Cloudy Opportunities by 
ficexchange
Merry Christmas, Becky (obsessed_much)!
Cloudy Opportunities
He can see her red braid, weaving through the crowd ahead of him. He opens his mouth, Lily!
A hand is clapped over his gaping cavity, yanks him back by the head into a dark corridor.
“What the hell, Sirius?” he demands, rubbing the back of his neck irritably.
“Peter’s got detention tonight,” Sirius replies, oblivious to his anger. “So it’s just you and me.”
Merlin. He’d forgotten all about it. For the first time, the price of his friendships seemed more like a burden than a blessing. The plans he had so carefully put together for tonight fell away.
“What’s wrong?” Sirius asks, eyebrows furrowing.
“Nothing,” he snaps, running a hand through his hair. Sirius waits patiently, a smile dancing across his lips faintly. “Okay, fine, it’s just Lily finally doesn’t hate me and will even be seen with me and sometimes when she’s in a really good mood she’ll even kiss me and I planned this whole night for us and I forgot it was the full moon so now it was all for nothing. So it’s nothing, really.”
There is slight sympathy in Sirius’s gaze as he studies him, but then he simply smirks, shakes his head, and claps him on the back as they move back towards the hallway to go to class. “There will be other nights, loverboy.”
Other nights. The thought is not comforting. It was this night that he wanted, this singular perfect evening. But nothing can ever fall into place so easily when it comes to Lily, now can it? There’s always something in the way, whether it’s a full moon, or Sirius, or his other friends, or her friends, or the simplicity of a crowded hallway. She’s never here, they’re never together, they’re not Lily-and-James, she’s Lily and he’s James, and he’s beginning to realize that that is never going to change.
Disgusted with himself, for it isn’t Remus’s fault, he scowls for the rest of the afternoon, too busy drowning in self-pity to notice much of anything, or talk to anyone.
Sirius pokes him, unfazed by his grumpiness, on their way back into the castle that night. “Cheer up already, mate.”
“I’m fine,” he grumbles in response.
Sirius laughs. “If you’re fine, I’m the next Minister of Magic.”
“Make sure your first order of business is a law that makes even snot noses like Snape shower before coming to class.”
There’s a pause, and then they both laugh. He breathes a long sigh, thinks for a moment, and then shrugs off the lingering bad mood. Life is going to turn out okay, just not necessarily the way that he wants it to.
Lily is waiting. He blinks, stunned. “Hi.”
“Hey,” she says, smiling. Produces two broomsticks: his own, and what looks like Sirius’s.
He turns to look at his best friend, who is backing away towards the staircase, hands raised innocently. “Have fun!”
“There’s a big moon out. And lots of stars.” She holds his broomstick out temptingly.
“What’s going on here?” He’s confused.
She smiles again, her cheeks reddening slightly. “You wanted tonight to be special.”
He grins. “I knew I’d get you alone eventually.”
She shrugs, her cheeks still crimson. “Just you, me, and a whole big sky to explore.”
He holds out a hand, a question. “Ready, then?”
It’s not just tonight that he wants to know about. He wants tonight, he wants the sky, he wants her, he wants this. She smiles knowingly, slips her tiny hand into his larger one, slides her fingers through his.
“Ready.”