It's a small chapter, I know, but it was my birthday (28th) so I didn't have time to write much more, sorry. I hope you all like this fluffy chapter anyways and WE'RE ALMOST AT SUMMER, so we all know what holidays in my fics usually means.

LEAVE COMMENTS!

Sirius' hands were shaking as he offered the small box of chocolates to Remus Lupin, who stood in front of him, stunned and speechless for the first time in the past month since he had forgiven Sirius Black. All that the Black boy tried to do was breathe through his nose and appear as completely genuine as he felt, because he would never forget that May 19th was the day he asked Remus Lupin out – officially a date, officially interested in him and only him for as long as he would take him.

"Sirius, I –" Remus stuttered, freezing.

They were alone in the dormitory. Peter and James had gone to the kitchens to go waffles (Peter was craving them since breakfast, but waffles were only on the table on Sundays) as a midnight snack.

"You don't need to say anything if you want to think about it before answering," Sirius said, trying to ignore the ache of imminent rejection. "And we can pretend this never happened if you say 'no', but if you say 'yes', I promise that I'll take this humourlessly."

"You said 'humourlessly' because you didn't want to say 'seriously'," Remus deadpanned.

Sirius held back a smile.

"As you can see, I'm taking it very solemnly," he said.

He had looked at the dictionary before starting this conversation to make sure that everything he said would be taken seriously, but the word 'serious' came into play it would be hard for him to hold himself back from a joke or two. He was working on it, though, which was more than he could say from who he was before he had been left to fend for himself for a while when their friendship had taken a break.

"I can it," Remus appeased him worry. "But what about Luna?"

Sirius raised his eyebrows.

"Are you worried that I might like her or are you worried that she might like me?" Sirius asked. "Because neither is true."

"Did you ever like her?" Remus asked.

"Not in the way she wanted me to, as I said before," Sirius said, looking away from Remus. There was some shame in his confession that wasn't there before. "It meant very little to me, and that is something I'm ashamed about – not her! I'm not ashamed of her!" he added, panicked once he heard himself. But there was a part of him that wanted to add a 'not anymore' which would make the conversation much more difficult. "I'm ashamed of my action and of the consequences. I should've taken her feelings at the time more... severely and understood what it might mean to her. But I didn't, and... here we are."

"What if she's still in love with you?" Remus asked, frowning, concerned.

Sirius scoffed.

"Have you seen her with Regulus?" Sirius asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Of course," he said.

"Then why would you ask it? She likes him, very much," he said. "She might like him more than she ever thought she liked me. She won't be upset about someone trying to add to your happiness, Remus – your sister loves you more than she loves herself, and I can empathise with that, at least."

Remus frowned, looking to the other side. "I don't like when you talk like that," he mumbled.

"Like what?"

"Like you don't love yourself. Like you don't talk yourself up all the time, and then suddenly you make yourself this... self-deprecating hero from a bad story book that love the romantic interest far too much," Remus said. "You're not like that. I'm not like that. I don't need you to bend to my will and my wishes. I don't like things like that. You're not an altruist, long-suffering hero; you're a selfish boy, Sirius."

"It's fair –"

"It's fair, and it's not something totally bad. I met you like this and I fell in love with you knowing all too well who you are, but I don't like to hear you say those dramatic things that do not sound like they are meant to come out from your mouth," Remus said.

"They are honest."

"Yeah, I suppose. Don't make it any less weird," Remus admitted.

That hurt Sirius a bit. He was trying his best to be open and honest, but when he was anything other the closed-off lover – physical and then nothing else at all – it just sounded disingenuous to others, even to the people closer to him and knew the real him. But he didn't know how to make his feelings heard unless they were loud and, perhaps, slightly dramatic.

"I thought that asking you out when we were alone would be better," Sirius said.

"You did it right. I wouldn't say 'yes' in front of others," Remus said.

Again, it hurt Sirius, but it did go down easier when he understood it.

"But, now that we're alone, you'll say 'yes', then?" Sirius asked.

Remus watched him for a second.

"Yes," he said. "I want to go out with you, but with you, not with this image that you make yourself look like."

"What do you mean?"

"No one else with us, just you and I... at Hogsmeade, but where nobody else can see us. This isn't about the others seeing us, this is about you and I getting to know each other not as friends, but as..." Remus stopped, unsure of how to continue the sentence.

"As men?" Sirius asked.

"As lovers," Remus corrected.

Sirius thought it was ironic that now Remus was the one treating him as a dirty secret, but it was deserved. Though he was excited that he had the opportunity he had almost fumbled, and he was going to work hard at it to make it work.

