"remember when i was young and so were you, and time stood still and love was all we knew?"

*

The faint morning light spread across the Hogwarts grounds on a Tuesday morning. A warm September breeze rippled the long grasses. The leaves of the trees had begun their transformation into the brief sunset that was autumn, gold to brown to nothing at all.

Under a beech tree near the lake, Eva bent over her sketchbook, scribbling feverishly. Every once in a while she'd glance up, tilt her head in thought, then bury her nose back into her drawings.

Sirius knew better than to interrupt his girlfriend while she was in the 'inspiration zone'. Instead, he leaned his back against the tree and sipped the coffee he'd lightly spiked with firewhiskey. There wasn't much that would drag him out of bed early enough to go outside before breakfast, but he was learning that a certain blonde's smile was a little too irresistible for her own good.

Yawning loudly, he read over a letter he'd recently received from his cousin, Andromeda. Over the summer she'd finally cut ties with the Blacks, admitting that her young daughter was the daughter of a Muggle-born man she fell in love with. For years, she'd refused to admit who the father was. They eloped soon after, an event Sirius had been the sole witness to. He grinned at the three of them waving up at him from the little photo she sent: Andromeda laughing at something, Ted grinning over his lopsided glasses, and little Nymphaora's curls changing from light brown to bubblegum pink.

From exchanging correspondence with his cousin, he understood that the four-year-old Metamorphmagus was the light of Andromeda's life. Sirius didn't have much love for the majority of his family, but he loved Andromeda. In the summer of her seventh year at Hogwarts, she met a boy in London. At Christmas, she told him she was in love, and at graduation, she told him she was pregnant. Out of everyone in their family, only thirteen-year-old Sirius knew the real father. The Blacks just assumed the baby girl was a result of a one-night stand at Hogwarts. She kept her relationship with Ted hidden for years until one day, she just grew tired of silencing something that should be shouted: love. She fell love and she wanted the world to know it.

So she told them.

It was quiet, well-behaved, perfect Andromeda's defining moment when she told her parents that she wanted to marry a Muggle-Born. They screamed at her, called her a traitor, a disappointment, a disgrace. Bellatrix led these insults, while Narcissa just stared at her with a deadly glare. Andromeda patiently listened to all of their hurtful words, nodded, stood, and walked out, never to return. After her hasty departure, she and Nymphadora stayed with Sirius for a few days until she married Ted, and then she moved in with him.

Silently he thanked God that another Black escaped their wretched name. Andromeda Tonks. That's how she signed the letter, probably because she just liked signing her new last name. He knew if he had a chance to ditch it, he would.

He glanced over at Eva. The faint rays of early sunlight bathed her in their soft glow, illuminating her features so perfectly. A sharp focus had overtaken her, a focus that made her eyes brighter with passion and her lips turn upwards ever so slightly. His thoughts strayed back to his meeting with Professor McGonagall, specifically the plan for after graduation he'd mentioned to her, the one he'd called stupid.

Looking at her in the sunrise, though, it seemed perfectly rational.

She glanced up again, but this time her gaze fell on Sirius. He had this odd look on his face, one that she could only describe as admiration. "What?" Eva asked.

He shook his head. "Nothing," he said with a smile that made her heart feel like fire. "Go back to your drawing."

"Actually, I think it's done. What do you think?" He leaned over and looked at an ink drawing of the castle, shaded and sketched with precision.

"You're too talented for your own good."

"And you're too charming for yours."

Sirius checked his watch, the one he received from the Potters the year before. "We'll need to head back in soon if we want to eat and be on time."

"Wanna skip?"

His eyebrows shot up. "You are asking me to skip class?"

"Mhm." She picked up her pen and added a few lines to her drawing. "Just the first one."

Sirius sighed. That made more sense. "You don't want to go to Defense Against the Dark Arts."

She shook her head.

Very quickly, the students of Hogwarts had realized that Professor Wicker was not one to mess with. Unlike the previous year, where the class operated as an open conversation for learning, he operated class as a lecture unless they were having a practical day. While she knew the man was a Ravenclaw (how Sirius found out, she had no idea), he seemed to hold a grudge against all of the Gryffindors, specifically those with non-wizard parents. Eva tried to reason that this wasn't the case, but he had favorites to pick on, and she and Lily were among them.

