A Very Sirius Christmas

Pairing: Sirius Black / Remus Lupin

Rating: "M" – for mild language and implied slash

Disclaimer: This story is fictional – that's F-I-C-T-I-O-N. It never happened, and is not real. It is the product of my own imagination. It contains implications of male slash (that's male/male homosexual relations). If you do not like this type of content, or if you find homosexuality or its practice offensive, please click the "Back" button or close your Internet browser NOW, and do not read any further. All characters and copyrights are owned by J.K Rowling and Warner Brothers™ (AOL Time Warner), but this story is owned by me and is all my own work.

Author's Notes: For those who don't know, "I Have Never…" is a revealing drinking game. Everyone sits around a table, or in a circle on the floor. One person goes first by making a true statement that begins with "I have never…", for example "I have never been to Spain." Then, if any other player has done what the person said, they simply drink. The game, especially when all players are inebriated, is often very sexual in nature, and secrets, especially regarding what the players have or haven't done sexually or involving drug use, are often revealed. But the game only works when people are honest. However, if somebody drinks on an "I have never…" no explanation is necessary. For example, if someone says, "I have never had sex with an animal" and someone ends up drinking to it, no explanation is needed, just a drink of affirmation. Of course you can ask for one! There is no official end point of the game, and it usually ends simply when everyone playing is either too bored or drunk to continue.

You know, Christmas is quite a new thing for me. Would you believe it? Yeah, it's quite an experience. I suppose that I had my first Christmas run-up when I was in my first year at school. My parents were never really big Christmas fans, you see. It was just another day in December. Unremarkable. No need for any fuss.

"You need to remember, Sirius," Mother would tell me, "that religion is for the weak. The blind, faithful, weak unfortunates who have nothing else to cling on to. Not like us, who are privileged… Why – Christmas is just a date to give the peasants and commoners an excuse to feel happy about something for once. So there's no need for the likes of us to celebrate such a meaningless thing!"

I didn't understand the frenzy that Hogwarts violently threw itself into that first December. I didn't know a thing about Christmas trees, or decorations, or "Peace on Earth and Goodwill unto all Men" and all that jazz. I didn't know the words to any of the Christmas carols that everyone was singing, so I stayed silent, embarrassed; although I did know that I thought they were beautiful. I particularly liked the slow ones, with their long, forceful notes echoing down the hallways in four-part harmony. And I'm appalled to report that I didn't know a single thing about Christmas presents. I didn't know they existed, didn't know I was supposed to get them or buy them… nothing…

So when Moony asked me what I'd gotten Wormtail for Christmas, because he had gotten him "The Grimoire Of Cheater's Chants And Other Shortcuts For The Quick-Fix Wizard" by Tiberius Romulus, so make sure you haven't got him the same, okay?, I didn't know what the hell to do! Luckily, Moony'd called an emergency tutorial where he, Wormtail and Prongs'd explained all about the Festive Season and what happened with normal families. I nearly bankrupted my coin-purse that week, mail ordering the best, most perfectly suited Christmas gifts that the eye ever did see. My God, how badly wrapped they were – I wouldn't let the shops gift-wrap them for me as I insisted on doing it myself, just to squeeze that last ounce of personal effort into each one!

I'd become an unholy Christmas Monster, within the matter of five minutes! Oh, and I made extra sure that Wormy never got the same present from me as he did from Moony. He got a Remembrall and a tiny crystal ball that recorded all his newly mastered spells for him. I remember every single gift that I have ever bought anyone for any reason…

But it all went back to normal once I went home for the holidays, and December 25th became just another gloomy winter's day doing homework in the Townhouse. No tree, no trimmings, no carols… and definitely no presents except those which always came from some well-wishing family or another, which Mother and Father would scoff at (they weren't good enough for us) or mock (the family obviously were too weak-minded not to join in with the poor crowds and were thus unworthy of the attention). But me – I spent the day singing Christmas carols under my breath and imagining the looks on my friends' faces as they opened their most perfect of perfect Christmas presents. I suppose that that was that…

I had been bitten by the Christmas bug…

Hard…

I suppose that my first proper Christmas was last year, when I was invited to spend the Holiday at the Potters' – Mrs. Potter couldn't abide the thought of me spending the Happiest Day On Earth alone in my crappy bed-sit up in Inverness (chosen because it was the most affordable "residence" – and I use the word lightly – as far away from London as possible). Now, the Potters are, how shall I put it – a family of guilty traditionalism. Not exactly super religious, not like the Lupins, but a family for whom religion plays a big part whenever the situation makes them feel guilty enough to remember that they're supposed to have a faith. Like Baptisms, Marriages and Funerals – the hatches, matches and dispatches sort of thing. So that Christmas, Sirius Black went to Church for the first time ever. And so impressed was I that I actually spent the midnight changeover from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day earnestly shaking the Vicar's hand and grilling him about the Christian faith! Poor Prongs, he was mortified! After explaining, red-faced, that "my friend was never raised to be religious, Reverend," the shell-shocked cleric made me a present of a Bible, and the only way to get me to leave was to promise that we'd return the next evening.

I read that Bible from cover to cover that very night. Both Testaments and all the Psalms. I was an instant convert!

But this year, everything will be even better. It's my first real Christmas, in it's own right. Moony and me now live together, of course. We got together shortly after leaving school, thanks to a drunken night and a very revealing game of "I Have Never…" involving firewhisky and admissions of same-sex fantasy. We've just crawled into bed after a beautiful midnight Mass which Moony grumbled about going to but I insisted, much to Mr. and Mrs. Lupin's delight. They're asleep next door, of course; it just wouldn't be Christmas without the families who matter so much to me, would it? There's the Lupins, and the Potters, and Prongs and Lily stuck in between them ("I'm not having Merry effing Christmas sex with your parents in the next bloody room, James!" Lily had whispered harshly at Moony's rather sadistic sleeping arrangements!). The Evans's couldn't make it, unfortunately; something about Lily's sister feeling unwell. But Wormtail is here, anyway.

But the best thing is Moony, cuddled up next to me. His deep, rhythmic snoring tells me to forget the idea of any Merry Christmas sex myself. In his efforts to ensure a night of platonic chaste frustration between Lily and Prongs, he hadn't realised that his plan would backfire by inadvertently putting his own parents next door! Now snuggled up next to Moony – a furry, bedside furnace if ever there was one, just like a teddy-bear with in-built heating – I can't sleep in my own excitement! I can't wait for them all to wake up in the morning to find the most perfect of Christmas trees, with all the trimmings (and I mean all of them. Okay, so I may have overdone it just a tiny, huge fraction, but it's Christmas and who the hell gives a toss?!) and all the most perfect of perfect gifts waiting for them!

Yeah, this Christmas is going to be the best ever – my very own hosted Christmas. No expense spared, no luxury withheld, it will be, at last, my very special, very first, most perfect Christmas Day ever celebrated!

So, to all of you out there, have a wonderful, merry Christmas! May you all know one day the joy that I have had putting mine together, and being able to spend the day with those whom you love. Peace on Earth, and goodwill to all, and all that, and – I've said it before and I'll say it again, a hundred times over – have a very merry Christmas…

… a very Sirius Christmas!

I wonder what I'll get this year…