The one where James finds out
James Potter has never been one to pick up on things easily. God bless his heart, but for a bright wizard he’s as oblivious as a toddler. Most social cues would fly over his head, unless acknowledged by Lily or his mates. He liked to claim that this blissful state of partial oblivion was the key to happiness. The downside was that it was easy for strangers to think of him as obnoxious or a bit thick. Thankfully, strangers’ opinions always failed to threaten his ego or his well-known cheery attitude.
Considering his rather oblivious nature, one might imagine how painfully obvious was the chemistry between Sirius and Remus, for James Potter to notice it. Quite early on as well.
There was nothing really going on during the first 5 years. They were kids after all, and even if that wasn’t the case, it was the 70s. And Hogwarts was only a slightly more progressive boarding school full of teenagers. A bloke could only fancy a girl, let alone show it.
Fifth year was when it all started. Longing glances shot behind (almost) everyone’s backs. Stolen touches in the dark. At first the realisation of this newly-formed bond between his two best friends came with a painful pang of jealousy. Not only two of them seemed to reciprocate the feelings while James still tried to persuade Lily into tolerating his existence, but also in a way he felt stupidly left out. After all, all four of them were friends. Things getting ugly between the two of them would threaten their whole friend group. And it’s very easy for things to get ugly when romantic feelings are involved. And lastly, he was a bit butt hurt that neither of them cared to share their secret with him. Despite his initial reaction, James imagined they could’ve been simply afraid. Especially Remus, he had far more to lose than Sirius who’s family already loathed him. One more thing to dislike about him was hardly ever going to make a difference. But Remus was already burdened with something heavily discriminated against, his furry little problem, as the Marauders liked to call it. Even though the wizarding world was centuries ahead of the muggle’s world when it came down to being accepting of different sexualities, James could imagine that Remus was hardly looking to feel more excluded as it was.
But during fifth year, possibly for the first time ever, James seemed to be the only one to pick up on what was happening between his two best friends. Maybe it was because the Marauders weren’t as close with Mary, Marlene and Lily back then. Or because Peter, unless prompted, kept his observations to himself. But maybe, just maybe, James Potter wasn’t as oblivious as everyone, including him, always believed. Heavy emphasis on the maybe though.
During sixth year everyone who did not pick up on it however, was a fucking moron. In James’s humble opinion of course.
See, the Marauders would share many things, excluding love interests which was one of the iron rules set out between them. But nobody shared clothes more than Remus and Sirius. And considering how different their styles were, it couldn’t have been more obvious. Especially if you consider how crimson red Remus would sometimes get at breakfast. Funnily enough, it was only when Sirius was wearing over-sized sweaters. Interesting, isn’t it? Or how cheery Sirius would get in the mornings when Remus showed up in leather jackets. And let’s make something very clear, Sirius was never happy in the morning. Not even neutral, oh no. Sirius is the definition of NOT-a-morning-person. For at least two hours after waking up earlier than 10AM his facial expression resembled that of a pug. One that was possibly dropped on its face, to put it kindly. Never on mornings when Remus wore Sirius’ signature leather jackets though.
James even noticed a funny little routine that took place on mornings like these. After being forcefully dragged out of bed by James, Sirius would be sitting opposite from him with a sour expression on his face and possibly sighing and grunting like a dissatisfied old lady. Cue Remus’s entrance. Sirius would oh-so-casually look up (he was totally not drilling his gaze into the main entrance) and his eyes would lighten up, accompanied by a cheeky little smirk he would unsuccessfully try to hide. (to this day James believes that one of the reasons why his oblivious ass gets on with Sirius is because there’s nobody on this earth that is less subtle than him. So there’s no need to read any nuanced social cues, it’s all there out in the open). Remus would sit down next to Sirius. After approximately 10 minutes Sirius would, very casually of course, lean in to whisper something in Remus’s ear. And Remus would get crimson red once again. Thinking about this, Remus spent 3/4 of his mornings getting extremely red in the face.
This was James’s favourite kind of mornings shared between his two friends. They were so enamoured with each other they never noticed how he’d cackle at them. Later on, after Lily stopped hating his guts, she’d occasionally smack him for making fun of them only to giggle at their silliness herself. Peter would theatrically roll his eyes and pretend to gag. This type of entertainment would suffice at least until lunch time.
