"My bloody scarf!" Sirius was crawling under James' bed, legs flailing out onto the stone floor behind him. James rolled his eyes and tried not to laugh.

"It's right over here, Sirius," Peter called.

"Couldn't you have said something?"

"Didn't I just?"

Sirius wiggled back out from under the bed and snapped the scarf away from Peter to wend it around his neck. "Alright then. Anything else missing?"

"Your marbles," James commented quietly, for which he was cuffed on the side of the head. He didn't really mind.

Remus, who had been leaning back in his bed with a book this entire time, looked up. "Are we finally leaving, then?"

"If the train hasn't left without us," Peter mumbled.

"The train hasn't bloody left yet," Sirius groaned. "It's only-"

"Half past," Remus supplied.

"See, time to stop in Honeyduke's and everything."

"That's Sirius-speak for 'I haven't gotten Mum a present yet', see," James explained to Peter, who nodded enthusiastically.

"I got my mum a book," Remus volunteered.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Has she even finished the ones you gave her last year and the year before?"

"I haven't asked," Remus shrugged. The four boys bundled up and and headed for the stairs. They were the last in the tower, and elves Apparated and Disapparated again with their trunks as they left the common room, and soon the castle, behind.

"So you're really going to come get registered?" James asked Sirius as they walked to Hogsmeade station. The day was cold, but clear and not unpleasant.

"Yeah," Sirius shook his head. "Mum laid this huge 'I'll die if you go to prison' line on me. I wouldn't want to be responsible for all of that," Sirius' lips quirked in a smile. "Now, if it were Walburga that would die, we'd have a real good deal there. Bet she'd die if she knew Moony was a werewolf, but not before she sent half the toujours pur crowd out for his blood." Sirius' smile turned into a scowl.

"Can we not discuss that?" Remus asked quietly from the back of the group. "I mean, as fascinating a conversation topic as it may be to you, Pads, it doesn't sit so well with me to consider my murder. I was rather wondering if we had time for a butterbeer, and now I feel like I'd better walk backwards to make sure I stay alive until the train, just to make sure no one is sneaking up behind us."

"Sorry, then," Sirius answered nonchalantly from his place up ahead at James' side. It was strange to James, in a way, that Sirius' place was at James' side, considering he and Remus- but with their connection, they seemed to rarely notice that they weren't next to each other. One difference since their union was that sometimes one would turn to speak to the other, having forgotten the other wasn't in the room. Sirius had told James that it did seem as though Moony was always standing just behind him, close enough that he could feel Moony's moods shift.

The boys did not end up having time for a hot butterbeer, though they did split up to make runs into the bookstore and Honeyduke's before wresting a bunch of first years from their usual spot on the train and settling in for the ride.

The compartment was chilly, and the boys were giddy- Remus and Sirius both especially so because they were spending their first holiday together- so no one was really surprised when Remus pulled out a wool blanket and he and Sirius curled up underneath it. They both still poked out enough to be involved in conversations, but only just. Sirius made some comment on James' quidditch magazine, and Remus eventually pulled out a book to read, but they both sat there huddled under the blanket like a couple blokes in love, which, James decided, was fair, because that's rather what they were.

All four boys, who'd stayed up late breaking into the firewhisky and playing gobstones the night before, were sound asleep by the time the Hogwarts Express pulled into the station in London.

******

"Here, hand me that-"

"That's my trunk-"

"Pads, your scarf is-"

"Oi, gerrof my scarf!"

"I told you!"

"Don't turn around, alright?"

"This is your trunk and that's my trunk, Moony."

"Who cares? We're going the same place."

"Sirius, you're standing on my coat."

"Well why is your coat so damned long? Wormy, you-"

"Ouch! Black!"

The Marauders' jostling came to an abrupt halt when James spoke Sirius' surname. He never did unless he was furious at Sirius, or unless- Yes, indeed, Sirius looked up to see that Regulus had just shoved James aside rather harshly.

"That's the one, Mum," Regulus said, pointing- pointing Remus out to Walburga Black, like Sirius' boyfriend was an animal oddity at some traveling carnival.

"Don't look his way, Regulus. He's no concern of yours."

Sirius, quite apart from whatever anyone expected, smiled, winked at Remus, and spoke quite loudly. "What'd I tell you. No concern, see?"

"Monsieur Padfoot, you are a genius of the most prestigious caliber."

"Why thank you, Monsieur Moony. You are quite shaggable yourself."

They certainly got Walburga's- periphery- attention. "Monsieur Padfoot, do you suppose we could make an arrangement? I should very much like to bed you." Remus was blushing a tiny bit, but clearly even he could see that this was for the good of all humanity.

"Moony, Moony, mon ami, please fuck me anon!"

It was too much and Remus burst out laughing, followed by the rest of the Marauders. Walburga ended up acknowledging Sirius after all, making a distasteful sound in her throat before walking off. She did not turn to see that Regulus wasn't following.

"What's got into you, Sirius?" Regulus, a furious color of red, seemed to have dropped his 'pure blooded Slytherin' role to fall easily into 'embarrassed little brother.'

Sirius slung an arm mock-drunkenly over Regulus and raised an imaginary mug. "I, good young man with whom I haven't the pleasure of having acquaintance, am a free man, with friends, and in love. And now if you'll excuse me, I think I see my mum." Sirius shoved Regulus away somewhat violently and gathered his things, wrenching his scarf back from James and hailing the Potters as they approached down the platform. Regulus stood by, his eyes empty. Sirius simply refused to care. Whatever else Regulus was, he was not Sirius' little brother.

