"i think i might be accidentally falling in love with you. maybe."

*

The rest of the break passed by quickly, too quickly for everyone's taste. Peter joined them a day after Remus revealed his secret, and they had great fun together for the last few days. Even Lily made a last-minute appearance the day before they were due back to school, which led to a massive snowball fight in the backyard. It ended only when Mrs. Potter came out to call them in and received a snowball to the face. Everyone was dragged inside shortly thereafter, with James swearing it was Lily the entire time.

As always, though, the holidays came to an end, and the group found themselves back on Platform 9 & 3/4 before they really knew what hit them. Sirius seemed slightly down, but he was back to his old self enough to drag race trolleys across the platform, which is how he and Lily ended up running over a few poor first years while James and Eva soared past, victorious.

While Peter helped all of the kids up and made sure no one was injured, Remus leaned on a brick column and watched with a small smile on his face, a smile that only widened when he saw a familiar Ravenclaw girl carrying a small white kitten walk by. She wore jeans and a soft-looking blue sweater, with her pin-straight chestnut hair falling into her face.

"Kriss!" The boy stumbled over his words briefly as he ran up to her. Never before had he gathered the courage to talk to her outside of Prefect meetings, but he was so sick of feeling scared of life. Remus, like Eva, like Sirius, like the rest of his friends and the rest of the world, knew a war was coming. It hung on the horizon like the full moon, closing in every day as a warning sign.

More than anything, if war came down to death, he wanted to live a little first.

Kriss spun around, flustered but pleased. "Oh, Remus, hi!" The cat tried to wiggle out of her arms, and she giggled while trying to adjust her arms. "She's always squirming around, sorry about her. I think she likes you."

"What's her name?" Remus realized that he had no actual topic of conversation to bring up and gladly jumped on the first opportunity he found. He had no interest in cats, although over the years he learned that animals took a liking to him. The kitten kept trying to jump out of Kriss' arms and towards him.

"Gray. For the Gray Lady." Kriss smiled bashfully and glanced down, pulling her hands into her sweater sleeves. As she spoke, Remus fell in love with her voice: soft, dreamy, and sweet like chocolate. "It's kind of nerdy, I know."

"No, I like it," he said. His fingers tapped nervously on his leg until he shoved his hands into his pockets to hide it. "I had a goldfish when I was a kid and I named it Dumbledore."

When she laughed, her light blue eyes lit up. "That's so cute!"

"Moony, you coming?" James yelled obnoxiously from the other end of the platform. Remus opened his mouth to answer, blushing furiously, but then he heard, "Ow, Blondie, easy!"

"Leave him alone, James!"

Remus rolled his eyes, hoping that his friends wouldn't embarrass him further, but he figured that Eva had him covered, so he turned back to Kriss. "Do you want to head to the Prefect compartments, then?"

"Yeah, okay," she said, a faint blush tinting her cheeks. He followed her into the train, feeling oddly proud of himself.

From across the platform, Eva shoved James onto the train. "You're the world's biggest third wheel, you know that?"

The bespectacled boy laughed and tossed his trunks into their normal compartment. "Not my fault Evans won't save me from eternal third-wheeldom."

"Try being a self-rescuing damsel, Potter," Lily said, sticking out her tongue playfully before walking down the hall to find Marlene, who usually held their compartment. Sirius grinned and started to walk into his, but Eva grabbed his arm.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?"

He felt his stomach flip. "Okay."

"Oooh!" James and Peter simultaneously yelled like the children they were. It was easy to forget sometimes, with all of the violence and fear surrounding them, that a year and a half of school remained for them all.

Eva pulled him out into the hallway and shut the door. Looking up at him, she found herself unable to meet his eyes. It was strange. She'd never had an issue talking to him before. Sirius leaned against the door, waiting for whatever she decided to tell him.

"I'm not going to take up a lot of your time. I just wanted to say I'm sorry," she finally said, her gaze to the floor. You are a Gryffindor. Get it together! "Remus told me why you didn't show up to Slughorn's party, and I get it. If I had known, I would have told you to go, so I'm sorry for freaking out."

"I don't blame you one bit, Eve. You probably thought I lived up to my reputation that night."

"No, I didn't. You helped a friend. I don't think you're what people say," Eva reminded him.

He gave her a cheeky grin. "Oh, really? Check this out." He moved her out of the way of the throng of students trying to get past them. Then, running a hand through his hair to mess it up a bit and slipping a cigarette from his pocket, he flashed a smile at a few third-year girls and winked. They immediately dissolved into giggles and pushed each other away, stealing glances backward occasionally. Sirius laughed once they were gone and slid the cigarette back into its box. "See? That one works every time. It's girl Kryptonite."

