Sirius
"Someone had a good night." Lily grinned as she sat down next to Sirius at their favourite library desk the next morning. Sirius didn't like to study but Lily didn't like to study alone. Living with Petunia, she had grown used to a usual level of annoyance when attempting to study although she probably didn't need to. She could pas any exam doing a head stand while drunk and simultaneously half asleep. She took pride in being smart but was never as smug about it as she deserved to be. Lily was beyond perfect in almost every way but she could not resist a bit of gossip. In that way, she was only human. Just like the rest of us. Telling stories about people she knew in a morning 'study' session with Sirius was her wind down time. The rest of their friends were great to relax with but Lily and Sirius had found something special in each other. At first it was laughing at various stupid thing James or Remus would say or do but then it blossomed into a friendship beyond either one of their expectations. They seemed unlikely friends. The redheaded, shy, studious muggle born girl, raised in the north of England and the Pureblood heir to a throne that upholds all the terribly bigoted and close minded standards that the muggle born girl opposes. Of course, Sirius never once shared any of these views that his family thrust upon him. It was a rarity of sorts to find a child raised by nothing but blood supremacists, who by some chance of fate had never even once believed anything his parents had told him. It was as if he had been born good. Blessed, if you will. My point is that they are such unlikely friends that they had no choice than to be so close that at least one set of ancestors were rolling around in their graves.
"Huh?" Sirius snapped out of his daze all of a sudden. He hadn't remembered getting dressed even though he was wearing his version of the school uniform (overly creased and untucked shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the first button undone, no robes, no jumper and a very loose tie that did not always stay on his neck with the regular black tailored trousers), and he could not remember getting to the library even though he was clearly there. He seemed to be wandering around the castle in some kind of lovestruck daze. He didn't now what time it was. All he knew was that he kissed Remus last night and had not stopped thinking about it since. Thinking about soft pink lips on his, about long fingers running through his hair, big brown eyes looking into his and a low voice whispering 'good night' before leaving him there. "Um, yeah. Kind of."
"Wait..." Lily peered at him through stunning green eyes. Green eyes are rare enough but Lily's had to be the product of some kind of charm. No eyes could be that green. Not naturally anyway. She pulled it off though. Eyes that bright don't suit everybody but it would be hard to find a look or something that Lily didn't suit. She was stunningly beautiful in a way that you could understand how James spent nearly five years completely in love with her. Sirius thought she was beyond beautiful too but she wasn't really his type which, in his opinion, made their friendship better because he would never find himself feeling romantic about her. "You're like... happy."
"Yeah." Sirius nodded along, not finding it in himself to make a sarcastic comment or to even get slightly annoyed at the surprised tone, dripping off of her tongue at every single word that came out of her mouth. "I am." Because he was happy and he had spent too much time wallowing in his own self pity that happiness was a welcome break from all of it. It was oddly refreshing like having a cold shower during a heat wave. Sirius didn't think anything could ruin his mood today.
"Not JUST a hook up, then?" Lily cocked an eyebrow. She had great eyebrows. Naturally too. I mean, you could tell their was a little product and everyone, not just girls, had to pluck the occasional straggling hair but apart from that they were pretty much perfect. Lily was such an odd blend of everything perfect, grades, personality, looks. It must have been so tiring to wake up every day and be. To others around her, though, Lily's flaws were more obvious but too her friends, Lily was shinier than gold.
"What do you mean?" Oh no. He couldn't let on. This was too soon, to precious. Like a new born baby that you have to cradle until it stops crying or a new posh china set that is place precariously on the edge of a table. Sirius felt that if he said too much, squeezed too hard, pushed the plate closer to the edge, everything would come crashing down. He couldn't ruin this so early.
"You're not usually this level of happy when it was just a meaningless shag. I mean, you are beyond out of it. Whoever you got it on with, you liked them. Like a lot." Lily explained all matter of factly as if she had read this in a textbook. "Oh my god! Is it that girl? The one that you've liked for literally ever."
"I didn't 'get it on' with anybody." Sirius used his index and middle fingers on both hands to create air quotes, rolling his eyes but nothing could ruin his mood this morning. But he was ignoring her question because in all truth, there was no 'that girl'. Sirius had made her up so that he could talk to Lily about his feelings for someone else who happened to not be a girl and also happened to be a shared best friend of Lily and Sirius and also happened to be the person that Sirius had kissed and hadn't stopped thinking about. Sirius hadn't fully accepted what it might mean for someone like him to feel like this about someone like Remus. He'd always seen how he felt about Remus as an exception to his heterosexuality. So he didn't worry much.
"No." Lily gasped as if Sirius had just told her that they were secretly siblings and he also joined a murder sex cult.
"What? What no? No what? What?" Sirius didn't know what epiphany Lily had just experienced but he was worried about it. He was worried that somehow his thoughts had leaked from his brain to Lily's through some kind of proximity magic and now she was seeing everything that his brain had made up. But of course that hadn't happened and he was just paranoid.
