wishes would just go away because it is simply not appropriate to be aroused right this second.
That is the problem, really. He cannot control the way that Remus makes him feel and how he has been making him feel for a long time now.
It all started during their last year in school together. Sirius had spent the night at his girlfriend-not-really-girlfriend Estella’s room and came back with aching thigh muscles, a happy grin, and a big purple hickey on his neck. James and Peter had greeted him with the appropriate teasing and name-calling indicating his position as the slag of the dorm. Sirius had taken it in stride but just as he asked where Remus was—the taller boy entered the room with a huge hickey on his own on his neck and an equally as goofy grin on his lips as Sirius’s. That had been until he saw that all of his friends were there, and they proceeded to give him the same treatment as the one Sirius had endured. Sirius had joined in the teasing and proclaimed them as brothers in sluttiness, but there had been a twisting feeling building in his gut each time his eyes had found themselves staring on the offensive mark on Remus’s long bronze neck.
He hadn’t been able to put words on the feeling then. Nor had he known what the reason was when he felt himself flaring up in anger when Remus later that day was stopped by Elias Miller in the hallway as they all walked between classes—and the boy gave Remus a tender kiss on his lips that made Remus’s cheeks darken into an aggressive blush.
It had taken him a few weeks to realize that what he was feeling was jealousy. It had taken him even longer to realize that the jealousy he was feeling was him and his body screaming loudly that he wanted to be in Elias’s position.
He wanted Remus’s arm around him and Remus’s lips against his. He wanted to hold Remus's hand during lunch break, and he wanted Remus to stop sneaking away to Elias’s dorm during the nights but to crawl into bed with Sirius instead.
The realization was earthshattering and horrifying and just so, so obvious when Sirius reflected on it. Sirius had always had a soft spot for his friend, but he just figured that it was just how everyone felt about the abnormally tall welsh man with his strong body but frail health. Realizing his feelings were different from others who seemed completely unbothered by Remus’s new boyfriend was shocking.
One of the worst parts was that Sirius was rather sure that Remus had been having a bit of a crush on him for a few years leading up to that point. He couldn’t be sure, but he had often gotten the feeling that the taller man looked at him in a way that his other friends didn’t. He could sometimes notice how Remus’s skin broke out in goosebumps when they touched and that he quickly looked away and blushed whenever Sirius walked around in their dorm only in his underwear. Sirius hadn’t thought much about it. He liked being liked and the attention of his friend was nothing that bothered him. He just kept on as he always had and dated girl after girl after girl. He was straight, after all. Well, up until that point, he thought he was.
Now, two years later, he knew that he definitely wasn’t straight. He also knew that his crush on Remus had grown into something wild and hard to contain—but something he was determined to keep locked in its cage.
A few months after school, Remus and Elias had broken up when Elias moved abroad. It had been amicable, but Remus had still been sad about it. Sirius had decided he would wait a month before he would begin to explore if Remus could be interested in trying something more than friendship with him. But to his surprise and despair Remus called him just a week later and talked vividly about a new guy he had met. Apparently, he was called Zain, owned a camper van, and was even taller than Remus. Sirius hated him.
Zain and Remus had, luckily, only been an item for one terrible month. Remus had ended it, and when Sirius asked why, he had just shrugged and said that he had realized that Zain wasn’t who he was looking for.
Sirius had ended that conversation with wild hope in his chest that he himself was the one that Remus actually wanted to be with. He had gone home to his flat and started to form a plan for how he would begin his courting now that Remus was single.
Remus was single for exactly 24 hours that time.
The next day they had been out together with their friends from school. Sirius had a plan to flirt aggressively with his friend but before he got enough liquid courage in his system to dare to make a move, it had been too late. He had found Remus in the bathroom with his hands all over the body of Fabian fucking Prewett. Sirius had watched frozen for a few seconds how Remus tongue desperately explored the mouth of their former classmate. When Fabian gave out a high giggling sound into Remus’s mouth Sirius had escaped into a toilet stall and silently cried with his hands pressed against his ears to tune out the sounds of the snogging pair on the other side of the wall.
