lovesick || r. lupin

²⁸admitting

Ayla had hugged Remus goodbye and hopped down the barrel that led to the Hufflepuff common room and for moments, minutes after, Remus still felt his heart pounding hard in his chest. He wondered if everyone in the castle could hear it, crashing against his ribcage. Remus sure could.

"Stop that," Remus scolded himself, shaking his head back and forth. But he couldn't. And he hated it.

He hazily made his way up through the castle, not caring much if he were to get caught by Filch and his blasted cat, thinking back on the night and everything that happened. He thought about how happy he felt and the bubbly feeling in his stomach and how nice Ayla looked and how pretty her smile was and in that moment, Remus wanted to slam his head against a wall, wanted to hex himself over and over again because he wasn't supposed to be thinking like that, he couldn't be thinking like that.

And before he knew it, he was in front of the Fat Lady and he had muttered the password. Remus walked through the portrait hole and made his way up the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible to not wake up anyone. He eased open the door to the dormitory and-

"Where have you been? Remus, it's nearly midnight, we worried that you'd died," James immediately started, sitting on his bed across the room, his Quidditch playbook wide open and covered in marks from his quill, making it obvious that the first match was the next morning. The look on his face reminded Remus eerily of Mrs. Potter and the way she look at the boys when they did something to trouble her. He'd have to tell James some time soon, his reaction would be priceless. But not now, Remus had a situation to deal with.

Sirius waved his hand dismissingly, "Well, me and Wormtail didn't think you had died but James was going nutters. Thought you might have passed out or something in the library because of the full moon this Sunday but I says, 'James, I bet he's just gone to McGonagall' so we looked in the library and her classroom and you weren't there and then we went to go find Ayla because you told us you were studying with her or something and then we couldn't find her and then-" Sirius paused and furrowed his brows in thought. He then looked up at Remus's state; dirt on his face, hair disheveled, and one of the sides of his oxford shirt untucked. Sirius' eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Remus! You dog! Did you have a good, right snog session with Ayla and not bother telling us?! I should have kno-"

"NO," Remus stated before Sirius got too many ideas.

"Then where were you?" Peter pipped up.

Remus paused for a moment, pondering on whether he should really tell them. He could easily lie about it, avoid a whole dramatic show from the lot of them... But then again, he'd be lying... and Remus felt as though he was constantly lying to every one because of his condition and all... Plus, these were his best mates... he could trust them to be mature... right?

"I was with Ayla," Remus tried to say nonchalantly, walking over to his bed and avoiding eye contact as if it was a regular occurrence. Which it was. But this time felt a little bit different.

Sirius opened his mouth to say something but Remus cut him off before he could. "Not snogging." Sirius shut his mouth in a tight line.

"What were you doing? I thought you two were revising?" asked Peter, pulling his shirt off and starting to button up his baby blue pajama top.

"Well, we were... Ayla just got bored and... and well, I thought it'd be fun to go to... to Hogsmeade and... and well, you can probably assume the rest."

"That you snogged?" Sirius grinned, a fake innocent across his face.

Remus shook his head, "No. We just ate some sweets and sat on top of that old abandoned shop's roof and talked. Nothing more."