"You really do like her, don't you?" Lily asked, her eyes wide as to absorb all possible information from Sirius' micro expressions as she could but they also had a kindness to them that made Sirius feel safe. Not safe enough but still safe.
"What? Because I didn't shag someone, it means that I must be head over heels for them? I'm confused because I thought it was meant to be the other way around."
"It normally would be, you know. Like when Remus met Elsie at the Welcome Back Party and disappeared with her to Ravenclaw tower, if you know what I mean, he never does that kind of thing, he's Remus. But you could tell he really liked Elsie because he went out of his comfort zone, changed a habit or whatever for her. But you're Sirius. You don't just kiss a girl and leave without, well, you know. But you did for her because you really like her."
"What do you mean? So, if Remus was to kiss someone and not let it get any further, it would mean that he didn't actually like that person?"
"Well, Remus doesn't kiss a lot of people, so I guess if he were to kiss a person, it would mean that he liked them. I'm not sure. But either way he wouldn't."
"What do you mean he wouldn't?"
"He wouldn't kiss someone."
"Why not?"
"Because he's dating Elsie. Remus isn't a person who cheats. Like, seriously? He's the nicest person that any of us knows."
Oh.
"But what if he was with Elsie but there was another person, someone that he really liked, like he was actually head over heels for them, would he kiss them even though it might be considered cheating?"
"I don't think so. He's Remus. It just doesn't sound like him. I think, though, if he was actually beyond in love with someone that was not Elsie, he would break up with Elsie before even thinking about cheating. Remus doesn't hurt people on purpose, that's just not who he is."
"Oh."
"Why are we even talking about Remus? Aren't we meant to be talking about your possible new girlfriend?" Lily squealed, grabbing Sirius' shoulder and shaking it slightly as if she was shaking some sense into him. He wished that he could shake some sense into himself. Someone as good as Remus could never feel the same way about him. It was unfair to say that Remus was pure and untouched by this cruel world but to Sirius he was perfect. Ideas about perfection varied from person to person but if you asked Sirius he would say that perfection could be found in a lanky kid covered in scars, who didn't sleep at night and drank too much coffee for his own good. And someone that perfect could never love someone like Sirius. Not in Sirius' opinion anyway. He needed to get a grip.
"I don't know. It was just one kiss. I don't even think it meant anything." Sirius shrugged. Maybe he was telling the truth.
"So what, you're the happiest I've ever seen you and after a five minute conversation about Remus and his girlfriend and now the kiss that made you that happy was just a kiss and you don't even care?" Lily shook her head she spoke a little just to misplace the ginger curls around her face, her youthful smile telling of her light hearted confusion.
"No, its nothing to do with Remus or his girlfriend- I mean Elsie. I was just blowing it all out of proportion, it was only a kiss. I mean, what's going to happen? Do I ask her out? How would that even work?" Sirius brushed her hand off his shoulder, he looked down at his empty notebook. Maybe he should be studying.
"What do you mean? Just take things slowly and it'll be fine." She was still confused but she wanted to help whatever was going on in her best friends complex mind. If she could straighten out one tangle in the mess of wires that occupied his brain she could sleep easy tonight, knowing he was slightly better off.
"I can't. That's not how this works. That's not how my story ends." That sounded odd, like a poem or a song lyric or a line out of a vomit inducing romance novel.
"How does your story end, then? Sirius? You die alone and unhappy without ever telling the girl, that you are basically in love with at this point, how you feel?" God that made him sound like that Scrooge guy from that Christmas book Remus was reading last year.
"Yeah, pretty much." Sirius spoke sarcastically, only looking up at her to show her that he was raising his eyebrows.
"Why? Why can't you let yourself be happy this once?" Lily insisted. She couldn't tell why he didn't think he was deserving of love and Lily was wondering whether this girl was all that good since she made Sirius feel so utterly crap about himself.
"Because..." He looked back down, hiding his face behind a silky dark curtain.
"Because what?"
"Because he's happy. And I don't want to ruin that for him?"
"What? Who's he? Why is he happy?"
"He's happy with her."
"The girl you're in love with has a boyfriend? Is that why you were asking me about Remus and Elsie? Oh my god?" And then she paused. A bad pause. A weird pause. A pause that told Sirius what was coming until Lily opened her mouth and said something that he had not expected, that almost made him laugh out loud. "You're in love with Elsie."
"No. No, I'm not in love with Elsie." He grinned, shaking his head, the curtain being interrupted for a brief moment.
"But the girl you are in love with has a boyfriend?" She stated and asked simultaneously.
"No." Was all that Sirius could muster up.
"Okay, I don't get it then."
"He has a girlfriend."
"What?"
"I'm not in love with Elsie, I'm in love with..." Sirius trailed off. He couldn't say it out loud, he couldn't even write it in his diary because he had been lying to himself until Remus had closed the gap between them.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"So, that's why... Wait." Lily started to speak, stopping herself mid sentence a little too loudly so that Madam Pince, who was hidden by a bookshelf or two, could be heard shushing through the entire library as the sound bounced off the walls. Lily looked sheepish for a second before turning to Sirius and saying under her breath. "You and Remus kissed?"