Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related entities aren't mine; I just play with them. "Cocaine Blues" is also not mine, nor is Johnny Cash.
On Christmas Day of his seventeenth year, Remus Lupin received presents from home, two amazing gifts from his friends, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew, and a nicely-sized pile of swag from his boyfriend of two years, Sirius Black. He was also given a none-too-pleasant surprise.
Although he, Sirius, James, and Peter knew that this would hardly be their last Christmas together – since, failing convenient coincidence, Sirius' enthusiasm, would keep them from falling apart – all four of them had stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas. As with every other day, Remus was the first to wake up on Christmas morning, and, groggy though he was, he dragged himself to the dormitory bathroom. The surprise didn't make itself entirely evident until he began washing his hands and face in the basin. Grumbling, he plotted various amusing ways to wake the others up. Maybe he'd crawl into Sirius' bed, demand Christmas sex, and they'd conveniently forget to close the curtains and put the Silencing Charm on them. It was certainly sadistic for James and Peter, but it would be ever so amusing…and he'd get laid for Christmas, which was just as good – if not better – than anything Sirius had already bought for him.
And then he saw it. As Remus raised his head and caught a glimpse in the mirror, he saw something that, at the back of his mind, he'd dreaded for a long time. After he'd been bitten as a small boy, his father had looked into the Ministry's Werewolf Registry, attempting to find someone, anyone, who was sane and would talk to him, Remus, and Remus' mother. The one they'd found had only been thirty at the time, yet his hair was so sprinkled with gray that he might've just left a snowstorm. Remus shuddered and pulled it away from the rest of his unkempt, light brown hair. Even on its own, it mocked him endlessly: his first gray hair.
Shortly afterwards, Sirius awoke to find a wide-awake and terrified young werewolf lying in his bed, curled it a fetal position.
"Moony," he whispered, pressing his forehead to Remus'. "What's so wrong that you're invading my bed for a change, love?"
"Pads," Remus whimpered desperately. "Look."
"I see an intelligent, beautiful werewolf who is shivering, despite being under my comforter and wearing flannel pajamas."
"Look closer!"
"Uh…you didn't dry your face that well…"
"Sirius…I'm going gray!"
Sirius paused and stared at Remus incredulously. Perhaps it was just the morning getting to him, but, without warning, he took Remus' head and began examining every hair on it. His look-through was thorough; at one point, Remus began to wonder if all his hair would turn silver before he got his head back. Finally, Sirius found the hair and whistled.
"It would appear that you are, love," he sighed, only half-serious.
"But I'm seventeen!" Remus groaned. "This can't be happening to me!"
"…It's the same color as my eyes. You should keep it."
"And be a laughingstock? I think not."
"Well then, we'll just have to find other solutions."
"Other solutions? Pads, it's-"
He was interrupted by Sirius pulling the troublesome hair out.
"There," he said with a smile, planting a short kiss on Remus' forehead. "Problem solved. Happy Christmas, Remus."
As it turned out, the problem was not solved…not entirely, anyway. Whenever Remus complained of a gray hair, Sirius would pull it out, ignoring the inevitable laughter from James and Peter, if they were present. This seemed to work until the hairs began coming in packs and Remus refused to let them be pulled at. Slowly, they accumulated until, only five days before the Christmas of his twentieth year, Remus noticed a full gray streak, about a centimeter wide, hanging tauntingly by the front of his hair. Two days later, James and Lily came over to the flat in Muggle London where Sirius and Remus had lived since leaving school. James quickly fell asleep on the couch, holding baby Harry on his chest; by Lily's account, they'd spent all of the previous day and most of the morning Christmas shopping, and both her boys were exhausted. Still, she'd come with purpose, which she quickly got around to, shoving Remus into a chair in the bathroom and wrapping a towel around his shoulders.
"I still can't believe this, Lily," he sighed morosely.
"I know," she huffed. "It's ridiculous."
"I mean…I'm twenty. Even if I am a werewolf…this isn't fair."
"Well, Sirius will be back with the dye soon…nominally he'll be back, anyway."
As if on cue, Sirius ran into the flat just then, clutching his chest and, like the drama queen he'd always been, taking in several heavy, over-exaggerated breaths. He kept up the farcical image of a marathon runner, even as he sauntered to the bathroom door and stood in it expectantly.
"Well?" Lily sighed heatedly. "Where is it?"