That relationship had lasted three torturous months where Sirius had to endure Remus bringing his now-boyfriend on every single social occasion they shared. It was a horrid time that Sirius later would refer to as the three-month ginger plague.
When Remus texted their group chat with the news that he had broken up with Fabian then he used the same words to describe why as he had with Zain—that he wasn’t the one he was looking for—Sirius had literally sprinted to his place in hopes of getting there before Remus had the time to fall hopelessly in love with the fucking landlord or someone else equally ridiculous.
But Remus had not been home when Sirius knocked on the door. He had left in a hurry ten minutes earlier to get home to his parents in Wales where his dad had been rushed to the hospital because of a heart attack.
Lyall recovered quickly—the heart attack had been minor—but it was scary enough for Remus’s mom to put him on a low-cholesterol diet plan for life.
Remus had returned after a week, exhausted from spending time at his parents’ house but happy because he (to Sirius’s dismay) told them all that he had met someone special when he was there.
Gustav was a lovely, lovely guy. Sirius wanted to hate him so much.
In the beginning, he did, but the pale, blond, Scandinavian bloke was just too fucking endearing to dislike. He was funny, caring, and smart. Remus and he seemed so perfect for each other that Sirius had multiple breakdowns during their time together where he wanted to both gouge his eyes out and simultaneously cry from happiness that his best friend had found such a beautiful loving partner.
When Remus sat down one week earlier and told them all about Gustav and his breakup, Sirius had actually cried. It was both because he was sad that Remus had lost his boyfriend but also because Sirius would genuinely miss having Gustav around. Once again Remus explained his decision to break up with the words that however much he loved Gustav he couldn’t continue because Gustav wasn’t who he was looking for.
Sirius got home that night with a dark and biting feeling in his chest. Remus was now single again, and Sirius should get ready to pursue him. But how could he ever live up to the love that Remus had already experienced? If the lovely Gustav hadn’t been enough, then surely there was no chance for Sirius to meet Remus’s standards. What if he went for it, was lucky enough to be accepted, and then have it end with the words from Remus that Sirius just wasn’t the one he was looking for.
That just wouldn't do.
He should probably have made a decision about what to do then, because now, a week later, Sirius finds himself in a bit of a pickle.
Remus is naked in his shower, washing the remains of his ceiling away from his hair and getting ready for sleep. Sleeping which he will be doing with Sirius. In his one-person bed. Alone together.
And Sirius is panicking.
He lay under the covers in his bed, trying his best to find a way of breathing that seems natural and un-bothered. It is a tricky task when his heart is running an actual marathon in his chest at the same time.
Remus will stay over. In his bed. He will wear those flannel pyjama bottoms with too-short legs that Sirius have fantasized about taking off him numerous times during his years of pining. His curls will be splayed on Sirius's pillow, and warmth will radiate from his body while they sleep side by side in the cramped space.
That is what's going to happen, and Sirius will survive it.
Only, Sirius feels like he probably won't survive it. Being that close to Remus hasn’t happened since long before Sirius realized what his warm and fuzzy feelings for his friend meant. In their early school years, they had shared a habit of sleeping in the same bed. The two boys, smaller then now with their early teen bodies, had laid under the covers and hugged each other to sleep. Then it was never with any nefarious intentions, but just because they loved each other and felt safe in each other’s arms. To hear Remus’s quiet footsteps approaching the bed and feel the body of his best friend sliding in under the covers had been something that Sirius loved greatly. All of that had stopped when Remus started dating Elias, and they had never spoken about it again after that.
So, to Remus, it probably isn't a big deal to share a small bed and to be forced to be close just because of the limited space. But to Sirius, this is not only a big deal but a recurring fantasy that he has tried his best to suppress but sometimes (often) been letting himself indulge in.
