"He hates me." Sirius said lying slumped his sofa, eating oreo ice cream out of the tub. Sirius had managed to patch things up with Regulus by agreeing never to steal his name again as well as the promise that he could stay at Sirius's whenever and wouldn't be forced to hide in the kitchen. Remus, however, would probably be less willing to forgive.

"I'm sure he doesn't..." James said unconvincingly, "Lily said he hasn't mentioned you at all so at least he's not bitching about you all the time. He's probably just a bit embarrassed too, he's a smart guy who fell for a really dumb scam."

"Is Lily okay with it?" I asked.

"Yeah, she wasn't too pleased at first as she said we shouldn't have lied but she's not mad. I think she was actually a bit impressed that we managed to fool Remus for so long even though she said it was wrong on so many levels." James said, "She told me never to get it again and frankly I agree with her, it was a lot of stress."

"That's good." Sirius said, "I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if my stupid idea had messed up your relationship."

"We're still good." James said, "Has Remus replied to any of your texts or calls?"

"No, it's been a week, he's ignoring me and to be honest, I don't blame him. I would ignore me too." Sirius said, looking genuinely sad, "I can't believe I thought this was a good idea."

"To be fair, I did say it was a bad idea from the start but then I did go along with it." I said, realising quickly that this was not the right situation to take the high ground in.

"I guess the only thing to do now is to move on and find the next lone wolf..." James said.

"I don't want another lone wolf, he's the only lone wolf." Sirius said, "I should have just been honest, I messed it up, I just thought that he'd never want to be with Sirius after the way he hated me at sight."

"He didn't hate you at sight, he just thought you were a bit forward." I said softly.

"I know. I could have changed that but now I've really screwed up. He'll never want to talk to me again." He said.

"Maybe it wasn't meant to be, he did like Regulus, you were pretending to be someone else..." I started but Sirius interrupted.

"No, I wasn't by the end. I was pretending to be quiet at first but by the end I was just being Sirius but changed Sirius. I wasn't actively thinking, I was just me and he liked it, I'm sure of it.It was me who made him laugh and smile, I wasn't pretending to be Regulus by the time. I liked being with him and it was just me, the only thing I was lying about was the name." Sirius said, "I really liked him."

"Why don't you come up with an elaborate plan to get him back then? I'm sure you could think of something." James said.

"I don't think I could face him," Sirius said looking genuinely broken, "Besides he doesn't want to talk to me, I don't think he wants to hear what I have to say."

"But he might listen to me..." I said suddenly.

"Dorcas, that's very sweet but I think I should just leave it..." Sirius said which was a very in-Sirius thing to say, "I shouldn't have forced you to get involved in the first place, I don't want to force you to fix my problems for me."

"It's not forcing if I'm offering." I said, "What's the worse that could happen?"

"It can't be worse than what's already happened." James pointed out.

"I don't know..." Sirius said.

"Come on, Sirius, let me go to the Pumpkin pasty and talk to him..." I said, "I miss confident Sirius and I want to cheer you up so he can return."

"That's not your job..." Sirius said with a small smile.

"No, you're right, this is volunteer work." I smirked which actually made Sirius smile for real, "It's for a good cause, let me go."

"Come on, Padfoot." James said, "It can only make it better...."

"Okay... don't do if you don't want to..." Sirius said, "I know that you didn't want to do some of the stuff in the scam and I don't want to force you again."

"If I really hadn't wanted to, I wouldn't have. You're one of my best friends and I would have helped you no matter how morally wrong your scheme was." I said as I put my jacket on.

"Hey, the intentions were good... by the end...." Sirius said, a hint of the old Sirius appearing, "And I'll never do anything like it again. It was pretty morally grey."

"There he is! Confident Sirius is appearing again!" I said smiling as I dashed out the door.

"Try and get Marlene's number whilst you're at it, do something for you too!" James called as I walked out the door which made me smile slightly. Maybe I'd start my own plan to win over Marlene at some point but I should probably wait until our current one was finished.

