"Sluggy, are you on your way to Astronomy?"

The black haired boy nearly caught Hermione off guard as she was walking back from her dinner in the Great Hall. Uncontrollably, yet unsurprisingly, her cheeks flared up.

"Oh, hi Sirius," nervously brushing some hair behind her ears while he smiled softly in her direction, "where were you for dinner? I didn't see you."

"Just catching up on sleep," he paused. Before Harper had a chance to reply, something came over Sirius, something that he could tell her in hopes of bringing them closer together, perhaps.

Without warning, he gently took Harper by the hand, and pulled her into an empty corridor. To Sirius, she looked shocked and slightly confused. To Hermione, the touch of his hand sent a shiver up and down her spine. The butterflies in each of their stomachs were more present than ever, whether Hermione believed it or not.

"I have something to tell you, you're never gonna believe it! It's probably the reason why I didn't get much sleep last night," he nearly shouted.

At the moment, it didn't matter that no one had known about his little nightly walks, he wanted to tell her, apparently. Being as nonchalant as possible and lightly brushing over non-light topics had worked for him in the past, and he'd do it again.

Meanwhile Hermione, anxious from the most recent Amortentia incident in Potions class where all signs pointed to a mutual smelling of each other, took this weird start of a confession different than Sirius may have intended.

Taking her by the hand? Wanting to confess something on his mind? Something that had kept him up at night?

She grew tingly, but was rather caught off guard in another way with his supposed confession.

"I was up pretty late last night, don't ask why, and I may or may not have seen a certain pair of Gryffindor's locking lips in the corridor."

Oh. That's what he wanted to tell me.

"You don't mean James and Lily, do you?" she falsely beamed with excitement, having seen a mirror image of what he just described.

"I do! It's them! They don't know that I know, so just keep it a secret for now," he started, and eventually realized Harper's knowledge and said back, "wait, how'd you know it was them?"

"Other than how bloody obvious it is? James told me in Defense Against the Dark Arts earlier today."

Sirius looked flabbergasted. "He told you? And not me?"

A perky smile rose to Hermione's face; she tried to cover it before Sirius got too dramatically offended.

"Relax, it's pretty much all we talk about anyway. I've been giving him advice about how to win over Lily since the first class of the term. I guess it's worked now," she said nonchalantly, trying to hide her growing nervousness.

"Interesting."

"..."

"Well, he's gonna get a piece of me later," he spoke while practicing his punches in the air over Harper's head while she giggled. While doing so, the noise of the clock striking on the hour echoed through the corridor.

Realizing the time, Sirius put a pause on his ghost punches and his hand found Harper's back subconsciously. "We better go, otherwise Sinistra's going to lose her marbles," he said, before feeling Harper's back tense up, just as his did at the Quidditch Pitch earlier that week.

"Since when do you care what Professor Sinistra thinks?" Harper questioned once she brushed a part of that nervousness off, smirking with crossed arms as she and Sirius made their way towards the Astronomy tower.

On their way, however, they caught Peter running about the castle in a frantic daze. Anyone with a brain could figure out that he was looking for something he had lost, but only Hermione knew what that missing item was. The little "Astronomy textbook" that remained in her book bag was making Peter chaotic. She shot Sirius a confused look, playing along.

He was swimming in circles before Sirius reached out his arms to hold Peter in the space in front of him. Slowly his breathing returned to a semi-normal speed, but his excessive mumbling didn't stop.

"I— I can't— find— it," he panted, the volume of his voice increasing to a yell, "Sirius I can't find it— help me, S—Sirius. P—Please!" Hermione could see the crazy in his eyes; this is exactly what she wanted. Hiding a smile of success was getting harder and harder.

"What is it you can't find, Peter?" pleaded a stressed Sirius, "Maybe we can help."

The mumbling continued at a lower volume, but Peter didn't say anything notable. His breath was heavy and his eyes darted around the room. He stared at Harper, so innocent, next to Sirius.

"Peter, look at me," spoke a concerned Sirius, waiting for his mental friend to stop staring at the girl Sirius himself fancied. She felt uncomfortable for a moment, but as soon as Peter looked back at Sirius, it was like a switch went off in his brain. His breathing steading, the craziness from his eyes began to fade, and he was able to spit out a full sentence without his mind interrupting him.

"I don't know what just came over me."

Sirius took a sigh of relief. "You gave us a real scare there, Wormy," he said.

"Maybe you should go see Madame Pomfrey, just to be safe," Harper insisted.

"I think I'm alright, thanks," he darted back rather quickly towards Harper for reasons she didn't know. While the crazy from his eyes left, a new darkness had found its way in. Only Hermione could see it, for now, she hoped.

By the time Peter had left Sirius and Harper in the corridor, likely in search of Emma, they were much too late to Astronomy. Even though they ran, Professor Sinistra wouldn't let them hear the end of it. Her shrill voice paired her strict teaching style and already heavy workload of the class made the next hour nearly unbearable for Harper and Sirius. Sinistra wouldn't even let them converse in between shifts with the telescope.

Once class was over, Professor Sinistra presented herself to her two students that prioritized "other matters" in front of her own class. "Not so fast, you two," she said as they approached the stairs, "you're on clean-up duty. It's only fair," she said.

When they groaned, she chuckled. "See you next week," Sinistra snickered as she left the tower.

So, Sirius and Harper found themselves with a long list of tasks to do before calling it a night. Everything from cleaning the telescope lenses to putting away all of the materials used in class that day perfectly was on this list. If anything was out of line, Sinistra would find out, and she wouldn't be happy.