He hears the sound of the shower being turned off in the other room, and his heart rate spikes even more.
He will just have to breathe, and everything will be fine.
Or no, fuck, not breathe—then he will smell Remus’s unbelievably perfect scent. He will have to hold his breath, and then everything will be fine.
But then he will die from lack of oxygen! Fuck, maybe if he only breathes through his mouth. But then he will have to hold something over his nose, because otherwise, he will forget—and shit, he doesn't have anything to hold it with except for his hands, and then Remus will think that Sirius thinks he smells bad!
Sirius is actually considering how to can duct-tape his nose shut when Remus enters the room from the bathroom, looking like a fucking snack in his pyjama bottoms, t-shirt and damp curls in a wild mess on his head.
“Are you going to be normal now, or are you still having some kind of weird aneurism?” He asks with an amused smile, and Sirius takes a nervous breath—feeling the scent of Remus filling the room and instantly scolds himself for breathing.
“No, I’m fine,” he mumbles and pulls his blanket up over his mouth and nose in hopes that it will help. “Sorry about that, I was just—um—not prepared.”
Remus gives him a fond look and walks over, nudging him to leave room on the bed beside him. Sirius shuffles to the side as much as he can without falling off and then holds his breath as Remus lay down next to him with a tired sigh.
“I tried to call you, you know,” he says sleepily and curls himself up on his side so he’s facing Sirius’s rigid profile.
Sirius lets out a shrill, nervous laugh.
“Right, yeah, sorry about that.”
He feels the faint touch of Remus’s bent knee against the side of his thigh and how his breath tickles his shoulder. Remus is quiet for a bit, but Sirius can feel his eyes on him in the still-lit room.
“What is it, Pads?” He asks after a while, and Sirius stares into the ceiling and swallows.
“It’s—it’s nothing, Moony. I’m just tired, that’s all.”
Remus doesn’t seem to believe him. He’s silent for a moment and then pushes himself up on his elbow and looks down at Sirius with a suspicious expression.
“Did you have plans with someone tonight?” He asks, and Sirius can’t help the strangled sound that leaves his throat. He coughs to cover it up and shakes his head.
“No, shit, no, Remus.”
“Are you sure? Because you’re acting so fucking weird, and I’m starting to believe that I was intruding on a planned date or something. You can tell me if that’s the case, Pads. I can go to Pete’s instead if I must. Sure, his place stinks, but he has a pull-out sofa and makes a mean breakfast, so it’s not all bad.”
“No, no, it’s fine, Remus, really,” Sirius mumbles and looks away from the intense eyes of his friend. “I’m just tired. We should sleep, yeah? Could you turn off the light?”
He closes his eyes in hopes that it will be enough for Remus to let it go. It takes a minute, but then he hears Remus turning his body to switch the lamp off. The room falls into darkness, and Sirius takes a deep breath filled with the scent of Remus and tries to relax his body.
It is not an easy task. The darkness of the room makes their proximity feel even more intense, and Sirius can hear the low sounds of Remus breathing next to him. Every nerve ending in his body feels alive and buzzing with energy. Remus has returned to laying on his side with his face close to Sirius’s neck and his leg pressed against Sirius’s thigh. Sirius can feel his blood pumping through his body and the unmistakable feeling of a building pressure in his abdomen and the tightness of his boxers.
He tries to think of everything nasty his mind can recall. Pete’s flat and the very moldy, half-eaten burrito they once found under his bed. Lily’s vomiting the first months of her pregnancy, and how Sirius had tried to be a helpful friend and offered to clean their bathroom after one of her more wide-spread episodes. Their old headmaster’s beard and how he always smelled weirdly of green pea soup.
But nothing works. Whatever Sirius can conjure up in his mind is not as strong as the feeling of Remus’s warm body next to him and his gentle puffs of air on Sirius’s neck. After a few minutes, he starting to feel in agony, and the need to relieve the pressure and touch himself is excruciating. He squirms slightly, and Remus seems to take this as an invitation to move closer and toss his arm over Sirius’s chest.
