Remus had read about moments like this.

The kind where time slows, where the air shifts, where something simple—so achingly ordinary—becomes impossibly significant. He had read about them in novels, in poetry, in stories that ended with hearts won and hands held.

But he had never expected to live in one.

“You’re staring.”

Remus barely heard Sirius’s teasing remark. He barely registered anything beyond the fact that you were sitting by the window, bathed in soft afternoon light, completely lost in a book. You always did that—tilted your head slightly when you concentrated, absentmindedly twirling your quill between your fingers, biting your lip when a passage particularly intrigued you.

And he—Merlin help him—was utterly captivated.

“Moony,” Sirius drawled, nudging him with his foot. “You’re swooning.”

“I am not,” Remus muttered, forcing himself to look away.

Sirius only grinned. “Right. And I suppose accidentally writing her name in the margin of your essay was just an academic accident?”

Remus’s stomach dropped. He glanced down at his parchment, heart stuttering when he spotted the delicate curve of your name, scrawled absentmindedly in the corner.

Oh.

Oh, no.

He was doomed.