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Remus was running late. He promised Lily he would be on time and waiting in the library to study. There was just one problem: He had lost his notebook. All Remus had to do was find it, and it was around the dorm somewhere, he was positive.
Had he lent it to James? Or was it Peter that needed his notes from last week? It was one of them, and they had lost his bloody notebook. Remus huffed and moved over from his bed to James’, rummaging around looking for the one notebook so he could just leave, already.
It was times like this that Remus wished they were all a bit tidier. James was probably the most organized out of the bunch. He had his bed spotless, with everything in its place and a place for everything. Remus tried to keep his bed somewhat manageable, but other times the mess was unavoidable. This was one of the times his belongings were actually in order. On the other side of the spectrum were Peter and Sirius. The pair were complete slobs. Sirius was a little worse than Pete, but not by much. Their beds were never made, clothes were surrounding it like a moat of dirty laundry. Their books were all askew and pieces of parchments were shoved everywhere.
There was nothing there, so he moved over to Peter’s bed. Leafing through textbooks and pieces of parchment. He grabbed a quill that was laying next to discarded books and slipped it into his pocket, Peter wouldn’t notice, and if he did he probably wouldn’t care. It was retribution for the one he had broken anyway. Sadly, his notebook wasn’t there either.
He moved on to Sirius’s bed. Remus didn’t remember lending his notebook to Sirius, but it didn’t hurt to check. Remus moved textbooks, and clothes, but there was nothing. He looked over at his bed and saw a corner of a black book poke out from underneath the pillows. Remus grabbed the pillow and tossed it over and there it was, his godforsaken notebook sitting on Sirius' bed. Sirius must have just taken it without asking, which wasn't unusual. he had probably tried to study and had fallen asleep trying to read it. Remus honestly didn’t blame him, potions were a bore and enough to put anyone to sleep.
He grabbed his bag off of his bed and rushed out the door. Lily was going to kill him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“You’re late,” Lily said, not looking up from her book.
She was sitting at their usual table. The space around her was covered with books and parchment. Her bag was in Remus’s seat. It was a small table in the corner of the library, pressed up against the window. Quiet enough to get proper work done, but not so quiet that it was disturbing and eerie. The shelves made nice walls around them, giving them privacy if they wanted to forgo the work and simply talk. Usually, this happened about an hour after most of their work was done, they would chat about anything.
“Barely,” Remus shrugged.
“Twenty minutes? Really?” She looked up at him with a glare. It was a look that Remus had seen her give James and Sirius since their first year. It was rare it was ever directed at him, he knew she didn’t mean it, but it was still jarring.
“Bastard took my notebook,” Remus murmured, feeling small.
“Alright, then let’s blame the bastard,” she said. It was silent for a moment while Remus sat down next to her and took out his things. “Which bastard are we blaming?”
“Sirius.”
“Typical,” Lily said with a toss of her hair.
Remus laughed, grabbing his books from his bag. He began to flip through his notebook, trying to get to the last entry from class.
Oh.
Oh shit.
There weren’t any notes on the pages that Remus was going through. They were sketches. Intricate, detailed drawings filled all the pages.
One of the common room fireplace, Peter playing chess in the corner of the page, James tossing his snitch in the air, and Remus himself, curled into a chair reading. The next page had a stag in the Forbidden Forest. Another, of a secret passageway they had added to the map in the earlier stages. Another and another of scenes from around Hogwarts, that was centralized around the four of them.
Remus’ blood ran cold. This was Sirius’s sketchbook, the same one he never let anyone look at.
There were a bunch of blank pages, and Remus thought the drawings were over. But he continued to flip through anyway. When he saw another sketch, he almost dropped the book. He froze in his chair.
“Remus?” Lily asked. “Are you alright?” She leaned over his shoulder and looked at what he had been staring at. “Is that…?”
“Me,” Remus breathed.
The sketch was outstanding, it was Remus laughing. His head was thrown back, and tears were evident in his eyes as he clutched at his stomach. Remus stared at it completely frozen. His heart was thudding so hard it was practically trying to beat out of his chest. And then, even though he probably shouldn’t. Even though he should probably close the book and shove it back into his bag and never look at it again, he turned the page.
It was Remus again. Except this time he was asleep on a chair in the common room, with the fire burning and the couches and chairs surrounding him were empty. He turned the page again. It showed Remus, smiling widely over his shoulder at whoever was drawing the picture, with the open sky above him, and trees in the far distance. He flipped it again. Remus, biting his lip in concentration, with a quill in his hand staring down at a book. He turned the page again. This one depicted Remus with his wand pointed out, casting a spell. He flipped the page. Remus, with a flower, tucked behind his ear, grinning. He turned the page. Remus eating a piece of chocolate. Again. Remus smiling into his cup of tea.
