Chapter 79
Christmas with the Potters
Sirius woke the next morning by way of a surprisingly stiff pillow thrown with a chaser's arm (in other word's very fast) right into his face.
Saying it was not a pleasant way to wake would be a gross understatement.
Naturally the pillow was returned to the owner in a similar fashion.
After a miniature pillow fight, James and Sirius began their descent downstairs, James hurrying Sirius because the latter always felt the need to stare at the Christmas decorations every time he passed them. Eventually, they made it the family room and James immanently ran off to wake his parents. Sirius opted out of that particular family tradition, not wanting to think about what his parents would do to him if he even tried something like that, holiday or not.
James returned smiling from ear to ear with two very tired looking adults in tow. Fleamont jokingly suggested they eat breakfast first, but from James' reaction, it was easily assumed that the joke had gone straight over his head causing a small laughing fit from Sirius. The family sat around the tree, with the adults sitting on the couch and James pulling Sirius to sit on the floor with him, as well as recruiting the younger boy into helping him pass out the presents since James' parents claimed they were too old to be moving around that much. James simply rolled his eyes at that.
Sirius was mostly quiet, not to say he was disconnected with what was going on around him. He laughed at jokes that were funny, he and Fleamont ganged up on James, teasing him until he tackled Sirius attempting to try out his new broom polish on Sirius' face.
He just didn't say anything without being directly spoken to, mostly added to what was already being said. He couldn't find anything to say. He could count the number of times he'd found himself speechless on one hand, and more than half of those times had occurred within the two weeks.
The scene he found himself in was completely foreign to him. He watched the family having fun, and found himself, not saddened by what he'd missed out on his whole life as he'd expected, but he found himself having fun right along with them. He was entirely happy.
For a while he'd been wondering if teachers were the only adults who really cared about anyone under seventeen, wondering if he had to become a teacher when he got older just to keep from becoming cold and bitter. He was really glad that wasn't so because Sirius Black would make a horrible teacher.
After they finished opening all the presents Sirius and James played some wizard's chess while Euphemia and Fleamont made breakfast. Remus had sent Sirius a set of new chess pieces and Sirius taught James the secret behind breaking in the new pieces and getting them to trust him (though it would never work with James because he never played to win and only bothered to play because he enjoyed watching them smash each other.) The secret was pretty obvious but wasn't something James would have ever come up with on his own. It simply involved mixing the old and the new pieces together. Half of Sirius' side of the board were new and the other half were the old ones he'd had since he was six. The new pieces saw how much the old trusted him, despite the fact that he was playing with James meaning that he wasn't playing with any kind of strategy in mind (as he'd completely own James within five turns if he actually tried.) They saw the older pieces do exactly as they were told and followed that example. It meant that they had to play it twice to use all of Sirius' new pieces, but neither of them really minded that.
Breakfast was small because they were saving room for dinner, but it was, as always, delicious.
Fleamont was the first to fall asleep after they ate.
"He does that every year." James laughed when Sirius questioned it, "he'll probably do it again after dinner."
The two continued to mess with their new stuff until some of James family arrived, as they apparently did every Christmas.
That's when things got a little awkward.
Many of James' relatives and family friends weren't exactly excited about a Black joining in on their Christmas celebration. More so the Potters than Euphemia's side of the family, but with some of the junk, the Daily Prophet had been spouting previously even some of them were weary of Sirius.
Sirius tried to be courteous and stay out of their way, but when James found him half hiding (under the ruse of helping out) in the kitchen he dragged him out forcing him to socialize with the others. Sirius had gotten pretty good at ignoring James' paternal grandmother, the oldest in the family, whenever she mentioned him by the time the radio came on, which seemed to be another tradition. Everyone quieted to listen to the Minister of Magic as well as the Muggle Queen wish everyone a happy Christmas. Sirius kinda tuned out the Minister but was intrigued by the Queen. He hadn't even known that Britain still had a queen, or that she had a daughter, who apparently recently got married.
Euphemia and James managed to get most of the family to treat Sirius like the guest he was. Euphemia through persuasion, and James by threatening to hit them. Only a few of them continued to pretend he didn't exist, and only the old bag openly rejected his presence. Fleamont had attempted to get his mother to be civilized not long after she arrived, but eventually he just told Sirius she was senile and that she complained about everything, essentially telling him to just ignore her.
Dinner came not long after the radio was turned off, despite the fact that Sirius considered four o'clock to be lunch time, but he certainly wasn't going to complain. The cooked goose was far too tasty for any sort of complaining unless one was an old crone who thought that being the eldest in a family still meant that all decisions made must be approved by them (she'd wanted turkey). But most of the family just ignored her, and the polite ones simply just changed the subject.
Euphemia had mercifully set Sirius in between James and Peter. Across from Sirius, sitting beside Euphemia herself was her younger sister, who she knew Sirius would like. She had been right, of course. James' aunt was about McGonagall's age, and reminded Sirius of said transfiguration teacher, though she was a lot less responsible and quite different in personality once she started talking.
Everything went so quickly as Sirius tried to get used to his surroundings. Before he managed it began to get dark and Euphemia mentioned that they should be getting ready for the Christmas church service. James could tell easily that Sirius was not comfortable with the idea going to a church while they were actually holding service. When there was no one there it was merely a building, but when people gathered there it became something special, something that Sirius didn't think he belonged in. Euphemia tried to convince him otherwise, the pastor would be more than happy to welcome him, even if he knew what kind of family Sirius belonged to. But Sirius wouldn't be convinced so James offered to stay home with him. He didn't really want to because he really enjoyed going to the services, but he wanted Sirius home alone on Christmas even less. Euphemia and Fleamont reluctantly agreed.
