Chapter 101

Christmas Eve

"James? Why don't we invite your other friend, the little one, oh what's his name? Remue?" Euphemia said a quill in hand as she consulted a list of names.

"It's Remus, Mum, and he can't come, he's grounded," James replied, attempting to rub some feeling back in his hand. He'd gotten recruited into Christmas Card duty along with Sirius.

James actually felt lucky, compared to Sirius, he's gotten off easy. Euphemia had seen Sirius' handwriting and recruited him into handwriting both the inside and outside of anyone they wanted to impress. And Fleamont had a lot of people he wanted to impress.

"My hand is going to fall off," Sirius complained semi-randomly, he'd found the very first Christmas tradition that he hated. He didn't really think his handwriting was all that pretty and he wrote slowly making everything take that much longer. But Euphemia had really wanted him to do them.

"Oh, it'll be fine." She said, with very little in the way of actual concern. "It's not like you'd be doing anything important right now anyway."

The two Marauders looked at each other and James almost laughed. It was amusing how parents only seemed to say things like that when what they would otherwise be doing was actually important.

"Speaking of what you boys are doing up there; your father swore up and down he heard an explosion the other day. I told him he must be mistaken, of course, that would require you to be doing magic and it's silly to think my boys are doing magic here at home. But he was sure he heard something, you boys aren't pulling any dangerous muggle stunts are you?" Euphemia asked, not paying much attention to 'her boys' or she would have seen two very suspicious faces.

"Of course not, Mum. Dad was probably dreaming." James said quickly, noticing how Sirius silently repeated my boys multiple times, as though testing out the sound of the plural. "You know we wouldn't do anything dangerous."

She seemed content with this and James breathed a sigh of relief. Euphemia Potter would never suspect that at that very moment there was a spell book on her son's bed open wide to a very advanced, very illegal, and very dangerous spell and the explosions her husband had been talking about were one of the many failures of attempting that spell. That particular failure had almost cost Sirius about three bones in the hand she now had him signing the minister of magic's name on an overpriced Christmas Card.

Yes, James felt very sorry for Sirius right at that moment. Though his mother's use of my boys seemed to be adequately distracting him from his abused fingers. And James did like the small, shy smile on his best friend's face.

If there could be only one thing that James loved about his parents, it would be how quickly they had accepted Sirius in their hearts. He'd been worried, once upon a time, that they would continue to see him as an abnormal Black rather than their son's best friend. But he needn't have worried Fleamont and Euphemia were about one holiday from adopting Sirius outright.

The only thing in the way was Sirius himself. James didn't know what it would take for Sirius to finally give up on his family, but James was sure he wasn't going to be okay when he finally did. It scared the future-stag, and he didn't like thinking about it.

"Done!" James cheered, as he tossed his pen on the table and getting up to leave before his mum could find something else for him to do. "I'll be upstairs… sleeping, Do try to hurry, Sirius."

James ran up the stairs, chuckling at Sirius' angry voice behind him. Curse words were implied but not actually spoken due to Euphemia's close proximity.

James bounced onto his bed and looked at the thick book that lay there. He read it once through and sighed closing it and putting it aside. It was Christmas Eve night, they were due for a little break. They'd worked just as hard over the holiday than they had while at school and both James and Sirius had magicked away multiple dark shadows from under their eyes in their act of normalcy. But Christmas Eve was the one day a year when kids all around the world were okay with an early bedtime… he still felt guilty as he pulled on his pajamas.

The animagus training was quickly taking over their lives. His mum had already found about twenty excuses for his grades falling, even blamed Slughorn for his shockingly low potions grade. But the truth was potions homework and study took a long time, and James found himself having to prioritize every second, not just for himself but for Sirius and Peter as well.

Sirius could manage his own time, but James thought his priorities were… off. He put bullying the Slytherins before everything else, the sole exception being the animagus training. James wasn't impressed when Sirius abandoned studying for a huge test just to pick on a few green-clad first years. And as such they no longer did any of their studies in the library.

It was strange that he found it easier to slack off in the library than in their dorm, but no one claimed Sirius was normal.

"Merlin's boxers! My hand is going to never stop hurting. James, you're mum is evil." Sirius complained throwing the door shut with his hip to spare his hand. He grew confused as he watched his friend lay there on top of the covers. "You okay, mate?"

"Going to bed early… we deserve a break and it's Christmas Eve. Everyone goes to bed early Christmas Eve… right?"

Sirius shrugged, "I dunno, you tell me. Rudolph."

"Sirius, you know I'm not actually turning into a reindeer, right?"

"Donner, you know I don't actually care, right?"

"I'm tired."

"Yep."

"We're not even close to mastering that spell."

"Not even not even close."

"But it's Christmas Eve."

"So I've been told."

"But we aren't going to get any work done tomorrow."

"Heaven's no."

James looked at Sirius and Sirius looked at James. James heaved a big sigh and his head hit the pillow a good couple of times as though he was trying to force himself to fall asleep.

"We'll be okay, c'mon. Let's go to bed. It's Christmas Eve." Sirius smiled pulling a pair of sweatpants from James' closet and tossing it on his bed.

"We have one year, and we're not even halfway done," James argued, but Sirius ignored him and tossed his clothes in the laundry basket, now clothed in only the pants.

"I'm turning out the lights," Sirius said, not asking permission, and not leaving any room for argument. James pulled himself under his covers really quick as Sirius put out the candles.