Verification

Oh sweet Merlin's nipples, but Arithmancy was a painfully boring subject.

To be truthful, it wasn't often that Sirius ever actually preferred being in the classroom rather than wreaking havoc all over the grounds, but today it was especially true. The room was bloody sweltering and the professor was bloody boring and Snape was a mere two bloody seats to his right and he had no bloody way of making mischievous eye contact with James or Remus because the bloody professor had been struck by brilliance and actually split them up this year.

Bloody Arithmancy: the fun-sucking subject to end all fun-sucking subjects.

Sulk accomplished, Sirius looked down at his open textbook and began to read like a good lad. Remus was probably already finished with the reading, hell, he'd probably read the first half of the book over the summer. Sirius smirked to himself. One of the professors had probably seen Remus in Flourish & Blotts weeks before the owls went out with the new lists, given him some suggestions, then run back to Dumbledore to insist that sickly young boy who had the most horrid taste in mates should be one of the prefects this year.

They'd teased him about the badge, obviously, but Sirius thought, deep down, that none of them really meant it. Peter liked anyone with a bit of power, and official, Headmaster-issued power was probably the best kind. James was a little upset he hadn't been the one chosen, since his father had been prefect and Head Boy, and his father before him, and so on, rather a tradition for the Potter men. Sirius was just plain tickled that Remus had been recognized for his talents and persona outside of their little group.

It was one of Sirius's basic positions on life that a man ought to be known for a great number of surprising and unrelated parts of himself. He used his unfortunate blood connection to the Black family and played it happily against his King of Gryffindor image. Now Remus could use his trouble-making company to play off his position of responsibility towards the younger students.

He heard the flutter of pages turning, and realized he'd been staring at the same diagram for several minutes now. Hastily, he flipped to the next page, not bothering to try and absorb any of the review information like he was supposed to. He had a damn good memory, and it would probably be years before the last term's notes and lectures began to leave him.

As his mind wandered, he felt something scuttling around his ankle. Suppressing a grin, he reached down to snatch up the note James had sent his way. They'd invented these little critter things over the summer (with Mr. Potter's help, of course, as they couldn't do magic themselves). Excellent means of passing notes over a long distance; Sirius had to pat James on the back for the initial idea, certainly. He quickly unfolded it.

Oi, Black! Lupin's been staring at you all class, mate. -Potter

Sirius pressed his lips together and swallowed hard. His first instinct was to spin around and confirm that Potter wasn't just taking the mickey, but in the quiet room that would cause more of a ruckus than was best. And besides, James wouldn't make a joke like that, not after...

Oh bloody hell, he had to know. Calming himself, he turned carefully in his seat, wincing inside when a leg scraped a bit against the floor, and found Remus behind him, in the process of glancing up, probably having heard the chair move. Knowing he had to act like normal, Sirius let himself give a wide grin. Remus grinned back, and Sirius felt a warm feeling spread through his stomach and down to his toes. Afraid that the warmth would make its way to his face in the form of a blush, he quickly turned back around and stared again at his textbook.

Well. So much for talking this stupid crush out of his system with James over the summer. If anything, Sirius thought, now it's worse, since James knows and apparently will be acting like those tittering girlfriends of Evans's and nudging me every time Remus bloody looks at me!

Part of Sirius wished he hadn't told James at all, kept it as a little secret for him to cherish and protect and nurture. But late night campfires had a way of bringing deeply buried secrets to the surface, and before Sirius even really knew what he'd been saying he was confessing about the strangely warming feeling of protectiveness he'd had towards Remus since third year.

He'd begged James to describe his feelings for Evans, needing to see if these feelings were truly, as he suspected, a crush, or rather a feeling more often held for a younger sibling. (Sirius never felt this way towards Regulus, but he reckoned that none of his familial relations could truly be called normal.)

Weeks later, faced with the prospect of Remus devoting an entire class period to simply stare at him, Sirius could no longer deny that the sensation of falling in his stomach could signal nothing less than a fierce crush. Really, a crush not unlike those had on him by the greater population of female students around his age.

For a moment, he felt badly for toying with their feelings. But only a moment because, he had to admit, he was a self-centered git if ever there was one.

Sirius was saved from having to delve back into his contemplations of Remus Lupin by the end of the class period, and it was with great relief that he swept his textbook and ink and quills and noteroll into his bag and hefted it to his shoulder as he rose from his seat. Turning, he stepped towards the back of the room and took a deep breath before making eye-contact with Remus again.