Somewhere during their seventh year, Remus and Sirius applied a somewhat fuck-them-all approach which James enthusiastically approved of. The two Marauders must have realised that 1. nobody cared that much 2. nobody would be stupid enough to try and bully them for few reasons: a) James might be a human version of a teddy bear to his friends, but he’s also stupidly strong. b) Remus is extremely fucking tall. c) Sirius is almost as tall as Remus. And twice as vicious. d) Lily Evans would absolutely fucking annihilate anyone who had the audacity to threaten people she considered family. If James was being honest, mad Lily scared him, just a little bit. Which he would never admit to her face.
But before Sirius and Remus decided to be all open about everything, a hilarious, in James’s opinion, incident took place. Remus still gets embarrassed whenever it’s brought up. Which is why both James and Sirius do their best to do so regularly.
See the things is that James had a list of things in life that he took immensely seriously. A rather short one but still. That list included quidditch, especially after he became the captain. And in seventh year he was determined to beat Slytherins, which he needed Sirius for who was one of the best beaters he’s ever seen. Which would always boost his already oversized ego to the max. And beyond the maximum.
James’s approach towards quidditch is precisely why he angrily stormed off into Gryffindor tower when after 10 minutes of training Sirius was not there, only 2 days before the big match. He decided to theatrically stomp on his way to their dorm. But as it later turned out, the stomping wasn’t loud enough.
When he swinged the door to their room open, he saw that the curtains around Sirius’s bed were drawn, which led him to assume that the little fucker was having the best nap of his life, especially after the party that took place the day before, instead of sweating his ass off on the field. ‘SIRIUS YOU LITTLE FUCK-TWAT’ James yelled as he stomped over to his bed. In his determination he failed to register the panicked shuffling of sheets or Sirius’s even more panicked:
‘JAMES WAIT NO-‘
After opening the curtains James was not surprised to find Sirius butt ass naked (Sirius famously slept with nothing on), but he was however surprised to find someone going down on him. Now, with all this shock, imagine his surprised he was to see that it was Remus.
James first stood petrified from the shock before breaking out into the loudest laugh ever heard and turning around to give his two friends little time to get dressed (so considerate, isn’t he?). ‘Get fucking dressed morons and Sirius get your ass down to practice.’
His best friends were shuffling around in dead silence, except for James almost pissing himself laughing, before Remus uttered: ‘James we can explain, I swear.’
James snorted with laughter. ‘Can I turn around? I’m so curious how one would go about explaining that. You lads covered your dicks up?’
‘Yeah…’ Sirius replied.
The two of them was such a sight that James couldn’t help but cackle again. Remus looked like he was about to die and Sirius did as well, although there was a shadow of a grin on his face. They were sitting on the bed next to each other, looking up at James like children who were about to get scolded.
‘I tried to warn you, mate.’ Sirius stated.
‘Well you weren’t fast enough, Pads. Now get fucking dressed you’re late so you’ll have to continue some other time.’
Sirius got up and started getting dressed while trying to disguise his smirk. The situation was quite hilarious to be fair. Not the best way to tell your best friend that you and another one of your best friends are shagging, but it was going to make a funny story in the future. Very near future.
James decided to take advantage of Sirius taking eternity to get dressed to tease an already embarrassed Remus a bit more. ‘I’m gonna be dead honest with you Remus, really expected it to be the other way round mate.’ James really enjoyed seeing Remus turn crimson red before burying his face in his hands.
‘Well, I mean-‘ Of course Sirius tried to throw in a snarky comment.
’Don’t even!’ Remus cringed but started laughing at the hilarity of it all. ’Wait, how come are you not surprised?’ Remus’s head shot up.
James rolled his eyes. ‘Oh please you pair of ding-dongs. I knew ever since fifth year. ‘
‘We weren’t even together back then?’
‘Yes, my point exactly.’
Remus cackled. ‘Fuck me, how obvious were we for James Potter to notice?’
Before James had any more time to get the most out of this moment, Sirius ran out of the bathroom fully dressed in his quidditch clothes. ‘Okay well, at least now I get to do this.’ He said before running up to the bed where Remus was still seated and kissing him.
‘Ew, you guys are fucking disgusting.’ Said Peter who just entered the room. The three friends jumped surprised exchanging panicked glances and the tense silence made Peter look up from the drawer he was currently going through. ‘What?’ He looked between all three of them. ‘Oh- wait, fuck. I’m not homophobic, just fucking hate PDA that’s all.’ That made all of them chuckle. ‘But about time you guys started being one of those disgusting Hogwarts couples though. Took you long enough.’