Fucking hell.
Remus’s heavy arm over him feels so warm, and Sirius just wants to grip it and hold him closer. He wants to lift it up and trace smooth skin of Remus's wrist with his tongue. He wants Remus fingers in his hair and on his hips and, well, everywhere else, to put it simply.
Sirius worries that Remus can feel the erratic ticking of his heart, so he squirms a bit more, trying to nudge his arm away. This only makes it ten times worse. Remus moves his arm until it is lying comfortably over Sirius’s abdomen. His hand curls over Sirius’s sensitive side, making him let out a small gasp from the sensation. He clenches his teeth close and hopes Remus missed the sound over the noise of the ruffling blanket as he moved. If Remus heard it, he doesn’t mention it; instead, he relaxes his body more against Sirius's and lets one of his bent legs rest over Sirius’s thigh.
This is not good. It is, in fact, disastrous. Remus’s leg is now mere inches from Sirius’s throbbing erection, and if he moves even a fraction, he will for sure feel it.
Sirius holds his breath helplessly, and in those few seconds—as he desperately wills his lungs to magically fill with air without his help—he is unwillingly thinking about koalas.
Koalas has indeed been on his mind the last few weeks. Sirius fell into a loop where he watched video after video of the adorable little creatures living their very best life. A few of his favorite clips focused on a koala sanctuary in Australia, where the caretakers of the animals had been filmed with the koalas closely hugging them. Sirius watched with affectionate smile on his lips how one of the keepers laughed at the camera while several of the fluffy animals climbed up his legs and torso, hugging him like their lives depended on it.
This is what Sirius thinks about now, with Remus clinging to his body like a Koala.
Then, Sirius has to succumb to his body’s disappointing need for air and he let out the breath he has been holding. This makes Remus move his knee just the tiniest bit and Sirius thinks that oh shit, I will never be able to look at a koala again.
This is a fact because, with Remus’s tiny movement, his upper thigh is now pressed against the hard tent in Sirius’s boxers, and Sirius knows that from that point on his relationship with both Remus and the koalas will have to change.
Remus stills abruptly, and Sirius can hear him breathing in sharply.
Then he clears his throat awkwardly, making Sirius wince out of pure embarrassment.
“Um, Sirius,” he whispers in the darkness, still with his leg firmly pressed against Sirius’s aching bulge.
“Mhm, yup?” Sirius responds in a high-pitched voice.
Remus takes another breath before speaking.
“Are you…hard?”
Sirius closes his eyes and begs the heavens for mercy. Maybe his upstairs neighbor can flood his place as well? He would gladly take a cealing falling on his face rather than having to answer Remus’s question.
“Erm,” he mumbles. “Well, yes.”
There’s a silence, and only the sounds of both of their breathing fills the room.
“Is it—” Remus starts and then clears his throat. “Um, is it because of me?”
Sirius’s heart picks up an even higher pace, like if it is getting ready to sprint to the finish line of the marathon it had been running since he realized he would have to spend the night with Remus in his bed.
“Yeah,” he finally says in a quiet voice.
Silence fills the room again but then Remus retracts his body and leans away from Sirius. He feels a sharp sting of shame in his chest.
Remus turns around and flicks the light on, making them both blink to adjust their eyes to the sudden brightness. He turns back around and sits up facing Sirius who is still laying on his back like a stiff board waiting for his damnation.
“Sirius,” Remus says quietly, and Sirius quickly closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to hear the rejection he is sure is coming. It all just happened so fast. Sirius hadn’t even decided if he would try to pursue Remus this time, and now suddenly they are in bed together, and Remus knows, and everything will change.