It was all Remus.
He slammed the book closed, turning to look at Lily who was staring wide-eyed back at him.
“Shit,” he said. “I’m still missing my notebook.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Just calm down,” said James. “We’ll find it.”
Sirius was throwing objects over his shoulder. Tearing apart what minuscule order his part of the room actually had, which was practically none.
“Maybe, if you cleaned up your stuff, you wouldn’t have lost it in the first place,” James said, sounding unbelievably smug.
“Prongs, this is not the time for an ‘I told you so’.”
“Then when is the time?”
“When I’m not panicking.”
“Why are you panicking right now?”
Sirius turned around to look at James in disbelief. “Because I can’t find my bloody sketchbook.”
James nodded, “Yeah, I got that part. I meant that it couldn’t have left the dorm room. What are you so worried about happening?”
What was he so worried about happening? Oh, he didn’t know. Maybe it was Remus finding it, and looking through it, and realizing that Sirius was completely gone over him. And then by extension becoming incredibly uncomfortable and not wanting to be around him anymore. How was he supposed to tell James that? James knew he loved Remus, but he didn’t know about the drawings. No one did. That was the point of them, they were private.
The drawings were his outlet for when thoughts of Remus became too much to handle. When it felt like he was going to explode from feeling so much for one person and not tell them. There were only so many times he could tell James about how beautiful Remus was. How nice his hair looked that day. How much he wanted to kiss Remus and find out if his lips were as soft as they looked. He would bet his entire Gringotts vault they were.
Sirius had been drawing for years. It was his hobby, a talent he had that most of his friends didn’t. When the map was still being made he was tasked with drawing a lot of the secret passageways, because, according to James, they were crucial to getting right. Sirius loved drawing, it was like having a picture but knowing that he made it, that the picture only existed because he had sat down with a pencil and created it.
His drawings of Remus had begun years ago. At first, he told himself it was because they were friends. Sirius usually drew all three of them but when he drew James and Peter he never cared too much about getting them just right, they were drawn simply. It was only Remus that Sirius had found himself laboring to get exactly right. The details of his face, the way his smile rose higher on the left side of his mouth than his right, and the way his eyes lit up when he smiled. Sirius realized after a while why the details mattered to him so much.
And now, the sketchbook was gone.
Not gone, he reminded himself, just lost.
“Well?” James urged.
“It’s private,” Sirius huffed. “That’s all.”
He looked over his shoulder to where James was leaning against one of the pillars on his bed, looking unconvinced. “Sirius, you know you can tell me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“There are a lot of times that playing the idiot will get you out of things. This is not one of them.”
Sirius sighed, turning around to face James, and going to sit on the end of his messy bed. “My drawings are private. I don’t want someone looking through them. That’s it.”
James raised an eyebrow. “Someone? Or Remus?”
Sirius felt his face flush. Well, there goes the whole secret drawing thing.
“It’s okay. I know about the whole gallery you’ve got going of Moony.”
“How?” Sirius squeaked, incredulously. He had been so careful.
“I know a lot of things, Sirius. Some would even go as far as to say that I’m all-knowing. Omniscient, really.”
Sirius shot him a glare, one that said, Stop being a dick and explain yourself.
“I saw you drawing him,” James said with a shrug.
“When?”
“A couple of times. You do it in the common room sometimes.”
“And you didn’t say anything? Didn’t take the piss?”
James tilted his head, looking at Sirius in confusion. “Cause it wasn’t my place. You wanted it private, so I didn’t say anything.”
Sirius blinked at him. He felt, well if he was completely honest, he felt oddly touched. Leave it to James to be loud and teasing, but probably the most thoughtful and observant person around.
James knew about the sketches and he didn’t say anything. Was it possible that Remus had done the same? Maybe he knew that Sirius was desperately in love with him, and pretended not to know to spare his feelings. Sirius’s stomach tied into knots, he hoped, prayed that it wasn’t true.
The worst part was that it wouldn’t be unlike him. Sirius knew Remus had done it before, when a few girls had smiled at him, batted their eyelashes, and giggled over a joke that wasn’t particularly funny. But then again Remus never believed that anyone liked him. He thought he was too tall, lanky, and his scars were pretty deterring.
“Do you think he knows too?” Sirius said, looking down at his shoes.
James sighed, walking towards Sirius’s bed and sitting next to him. “Moony? Nah, I love him to death, but he’s an idiot.”
