REMUS' POV.
I was still bed bound, day three of the half term and only another three days to go before it was Sunday and I could meet everyone on platform 9 and 3/4.

I was staring absentmindedly out of the window when I thought I heard the familiar, loud voice of James Potter from downstairs rambling about Merlin-knows-what.

All of a sudden there was a soft knock at my door. I covered my bare chest with my covers. Not wanting James to see the fresh cut that had appeared across it...if it was James that is.

Perhaps I was imagining things, finally losing my mind and becoming delusional. Daydreaming about my friends and then starting to hear voices.

"Come in?" I said suspiciously, not trusting what I had heard, if I had heard anything at all.

Sirius walked in, to my surprise and closed the door behind him softly.

Suddenly I wished that I was imagining it all along.

"Your Mum invited us. James is downstairs, chewing her ear off I think. Talks too much, you know that." He laughed awkwardly, standing too still and hesitating near the door.

"You can sit, if you want." I said to him, motioning towards the chair in the corner of my room and turning and looking back out the window again to not face him. Feeling embarrassed with myself in his presence.

He sat at the end of my bed instead, crossing his legs and letting his dark hair lay softly over one shoulder. It had been so long since he had let it down, I hadn't realised it had grown just past his shoulders now.

He began to look out of the window too, mimicking my behaviour.

I discreetly looked over at him when I could tell he was lost in the view of the countryside.

He had a few stray hairs starting to poke out around his jawline. Lighter in colour than the hair on his head. A pathetic patch of his first facial hair that he had probably noticed and refused to shave off.

He was fiddling with his thumbs, the same way Arty does when she's nervous. Was he nervous?

"We need to talk about it." I said quietly.

"Talk about what?" He said, though I knew he was just being difficult.

"You know what I'm on about." I didn't want to say the words.

"There's no need, it was just a dare remember?" he shrugged trying to play it off like he didn't care to speak of it, though I knew him better than that. He was acting too cool to be seen as natural behaviour.

"Padfoot..." I tried to press him to start the conversation. Struggling to find the right way to admit how the experience had made me feel.

"Marlene said you looked like you enjoyed it, I told her that was dumb considering you're straight. Though I wouldn't blame you, I'm pretty hot. I reckon I could turn anyone." He joked.

I didn't crack a smile or even attempted to let a laugh slip. He was just building his walls up with humour, like he always does.

"I...I did, that's why we need to talk." I said so quietly I didn't know whether he could even hear me though he was close.

"You did?" He looked at me shocked.

His mouth was slightly parted, bushy dark eyebrows furrowing with confusion and his faintly hooded grey eyes locking with mine, so intensely it was intimidating.

I nodded.

"But you don't like guys?" He rhetorically asked. Almost talking to himself, confused.

I answered anyway with a small nod, again.

"You do?" He said. He seemed frozen to his spot, like an animal caught in the headlights.

I nodded again, as if I had lost all ability to speak. He hesitated. I could see his chest rise and fall at a shallower and unreadable pace.

"Do you- do you like me?" He asked.

I felt my face somewhat contort. My heart rate was increasing at an alarming rate.

"I'm not sure." I whispered, looking down at my lap to avoid his intense stare.

I felt him move closer to me on my bed. I held the sheets close to my chest still, feeling vulnerable enough as it is. My fingers gripping at the fabric with a feeling of fear over the consequences to this conversation. I didn't dare to look up.

Until, I felt Sirius press his cold hand to my face. His cold fingers instantly warming up against my boiling hot skin. I raised my hanging head but still didn't look him directly in the eye. Looking off somewhat to the side.

He softly pressed his lips to mine and cupped my face in his hands.

"Kiss me back." he mumbled against my frozen mouth. No alcohol running through my veins to give me a tiny bit of courage this time.

I started to slowly kiss him back, my eyes remaining open only a little. Assessing how I felt. Confused and surprised about what was happening.

