It is the first day of Christmas break, the last one that they will have. In a few months, they will leave Hogwarts and there will be no more Christmases, no more Halloweens or Easters at school. It is a staggering realization that they might not be together next year, but now...now it is Christmas and they are together and they are happy.
In fact, they are outside, cloaks drawn tight around them to ward off the growing chill. Heavy white clouds move over the sky lazily, casting shadows on the ground, warning of coming weather. Sirius, for the life of him, cannot remember what in the world they are doing outside, instead of being inside, where it is warm and there is roaring fire and, most importantly, there is privacy. He and Remus are the only ones who have stayed for Christmas this year; James and Peter both went off to spend the holidays at home. Sirius is immensely annoyed by this; the Marauders should have been together for the last Christmas in Hogwarts and he is upset that James and Peter are not showing very Marauder-like loyalty.
But it gives him more time with Remus, so he forgives them without their knowing.
Remus shivers beside him and he is jolted suddenly back to earth.
“Why are we outside again?” he asks, rubbing his gloved hands together.
Sirius stops walking abruptly. “What?”
Remus stops a step ahead of him. “Why are we outside?” he repeats. “It’s cold enough to freeze my bits off.”
Sirius looks at Remus in mock alarm. “We don’t want that now, do we?”
Remus pulls a face, but behind it he is clearly grinning. “Why are we outside?” he asks yet again, sounding patient.
Sirius thinks. “Didn’t you want to go for a walk?” he reminds Remus, confused.
“I did?” Remus asks, looking surprised.
Sirius nods.
“Why didn’t you stop me?” Remus says, shaking his head at what he perceives to be Sirius’s stupidity. “It’s cold!”
“A brilliant observation,” Sirius offers. “I could have told you that. In fact, I think I did. But you said, what was it now? Ah, yes. ‘We need to exercise.’ That was it, wasn’t it?”
Remus pulls another face. “You shouldn’t listen to me all the time,” he grumbles. “It probably isn’t good for your health. Or mine.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sirius tells him. “In the meanwhile, I suggest we keep walking or we will freeze our bits off. And then where would we be?”
“Don’t mock my pain,” Remus says as they turn around and head back to the castle.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you, Moony? Life is pain. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.”
Remus turns sharply to look at Sirius. “Oh, Sirius!” he exclaims, sounding disappointed. “It’s Christmas!”
“Can you blame me?” Sirius asks with a shrug. “It’s the motto of my life.”
Remus shakes his head furiously. “That’s ridiculous! Why would you want that to be the motto of your life?”
“Because it’s true?” Sirius says slowly, as though explaining something to a child.
“It is not and“” he says sharply as Sirius opens his mouth to argue, ““I am not interested in having this conversation. You are depressing my holiday spirits!” he exclaims accusingly.
“I wouldn’t want to do that,” Sirius says loudly. “There’s nothing like holiday spirits to“”
“Just because you’ve never enjoyed Christmas doesn’t mean I didn’t and it doesn’t mean I can’t. Besides, there are lots of nice things about Christmas.”
“Name one,” Sirius grumbles.
Remus stops walking and it is Sirius’s turn to stop a step ahead and look back.
“What?” he asks impatiently.
“Mistletoe,” Remus says quietly.
“What about it?”
“It’s one nice thing about Christmas.”
Sirius shrugs. “So?”
“So is kissing someone beneath it,” Remus says, a tone that is both wistful and hopeful at the
same time in his voice.
“You, Moony,” Sirius says with a snort, “are a hopeless romantic.”
Remus scowls at him, and starts to storm past Sirius. “What I am is cold,” he says, “and I am going inside.”
Sirius grabs Remus’s arm as he tries to pass him. “Moony?”
“What?”
Sirius kisses him in answer. He is confused why Remus didn’t just ask if he fancied a snog but the thought is pushed aside in the face of kissing Remus. It is Christmas, they are outside, it is bloody cold and Sirius hasn’t gotten a single bloody gift from his bloody family and isn’t expecting one but he is kissing his Moony and none of it matters.
“Still cold?” he asks, breaking away.
Remus shakes his head.
“Good,” Sirius says and kisses him again.
And again and again and again, their hands tangling in each other’s hair as they push their bodies closer to one another, intertwining with one another, their breathes combining until they are forced to break away or they will lose their minds to this headiness.
But they kiss once more anyway.
“Look,” Remus says, his voice amazingly steady and filled with wonder as he tilts his head back to look up the sky. “It’s snowing.”
Sirius watches as Remus closes his eyes and steps away, opening his mouth and sticking out his
tongue to catch snowflakes.
Sirius laughs and, looking insulted and embarrassed, Remus’s eyes fly open so he can glare.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Sirius says quickly. He can not believe that he’s just thought what he has.
“What?” Remus asks again, almost sounding angry.
“Nothing,” Sirius says again.
Remus crosses his arms over his chest, still glaring.
Sirius stares at Remus, thinking, as Remus stares at him.
“Well?” Remus says.
Sirius makes up his mind. “I’m not telling you.”
Remus’s mouth falls open in shocked anger. “I am going back to the castle,” he says, a final tone to his voice and starts to turn. Sirius allows him a few steps alone before falling into step beside him on all fours. Padfoot’s fur is much warmer for this kind of weather than Sirius’s coat.
He noses Remus’s gloved hand, whining and Remus looks down at him.
“You are pathetic,” Remus says matter of factly, his hand absently resting on Sirius-the-dog’s head.
Sirius-the-dog nods his head in agreement. He is pathetic, really. He can’t bear to have Remus angry with him or upset. But Remus can never be angry at Padfoot and Sirius takes what is probably unfair advantage of this. They both have soft-spots for puppy-dog eyes.
Hours later, after they have eaten supper in their dormitory, one of the few times in the year that they are allowed to because even the Professors know it is depressing to be one of a handful of students staying for the holidays, Sirius watches Remus sleeping in his bed.
It isn’t even ten o’clock yet and Sirius knows that Remus did not mean to fall asleep. He was laying there, reading a book the last time Sirius looked, and now his eyes are closed. The book is opened and face down on his chest, one hand on the hard cover while the other lays at his side.
He looks so innocent lying there, napping. Sirius is filled with longing for a feeling of peace such as Remus feels. Remus’s innocence amazes him, the childlike enthusiasm for everything and anything. Even at the age of seventeen.
Like catching a snowflake on his tongue....