And finally, the house was empty. Sirius had enjoyed having all the people around, and would enjoy having them around if they came back after their church service. But it was good to have a chance to breathe again.
"You okay?" James asked sitting down in front of his chessboard hinting that Sirius should do the same.
Sirius complied setting up the board. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little overwhelmed, I guess. I've been to parties before, but they usually consisted of a bunch of adults sitting around drinking alcohol and anyone under seventeen was expected to sit down and shut up. 'Children are to be seen, not heard' and all.."
"Sounds like a drag."
"I dreaded them. It's not really in my nature to sit and be quiet for long periods of time. I could do it sure, you can't survive in the Black family without being able to be invisible for at least four hours at time. But just because I could do it doesn't mean it was easy."
"I can't picture you going four hours without talking or moving around. Unless you're sleeping of course." James teased, making the first move.
"I got told off for fidgeting a lot. And Regulus always enjoyed the end of the parties because as soon as everyone left I'd start running around the upstairs (where mother couldn't see me) and talking a lot and very fast. After a while, he started timing how long I'd talk without stopping for longer than to take a breath. My record is an hour and a half. My throat didn't like me much after that."
James laughed. "I'll bet."
"Things were a lot different back then... I was a lot different back then." Sirius said quietly, waving off a complaint from one of the new chess pieces.
"I didn't know that Sirius very well. But I'm pretty sure I like this Sirius better." James knight smashed in the head of Sirius' pawn.
"Thanks, James, I think I do too," Sirius said with a smile. "This Sirius is a lot happier than that Sirius was."
"Thank you, thank you. I already knew I was the best friend in the world, but the reminder is always welcome."
Sirius laughed. "Oh, shut up, you stupid doe."
"That deer had antlers!" James defended quickly, following up by pushing Sirius down. It only increased the volume of Sirius' laughter.
"You know, in some places, stag refers to nudity."
"I really hate you, Sirius Black. I really, truly hate you."
Sirius laughed. "I love you too. Jamesy-poo" He said with a teasing smile.
"Don't make me make another Sirius pun."
"James! That joke is so old." Sirius growled. "I mean it's like first-year old, even for you."
"What do you mean 'even for me'." James gave him an annoyed look, half from what Sirius had implied, and half because Sirius had just made the first non-violent move in the game.
"No offense, but..." Sirius let his voice trail off leaving the rest up to James imagination which naturally came up with a lot of endings to that sentence that was far meaner than whatever Sirius was thinking, as he had intended.
"My sense of humor is great!"
"Well, you did just about resort to a joke that even Cissy had come up with before she was fifteen."
"Cissy... Cissy is... Wait which one is Cissy?" James asked he knew which one Andy was as Sirius talked about her a lot, and he was pretty sure Bella was a cousin.
"The one that's becoming a Malfoy in July," Sirius replied rolling his eyes he really hated Lucius, but then again there was a surprising amount of affection between the two of them. Not just attraction, but actual affection.
It was in a word, shocking.
"Eww, by the way, how's Andy doing?"
"Pretty good, apparently their honeymoon went great. She said she hasn't been feeling real great lately but that last month, I haven't heard anything since." Sirius shrugged, making up for his previous non-violent move with one that pretty much beat James' record of most violent moves.
"Not feeling good... after a honeymoon?" James said with an eyebrow raised and an expression that spoke of mischief.
"Yeah, I figured she might have caught a bug or something. She said they were going up north." Sirius looked at him for a moment and his eyebrow went even higher. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
James' expression went from humor to disbelief and straight to pity. "Mate, we are going to need to have a serious talk."
"I thought I explained how bad those puns are!"
"It wasn't a pun, I am perfectly ser... um, wait what other word means the same thing?"
"Somber, stern, severe, sincere, deep, determined, austere, honest, genuine, solemn, earnest grave... shall I continue?" Sirius replied, rattling off the words at the top of his head.
"Oops, for a second there I forgot I was friends with a walking, talking dictionary... Wait did you say solemn?" James asked, Sirius mutely nodded. "I pick solemn, I will now substitute solemn for serious."
"It doesn't work every time, James. It's depending on how..." Sirius began but James interrupted him.
"Nope, I'm using solemn, you said it means the same thing."
"But.."
"No, solemn... ly" James interrupted a second time, deciding solemn needed the suffix at the last minute."
"Fine, whatever. What did we need to talk about?"
James smirked, a cruel expression in his eyes.
Said expression would cause most to turn around screaming... so naturally it unnerved Sirius, just a little.
A/N) I hope I didn't rush through the chapter, I wanted to kinda make you feel how Sirius felt. Or to make it kinda show you how he felt anyway, but when I read over it it felt a little rushed, so I added a lot more to their conversation at the end. Does it help any?
Oh, and I forgot to put any of the top ten thing I was going to do (I kinda can't believe you guys actually want to hear it. Please don't get offended if I put something you like.) So here's number 10
#10 Sirius using serious puns, or copious amounts of said puns regardless of who uses them. (I really didn't plan on using Sirius puns in this chapter, it was a complete coincidence I swear.)
I hate this because they are really uncreative (I did kinda hint to that in this chapter) and to give Sirius, or show that the author has, such humor is kinda well it feels like they are desperately searching for a joke and that bugs me a lot. I used a little in the beginning on purpose to show how bad James' humor was back then, hoping to show a little bit of inexperience in the area since in this story Sirius' influence is what led him to become the James Potter we all know and love (and Lily hates, hint, hint)
But when people use it as Sirius' man joke, it irritates the crap out of me.
Edit (5/3/2016) Changed the Potter's names (and grammar checked.)