The walk to the café usually took about fifteen minutes but I was walking with purpose this time so I managed it in ten. It felt slight Deja vu as I walked into the café. It felt nicely symmetrical that things were the scheme was finishing up in the place where it all started.

Marlene, Lily and Remus were all behind the counter and to my surprise, Remus actually gave me a small, sheepish smile.

"Hey Dorcas, is my idiot boyfriend not joining you today?" Lily said with a smile.

"No, he's taking care of the grieving Sirius right now." I smirked.

"Oh dear, is he bad?" Lily said, "What he did was quite bad to be honest but he doesn't seem like a bad guy. I'm guessing you came here to talk to Remus?"

"Yep, do you think he'll talk to me?" I asked hopefully. Lily pondered this for a second before nodding.

"I reckon so, he's not mad at you or Sirius really, I don't think. He hasn't talked about it much, I think he's a bit embarrassed."

"Thanks Lily." I said as I walked over to the counter where Remus was awkwardly hovering.

"What can I get you?" He asked his face changing into a half hearted smile.

"I'm not here to order, I just want to talk."

"I thought as much," He sighed, "I kind of want to talk about it too. I feel like such an idiot."

"Sirius is a good actor." I said, attempting to comfort him.

"It just didn't even occur to me, I'm usually so smart but it just completely went past me. It never occurred to me as odd that I never saw them in the same place, I was so stupid."

"Don't beat yourself up over it." I said, "I'm sorry for any part that I had in it. It started off as Sirius just trying to win you over and it got carried away."

"I feel like I'm just as much to blame for falling for it but I couldn't help it." He looked down at the desk, "I liked him. At first he was quite quiet and that was fine but as I got to know Reg - Sirius, he just became better. He made me laugh and would tease me but he could also be sweet. It just sucks that the person I liked doesn't really exist."

"He does exist though."

"No, he doesn't. He was just Sirius pretending to be someone else, it's like liking a character from a TV show. Sure the actor exists but the character isn't real."

"But it is. You said that Sirius changed from quiet to teasing but sweet, right?"

"Right. I've got to hand it to him, it was good character development. He really made it seem like he was a quiet guy who slowly became less quiet. It was nice."

"I don't think he was acting towards the end. At first he was pretending to be quieter but he became more and more like the real Sirius towards the end. The guy you liked by the end was Sirius, not his weird alter ego, Regulus."

"I guess." Remus said unconvinced, "I'm just confused, I don't really know what's what. I still like him which means I either like an imaginary person created by him or a guy who lied to me so convincingly that I lost sense my common sense. I don't know if I want to see him again or if he'd want to see me again."

"Why wouldn't he want to see you again?"

"He probably thinks I'm a thick idiot for falling for it. He's good at lying and I'm gullible, we'd be the perfect couple." Remus said although I wasn't sure whether he was being serious or not. Judging from what he'd said, I don't know if he knew either.

"Although it was quite odd that he lied and tricked me, I feel strangely flattered that he put so much effort into it." Remus said with a small smile.

"He literally gave it his all." Remus looked so conflicted and I wasn't sure if I'd actually managed to help the situation or just confused it even more, "I know you might not believe me, because the guy you met at the café probably seemed so... different but the guy who you were dating at the end, he was the real Sirius. It may have started off as a scheme to get the guy who rejected him but by the end, I think he genuinely liked you. He actually began to enjoy yoga too, he was very good considering at that class we went to especially considering it was his first."

"Dorcas, I think you're the gullible one if you think that was his first. He was too good." Remus said with a slight laugh, "Oh, I hate this. I just wish there was some sort of... sign or something. I don't know what to do, I like him but I don't know if it was him I liked..."

"Remus...?" I heard the door open behind me and turned around to see a slightly out of breath Sirius standing there. I couldn't help but smile, this had potential to be a genuinely sweet moment.

"Remus, does that count as a sign?..."