Work Text:
December 1, 1978
The day started off normally.
Well, as normal as it could with a flatmate like Sirius.
“Good morning, Moony!”
Remus grunted as he padded into the kitchen. The excessive banging of pots and pans woke him up. The fear of what Sirius could do with the banging of pots and pans is what drew him from the warm cocoon of his bed.
Sirius was far to happy to be up this early.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” Remus was not happy to be up this early.
“Getting an early start to the day, my dear Moony. Do you know what day it is?”
“Friday.”
“Friday, December first!”
“… And?”
“And this is my first muggle Christmas.”
“You’ve had plenty of Christmases.”
“None that will be this muggle!” Sirius exclaimed, waving around his wand. He was actually quite decent at making breakfast, using the combined forces of magic and muggle cooking. Remus would fight James and Peter off simultaneously for the last piece of Sirius’s French Toast. Not Lily though, he would hand her the last piece quite willingly.
Remus almost moaned when he saw his flatmate start making French Toast. The morning was looking up.
“I need your help—”
“No.”
Sirius whipped around in shock.
“Moony!”
“Not until after breakfast, you wanker. I haven’t even had my tea yet.”
Sirius made tea so fast, it was almost as though he had simply conjured it. (Of course, he knew that Remus hated conjured tea, and would therefore never serve such an abomination to him. It just didn’t taste right.)
Breakfast had, second cup of tea in hand, Remus wandered out to their living room, nestling into their couch.
Sirius waited patiently on the edge of the leather chair Snuffles sometimes liked to chew on (when Remus wasn’t looking, of course).
“All right, now, what can I help you with, Padfoot?”
“What do muggles do for Christmas?”
“Do be honest, Christmas at the Potters is quite typical. Tray-carrying house elves and aggressive mistletoe aside.”
“No, I’m not talking about Christmas Day, I mean in December. What do muggle do leading up to Christmas?”
“Go Christmas shopping?” Remus was slowly starting to realize that this was going to turn into something much bigger than the Halloween Incident of 1978.
Sirius stood up suddenly, and looked wildly around the room, then disappeared into his room.
Remus calmly sipped his tea. It was perfect.
His flatmate returned and appeared so suddenly, it was like he’d Apparated. He slapped down a piece of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of green ink. Just to be festive.
“Write everything down.”
Remus made a strange noise in the back of his throat. He hadn’t seen Sirius this excited about something since fifth year when he shifted into his Animagus form in front of him for the first time.
“Fine.”
“We need to go Christmas shopping!” Sirius decreed. “… Then what?”
“We’ll plan a day do go into town, it’s very muggle, I assure you.”
“Prong’ll be so jealous.”
“We need to get a Christmas tree, too.”
“At least eight feet tall.”
“Our ceilings aren’t even eight feet tall.”
“We’ll make it fit!”
“How are we going to decorate it?”
Sirius stopped pacing the room and started at Remus.
It made the werewolf’s stomach do stupid little summersaults.
“Moony. We get to decorate a tree.”
“Yes, we do, Padfoot.”
“Moony. We have to buy presents.”
“That’s what Christmas is all about.” The sarcasm went right over his head, of course.
“I have to go to Gringotts to buy muggle money. I have to buy presents for Prongs, and Wormtail, and Lily, and Dumbledore, and McGonagall (I was always her favourite student), and that weird Divination professor that was always making eyes at me, and Mad-Eye Moody! And—”
“Presents for everyone, I get the gist of it. I can only write so fast.”
“We have to decorate the tree. And our apartment! Moony! Why isn’t our apartment decorated yet? Where’s your Christmas spirit?”
“I usually don’t get it down from the attic until December second.”
“We have to get started right now!”
Remus found his parchment snatched out from under his quill. There was a nice green ink stain on the coffee table now.
He looked up, only to find Sirius, still in his pyjamas, throwing a hat on his head and stuffing his feet into his boots.
"There's so much to do, Moony, and there's only 25 days to do it!”
Remus had to chase Sirius down the stairs of their apartment building. The stupid git forgot his jacket. Didn’t he know it was December? He’d bloody catch a cold.
Merlin help me, it’s only December first! Remus thought as he ran down the stairs, also clad only in his pyjamas, but wearing a jacket like a sensible person.