It was no surprise that Sirius was looking his best the day they had agreed to go to Hogsmeade together. Sirius had thought of cutting his hair a bit, just a trim, but James had insisted him not to, which left him to make a bun in the back of his head. He had put his best jeans and a shirt with a muggle band, but it was far too big for him, so he tucked it to the side of his trousers. Unfortunately, it was far too hot that May for him to be able to use his leather jacket, bought while at Grimmauld and hidden from his parents under his bed while living there.

Remus had worn his favourite and best thin long-sleeved shirt, it was light-blue and had the sleeves folded around the wrists and very dark jeans. His hair had been brushed back with his fingers in a way that Sirius was almost sure that Peter had helped Remus get ready when Sirius was out, finishing up one of his many detentions.

And they walked side by side, hands touching every few steps.

By the time they got to Hogsmeade, Remus touched Sirius' little finger with his, intertwining the two fingers together.

"...and then Watshy –" Sirius was talking.

"Don't call him Watshy," laughed Remus.

He hated the boy as much as Sirius, but he knew that it would be hypocritical of his part to allow Sirius to go on with the nickname.

Sirius rolled his eyes with a smile.

"Fine, Watsh said that the Hufflepuff team was completely losing this year, but he was wrong, of course. I'm happy that they won from Ravenclaw," Sirius continued talking about Quidditch. "Watsh just hates the fact that Fatema Mari is a best flyer than him."

"Watsh hates her because she's the daughter of immigrants," Remus corrected.

"So is he," Sirius said, confused.

Remus smirked.

"There's a lot in the muggle world that you don't understand. He's the son of immigrants that came here for work, she's the daughter of immigrants that came here for a better life without a job waiting for them, that makes people like Watsh think they are better than Mari. He's from a... difficult and very racist part of the world, and Mari's family is from a place that often is hated by the people from his part of the world," Remus explained.

"Oh, I understand now, you meant that – oh..." Sirius started, but cut himself off at the sight of something to the left.

As they were almost at the edge of Hogsmeade, about to go out of the village and into the small street of more expensive restaurants that the students would hardly go to, Sirius had seen someone leaving the area overlooking the Shrieking Shack – well, not someone, but a couple.

Luna was holding hands with Regulus and was smiling at him as he talked about something that they couldn't hear. Her eyes seemed to shine in humour and happiness as she watched him talking with a smirk on his face. She wore a normal school-accepted skirt around the knees and a pink shirt, which seemed an odd contrast to the somewhat formal black dress robes that Regulus was wearing. But no matter how formally he was dressed, he had leaned in and kissed her lips with such passional candour, putting his hands on the side of her neck and face that even Sirius had to look the other way, fixing his own shirt with some colour on his cheeks.

"Told you," Sirius whispered.

Remus took Sirius by the arm and dragged him along until they were several steps away, so he let go.

"They weren't like that before," Remus grumbled.

"Relationships grow, some slower than others, some faster," Sirius said, looking over his shoulder to see the couple separating after a long kiss. "It's nice to know Regulus is taking this seriously, though."

"How do you know?"

"He told me."

Remus looked at Sirius, raising his eyebrows.

"Are you talking about of when you apologised? You didn't tell us how it went," she explained.

"Yes. He told me he's in love with her, and I think she knows it," Sirius said, nodding, not looking at Remus. "She better know it, because he's certainly showing. The last time that we talked about girls it was... a mess, but, well, he was thirteen."

Remus laughed at that, seeing Sirius' reaction.

"What happened in that conversation?" Remus asked.

Sirius cringed a bit.

"I went against what my mother was saying, all purity and chastity. I told him that it was alright to not marry whoever they wanted him to marry, pure as the blood that he prides himself to have," Sirius said. "I don't think it worked. He was embarrassed by the word 'sex', looking like a tomato before I finished the sentence."

Remus grumbled wordlessly for a second. "Maybe it worked now," Remus said.

But that was the end of the conversation about Luna and Regulus, for their siblings had no longer any weight in their relationship, and they were both willing to work in whatever they could build together and see if anything could end up working, knowing that they had a lot to work on themselves still.

Luna sat in front of Regulus at the edge of the Black Lake, they stared at each other with the envelopes in hand, unsure of how they wanted to do what they had agreed to.

"Do you want to go ahead and open it first?" Regulus asked, glancing down at the white paper with parchment folded inside.

"Why don't you go ahead first?" Luna asked, putting the opening of the envelope down letting the addressed part of it with Dumbledore's handwriting be on top.

He looked down at his letter and offered it to her.

"Why don't you open it for me and I open yours?" he asked, a controlled smile in his face at the offer.

Luna hesitated, but took the letter and gave hers to him.

Opening the final grades of the year was a heavy task, especially when it hung a lot of their efforts in the balance. In her case, it hung her whole future, dangling it on top of her head with the promise of letting her get into Alchemy; in his case, the continuous acceptance of his relationship with Luna if his grades in Transfiguration had raised enough to put him on (at least) the top three, preferably in the top two (only accepting his defeat if Luna or Barty had gotten a better grade than him).