Sirius laughed, “Lucky for me then.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Remus wanted to crawl under the table and never resurface until it was time to graduate. In the simplest terms, he was screwed. He had taken Sirius’s sketchbook. Mistake one. Then, he had looked through the first half of the book. Mistake two. Then, he had gone through a whole portfolio of drawings of him. Mistake three.
And now, he sat in a library too distracted to actually do work, and to add insult to injury Lily was pestering him with what he should do about it.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to say something to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to pretend you’ve never seen this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to give the book back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you-”
“Lily!” Remus exclaimed, then looked around to see if anyone had heard him yell. He took a deep breath and the next time he spoke it was quieter. “I. Don’t. Know.”
Lily’s open mouth snapped shut as she nodded and turned back to her book.
He didn’t want to do anything. He wanted to bury himself under a rock and never resurface. Maybe he could become an underground werewolf. If magic existed anything was possible, right?
He took a deep breath. He was so fucked.
What did this even mean? Did Sirius fancy him? The pictures spoke for themselves, and they seemed to be screaming something along the lines of higher levels of affection than friendship. Still, it was hard to think about, or even think could possibly be true. It was getting harder to suppress the gnawing feeling he had in the pit of his stomach. The one that told him that he was reading into it, that it wasn’t true and he was seeing what he wanted to, not what was actually there.
The thing was Remus fancied Sirius. He had for months but he never expected that Sirius might, by a long shot, have similar feelings. Remus had resigned himself to hoping his feelings melted away at some point. Like there would ever be a time in the future where he wasn’t distracted by Sirius’s eyes, of his smile, or his loud laugh. Maybe there wasn’t a light at the end of that tunnel, but he felt miserable at the idea of just pining after someone he couldn’t have. After looking at the pictures, maybe he didn’t have to. Maybe Sirius fancied him back. Maybe he was someone he could have.
The way that Sirius drew him, he looked beautiful. Bordering on angelic. Remus really couldn’t help but ask, was that really how Sirius saw him? Did he really see him as vibrant and lively? He didn’t see a monster when he looked at Remus, did he see past all of that? The scars didn’t look angry and ugly. They looked as intrinsic to Remus as his eyes, nose, freckles, dimples. They looked beautiful.
From all his snooping, Remus had discovered that his eyes were another point of interest to Sirius. There was an entire page dedicated to drawing them. They were colored in, shaded, blended, where they were staring straight ahead, half-closed and there was another where his eyes were winking.
The details and attention were overwhelming and Remus was drowning in it. It was the attention he didn’t even know he was getting. He didn’t know that every time Sirius looked at him, he was seeing him like this. Remus hadn’t known that when he laughed, read, grinned, or even winked, Sirius was watching, and then he was drawing.
Where was Remus supposed to go from here? He had seen the sketches, even though he wasn’t supposed to, no one was. Sirius didn’t let the others look at what he was drawing. It was never made into a big deal. There was no issue with him wanting privacy. It wasn’t unlike when the others left Remus alone if he was reading. It was an unspoken rule among them, leave it be.
But Remus had broken the rule. He hadn’t meant to. He thought it was his notebook, but even if he explained that he didn’t have a good reason for going through the pages. For looking once and again. Hell, he didn’t have an excuse for Lily also seeing them. He might have been forgiven, but Sirius and Lily were not exactly friends, more acquaintances, and that was him being generous. Remus had painted himself into a corner. It was his fault, but accepting that didn’t ease anything about it.
“What am I gonna do?” He said.
“Funny,” said Lily, amusement laced into her voice. “That was my question.”
Remus let his head fall into his hands and groaned. “Lily, I’m screwed.”
“Remus, what do you want to do?”
“Hide in your dorm.”
“It won’t let you up,” Lily reminded him, smugly. “The stairs will become a slide.”
“Put me in a wheelbarrow and push me up.”
“Remus, really, be serious.”
Remus smiled to himself but refused to make the joke about this situation.
Lily closed her book and shifted so that she was fully facing Remus. “First, tell me what you’re thinking, and then what you plan to do about it.”
“I think that maybe Sirius might fancy me.”
“Anyone could have told you that. You probably didn’t even need the sketchbook to know it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Remus, you’re too smart to be this blind. You haven’t noticed anything? The way he looks at you, sits with you in class, in the Great Hall. Did you not notice how he turned Amelia Davies' hair orange when he found out she had a crush on you?”
“For the last time, Amelia Davies never fancied me. She was a nice friend that was all.”
“You’re hopeless,” Lily said, shaking her head.
“As I was saying,” Remus continued, clearing his throat. “I think that Sirius might fancy me.”