A joke gone wrong resulted in assigned seats for the entire class with no one sitting next to someone of their own House. Eva ended up squashed between two brutish Slytherins who liked to look at her like a predator looks at prey, which made paying attention to lectures very difficult. James and Sirius were separated with Snape in between them, a situation absolutely no one agreed with. Ironically, the only one of their group to receive detention wasn't a Marauder.

Marlene had developed a sharper tongue over the summer. Eva didn't know what exactly had happened. Her friend always possessed a spitfire temper, but this was something else. Mouthing off to the new professor after he mocked Eva for an incorrect answer earned her a Friday night writing lines, and using that time to write what she really thought of the man on the parchment he issued earned her another detention the following week. Second to Remus, Marlene possessed the most vulgar vocabulary in the group, one that only came out to play when her friends were threatened. She refused to tell anyone exactly what it was she wrote, but if it was anything like what she called him under her breath, Eva didn't want to know. She thought Marlene's refusal to back down to the point of recklessness would get her into big trouble one day, and not just in Hogwarts.

Eva moved to sit in between Sirius' legs and leaned against him. He smelled faintly of cologne, shampoo, and smoke, a familiar combination that always made her feel safer. Bored of sitting still, he began to braid her hair, his soft touch almost lulling her to sleep.

"Want me to do something?" he asked, his nimble fingers weaving through her blonde hair almost of their own accord. Fierce love for the girl in his arms overcame him as he thought of her actually worrying about going to class because of an ex-Ministry employee who really was every single word Marlene wrote about him.

"I can fight my own battles, you know."

"Oh, trust me, I do know. My plan was to eat food and watch my super-tough girlfriend do all the cool fighting."

She laughed. "Right. That's me. Off doing all the cool fighting."

"And that's me. Off to eat." He tied off her braid and stood, offering a hand. "Care to join me?"

She grinned and accepted. "Okay."

"Wait, hold on." Sirius bent to pick up the photo that had fallen from his pocket. Eva peered at it curiously.

"That's Andromeda, right?" She didn't know Sirius' cousin that well, but the older girl had always been kind to her when they passed in the halls.

"Yeah. She got married to Ted a few months ago, and that's Nymphadora," he explained, pointing to the giggling girl with a fond smile. "They almost made me her godfather, actually."

Eva took the photo from him to examine it further as they walked back to the castle. "Why?"

"I talked her out of it. Dromeda was already walking on thin ice as it is, not sucking up to all of my family's stupid ideas and all despite being a Slytherin. Saying that her newborn's guardian was me would probably not have helped the situation." He shrugged. "Plus, I was thirteen. I didn't know the first thing about any of that crap. I didn't trust myself. I still don't, actually. You should have seen me trying to make myself dinner at my new place this summer. It's lucky I didn't burn down Diagon Alley."

"What crap?"

"You know. Kids, responsibility. Adulting. All that." Sirius slipped a cigarette from his pocket to his mouth out of habit, but he felt Eva's eyes on him and immediately returned it to its pack. "Sorry."

Apologies were a rarity for Sirius Black. He didn't usually issue them, believing that life was short enough without second-guessing actions, but he knew why she hated smoking and resolved not to do it around her. 

"Thanks." That one word meant a lot to her. She considered what he said before the cigarette made an appearance. "You don't like kids?"

"What? No, I love them. They're great for a laugh, too. Dora's a little bugger, she's already a Marauder in training, I can tell. I just don't think I'd actually be good in a guardian position. I can barely take care of myself, let alone anyone else. Francis is my limit."

"You're good at taking care of me." Eva nudged him playfully. 

He smirked and pulled her in for a short kiss before pulling away once again. "You're a special case."

His calloused hand found her ink-splattered one. She glanced down at their entwined fingers, her nails painted in different shades of pink, and noticed something odd about his. "Your nails are black."

"Oh, yeah. I told Evans she could paint my nails if she got me a cookie from the kitchens."

"By Merlin, you're an idiot," Eva teased. He held open the door for her and the two continued on to the Great Hall for breakfast. "But you're my idiot."

