The boys had always been loud.

James, Sirius — they took up so much space, laughing with their heads thrown back, arms flung over each other’s shoulders, planning pranks that rattled the castle walls. You… you fit right in with them. Loud and clever and brave in a way that sometimes made Remus dizzy just watching you.

You could hold your own in their jokes, throw hexes like a champion, talk back to McGonagall with a grin that made even her fight a smile. And somehow, somehow, you could still sink down into a quiet nook of the library next to Remus, all that energy softening until you were almost peaceful. Until you matched his rhythm.

That was how he fell for you, really.

It was the way you could belong in the world of noise and in his small, bookish silence. The way you didn’t mind the scratch of parchment, or the smell of ink, or the stillness of pages turning. The way you let him exist — just Remus — without trying to drag him out of himself.

At first, he told himself it was fine. Harmless. Just a silly crush. You’d never even notice — after all, there was James, and Sirius, and Peter always around, cracking jokes and pulling you into the mayhem. Remus thought it would fade.

It did not fade.

If anything, it grew, clung to him tighter, until he found himself searching for you even when you weren’t there. Waiting for your laugh to echo down the Gryffindor corridor. Feeling that warm, aching pull whenever your shoulder bumped his in passing.

He hated it. Hated how he looked forward to you sitting beside him in the library. Hated how he loved it when you laid your head on his shoulder after a long night, still smelling of butterbeer and fireplace smoke. Hated how you could calm him down better than chocolate ever could, and how you didn’t even know it.

It was worse because you treated him just the same as you always had — gentle, teasing, warm. No difference in your eyes, while everything inside him had shifted.

And he couldn’t tell you. Salazar, he couldn’t.

He wouldn’t break the group apart. Wouldn’t risk James teasing, Sirius poking, Peter asking endless questions. Wouldn’t risk you pulling away if you didn’t feel the same. So he buried it.

Buried it deep.

Except tonight, in the Gryffindor common room, with James and Sirius off planning their next grand disaster and Peter dozing by the fire, you’d sat down next to him, your hair still a little damp from the shower, smelling clean and human and heartbreakingly you.

You bumped your shoulder against his and smiled, tired and content.

“Remus,” you sighed, “it’s so quiet without them, isn’t it?”

He swallowed. Hard. Your voice was soft, and so close, and it sent a warm pull right through the hollow of his chest.

“I don’t mind it,” he answered carefully, giving you a sideways glance.

Then you leaned against him, the way you sometimes did, curling your feet up on the couch. It was so simple — so familiar — and yet Remus felt like his bones were vibrating with how badly he wanted to reach for your hand.

But he didn’t.

He stayed still. Let you lean. Let your presence fill the quiet spaces of him. Let his heart trip over itself and break, a little, in the best possible way.

Because if this was all he could have — the weight of your head on his shoulder, the way you fit beside him even after all the chaos — then maybe that was enough.