#wwhp

"Scarab beetles, ginger roots, armadillo bile and newt spines sir." I say with a smile, watching Remus roll his eyes as I smile at him.

"Well done Miss L/n, ten points to Slytherin."

A mix of groans and cheers echoed the room as the class was dismissed.

I gathered my books up into my arms and wandered out of the classroom.

I was looking down at my notes as I felt myself bump into a sweater covered chest, my notes and books falling to the floor.

"Crap." I dropped down onto my knees to try and gather the books and loose parchment without looking at who I bumped into.

"Look where your going Jesus,"

I rolled my eyes at his comment, of course it's Remus I walked into. He helped me gather the rest of the stuff before giving me another cocky smile.

"Haven't you got anything to say to me?" He said with a smirk, leaning against the stone wall.

"No? What are you talking about?"

"A thank you maybe? Considering after you rudely ran into me I still stopped to help you."

I scoffed slightly and just looked at him dumbfounded.

"Cmon then, I'm waiting."

I rolled my eyes again.

"My knight in shining armour, thank you so much for taking a minute to pull your head out of your own arse to help me. Appreciate it." I scrunched my nose at him whilst plastering an obviously fake smile across my face.

He chuckled slightly and stood up straight again.

"Your welcome sweetheart."

He laughed again and stopped for a second as if he was going to ask me something before just walking past me, causing me to inhale angrily before walking in the other direction angrily.

Me and Remus had always bumped heads during our time in Hogwarts, him being the smartest in Gryffindor and me the brightest in Slytherin theres always been some competition between the two of us.

His fake shyness paired with his cocky personality made my blood boil and I wasn't exactly the easiest person to get along with, I was aware I was a stubborn smart arse.

I made my way to the library, wanting to get ahead of the homework Slughorn just set.

I find my way to my usual table in the back corner of the room, sprawling my parchment and books over the table as I began work on my essay.

After a long hour of uninterrupted working I jumped as someone pulled out the chair next to me, snapping me out of my focus.

I look up to see James Potters smiling face looking at me, causing me to laugh slightly.

Me and James got along surprisingly well despite his hatred towards Slytherins and us both being captains to opposing Quidditch teams.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" I ask with a laugh, putting my quill down as I turned my attention to the curly haired boy.

"I have a favour to ask." He said with an awkward laugh, fiddling with his glasses.

"Should I be scared?"

"A little bit, it's a strange one."

I quirked an eyebrow at him, gesturing him to continue.

"Will you pretend to be my date for the ball?"

I laughed and shook my head slightly "Why on earth would you want me to do that?"

"I overheard Lily say she wanted to go alone so I wanted to take someone else. Y'know, try and show her what she's missing." He awkwardly fiddled with his fingers whilst speaking, despite his normal confidence he always got awkward talking about Lily.

"I don't get how that would change her mind on you, surely you should just speak to her."

"You think I haven't tried a million times? She doesn't want to hear it, I just need one shot to show her what she's missing, and that I'm not always going to be waiting around for her."

I gave the defeated boy a small smile and sighed slightly as I braced myself for what I was about to say.

"Okay maybe. What's in it for me? I was supposed to be going with Reg as friends but I don't think he was too keen on going anyway."

His face lit up as he sat up in his chair happily "Really? I'll give you my word that you can have the Friday morning training slot for the rest of the year. Promise."

I smiled at that, enthusiastically nodding.

The Gryffindor and Slytherin team have been constantly fighting over who gets that practice spot all year, it's the best time to practice and James' friendship with the coach got him an unfair advantage.

"Deal."

"Thank you so much, I promise to be the perfect gentleman."

I laughed softly at him, rolling my eyes at his sarcasm.

"Does that mean I have to spend all night with your friends?" I asked with a small groan, causing him to chuckle lightly.

It's not that I hated the so called marauders, or most of them anyway. But my friendship with Regulus stops me and Sirius from ever being very close and spending any time with Remus made my blood boil.

Peter was a sweetheart though.

"Unfortunately for you yes, I'll tell Remus to be on his best behaviour though, promise."

"I'm shocked he's onboard with this, seems like such a stupid plan he'd talk you out of it." I say with a small laugh, picking up with quill again to twirl between my fingers.

"Oh he doesn't know. No one can know or it won't work. I love them but those idiots would give it away in seconds."

I nodded slightly, makes sense the three of them weren't exactly the most inconspicuous people.

"Okay well you've got yourself a deal. I'll see you on Saturday."

He smirked at me as he stood from his chair, hugging me for a second from behind my chair.

"Seriously I can't thank you enough. I'll see you at the great hall at eight."

