For the Slashy Marauders Holiday Competition.

I own nothing.

~*RLSB*~

December 24, 1992

Remus Lupin

It's Christmas Eve. It's Christmas Eve, and yet, for Remus Lupin, it's just another day of the year. Granted, the new moon is kind of nice. Stuck halfway in between full moons, the new moon is always when Remus feels most like himself.

But, as has been true for the past eleven years, it doesn't much matter how Remus feels. He's alone, as usual. He's alone in the teeny-tiny rundown flat in the crappy neighborhood that he calls home, for the sole reason that it's all that he can afford. Wizards don't hire werewolves, and Muggles don't like employees who get sick all the time. Routinely.

So, yeah. It's Christmas Eve, and maybe that makes him a bit more melancholy than usual. Maybe that makes him miss James, miss Lily, miss Peter, and (Merlin, his heart just doesn't get it, does it?) even miss Sirius. No. Miss Sirius most of all.

He knows he shouldn't. The man he loves is a mass murderer who betrayed his best friend, sold him out to Voldemort. But Remus's heart doesn't understand what his head knows. Remus's heart just wants Sirius back.

Merlin, even the stupid beast in his head wants Padfoot back. Moony knew what Padfoot meant to Remus.

Remus shakes his head. He's a logical person, normally. But, as has always been the case, logic goes out the window when Sirius is involved.

And the memories all taste so bittersweet.

He can see it all so clearly in his mind, still. The sweet spring days when they were still at Hogwarts, sprawled out on the grass – the two of them, or the four of them, or sometimes even the five of them, when Lily was in the mood.

Then Hogwarts ended, and what Remus had thought was just going to be a schoolboy romance didn't end, and Sirius asked Remus to move in with him, and they got their own apartment, and Remus felt bad for not contributing but Sirius said that it was the best feeling in the world, supporting the both of them, because it was something his parents told him he'd never be able to do, so Remus didn't object. And some part of him knew that Sirius was partly just saying that because he didn't want Remus to feel bad, but that just made him love Sirius more.

And the little one-bedroom apartment wasn't grand, but it was good enough for them. And back then, there was no doubt. There was no suspicion, not between them, not at first.

But then that stupid meeting happened, the one Remus wishes he could erase entirely. The meeting with Dumbledore, when he told them that Lily and James were a target because of baby Harry. The meeting where Dumbledore said that one of them, one of the five of them, was – inadvertently or not – leaking information to Voldemort.

And that was when the cracks started forming. That was when suspicion started leaking in.

But Remus loved Sirius, and didn't want to suspect him. And that love didn't fade, even as Remus realized there was no one else to suspect. James was a target, and it could never be Peter. And, of course, he knew it wasn't himself.

Still, as logical as it seemed, Remus's heart (his stupid, stupid heart) could never believe that Sirius wasn't trustworthy.

And his stupid heart still doesn't believe it. Eleven years later, and his stupid heart still doesn't believe it, even with the evidence. Sirius slaughtered twelve Muggles and Peter in broad daylight. He betrayed James and Lily – and baby Harry. And Remus's stupid heart protests, because it claims to know that Sirius loved baby Harry. Remus flatly informs it that murderers don't love.

But what does that mean for him? he wonders. If a murderer can't love, does that mean that every kiss was a lie? And Remus can't believe that. His heart can't believe it, but neither can his head. Because, fact is, Sirius can't lie to Remus. He can lie (and has lied) to everyone he knows – except Remus. Remus takes one look at Sirius, and if he's lying, Sirius starts to stutter and stammer and sweat. He can make up an elaborate tale on the spot for a teacher – he's talked his way out of hundreds of detentions – but Sirius can't lie to Remus.

So then, Remus wonders, how on Earth did he not realize that Sirius was the spy? And that's where his stupid, stupid heart tries to go against everything that Remus knows is true and say he wasn't, he wasn't the spy, because Remus would have known.

But he didn't, and it doesn't matter anymore, because nothing can change the fact that the man he's still in love with (damn his stupid, stupid heart) is in Azkaban, where he belongs, and Remus is alone on Christmas.

~*RLSB*~

December 24, 1992

Sirius Black

He shivers. His teeth chatter. He curses the Dementors for what feels like the millionth time. His robes are thin and the stones are cold and he doesn't even know what day it is anymore.

He tries to grasp onto the elusive memories that sit, taunting him, at the edge of his consciousness. They feel warm. He can't quite reach them, though, so he settles himself with the dark memories, because that's all he's got left.

He remembers the last days, the days of suspicion and despair. He remembers his stupid, stupid decision to switch to Peter because, when it comes down to it, he's a cowardly self-preservationist at heart. He remembers walking into the ruins in Godric's Hollow, tears streaming down his face. 'Blacks don't cry,' he'd told himself, but apparently that doesn't count for ex-Blacks, because the tears didn't stop. He'd lost his best friend, and it was all his fault. He'd closed James's eyes, gently. He'd repaired the glasses that'd cracked, somehow. He'd tried to clear the rubble before realizing it was fruitless. Then came the baby's wail.

But there, the memory fades. The last of it is like billions of loose threads that he can't weave together into a picture, because finding Harry, that's too much of a happy memory.

He shivers again. What he really wants – what he's wanted for so long – is to tell Remus. He wants to see Remus's warm brown eyes light up with understanding and, maybe if he's lucky, love.

He wants things to go back to how they were. But that's not going to happen. Still, he'll settle for having Remus in his arms once more.

Here, though, in this place, Sirius isn't allowed to daydream about a happier future. The thoughts are sucked away before he can even properly think them.

He shivers again. Merlin, he'd like to be warm.