"Right here," he chuckled, dangling a small bag on three of his fingers. "Had to go through Hell to get it too. I would've been back soon, Remus love, but the crazy old bat selling it to me gave me a lecture on how I'd need bleach to get it into my hair. As if I'd bleach out my perfect hair."
"That's nice, Sirius. Now hand it over so I can get to work on Remus."
Sirius shrugged and handed Lily the bag. She shrieked and dropped it on the counter almost as soon as she'd looked into it. When the bottle of dye rolled out of the bag: Sirius hadn't bought the light brown shade they'd agreed on; he'd bought a bottle of the most violently red dye Remus had ever seen.
"Sirius," Remus whimpered. "What the hell…"
"They were out of the light brown," Sirius groaned. "It was that, black, pink, or platinum blonde, and I don't think you want to be a blonde."
"It goes better with his hair than red," Lily snapped, exasperated. "That's what I'd tell you to buy for me!"
"Fine then, we'll dye your hair!"
"Remus is the one who needs it!"
"Whatever," Remus sighed. "I'll just live with it for now. Maybe it'll look cool, right? And, failing that, it's seasonal…even if my mother will ask what Sirius has done to me."
"That's the spirit, Moony!" Sirius laughed triumphantly.
"Personally," Lily huffed. "I think it'd look pretty silly."
"Anything's better than being twenty and gray," Remus groaned.
"Alright then…Sirius, you're wonderful and everything, you're a brilliant godfather, but-"
"But you don't need my interference with this delicate process. Understood, Lily."
With that, Sirius gave Remus a little wave and left to go play with the Christmas tree again.
An hour and a half later, Lily came out of the bathroom, pulling off her dye-coated latex gloves. James was still dead asleep, but Harry had since woken up; luckily for her and for Sirius, he had brought out the acoustic guitar he was trying to teach himself to play, and was using it to keep Harry entertained. Unfortunately, he didn't appear to know any children's songs, and moved quickly from what Lily distinctly recognized as The Beatles to some other Muggle song about taking cocaine and shooting his woman down. Granted, Sirius would never trade Remus for a woman, but Lily's maternal instincts immediately took over. She tossed the gloves on the floor and grabbed Harry, wrapping her hand around his ears and glaring at Sirius.
"What!" Sirius chuckled. "Johnny Cash is a good musician."
"Harry's five months old, Sirius," she whispered dangerously. "He doesn't need to hear songs about drugs and murder."
"He doesn't understand it…he won't even remember it, believe you me."
"That doesn't make it right-"
"It looks terrible, doesn't it?" Remus interjected softly.
Sirius and Lily both snapped their heads away from each other to look at Remus. He looked incredibly uneasy, practically rolling his eyes into the back of his head to look at his hair, which now possessed a bright red streak down the side.
"Nah, Moony!" Sirius laughed like barking. "It looks bloody brilliant!"
"Thoroughly modern," Lily said, apparently impressed. "Isn't that right, Harry? Doesn't Uncle Moony's hair look nice?"
To let him see better, Lily brought Harry over to Remus and handed the boy to the werewolf. Peering up at Remus with his big green eyes, Harry made a sound that distinctly sounded like joy, reached out one of his little hands, and tugged on the red streak. When Remus winced, he only exploded in a squeal of glee and his face contorted into a laugh.
"I think he says it's festive." Sirius grinned. "Really, Remus, it looks great!"
"…My mother's going to have a fit," Remus sighed, massaging his scalp.
"Tell her you got jinxed, or fell in a vat of punch, or…something."
"My mother's not an idiot, Sirius."
"Whatever. Give Harry back to Lily and come over here so I can snog your brains out, you ravishing redhead."
"That won't be necessary, though the offer is enticing."
"Oh, Moony…come on. It's Christmas."
"How about after Lily and James leave?"
"I can live with that."
Sirius grinned and licked his lips, earning a mildly amused smile from Remus and a comedic, disbelieving sigh from Lily. Once again, Harry reached up and pulled on Remus' hair, screaming with joy as his victim let out a yelp; the combined noise was enough to wake up James. At first, he looked around wildly, shouting about Death Eaters, glitter, and tap-dancing. As soon as Lily assured him that they were just at Sirius and Remus' flat, he looked at Remus and fell into the couch, laughing hysterically. Over the supper that Sirius and Lily whipped up, James assured his friend that, while the red was definitely odd and quite amusing at first, it looked nice on him. Around eight, James and Harry were so tired that Lily worried James might not be able to Apparate without splinching.
They presumably made it back alright, though, once they were gone, Sirius and Remus were too preoccupied to care that much.