I smiled up at him with a small nod.

~~~~

I play with my hair in the mirror, feeling like I couldn't get it to sit just right no matter what I did.

"I don't get why you care so much about how you look, it's not like you actually like the guy." Regulus said from the other side of the dorm where he sat on the edge of my bed.

"It's not about James, I just want to look nice it's a ball." I smoothed down my long green dress again before turning to fix my lipstick.

"Hmmm sure, or is there another certain Gryffindor that your trying to impress?" Regulus said with a snort.

"I have no idea what your implying."

"Yes you do. Lupin this, Lupin that, your smitten with the boy." He said with a laugh.

I scoffed, turning my attention away from my reflection to the dark haired boy.

"I have no idea what you mean, I hate Remus with every inch of me. He vexes me."

"Yeah sure, you can't deny that you like him a little. He's all you talk about."

I rolled my eyes at him again before going back to finishing how I looked.

"Talking about him and complaining about him are two completely different things so zip it. Okay I think I'm ready to go."

I couldn't lie a part of me understood where he's coming from, which was obvious to Reg as he laughed at the obvious blush that had covered my face.

It's not like I'd say I was in love with the boy, but I can't deny that every time we argue, debate or on the rare occasion engage in academic discussions, my heart always skips a beat.

And a very very very small part of me sort of hoped that it's not just Lily that got jealous tonight.

Regulus jumped up from the bed and offered his arm out to me.

"Let me escort you to your date, make sure he's treating you right."

I snorted at him and threaded my arm through his as we walked out of the dormitory's and up to the great hall.

My hands were a little shaky as I took a few deep breaths.

I understood that this stunt James wants to pull is going to draw a lot of attention, it's the last thing people would expect not to mention that gossip spreads around here and the awareness of all the attention that was about to be on me was spiking some anxiety.

Regulus leaned into my ear as we approached the hall,

"Don't worry, you look beautiful. Everyone's going to be jealous."

I smile at him and stop to give him a brief hug before looking over my shoulder to where James stood at the entrance of the hall.

I took another deep breath before nodding goodbye the Regulus and walking over to James.

He offered out his hand as I approached, pulling me closer to him.

"Don't worry, we've got this. You ready?"

His confidence caused a smile to creep onto my face as I nodded.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

As we walked into the great hall I could feel eyes on the back of my head, the two of us was a completely shocking thing I guess, James has always been so outwardly smitten with Lily nobody would ever expect him to show up with anyone else.

James led us towards the back of the great hall where I could see the other marauders stood around a table chatting, they smiled and waved as they saw James approaching, their expressions all changing slighting as they saw me on his arm.

Peter smiled wildly as I waved at him "Y/n hey! You look amazing."

I smiled back at him with a little laugh "Thanks Peter, you look wonderful as well."

I saw Sirius quirk an eyebrow from the corner of my eye before he cleared his throat to get our attention.

"James this is your surprise date?"

James nodded, giving Sirius a 'behave yourself' look.

"Yes, this is Y/n L/n, I don't think you two have properly met."

I smiled awkwardly at Sirius, hoping he wouldn't freak out on me because of my friendship with Regulus but the boy just smiled sweetly at me, pulling me into a short hug.

"It's nice to finally meet you, I hear your friends with that brother of mine."

I nodded slightly "Me and Reggie are close yes."

He clenched his jaw slightly and nodded back at me "It's nice to know there's someone looking out for him."

I notice Remus leaning against the wall next to Sirius being uncharacteristically quiet for him, he was stood with his arms crossed looking at me with an unreadable expression I hadn't seen on him before.

I hate to admit it but over the past few years of knowing him I've picked up on smaller habits of his. For example when he genuinely smiles his lips sit lopsided to the left, and when he's laughing he always throws his head back a little. When he was stressed he'd pull his hair, and when he was angry or frustrated he'd normally grip a pen in his fist and clench his jaw so hard it sometimes looked as if he was physically biting his tongue to stop himself from speaking out.

But this expression was something I hadn't seen from him before, he was intensely looking straight at me almost as if he was shocked but also with a small smile on his face which I'd never seen directed toward me.

I smiled at him as I looked over, causing him to look away and go back to the usual monotone expression I was used to from him.

If it wasn't the fact I was talking about Remus Lupin I'd say he almost looked in awe.

"Remus you didn't end up bringing a date?" James asked from behind me, causing his friends head to snap up from the spot on the floor he'd turned to.

"Hm? No I didn't ask her after all, decided it wasn't going to work out anyway."

James gave him a sympathetic smile and Sirius snickered from next to him, causing Remus to nudge him hard with his elbow.

"What about you Sirius? Flying solo?" I asked, trying to make myself included within the friend group.

