Disclaimer: you all know it's JK Rowling's.

A/N: I'm not completely certain how accurate this is, whether Lupin was at Grimmauld Place for Christmas that year, but if set in book six the conversation would have to take place at least thirteen days before Christmas, and I wasn't sure if Harry's school break was that long. As a result, this is set in book five, just a day before Christmas.


Christmas was somewhat a subdued affair after presents. Sirius's glee at having Grimmauld Place occupied once more was beginning to fade. The Weasleys were worried about Arthur. No one had been inclined or skilled enough to cook a proper supper, and conversation quickly died off. When the doorbell rang, Sirius leapt almost insultingly eagerly from the table. "I'll just… answer that," he said, and left.

When he returned, it seemed Christmas cheer had come with him in the form of a ragged man clutching a candelabra. Harry smiled. Hermione seemed pleased beyond belief. "Lupin!"

Lupin smiled wearily. "Happy Christmas," he said.

"Happy Christmas!" replied everyone more or less at once. Lupin joined them at the table and Sirius sat opposite him. "It's wonderful to be here," Lupin said. "Thank you for inviting me, Sirius."

Sirius growled at him, "I actually invited you to live here."

"Well!" Lupin replied, half-laughing, "No fruitcake for you, Ebeneezer." Harry and Hermione giggled. None of the others had enough knowledge of Muggle literature to appreciate the insult. "Everything all right at Hogwarts?" Lupin asked. He looked from Harry to Hermione to each of the Weasley children in turn in that manner teachers have.

Almost at once, everyone was clamoring to speak. "Umbridge is awful!" "Can't you come back, Professor?" "We haven't learned a thing in D.A.D.A.!" "We're off Quidditch, George and Harry and I!" "Yeah, and Umbridge has taken our brooms!"

Lupin managed to listen and eat at once, patiently allowing the students to talk themselves out. Of course he knew what was going on at Hogwarts: the Order members from the Ministry gave him news enough. When everyone had finished complaining, they fell silent once more. "Well. At least we're all here for happy holidays," he offered.

"Yeah, it's only too bad Dad couldn't be here," Ron said, as though determined to cast a dark glow on Christmas evening.

Fred tried in his usual way to cheer his brother up, or perhaps to cheer everyone but his brother up, saying, "Well, there have been Christmases when you were sick. Like that time you were seven and ate so many Jelly Slugs you were vomiting for hours."

Ron turned bright red. "You left those lying about so I'd eat them! You tricked me!"

"Did we?" Fred asked.

"Yeah," George said. "We were brilliant already. Except, Ron was four when we did that bit with the Jelly Slugs, and it wasn't Christmas. Christmas was the Hermaphroditic Chocoballs when we were twelve." The name caused a number of half-snorts of laughter.

"Oh, yeah!" Fred dissolved into a state of giggles and reminiscence. When he emerged from this, he explained to the non-Weasleys sitting around the table, "Our first genius creation. We made these Chocoballs to refill themselves. Difficulty is, we had this idiot little brother, didn't we?"

Mrs. Weasley protested, "Fred!"

"I'm Fred," George said. "Anyway, it's not like we gave it to him, is it? We left the things in our room, didn't expect our brother to go poking about in there but he did, and… well, the Chocoballs weren't perfect. Ron got down three before we could stop him, and the spells started working…"

Fred finished the story: "The cream inside kept multiplying. We hadn't finished with them yet, that's the problem. Ron here choked up right there at the table that night. Cream pouring out of his mouth, Mum shouting at us, 'What have you done!'" His impression of his mother went unappreciated by Mrs. Weasley herself, and by Ron, who was too humiliated to laugh. "'E turned out all right, though. We went to St. Mungo's. I swear after that we had calluses on our--"

"George!"

"Sorry. We did, though."