Both sleep deprived already, neither Sirius nor Hermione was thrilled to be staying after hours at the Astronomy tower. But being with someone that gave you butterflies had its perks.

Sirius, on one hand, was happy to finally have some alone time with Harper, regardless of how nervous she made him. Hermione, on the other hand, tried to focus her mind on Peter, Emma, or anything related to her purpose for being back in this time, regardless of how nervous Sirius made her.

While rolling one of the telescopes to their properly stowed location, Hermione brought up the elephant in the room. "So, what do you think was going on with Peter earlier? That was pretty weird."

"I dunno, he's never had an outburst like that before."

"..."

"I'm worried for him."

"What do you suppose he was looking for?"

"Again, I dunno. I doubt he's actually missing something, I think it was just part of the outburst. Like a bad dream, or something."

Hermione paused, doing her best to put on a fake face for one of Peter's closest friends. In all honestly, she didn't give a damn if Peter was going mental. It would only help her case, but she wanted to keep Sirius' feelings in mind. Whether she accepted it or not, he had grown important to her.

"Do you think he'll be okay? I'm worried for him too," she added.

Sirius gulped, "I hope so." This, paired with James' accident last week would only hurt Sirius on the inside. He hated seeing his friends in pain. Though James' pain was physical and easily fixed, Peter's could be a more permanent issue, and that worried Sirius more than he cared to admit.

"Remember a while back when I thought that Peter was acting weird because he had feelings for Emma?" questioned Sirius.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not sure that's the case this time. Before, it was the little things that seemingly stemmed from his feelings for her. They were nothing noteworthy, nothing concerning," he paused, "but this time, Harper, he scared me. His craziness scared me. It wasn't the kind of crazy they talk about when you're in love with someone, that makes you think about them all the time, picture different scenarios with them, want more than anything just to make them smile, and all that gushy stuff. The craziness he showed in that corridor was the kind of crazy that would get you shipped off to the psych ward of St. Mungo's."

"You're right, Sirius, that all adds up. But why? What's making him like this?"

"I wish I knew, Harper."

"Are we sure everything's okay between him and Emma? That could very well be the cause of--"

"It's not. Nothing has changed in that regard." Sirius began to pace about the room while Harper continued putting away the telescopes one by one.

"How do you know?"

"He may not show it, but he loves her without a doubt. All he does is talk about how great she is and how well they work together still. It simply can't be related to Emma."

This got Hermione thinking about things she didn't want to be thinking about.

How would he know that Peter is in love with her if he's never been in love himself? He did tell her that when they last talked about this, a month or two ago. And during Halloween when Mary confronted him about fancying someone else, did he still? Did it go past just a little crush?

"Harper?"

His deep voice struck her out of her daze. "Sorry, I zoned out."

"No worries, Sluggy. We're both tired, so let's just finish cleaning. It's almost done," he added, even though Hermione had done most of the work herself.

Sirius came up beside her and helped to push the hefty telescope. By now it was the middle of the night. Most of the students were asleep at this time, except for the occasional few sneaking out of their rooms after dark. Between rolling the equipment, Harper took note of how beautiful the reflection of the full moon was off of the Black Lake was. Sirius, on the other hand, only took notice of the moon. The full moon.

"Damnit," whispered Sirius to himself once he caught sight of the moon again, realizing he was late. Sure, he was late to other things, but never before had he been late to this.

"Something wrong?" she looked up at him.

"No, no," he spoke casually, "I just completely forgot about," he paused, "this assignment. That's due tomorrow morning," he gulped.

"Oh, yeah, the paper for Potions? On," she gulped, "the Amortentia?"

"Yeah, that one. Just another thing keeping me from my eight hours," he exclaimed dramatically, leading to a chuckle coming from Hermione's direction. By now, she could tell that he was in a hurry, but she knew it wasn't to complete this Potions paper, that's for sure.

Sirius kept looking up at the moon, Hermione kept looking up at Sirius. Once they had finally finished cleaning the Astronomy tower to something that would be Sinistra-approved, it was no shock that Sirius wanted—needed—to leave as soon as possible.

"I've gotta run, Harper. Potions waits for no man!" he spoke enthusiastically as he darted down the stairs of the Astronomy tower.

As she watched him leave, his grey eyes turning away until morning, she took a sigh of relief. The nervousness that she failed to accept would be gone, at a least for a little while. Or so she thought.

Hermione lay eyes on a pair of robes laying over the tower's railings. "Oh, Sirius! You forgot your--" she paused, astounded.

Upon picking up his robes, a whiff of something she knew all too well entered her nose. What? It couldn't be. She had to smell it again. Practically shoving the robes into her face, Hermione was faced with a hauntingly familiar smell, better yet, a reality that she couldn't deny this time.

It was wet dog. How had she not noticed it before? That silly, stupid little smell in her Amortentia, it was all over his robes. It was all over him. It was him.

Bloody hell.

A/N UPDATE (6/16/21): heyyy guys welcome back, it only took me like two weeks to update this time! it's nice having more free time in the summer lol. ANYWAY there's def a lot going on in this chapter, let's hope hermione stops living in denial soon lmao. also guys this story is so close to 200K! just 5K away which isn't too much in retrospect, but seriously, every one of you guys counts and i'm so thankful for all of you!! also forever grateful for votes and comments, love them haha. (side note: I read EVERY single comment i get and some of y'all are hilarious i must say)   - callahan