Sirius laughed and shook his head "I always do these kinda things as a bachelor Y/n, it would break everyone's heart if I tied myself down to one person."

James laughed slightly and shook his head at his friend "On that note, care to dance Y/n?"

I nodded back at him and took a deep breath "Might as well put on a bit of a show since everyone's looking anyway."

He laughed at me and took my hand, leading me onto the dance floor.

We swayed back and forth together to the waltz music with some laughs as neither of us could take it seriously.

I could see Remus from over James's shoulder, he was looking directly at us with a cold expression.

It mirrored his usual habits he showed when he was angry but there was something else about it as well, I had no idea what was wrong with him but it was puzzling me that I couldn't read him as easily as I normally could.

As James spun me around I caught a glimpse of Lily stood on the other side of the room, her expression mirroring Remus's.

As the song neared to an end James bent down to my ear "I think it's working, she looks jealous. Would you mind if I kissed you? Just to put the nail in the coffin."

I looked at him for a second before nodded slightly.

He smiled at me before leaning down to plant a soft kiss on my lips.

It wasn't bad, he was gentle and soft but neither of us really wanted it and the awkwardness was obvious.

He pulled away suddenly and as I opened my eyes I saw Remus pulling James away by the sleeve of his jacket.

"Outside, now." Remus said as he pulled James out of the room, leaving me stood there alone with half the room staring at me.

I looked around awkwardly not knowing what to do before I felt someone touch my shoulders.

"Care to dance?" Sirius asked with a charming smile, taking my hands.

I took a deep breath and gave him a thankful smile. "Thank you so much."

He nodded and swayed to the side with me "I wouldn't let a beautiful woman stand alone unlike my idiot friends."

~ Remus's pov ~

"What's wrong?" James asked as I pulled him over to a quiet corner or the hallway.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"What are you talking about?"

"What are you doing with Y/n? What happened to Lily? Since when did you even like Y/n?" I huffed at him, angrily balling my hands up.

I was supposed to take her, I was going to ask her but every time I tried I just couldn't get the words out, going for a cheap jab at her instead.

I've had a crush on her for the last year, our arguments after class was becoming one of the driving forces for the effort I was putting in and our little interactions somehow always managed to make my day.

I was stunned when I saw her in the Hall, she looked gorgeous and I went to compliment her. I finally gathered the courage to say something and then James put his arm around her.

It's always been Lily for him, just like it's always been Y/n for me. So what the hell was he doing.

"She agreed to come with me to make Lily jealous, I gave her the Quittich field on Fridays if she came with me. Why are you so bothered?" He furrowed his eyebrows at me, placing his hands on my shoulders to slow the pacing I didn't even realise I was doing.

"Oh." Shit I've made it so obvious "I was just worried you were making a mistake that's all."

He looked at me for another second before he connected the dots, his confused expression turning to shock.

"Merlin it's Y/n you were going to bring? You like her! Why didn't you tell us we couldn't helped you!"

"Shh your shouting, she might hear you."

He grinned excitedly at me.

"Remus you like her, that's so out of character for you. Why didn't you ask her?"

I shrugged at him "She hates me, she would've said no anyway."

He shook his head at me with a chuckle "God your both so stupid, she was staring at you all night. Just tell her how you feel, you might be shocked."

"What tell her how I feel so she can laugh at me? We might not be friends but I don't want to ruin the little interactions we do have. If she shot me down it would change everything, I don't want to loose her."

"You like me?"

The timid voice coming from next to us caused me and James to both spin around quickly, seeing Y/n and Sirius stood a few feet from us.

Y/n looking insanely confused and Sirius trying to keep his laughter as quiet as possible.

"This is such a shit show." He said with a laugh, causing Y/n to back hand his shoulder, still looking at me with an unreadable expression.

James rolled his eyes "Sirius maybe we should give them some privacy and go find Peter Hm?"

I looked at him with a silent thank you as he dragged a still laughing Sirius back into the Great Hall.

"You like me?" She repeated, walking to stand where James previously was.

I awkwardly tugged at my sleeves with a sigh, not knowing how to respond.

"I know it's stupid okay, I understand that you hate me and this is probably hilarious but yeah I think I do. I don't mean to be so mean to you I just don't know how to talk to you and I was going to ask you to be my date tonight but I whimped out and you probably don't care anyways but I think your the most brilliant, intelligent, beautiful and funny person I've ever met and-"

My rambling was cut off when I felt her hand touch the side of my face, the tips of her fingers going into my hair as I lent into her touch.

"Are you want to just kiss me or keep talking?" She asked with a giggle causing me to laugh a little bit as well.

"I think I'm gonna go with kiss."

She nodded with another laugh "Right as always Remus."