Sirius' little brother was the nutter trying to say goodbye to Peter by pickpocketing the boy's wallet- with very little talent at pickpocketing- until Peter and James were practically wrestling on the platform.

Sirius was grinning for all his worth by the time they'd let Peter- and his wallet- go, and were slipping into the unobtrusive broom closet on the lower level that was secretly the floo point for wizards coming from and going to King's Cross.

*****

At Remus' own home, they celebrated Christmas the muggle way. First the nativity went up in the corner of the room, then the tree and trimmings always in their proper order: fairy lights, garlands, ornaments. They put an angel on top. Remus' mum made cider and hot cocoa. His dad would go out for candy canes and Remus would always pluck one off the tree to pop into his hot cocoa in the evenings. Sometimes he would even drink cold milk with a candy cane in it. His mum baked cookies in all the holiday shapes and put sprinkles on top, and as a child Remus had always helped her with the decorations, eating as many of the bright sprinkles and dyed sugars as he got on the cookies. His mum's recipe was the absolute best. They lit a fire every night and sometimes Remus' mum would play carols at her old, out of tune upright piano. Remus sung along. On Christmas Eve (with the exception of one year that Remus could remember when a full moon had done him the great discourtesy of falling between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day), they would drive to the parish in town for mass, because Remus' mum was Catholic (and it wasn't enough to be a werewolf and a shirtlifter, that of course he had to be Catholic on top of that). They lit candles and sang the hymns that Remus had known all his life. His mum never let him take Holy Communion, and so he sat in his pew while everyone else filed out to do theirs. They gave him looks, and just once he'd begged his mum to let him and she'd actually snapped at him and told him she would drag him out of the mass right now if he didn't behave himself.

His dad never took Communion either, and that was a comfort.

"Didn't you become Catholic when you and mum got married?" he asked his dad once as they watched the people wait in line for the Eucharist.

"Eh? Oh, yes."

"Mum says I can't go because I haven't had my First Communion, but you can, can't you?"

His father shrugged. "Don't see a need."

He'd been about ten at the time of that conversation, and he hadn't realized until the following year that his Dad didn't take Communion because Remus couldn't. It was still yet another couple years before Remus thought to wonder why he hadn't had a First Communion with the other Catholic kids his age.

There was no reason he shouldn't have, except-

Except. Did his mum believed that drinking blessed red wine would injure Remus in some way? That was ridiculous, wasn't it?

Every Christmas since, he thought of sitting in his pew during Communion as the "sit of shame," as the holy and devoted processed towards their God. He became ever grateful for his dad's silent company in the pew, and decided that he and his dad, wizards, didn't need this daft muggle religion anyway. He'd somehow got it in his head that wizards didn't follow it at all.

He learned the falsity of that quickly at the Potters. The Potters had Christmas in the traditional wizarding sense. If anything, Sirius made it more so, because any archaic traditions the Potters might otherwise leave out, Sirius insisted upon. The resulting holiday became some awful, strange mash of Yule and the muggle Christmas, complete with a coven of witches dancing around a baby Jesus. Remus thought his mother would have fainted dead away.

But mostly, things were the same. Mrs. Potter made mulled butterbeer, which passed well enough for his mum's mulled cider, and a thick chocolate eggnog. They all went out one evening and cut down a tree, Sirius pigheadedly insisting on staying as a dog and doing his damnedest to trip Remus into every snowbank they crossed. The group of them levitated the tree back while Padfoot chased it, barking all the while as though he'd never seen a levitation charm before. James kept screeching, "Padfoot, shut up," and Remus rubbed his head to try and forestall an oncoming headache. Mr. Potter brought out a box of Honeyduke's finest that he'd had shipped, and that was all they used as tree ornaments, in addition to heatless flame charms that made the tree an eerie blue. Remus plucked a candy from where it hovered listlessly between two branches. He unwrapped the pinching peppermint and dropped it in his cocoa nog.

In the lazy evenings, Remus, James, and Sirius would retire to the back room. They'd sneak Romanian red rum into their drinks and talk by the fire. Remus and Sirius touched, their hands brushing in conversation or in the passing of a bottle, and James's every glance would grow steadily more heavily shadowed until he finally excused himself to bed.

The third night of this odd behavior was also Christmas Eve, and just after James had left the room, Remus turned to Sirius. "I suppose he feels like the third wheel around here?"

"Who, James?"

"No, the vampire living under your bed. Yes, of course James."

"He's jealous 'cause he can probably hear us screwing across the hall."

Remus paled. "You don't... you don't really think he can hear us?"

"No! Besides, if he could he would have cast a charm or something on himself. He's not stupid."

"Yeah. Right." Remus hardly looked settled.

"No, I really reckon he is jealous, though."

"Over?..."

Sirius shrugged and volunteered no information.

"Over Lily? Surely not. He just teases her. No, I don't think he's serious about that at all."

Sirius waggled his eyebrows and crossed his arms.

"Wait, you mean to say you know differently?"

Sirius said nothing, and sat as still as a statue. Well, as still as Sirius trying to sit as still as a statue.

"He really does feel as strongly about her as he pretends to? Merlin. He has some strange ways of showing it."

"I didn't tell you," Sirius said. "If James asks, I mean."

"No, you didn't tell me, actually. I ought to have found that more frustrating."

Sirius grinned and answered in his best spooky voice, "I'm in your head, Moooooony."

"And I yours, don't forget."

Sirius poked Remus in the ribs and dragged him to his feet. "Time for bed. You're being cute and I want to snog you senseless and I feel that you would prefer we did that upstairs."

"Yes, quite, thank you for your consideration."

"Any time, any time."