“And what are you planning to do about that?”
“I’m going to give him his book back. And then, we’ll see how it goes.”
“Best of luck,” Lily said, patting his cheek.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They hadn’t found it. James and Sirius had been looking for maybe half an hour, and they couldn’t find it anywhere.
“You’re sure it was under your pillow?” James asked checking under the bed for the millionth time.
“Positive,” Sirius said. “I was drawing last night and then I fell asleep.”
“Maybe you took it with you to class, and you forgot it.”
“I don’t take it to class. I keep it here, in the dorm,” Sirius said, shaking his head as he started to feel more and more dread build up in his stomach. He had lost his sketchbook and now it might be gone forever.
“What the hell are you two doing on the floor?”
James quickly stood up, “We’re looking for Sirius’s sketchbook.”
Peter leaned against the door frame, arms folded across his chest while he raised an eyebrow. “So you’re on the floor?”
“How else are you supposed to look for something?” Sirius asked defensively.
“How about with magic?” Peter asked like they were both stupid. “We are wizards you know.”
James and Sirius turned to look towards each other with wide eyes. “We’re morons,” James said. Peter snorted.
Sirius scrambled to get his wand. He felt a huge wave of relief. Why hadn’t he thought to use a spell? Maybe he was spending too much time around Remus and Lily. They always insisted on doing some things the muggle way. It had become a habit.
“Accio sketchbook!”
Nothing happened. The book didn’t come flying out of a corner of the room, it didn’t fly out from under the bed and into Sirius’s waiting hand.
“Maybe you didn’t do it right?” Peter said.
“Why don’t you show me how to do it exactly, then. If you're such an outstanding wizard.”
“At least I remembered that I was one. Instead of laying all over the floor, looking for a book.”
“Enough!” James yelled. “Sirius, try again.”
“Accio sketchbook!” he exclaimed.
Still nothing. That was weird.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Remus was not an athlete. He didn’t play sports. Whether it was magical or muggle, he didn’t participate. He used to when he was a kid and would run around the backyard of his house with his dad, but he was not an athlete.
So when the sketchbook on the table of the library floated into the air and began to fly out of the room, Remus had no choice but to follow. What was worse was, he was following in a run. Remus chased it out of the library leaving behind all of his things, and Lily shouted at him a “good luck” followed by a “tell me about it later”. The book in question was hurtling down the hallways turning this way and that. Remus tried and failed to grab the book out of the air. It was just out of reach, and if he was only a little faster, he'd be able to reach it.
He tried to reach again, and almost fell flat on his face.
Great.
It took him until he was almost at the portrait hole to realize the sketchbook was heading towards Gryffindor Tower. He let out a breath, it wouldn’t be able to go in without the door open.
Just when Remus thought that he was going to be able to grab the book again, a younger student walked up to the portrait hole whispering the password, causing the door to open. Remus watched the book fly through to the common room.
He chased after it, frantically. The book flew up the stairs and towards the dorm. Remus sprinted up the steps trying to grab it before it hit the door.
He finally managed to grab onto the spine of it, as it started through the door. Remus hadn’t thought this through. Suddenly, with his hand on the book, he was being pulled through the dorm doorway.
“Shit!” Remus yelled, colliding into Sirius, causing them both to fall onto the floor, with the book pressed between both of them.
Remus had landed on top of Sirius who looked frozen and wide-eyed underneath him.
“Hi Pads,” he said, trying to ease the awkwardness.
Sirius made a semi-strangled noise from underneath him.
Remus got up off of Sirius and turned to see James and Peter standing off to the side just watching.
Sirius slowly sat up from his lying position on the floor, and then looked down in his lap. Remus saw him realize what the book was and Sirius snapped his gaze back to Remus. Only this time it was angry and something else he couldn’t place. Sirius looked down at the book, swiftly back at Remus. “Is this my sketchbook?”
Remus swallowed, “Uhh, yeah it is.”
James cleared his throat, sparing Peter a quick glance. “Well, I have to go, and, umm, see Minnie in detention.”
“You don’t have detention,” Peter said.
“Oh, well let me go get one then. C’mon Wormy, out we go.” James grabbed Peter’s wrist and dragged him out of the dorm room, closing the door behind them.
Had Remus mentioned how utterly fucked he was?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sirius was still staring at Remus, he hadn’t looked away except to stare at his sketchbook as it had betrayed him. “You took my sketchbook?”
“Well,” Remus started, pulling at the hem of his sweater sleeve. “Not intentionally.”
“Not intentionally?” Sirius repeated, sarcastically. “How did you even get it?”
