I'm doing homework, Remus beside me, but I look up suddenly when I hear a snapping sound.
"Are you okay?" I ask Remus, looking at the broken quill in his hand.
"Stressed." He mumbles, dropping the quill to the table.
"Full moon?" I question and he nods. "Just focus on the homework later, take some time to relax."
"But-"
"Shut up and relax," I say and he jokingly glares at me. "I've got an idea, wait here."
He looks at me confusedly as I run up to my dorm.
I return moments later with a small box.
"Unless that box can come alive and eat my stress, I'm not sure this will work." He say jokingly as I sit back down beside him.
"Haha, very funny," I retort sarcastically. "Now pick a colour."
"What?" He questions.
"There's nail polish in here," I say, opening the lid of the box. "Now pick a colour, I'm going to paint your nails."
"No, you are not."
"Please," I beg. "Sometimes when I'm stressed I'll paint my nails and it helps me relax. And Sirius sometimes lets me paint his nails, he agrees that it's relaxing."
"Y/n-"
"Please." I cut him off and he sighs.
"Fine, but nothing too bright." He says and I smile. I push the box towards him and he picks out a pastel yellow.
I gently take his hand and begin painting his nails. He watches closely the whole time.
Once I'm done he looks at his hands weirdly.
"Is it strange that I actually quite like it?" He says quietly.
"Not at all," I shrug. "It looks nice."
I then begin painting my own nails, I finish one hand but before I begin the other Remus speaks up.
"Can I try?" He asks softly.
"Sure, but if you get nail polish all over my hand I'll kill you." I joke, handing him the bottle carefully.
"There is a way to get it off if I do mess up right?" He asks before he starts.
"Yeah, I've got nail polish remover, and it comes off skin pretty easily anyways."
"Okay, that's good." He nods.
He takes my hand in his. My breath hitches at his soft touch. I ignore the feeling as he begins painting my nails.
I admire the look of pure concentration on his face. His eyebrows furrowed, his lips tightly shut, his eyes unmoving from my hand.
"Done." He suddenly says cheerfully and I realise I had been staring at him.
Ignoring the fact that I'm probably blushing, I look down at my hand. He has done a pretty good job, there is some nail polish on my fingers, but it's good, especially considering this is probably the first time he's ever even touched nail polish.
"I know it's not the best and it's quite messy and I-"
"Shush, you did great." I cut him off.
"And you're right, that weirdly did help me relax."
"Told ya."
~*Remus' POV*~
I walk to the library with Y/n, smiling as she rambles on about the book she's currently reading.
"You should totally read it," She says. "I think you'd like it."
"Maybe I will," I respond. "That way I'll actually understand your strange ramblings."
She laughs lowly, her face going slightly red. "Sorry."
"No, no, no, don't apologise for anything," I say quickly. "I didn't mean it like its a bad thing, I like how happy you seem when you're rambling about something you like."
She smiles, her face going more red as she looks away from me.
We arrive at the library. We plan on getting our Care for Magical Creatures homework done now so we can relax over the weekend.
We gather all the books we think we'll need before sitting down at a table near the back of the room.
We work mostly in silence, only occasionally speaking to ask a question about the work.
I look up from my parchment, my mind wandering, and notice Y/n looking quite confused. Her eyebrows are furrowed and she's mumbling quietly to herself, I can't hear what she's saying.
"Everything alright?" I ask amusedly.
"Shh, I'm figuring things out," She says and I chuckle quietly.
"You seem confused, what's going on?" I ask. "Maybe I can help."
"Nope, shut up, I can do this," She says before laughing slightly. "Sorry, don't actually shut up, I didn't mean it."
I smile. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," She mumbles. "This book just doesn't seem right."
I gasp overdramatically. "Are you doubting a book? This I'd expect from James, Sirius and Peter, but not you Y/n. If we can't trust the books then our entire lives are a lie, and-"
"Oh shush," She smiles, pushing my arm. "Stop being overdramatic."
"Right, sorry, being overdramatic is your job."