"What's on your hand?" He held it up and read the words on the back of her hand aloud. "Quidditch tryouts, Potions homework, stop James from doing at least one stupid thing. Good list, Blondie."

She performed a rather goofy bow. "Why, thank you." 

"When are tryouts?"

"Next Saturday. I wanted to do Friday, but Slughorn's having a dinner to celebrate us being back."

"Ah, the Pug Club," Sirius quipped, placing a hand on his heart as if recalling something dear to him. "What a loving institution."

"You laugh, but it's going to be terrible. He'll be all 'Oho! There's a group of the brightest students I've ever met! Miss Taylor, what career will you be pursuing after Hogwarts?' and I'll have to say that I'm going to be Barty Crouch's minimum-wage secretary after spending however many years talking about feminism and changing the world." 

Her impression of Slughorn almost topped Remus', and Sirius actually doubled over from laughter. His laugh, which almost resembled the dog-like bark of his animagus, carried through the hallways, overflowing him with happiness.

Peter's head snapped up at the sound of his friend's laugh and saw the pair at the doors of the Great Hall. Grinning, he returned to his game of Wizard's Chess against James. Both boys stared intently at the game, determined to win. Next to them, Remus picked at his food, his head propped up by his elbow, struggling to stay awake. Kriss sat across from him, her sky blue eyes focused on a book, but every few seconds they'd flit up to her boyfriend, concern etched across her tan face. 

"Hi!" Eva said, sliding in next to Kriss and almost knocking her cup of orange juice over. The Ravenclaw girl often sat with them for meals, claiming that they were better friends than any she had in her own House. No one cared in the slightest. "Where're Marlene and Lily?"

She saw James' hazel eyes grow bigger under his glasses. Cursing a bit too loudly, he shoved a few books into his bag before running faster than he would when Mitchell made the team do laps in the rain the year before. 

Sirius frowned. "What's with him?"

"He and Lily had some Head People stuff," Peter answered, carefully putting all of the pieces back into their case. "Someone needs to get Prongs a watch."

"Christmas is coming up," Sirius said as he helped himself to James' deserted plate of food. "Moony, mate, you in there?"

Eva knew it was the day before the full moon. Most of the time, Remus could carry on like nothing was wrong, but a day or so before, it started to show. Just by looking at his pitiful state, her heart ached, but her emotions weren't even close to matching the girl's across from him. 

Kriss watched his lips move as he mumbled a quick "yeah." She stared at his plate of practically untouched food. She saw the tired way he couldn't focus on anything, and she noticed the dark circles under his eyes that weren't there a few days before. 

Her gaze fell back down to her book, a leather-bound copy of Romeo and Juliet she'd found in a dusty corner of the library, but she couldn't focus on the story any longer. With much more care than James exercised with his textbooks, she slid the play into her bag and stood up. 

"I've got to run or I'll be late for Ancient Runes. I'll see you all later." She gave Remus a gentle kiss on the cheek, but he barely reacted to her affection. Eva caught the hurt look flash across her face before she hurried away. 

Eva turned to Remus, a sharp ferocity to her expression that shocked everyone at the table. Sirius recognized the look in her eyes and started to pray for his friend's soul. "I swear if you don't tell her soon, Remus John Lupin, you're going to lose her, and I'm not going to feel sorry for you." Grabbing an apple from a  bowl, she took off after Kriss. 

Remus groaned and massaged his aching temple. Sirius and Peter exchanged uneasy glances, not really sure whose side they were supposed to be on. 

"I hate it when she's right," Remus mumbled into his hands. 

"What if we just took a picture with you tomorrow night and sent it to her anonymously?" 

"No." 

"We could make a sign."

"No."

"What if we bake her an 'I'm a werewolf' cake?"

"No."

"James could write a poem. It's easy to rhyme with 'Kriss', but 'werewolf' might be tricky."

"No."

"We could make a scavenger hunt!"

At that point, Remus tuned out their suggestions altogether, but they did bring the smallest smile to his scarred face.

Finished this at one o'clock in the morning, so enjoy!!!

Kind of related, but kind of not, I love Tonks :) I guess that is related, we got little Tonks

qotd: favorite tv show?

aotd: friends!

Thanks for reading! Please vote and comment!