“I took it from your bed.”
“You did what?” he yelled, shooting to his feet and staring down at Remus. “You had no right!”
“No! It wasn’t like that!” Remus sputtered, standing up. He waved his hands in front of him like he was waving away the implication. “I lost my notebook. And I was looking around for it. I thought that I had given it to James or Peter.”
“I’m waiting for the point,” Sirius snapped.
“I couldn’t find it anywhere. And I was late to meet Lily. I thought you took it. So I looked around your bed and I found a black notebook, and I thought it was mine.” Remus rubbed the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at Sirius. “And, uh, well, I guess you can already realize that it wasn’t.”
Sirius could feel his face flush while Remus continued to look down, finding his shoes incredibly interesting.
“So, did you look in it?”
“What?” Remus asked, snapping his head up.
“Did you look in it?” Sirius asked again, waving the book in his hand for emphasis. It was a stupid question. A stupid, unnecessary question that he already knew the answer to, but he asked anyway.
“Um, yes. I did.”
Sirius felt sick like he’s going to throw up. This was exactly what he was so terrified of, Remus seeing the sketches. He’d seen the vulnerable want that filled Sirius and fueled his art. He felt exposed like someone read his diary out for everyone to hear.
“They’re beautiful.”
Sirius could swear that for an entire minute everything had gone completely still. There was only him, Remus, and those two words.
“You’re an amazing artist.”
Correction: There was only him, Remus, and those six words.
“How much did you see?”
“Enough,” Remus shrugged.
“Enough for what?” Sirius asked, sharply.
“Enough to be a little confused.”
Sirius’s brow furrowed in confusion. What could Remus possibly be confused about? He had seen the drawings. He wasn’t sure what the amount that Remus’ ‘Enough’ meant. It could possibly be the first couple.
“What the hell could you be confused about? There wasn’t a whole lot left up for debate there.”
Remus took a deep breath and fixed his stare right into Sirius’s eyes. “Do you really see me the same way that you drew me?”
And there it is the inevitable question. The part that Sirius was dreading. He had made Remus uncomfortable. He had made him upset, Remus probably thought he was a creep and was just being nice. Having the question spoken, laid out so plainly made Sirius’s stomach twist, giving him the nauseous feeling back. Of course, that was how he saw Remus. Sirius believed there wasn't another way to see him, other than his gorgeous, unbelievable self. Sirius didn’t think the right words existed to properly convey how much he felt for Remus, how deeply he loved him. Words weren’t enough, so art had to be.
“Of course I do,” Sirius said like it was obvious. Like there was absolutely no question whether he saw Remus John Lupin as anything but astonishingly beautiful.
“How?” Remus asked. He seemed to understand that the question itself is confusing. “I mean, how are you able to see me like that?”
Sirius swallowed. Might as well, he thought. It’s all or nothing now.
“I think being in love with you plays a minor role. Other than that, I mean, it’s anyone’s guess.”
Remus blinked, “You’re in love with me?”
“Were the pictures not enough to tell?”
“Assuming is one thing, Sirius. But to be told...”
Sirius’s stomach was twisting again, “You don’t hate me, right?”
Remus didn’t answer as he stepped towards Sirius until he was standing right in front of him. Without a word, Remus grabbed Sirius’ face in his hands and kissed him. Sirius’ brain short-circuited. All he seemed to process was that Remus’ palms were warm against his skin, and how he wanted to melt against him. Remus’ lips weren’t as soft as they looked, they were softer and they tasted like chocolate and tea.
Sirius found himself wanting to simply fade into the euphoric oblivion of kissing Remus Lupin.
He kissed back, their lips sliding together, rarely parting for longer than a second because they don’t really care about breathing. Neither had any idea what they were doing, but they didn't seem to really care. Sirius’ hands slid from Remus’s wrist up to his shoulders, and then he was grabbing his shoulders like he might fall over if he didn’t.
He was kissing Remus Lupin. And he never wanted to stop.
Sirius didn’t know how long the kiss lasted, but in his opinion, it wasn’t nearly enough. Remus pulled away from him and Sirius opened his eyes to see him smiling. Remus leaned forward placing his forehead against Sirius’s.
“I don’t hate you,” he breathed with a fond smile. “You absolute moron, I love you.”
Sirius’s stomach wasn’t twisting or in knots. Instead, it was fluttering.
“Oh,” he said, grinning up at Remus. “That’s good.”
Remus lets out a breathy laugh and Sirius could feel it on his lips. He put his hand on Remus’s cheek and guided him down to meet his lips. It was short and sweet, and Sirius did it just because he knew that he could now.