A/N: I am so, so sorry, guys. Lately school and everything has been really crazy and I've lost track of so much, including this story. Here's one of the chapters I had on hold; I decided I kind of owed you. Your reviews make my day, and I can't believe how insensitive I'm being to you guys. It's just...writer's block. Any tips?

Thanks so much for your patience. Guess thirteen is unlucky, eh?

Love love,

Dee

Sometimes change is inexplicable.

In third year, Remus began to notice boys.

It was something so gradual that he didn't actually realize he was doing it as a habit. He caught himself looking, a few times, at them, but he didn't think too much of it at first. Thin and gangly and scarred and awkward, he was always comparing himself to others, others who were whole and lively and better to look at.

Although they were never girls. He first became aware of that strange trend after Sirius elbowed him and asked him whether he thought some girl or another was nice looking. He nodded along anyway, but he realized that he didn't think of girls' legs or girls' chests or anything James, Peter and Sirius pointed out to him. They were nice enough to behold, sure, but he always found that there were so much more to girls than just looks. And, eventually, he realized that he didn't see any girl like James saw Lily. That was to say, he wasn't really attracted to any of them.

It was the boys that he looked at, really, despite the fact they were all at that same awkward age: either they were too thin and gangly, like Remus thought he was, or too boyish and chubby, like Peter. The only person who seemed to have a decent sense of how his feet and legs and hands were supposed to match up with the rest of his body was Sirius, which was why he was the boy that a lot of the girls bothered to look at. James was proportionate too, to a lesser degree. He was still short and skinny, but he'd made the Quidditch team this year and was therefore slowly building up a little muscle definition, if just a little.

And so Remus found himself sort of caught between this extraordinary curiosity about his friends' bodies and incredible shyness about his own. Sharing a room with them, it was hard to find someplace private to change, and he was always wearing the most clothing of any of them. Whenever Sirius and James were lounging around in half-buttoned shirts or no shirts at all, Remus would always be the one who was not only wearing his shirt, but his tie and his sweater vest as well. He desperately didn't want them to look at him, although, the idea that they might look at him, while appalling, sort of fascinated him at the same time.

So third year was a little awkward, and the reason was a single, terrible word that Remus, who was book smart, but not always people smart, might have figured out if he bothered to see this phase for that it was. The word was puberty, and Remus wasn't alone, for it was driving all of them crazy. Sirius had a girlfriend for an entire month, a major achievement, and all of the other boys looked up to him for it. James pursued Lily more ardently then ever before, and Lily, being a girl and therefore of an entirely different species, had only gotten prettier and more mature. Her hair had grown out, and she'd developed a nice little figure, and didn't seem to be plagued by the common curse of acne, though she privately lamented that her freckles remained. Peter, well, Peter didn't seem to be on quite the same page as everyone just yet, which made him only try harder to get there.

And as thirteen became fourteen, everyone only became more mixed up and muddled and crazy, and Remus wasn't sure whether he liked it yet. It was one of those things, he supposed, which would take years to figure out.

If he ever figured it out at all.