The kiss deepened and I felt Sirius sigh a little into my mouth. I relaxed at the feeling of his vulnerability, making me feel more comfortable about my own and finally shutting my eyes completely. Feeling them sweep against his cheek as I did so.

His lips were a little rough, not like I had remembered from when they were coated with liquor. Though his lips were rough, his skin against mine was smooth and he seemed to kiss me naturally, though I was struggling to stay in the moment.

His hands moved from my face, travelling down to my chest and gently removing my hands from the tight grip around the covers.

I breathed in, giving Sirius an opportunity to open the kiss; experiencing a sudden feeling of shame.

Sirius had seen me at my worst before...but never felt me.

He ran his hands gently across the stinging cut. Feeling how it was raised in comparison to the rest of my skin. The sensation of his cold fingers grazing against the sore wound, made my body shiver involuntarily.

Then, all of a sudden, I felt his tongue softly ask for entrance against my parted lips.

A feeling of panic washed over me as I opened my eyes instantaneously and gently pushed him away.

He looked disappointed but not surprised. Pushing his hair from his face and straightening his top out as he moved back.

"I...I'm sorry...I can't." I said with wild eyes, confused myself at my body suddenly rejecting him.

"No tongue, I remember." He laughed, though sadly and moved himself off of my bed to gain some distance.

He then pulled out his wand and mumbled as he pointed it to my, now revealed, chest.

I watched as the wound healed completely before fading into a soft pink line. The cut going through a number of feelings in a space of a few seconds, stinging, itching, tingling and then gone.

His magic was impressive, he had obviously been practicing. Being able to heal a wound and fade it to that level with only one try was a difficult thing to master...

All I could focus on though is the sinking feeling I felt as I had watched my skin change before me. How easily he had performed the spell.

An aching hollow feeling inside thumped, right where my wound had healed. As if the pain that was once there had now sunk deep inside.

"You healed me..." I said mainly to myself.

"It was a bad cut." Sirius said shrugging his shoulders and putting his wand away.

I ran my softly shaking fingers over the pink line. Adrenaline still running through them from the kiss.

"You didn't ask me if I wanted it gone?" I said to him observing his behaviour.

He looked at me like I was a question he couldn't imagine the answer to. Glancing at my face to my chest, as if to try and find what it was that I was upset about.

Tears threatened to roll down my face while my expression stayed emotionless. The watering clouding my vision.

"Moony I don't understand? You've always healed your cuts." Sirius said honestly, frowning at me.

My fingers found my face and searched hesitantly, softly for the scar that ran across my cheek and across my nose. I let out a breathy sigh of relief to feel the familiar change of texture to confirm it was still there.

"Oh, I didn't know you were keeping...I didn't know." he said in realisation of what he had done.

Observing I was searching for the scar I had kept from my last transformation, before this one. Though nasty and completely obvious to anyone with sight.

"You didn't ask." I said to him.

He seemed to be lost for words opening his mouth, sucking in air as if he was about to speak but then not following with any words.

I felt a feeling I had never felt before. A protective attitude towards my own imperfections. It felt belittling to be stripped from them without coming to that decision myself.

For so long I've let people rid my skin from its markings and I never questioned what that had meant. Easily convinced to hide what damage I've done, what I had caused.

Finally realising what it meant to normalise someone removing the disturbances in my skin in order for me to look better to their standards. Everyone normalising my shame with every cut, scrape or wound that they healed because they couldn't stand to watch as they heal all by themselves.

It wasn't until Arty came along and didn't even blink at me having my scar on full display to her, not mentioning fading it at all. Telling me not to hide it from her...that I even started to realise what I had been doing all along.

What everyone else had been doing all along too; whether they knew it or not...they were making me hide something that I could never stop from happening over and over again. No matter how many scars I faded, cuts I made disappear...it was going to happen all over again but as long as it didn't look that way, it was ok. It didn't feel that way anymore.

