"Foxtrot! Foxtrot, wake up, its Christmas!" Karina rolled over in bed, groaning at James's voice, before she heard him beating on her door. "Get up! Its Christmas!" Karina rubbed her eyes, and looked at the end of her bed to see a pile of presents! She gathered the pile in her arms and ran with James down to the common room, where they found both Remus and Peter with only one box, and Sirius with only a letter.
"Alright! How bout you lot open your gifts first? Since you've only got the one." James told them, pushing his and Karina's presents back behind the Christmas tree, feeling bad. Remus nodded, and opened his box to reveal a scarf! A long, red and gold handmade scarf. Remus smiled.
"My mum must have made it." He told them. "And I'll bet she sat listening to the radio while she did it and got distracted, making it longer than she meant." They all laughed, and turned to Peter, who opened his box to reveal a bunch of candies! That had melted in the wrapper. Peter just shrugged, then they looked to Sirius, who's lip was trembling as he read the letter. Then he wadded it up and threw it into the fire, wiping his eyes so he wouldn't cry. Karina immediately went to him and wrapped him in a hug, letting him cry into her shoulder.
"Its okay, Padfoot." She whispered, gesturing to James, Remus, and Peter to come over. "Forget about them. We'll just have our own Christmas, won't we?" The other guys nodded, and Sirius wiped his eyes, grateful for his friends. That was when James got an idea.
"Hey! Why don't we go see if we can't smuggle Regulus in here after breakfast? Then we can have our own Christmas right here in the common room!" Sirius looked to his friends, a little uncertain.
"Mates, are you sure? I mean, Regulus is a Slytherin. I don't think he'd want to come hang out with us." Karina shook her head.
"No, he will. I know he will." Sirius sighed, but nodded.
"You can ask him, but he's probably too busy opening his own presents." James put one arm around Sirius and the other around Karina.
"Come on, Marauders! We're not going to find out if Regulus wants to join us by sitting here and talking about him!" Karina and Sirius laughed, then they all three stood with James's arms still around them, wobbling a bit. Remus and Peter laughed at them, before throwing Remus threw his arm around Karina and Peter threw his around Sirius, and the five of them sort of marched down to the Great Hall, where they found an enormous stack of pancakes, rows and rows of buttered toast, a a magic syrup bottle floating around, poring syrup on the pancakes as it passed, sugar falling like snow onto several plates. They also saw Regulus, sitting by himself at the Slytherin table. Karina went over to him and tapped his shoulder, startling him.
"Hey, Regulus." She said. "Want to come sit with us over at the Gryffindor table? I'm sure the teachers won't mind, seeing as its Christmas and Christmas is family time." Regulus looked surprised to hear such an offer. He looked over at the Gryffindor table, where the Marauders were already piling pancakes onto their plates and daring Peter to see how many hardboiled eggs he could fit in his mouth. Then he nodded.
"Yeah, sure. I'd like to join you guys." Karina smiled, then grabbed his arm and pulled over to the other side of the Great Hall, plunking him down next to Sirius before taking her seat next to James. The Marauders all went silent for a second, then Sirius patted Regulus's shoulder.
"Good to see you." Regulus smiled, and turned to Peter, who looked like a chipmunk, his cheeks were so full of eggs.
"You know, I'll bet Peter can fit more eggs in his mouth." They all laughed, and began to chant.
"More eggs! More eggs! More eggs!" Peter stuffed more eggs in his mouth, gagging a little.
"That's nearly twenty eggs!" Karina exclaimed. "Come on, Peter! One more egg!" Peter closed his eyed and smooshed the twentieth egg into his mouth. They all cheered, and Peter had to spit out all the eggs, making them all gag.
"Ugh, Peter that was gross!" Karina giggled, holding her stomach. "I think I might barf!"
"Well don't Rina. Padfoot and I are about to have a syrup off and I don't need you throwing up on me and breaking my concentration." James told her, before grabbing two of the syrup bottles going around and handing one to Sirius. "Alright mates! If you'd like, place your bets because this competition is about to begin!" Karina pulled out a Galleon and two Sickles and placed them in front of Sirius.
"My money's on Sirius!" She told them. "I've seen him take down almost a whole turkey and go back for seconds!" James made a shocked face, and Regulus placed the same amount in front of him.
"Well, my bet is on James, seeing as your betting against him. Only fair if I bet against my brother as well!" Remus stuck five Knuts in front of Sirius and Peter placed five Sickles by James. That was when three Galleons fell in front of Sirius and two Galleons and three Sickles fell in front of James. The Marauders and Regulus turned around to see Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore standing behind them. Dumbledore smiled at them.
"Just because we are teachers, does not mean we can't have fun as well." McGonagall explained, and Dumbledore conjured up a few more bottles of syrup.
