So I've had this idea for about a week now, tried to squash it, and failed entirely. The idea is this – it's supposed to be a sort of "fanfiction advent calendar", with an update every day until December 24. Cliché, I know, but what can I say? There will be some vague sort of plot though and also much fluff, so never fear. Also, although I've been writing in the fandom for…five?...years now and have been reading S/R for quite a while, this is the first time I've ever tried my hand at writing it and so any feedback on that front would be greatly appreciated!
Disclaimer: Not mine, unfortunately. Also, this is slash. As in m/m, as in yaoi, as in if you don't like the idea of Sirius and Remus as a couple then this is probably not the fanfiction for you. Thanks!
ADVENT - ONE
Alternatively titled, The Advent Of Something Entirely Wonderful and Remarkable On All Counts
There had been a tradition going on for quite a few years in the Gryffindor boys' dormitory – or, to be rather more specific, in Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black, and James Potter's dormitory. It had become a longstanding tradition because it had happened, inevitably, every single year from first up until sixth, and what it was was this: each and every single year, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black stayed at Hogwarts over the Winter Holidays.
Sometimes James stayed as well, or Peter did, or even once, back in third year, they'd all stayed together all at the same time. But Sirius never went home for the holidays, and Remus never did either, and so eventually they'd formed their own little tradition and were, vaguely, amused by it when every year, without fail, someone would mention the fact.
Besides being a slightly amusing coincidence it was also a very fortunate one, because Sirius was notoriously incapable of amusing himself and if he had been completely without any company of any sort for three weeks straight he might well have gone so far as resorting to going home for Christmas, which of course wouldn't have come to any good at all. And so it really was quite lucky that Remus stayed with him rather than leave him alone to resort to dangerous measures, although the original reason, all the way back in first year, why Remus had stayed was not so much to help maintain Sirius' already rather tenuous grip on sanity as to look after his own. It had been a rather unfortunate coincidence, but right up until fourth year there had always, inevitably, been a full moon at some point over break, and so any plans Remus might otherwise have had for holidaying and carousing were thus rather effectively squashed.
Fifth year there was, for once, no full moon at all until the second week in January, but Remus' parents were gone on holiday to visit his aunt in Russia and so there was no going home then. And then sixth year there was again, miraculously, no full moon, but by that time the tradition was set and it really wasn't any good even thinking about breaking it.
And so Remus had known ever since school started that he was going to yet again be staying at Hogwarts over the Winter Hols. It wasn't a sad thought by any means, but it was perhaps the tiniest bit resigned because Sirius, though obviously and absolutely and unquestionably one of Remus' very best friends in the whole wide world, had a tendency to be – well, Sirius. Not aggravating, per se, but occasionally rather more than a bit taxing.
But then again tradition was tradition, and Remus – though by nature not really one for conformity – had a deep and abiding and possibly even a bit embarrassing love of tradition.
And so it was that, yet again, he was staying at Hogwarts with Sirius while what seemed like every other person in the school left for break. James and Peter were leaving as well, although Peter, whose parents were dumping him at his Grandmother Thelma's house while they vacationed in Italy, didn't seem too pleased about it.
"I am not pleased." announced Peter loudly, standing in the middle of the dormitory and glaring vaguely off into nothing in particular. "Really, really not pleased. At all."
Remus knew perfectly well why Peter was not pleased. He'd known perfectly well, in fact, for just over a month now. But it was fairly obvious that Peter was expecting some sort of commiseration, and so with an inward sigh and a wan smile he went ahead and asked anyway.
"Why not?"
It was just the opening Peter had been waiting for. Remus listened politely to his rant for five whole minutes, long after both Sirius and James – assuming they'd been paying any sort of attention to begin with – had tuned out. Eventually, though, after listening to Peter's often little more than half coherent ravings on his Aunt's depravity, lunacy, and how the entire house smelled of wet socks, his mind began to slowly drift away to other things, and his eyes moved to settle on Sirius.
Sirius. Sirius was always good to watch, and not only because he was familiar and comfortable and oftentimes rather amusing but also because he was almost always doing interesting things.
He actually wasn't doing anything very terribly interesting right then, because all he was doing was sleeping, or at any rate pretending to sleep while Peter droned on and on and on. He wasn't doing an entirely good job of it because whenever Peter said something particularly incoherent he'd wince slightly, and when Peter unintentionally said something that Sirius thought was funny his mouth would twitch in a smile. It was a bit endearing and also, Remus thought, made Sirius look like a bit of a prat, and if he'd been trying to pull that off in the middle of anyone's soliloquy but Peter's he'd have been caught in an instant.
So. Peter was slowly but surely ranting himself to exhaustion and Sirius was making a complete arse out of pretending to be asleep and James was, judging from the steady stream of cursing and occasional banging and thunking noises coming from somewhere at the other end of the room, packing.
Remus closed his eyes, sighed, and with a great deal of effort managed to keep himself from burying his head in his hands.
The train out of Hogsmeade left in two hours. He could only pray that Peter had finished packing but it was quite possible that he hadn't so much as started, and James hadn't begun packing until about five minutes ago. And then, of course, Sirius was staying, and he could thus look forward to three full weeks of abject tiredness and possibly even slight insanity.
Tradition was, of course, tradition. And tradition needed to be respected and followed whenever possible and fitting and et cetera, et cetera.
Still, Remus thought, as he looked up just in time to see Sirius tackle Peter in a flying leap from behind, It was looking to be an almost (if not, perhaps, entirely) rotten Christmas.
Which just goes to prove, of course, that even normally quite intelligent sixteen year old werewolves with an abiding passion for chocolate and Shakespeare can be wrong sometimes.
It was going to possibly be the most magnificent and wonderful and absolutely life changing Christmas of Remus' life.
There were, of course, two rather serious problems with that, and the first was that Remus didn't know it and the second was that Sirius, who was also going to possibly have the most magnificent and wonderful and absolutely life changing Christmas of his life, didn't know it either and thus ran a rather serious risk of mucking everything up tremendously.
There was, however, one thing that they both knew and agreed on by an unspoken consensus, and that was this – all contingencies and insanities aside and all things considered, it was really quite an excellent tradition they had going, indeed.
Short, I know, but then again an update a day means chapters will be short(er). And also nothing much has happened yet, but I promise stuff will happen provided that…
I get reviews! As this project will take up quite a lot of time I need to know if there's any interest, and the only way I can know that is if people review. So please, PLEASE review and tell me what you think (good or bad)! If there's interest I'll continue it – if there's not, I won't.
Right. Thank you SO much for reading, and have a happy December – until tomorrow, ciao!