It didn't feel good to be aware of how normal it was for others to change me and recognising how easy I had let that happen without much thought.

It suddenly hit me all at once. Seeing Sirius cast the spell so perfectly because it "was a bad cut".

Arty saw me fondly before the scar across my face. Though friends, she never once made me feel uncomfortable about them.

Though her explanation for the rest of the faded scars I had, was wrong, she never once asked how I had required them.

She never gawked at them for an uncomfortable amount of time. She looked at them, I knew she did but it wasn't because she was distressed. Perhaps just natural curiosity.

She didn't flinch or stare when I showed her the fresh cut, nasty stitches and all.

She never once mentioned it as it slowly healed and became the scar it was today.

She just accepted they were apart of me, like you would if someone was smothered in freckles.

I saw it now. She looked into my eyes when speaking to me through all those stages, as my appearance changed through the little months she had known me. My scars were never her issue and she never tried to make them about her.

Sirius didn't mean it harshly, he had only done what he thought I had wanted but it still meant, whether he was aware of it or not, he saw my scar as something to get rid of and disappear quickly, not something to leave for it to naturally fade with time. As he would if he injured himself in some way.

"You shouldn't have kissed me, you're with Marlene!" I said to him. He shook his head quickly.

"Remus I'm gay. We're not a real thing." He said quickly, looking pleased with himself at how easily the words came out.

I didn't quite understand, though it made complete sense and confirmed how I felt whenever I saw them both together. Of course they had just been pretending.

"Why would you pretend? I thought you liked girls too?" I asked.

"And I thought you didn't like boys. We've both had some self reflecting to do, Marlene just helped me." He said. He had a point.

"I have a question for you and I want you to answer honestly. No holding back, I know you can do that..." I began.

"-first year, you introduced me to fading scars and cuts. Why did you do that when you never healed the one you showed me?" I asked after all these years.

Sirius looked like he didn't know how to answer at first but you could see he discovered what he wanted to say. Calculating how to word his answer properly.

"No one could see my one...I guess I had thought that if I had as many as you did, I wouldn't want people to see them. There's nothing wrong with them, you know I have no problems with your scars. I just...There's just a lot of them Moony. Why keep them if you have the option to get rid of them?" He said, hearing himself and looking slightly ashamed.

"Thank you for coming to see me Pads, tell Prongs I'm really tired. I'm sorry, I appreciate you both coming though." I sighed feeling exhausted by the exchange.

He nodded sadly and started to leave.

"Pads? Thank you." I said again. Gaining his attention.

"For what? Making you feel bad about yourself?" He said.

"No, you're the one who made me realise something about myself I've been repressing. I think...I know, actually, I can like both boys and girls. Rarely either, but I can." I laughed awkwardly at myself.

"-Thank you for that, really! you've always been an amazing friend, you could never make me feel bad about myself but...I think, for now, that's all we can be. I'm just not comfortable enough with myself yet to try" I admitted, hanging my head low.

"You never thought bad of me did you, when I first came out as bisexual? I know now I'm not but- you comfortable with it right? You were the only one who said you thought about it." He asked.

"I thought I was just being open-minded but perhaps that was the first open sign, I never thought it was weird. It's just uh- strange to realise I've been lying to myself for all these years. So unaware." I explained.

Sirius smiled and nodded, looking happier and less strained than before. Then he paused, looking thoughtful.

"Don't overthink today. It was worth a shot, on my behalf. I shouldn't have made a move on someone who's interested in someone else anyway. You've ignored your feelings and who you are for all these years, over complicated everything for yourself. Don't ignore what you're feeling now. You know who I'm talking about. Go for it." He said with a sincere smile.

"I don't understand?" I said furrowing my eyebrows, though I knew what he was on about. I knew who he was talking about. I knew, finally.

He had given me the green light.

"Bye Rem, see you soon." he smiled before closing the door behind him.