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Remus wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up here. 

James was grinning dopily at him from the other end of the rowboat, a slightly crazed look in his eyes. His biceps bulged beneath his school shirt with each stroke of the oars he made, but Quidditch was not the same as rowing, and Remus could see the sheen of sweat on his brow. When James had told him that it was urgent he meet him by the Great Lake after lunch, Remus hadn’t expected to be forced into a boat and taken out into the middle of the lake. 

The sun beat down at them mercilessly overhead, and Remus’ stomach lurched with the tiniest touch of nausea (which he could hardly be blamed for, thanks to the jerk and sway of the boat). He kept waiting for James to tell him why they were out here, without Sirius and Peter, but all James had done thus far was smile and stare. 

“Right.” He was fairly sure that he’d failed to keep the irritation from his voice. “Out with it, then. Why did you call me out here?”

“Merlin, Moony,” James managed between labored breaths, “so impatient. Aren’t you enjoying the—er—atmosphere?”

Atmosphere? Remus frowned, bewildered. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said slowly. 

James struggled with the oars again, but he tried to play it off as effortless. It didn’t work. “You know—sunny day, shiny lake, just you and me and lots of privacy…”

Remus narrowed his eyes. “It sounds like you’re plotting to take me to the middle of the lake and drown me without any witnesses.”

“No!” James looked so alarmed and distraught that Remus almost felt bad. “No, shit, really? It was supposed to be romantic!”

He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but he didn’t take them back. Remus’ eyes widened the longer the silence stretched on. “Romantic?” he ventured. 

James ran a hand through his hair, which didn’t help its natural untidiness. “Well… yeah. I know I’m not the most subtle, but I also know that you don’t like a lot of attention. I thought this was a good compromise!”

“Compromise?” Remus felt a bit lost. A blush was rising to his cheeks, which he’d blame on the sun if anyone asked, and he suddenly felt like he didn’t know where to put his hands, which was ridiculous because they’d been in his lap the entire boat ride. “Compromise for what?”

James finally stopped rowing. He squared his shoulders. “I get to do a romantic gesture, and you aren’t embarrassed in front of the whole house.”

There was that word again. Remus swore in his head. He was not equipped for this type of conversation. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said again. 

James sighed, shoulders slumping. “Moony, isn’t it obvious? The note I slipped you at lunch had a heart on it!” 

“You draw hearts on everything!” Remus protested hotly. It was true! Hearts and snitches, the only two things James Potter knew how to draw. “You drew hearts on your Transfiguration essay!”

“I—well, that’s true, actually. But the lake! Covered in rose petals!”

Remus peered more closely at the water surrounding them. Half-drowned by the sparkling waves were red bits that, at first glance, he’d thought were a product of autumn. “I thought those were leaves,” he admitted. 

“Leaves.” James’ mouth dropped open. “My Transfiguration is better than that, Remus Lupin.”

Remus shrugged. James waved his hands around. “Fine, fine—then how do you explain the romantic boat ride?”

Privately, Remus didn’t think that a huffing James Potter struggling to keep a rickety boat afloat could be considered romantic, but he had the sense that he shouldn’t mention that. “Are you trying to tell me something, Prongs?”

James threw his hands up in the air. “Yes! Moony! I’m trying to tell you that I’m bloody in love with you!”

Hope rushed through Remus, but the more logical part of him squashed it down immediately. He ought to look around and see if Sirius was hiding on shore, because surely this was an elaborate prank—a cruel one, but it would be unintentionally so, because James Potter was never purposefully cruel—

“That’s not funny,” he said quietly, and James looked affronted. 

“Moony,” he said in the no-nonsense tone that he reserved for very serious conversations, “don’t insult me by telling me that my affection for you is a joke.”

The blush overtook Remus’ face, now. “That’s not—”

“It is,” James interrupted. “If I have to spell it out for you, I will. I’m in love with you. It came on slowly, and then it just sort of—hit me like a sledgehammer. Do you know how bloody jealous I was when the Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain said he’d snogged you after the match? I wanted to punch the smirk off of his stupid face—”

Remus opened his mouth, unsure whether he should defend Amos Diggory or not, but James barrelled on. “You’ve been my friend for years. Sirius is my brother, really, and Peter’s a stellar mate, but you’ve always been… special, you know? Kinder than the rest of us. Quieter but cleverer, let’s be honest. I like that you make fun of my taste in music.”

