“So when did you realise?” Lily asked over the pile of cauldrons they were supposed to be scrubbing by hand.
“Realise what?” He said, grimacing at how the cauldron cleaner was peeling the black polish off his nails.
“That you’d fallen in love with Remus.” She said nonchalantly.
“I’d… what?” Sirius looked up from his hands. “With… what?”
“Sirius.” She looked at him and smiled, knowingly. “James may be pretty blind… in more ways than one, but I’m not.”
“Moony and I are mates.”
“I’m not disputing that.” She set down her scrubbing brush. “But you don’t sketch Pete or James’ profile on your potions notes and erase it at the end of the lesson.”
“Been watching me, Evans?” Sirius grinned, “Should James be worried?”
Lily rolled her eyes and returned to scrubbing the cauldron.
“Last year,” Sirius said after a while. She just looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate. “I stayed over the Christmas hols with him. Somewhere between watching him open four individually wrapped books from his parents and being genuinely thrilled with each one, trying to decide which he’d read first and changing his mind seven times and then waking up in the shack the next morning just the two of us. Something changed. I don’t know.”
Lily nodded, “It would be silly to ask if you’d spoken to him about it, wouldn’t it?”
“Very much so.” He leaned against the desk behind him. “Too much at risk. I’m sure it’ll pass.”
“Perhaps.” She said. “Or you’ll end up pining for years. Ask James how much fun that is.”
“I will never be like James was,” Sirius said, horrified. “If I wrote poetry, it wouldn’t be derivative, and I’d never rhyme words with themselves.”
‘Seems you’ve thought about this a lot.”
He scrubbed at a particularly stubborn stain at the bottom of the cauldron, “It’s been years in the making really, since fourth year at least. James is my brother, Pete is my best friend, but Remus is something else, and I couldn’t put my finger on it until last year. At first, I tried to convince myself I was just horny. So I… worked on that, and it didn’t help. Then Moony hooked up with Fenwick on his birthday and any denial I was clinging to was pointless. Am I that obvious?”
“Well…” She smiled sympathetically.
“Does Remus know?” He asked quietly.
“Oh, yeah.” She said, “Of course he does.”
Sirius blanched, “What did he say?”
“Something like, ‘Am I losing my mind, or is there a tiny chance that Sirius might like me back?’.”
Sirius spluttered, “Like him— What? Back?”
“Oh, come on, Sirius.” She laughed, “He’s not exactly subtle about it.”
“Yes, he is!” Sirius stared at her. “He— me?” She nodded, “Well, this might be the best detention I’ve ever had. You should get in trouble more often!”