Disclaimer: JKR owns Remus, Sirius and Harry. Kathryn owns most of the ending. The little that's left is mine.

Warning: There are crazy rabbis and smelly foods in this chapter. You have been warned!

A/N: It's been a while, eh? Sorry… Hope you're still out there, good readers!

My thanks to Kathryn for oh-so-many corrected commas, and more.

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About Gefilte-Fish

"We should become Jewish!" Sirius announced, not bothering to close the door he had just burst in through.

"Tonight?" Remus asked without looking up from the crossword he was working on (Remus took his crosswords very seriously). "I think we have some fifteen minutes before dinner's ready. And close the door, please."

Sirius rolled his eyes, closed the door and sat down on the couch across from Remus. "I'm serious, Moony," he said, gesturing widely with his hands, which was the sure sign that he was much excited – more than one innocent passer-by had been injured because of a close proximity to a Very Excited Sirius Black.

"Aren't you always?" Moony smiled over his crossword.

"Moony!" This pun was ancient. And annoying.

"Sorry Padfoot, but life experience has taught me not to take too seriously any announcements made by you after 6 p.m.," Remus said gravely, and then sighed as Sirius snatched the crossword and sat on it, saying "I demand your undivided attention, nonetheless."

"Okay then, tell me, my dear serious Sirius, why is it that you want us to become Jewish on this day of all days?"

"We can't do it today. Becoming Jewish takes time, Moony," Sirius said with no little sense of self-importance.

"Uh. So why is it that you want us to become Jewish through a long and meaningful process, then?"

"'Cause it's bloody brilliant!" Sirius said, and all air of dignified maturity was gone. "You know what they have, Moony? They have calendars!"

"Brilliant indeed. We have one too; it's hanging on the kitchen door. Would you like us to go there and worship it?"

"No! They have calendars that follow the phases of the moon."

"It's called a lunisolar calendar, Padfoot. It indicates both the solar year and the phase of the moon."

"You knew that? You knew that there was a brilliant calendar that could tell us when there would be full moon months in advance and you didn't get one?"

"I never really needed a calendar to tell me when the full moon is. I can feel it."

"But with a calendar we could both know it, and plan our lives according to it. We could know in March when would be the full moon of November!"

In all honesty, Remus didn't care much for thinking about November's moon in March. He didn't care much for thinking about any moon at any time, really. But Sirius was excited, and that was something Moony did care much for. Greatly. So he tried to be more cooperative: "But can't you just learn how to read the Jewish calendar without becoming Jewish?" he asked.

"Where's the fun in that?"

"I'm not sure how 'fun' fits into this discussion."

"Oh, but of course it does; Jewish people have all these fun things about them!"

Remus could recognize a lost cause when he saw one, and the wild-gesturing, wide-smiling Sirius was definitely one. So he gave up. "Fine, you can go ahead and become Jewish if that's what you want, but I'm not taking any part in it," he said.

Sirius looked disappointed. "But why?" he asked, all saddened expression and puppy eyes.

Remus didn't let it soften him. "Because, my dear Padfoot, have you ever heard of a Jewish-gay-werewolf? I'd be a minority of one person; even for me it's a bit too much."

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When Remus and Harry got home from the train station a few days later, a strange smell welcomed them.

"Padfoot?" Remus asked into the air of the first floor.

"In the kitchen!" was the unusual response.

Remus and Harry followed the trail of funny smell into the surprisingly Sirius-inhabited kitchen. Sirius turned to give them both bone-crushing hugs. "So, Harrypoo, how was the ride?" he asked happily, ignoring the wrinkled noses and suspicious glances of his two favourite people.

"You're wearing an apron. And something that doesn't pass for a hat," said Harry, feeling some things cannot be ignored.

"You mean my Kippah?" Sirius asked cheerfully, touching the round, not-really-hat-like thing on his head.

Harry stared at him.

"Sirius is becoming Jewish," Remus explained.

"Oh." Harry thought about it for a moment. "So he's cooking socks?" he asked, pointing at the grey, shapeless chunks Sirius had been seemingly cooking.

"Hey, don't insult my dish! It may look a bit off now, but just wait one minute," Sirius said while moving back to the counter. He added a slice of carrot on top of each chunk. "There!" he said victoriously.

"Socks with carrots?" Harry raised an eyebrow Remusly.

"Don't be a prat," Sirius huffed, "it's Gefilte-fish!"

"Jewish food," explained Remus.

"Oh," said Harry again, "Jewish people eat socks." And with that he left the kitchen and went up to his hopefully Judaism-free room. He stormed back into the kitchen two minutes later.

"There's a box on the side of my door and it's yelling at me," he said.

Remus shook his head gravely. "Is it telling you that you're not eating enough, that your shirt is dirty and that your room is a mess?" he asked Harry, but stared pointedly at a guilty-looking Sirius. Harry nodded.

"Sorry, pup," Sirius said, pulling his wand from his apron pocket, "the magical Mezuzot (1) I put on the doors don't work as planned. I wanted them to help me with the becoming-Jewish stuff, but instead they try to help me with everything else. I think they have a bit of a Jewish Mother spirit to them, instead of the Jewish Rabbi I was going for."