"Wow Remus, that hurts," She jokes, pretending to be offended.
"You're just proving my point," I argue.
"I am not overdramatic."
"Yesterday you felt a random pain in your side and claimed you were dying."
"I could've been dying." She shrugs. "You don't know, you're not a healer."
I chuckle. "Yes, of course, you're so right, it's a miracle you're still alive."
"Exactly." She smiles.
"We should get back to work," I say. "And if you do really think that book is wrong then you should probably just put it away," She nods, sliding the book across the table, away from her.
"I meant put it away on the shelf."
She just sticks her tongue out at me
"How mature," I say.
"More mature than you are," She playfully argues.
"Oh sure, clearly," I say sarcastically.
"You're sarcasm wont help you, I'm taking that as an agreement."
I go to argue back but Madam Pince comes around the bookshelf, complaining about the noise. We both apologise to the librarian, who just sighs and walks off. Once she's out of earshot Y/n and I burst into quiet laughter.
I get distracted by the melodic sound of Y/n laughing, and the mesmerising way her eyes sparkle, and her beautiful smile, and-
No.
What?
No no no.
I can't be thinking like this. Not about Y/n. She's my best friend.
"Oi, quit looking at me and focus on your work," Y/n says, snapping me out of the daze. I look away quickly, my face probably going bright red.
"Sorry," I mumble. She just laughs lightly and begins focusing on her homework.
Great, she caught me staring at her, that's not weird at all.
No matter how hard I try I cant return my focus to the homework.
Do I like Y/n? I mean, James is always teasing me about liking her, but I thought he was just being an ass, is he maybe right?
Oh that's just great, James realised I like Y/n before I did. Merlin, I'm an idiot.
"Rem, are you okay?" Y/n asks softly. I look over at her and see she's looking at me with concern. "You seem distracted."
"I'm fine," I say, smiling slightly. "Just lost in thought I suppose, I'll try to focus."
"It's getting kinda late," Y/n points out. "If you're having trouble focusing, we could just head to the common room and finish the homework tomorrow."
I nod my head. "Yeah, sure."
We silently put the books away then pack up our homework and quills before heading to the common room.
"What are you so lost in thought about?" Y/n asks as we walk.
"Nothing." I shrug.
"It's clearly not nothing. How dumb do you think I am if you thought I'd believe that."
"Fine, I'll rephrase it," I say. "Nothing you need to worry about."
"If it's something bothering you then I'm going to worry about it."
"Nothing's bothering me."
"Yeah right," Y/n says. "You can talk to me y'know."
"I know," I nod. "But, like I said, it's nothing."
She frowns slightly but doesn't push the subject anymore, instead changing the topic.
We talk for the rest of the journey to the common room, and once we arrive we go hang out with James, Sirius and Peter.
Later that night, I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about Y/n. I like her. This is crazy.
I sigh, rolling over onto my other side, wishing I'd just fall asleep.
"Mate, sigh one more time and I'm smothering you with a pillow," James threatens.
"Sorry," I mumble.
I then hear the sound of James getting out of bed. I lay there confusedly as he lies down beside me. We're now laying very close together. This is weird.
"What's wrong?" He asks.
"Currently? How close you are to me."
"Remus-"
"Fine, fine," I mumble. Before telling James anything, I listen to make sure Sirius is asleep, knowing he'd murder me if he found out about my feelings for Y/n. I hear him quietly snoring.
"I like Y/n." I whisper.
"Yeah, no shit," James responds sarcastically.
"Okay, I get that you had already figured this out, but I hadn't and now I have and I'm freaking out."
"Relax, what're you even freaking out for?"
"She's my best friend-"
"Rude," He interrupts me but I choose to ignore him.
"I can't have feelings for my best friend."
"Well clearly you can because you do," He says. "Just talk to her about it."
"Absolutely not," I say.
"Remus-"
"No, James, I am not going to tell her about this."
"She feels the exact same way though," He says "I don't think she's realised it yet, but it's obvious that she likes you."