"Okay. Maybe there's a reason you're the heartbreak of Hogwarts." The two burst into slightly too-loud laughter, earning a few disapproving looks, but they didn't care. "Point is, I'm sorry. It's just that... there's no point in hating someone you love."

The words spilled out of her lips as naturally as water spills from a waterfall, but she didn't know how she meant them. There's no point in hating someone you love. Inside, panic began to rise and she frantically searched for a way to take back those words.

"I mean, we're all a family, right? We need to look out for each other."

It wasn't her best save, but she breathed a sigh of relief when Sirius' expression never wavered from its teasing smile.

"Right you are, Blondie." He ruffled her hair fondly, never abandoning the grin she couldn't see through. He slipped something small into her hand and said, "Get lost before Evans and McKinnon hex my lovely self into oblivion."

Eva gave him a kiss on the cheek before walking down the hallway in search of a familiar redhead and blonde. She slid into the compartment as Lily recounted the story of how she pushed Petunia's awful boyfriend down a snowy slope and didn't get caught. Conversation died down when Lily retrieved a book from her bag and Eva fell prey to her thoughts.

Part of her wondered how relieved she really was when Sirius didn't react to her statement about love. Part of her wilted when she realized how true those words were.

Eva remembered the item he shoved in her hand and opened her palm to find her bracelet, perfectly mended. She slid it back onto her wrist, felt the cool beads against her skin, and her eyes widened.

She had quite possibly fallen for Sirius Black. Maybe. Accidentally.

Wow.

The thought didn't terrify her as much as she thought it would. It didn't hit her like a ton of bricks. It didn't fall out of the sky randomly. Loving him felt... natural. Safe. It made sense in her mind. Why else would she have kissed Regulus to make him jealous, or held such a grudge when he missed the party? All of those little normal moments seemed exciting with him at her side. His gray eyes held as much mystery as they did comfort.

Marlene sat on her knees and ordered way too many cookies as she watched Eva work through her emotions with a knowing smile. "Something on your mind, Taylor?"

"What?" A rose-colored blush coated Eva's cheeks and she purposely knocked her wand off of the seat just so she could bend down and get it. "No, not at all. Anything new, Marley?"

"Oh, not really," Marlene said breezily, smiling as she prepared her trap. "I've been really bored at school, though."

"You could try opening a book," Lily mumbled. "Or try being quiet for the ones who decide to do that."

Marlene laughed and ran a hand through her blonde waves, trying to get rid of the knots. "In your dreams, Lils. No, but I was thinking of asking Sirius on the next Hogsmeade trip."

Eva, who had just taken her first sip of hot cocoa from the trolley witch, nearly choked. "I'm sorry?"

"You heard me. We always have fun. It's been a while since we've been together, and he's good for a laugh and a kiss." She raised her eyebrows innocently at Eva, who was trying (and failing) to look like none of this bothered her. "Unless you have an objection for some very obscure reason."

"I... I literally cannot think of a single reason why that's not a great idea."

Marlene's brown eyes widened at her response, not having expected it at all. She had absolutely zero interest in ever kissing Sirius ever again. "I-"

"Seriously! I cannot think of one single reason!"

"You seem hesitant," Marlene pointed out, a sarcastic smirk growing on her face.

Eva played with the zipper on her new leather jacket, hoping that Marlene wasn't serious about wanting to date Sirius. She felt like next to Marlene, with her beauty and Pureblood status and their history together, she didn't stand a chance. "All right, maybe I am."

"And why is that?"

"Because I like Sirius!" She threw her hands up and began to pace the small compartment. The words just came to her and she said them with no filter. "I think I've liked him for a while now and I don't know why I didn't see it before. And he'll never like me as more than a friend or sister, which stinks, but I can't help that. Either way, please don't go out with him again, because I have no other excuses to stop you!"

Eva's green eyes pleaded with Marlene, who only smiled in triumph. "I knew it!" She yelled, pumping her first triumphantly in the air before enveloping Eva in the biggest hug she'd ever given anyone, and that was saying something. All of the Gryffindors regarded Marlene as the best hugger in their year. "I knew it! You two definitely need to become a thing! You'd be so cute!"

Lily didn't even look up from her book as Marlene jumped up and down with excitement. She just briefly said, "McKinnon, you owe me five Galleons," and returned to her reading.