"Just in case those bottles empty." He told them, winking at Karina.
James and Sirius picked up the bottles of syrup.
"Alright, bottles at the ready?" Remus asked. Both boys nodded, giving each other sideways glances. "Go!" And they were off! James was much faster than Sirius, but Sirius drank more with each gulp.
"Come on, Sirius!" Karina cheered.
"Go James!" Regulus countered, giving her a grin.
"Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!" Remus shouted.
"Go Padfoot!" Peter cheered, and McGonagall gave him a look.
"Mr. Pettigrew, I thought we were cheering for Mr. Potter." Peter's face turned red.
"Go Prongs?" They all laughed as both boys finished off their first bottles and moved onto the second bottles.
Minutes ran by, and the piles of bottles stacked up. James was finding it harder and harder to swallow the sticky substance, but Sirius kept going strong. Finally, as Sirius polished off his twelfth bottle and moved onto his thirteenth, James slammed his bottle down.
"Alright! I give! You win!"
"And the winner is none other than Sirius Black!" Remus shouted, and Karina whooped loudly.
"Pay me! Pay me, Regulus!" She told the Slytherin boy. Regulus sighed, but he handed Karina the money she owed. Peter gave his to Remus, and McGonagall grudgingly handed her's over to Dumbledore, who was smiling knowingly.
"Now that you two are all sugared up, how about you go outside and burn off all that energy?" Sirius and James didn't think twice. They both ran out the door faster than Karina had ever seen them. Karina, Peter, Remus, and Regulus made to follow them, but Dumbledore stopped them.
"Give them ten minutes." He said.
Ten minutes later, both boys came running back in, yelling and shivering.
"Its freezing out there!" James shouted, running over to Karina and hugging her close, squeezing her so hard that it was kind of hard to breathe. Sirius did the same to Regulus.
"What are you two doing?" Regulus asked, also having the air squeezed out of him.
"You're warm, we're cold! Its not Auror magic, Reg!" Sirius told him.
"Yeah, well, now we're cold!" Karina grumbled. "Why don't you two run and get your coats? We'll do the same and meet out by the Quidditch field." James and Sirius nodded, and just before they ran off, Karina stopped James and jumped onto his back. "High ho, Prongs-O!" And James and Sirius were off. Karina had to hold onto James tightly, or else she would have fallen off, he was going so fast.
As soon as they had reached the common room in record time, Karina took a leap of faith and jumped onto the couch as he dashed up to his dorm with Sirius. Then she went up herself and hurried into her coat, hat, scarf, mittens, and boots. Then she quickly ran back out into the common room, where Remus and Peter were just now coming in.
"You two had better hurry. James and Sirius should be down here in three... Two... One." The door slammed open upstairs, and both boys came running down. You could tell that they had hurried to get ready. James had his boots on the wrong feet and Sirius's buttons on his coat were buttoned up in the wrong holes. Karina sighed.
"Must I mother you two? Come here." James and Sirius went over to her and she straightened them up, whispering an enlargement charm onto Sirius's coat that didn't reach past his knees and was far too tight on his arms.
When Peter and Remus came down, the five of them ran down to the Quidditch field, where Regulus was waiting for them in his brand new looking coat.
"Bout time you lot got down here!" He called as they hurried over.
"Sorry!" Karina called. "But I had to babysit our brothers while Remus and Peter got ready." That was she felt a snowball hit her in the back of the head, seeping through her hat and freezing her ears. She shrieked, and turned around to see James with one hand behind his back, the other pointing at Sirius, who was doing the same to him.
"Oh you two are going to get it!" She bent down and made a snowball, but before she threw it, she got hit again! Sirius had run behind her and hit her on her bum!
"Hey, James! Think fast!" Remus called, and Karina watched as he threw a snowball and hit James right in the nose!
"Ah! There's snow up my nose!" James cried out, before sneezing. Peter laughed from where he stood, until he was hit by Regulus in the ear.
Soon, they were in an all out war, Remus, Peter, and Karina against James, Sirius, and Regulus. There were forts built and snowballs constantly flying. Karina didn't know how Remus did it. He'd have been so good for Ravenclaw, the way he had gotten a sturdy base up and assigned jobs to them. Peter made snowballs while Karina threw them. Remus made and threw his own, he was so quick!
The other three weren't so lucky. Their base kept falling down, and often Regulus would be rebuilding it while Sirius and James made snowballs as fast as they could throw them. Remus had even knocked Sirius's hat off and James had taken off his mittens to make snowballs faster.
This went on for nearly half an hour, until Sirius mysteriously disappeared. All of a sudden, Karina felt the ground lift from under her, and she was lifted into the air by Sirius! The snow was so deep, he was able to hide under it and sneak into their base.