"On three?" she asked.

He nodded.

One.

He took the letter in his hands, seeing her name written in a careful handwriting, even though he thought it looked far better when written in his handwriting, like in the letters he had written with such care.

Two.

He turned, seeing the school wax seal keeping the envelope closed. The four Houses' symbols together in red wax. That piece of parchment inside kept so much of their future and happiness within, and they were terrified of looking inside.

Three.

He tore it open and put the envelope to the side, unfolding the parchment and looking at the contents with fear growing on his throat as he could not make a single noise. He didn't want to be the bearer of bad news.

LUNA BRIALLEN LUPIN HAS ACHIEVED:

Ancient Runes: O

Arithmancy: O

Astronomy: E

Charms: O

Defence Against the Dark Arts: O

Divination: O

Herbology: O

History of Magic: E

Potions: O

Transfigurations: O

He stopped reading and looked up at Luna with a huge smile on his face.

"You did really well," he calmed her down.

Luna smiled, turning the parchment in her hands and turned the written part towards him so he could see it as well.

"You got an E on Transfiguration," she said, showing it to him. "You passed with flying colours. Otherwise, all 'O's." She took a look in her letter, taking it from his hand while he took his from hers. "Oh, Regulus, this wonderful! I'm certain you're on the top three!"

"I got 9 'O's!" he said, still in shock.

Luna giggled in delight, throwing herself against him so suddenly that Regulus was thrown on his back on the grass with a little yelp of surprise, Luna on top of him with her letter in her hand. She didn't care that people could see them, she just kissed his lips gently until he parted them enough for her tongue to slip inside and caress his. His hand rested on her hips as the kissed deepened and her body rested against him with only half her weight, because she was holding herself up with her forearms and elbows.

He wasn't sure when their legs intertwined or when he pulled her hips closer to his and, suddenly, he turned them, getting on top of her while still kissing her deeply. He didn't even pull apart from her until breathing through his nose while kissing her was not enough for how fast his heart was speeding on his chest. He could feel her heart beating quickly on her own chest against him as well, but more than that, he could feel her breasts against his chest.

"Oh, Regulus, we did it!" Luna said as soon as they pulled apart to breathe.

"You're in Alchemy! You'll be able to study Alchemy!" he said, peppering kisses around her face. "Luna, we did it."

"MISTER BLACK, MISS LUPIN!" McGonagall screamed from where she stood, just getting closer to the lake, where she was to meet with Flitwick in a few minutes to walk with him to Hogsmeade for shopping. "NO CROSSING THE LINE OF PUBLIC AFFECTIONS!"

Regulus rolled away from Luna in that very second.

"Yes, Professor," Regulus said, fixing his uniform quickly.

Luna sighed from where she was lying on the grass and took a moment more to sit up with a scowl.

"Yes, Professor," she grumbled, upset for the interrupted kiss.

Professor McGonagall watched the couple for a few seconds before her lips twitched and she looked away, she took a deep breath and turned to the couple again.

"Congratulations to the both of you. Your grades took you to the top three students of your year," she said. "Second and third place are reasons for great pride."

Regulus raised his eyes, getting up and fixing his trousers now that he was standing.

"Second and third?" he asked.

"Your friend, Mister Crouch, didn't tell you?" the professor asked. "He got first place, all 'O's and he'll add subjects next year. You got second, Mister Black, and Miss Lupin got third. No matter; it's a motive to be proud, of course."

Regulus smiled and turned to Luna.

"Barty!" he said with excitement.

Luna smiled from where she was sitting.

"Of course Barty will come and push us down out of surprise," she said, great pride on her face. "His father will be so proud."

And Mr Crouch Sr. was proud indeed, but it was Mrs Crouch that sent him a big carrot cake with chocolate made by hand at night, it arrived during breakfast, which he shared with Evan, Pandora, Luna and Regulus on the way Hogwarts Express back to London on their way back home.

Evan held Barty's hand without asking for it and in complete silence while Pandora talked about how she would spend a whole weekend on Xenophilius' house a week before the wedding, and Barty didn't let go of it, listening to Panda with a smile and nodding along at her excited chatter.

Regulus noticed it and made no comment of it, but Luna did notice the way he was smiling the whole way home.

I hope you all liked Wolfstar and Luna and Regulus being proud of Barty (and of Evan, too).

Reminder: Pandora's wedding is coming. Summer Holidays are coming. Sibling bonding is coming (which sibilings?). Black Family content is coming. Lupin Family content is coming. I'm excited for all of this, you all have no idea.

It might take a few days for the next chapter because I'm almost at the end of my driving-school classes (necessary in my country), so I'm scared of the tests lol