“I’m sorry, okay,” Sirius says in a hushed small voice and flicks his eyes open to watch Remus’s open expression. “I’m so sorry. I just can’t help it. It’s just—you. And I have tried so hard to not to want this for years, Remus. I really have. I’m so sorry. I don’t want anything to change, okay? I’ll get over it. I know I will this time. And everything will be okay, right? Please?”
Sirius sits up in the bed while he’s talking and looks pleadingly at his friend. “Nothing means more to me than you, Moony, okay? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable around me, so I promise I’ll just get over it, okay? Please do not let me make our friendship weird, please.”
Remus watches him rant with a look of complete shock on his face. When Sirius stops talking, Remus opens his mouth a few times and then closes it again before he finally speaks.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Sirius?”
It is not the response Sirius expected from his kind and caring friend. He isn't really sure what he expected Remus’s reaction to be, but hearing him swear at him in an annoyed tone was not it. Sirius feels anger coursing through him with a suddenness that almost makes him gasp.
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘am I kidding you’!” He growls angrily and clenches his hands into fists. “No, I’m not kidding, but I would appreciate some fucking kindness, thank you. I didn’t choose to fall in love with you, you fuckhead, so do not be shitty about it.”
Remus flinches, and his eyes widens to an almost comical size.
“You’re in love with me!?”
“Eh—” Sirius breathes and then gives him a bashful shrug. “Yeah, a bit.”
Remus lets his head fall into his hands and starts to rock his body back and forth on the bed while mumbling something incoherent under his breath. When he looks up again there is a small smile tugging at his lips.
“How long have you been in love with me?”
Sirius looks down at his hands and hums and avoidant sound.
“Um, since Elias and you started dating.”
He looks up at Remus, who is staring at him in disbelief.
“All this fucking time. So bloody stupid,” he mumbles and sighs hard. There is a rosy warmth that is beginning to spread over his jaw and cheeks.
“I can’t believe this. Who do you think I’ve wanted all these years? Who I just couldn't stop comparing every guy I've been with to?
Sirius blinks and recalls the way he once dared to hope that Remus’s explanation for his breakups were about him.
“I—” he begins, a small hope starting to build in his chest. “I don’t know?”
Remus gives him a meaningful look, and Sirius swallows loudly.
“Me?” He whispers and feels a thrilled jolt of happiness when Remus nods as a response. The smile on Remus lips is growing into a full-blown grin, and Sirius can feel his own face mirroring an equally joyful expression.
“Oh,” he says and lets out a throaty laugh. “Oh, okay.”
Remus shakes his head again, and they stare at each other in silence for a few silent beats, tense and exiting, before Remus lets out a theatrical yawn.
“So, let’s go back to sleep then?” He says with the sides of his mouth twitching with that mischievous smile that Sirius loves.
Sirius smirks at him, nods and settles himself down on the bed again.
“Yep, okay, let’s sleep.”
Remus moves to switch off the light again and then gets back under the covers and reclaims the same position he had been occupying before. The difference now is that he nestles his face into Sirius’s neck, and the hand that earlier gripped Sirius's side moves under his t-shirt, brushing gently against the skin of his abdomen.
“Sirius—” Remus whispers against the side of his neck, and Sirius pulse quickens from the feeling of the shallow breaths and warm lips against his skin.
“Mhm,” he hums and turns his head slightly, making his own lips graze Remus’s forehead while Remus’s hot mouth lingers over Sirius's Adam’s apple.
“Come here,” he murmurs, and Sirius feels Remus's hand move cradle the back of his head, tangling his fingers into Sirius’s loose hair and giving him a soft push so their faces meet, and their lips collide.
The koalas lost one of their biggest fans that night.
Sirius could no longer watch a clip of the furry little animals without thinking about how Remus had held him throughout the long hours of the night.
But that was okay—they kept living their life in the sanctuary in peace and quiet. Never knowing or caring about how Sirius and Remus might have lost their interest in koalas that night—but at least both of them had finally found the person they were looking for.