December 21--- A Whole New World

That night all three of them slept soundly... right until a loud banging sounded at their doors.

Sirius mumbled incoherently as he groggily pulled back his sheets. So far the pounding never ceased and obviously wasn't intending to end. James peered at him; his bed sheets wrapped tightly around him.

"Nice wake up call." James muttered rubbing the sleep from his eyes and putting on his glasses. At that moment the two of them heard Remus' voice yelling madly at the person pounding on the doors. The only time they heard Remus flip back to French from English when he was really enraged.

"Philip! Qu'est-ce que tu fais? Tu es fou? Pourquoi tu pleures! Don't give me that face!Tuas été grossier avec les invités! What the fuck?" (What are you doing? Are you crazy? Why are you crying! You are being rude to the guests!)

"And he talks about me not swearing in front of the family." Sirius expressed while a small voice was talking back to Remus.

"Yeah, well," James answered. A door slammed. "You know what he's like in the mornings."

Sirius wrinkled up his face recalling the memories of him waking Remus up. "Unfortunately, I do. Nearly tore my head off. But still, it's a little kid." He opened the door to find a young boy about ten years of age and he didn't look like he was fazed at all by Remus' outburst.

"Uh, hi there. What's your name?" They boy looked at Sirius as if he had four arms. "Oh, don't know English?" No answer. "Comment t'appelles-tu?"

"Je m'appelle Philip." He answered shyly.

"Enchante de faire ta connaissance." James appeared by Sirius' side.

"You've been practicing." James commented. "Me too. Bonjour, Philip. Comment vas-tu?"

"Très bien, merci." The boy smiled, waved goodbye, and shot down the hallway like he was running for his life.

"Good going James. You scared the poor kid with your face!"

"Why would he be smiling then?"

"He's very disturbed."

"He is disturbed. He knows English by the way." Sirius and James turned their heads and saw Remus standing there fully dressed in very expensive- looking robes. A gold chain clinked around his neck when he moved in front of them. "What are you two gawking at?"

Sirius whistled appreciatively, "Why don't you ever wear that at Hogwarts and show your pride. Rub it in the Slytherins' faces."

Remus waved him off, "I'd never /choose/ to wear this. Charlotte is making me wear it."

"And Charlotte is...?"

"My aunt."

"I though you're aunt's name was Sophie."

"Yes, Sirius, but people can have more than one aunt. I have three: Charlotte, Sophie, and Cecile. All muggles and all clingy."

"Okay, I must've missed that somehow."

"Didn't you listen when they were introducing themselves?"

Sirius frowned, "Of course I did. It's just they never said 'I'm Remus' aunt,' 'I'm Remus' uncle,' 'I'm Remus' cousin,' 'I'm Remus'---"

"Okay, Sirius, I get it." Remus interrupted. "You two had better get dressed." He added after realizing they were still in pajamas and untidy hair.

"What do we wear?" James asked pointing at Remus' robes. He added, "I don't have anything like that."

"Oh," Remus retreated back into his room. When he returned his hands were burdened with black and blue fabrics. "Charlotte must've had an inkling that you didn't so she brought these." He handed the dark blue one to Sirius and the black one to James and pushed them into their room.

"What if—"James was cut off by the door slamming in his face, "—it doesn't fit?" he finished whispering to himself.

"Come on Prongs," Sirius said while trying to pull on the garments, "Use those magic skills of yours." The robes fell into place gracefully. "Fits me perfectly."

"Well good for you. You get a star for dressing yourself." James pretended to put a sticker on Sirius' shoulder.

"And you get an F for common sense." Sirius used his finger and drew an invisible F on James' forehead. James gave a pathetic growl. "Oh, I'm trembling in fear!" Sirius laughed, "Leave that to Moony, he can do it much better than you can." Sirius gave a 'test' growl. "Dogs and wolves can growl better than deer. Who woulda thunk it?" James slapped him upside the head and retreated back to his bed, where he started putting on his outfit. Sirius smirked, "Idiot." He knew James heard it because of the head popping up and then shaking in disbelief. Sirius contented himself by fixing his hair. While doing so, he heard James muttering like a madman like he always does when attempting to fix his hair.

"Quit smiling, Padfoot." James uttered without even seeing Sirius. Sirius moved in his line of view so that his reflection shown by James'.

"You wish you had my hair." Sirius commented, while he looked at James' uncontrollable flyaway hair to his own perfectly styled. James muttered insults continually at Sirius.

While Sirius was enjoy the fight over the incorrigible, damned to hell hair James was putting on there was a polite knock at the door-quite different from the one they woke up to. James chucked the brush across the room saying something along the lines of, 'stupid-never straight- mother effing hair.'

Sirius opened the door and saw a beautiful woman with long, blonde hair, astonishing green eyes and a red dress wrapping around a perfect figure.

"Uh, hi." Sirius managed, stopping his wandering eyes to look into her emerald.