He left, closing the kitchen door behind him (Mitrad seemed to find the Gefilte fish very eatable).

"He'll have to break this one too," Remus said when the door was closed, not hiding a little smile. "The one on our bedroom door kept telling him that he should try to be more considerate with his snoring, as my wife, so he broke it."

Harry laughed, a bit worryingly. He knew it wasn't safe to leave Moony and Padfoot alone in the house for so long, but he couldn't watch them all the time. He had to go to school and all that. But the results were disturbing. Though this time it seemed like Remus was just as disturbed as Harry was, which was good. Moony could control Padfoot, couldn't he? Harry hoped for the best.

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Remus could take all that. It was annoying, and sometimes exhausting, but bearable. He could even see why Sirius would be attracted to religion; it was a different kind of magic, one that required large quantities of faith and devotion, and promised love and protection in return. And weren't those exactly the things Sirius lacked as a child? But sympathetic as he was, Remus couldn't understand why Sirius had to choose the difficult and demanding Judaism, of all religions. If he could only become a Buddhist and spend his days meditating, it would save everybody lots of headaches.

Sharing his annoyance with Harry was comforting. Together they managed to laugh it off and hope for Sirius to get bored with his new obsession.

They kept on hoping for a week, during which they tried to be tolerant and accepting while Sirius went to his daily meetings with Rabbi Tsarot and came back speaking of splitting seas ("Like the time me and Prongs dried half the lake at Hogwarts, but theIsraelites folks did it with no magic!") and singing the Hava Nagila ("I can show you the dance, too!").

They smiled kindly when he threw away all the bacon ("Jewish people don't eat pork! It's not kosher"), and when he nearly burned the curtains with the Sabbath candles ("Rabbi Tsarot says it's nice to put them in the window so others can feel the spirit of Sabbath!").

They ignored him politely when he cooked some more strange-smelling Jewish dishes ("It's Mrs. Tsarot's own recipe!") and when he wore a variety of ridiculous Kippahs ("Don't you think they go well with my eyes?")

It was the name thing that broke them at last.

Sirius came back from his Rabbi meeting with a new Kippah, and a new name.

"You want us to call you WHAT?" Harry asked, petting Mitrad a little too harshly, which bought him an angry hiss.

"Rakh-Kaf," (2) Sirius said simply. Really, he didn't see any problem with that, which only made things worse, at least in Remus' mind.

"We can't call you Rakh-Kaf," he said, closing the door after Sirius.

"Why not? It's my Hebrew name. Rabbi Tsarot decided it's time for me to have one," Sirius said proudly. "It means Padfoot in Hebrew," he explained when seeing Remus and Harry's disapproving faces.

"It sounds like something you'd say if you stepped in a puddle of poo," Harry stated.

"It sounds like these Falafel-fish things looked like," Remus added.

"Gefilte-fish," Sirius corrected flatly, "and Rakh-Kaf is a respectable Jewish name, and I expect you to use it." And he went to make some big, socks-y Gefilte-fish for dinner, just to make the point clear.

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Remus and Harry decided they had had enough. Sirius might be an annoying prat, but he did not deserve to have a name that sounded smelly (and it sounded smelly, whatever way they looked at it). So they thought about it for a while, and being the intelligent beings they were, and also very desperate, they came up with a Plan.

The next evening, when Sirius came back from his rabbi, he stepped into a trap. It may have looked like Remus and Harry sitting peacefully in the living room, but it was really a trap.

"So, how Jewish are you by now, Rakh-Kaf?" asked Harry casually, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the name.

"Getting closer every day," Sirius answered, and the joy in his voice made it harder for Remus to take the next step of The Plan. But there was no choice, really, so he said "So you'll be circumcised soon, then?"

Sirius paled a little. "Circumcised?" he asked weakly.

"Of course" Harry said, hiding an evil smile, "all Jewish men are circumcised."

"But they only do it to babies, right?" Sirius turned to Remus and asked pleadingly.

"Babies and grown men who convert," Remus answered with a sigh.

There was a moment of silence. But Harry wasn't quite done, yet. "Maybe Rabbi Tsarot can do it for you," he suggested.

"Are you nuts?!" Sirius jumped from his seat, making Mitrad hiss again. "The bloke makes chunks of his fish; I'm not letting him anywhere near my private bits!"

And that was that for Judaism, as far as Sirius was concerned.

They did keep the calendar though; it turned out to be rather useful.

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(1) Mezuzah- the Mezuzah is a small box, affixed to the doorposts of all doors (except bathrooms) in the Jewish house. Inside the box there is a parchment inscribed with two sections from the Book of Deuteronomy (6:4-9 and 11:13-21), meant to protect the house and the people living in it. The Mezuzah is one of the 613 commandments in Judaism. The Muggle Mezuzot don't usually talk, thouh…

(2) Rakh-Kaf- sadly enough, 'Rakh-Kaf' really is the Hebrew translation to 'Padfoot'. So you can see how reading the Hebrew version of Harry Potter can be somewhat disturbing.

A/N2: Being very much Jewish myself I see it as my inherited right to make fun of Judaism. Still, I hope nobody finds anything in this chapter offensive. If you do, please tell me, as I have no intention of insulting anybody.