NOT SO SECRET ADMIRER PRT.2 (secret admirer reader au)
“Nice try, Moony,” Sirius pats his pitiful friend’s shoulder with an apologetic smile. It didn’t start off like this. In the beginning, when Remus first started trying to approach you, whenever he was able — in the great hall or in the corridors —, Sirius laughed at his friend’s miserable attempts but now… now it was just sad.
“She called me pretty,” Remus sighs sadly, “so why is she always running away from me?”
“Maybe you’re just too pretty?” Peter muses, scratching the back of his neck bashfully, “I know I wouldn’t dare approach anyone I thought was too pretty,” at his comment, James comes up behind the blonde to wrap an arm around his shoulders and give him a comforting squeeze.
“Thanks Pete,” Remus musters a weak smile but it isn’t enough to lift his mood. His focus is nowhere in particular as he contemplates the karmic reasons for his current circumstance in love. It was even more difficult to approach you because you were a year younger and a Ravenclaw, meaning that you already spent little time together atop not being in the same year group.
“At least you two have something in common,” Sirius sighs, his voice straining slightly as he stretches his arms up.
“Yeah?” Remus prompts, flashing Peter a small smile as he watches James ruffle the dirty blonde’s hair affectionately.
“You’re a pair of bookworms,” Sirius points to you entering the library with an impressive pile of borrowed books in your arms. Having followed the direction of Sirius’ finger, Remus smiles fondly at your charming mannerisms. A bookworm chasing another bookworm, how fitting.
Despite his complaints, Sirius became the sole reason Remus spent even more of his spare time in the library — just to catch a glimpse of you. Studying, writing, reading for pleasure or for classes, he’s seen it all and he knows that you know he has.
Ever since you’ve had that run in with Remus in the hallway, where you embarrassingly called him pretty before running away, he’s been appearing everywhere. It was so sudden, you didn’t know what to do. And he keeps making eye contact with you as well. It’s so flustering that you can’t help but run away. In the beginning, you weren’t able to register any of the emotions behind his eyes but after meeting his gaze so often…
“He’s looking at you the same way you look at him,” your best friend giggles into your ear and earns a shove to the shoulder that only makes her laugh even harder. It makes you frown before the librarian makes her way over and quickly reprimands her. Now you’re the one giggling.
Remus sees all this and can’t help but sigh, a dopey smile on his face. You just look— ‘so pretty… I want to make her laugh like that all the time…’ Remus thinks to himself.
“He’s in love…” Sirius gags to his right, his expression pulled into a look of repulsion “it’s so disgusting,”
Remus rolls his eyes and continues to stare at you, “I’m not as bad as James,”
“Hey!”
“True…” Sirius muses and is slowly followed by James grumbling pathetically as Peter rubs his back in comfort.
Just as Remus rolls his eyes and turns his gaze towards you once more, you lock gazes; instead of immediately running away, Remus sees the beginnings of a smile on your lips before your face disappears behind a book. It took an entire month but he’s finally got his foot in the door! He could start singing if he wanted to!
You weren’t running away anymore so Remus had some confidence that he could finally speak to you and have a proper conversation, he just needed to have the right entrance.
“Is this seat taken?” Remus asks, holding his breath as he sees your grip on the book cover tighten. You don’t answer and simply stare up at him with your mouth agape so he sits down anyway, not too close but not too far away, “There weren’t any other seats, sorry,” you look around and immediately notice several free seats that he could have sat at.
“U-Umm…”
“What are you reading there?” If there was one thing Remus learned from Sirius, it was that gentle persistence was key.
“...Standard book of spells, grade 5,” you reply in a soft voice, avoiding Remus’ eyes by focusing on the book in your hands. It seemed like you were both back to square one again since you completely avoided his eyes but he won’t be deterred.
Remus has seen the large amount of parchment surrounding you when first approaching and now that he’s had a closer look, it’s easy to suspect why, “you have exams coming up?” you affirm his speculation with a hum and a nod, “would you like some help?”
Whenever Remus saw you studying at the library, he’d take the nearest available seat and tutor you willingly, never taking ‘no’ for an answer— not that you could ever say ‘no’ to him, he wasn't even coercive; he always addressed you with the gentlest tone and with the kindest, most patient eyes you’ve ever been witness to. You were practically a puddle of gloo in the palm of his hands. That didn’t jeopardise your studies, however; Remus was an excellent teacher, better than half of the teachers in the school put together and your performance in class was skyrocketing.
You saw Remus almost every day for three weeks and your exams were quickly approaching but, rather than become anxious over the approaching dates, you only grew excited at the prospect of proving yourself academically — it was the true Ravenclaw in you.
“Good job,” Remus praises and offers a square of chocolate that you immediately brighten at. These were one of the many highlights of your study dates with the older Gryffindor, he always carried bars of the sweet, creamy treat with him and loved conditioning you into thinking that the taste of academic success was chocolate. You had no complaints, however; you love chocolate and gave it your full, undivided attention whenever given a piece for a job well done.
Beside you, Remus rests his chin on his palm and smiles in adoration of your precious appearance. You look too adorable eating your prized chocolate for Remus to not lovingly stare at you. It makes you all the more loveable to him and he’s grown addicted to the warm, fluttering feeling in his chest whenever you do something so lovably sweet — happily indulging in his many offerings of chocolate were one of those things.
“Your exam is tomorrow, right?” Remus muses as you finish up your square of chocolate.
“Yup!”
“You don’t seem worried,” lifting your gaze up, you find Remus smiling at you with such an admiring stare that you have to look away. You don’t think you’ll ever get used to such affectionate attention from someone that gives you butterflies.
“I’m pretty confident,”
“If you get a good grade, I’ll treat you to a butterbeer in the next Hogsmeade weekend,” his promise catches you off guard; you believed that your little ‘dates’ were restricted to school work only so his proposal and all of its implications warmed your chest like no other, “if not, then I’ll treat you to anything you want at Honeydukes,”
“R-really?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” his eyes told you everything you needed to know to trust in his words.
With a shy nod and a soft, “alright,” the date was set; both of you knew that you were going to pass with flying colours so there wasn’t any need for such a condition — Remus should have just asked you out plain and simple but… he gets shy around you too. In a spontaneous act of courage, however, Remus leans over and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead, holding your chin in between his thumb and pointer finger.
With mutually hot cheeks, you two look into each other’s eyes with awe, “I really hope you get those grades,” he whispers just as a small assembly of gasps, encouraging shouts, shoving and hitting could be heard in the background. The marauders sat across from you, on a separate table, and saw the bold move Remus just made. And, of course, it was their job to embarrass him as much as possible by purely uplifting his romantic venture.
“Way to go, Moony!”
“Scored a date, did ya’?! Lucky bastard!”
“Save some forehead kisses for us too, okay?” As Sirius flutters his lashes dramatically, Remus takes the book in his hand and whacks them all upside the head as you remain seated with your racing thoughts and pounding heart.
“Shut your trap, we’re in the library,” Remus scolds, voice stern and eyes cold, a contrast to his usually soft demeanour around you. It was quite attractive seeing a different side to him. And, like clockwork, you begin to daydream of the brunette, eyes still fixed on his tall, broad figure when he turns to face you with a smile, as beautiful as can be.
You really hope you get those grades too…