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“Lumos.”
Peter checked if the curtains were entirely pulled shut around his bed. He didn’t want the others to wake up. He decided that he was in the clear and reached below his bed. Then he put the four pieces of paper in front of himself.
Tomorrow would be – well technically today, it was already past midnight. The others had taken their time with getting ready for bed. At some point Sirius and James had started a full on pillow fight until Remus had complained that he needed his sleep and if they didn’t let him fall asleep on time he would sleep until lunch. He said he wouldn’t care that he’d be sleeping through Christmas morning. His presents would still be there in the afternoon. That finally got the two idiots to go to bed.
Right, tomorrow would be Christmas morning, that had been his point.
And Peter still hadn’t wrapped the presents for the other Marauders. He wasn’t even sure if he should wrap them. They were the same for all of them after all. And if he did want to wrap them, how would he even do that? It would look so weird.
With a sigh he put them back in the box under his bed. He would just give them to the other Marauders after they had unpacked all the other presents. Peter lay back down and smiled contently. He was confident that the others would love his present. He was proud to have thought of it.
“Nox.”
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Not surprisingly, Peter was woken up the next morning by shouts of “Merry Christmas!” in the voices of James and Sirius. A grin spread across his face. His eyes found the pile of presents at his feet. Excitedly he charmed his curtains to pull open all at once.
“Merry Christmas, guys!”
“Merry Christmas, Pete!”
Sirius didn’t reply. He was already too busy sneaking up to Remus’ bed. No surprise there. The two of them should get together already.
“Hey, Moony! It’s time to have a look at your presents!”
Remus groaned and slowly blinked open his eyes. As soon as he thought Remus would be able to see something he shouted, “Merry Christmas”, and… transformed? Into a large, black dog? Holy crap, had Sirius managed to complete his animagus transformation? Peter made huge eyes and Remus seemed to be entirely confused.
The dog jumped onto Remus and enthusiastically started licking his face. Remus giggled.
“Stop! What the hell is going on here?”
“This is our present for you. We managed to become animagi. Well, Sirius is the first to complete the transformation but from now on you won’t have to spend the full moons on your own.” James was grinning from ear to ear. Peter’s heart sank. James had known about this. Sirius had managed to transform and none of the two found it relevant to tell him about it. How long had they been keeping this secret? Yeah, telling Remus on Christmas was an awesome idea, but Peter was part of this as well, wasn’t he? He should’ve been in on it!
Peter was so lost in his head, that he didn’t see Remus’ reaction or how Sirius transformed back into human form.
“Thanks, Pete.”
Peter’s gaze snapped up. Remus was standing next to his bed, holding a hand out for him. He took it and Remus pulled him up and into a crushing hug.
“I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for doing this!”
Peter shook off all the nagging thoughts he still had. “That’s what friends are for.”
After that, the Marauders all started opening their presents, their spirits high. Peter totally forgot about the contents of the box under his bed. And in the afternoon, when they were lounging in the common room, listening to music, and he suddenly remembered, he didn’t want to push himself into the foreground with it. He wouldn’t be able to top the animagus present anyways. And there he’d been so sure that this year, he would be the one with the best present.
As he was lying in his bed that night, he thought about how ridiculous he was being. Not giving his best friends the present, he had for them because he was a little stubbed in his pride. He decided to give it to them the next morning.
Except he didn’t. Because how weird would that be? And how would he explain himself? At least one of them would look right through the lie, and he could hardly tell them the truth, could he?
The days went by and the present was still sitting in the box under his bed.
And there it stayed for almost another week.
Until one afternoon.
There four of them made use of the empty common room and played their favourite records on full volume. All of them, but especially Sirius, were jumping around and absolutely going crazy to their music.
Right now, Queen was on, and Sirius was screaming the lyrics to his favourite song at the top of his lungs. After the record was running out, he draped himself across one of the couches and let James put on something else while he was still catching his breath.
“Man, I would love seeing them perform live! Freddy is my absolute idol! I just love- Pete, where are you going?“
Peter didn’t reply. This was the perfect moment! He ran up the stairs to their dorm and got it from the box under his bed. In less then a minute he was down with the others again. All eyes on him. He grinned and held up what was in his hand.
Sirius’ eyes grew wide. “No way! Are those-?”
Peter nodded and gave one of the tickets to Sirius.
“Pete, you are the best! Guys, we’re going to a fucking Queen concert!”
The other Marauders started freaking out as well and jumped on Peter excitedly.
“This insane, mate!”
“Fucking awesome!”
“That’s going to be the best night ever!”
Peter kept his grin on for the rest of the day. He should really stop worrying about everything. After all, he had the best friends ever!