Day Twenty - Reindeer.
"Sirius, I need you."
Sirius jumped at the words. He knew it wasn't meant in the way he truly wanted, but he would still remember it for when he went into the shower alone for a -
"Sirius?" Moony came into the room where Sirius was.
"Moony?"
"Have you got me a Christmas Present yet?" Remus asked.
"Not yet, I -"
"I need a favour from you, James and Lily," Remus said. "Consider it my Christmas Present."
"What is it?" Sirius asked, curiously.
"Let's get Lily and James over first."
...oOo...
"Daniel might be made Assistant Manager at the cafe," Remus said, slight anger in his tone. "Our Santa turned up drunk and we need one to replace him. Daniel thinks he could get one and that'll make him look good in front of the manager and we've both being fighting for this promotion since the last assistant manager left. If Daniel does better than me, he'll get the promotion."
"Uh huh," James replied.
"So I... I... said I might be able to get Santa with his sleigh and a reindeer. I want that promotion. I work harder than Daniel, I've been there longer than him too. I'm more reliable. I wasn't going to let him be my boss."
"You want me to be Santa and James to be the reindeer, right?" Sirius asked.
"Consider this my Christmas present," Remus begged. "I'll get a pay increase and better hours and everything. It's only for the rest of the afternoon until my shift ends."
"I'll go get Ted's suit from Andy," Sirius said, heading over to the fireplace, and the other three stared after him, expecting him to have put up a bit of a protest before agreeing.
"Yeah fine," James agreed.
"What did you need me for?" Lily asked.
"I wanted you to be an elf," Remus admitted. "Also to keep Sirius and Remus in check... plus, we need a sleigh."
"On it," James said.
"Now, do you want James' nose to be red for this?"
Remus nodded eagerly. "I have to go. My boss is expecting you there in about an hour. Is that enough time?"
"Definitely," Lily replied.
...oOo...
An hour later a reindeer was pulling a sleigh down the road, people following behind. Lily grinned at Remus as they approached. He had returned to work after asking them for their help and the other three had gotten everything ready themselves.
Prongs pulled to a stop outside the café.
"Remus, is this what you were talking about?" a tall man asked, looking at the sleigh.
"Yes Robert," he said. "These are my friends."
"That's an impressive sleigh."
"Borrowed it," Remus lied. They had actually transfigured his armchair.
"A real reindeer," he said, moving closer to James. "Did you borrow this too?"
"Actually, he's my pet," Lily said, patting James' snout. James let out a snort as Remus and Sirius tried not to laugh.
"A pet Reindeer?" Remus' boss said, looking even more impressed. "Remus, I'm surprised. When you said you could get all this at such short notice... I know you've never let me down before, but I must say I'm very impressed."
"Thank you, Robert," Remus said. "I better get back to work." He disappeared inside.
Robert handed Sirius a large bag of candy canes, before putting up a large sign against the side of the sleigh.
"Free visit and picture with Santa with every purchase in our café," Lily read out before glancing at the café logo.
It was only a couple of minutes before a child began to beg her parents for a visit with Santa. The trio watched them head inside to join the queue.
Soon there was one queue leading into the shop and another leading from the shop to the sleigh.
Lily quickly set up a system of lifting a child up so they could tell Sirius what they wanted for Christmas, lifting them back down and giving them a candy cane before walking them around to meet Prongs the reindeer. She allowed the parents a chance to take a second picture as the child petted the reindeer before collecting the next child from the queue.
...oOo...
Remus held up a picture as the four of them sat around the living room. "Who wants to see?"
Lily held her hand out for the picture and Sirius and James leaned in to look at it. They had asked Remus' boss to snap it before they left that afternoon.
Sirius smiled as he watched the photo-Remus snuggle into his embrace. It was almost like... no. He just had too high hopes and was clearly reading too much into it. Remus was only looking so happy because of the potential promotion and because it had been a great day. That was all.
"Its a great picture," he said, taking it and propping it up on the fireplace.
So... we're getting closer to Christmas Day.
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Thanks for the reviews so far.
ForensicGeek2: This is written for a challenge where I'm given a prompt per day, but I do like your ideas. I'll see if I can slip any in somewhere. :)