“It’s bloody awful,” Remus muttered, but James wouldn’t be deterred. 

“I like how confident you are in Defense. I like that you have the patience to give up your precious free time to help ungrateful first-years figure out simple wand movements.”

“It’s not simple for everyone—”

“I like,” James said pointedly, “that you chastise me when I’m being a prick. I like to see you in the stands during a Quidditch match, cheering me on even though I know you hate the noise if it’s close to the full moon. I like that you save me a bit of treacle tart because you know it’s my favorite. I like that you snort when you laugh, I like that you’re wicked smart, I like that you often wear mismatched socks—”

“All right!” Remus’ face was on fire. “I get it. Thank you.”

Truthfully, Remus wasn’t sure how to respond. If the question was if he liked James, the answer would obviously be yes—he’d have to be mad to say otherwise. But James was the golden child of Gryffindor—charismatic, funny, daring, Quidditch Captain, and one of the most talented at spellwork in their year. He was the epitome of cool, and it seemed laughable that he wanted Remus to stand at his side. Besides, there was one piece of information that was impossible to set aside. 

“I thought you liked Lily Evans,” he said slowly. “You’ve only been waxing poetic about her since first year.”

Everyone in their dorm had suffered through that poetry. James’ torch for Lily had survived multiple curses and hexes, insults and spurns, even bodily injuries. This confession seemed like it had come from nowhere.

James furrowed his brow. “Remus,” he said gently, “when was the last time I mentioned Lily Evans?”

Remus cast his mind back. Now that James had mentioned it, Remus couldn’t recall a time this term where James had tried to win the other prefect’s attention. “I suppose… last year. After the incident with Snape.”

Lily had been furious after James levitated Snape and—humiliatingly—relieved him of his trousers. Remus prickled with shame when he remembered that he had just sat there, however disapprovingly, and let it happen. He regretted even more that Lily had lost a childhood friend as a result, although it seemed that the friendship had already been on shaky ground. He hadn’t spoken a word to James that night. 

At the mention, James clenched his hands at his sides, ashamed. “Right. I burned that bridge that day, I really did. It wasn’t forgivable; I know that.”

“So… what?” Remus felt a sudden rush of hurt as a thought struck him. “I’m some sort of consolation prize because you blew it with Lily?”

“No.” James looked hurt by the accusation. “Merlin, Remus. No. Listen, it wasn’t until the very end of last year… and over the summer… that I realized why I wasn’t too worried about garnering forgiveness from Evans.”

He was referring to the Prank. 

None of them talked about the Prank. It was an unspoken rule that Remus wasn’t sure how to feel about. On the one hand, he was glad not to have to be reminded of what was the worst betrayal of his life. On the other hand… he wondered if the silence benefited Sirius more than it did him, which didn’t seem right or fair. 

But Remus knew what James was talking about. Remus hadn’t even known that James could feel fury like he had that day. Remus remembered drifting in and out of consciousness in the Hospital Wing and catching pieces of the one-sided screaming match. James had shouted for what seemed like hours at a spookily silent Sirius, then ultimately banished him from Remus’ bedside. James, however, had kept a vigil until Remus had recovered. Even after he’d been released from the Hospital Wing, James didn’t leave his side. On top of that, in a move that shocked the school, James had firmly sided with Remus in icing Sirius out for several weeks.

Eventually, Remus had decided that he didn’t want to lose Sirius as a friend, and then James and Sirius were back to being inseparable. But James hadn’t stopped checking in with Remus. He’d kept in contact with him the whole summer, worried that Remus would succumb to the same thoughts that had plagued him right after the incident now that he didn’t have his friends around to argue against them. 

James had been right, and Remus might have fallen a little in love over the holidays. He wanted to say that it was because no one had ever treated him with such care, but the truth was that James Potter had always been special in his eyes. He was like the goddamn sun—bright, sometimes too hot, but everyone was caught by his gravity. 