Sirius, meanwhile, ducked into his compartment and sat down next to Peter, finally dropping that smile he somehow managed to keep up the entire conversation. It was the same seat he had sat in every single ride to Hogwarts since their first year. Somewhere under the seats, all of the Marauders had carved their initials. Everyone sat in silence for a solid minute before Peter ventured a comment.

"So... home run or strikeout?"

Sirius groaned and sunk down in his seat, covering his face with his hands. "Why did God make girls so confusing?"

"Trust me, mate, that's the first thing I ask myself every morning in the mirror," James said confidentially. "Well, that and wondering how I got to be so majestically good-looking."

Peter glared at James and put a comforting hand on Sirius' shoulder. "She'll come around. You'll see."

"I'm starting to wonder if she actually will." He sat up and then shook his head. "It's been years now. And even if she did, do you really think she should be someone like me?"

"What do you mean?" James asked sharply. "I love that girl like a sister, and if you'd ever do anything to hurt her intentionally, I'd kill you. But I don't think you'd do that."

Sirius shook his head again. His gray eyes watched the quickly-passing landscapes through the window as he thought out loud. "What did I expect to happen, though? She just magically falls for me and we just get to live happily ever after? Do you think Evans will turn around one day and suddenly be in love with you, and you'll settle down and have all of these bespectacled redhead kids who play Quidditch? It's not going to happen like that, not for any of us! Not with this damn war breathing down our necks."

"Padfoot, it's not like you're marrying the girl. You just want a second first date, considering we screwed up the first one pretty bad. I think you're overexaggerating-" James began, but Sirius wasn't finished.

"Am I? I love her more than I love myself, but I'd be no good for her. I just got myself thrown out of my family, which means I have no backup in case things go south. I already have a bad enough reputation just for having 'Black' pegged at the end of my signature. She doesn't need to be dragged into anything that has to do with me. She's too good for that."

"Sirius, do us all a favor and shut up." Peter's words surprised both of them enough to make Sirius' mouth close, which was no small feat. Most in their year often forgot that the timid Peter Pettigrew was also a Gryffindor, and he had his moments of bravery just like the rest. Just because courage comes in quiet situations doesn't change the fact that it is indeed courage.

Just as this was happening, Remus slipped into the compartment, an unusually bright grin on his face.

"Remus," James greeted, "you're looking awfully moony."

Instead of blushing, the sandy-haired boy only grinned more. "And you all look like dementors got ahold of you."

James sat up straight like a know-it-all student and recited with a straight face: "Professor, Sirius won't stop being a self-deprecating prat!" Peter laughed at James' impersonation and even Sirius cracked a smile.

Remus cleared his throat and continued in a spot-on Horace Slughorn voice. "There are two things wrong with that, James m'boy. One, Mr. Black has no right to be depressed at all because he is attractive, talented, and connives that Mr. Lupin into doing his Astronomy essays with chocolate. Two, no one makes better self-deprecating comments than Remus John Lupin, self-hater since age six, and that is a fact."

James laughed so hard that he fell off of his seat and those who passed the compartment stared oddly at the boy, but he couldn't have cared less. "Oh, that was bloody brilliant," he wheezed, still overcome with laughter. "Brilliant!"

Remus gave a little bow, and Sirius golf-clapped. "Now that I've done my Slughorn impression for the first time for a live audience, I believe I interrupted Wormtail's inspirational speech."

"You act like I can follow that up," Peter grumbled humorously. "First of all, I think we all can agree that Eva's too good for you. Right?"

Remus and James nodded, mumbling their agreement. Sirius grinned a bit. "Great pep talk, that made me feel loads better."

"I'm not done yet. You don't deserve her, but you might still get her. You guys are the best friends I could ask for, and I don't feel like I deserve that. Do you guys feel that way at all?" His question hit Sirius right in the heart, as he spent so much time believing that he wasn't enough. "You're right, mate. We aren't guaranteed security or futures or happiness. None of that good stuff. We aren't even guaranteed tomorrow. But that doesn't mean we don't deserve it."

Sirius mulled over his friend's words. We aren't even guaranteed tomorrow. But that doesn't mean we don't deserve it.

"Wormtail's right," James said, nodding along as he picked himself up from off of the floor. "But both of you blokes are also wrong. We're going to survive this war. No, we're going to do better than that. We're going to live through it, and we're going to do it together."

Sirius didn't quite know how to be an optimist. His parents taught him to look for the worst in people, to watch for backstabbing and withdrawal that was bound to happen. For once, he looked at the world with a new pair of eyes, with a new set of tinted glasses called hope.

He wondered if that was how Eva saw everything.