"Sirius! Put me down!" She shrieked, kicking her feet and losing her boots.
"Okay!" All of a sudden, she was on the ground, buried in the snow. She tuned herself around, rubbing her cheeks with her mitten clad hands, her knit wool socks getting soaked with out her boots. But she just laughed and sat up, turning around to see that there was the beginning of a snow angel! She lay back down and continued to make it, Sirius shaking his head as he watched her.
"You're ridiculous." He told her. She stuck her tongue out, catching a few snowflakes on it.
"You just don't know how to have fun!" She told him. He made a mock hurt face, before landing next to her, covering her in snow again as he landed. She shrieked again, feeling the cold hitting her cheeks.
After a round of snow angels, another snowball fight, and incident where Karina and Sirius tried to bury James and Regulus after they knocked over the snowman they built and wrapped in Remus's scarf, they went back inside, Karina getting a piggyback from Sirius, after Remus had stolen her socks trying to get her off of James and Regulus and her toes had turned blue. Peter carried her boots with her socks inside of them, along with James and Sirius's mittens that they had abandoned completely. Remus was trying to ring out his scarf that had been found buried in what was left of Sirius and Karina's snowman, and Regulus was chasing after James, who had stolen his hat.
When they got inside, they changed out of their wet clothes, then snuck some sandwiches and cake up the common room, as well as sneaking Regulus in. There, they played games and laughed the whole time. They hung Remus's scarf by the fire and peeled Peter's melted sweets from the wrappers. James and Regulus even split their gifts between their friends, Karina's mostly a bunch of girl things. She just kept them behind the tree, however.
It wasn't until dinner time they went back downstairs. There was an enormous turkey that Sirius nearly took down by himself, had the others not taken a piece. They pulled a few wizard crackers, Sirius getting a baby blue bonnet while James got a crown, much to his pleasure for teasing Sirius. Karina brought her kitten, Snilkens down and fed her some of the white mice that came from her cracker. Regulus had even fooled Peter into thinking that a bunch of stuffing shaped to look like a slice of pie and was covered with mashed potatoes was a piece of cake, making him weary of the real cake that came through, until Sirius warned him that he would eat his slice.
Stuffed full of a good food, Karina once again got a piggyback ride, though this time, James joined her. Karina was Remus, and James was on Sirius. Peter had offered to give one to Regulus, but they found Regulus was too heavy for him.
"Tell me again why I'mcarrying you, Prongs?" Sirius grunted as they walked through the dungeons towards the Slytherin common room. "When my little brother is as tired your little sister, who Moony is carrying by the way!" James gave Sirius a look.
"I told you, Pads. Next time we come through the dungeon to drop Regulus off at the Slytherin common room, I'll carry you." Sirius rolled his eyes, then let go of James, who fell back off of him with a yelp and a small bump as he fell on his bum. Then Sirius smiled at Regulus, who smiled back and went over to him. Sirius put his arm around Regulus and playfully knocked his chin. Regulus leaned into his brother, wrapping his arm around him. Karina smiled sleepily at the brotherly scene.
After they had bid Regulus goodnight and returned to the common room, Remus yawned.
"We'd better head to bed, guys. Its getting late."
"Not yet!" Karina told him, pulling back by the couch. "The four of us have one more present for you." Remus looked surprised, but smiled.
"Thanks, mates! What is it?" Karina grinned.
"Just watch." Then the four of them changed into their Animagus forms. Remus's eyes went wide and he nearly fell over.
"Merlin's beard." He whispered, and Karina smiled to herself as she rubbed up against Remus's leg, swishing her snowy white tail by his arm to tickle him, James knocking him gently with his antlers. "You guys really became Animaguses!" Karina nodded, before they changed back.
"What do you think, Moony?" James asked. "You think we can join you now?" Remus looked between the four of them, as if he couldn't believe it.
"I-I don't know." He told them. "But guys... That's amazing! Thank you!"
"Hey guys! Check it out!" They all looked over at Sirius, and saw that he had found a sprig of mistletoe and had stuck it to his forehead. They all groaned.
"We turn our backs on you for one minute, Padfoot. One minute." Karina grumbled. Sirius went closer to her and stuck her under the mistletoe, grinning.
"Come on, Foxtrot. For Christmas?" Karin fake gagged.
"Gross!" She turned her head way from him, and he kissed her on the cheek! "Ew!" She wiped her cheek off with her sleeve, Remus and Peter laughing.
"Hey now, watch yourself, Pads." James said in a warning tone, but he was smiling. "Remember, that's my baby sister there." They all laughed again.
That night, Karina lay in her bed, full, warm, and happy. This was definitely her best Christmas ever so far.