“Remus, when that happened—when Sirius told Snape about the Whomping Willow—I’d never been so scared. And maybe this is awful, but it wasn’t because of what you could do to Snape. It was because I knew what hurting him would have done to you. And then, seeing you the next morning all pale and—and so angry—and devastated. Never seen you so devastated. Like you wanted to make yourself so small that you’d just disappear.” James shuddered. “I remember thinking that no one should ever make you feel that way, because it’s so wrong. Coming from Sirius, of all people—I punched him, you know. Didn’t feel like enough.”

Remus hadn’t known that. Before he could say so, James continued. 

“Listen, I know this is unexpected for you, and I’m okay to wait for you to process this however you need to. But I wanted you to know that this is how I feel. I realized last year that losing you feels like the worst thing that could ever happen, and I don’t want to waste any time letting you think otherwise. If you don’t feel the same” —here, James swallowed painfully— “then that’s okay. But I want to be there for you, if you’ll let me.”

Remus stared at him for a long, long time, head reeling. There was nothing but sincerity in those hazel eyes. Remus bit his lip, hard. “I’m a werewolf,” he pointed out softly. “That doesn’t go away. How I feel about it, and myself, doesn’t go away. It may come and go, but I’ll always struggle with it.”

James reached over, not without rocking the boat, and took Remus’ scarred hands in his. “Moony. You’re the strongest, bravest person I’ve ever met. Don’t argue with me, it’s true. I’ve known you since we were eleven, remember? I know how it can weigh you down. I know you don’t always like yourself, even if I wish it wasn’t true. But you know what else is a constant? I’ll never want to stop being there to shoulder some of that weight. And I know I can’t fix it, but there are ways I can help—I had the Animagus idea, didn’t I? I want to be there to support you. Lean on me. Let me carry your books. No one would even know it’s because you’re ill, couples do that all the time!”

Finally, a grin broke out on Remus’ face as he tried to stifle his snort. James pointed at him excitedly. “See! I told you, you always—”

“I like you, too,” Remus admitted. “I… I don’t have a speech like you did.”

James nodded sagely. “I did surprise you with the boat ride.”

Remus barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Right. As I was saying, I don’t have a speech, but…” He took a deep breath. “You were the first person who really made me feel like I was more than my curse. The others are great, but… I dunno. They’re just not you, are they?”

James preened a bit. “No,” he said happily, “they are not.”

Remus nodded thoughtfully. “I think I can lean on you. If you promise to do the same.”

Although he was smiling, James tilted his head and furrowed his brow in confusion. “But… I don’t need to lean on anyone.”

Remus raised a single brow. “Right. Because James Potter never has any problems that he just chooses not to burden the rest of us with?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Bullshit. You know, this will only work if it goes both—”

He was interrupted when James suddenly launched himself across the boat, smashing his lips against Remus’. Remus only had time to make a muffled sound of surprise before they were both submerged in water. 

Spluttering, Remus gasped when he broke the surface. He floundered for a moment, weighed down by his wet—and ruined—school uniform, but then a hand grabbed him by the collar and pulled him over to the capsized vessel. 

“Sorry.” James looked at him sheepishly. “I was blindsided by your unparalleled kindness and got carried away.”

It would have been sarcastic from anyone else, but Merlin help him, Remus knew that James meant every word. He licked his lips, sorely wishing they’d tried that on dry land. “Let’s—”

He broke off when the first droplet of water hit his head. Both Remus and James looked up in disbelief when the sky, previously host to nothing but blue, opened up and assaulted them both. 

“Let’s swim to shore!” James shouted over the rain. “Merlin’s bloody—no, don’t look for the oars, Remus! Come on, quickly, we’ll catch a cold!”

He began kicking in a direction, pushing the boat to stay afloat, and then he stopped. “Er…” James looked around, and Remus realized that his glasses, somehow still on his head after the dip in the lake, were so wet that they probably obscured all of James’ vision. “I have no idea where I’m going.”

Remus laughed, then, loud and unattractive to anyone, apparently, except James. He squinted against the downpour and then spotted a dark mass that must have been the shore. “Come on,” he said, tugging on James’ sleeve. “It’s this way!”

James joined him in his efforts to push the boat to shore, joining in on Remus’ laughter. He kept one hand over Remus’, the casual touch sparking warmth in Remus’ chest. “Permission to try that kiss again once you’re dry and in front of the fire, Moony?”

Remus laughed. “Permission granted, Prongs.”