"That's actually really brilliant," Lupin said. "You should have been more careful and not left dangerous things lying about where your siblings could get them," he added, when Mrs. Weasley glared at him, "but… it makes sense. If those had been around when I was a child, I definitely would have bought them."

Ron looked at Harry and Hermione. "You are so lucky no one's here to tell these sorts of stories about you," he said.

Harry was ready with an angry retort that one couldn't exactly call that luck, but Lupin and Sirius began laughing. "Oh, Ron, that's not true at all," Lupin said.

"He's right, we can humiliate Harry," Sirius said. "Not that we would," he added quickly, as Harry scowled. "But we were about often when you were a baby."

"You were?" Harry asked. No one had told him that.

"Whenever your parents would have us," Sirius answered. "And you were cute." Hermione giggled: Sirius Black was not a man from whom one expected to hear the word cute.

Lupin nodded to answer Harry's question. "Sirius especially was about. When you were learning to walk, he--"

"We're humiliating Harry, Remus, not me," Sirius interrupted.

"We're not humiliating anyone, Sirius. We're reminiscing."

"Rambling Remus strikes again!"

Lupin was laughing again. "It worked, didn't it?" he asked. To the others, he explained, "When we were at Hogwarts, I used these synonymous words with different connotations. You'll notice, however, that I was rarely found in detention."

Ron, feeling suddenly over-willing to share his embarrassment, said, "But what's this about when Harry was little?" Hermione hissed his name, but Ron continued looking hopefully at Sirius.

"Harry?" Lupin asked. "We won't go on without your permission."

Harry shrugged. "I guess that's okay. No one ever talked about when I was a baby."

Sirius launched immediately into the tale of Harry's first meeting with Dumbledore. "And I don't know what happened," Sirius said, "but Harry's nappy was loose and he managed to wriggle out of it, and the next thing you know there's Dumbledore, beard and robes soaked with pee." Fred and George congratulated Harry loudly. Ron and Ginny giggled; Hermione tried to look reproachful, but failed. Even Mrs. Weasley, from whom Harry expected a slight telling-off for urinating on one of the greatest wizards of the age, was smiling indulgently.

"Lupin, is that true?" Harry asked. "Did I really…" Lupin nodded. "Was Dumbledore angry?"

"Of course not! You were a baby. Dumbledore cleaned himself up with a quick spell, and we all had a laugh about it. Of course, by 'we all' I mean your parents and Sirius and I, but I suspect Dumbledore felt the same. None of us meant to disrespect Dumbledore," Lupin added hastily. "But we laughed whenever we could."

Harry smiled. He liked to think of his parents that way, laughing whenever they could.

Later, when the dishes had been magicked to the sink and were cleaning themselves, Lupin said, "Sirius, I've just remembered, I have a gift for you, if you want it." He looked through his pockets, and at last withdrew from one something the girls immediately mistook for a stuffed animal. A similar item he found in another pocket. "There's a minor charm; like the Monster Book, you just need to stroke them."

None of the children was willing to touch the things after that, remembering all too well the Monster Book of Monsters. Sirius, who was too depressed to be terrified by anything, awkwardly stroked the creatures. The girls cooed. Sirius looked at Lupin in disbelief. "Thought you might like company," Lupin said sheepishly.

"I suppose this beats those awful records you used to cart about."

Ginny and Hermione were playing with the kittens who had been animated by being stroked. "Are you going to keep them?" Harry asked, scratching one of the animals behind the ears.

Sirius considered for a moment. "So long as they get along with Buckbeak, yes." Even Fred and George weren't immune to the charms of the kittens. The six young people entered a discussion about cuteness and naming the cats. Sirius asked Lupin quietly, "Why, Remus?"

Lupin gave a pathetic sort of smile. "I'm sorry, Sirius. They were curled up against me when I woke this morning, and I thought of Lily… and wondered if you would like company. Do you mind?"

Sirius looked from Lupin to the kittens. "No. No, I suppose I don't."

to be continued!

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