Brightest ✯ Sirius Black

✯ five ✯

"I always mean what I say. I may not mean to say it out loud, but I always mean it."

"Is it Claudia Kane?" Cleo pestered Remus at breakfast the next morning.

"No," he frowned.

"Are you sure?" she asked again, desperate to get to the bottom of Remus' secret.

"Mhm," he hummed, taking a crunchy bite of his toast.

"I will figure it out, Remus, I can promise you that," she glared.

"Figure what out?" Sirius asked as he sat down beside Cleo and James plopped down next to Remus on the other side.

"Cleo, don't-"

"Remus has a crush on someone but he won't tell me who it is!" she said quickly. Remus slapped his palm against his forehead and groaned as both boys started cooing in old lady voices.

"Our Remus has a wee crush? Who's the lucky lass?" James said as he pinched Remus' cheek before his hand got slapped away.

"Fuck off," he muttered, taking an angry bite out of his toast.

✯✯✯✯

Later, in Transfiguration, Remus found himself regretting telling Cleo even more.

"Is it Alice?" she whispered in his ear, kicking the back of his seat at the same time.

"No," he rolled his eyes, which got him a particularly nasty look from Professor McGonagall because she thought it was at her lesson. He straightened up and gave her an apologetic look, which she took with a nod and continued teaching. "Leave it alone," he whispered over his shoulder as soon as McGonagall turned her back. Cleo chuckled.

"Not a chance."

"I bet it's a Slytherin girl," Sirius whispered. Remus tried his best to pay attention to the lesson.

    "Nah, Moony's definitely someone who would go for a soft Hufflepuff girl, don't you think?" James added.

"You two know that I can hear you, you're talking over me to each other," Remus glared. James and Sirius were both leaning over Remus in the middle to whisper about him, and it was driving Remus crazy.

"Mr. Black, Mr. Potter, it is the first day of classes. Please don't give me a reason to send you two to detention so early on in the year," Professor McGonagall scolded.

"We'll figure it out, Moony," Sirius added.

"You aren't getting away with this," James said before getting a stern look from McGonagall that made them shut up.

✯✯✯✯

"Could it be Catrina Levigne?" Cleo shouted at him the next day as they were pulled screaming mandrakes out of pots in herbology.

"What?" Remus yelled back, because the earmuffs and the shrieking plants limited his hearing. Cleo shook her head as if to say "later" as they both grimaced and repotted the plants.

✯✯✯✯

"What about Sarah McIntosh?" Cleo asked a week later, as they were eating dinner in the Great Hall. She and the others had been trying all week long and to no avail.

"Who?" Remus asked, not knowing at all who it was Cleo had mentioned. He was annoyed at her pestering and had half the mind to just tell her straight out.