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Sirius was actually excited for Christmas for the first time since he and Regulus were little kids. He was going to Christmas with the Potters, in a house where Christmas was a celebration and not just a ritual. The craziest part was that his parents had actually let him. He was sure they had an ulterior motive, Walburga and Orion always did, but he didn’t want to think too hard about them or what Regulus was doing this Christmas or it would spoil his good mood.
Sirius was also a little nervous. James kept telling him that his parents would love him, but Sirius wasn't too sure. He trusted James, but adults never seemed to like him, and he needed this to go well, so as much as James insisted he could just be himself, Sirius was determined to be on his very best behaviour, so maybe Euphemia and Fleamont Potter would invite him to come back the next year.
He didn’t mean that he wasn't going to enjoy himself at all, that was the benefit of being best friends with James Potter, when he was around James, try as hard as he might, Sirius couldn't help having fun. He didn’t think anyone could, not even Lily Evans, as much as she denied it, Sirius had seen her hiding a grin at some of his especially ridiculous antics.
Even now, as nervous as he was, sitting in the cold train carriage with James, Remus and Peter, Sirius was having a good time. James was telling a funny story about the very first broom he got as a Christmas present he got when he was younger.
“And so anyway, I flew into the lamp and it fell over and hit a vase off the table and so the vase fell on the floor and I had to go to my mum and tell her and I was so upset because she got that vase for her birthday from her mother. So imagine my shock that when I tell her, she's in tears laughing, but I didn't understand so I was hurt because I thought she was laughing at me, and she chokes out “I hated that vase” and bursts into another fit of giggles,” James finished.
“So really, you were just doing her a big favour?” Remus jumped in, and for some inexplicable reason the whole carriage was consumed by mirth.
Maybe it was because it was almost Christmas, and they were all together, or maybe because Remus always managed to say just the right thing without even trying , or maybe it's just that laughter is contagious, and it's always better to laugh with friends than on your own.
Sirius turned his head to look out the window, to watch the world go speeding by through the frosted glass. It was soothing to stare at the green grass of the rolling hills, tap messages in morse code, just like he used to with regulus when they were young. Sometimes he would try and describe what he was seeing, like “--. .-. .- ... …” or he would tap out what he was truly thinking in the moment, stuff he felt like he couldn't say out loud.
“Hey Moony, sucks that you can’t do Christmas with us,” said Peter.
“Yeah it is what it is though,” Remus replied.
“Maybe you could come after Chanukah?” James asked, miserably butchering the word, pronouncing it something like “Han-ack- ar”.
“I’d like that,” Remus said, trying to contain a chuckle at James’ pronunciation.
“Please Moony, Christmas isn’t Christmas without your relentless sarcasm,” Sirius pleaded. He didn’t add the fact that maybe with Remus there too some of the attention would be off him.
“I’ll see if I can okay?” Remus conceded which was responded to with cheers from the rest of the Marauders.
The trolley lady came round and James and Sirius paid for everyone, as they always did. It was something they had never discussed, it happened for the first time when Sirius noticed Remus eyeing a peppermint lollipop from the trolley so he got two.
“Oh whoops I accidentally took two of these, Remus do you want?” He had said.
He had always been a pretty good actor, but he knew Remus might have seen through him anyway and chose not to accept his gift, for fear of being seen as a charity case, which was something Sirius was learning that Remus hated. Instead Remus just took the second lollipop from his hand, a grateful smile on his face.
This was on Christmas break of their first year, and Sirius had been doing it ever since, and adding more and more sweets to his pile of extra, or things he couldn't finish. James had noticed rather quickly and started doing it as well, just getting a bunch of sweets and putting them in a pile to share. Both boys knew they were lucky to have so much money they didn't know what to do with it, and that their other friends, while not poor, didn’t have the kind of money to just go ham on the exorbitant prices of the Hogwarts express trolley.
But there was a thing Sirius had tapped out that first day, a message for no one to hear but him.
“.. / -.. --- -. .----. - / . ...- . -. / .-.. .. -.- . / .--. . .--. .--. . .-. -- .. -. -”
Because he knew that Remus would never have accepted that first olive branch, if he knew that it was for him and for him alone.