"Hello." She returned politely. She gave him a kiss on each cheek and did the same to James when he emerged. "Good morning. I'm Marie, Remus' cousin."

"Nice to meet you, Marie. I'm James and this is Sirius."

"Pleasure's all mine. It's about time Remus brought someone to France. Poor thing always looks so lonely when he comes home." A frown formed on her ravishing face.

"He's that miserable without us?" Sirius meant it as a joke but she obviously didn't realize it.

"Miserable? Beyond misery, more like disconsolate."

"That bad?" Sirius had no idea what disconsolate meant but he figured it was worse. Here was this French lady who knew more English than he did and he started off with English in the first place.

"It's obvious he'd rather spend Christmas at Hogwarts with all his friends, but his mother and father won't let him; says that he never is home anymore. Which is true is suppose, but they're doing it for their benefit, not his." She smiled once more. "Let's not talk about the past. What matters is now, and now you have to go downstairs for breakfast. Follow me." She walked down the hallway with Sirius and James tagging along. Sirius' eyes followed the portraits until he found the one he was looking for.

"Marie," Sirius said. She turned around and looked at where his finger was pointing. "Who's that?"

Marie laughed, "Can't you tell? It's Remus of course!" She continued chuckling as she made her way to the stairs."

"Remus said it wasn't him." James countered.

Marie stopped abruptly causing Sirius to run into the back of her and almost send them tumbling down the stairs. "He did?" She looked alarmed.

"Yes," Sirius straightened himself up and helped Marie do the same. Marie looked a little flustered at first but she soon was showing a brilliant smile.

"Of course it's Remus. Who else do you know looks like that?" She gave a quiet laugh but when she turned around her face turned distressed. They followed her the rest of the way taking in their surroundings, memorizing them. The three of them entered a fairly large room, as to be expected, and found Remus, his parents, and his sister and family seated already at the large oak table. Remus seemed to be quarrelling with his mother and neither even acknowledged their presence.

"Je ne veux pas!"

"Je ne m'inquiète pas, tu le fais!"

"No." Remus crossed his arms with a set face. Desiree threw her hands up in exasperation.

"Qu'est-ce que je vais faire avec toi?"

"Me tué?" He said quietly, his mother didn't hear him but his father let out a roar of rage.

"Comment diable peux-tu dire ça! Nous vous avons apporté du soutient et tu pense toujours qu'on va te blesser! Nous t'aimons!" Joseph stood up and stomped off out the door, Desiree following at his heels. Renee looked at him as if he were crazy.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Renee got up from her seat and stood right in front of Remus. "It's Christmastime! You'd think you'd have a little more compassion! Mama and Papa are trying to make life go a little easier, but you always fuck things up!" She slapped him hard across his face, leaving a red imprint and tears in her eyes. "Enfoiré." She grabbed her baby and her husband's arm and practically ran out of the room. Sirius and James stood shocked until Remus shot daggers at them.

"You sure know how to upset people." Marie said taking Renee's empty seat.

"What can I say? It's a gift." Remus didn't look like he was kidding. James sat down by Marie, while Sirius remained standing – not believing what he just saw. Remus rubbed his cheek. "Aren't you going to sit Sirius or haven't you ever heard people fight?" Sirius gingerly took a seat by James. A lady with an apron brought out three plates of food and set them down in front of James, Marie, and Sirius. She disappeared as quickly as she came. Sirius was really getting paranoid now; he could feel Remus' stare pounding into him as if saying 'I dare you to eat, especially after what just happened.' Even though Sirius knew that was ridiculous he couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive. James' obviously was thinking along the same lines since he didn't pick up his fork either. Marie on the other hand was merrily eating her pancakes.

When she saw James and Sirius deliberately not looking at Remus or their food she slammed her fork down with a clank. "I can't take this." She glared at Remus. "You need to calm down more around your parents. You take their weaknesses and use it to your advantage. You know they hate it when you put yourself down, even when you're joking." She sighed heavily. "Why can't you just accept that they care?" She got up and left.

"Some first day, no?" Remus looked at Sirius and then James with a half- hearted smile.

"Not over yet," Sirius said.

"No, but pray that it will end soon." Remus looked out the sun-blazed window, his head resting on his palm. "Eat." Sirius and James complied, bulldozing through the pancakes, eggs, and sausage.

"Fis is weewy goo." Sirius attempted saying.

"Whatever."

"Who makes it?" James asked.

"Makes what?" Remus' gaze traveled from the window to James' chocolate eyes.

"The food."

"Oh. The maid."

"You have a maid?"

"Several."

"How many?"

"I don't keep track."

"Estimate."

"Twenty."

"TWENTY?"

"More or less."

"It's still twenty –more or less- then me."

"And me," Sirius chimed in.

"Like I give a shit that I have maids and stuff."

"You know Remus," Sirius pointed a finger at Remus for effect, "You made us promise not to cuss, but here you're the one doing all the swearing."

"When you point a finger, three are pointing right back at you."

"What?"

"Nevermind."