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It didn't start here.
Not here, on the cracked steps. Not here, with his fingers clutching the windowsill like a lifeline, Remus using inches and finger pads to gain enough traction to hold himself up so he could see through the window to the boy inside. No, it did not start here.
Eventually, beautiful brown hair would peep through that window of 12 Grimmauld Place. But it didn't start there either.
It flickered and flickered but it did not start when Remus was young, when his brother grabbed him and said you've just gotta meet James and again when James grabbed him and said you've just gotta meet Sirius.
It didn't start with green eyes, it didn't start with grey.
It didn't start with scars or freckles or dimples or smooth skin.
It didn't start when they developed their own language.
It didn't start when the Blacks forbade them from speaking that language.
It did not start when Sirius loved a girl who did not love him back and he cried and broke and broke because this was the love that was meant to save him. It did not start when Remus picked him up off the bathroom tile and told him no one was coming to save him if he didn't love himself.
It did not start when Peter said he didn't want to be Remus's brother anymore. It did not start when Remus learned Sirius gives the best hugs. It also did not start when Peter came back and said he was sorry but it was a little too late because Sirius was Remus's favorite now.
It did not start it did not start it did not start until
it did
and now here it was, staring Sirius and Remus in the face with round, unblinking eyes, daring them to look away, daring them to look longer, daring them daring them daring them and both of them loved to be dared and loved the game that wasn't a game at all but a choice and a life and sure, every summer was long and sure, Sirius's correspondence was limited but maybe it started when Remus built him special non-traceable pens, maybe it started when Sirius started addressing his letters with dear, maybe it started when the dears were slipping out in real life, maybe it started when the wolf stopped biting the dog, maybe it started
on the kitchen floor
in the middle of the night
after even the house elves were asleep
when the two boys slid down against the cabinets and knocked their heads against wood to keep from saying things too soon.
Maybe it started at the last second of a train home, when they said things too soon.
Maybe it started with that tick tick boom of familiarity, that furrowed brow of sudden recognition. Maybe it was the first time Remus made a paper dragon and sent it careening into the back of Filch's head, burning that bald spot, blaming it on the drafty hallways. Maybe it was when Sirius rattled off constellations and their place in the story of the sky, weaving seamlessly what was nothing more than a conglomeration of cultural histories into one singular tale. Maybe it was the first time Sirius bounced onto Remus's bed and grabbed his teddy bear without a second thought. Maybe it was when Remus combed Sirius's hair every day for a week when his fingers were blown to sausages with a balloon jinx.
Maybe it started when they realized what this was.
Some days that brought a deep, sobering feeling of fear and rot. Other days, Sirius or Remus would have lived every moment of their respective hells again just to have met the other.
Once it started, the two of them had no assumption of permanence and some days hoped for it less than others. Other days it was all they hoped for. They were both all too aware of how young and stupid they were, what with how many times their professors and parents and caretakers reminded them of it, and the pressure to become more than they were felt difficult to achieve when the other was such a strong and passionate and cool and gorgeous tie to who they were now (which would one day become who they were then). But most days they wondered, together or separate, what else it was they were supposed to look for.
Sirius's expectations had at one point been too high and Remus's too low but at the end of the day, when the bell tolled and the only kids out were Remus and Sirius, hand in hand with a map they'd made with their brothers, ignoring the new day and the old day in favor of now, imagining anyone else who wasn't the other was simply and inherently folly.
It was okay for it to be that way.
Maybe it started the first time Sirius heard Remus speak. Maybe it started the first time Remus realized Sirius was interested.
Maybe,
maybe,
maybe,
maybe.
Point is, it started.