"Well she shouldn't," I mumble. "I'm a werewolf."
"And that crap doesn't matter to her, you dumbass."
I sigh. "Just go to bed James."
"Fine, but you know I'm right."
I roll over to face away from him as he gets out of me bed and heads back to his own.
What is he thinking? I cant tell her how I feel, that would be crazy. So much could go wrong.
She could not feel the same and then it'd make our friendship awkward.
Or what if me being a werewolf is an issue.
Or what if we do date and then break up and it's too difficult for us to be friends.
These thoughts continue for a while, dozens of crazy hypotheticals racing through my mind.
But the thoughts soon get drowned out by something more positive.
What if James is right? What if she does feel the same?
I then begin imagining what it'd be like if me and Y/n were together. And eventually these thoughts lull me to sleep.
~*Y/n's POV*~
I wake up in the morning and groan. I didn't sleep well last night so I'm still exhausted, but let's be real, even if I had went to sleep at a reasonable time I'd still be tired, sleep is a scam.
I tiredly drag myself out of bed, hating every second of it. Why do I need to wake up so early? This is hell.
After getting changed into my uniform, I head down to the common room where I find Remus.
"Good morning," I greet him.
"Morning," He responds with a small smile.
"So, the morons not ready yet?" I ask.
"No, they're not," He chuckles.
We decide to head down to breakfast without them.
I notice that as we're eating, Remus seems distracted. He's been distracted a lot recently. At first I thought maybe it was something to do with the full moon, but that's two weeks away, it cant be bothering him this much yet. Its probably something else but I cant figure out what.
I lightly kick his foot under the table.
"What's wrong?" I ask. The only way to figure out what's going on in his head is to ask him.
"What do you mean?" He questions.
"You're lost in thought again." When I point this out his face goes red. "What's going on with you?"
"It's nothing," He says quickly, his eyes not meeting mine.
"You're acting weird."
"Yeah, w-well, I'm weird, I'm always acting weird, so I have no clue what you're talking about."
"Fine," I mumble, deciding to just drop the subject.
We sit in an uncomfortable silence until James, Sirius and Peter arrive at the breakfast table. Every now and then I notice Remus glaring at James, so I'm assuming James is the reason he is acting weird. That moron probably said something stupid that Remus is now overthinking. Great.
~*𓃦*~
I smile, sitting on the couch and watching as James and Sirius happily sing along to whatever song is currently playing. We just won our first quidditch match of the season and that apparently calls for celebration.
I glance around the busy room and see Remus sitting alone on the dorm stairs. I get up and walk over to him, sitting down beside him.
"What're you doing over here?" I ask.
"Avoiding people," He answers. "I want to go upstairs and read but apparently I need to 'socialise' and 'stop being miserable' so James and Sirius managed to lock our dorm."
"Want me to kick their asses?"
He chuckles. "No, but thanks for offering. And you don't need to stay here with me by the way, you can go enjoy the party."
"It's loud and peopley, what makes you think that this is something I'd enjoy? The only thing I'm actually enjoying is watching James and Sirius make complete fools of themselves."
"Yeah, that does sound pretty fun."
"Want me to try and break into your dorm?" I ask.
"I've tried Alohomora, they've done something to the lock."
"I could try to pick the lock."
"Two questions," He says. "How do you know how to pick locks? And why do you know how to pick locks?"
"I found a book about it in the library and I was kinda on the verge of a mental breakdown and needed to just read anything to take my mind off things."
"Why the hell do they have a book on locks in the library?"
"Stop asking questions and lets just go break into your dorm."
"Alright," He says, shaking his head amusedly.
We head up to his dorm and the door is definitely locked. I pull a paperclip out of my pocket - I stole it from muggle studies - and fiddle it around in the keyhole before finally hearing a click.
I push the door open with a satisfied smile.
"Voila," I say, turning to face Remus, who has an impressed look on his face.
"You are magical in so many ways."
We then spend the rest of the evening hanging out in the dorm, it's a lot more fun than the party to be honest.